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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010New Projects[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Generate C# code for you to call non-public classes in DLLs very easily.Artefact Animator: Artefact Animator provides an easy to use framework for procedural time-based animations in Silverlight and WPF.cacheroo: Cacheroo is a social networking community that will make it easier for people who love geocaching to get connected.Data Processing Toolkit: An utility app to collected data from different sources (i.e. bugzilla bug reports) in a structured way. We are currently setting up the site. Mo...eXternal SQL Bridge (PHP): The eXternal SQL Bridge (XSB) allows you to bridge two websites together in a secure manner through pre-shared keys. XSB is resilient against repla...'G' - Language to Define Gestures for Touch Based Applications: A cross plat form multi-touch application framework with a language to define gestures. The application is build on Silverlight 4.0 and the languag...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: Web implementation of "looking glass" like services (ping, traceroute) as HTTP modules for Internet Information Services.Interop Router: This project establishes a communication framework and job dispatcher for a mixed operating system cluster environment.L2 Commander: L2Commander makes it easier for both new and old l2j users to manage your server.You no longer have to waste time on finding the files you need and...MediaHelper: A utility to help clean up empty/unwanted files and folders in your filesystem.mhinze: matt hinze stuffOneMan: Focus on Silverlight and WCF technology.Rss Photo Frame Android Widget: RSS Photo Frame Android Widget permits showing pictures from any RSS feed on your Android device's desktopSingle Web Session: Web Tool Kits Current project provide developer with different tools that help to enhance web site performance, security, and other common functio...Work Item Visualization: Use DGML to visualize and analyze your TFS Work Items. Included is the ability to perform basic risk/impact analysis. It helps answer the question,...New Releases[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Wrapper Coder (beta): Click "<Click Me To Open Assembly File>", WrapperCoder will load the assembly and referenced assembly. Check the non-public classes that you want...APS - Automatic Print Screen: APS 1.0: APS automatizes the tasks of paste the image in Paint and save it after print screen or alt+print screen. Choose directory, name and file extension...BTP Tools: e-Sword generator build 20100321: 1. Modify the indent after subtitle. 2. Add 2 spaces after subtitle.Combres - WebForm & MVC Client-side Resource Combine Library: Combres 2.0: Changes since last version (1.2) Support ignore Combres pipeline in debug mode - see issue #6088 Debug mode generates comment helping identify in...Desafio Office 2010 Brasil: DesafioOutlook: Controlando um robo com o Outlook 2010dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.4: Adding Platform Invocation Services Support, full Managed Pointer Support, Charset,Dllimport,Callconv setting for P/Invoke, MarshalAs for parametersFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.2.0: Version 1.3.2.0 Add open folder button to IGI Search Form Fixes to Fact Location processing - IGIName renamed to RegionID Fix if Region ID not fou...Fasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection API: Fasterflect 2.0: We are pleased to release version 2.0 of Fasterflect, which contains a lot of additions and improvements from the previous version. Please refer t...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: 1.0: Initial public release.Informant: Informant (Desktop) v0.1: This release allows users to send sms messages to 1-Many Groups or 1-Many contacts. It is a very basic release of the application. No styling has b...InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - MPE1 Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - RAR Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.L2 Commander: Source Code Link: Where to find our source.ModularCMS: ModularCMS 1.2: Minor bug fixes.NMTools: NMTools-v40b0-20100321-0: The most noticeable aspect of this release is that NMTools is now an independent project. It will no longer tied to OpenSLIM. Nevertheless, OpenSLI...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.3: Log loading performance enhanced. Search text box now has auto complete feature.Single Web Session: Single Web Session: !Single Web Session! <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.WebSessionModule, SingleWebSession"/> </httpModules>Sprite Sheet Packer: 2.1 Release: Made a few crucial fixes from 2.0: - Fixed error with paths having spaces. - Fixed error with UI not unlocking. - Fixed NullReferenceException on ...uManage - AD Self-Service Portal: uManage v1.1 (.NET 4.0 RC): Updated Releasev1.1 Adds the primary ability to setup and configure the application through a setup wizard. The setup wizard will continue to evol...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30321.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVS ChessMania: VS ChessMania V2 March Beta: Second Beta Release with move correction and making application more safe for user. New features will be added soon.WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.9.00: Whats New Added New Toolbar Plugin (By Kent Safransk) 'MediaEmbed' to Include Embed Media from Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Media Embed Plugin Added New ...WeatherBar: WeatherBar 1.0 [No Installation]: Extract the ZIP archive and run WeatherBar.exe. Current release contains some bugs that will be fixed in the next version. Check the Issue Tracker...Work Item Visualization: Release 1.0: This is the initial release of the Work Item Visualization tool. There are no known issues when it comes to the visualization aspects of the tool b...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 1.0.0.10: Version: 1.0.0.10 (Milestone 10): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requi...WPF AutoComplete TextBox Control: Version 1.2: What's Newadds AutoAppend feature adds a new provider: UrlHistoryDataProvider sample application is updated to reflect the new things Bug Fixe...ZoomBarPlus: V2 (Beta): - Fixed bug: if the active window changed while you were in the middle of a single tap delay, long tap delay, or swipe-repeat, it would continue re...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• WWDC and Tech Ed: A Tale of Two DevCons

  - by andrewbrust

  Next week marks the first full week of June.  Summer will feel in full swing and it will be a pretty big season for technology.  In seeming acknowledgement of that very fact, both Apple and Microsoft will be holding large developers conferences starting Monday.  Apple will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in lovely San Francisco and Microsoft will hold its Tech Ed conference in muggy, oil-laden yet soulful New Orleans.  A brief survey of each show reveals much about the differences in each company’s offerings, strategy, and approach to customers and partners. In the interest of full disclosure, I must explain that I will be speaking at Microsoft’s Tech Ed show, and have done so, on and off, since 2003.  I have never been to an Apple conference and, as readers of this blog may know, I acquired my first ever Apple product 2 months ago when I bought an iPad on the day of that product’s launch.  I think I have keen insights into Microsoft’s conference.  My ability to comment on Apple’s event ranges somewhere between backseat driver and naive observer.  Just so you know. Although both shows cater to their respective company’s developers, there are a number of differences in the events’ purposes and content approaches.  First off, let’s consider each show as a news and PR vehicle.  WWDC will feature Steve Jobs’ keynote address and most likely will be where Apple officially reveals details of its 4th-generation iPhone. Jobs will likely also provide deep background information on the corresponding iPhone OS release.  These presumed announcements will make the show a magnet for the tech press and tech blogger elite.  Apple’s customers will be interested too, especially since the iPhone OS release will likely be made available to owners of existing iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices. Tech Ed, on the other hand, may not be especially newsworthy at all.  The keynote address will be given by Bob Muglia, who is President of the company’s Server and Tools Division, and he’ll likely be reviewing things more than previewing them. That’s because the company has, in the last 6-8 months, already released new versions of a majority of its products, including Windows, Office, SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, its Azure cloud platform, its .NET software development layer, its Silverlight Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology and its Visual Studio developer suite.  Redmond’s product pipeline has functioned more like a firehose of late, and the company has a ton of work to do to get developers up to speed on everything that’s new. I know I keep saying “developers,” but in Tech Ed’s case, that’s not really accurate.  In North America, Tech Ed caters to both developers and IT pros (i.e. technologists who work with physical IT infrastructure, as well as security and administration of the server software that runs on it).  This pairing has, since its inception, struck some as anomalous and others, including many exhibitors, as very smart. Certainly, it means Tech Ed ends up being a confab for virtually all professionals in Microsoft’s ecosystem.  And this year, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) conference will be co-located with Tech Ed, further enhancing that fusion effect. Clearly then, Microsoft’s show will focus on education, as its name assures us.  Apple’s will serve as both a press event and an opportunity to get its own App Store developer channel synced up with its newest technology advances.  For example, we already know that iPhone OS 4.0 will provide for a limited multitasking capability; that will only work well if people know how to code to it in a capable way.  Apple also told us its iAd advertising platform will be part of the new OS, and Steve Jobs insists that’s to provide a revenue opportunity for developers.  This too, then, needs to be explicated and soaked up buy the faithful. A look at each show’s breakout session lineup provides some interesting takeaways.  WWDC will have very few Mac-specific sessions on offer, and virtually no sessions that at are IT- or “Enterprise-“ related.  It’s all about the phone, music players and tablets.  However, WWDC will have plenty of low-level, hardcore tech coverage of such things as Advanced Memory Analysis and Creating Secure Applications, as well as lots of rich media-related content like Core Animation and Game Design and Development.  Beyond Apple’s proprietary platform, WWDC will also feature an array of sessions on HTML 5 and other Web standards.  In all, WWDC offers over 100 technical sessions and hands-on labs. What about Tech Ed’s editorial content?  Like the target audience, it really runs the gamut.  The show has 21 tracks (versus WWDC’s 5) and more than 745 “learning opportunities” which include breakout sessions, demo stations, hands-on labs and BIrds of a Feather discussion sessions.  Topics range from Architecture talks like Patterns of Parallel Programming to cloud computing talks like Building High Capacity Compute Applications with Windows Azure to IT-focused topics like Virtualization of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Farm Architecture.  I also count 19 sessions on Windows Phone 7.  Unfortunately, with regard to Web standards and HTML 5, only a few sessions are offered, all of them specific to Internet Explorer. All-in-all, Apple’s show looks more exciting and “sexier” than Tech Ed. Microsoft’s show seems a lot more enterprise-focused than WWDC. This is, of course, well in sync with each company’s approach and products.  Microsoft’s content is much wider ranging and bests WWDC in sheer volume of sessions and labs.  I suppose some might argue that less is more; others that Apple’s consumer-focused offerings simply don’t provide for the same depth of coverage to a business audience.  Microsoft has a serious focus on the cloud and  a paucity of coverage on client-side Web standards; Apple has virtually no cloud offering at all.  Again, this reflects each tech titan’s go-to-market strategy. My own take is that employees of each company should attend the other’s event.  The amount of mutual exclusivity in content may make sense in terms of corporate philosophy, but the reality is that each company could stand to diversify into the other’s territory, at least somewhat. My own talk at Tech Ed will focus on competitive analysis around Microsoft’s BI products.  Apple does not today figure into that analysis. Maybe one day it will.

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• Big Data – Is Big Data Relevant to me? – Big Data Questionnaires – Guest Post by Vinod Kumar

  - by Pinal Dave

  This guest post is by Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Working on various versions of SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 7.3 and other database technologies – he now works with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a Technology Architect. Let us read the blog post in Vinod’s own voice. I think the series from Pinal is a good one for anyone planning to start on Big Data journey from the basics. In my daily customer interactions this buzz of “Big Data” always comes up, I react generally saying – “Sir, do you really have a ‘Big Data’ problem or do you have a big Data problem?” Generally, there is a silence in the air when I ask this question. Data is everywhere in organizations – be it big data, small data, all data and for few it is bad data which is same as no data :). Wow, don’t discount me as someone who opposes “Big Data”, I am a big supporter as much as I am a critic of the abuse of this term by the people. In this post, I wanted to let my mind flow so that you can also think in the direction I want you to see these concepts. In any case, this is not an exhaustive dump of what is in my mind – but you will surely get the drift how I am going to question Big Data terms from customers!!! Is Big Data Relevant to me? Many of my customers talk to me like blank whiteboard with no idea – “why Big Data”. They want to jump into the bandwagon of technology and they want to decipher insights from their unexplored data a.k.a. unstructured data with structured data. So what are these industry scenario’s that come to mind? Here are some of them: Financials Fraud detection: Banks and Credit cards are monitoring your spending habits on real-time basis. Customer Segmentation: applies in every industry from Banking to Retail to Aviation to Utility and others where they deal with end customer who consume their products and services. Customer Sentiment Analysis: Responding to negative brand perception on social or amplify the positive perception. Sales and Marketing Campaign: Understand the impact and get closer to customer delight. Call Center Analysis: attempt to take unstructured voice recordings and analyze them for content and sentiment. Medical Reduce Re-admissions: How to build a proactive follow-up engagements with patients. Patient Monitoring: How to track Inpatient, Out-Patient, Emergency Visits, Intensive Care Units etc. Preventive Care: Disease identification and Risk stratification is a very crucial business function for medical. Claims fraud detection: There is no precise dollars that one can put here, but this is a big thing for the medical field. Retail Customer Sentiment Analysis, Customer Care Centers, Campaign Management. Supply Chain Analysis: Every sensors and RFID data can be tracked for warehouse space optimization. Location based marketing: Based on where a check-in happens retail stores can be optimize their marketing. Telecom Price optimization and Plans, Finding Customer churn, Customer loyalty programs Call Detail Record (CDR) Analysis, Network optimizations, User Location analysis Customer Behavior Analysis Insurance Fraud Detection & Analysis, Pricing based on customer Sentiment Analysis, Loyalty Management Agents Analysis, Customer Value Management This list can go on to other areas like Utility, Manufacturing, Travel, ITES etc. So as you can see, there are obviously interesting use cases for each of these industry verticals. These are just representative list. Where to start? A lot of times I try to quiz customers on a number of dimensions before starting a Big Data conversation. Are you getting the data you need the way you want it and in a timely manner? Can you get in and analyze the data you need? How quickly is IT to respond to your BI Requests? How easily can you get at the data that you need to run your business/department/project? How are you currently measuring your business? Can you get the data you need to react WITHIN THE QUARTER to impact behaviors to meet your numbers or is it always “rear-view mirror?” How are you measuring: The Brand Customer Sentiment Your Competition Your Pricing Your performance Supply Chain Efficiencies Predictive product / service positioning What are your key challenges of driving collaboration across your global business?  What the challenges in innovation? What challenges are you facing in getting more information out of your data? Note: Garbage-in is Garbage-out. Hold good for all reporting / analytics requirements Big Data POCs? A number of customers get into the realm of setting a small team to work on Big Data – well it is a great start from an understanding point of view, but I tend to ask a number of other questions to such customers. Some of these common questions are: To what degree is your advanced analytics (natural language processing, sentiment analysis, predictive analytics and classification) paired with your Big Data’s efforts? Do you have dedicated resources exploring the possibilities of advanced analytics in Big Data for your business line? Do you plan to employ machine learning technology while doing Advanced Analytics? How is Social Media being monitored in your organization? What is your ability to scale in terms of storage and processing power? Do you have a system in place to sort incoming data in near real time by potential value, data quality, and use frequency? Do you use event-driven architecture to manage incoming data? Do you have specialized data services that can accommodate different formats, security, and the management requirements of multiple data sources? Is your organization currently using or considering in-memory analytics? To what degree are you able to correlate data from your Big Data infrastructure with that from your enterprise data warehouse? Have you extended the role of Data Stewards to include ownership of big data components? Do you prioritize data quality based on the source system (that is Facebook/Twitter data has lower quality thresholds than radio frequency identification (RFID) for a tracking system)? Do your retention policies consider the different legal responsibilities for storing Big Data for a specific amount of time? Do Data Scientists work in close collaboration with Data Stewards to ensure data quality? How is access to attributes of Big Data being given out in the organization? Are roles related to Big Data (Advanced Analyst, Data Scientist) clearly defined? How involved is risk management in the Big Data governance process? Is there a set of documented policies regarding Big Data governance? Is there an enforcement mechanism or approach to ensure that policies are followed? Who is the key sponsor for your Big Data governance program? (The CIO is best) Do you have defined policies surrounding the use of social media data for potential employees and customers, as well as the use of customer Geo-location data? How accessible are complex analytic routines to your user base? What is the level of involvement with outside vendors and third parties in regard to the planning and execution of Big Data projects? What programming technologies are utilized by your data warehouse/BI staff when working with Big Data? These are some of the important questions I ask each customer who is actively evaluating Big Data trends for their organizations. These questions give you a sense of direction where to start, what to use, how to secure, how to analyze and more. Sign off Any Big data is analysis is incomplete without a compelling story. The best way to understand this is to watch Hans Rosling – Gapminder (2:17 to 6:06) videos about the third world myths. Don’t get overwhelmed with the Big Data buzz word, the destination to what your data speaks is important. In this blog post, we did not particularly look at any Big Data technologies. This is a set of questionnaire one needs to keep in mind as they embark their journey of Big Data. I did write some of the basics in my blog: Big Data – Big Hype yet Big Opportunity. Do let me know if these questions make sense?  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Globally Handling Request Validation In ASP.NET MVC

  - by imran_ku07

     Introduction:           Cross Site Scripting(XSS) and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks are one of dangerous attacks on web.  They are among the most famous security issues affecting web applications. OWASP regards XSS is the number one security issue on the Web. Both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC paid very much attention to make applications build with ASP.NET as secure as possible. So by default they will throw an exception 'A potentially dangerous XXX value was detected from the client', when they see, < followed by an exclamation(like <!) or < followed by the letters a through z(like <s) or & followed by a pound sign(like &#123) as a part of querystring, posted form and cookie collection. This is good for lot of applications. But this is not always the case. Many applications need to allow users to enter html tags, for example applications which uses  Rich Text Editor. You can allow user to enter these tags by just setting validateRequest="false" in your Web.config application configuration file inside <pages> element if you are using Web Form. This will globally disable request validation. But in ASP.NET MVC request handling is different than ASP.NET Web Form. Therefore for disabling request validation globally in ASP.NET MVC you have to put ValidateInputAttribute in your every controller. This become pain full for you if you have hundred of controllers. Therefore in this article i will present a very simple way to handle request validation globally through web.config.   Description:           Before starting how to do this it is worth to see why validateRequest in Page directive and web.config not work in ASP.NET MVC. Actually request handling in ASP.NET Web Form and ASP.NET MVC is different. In Web Form mostly the HttpHandler is the page handler which checks the posted form, query string and cookie collection during the Page ProcessRequest method, while in MVC request validation occur when ActionInvoker calling the action. Just see the stack trace of both framework.   ASP.NET MVC Stack Trace:     System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String s, String valueName, String collectionName) +8723114   System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, String collectionName) +111   System.Web.HttpRequest.get_Form() +129   System.Web.HttpRequestWrapper.get_Form() +11   System.Web.Mvc.ValueProviderDictionary.PopulateDictionary() +145   System.Web.Mvc.ValueProviderDictionary..ctor(ControllerContext controllerContext) +74   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.get_ValueProvider() +31   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ParameterDescriptor parameterDescriptor) +53   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValues(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) +109   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +399   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +126   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +27   ASP.NET Web Form Stack Trace:    System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String s, String valueName, String collectionName) +3213202   System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, String collectionName) +108   System.Web.HttpRequest.get_QueryString() +119   System.Web.UI.Page.GetCollectionBasedOnMethod(Boolean dontReturnNull) +2022776   System.Web.UI.Page.DeterminePostBackMode() +60   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +6953   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +154   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() +86                        Since the first responder of request in ASP.NET MVC is the controller action therefore it will check the posted values during calling the action. That's why web.config's requestValidate not work in ASP.NET MVC.            So let's see how to handle this globally in ASP.NET MVC. First of all you need to add an appSettings in web.config. <appSettings>    <add key="validateRequest" value="true"/>  </appSettings>              I am using the same key used in disable request validation in Web Form. Next just create a new ControllerFactory by derving the class from DefaultControllerFactory.     public class MyAppControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory    {        protected override IController GetControllerInstance(Type controllerType)        {            var controller = base.GetControllerInstance(controllerType);            string validateRequest=System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["validateRequest"];            bool b;            if (validateRequest != null && bool.TryParse(validateRequest,out b))                ((ControllerBase)controller).ValidateRequest = bool.Parse(validateRequest);            return controller;        }    }                         Next just register your controller factory in global.asax.        protected void Application_Start()        {            //............................................................................................            ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new MyAppControllerFactory());        }              This will prevent the above exception to occur in the context of ASP.NET MVC. But if you are using the Default WebFormViewEngine then you need also to set validateRequest="false" in your web.config file inside <pages> element            Now when you run your application you see the effect of validateRequest appsetting. One thing also note that the ValidateInputAttribute placed inside action or controller will always override this setting.    Summary:          Request validation is great security feature in ASP.NET but some times there is a need to disable this entirely. So in this article i just showed you how to disable this globally in ASP.NET MVC. I also explained the difference between request validation in Web Form and ASP.NET MVC. Hopefully you will enjoy this.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 15, 2010New ProjectsBizTalk EDI Guidance: BizTalk EDI Guidance is intended to simplify the delivery of EDI solutions by leveraging the ESB Toolkit. This project is currently Alpha and sh...Continues Integration Sample: I'm providing a series of blog post to show a complete CI process using CruiseControl.Net and msbuild. The source code for this series is hosted here.DioM2D: My Dragons in our Midst RPG. Runs on my custom Starlight Engine.Ethical Hacking ASP.NET: Security tools and guidelines for white-hat hacking and protecting ASP.NET web applications.Farseer Engine with XNATouch: Farseer is great engine for game physics. This implementation uses XNATouch framework.Feature Builder Guidance Extensions: Feature Builder Guidance Extensions are Feature Extensions which extend the guidance for the Feature Building experience. Each FBGX will be suppli...Microsoft Office Document Security: MODS is a plugin for office 2007 thats includes Hash Encryption, Hex Convertion and more. Plugins: MODS For Word still working on (MODS for Excel ...Minimize Engine (XNA): The Minimize Engine is a basic 3D Games Engine created using XNA, with its primary focus around Grid Based games.MSForge TownCrier: This project is meant to build a notification and calling system for MSForge.net User Groups.NatureProtector: Silverlight 4 project.OutSync: OutSync is a free Windows desktop application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you...Quick Save Images, Clipboard save to file, Quick save, bmp, png, jpeg, Image: ClipSa is a very small tool for very quick picture saving. You put some picture into the clipboard (PrintScrn/Alt-PrintScrn/Ctrl-C), ClipSa saves ...ResHelper Manager: Resource strings management tool that creates localization files for any type of localization target (asp.net, wpf and so on...)SecureCookieHttpModule: Secure your session cookie (and other session-based) cookies for replay attacks using this easy to use ASP.NET HttpModule.simpleChMS: A Church Management System (ChMS) designed for churches or ministries like youth groups that want to facilitate better care or theie membership. Fo...sMAPtool: -SPDomainObject: mapping strong type objects to sp listsSQL Trim: This project aims at developing a universal trim function for Microsoft SQL Server. It trims: 1) pre spaces 2) post spaces 3) double spaces 3) subs...TurretGunner: mt-experienceNew ReleasesBeanProxy: BeanProxy 3.0: BeanProxy is a C# (.NET 3.5) library housing classes that facilitates unit testing. Any non-static, public interface/class or abstract class can be...Blueset Studio Opensource Projects: 蓝色之风记事本 0.2 Alpha: 一个超级Bug版本……CSharp Intellisense: V2.1: - Bug fix (Pascal Casing)DioM2D: DioM2D0.01: http://www.dragonsinourmidst.com/forums/showthread.php?p=690058#post690058Ethical Hacking ASP.NET: Version 1.0.0.1: This is the initial release of the project. Read more about the available tests and features on the Documentation tab. You need the full .NET Frame...Event Scavenger: Collector service update - version 3.2.4: Added check if the database connection string is set up in the config file.Feature Builder Guidance Extensions: FBGX-Binaries: This release consists of a zip file containing all the VSIXs resulting from building each of the FBGX packages found here as source. This will mak...Floe IRC Client: Floe IRC Client 2010-05 R2: - Detaching windows (right click on the tabs to detach them) - Highlight lines with your nick or other patterns - Fixed several bugs - Tabs can now...Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 1.96: Fixed some minor bugs and improved the UI a bit. If you can not install the msi file you might be missing some prerequisites. You can try running t...Geocache Downloader: release 1.0: This is the first release.kp.net: Alpha release is avalable: The goal of this alpha release is to try the code in some production scenarios and find out what features should be tuned.Live-Exchange Calendar Sync: Live-Exchange Calendar Sync: Live-Exchange Calendar Sync Beta May 14, 2010 release of Live-Exchange Calendar Sync 1.0 BETA. (Version 45334) Getting StartedInfo about installat...MAPILab Explorer for SharePoint: MAPILab Explorer for SharePoint ver 2.1.1: 1) Small bug fixed that appears on first start (when earliers versions wasn't installed). How to install:Download ZIP file and extract it on Sha...Microsoft Office Document Security: MODS 4 WORD (SOURCE INCLUDED): Includes Source CodeMoonyDesk (windows desktop widgets): MoonyDesk Alpha: MoonyDesk Alpha (some memory improvements)OnTopReplica: Release 2.9.3: Some bugfixes and improvements. Czech translation added (thanks René Mihula).OutSync: OutSync v1.0.100.0: OutSync v1.0.100.0 is the final release by Mel before the move to CodePlex. I have tested it on Windows 7 32bit and 64bit with Office 2007 and it ...Quick Save Images, Clipboard save to file, Quick save, bmp, png, jpeg, Image: Clipsa v 0.1: Download and extract to any place 2 files - clipSa.exe and clipSa.exe.config Run clipSa.exe. That's all.ResHelper Manager: ResHelperManager: List of changes applied to this version of ResHelper is included in main download zip package. Example sourcesIn Source Code tab are sources of De...Rx Contrib: V1.3: - Bug Fix - BufferWithTimeOrCount with flexible time period setting when ever the time period elapsed...SharePoint DVK Integration: SharePoint 2007 DVK integration v1.0.3: Fixes Fixed default field bindings. I rebound too many fields on every page load. Fixed extension replacing on creating target url (threw it out)...ShoutcastStast for DotNetNuke: DNN_ShoutcastStats alpha 05.00.495: First Alpha release of ShoutcastStats Module for DotNetNuke This first alpha version of the ShoutcastStats Module for DotNetNuke is still in devel...SilverPart 2.1: SilverPart 2.1: SilverPart 2.1 This interim release fixes some major bugs related to Firefox and anonymous access. - Fix for Issue ID 4005 - SilverPart does not w...sMAPtool: sMAPedit v0.7c (Base Release with Maps): Fixed: force a gargabe collection update to prevent pictureBox's memory leak Added: essential map pack with all basic maps in jpg format Added:...SQL Trim: Trim: Initial releaseSSIS Multiple Hash: Multiple Hash V1.2.1: This is version 1.2.1 of the Multiple Hash SSIS Component. 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• RequestValidation Changes in ASP.NET 4.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  There’s been a change in the way the ValidateRequest attribute on WebForms works in ASP.NET 4.0. I noticed this today while updating a post on my WebLog all of which contain raw HTML and so all pretty much trigger request validation. I recently upgraded this app from ASP.NET 2.0 to 4.0 and it’s now failing to update posts. At first this was difficult to track down because of custom error handling in my app – the custom error handler traps the exception and logs it with only basic error information so the full detail of the error was initially hidden. After some more experimentation in development mode the error that occurs is the typical ASP.NET validate request error (‘A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detetected…’) which looks like this in ASP.NET 4.0: At first when I got this I was real perplexed as I didn’t read the entire error message and because my page does have: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="NewEntry.aspx.cs" Inherits="Westwind.WebLog.NewEntry" MasterPageFile="~/App_Templates/Standard/AdminMaster.master" ValidateRequest="false" EnableEventValidation="false" EnableViewState="false" %> WTF? ValidateRequest would seem like it should be enough, but alas in ASP.NET 4.0 apparently that setting alone is no longer enough. Reading the fine print in the error explains that you need to explicitly set the requestValidationMode for the application back to V2.0 in web.config: <httpRuntime executionTimeout="300" requestValidationMode="2.0" /> Kudos for the ASP.NET team for putting up a nice error message that tells me how to fix this problem, but excuse me why the heck would you change this behavior to require an explicit override to an optional and by default disabled page level switch? You’ve just made a relatively simple fix to a solution a nasty morass of hard to discover configuration settings??? The original way this worked was perfectly discoverable via attributes in the page. Now you can set this setting in the page and get completely unexpected behavior and you are required to set what effectively amounts to a backwards compatibility flag in the configuration file. It turns out the real reason for the .config flag is that the request validation behavior has moved from WebForms pipeline down into the entire ASP.NET/IIS request pipeline and is now applied against all requests. Here’s what the breaking changes page from Microsoft says about it: The request validation feature in ASP.NET provides a certain level of default protection against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. In previous versions of ASP.NET, request validation was enabled by default. However, it applied only to ASP.NET pages (.aspx files and their class files) and only when those pages were executing. In ASP.NET 4, by default, request validation is enabled for all requests, because it is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation applies to requests for all ASP.NET resources, not just .aspx page requests. This includes requests such as Web service calls and custom HTTP handlers. Request validation is also active when custom HTTP modules are reading the contents of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation errors might now occur for requests that previously did not trigger errors. To revert to the behavior of the ASP.NET 2.0 request validation feature, add the following setting in the Web.config file: <httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" /> However, we recommend that you analyze any request validation errors to determine whether existing handlers, modules, or other custom code accesses potentially unsafe HTTP inputs that could be XSS attack vectors. Ok, so ValidateRequest of the form still works as it always has but it’s actually the ASP.NET Event Pipeline, not WebForms that’s throwing the above exception as request validation is applied to every request that hits the pipeline. Creating the runtime override removes the HttpRuntime checking and restores the WebForms only behavior. That fixes my immediate problem but still leaves me wondering especially given the vague wording of the above explanation. One thing that’s missing in the description is above is one important detail: The request validation is applied only to application/x-www-form-urlencoded POST content not to all inbound POST data. When I first read this this freaked me out because it sounds like literally ANY request hitting the pipeline is affected. To make sure this is not really so I created a quick handler: public class Handler1 : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World <hr>" + context.Request.Form.ToString()); } public bool IsReusable { get { return false; } } } and called it with Fiddler by posting some XML to the handler using a default form-urlencoded POST content type: and sure enough – hitting the handler also causes the request validation error and 500 server response. Changing the content type to text/xml effectively fixes the problem however, bypassing the request validation filter so Web Services/AJAX handlers and custom modules/handlers that implement custom protocols aren’t affected as long as they work with special input content types. It also looks that multipart encoding does not trigger event validation of the runtime either so this request also works fine: POST http://rasnote/weblog/handler1.ashx HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------7cf2a327f01ae User-Agent: West Wind Internet Protocols 5.53 Host: rasnote Content-Length: 40 Pragma: no-cache <xml>asdasd</xml>--------7cf2a327f01ae *That* probably should trigger event validation – since it is a potential HTML form submission, but it doesn’t. New Runtime Feature, Global Scope Only? Ok, so request validation is now a runtime feature but sadly it’s a feature that’s scoped to the ASP.NET Runtime – effective scope to the entire running application/app domain. You can still manually force validation using Request.ValidateInput() which gives you the option to do this in code, but that realistically will only work with the requestValidationMode set to V2.0 as well since the 4.0 mode auto-fires before code ever gets a chance to intercept the call. Given all that, the new setting in ASP.NET 4.0 seems to limit options and makes things more difficult and less flexible. Of course Microsoft gets to say ASP.NET is more secure by default because of it but what good is that if you have to turn off this flag the very first time you need to allow one single request that bypasses request validation??? This is really shortsighted design… <sigh>© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• Anti-Forgery Request Helpers for ASP.NET MVC and jQuery AJAX

  - by Dixin

  Background To secure websites from cross-site request forgery (CSRF, or XSRF) attack, ASP.NET MVC provides an excellent mechanism: The server prints tokens to cookie and inside the form; When the form is submitted to server, token in cookie and token inside the form are sent in the HTTP request; Server validates the tokens. To print tokens to browser, just invoke HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken():<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %> <%: this.Html.AntiForgeryToken(Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)%> <%-- Other fields. --%> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> <% } %> This invocation generates a token then writes inside the form:<form action="..." method="post"> <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP" /> <!-- Other fields. --> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> and also writes into the cookie: __RequestVerificationToken_Lw__= J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP When the above form is submitted, they are both sent to server. In the server side, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute is used to specify the controllers or actions to validate them:[HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult Action(/* ... */) { // ... } This is very productive for form scenarios. But recently, when resolving security vulnerabilities for Web products, some problems are encountered. Specify validation on controller (not on each action) The server side problem is, It is expected to declare [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] on controller, but actually it has be to declared on each POST actions. Because POST actions are usually much more then controllers, this is a little crazy Problem Usually a controller contains actions for HTTP GET and actions for HTTP POST requests, and usually validations are expected for HTTP POST requests. So, if the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] is declared on the controller, the HTTP GET requests become invalid:[ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller // One [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Index() cannot work. { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } If browser sends an HTTP GET request by clicking a link: http://Site/Some/Index, validation definitely fails, because no token is provided. So the result is, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute must be distributed to each POST action:public class SomeController : Controller // Many [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Works. { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } This is a little bit crazy, because one application can have a lot of POST actions. Solution To avoid a large number of [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes (one for each POST action), the following ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute wrapper class can be helpful, where HTTP verbs can be specified:[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] public class ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter { private readonly ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute _validator; private readonly AcceptVerbsAttribute _verbs; public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs) : this(verbs, null) { } public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs, string salt) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = salt }; } public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext) { string httpMethodOverride = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.GetHttpMethodOverride(); if (this._verbs.Verbs.Contains(httpMethodOverride, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { this._validator.OnAuthorization(filterContext); } } } When this attribute is declared on controller, only HTTP requests with the specified verbs are validated:[ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper(HttpVerbs.Post, Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller { // GET actions are not affected. // Only HTTP POST requests are validated. } Now one single attribute on controller turns on validation for all POST actions. Maybe it would be nice if HTTP verbs can be specified on the built-in [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute, which is easy to implemented. Submit token via AJAX The browser side problem is, if server side turns on anti-forgery validation for POST, then AJAX POST requests will fail be default. Problem For AJAX scenarios, when request is sent by jQuery instead of form:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 // Token is not posted. }, callback); This kind of AJAX POST requests will always be invalid, because server side code cannot see the token in the posted data. Solution The tokens are printed to browser then sent back to server. So first of all, HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be called somewhere. Now the browser has token in HTML and cookie. Then jQuery must find the printed token in the HTML, and append token to the data before sending:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1, __RequestVerificationToken: getToken() // Token is posted. }, callback); To be reusable, this can be encapsulated into a tiny jQuery plugin:/// <reference path="jquery-1.4.2.js" /> (function ($) { $.getAntiForgeryToken = function (tokenWindow, appPath) { // HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be invoked to print the token. tokenWindow = tokenWindow && typeof tokenWindow === typeof window ? tokenWindow : window; appPath = appPath && typeof appPath === "string" ? "_" + appPath.toString() : ""; // The name attribute is either __RequestVerificationToken, // or __RequestVerificationToken_{appPath}. tokenName = "__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath; // Finds the <input type="hidden" name={tokenName} value="..." /> from the specified. // var inputElements = $("input[type='hidden'][name='__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath + "']"); var inputElements = tokenWindow.document.getElementsByTagName("input"); for (var i = 0; i < inputElements.length; i++) { var inputElement = inputElements[i]; if (inputElement.type === "hidden" && inputElement.name === tokenName) { return { name: tokenName, value: inputElement.value }; } } return null; }; $.appendAntiForgeryToken = function (data, token) { // Converts data if not already a string. if (data && typeof data !== "string") { data = $.param(data); } // Gets token from current window by default. token = token ? token : $.getAntiForgeryToken(); // $.getAntiForgeryToken(window). data = data ? data + "&" : ""; // If token exists, appends {token.name}={token.value} to data. return token ? data + encodeURIComponent(token.name) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(token.value) : data; }; // Wraps $.post(url, data, callback, type). $.postAntiForgery = function (url, data, callback, type) { return $.post(url, $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data), callback, type); }; // Wraps $.ajax(settings). $.ajaxAntiForgery = function (settings) { settings.data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(settings.data); return $.ajax(settings); }; })(jQuery); In most of the scenarios, it is Ok to just replace $.post() invocation with $.postAntiForgery(), and replace $.ajax() with $.ajaxAntiForgery():$.postAntiForgery(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 }, callback); // Token is posted. There might be some scenarios of custom token. Here $.appendAntiForgeryToken() is provided:data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, token); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); And there are scenarios that the token is not in the current window. For example, an HTTP POST request can be sent by iframe, while the token is in the parent window. Here window can be specified for $.getAntiForgeryToken():data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, $.getAntiForgeryToken(window.parent)); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); If you have better solution, please do tell me.

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• Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine

  - by danx

  Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine Cryptography is a major component of secure e-commerce. Since cryptography is compute intensive and adds a significant load to applications, such as SSL web servers (https), crypto performance is an important factor. Providing accelerated crypto hardware greatly helps these applications and will help lead to a wider adoption of cryptography, and lower cost, in e-commerce and other applications. The Intel Westmere microprocessor has six new instructions to acclerate AES encryption. They are called "AESNI" for "AES New Instructions". These are unprivileged instructions, so no "root", other elevated access, or context switch is required to execute these instructions. These instructions are used in a new built-in OpenSSL 1.0 engine available in Solaris 11, the aesni engine. Previous Work Previously, AESNI instructions were introduced into the Solaris x86 kernel and libraries. That is, the "aes" kernel module (used by IPsec and other kernel modules) and the Solaris pkcs11 library (for user applications). These are available in Solaris 10 10/09 (update 8) and above, and Solaris 11. The work here is to add the aesni engine to OpenSSL. X86 AESNI Instructions Intel's Xeon 5600 is one of the processors that support AESNI. This processor is used in the Sun Fire X4170 M2 As mentioned above, six new instructions acclerate AES encryption in processor silicon. The new instructions are: aesenc performs one round of AES encryption. One encryption round is composed of these steps: substitute bytes, shift rows, mix columns, and xor the round key. aesenclast performs the final encryption round, which is the same as above, except omitting the mix columns (which is only needed for the next encryption round). aesdec performs one round of AES decryption aesdeclast performs the final AES decryption round aeskeygenassist Helps expand the user-provided key into a "key schedule" of keys, one per round aesimc performs an "inverse mixed columns" operation to convert the encryption key schedule into a decryption key schedule pclmulqdq Not a AESNI instruction, but performs "carryless multiply" operations to acclerate AES GCM mode. Since the AESNI instructions are implemented in hardware, they take a constant number of cycles and are not vulnerable to side-channel timing attacks that attempt to discern some bits of data from the time taken to encrypt or decrypt the data. Solaris x86 and OpenSSL Software Optimizations Having X86 AESNI hardware crypto instructions is all well and good, but how do we access it? The software is available with Solaris 11 and is used automatically if you are running Solaris x86 on a AESNI-capable processor. AESNI is used internally in the kernel through kernel crypto modules and is available in user space through the PKCS#11 library. For OpenSSL on Solaris 11, AESNI crypto is available directly with a new built-in OpenSSL 1.0 engine, called the "aesni engine." This is in lieu of the extra overhead of going through the Solaris OpenSSL pkcs11 engine, which accesses Solaris crypto and digest operations. Instead, AESNI assembly is included directly in the new aesni engine. Instead of including the aesni engine in a separate library in /lib/openssl/engines/, the aesni engine is "built-in", meaning it is included directly in OpenSSL's libcrypto.so.1.0.0 library. This reduces overhead and the need to manually specify the aesni engine. Since the engine is built-in (that is, in libcrypto.so.1.0.0), the openssl -engine command line flag or API call is not needed to access the engine—the aesni engine is used automatically on AESNI hardware. Ciphers and Digests supported by OpenSSL aesni engine The Openssl aesni engine auto-detects if it's running on AESNI hardware and uses AESNI encryption instructions for these ciphers: AES-128-CBC, AES-192-CBC, AES-256-CBC, AES-128-CFB128, AES-192-CFB128, AES-256-CFB128, AES-128-CTR, AES-192-CTR, AES-256-CTR, AES-128-ECB, AES-192-ECB, AES-256-ECB, AES-128-OFB, AES-192-OFB, and AES-256-OFB. Implementation of the OpenSSL aesni engine The AESNI assembly language routines are not a part of the regular Openssl 1.0.0 release. AESNI is a part of the "HEAD" ("development" or "unstable") branch of OpenSSL, for future release. But AESNI is also available as a separate patch provided by Intel to the OpenSSL project for OpenSSL 1.0.0. A minimal amount of "glue" code in the aesni engine works between the OpenSSL libcrypto.so.1.0.0 library and the assembly functions. The aesni engine code is separate from the base OpenSSL code and requires patching only a few source files to use it. That means OpenSSL can be more easily updated to future versions without losing the performance from the built-in aesni engine. OpenSSL aesni engine Performance Here's some graphs of aesni engine performance I measured by running openssl speed -evp $algorithm where $algorithm is aes-128-cbc, aes-192-cbc, and aes-256-cbc. These are using the 64-bit version of openssl on the same AESNI hardware, a Sun Fire X4170 M2 with a Intel Xeon E5620 @2.40GHz, running Solaris 11 FCS. "Before" is openssl without the aesni engine and "after" is openssl with the aesni engine. The numbers are MBytes/second. OpenSSL aesni engine performance on Sun Fire X4170 M2 (Xeon E5620 @2.40GHz) (Higher is better; "before"=OpenSSL on AESNI without AESNI engine software, "after"=OpenSSL AESNI engine) As you can see the speedup is dramatic for all 3 key lengths and for data sizes from 16 bytes to 8 Kbytes—AESNI is about 7.5-8x faster over hand-coded amd64 assembly (without aesni instructions). Verifying the OpenSSL aesni engine is present The easiest way to determine if you are running the aesni engine is to type "openssl engine" on the command line. No configuration, API, or command line options are needed to use the OpenSSL aesni engine. If you are running on Intel AESNI hardware with Solaris 11 FCS, you'll see this output indicating you are using the aesni engine: intel-westmere $ openssl engine (aesni) Intel AES-NI engine (no-aesni) (dynamic) Dynamic engine loading support (pkcs11) PKCS #11 engine support If you are running on Intel without AESNI hardware you'll see this output indicating the hardware can't support the aesni engine: intel-nehalem $ openssl engine (aesni) Intel AES-NI engine (no-aesni) (dynamic) Dynamic engine loading support (pkcs11) PKCS #11 engine support For Solaris on SPARC or older Solaris OpenSSL software, you won't see any aesni engine line at all. Third-party OpenSSL software (built yourself or from outside Oracle) will not have the aesni engine either. Solaris 11 FCS comes with OpenSSL version 1.0.0e. The output of typing "openssl version" should be "OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011". 64- and 32-bit OpenSSL OpenSSL comes in both 32- and 64-bit binaries. 64-bit executable is now the default, at /usr/bin/openssl, and OpenSSL 64-bit libraries at /lib/amd64/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 and libssl.so.1.0.0 The 32-bit executable is at /usr/bin/i86/openssl and the libraries are at /lib/libcrytpo.so.1.0.0 and libssl.so.1.0.0. Availability The OpenSSL AESNI engine is available in Solaris 11 x86 for both the 64- and 32-bit versions of OpenSSL. It is not available with Solaris 10. You must have a processor that supports AESNI instructions, otherwise OpenSSL will fallback to the older, slower AES implementation without AESNI. Processors that support AESNI include most Westmere and Sandy Bridge class processor architectures. Some low-end processors (such as for mobile/laptop platforms) do not support AESNI. The easiest way to determine if the processor supports AESNI is with the isainfo -v command—look for "amd64" and "aes" in the output: $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu Conclusion The Solaris 11 OpenSSL aesni engine provides easy access to powerful Intel AESNI hardware cryptography, in addition to Solaris userland PKCS#11 libraries and Solaris crypto kernel modules.

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• It's not just “Single Sign-on” by Steve Knott (aurionPro SENA)

  - by Greg Jensen

  It is true that Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on (Oracle ESSO) started out as purely an application single sign-on tool but as we have seen in the previous articles in this series the product has matured into a suite of tools that can do more than just automated single sign-on and can also provide rapidly deployed, cost effective solution to many demanding password management problems. In the last article of this series I would like to discuss three cases where customers faced password scenarios that required more than just single sign-on and how some of the less well known tools in the Oracle ESSO suite “kitbag” helped solve these challenges. Case #1 One of the issues often faced by our customers is how to keep their applications compliant. I had a client who liked the idea of automated single sign-on for most of his applications but had a key requirement to actually increase the security for one specific SOX application. For the SOX application he wanted to secure access by using two-factor authentication with a smartcard. The problem was that the application did not support two-factor authentication. The solution was to use a feature from the Oracle ESSO suite called authentication manager. This feature enables you to have multiple authentication methods for the same user which in this case was a smartcard and the Windows password.  Within authentication manager each authenticator can be configured with a security grade so we gave the smartcard a high grade and the Windows password a normal grade. Security grading in Oracle ESSO can be configured on a per application basis so we set the SOX application to require the higher grade smartcard authenticator. The end result for the user was that they enjoyed automated single sign-on for most of the applications apart from the SOX application. When the SOX application was launched, the user was required by ESSO to present their smartcard before being given access to the application. Case #2 Another example solving compliance issues was in the case of a large energy company who had a number of core billing applications. New regulations required that users change their password regularly and use a complex password. The problem facing the customer was that the core billing applications did not have any native user password change functionality. The customer could not replace the core applications because of the cost and time required to re-develop them. With a reputation for innovation aurionPro SENA were approached to provide a solution to this problem using Oracle ESSO. Oracle ESSO has a password expiry feature that can be triggered periodically based on the timestamp of the users’ last password creation therefore our strategy here was to leverage this feature to provide the password change experience. The trigger can launch an application change password event however in this scenario there was no native change password feature that could be launched therefore a “dummy” change password screen was created that could imitate the missing change password function and connect to the application database on behalf of the user. Oracle ESSO was configured to trigger a change password event every 60 days. After this period if the user launched the application Oracle ESSO would detect the logon screen and invoke the password expiry feature. Oracle ESSO would trigger the “dummy screen,” detect it automatically as the application change password screen and insert a complex password on behalf of the user. After the password event had completed the user was logged on to the application with their new password. All this was provided at a fraction of the cost of re-developing the core applications. Case #3 Recent popular initiatives such as the BYOD and working from home schemes bring with them many challenges in administering “unmanaged machines” and sometimes “unmanageable users.” In a recent case, a client had a dispersed community of casual contractors who worked for the business using their own laptops to access applications. To improve security the around password management the security goal was to provision the passwords directly to these contractors. In a previous article we saw how Oracle ESSO has the capability to provision passwords through Provisioning Gateway but the challenge in this scenario was how to get the Oracle ESSO agent to the casual contractor on an unmanaged machine. The answer was to use another tool in the suite, Oracle ESSO Anywhere. This component can compile the normal Oracle ESSO functionality into a deployment package that can be made available from a website in a similar way to a streamed application. The ESSO Anywhere agent does not actually install into the registry or program files but runs in a folder within the user’s profile therefore no local administrator rights are required for installation. The ESSO Anywhere package can also be configured to stay persistent or disable itself at the end of the user’s session. In this case the user just needed to be told where the website package was located and download the package. Once the download was complete the agent started automatically and the user was provided with single sign-on to their applications without ever knowing the application passwords. Finally, as we have seen in these series Oracle ESSO not only has great utilities in its own tool box but also has direct integration with Oracle Privileged Account Manager, Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Access Manager. Integrated together with these tools provides a complete and complementary platform to address even the most complex identity and access management requirements. So what next for Oracle ESSO? “Agentless ESSO available in the cloud” – but that will be a subject for a future Oracle ESSO series!                                                                                                                               

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• PeopleSoft Upgrades, Fusion, & BI for Leading European PeopleSoft Applications Customers

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  With so many industry-leading services firms around the globe managing their businesses with PeopleSoft, it’s always an adventure setting up times and meetings for us to keep in touch with them, especially those outside of North America who often do not get to join us at Oracle OpenWorld. Fortunately, during the first two weeks of May, Nigel Woodland (Oracle’s Service Industries Director for the EMEA region) and I successfully blocked off our calendars to visit seven different customers spanning four countries in Western Europe. We met executives and leaders at four Staffing industry firms, two Professional Services firms that engage in consulting and auditing, and a Financial Services firm. As we shared the latest information regarding product capabilities and plans, we also gained valuable insight into the hot technology topics facing these businesses. What we heard was both informative and inspiring, and I suspect other Oracle PeopleSoft applications customers can benefit from one or more of the following observations from our trip. Great IT Plans Get Executed When You Respect the Users Each of our visits followed roughly the same pattern. After introductions, Nigel outlined Oracle’s product and technology strategy, including a discussion of how we at Oracle invest in each layer of the “technology stack” to provide customers with unprecedented business management capabilities and choice. Then, I provided the specifics of the PeopleSoft product line’s investment strategy, detailing the dramatic number of rich usability and functionality enhancements added to release 9.1 since its general availability in 2009 and the game-changing capabilities slated for 9.2. What was most exciting about each of these discussions was that shortly after my talking about what customers can do with release 9.1 right now to drive up user productivity and satisfaction, I saw the wheels turning in the minds of our audiences. Business analyst and end user-configurable tools and technologies, such as WorkCenters and the Related Action Framework, that provide the ability to tailor a “central command center” to the exact needs of each recruiter, biller, and every other role in the organization were exactly what each of our customers had been looking for. Every one of our audiences agreed that these tools which demonstrate a respect for the user would finally help IT pole vault over the wall of resistance that users had often raised in the past. With these new user-focused capabilities, IT is positioned to definitively partner with the business, instead of drag the business along, to unlock the value of their investment in PeopleSoft. This topic of respecting the user emerged during our very first visit, which was at Vital Services Group at their Head Office “The Mill” in Manchester, England. (If you are a student of architecture and are ever in Manchester, you should stop in to see this amazingly renovated old mill building.) I had just finished explaining our PeopleSoft 9.2 roadmap, and Mike Code, PeopleSoft Systems Manager for this innovative staffing company, said, “Mark, the new features you’ve shown us in 9.1/9.2 are very relevant to our business. As we forge ahead with the 9.1 upgrade, the ability to configure a targeted user interface with WorkCenters, Related Actions, Pivot Grids, and Alerts will enable us to satisfy the business that this upgrade is for them and will deliver tangible benefits. In fact, you’ve highlighted that we need to start talking to the business to keep up the momentum to start reviewing the 9.2 upgrade after we get to 9.1, because as much as 9.1 and PeopleTools 8.52 offers, what you’ve shown us for 9.2 is what we’ve envisioned was ultimately possible with our investment in PeopleSoft applications.” We also received valuable feedback about our investment for the Staffing industry when we visited with Hans Wanders, CIO of Randstad (the second largest Staffing company in the world) in the Netherlands. After our visit, Hans noted, “It was very interesting to see how the PeopleSoft applications have developed. I was truly impressed by many of the new developments.” Hans and Mike, sincere thanks for the validation that our team’s hard work and dedication to “respecting the users” is worth the effort! Co-existence of PeopleSoft and Fusion Applications Just Makes Sense As a “product person,” one of the most rewarding things about visiting customers is that they actually want to talk to me. Sometimes, they want to discuss a product area that we need to enhance; other times, they are interested in learning how to extract more value from their applications; and still others, they want to tell me how they are using the applications to drive real value for the business. During this trip, I was very pleased to hear that several of our customers not only thought the co-existence of Fusion applications alongside PeopleSoft applications made sense in theory, but also that they were aggressively looking at how to deploy one or more Fusion applications alongside their PeopleSoft HCM and FSCM applications. The most common deployment plan in the works by three of the organizations is to upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.1 or 9.2, and then adopt one of the new Fusion HCM applications, such as Fusion Performance Management or the full suite of  Fusion Talent Management. For example, during an applications upgrade planning discussion with the staffing company Hays plc., Mark Thomas, who is Hays’ UK IT Director, commented, “We are very excited about where we can go with the latest versions of the PeopleSoft applications in conjunction with Fusion Talent Management.” Needless to say, this news was very encouraging, because it reiterated that our applications investment strategy makes good business sense for our customers. Next Generation Business Intelligence Is the Key to the Future The third, and perhaps most exciting, lesson I learned during this journey is that our audiences already know that the latest generation of Business Intelligence technologies will be the “secret sauce” for organizations to transform business in radical ways. While a number of the organizations we visited on the trip have deployed or are deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and the associated analytics applications to provide dashboards of easy-to-understand, user-configurable metrics that help optimize business performance according to current operating procedures, what’s most exciting to them is being able to use Business Intelligence to change the way an organization does business, grows revenue, and makes a profit. In particular, several executives we met asked whether we can help them minimize the need to have perfectly structured data and at the same time generate analytics that improve order fulfillment decision-making. To them, the path to future growth lies in having the ability to analyze unstructured data rapidly and intuitively and leveraging technology’s ability to detect patterns that a human cannot reasonably be expected to see. For illustrative purposes, here is a good example of a business problem where analyzing a combination of structured and unstructured data can produce better results. If you have a resource manager trying to decide which person would be the best fit for an assignment in terms of ensuring (a) client satisfaction, (b) the individual’s satisfaction with the work, (c) least travel distance, and (d) highest margin, you traditionally compare resource qualifications to assignment needs, calculate margins on past work with the client, and measure distances. To perform these comparisons, you are likely to need the organization to have profiles setup, people ranked against profiles, margin targets setup, margins measured, distances setup, distances measured, and more. As you can imagine, this requires organizations to plan and implement data setup, capture, and quality management initiatives to ensure that dependable information is available to support resourcing analysis and decisions. In the fast-paced, tight-budget world in which most organizations operate today, the effort and discipline required to maintain high-quality, structured data like those described in the above example are certainly not desirable and in some cases are not feasible. You can imagine how intrigued our audiences were when I informed them that we are ready to help them analyze volumes of unstructured data, detect trends, and produce recommendations. Our discussions delved into examples of how the firms could leverage Oracle’s Secure Enterprise Search and Endeca technologies to keyword search against, compare, and learn from unstructured resource and assignment data. We also considered examples of how they could employ Oracle Real-Time Decisions to generate statistically significant recommendations based on similar resourcing scenarios that have produced the desired satisfaction and profit margin results. --- Although I had almost no time for sight-seeing during this trip to Europe, I have to say that it may have been one of the most energizing and engaging trips of my career. Showing these dedicated customers how they can give every user a uniquely tailored set of tools and address business problems in ways that have to date been impossible made the journey across the Atlantic more than worth it. If any of these three topics intrigue you, I’d recommend you contact your Oracle applications representative to arrange for more detailed discussions with the appropriate members of our organization.

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• SQL – Migrate Database from SQL Server to NuoDB – A Quick Tutorial

  - by Pinal Dave

  Data is growing exponentially and every organization with growing data is thinking of next big innovation in the world of Big Data. Big data is a indeed a future for every organization at one point of the time. Just like every other next big thing, big data has its own challenges and issues. The biggest challenge associated with the big data is to find the ideal platform which supports the scalability and growth of the data. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must be familiar with NuoDB. I have been working with NuoDB for a while and their recent release is the best thus far. NuoDB is an elastically scalable SQL database that can run on local host, datacenter and cloud-based resources. A key feature of the product is that it does not require sharding (read more here). Last week, I was able to install NuoDB in less than 90 seconds and have explored their Explorer and Admin sections. You can read about my experiences in these posts: SQL – Step by Step Guide to Download and Install NuoDB – Getting Started with NuoDB SQL – Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database SQL – Quick Start with Explorer Sections of NuoDB – Query NuoDB Database Many SQL Authority readers have been following me in my journey to evaluate NuoDB. One of the frequently asked questions I’ve received from you is if there is any way to migrate data from SQL Server to NuoDB. The fact is that there is indeed a way to do so and NuoDB provides a fantastic tool which can help users to do it. NuoDB Migrator is a command line utility that supports the migration of Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL schemas and data to NuoDB. The migration to NuoDB is a three-step process: NuoDB Migrator generates a schema for a target NuoDB database It loads data into the target NuoDB database It dumps data from the source database Let’s see how we can migrate our data from SQL Server to NuoDB using a simple three-step approach. But before we do that we will create a sample database in MSSQL and later we will migrate the same database to NuoDB: Setup Step 1: Build a sample data CREATE DATABASE [Test]; CREATE TABLE [Department]( [DepartmentID] [smallint] NOT NULL, [Name] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [GroupName] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [ModifiedDate] [datetime] NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Department_DepartmentID] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [DepartmentID] ASC ) ) ON [PRIMARY]; INSERT INTO Department SELECT * FROM AdventureWorks2012.HumanResources.Department; Note that I am using the SQL Server AdventureWorks database to build this sample table but you can build this sample table any way you prefer. Setup Step 2: Install Java 64 bit Before you can begin the migration process to NuoDB, make sure you have 64-bit Java installed on your computer. This is due to the fact that the NuoDB Migrator tool is built in Java. You can download 64-bit Java for Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux from the following link: http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. One more thing to remember is that you make sure that the path in your environment settings is set to your JAVA_HOME directory or else the tool will not work. Here is how you can do it: Go to My Computer >> Right Click >> Select Properties >> Click on Advanced System Settings >> Click on Environment Variables >> Click on New and enter the following values. Variable Name: JAVA_HOME Variable Value: C:\Program Files\Java\jre7 Make sure you enter your Java installation directory in the Variable Value field. Setup Step 3: Install JDBC driver for SQL Server. There are two JDBC drivers available for SQL Server.  Select the one you prefer to use by following one of the two links below: Microsoft JDBC Driver jTDS JDBC Driver In this example we will be using jTDS JDBC driver. Once you download the driver, move the driver to your NuoDB installation folder. In my case, I have moved the JAR file of the driver into the C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\jar folder as this is my NuoDB installation directory. Now we are all set to start the three-step migration process from SQL Server to NuoDB: Migration Step 1: NuoDB Schema Generation Here is the command I use to generate a schema of my SQL Server Database in NuoDB. First I go to the folder C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\bin and execute the nuodb-migrator.bat file. Note that my database name is ‘test’. Additionally my username and password is also ‘test’. You can see that my SQL Server database is running on my localhost on port 1433. Additionally, the schema of the table is ‘dbo’. nuodb-migrator schema –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.path=/tmp/schema.sql The above script will generate a schema of all my SQL Server tables and will put it in the folder C:\tmp\schema.sql . You can open the schema.sql file and execute this file directly in your NuoDB instance. You can follow the link here to see how you can execute the SQL script in NuoDB. Please note that if you have not yet created the schema in the NuoDB database, you should create it before executing this step. Step 2: Generate the Dump File of the Data Once you have recreated your schema in NuoDB from SQL Server, the next step is very easy. Here we create a CSV format dump file, which will contain all the data from all the tables from the SQL Server database. The command to do so is very similar to the above command. Be aware that this step may take a bit of time based on your database size. nuodb-migrator dump –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.type=csv –output.path=/tmp/dump.cat Once the above command is successfully executed you can find your CSV file in the C:\tmp\ folder. However, you do not have to do anything manually. The third and final step will take care of completing the migration process. Migration Step 3: Load the Data into NuoDB After building schema and taking a dump of the data, the very next step is essential and crucial. It will take the CSV file and load it into the NuoDB database. nuodb-migrator load –target.url=jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/mytest –target.schema=dbo –target.username=test –target.password=test –input.path=/tmp/dump.cat Please note that in the above script we are now targeting the NuoDB database, which we have already created with the name of “MyTest”. If the database does not exist, create it manually before executing the above script. I have kept the username and password as “test”, but please make sure that you create a more secure password for your database for security reasons. Voila!  You’re Done That’s it. You are done. It took 3 setup and 3 migration steps to migrate your SQL Server database to NuoDB.  You can now start exploring the database and build excellent, scale-out applications. In this blog post, I have done my best to come up with simple and easy process, which you can follow to migrate your app from SQL Server to NuoDB. Download NuoDB I strongly encourage you to download NuoDB and go through my 3-step migration tutorial from SQL Server to NuoDB. Additionally here are two very important blog post from NuoDB CTO Seth Proctor. He has written excellent blog posts on the concept of the Administrative Domains. NuoDB has this concept of an Administrative Domain, which is a collection of hosts that can run one or multiple databases.  Each database has its own TEs and SMs, but all are managed within the Admin Console for that particular domain. http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/11/getting-started-provisioning-a-domain/ http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/14/getting-started-running-a-database/ Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 06, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 06, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET MVC | SCAFFOLD: Add-in para Visual Studio 2008 que adiciona um poderoso scaffold para o ASP.NET MVC, com suporte ao Entity Framework.ASP.Net Permission Manager: This is an extension of ASP.Net Permission Manager that permission to roles.Babelfish.NET: Babelfish was created as a common framework for navigating several different node-to-node structured data sources, such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, X...CollaSuite: Collaboration Suite, Chat Client ServerdnyFramework: Denny FrameWorkDocxToHtml: DocxToHtmlDomain Driven Design and ASP.NET MVC 2 sample: It's a simple application ASP.NET MVC 2 with DDD modeling approach. It's about how to build maintainable applications applying DDD, IoC and infrast...DRP Address Book: A web based address book implementation using SQL Server 2008, ASP.NET, C#, and CSLA.NETFileSystemHelper SQL Server CLR: FileSystemHelper SQL Server CLR provides a collection of CLR stored procedures and functions for interacting with the file system. Using these sto...Foothill: This is an asp.net Web AppHouseFly controls: Controls for my upcomming app: HouseFlyiTunes Artwork App: This project is related to my iTunes Artwork App blog series. The application will automate the process of collecting album art for music tracks i...Logwiz - Automate the collection of Performance monitor logs using logman.exe: This tool is used to automate the process of collecting Performance monitoring data using the logman.exe on Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 2008 an...MailSharp - Beyond MailMessage: An easy-to-use library for .NET developers to send HTML formatted emails using templates with merge tags and embedded images instead of pointing at...MSTests.Fluently: MSTests.Fluently makes it easier for developers and testers to read and write tests with the Visual Studio Unit-Testing Framework. The Sentence-lik...openSIS dot net - Open Source SIS written in C#, built on dotnet 3.5 framework: openSIS dotnet is the dot net version of the popular openSIS Student Information System from OS4ED. This openSIS version is written in C# and is ba...PHP.net: PHP.net is a PHP IDE written in C# for Windows. The IDE will eventually be a complete standalone PHP development enviroment, including a developmen...Recommender System for Optus Website: <Recommender System for Optus Website>This project is trying to apply some recommeder system techniques to telecom company websites. This project ...Sendkeys: This is a tool for remote controlling any Windows Application.Shamil: Shamil WorkSite Directory for SharePoint 2010 (from Microsoft Consulting Services, UK): A solution which provides 'site directory' functionality for SharePoint 2010. Refer to [file:Solution Description|Microsoft.MCSUK.SPSiteDirectory...SPD Workflow action to add user to a security group: This is a custom SPD workflow step developed to facilitate the process of adding users from a list to the security group. Keep in mind this is run...Star Trooper for XNA 2D Tutorial: Source for the Star Trooper XNA 2d Tutorial on XNA-UK (www.XNA-UK.co.uk), including the full set of code and each phase of the tutorial. Additio...TFS WitAdminUI: Team Foundation Server 2010 RC WitAdmin simple application with UIWindows Phone 7 Panorama control: The Windows Phone 7 Panorama control is a sample implementation of a Silverlight control that allows to create "Hub" applications on Windows Phone ...Yulu: Yulu helps you maintain short quotations or your thoughts with your Windows Mobile phones.New ReleasesASP .NET MVC CMS (Content Management System): Atomic CMS 2.0: Atomic CMS 2.0 was released. Please visit http://atomiccms.com/ for download documentation, last release and get more information about Atomic CMS ...ASP.Net Permission Manager: Mal.Web.Security.dll v1.0.2.0: Mal.Web.Security.dll Relealse v1.0.2.0CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.48: The application now uses Windows Communication Foundation services. See Source Code tab for other recent changes.dotNetInstaller: setup bootstrapper for Windows: 1.10 (Development): Build 1.10.6588.0. Features - Added support for .exe setup components with an optional response file. - Added has_value_disabled option to user-de...Examine: RC 1: This is Examine RC1 release. It includes: Examine UmbracoExamine Lucene.Net 2.9.2Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.010: Improved the pentagone crazy quizFileSystemHelper SQL Server CLR: FileSystemHelper CLR Project: Source code for FileSystemHelper CLR assembly.GameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0.5-Logging: Added Logging functionality to track down bugs.iSun Shut - PC Auto Shutdown: iSun Shut 2.5: Relase Notes: -To properly view the source code please install DotNetBar 8.3 (http://www.devcomponents.com) -The Shutdown after firefox download f...LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.10: New items added since v1.1 include: Support for OAuth (via DotNetOpenAuth), secure communication via https, VB language support, serialization of ...MIC Pattern: !MIC Pattern DAL: Data Access Layer Este arquivo contem a DLL que faz acesso a dados e simplifica as operações de INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE e SELECT em bases de dados ...MVC Foolproof Validation: Alpha 0.1: Server side validation is stable. Client side validation is fairly stable aside from some border cases I hope to address soon. I’m actually using t...OpenGL ES 2.0 Compact Framework Wrapper: First binary release: CAB-installer for installing the sample application provided with the solution. Demonstrates a simple quad with rotation animation. Changes from l...patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance: SPG2010 Drop8: SharePoint Guidance Drop Notes Microsoft patterns and practices ****************************************** ***************************************...PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT - V3: The Beta Version 3 of the Programmable Software Development Environment features the random generator, longitudinal and cryptographic commands whi...RoTwee: RoTwee (9.0.0.0): New feature in this version : 17102 Tweet rotated count.SharePhone: SharePhone v.1.0.3: Added search functionality. Use clientContext.SearchProvider.Search(..) or clientContext.SearchProvider.KeywordSearch(..) A few examples here: ht...SharePoint Outlook Connector: Version 1.2.4.3: UI has been improved. Some bugs have been resolved.SPD Workflow action to add user to a security group: Version 1 custom workflow action: A custom SPD workflow step that automatically adds user to the correct security group, the user name can be driven from a list item or document li...SQL Server Metadata Toolkit 2008: SQL Server Metadata Toolkit Alpha 5: This release addresses the Issue 10567, which was a recursive view recursing more than 100 times. This was caused by the addition of SQL Parsing in...TFS WitAdminUI: WitAdminUI ver1.0: Download zip file and unzip to TFS2010 RC. And Excute WitAdminUI.exe. Because WitAdmin is made by .net v4.0 so I can't my application with MSI.TFTP Server: TFTP Server 1.0 Installer: Installer for the binary release of TFTP server v 1.0VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.1.0: Version 7.1.0 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.1.0 rel...WAFFLE: Windows Authentication Functional Framework (LE): 1.3 (Development): Build 1.3.9740.0. Features Added waffle-jna-auth.jar, native Java with JNA port. Misc Project upgraded to Visual Studio 2008.Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerASP.NET Ajax LibraryImage Resizer Powertoy Clone for WindowsSkype Voice ChangerAll-In-One Code FrameworkWindows Live Calendar GadgetMDownloaderWindows 7 USB/DVD Download ToolDroid ExplorerEnhSimMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.Facebook Developer ToolkitRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with PexFarseer Physics EngineNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NETIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• Why Fusion Middleware matters to Oracle Applications and Fusion Applications customers?

  - by Harish Gaur

  Did you miss this general session on Monday morning presented by Amit Zavery, VP of Oracle Fusion Middleware Product Management? There will be a recording made available shortly and in the meanwhile, here is a recap. Amit presented 5 strategies customers can leverage today to extend their applications. Figure 1: 5 Oracle Fusion Middleware strategies to extend Oracle Applications & Oracle Fusion Apps 1. Engage Everyone – Provide intuitive and social experience for application users using Oracle WebCenter 2. Extend Enterprise – Extend Oracle Applications to mobile devices using Oracle ADF Mobile 3. Orchestrate Processes – Automate key organization processes across on-premise & cloud applications using Oracle BPM Suite & Oracle SOA Suite 4. Secure the core – Provide single sign-on and self-service provisioning across multiple apps using Oracle Identity Management 5. Optimize Performance – Leverage Exalogic stack to consolidate multiple instance and improve performance of Oracle Applications Session included 3 demonstrations to illustrate these strategies. 1. First demo highlighted significance of mobile applications for unlocking existing investment in Applications such as EBS. Using a native iPhone application interacting with e-Business Suite, demo showed how expense approval can be mobile enabled with enhanced visibility using BI dashboards. 2. Second demo showed how you can extend a banking process in Siebel and Oracle Policy Automation with Oracle BPM Suite.Process starts in Siebel with a customer requesting a loan, and then jumps to OPA for loan recommendations and decision making and loan processing with approvals in handled in BPM Suite. Once approvals are completed Siebel is updated to complete the process. 3. Final demo showcased FMW components inside Fusion Applications, specifically WebCenter. Boeing, Underwriter Laboratories and Electronic Arts joined this quest and discussed 3 different approaches of leveraging Fusion Middleware stack to maximize their investment in Oracle Applications and/or Fusion Applications technology. Let’s briefly review what these customers shared during the session: 1. Extend Fusion Applications We know that Oracle Fusion Middleware is the underlying technology infrastructure for Oracle Fusion Applications. Architecturally, Oracle Fusion Apps leverages several components of Oracle Fusion Middleware from Oracle WebCenter for rich collaborative interface, Oracle SOA Suite & Oracle BPM Suite for orchestrating key underlying processes to Oracle BIEE for dash boarding and analytics. Boeing talked about how they are using Oracle BPM Suite 11g, a key component of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle Fusion Apps to transform their supply chain. Tim Murnin, Director of Supply Chain talked about Boeing’s 5 year supply chain transformation journey. Boeing’s Integrated and Information Management division began with automation of critical RFQ process using Oracle BPM Suite. This 1st phase resulted in 38% reduction in labor costs for RFP. As a next step in this effort, Boeing is now creating a platform to enable electronic Order Management. Fusion Apps are playing a significant role in this phase. Boeing has gone live with Oracle Fusion Product Hub and efforts are underway with Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). So, where does Oracle BPM Suite 11g fit in this equation? Let me explain. Business processes within Fusion Apps are designed using 2 standards: Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). These processes can be easily configured using declarative set of tools. Boeing leverages Oracle BPM Suite 11g (which supports BPMN 2.0) and Oracle SOA Suite (which supports BPEL) to “extend” these applications. Traditionally, customizations are done within an app using native technologies. But, instead of making process changes within Fusion Apps, Boeing has taken an approach of building “extensions” layer on top of the application. Fig 2: Boeing’s use of Oracle BPM Suite to orchestrate key supply chain processes across Fusion Apps 2. Maximize Oracle Applications investment Fusion Middleware appeals not only to Fusion Apps customers, but is also leveraged by Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards customers significantly. Using Oracle BPM Suite and Oracle SOA Suite is the recommended extension strategy for Oracle Fusion Apps and Oracle Applications Unlimited customers. Electronic Arts, E-Business Suite customer, spoke about their strategy to transform their order-to-cash process using Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Foundation Packs and Oracle BAM. Udesh Naicker, Sr Director of IT at Elecronic Arts (EA), discussed how growth of social and digital gaming had started to put tremendous pressure on EA’s existing IT infrastructure. He discussed the challenge with millions of micro-transactions coming from several sources – Microsoft Xbox, Paypal, several service providers. EA found Order-2-Cash processes stretched to their limits. They lacked visibility into these transactions across the entire value chain. EA began by consolidating their E-Business Suite R11 instances into single E-Business Suite R12. EA needed to cater to a variety of service requirements, connectivity methods, file formats, and information latency. Their integration strategy was tactical, i.e., using file uploads, TIBCO, SQL scripts. After consolidating E-Business suite, EA standardized their integration approach with Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle AIA Foundation Pack. Oracle SOA Suite is the platform used to extend E-Business Suite R12 and standardize 60+ interfaces across several heterogeneous systems including PeopleSoft, Demantra, SF.com, Workday, and Managed EDI services spanning on-premise, hosted and cloud applications. EA believes that Oracle SOA Suite 11g based extension strategy has helped significantly in the followings ways: - It helped them keep customizations out of E-Business Suite, thereby keeping EBS R12 vanilla and upgrade safe - Developers are now proficient in technology which is also leveraged by Fusion Apps. This has helped them prepare for adoption of Fusion Apps in the future Fig 3: Using Oracle SOA Suite & Oracle e-Business Suite, Electronic Arts built new platform for order processing 3. Consolidate apps and improve scalability Exalogic is an optimal platform for customers to consolidate their application deployments and enhance performance. Underwriter Laboratories talked about their strategy to run their mission critical applications including e-Business Suite on Exalogic. Christian Anschuetz, CIO of Underwriter Laboratories (UL) shared how UL is on a growth path - $1B to $2.5B in 5 years- and planning a significant business transformation from a not-for-profit to a for-profit business. To support this growth, UL is planning to simplify its IT environment and the deployment complexity associated with ERP applications and technology it runs on. Their current applications were deployed on variety of hardware platforms and lacked comprehensive disaster recovery architecture. UL embarked on a mission to deploy E-Business Suite on Exalogic. UL’s solution is unique because it is one of the first to deploy a large number of Oracle applications and related Fusion Middleware technologies (SOA, BI, Analytical Applications AIA Foundation Pack and AIA EBS to Siebel UCM prebuilt integration) on the combined Exalogic and Exadata environment. UL is planning to move to a virtualized architecture toward the end of 2012 to securely host external facing applications like iStore Fig 4: Underwrites Labs deployed e-Business Suite on Exalogic to achieve performance gains Key takeaways are: - Fusion Middleware platform is certified with major Oracle Applications Unlimited offerings. Fusion Middleware is the underlying technological infrastructure for Fusion Apps - Customers choose Oracle Fusion Middleware to extend their applications (Apps Unlimited or Fusion Apps) to keep applications upgrade safe and prepare for Fusion Apps - Exalogic is an optimum platform to consolidate applications deployments and enhance performance

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• Why Fusion Middleware matters to Oracle Applications and Fusion Applications customers?

  - by Harish Gaur

  Did you miss this general session on Monday morning presented by Amit Zavery, VP of Oracle Fusion Middleware Product Management? There will be a recording made available shortly and in the meanwhile, here is a recap. Amit presented 5 strategies customers can leverage today to extend their applications. Figure 1: 5 Oracle Fusion Middleware strategies to extend Oracle Applications & Oracle Fusion Apps 1. Engage Everyone – Provide intuitive and social experience for application users using Oracle WebCenter 2. Extend Enterprise – Extend Oracle Applications to mobile devices using Oracle ADF Mobile 3. Orchestrate Processes – Automate key organization processes across on-premise & cloud applications using Oracle BPM Suite & Oracle SOA Suite 4. Secure the core – Provide single sign-on and self-service provisioning across multiple apps using Oracle Identity Management 5. Optimize Performance – Leverage Exalogic stack to consolidate multiple instance and improve performance of Oracle Applications Session included 3 demonstrations to illustrate these strategies. 1. First demo highlighted significance of mobile applications for unlocking existing investment in Applications such as EBS. Using a native iPhone application interacting with e-Business Suite, demo showed how expense approval can be mobile enabled with enhanced visibility using BI dashboards. 2. Second demo showed how you can extend a banking process in Siebel and Oracle Policy Automation with Oracle BPM Suite.Process starts in Siebel with a customer requesting a loan, and then jumps to OPA for loan recommendations and decision making and loan processing with approvals in handled in BPM Suite. Once approvals are completed Siebel is updated to complete the process. 3. Final demo showcased FMW components inside Fusion Applications, specifically WebCenter. Boeing, Underwriter Laboratories and Electronic Arts joined this quest and discussed 3 different approaches of leveraging Fusion Middleware stack to maximize their investment in Oracle Applications and/or Fusion Applications technology. Let’s briefly review what these customers shared during the session: 1. Extend Fusion Applications We know that Oracle Fusion Middleware is the underlying technology infrastructure for Oracle Fusion Applications. Architecturally, Oracle Fusion Apps leverages several components of Oracle Fusion Middleware from Oracle WebCenter for rich collaborative interface, Oracle SOA Suite & Oracle BPM Suite for orchestrating key underlying processes to Oracle BIEE for dash boarding and analytics. Boeing talked about how they are using Oracle BPM Suite 11g, a key component of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle Fusion Apps to transform their supply chain. Tim Murnin, Director of Supply Chain talked about Boeing’s 5 year supply chain transformation journey. Boeing’s Integrated and Information Management division began with automation of critical RFQ process using Oracle BPM Suite. This 1st phase resulted in 38% reduction in labor costs for RFP. As a next step in this effort, Boeing is now creating a platform to enable electronic Order Management. Fusion Apps are playing a significant role in this phase. Boeing has gone live with Oracle Fusion Product Hub and efforts are underway with Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). So, where does Oracle BPM Suite 11g fit in this equation? Let me explain. Business processes within Fusion Apps are designed using 2 standards: Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). These processes can be easily configured using declarative set of tools. Boeing leverages Oracle BPM Suite 11g (which supports BPMN 2.0) and Oracle SOA Suite (which supports BPEL) to “extend” these applications. Traditionally, customizations are done within an app using native technologies. But, instead of making process changes within Fusion Apps, Boeing has taken an approach of building “extensions” layer on top of the application. Fig 2: Boeing’s use of Oracle BPM Suite to orchestrate key supply chain processes across Fusion Apps 2. Maximize Oracle Applications investment Fusion Middleware appeals not only to Fusion Apps customers, but is also leveraged by Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards customers significantly. Using Oracle BPM Suite and Oracle SOA Suite is the recommended extension strategy for Oracle Fusion Apps and Oracle Applications Unlimited customers. Electronic Arts, E-Business Suite customer, spoke about their strategy to transform their order-to-cash process using Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Foundation Packs and Oracle BAM. Udesh Naicker, Sr Director of IT at Elecronic Arts (EA), discussed how growth of social and digital gaming had started to put tremendous pressure on EA’s existing IT infrastructure. He discussed the challenge with millions of micro-transactions coming from several sources – Microsoft Xbox, Paypal, several service providers. EA found Order-2-Cash processes stretched to their limits. They lacked visibility into these transactions across the entire value chain. EA began by consolidating their E-Business Suite R11 instances into single E-Business Suite R12. EA needed to cater to a variety of service requirements, connectivity methods, file formats, and information latency. Their integration strategy was tactical, i.e., using file uploads, TIBCO, SQL scripts. After consolidating E-Business suite, EA standardized their integration approach with Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle AIA Foundation Pack. Oracle SOA Suite is the platform used to extend E-Business Suite R12 and standardize 60+ interfaces across several heterogeneous systems including PeopleSoft, Demantra, SF.com, Workday, and Managed EDI services spanning on-premise, hosted and cloud applications. EA believes that Oracle SOA Suite 11g based extension strategy has helped significantly in the followings ways: - It helped them keep customizations out of E-Business Suite, thereby keeping EBS R12 vanilla and upgrade safe - Developers are now proficient in technology which is also leveraged by Fusion Apps. This has helped them prepare for adoption of Fusion Apps in the future Fig 3: Using Oracle SOA Suite & Oracle e-Business Suite, Electronic Arts built new platform for order processing 3. Consolidate apps and improve scalability Exalogic is an optimal platform for customers to consolidate their application deployments and enhance performance. Underwriter Laboratories talked about their strategy to run their mission critical applications including e-Business Suite on Exalogic. Christian Anschuetz, CIO of Underwriter Laboratories (UL) shared how UL is on a growth path - $1B to $2.5B in 5 years- and planning a significant business transformation from a not-for-profit to a for-profit business. To support this growth, UL is planning to simplify its IT environment and the deployment complexity associated with ERP applications and technology it runs on. Their current applications were deployed on variety of hardware platforms and lacked comprehensive disaster recovery architecture. UL embarked on a mission to deploy E-Business Suite on Exalogic. UL’s solution is unique because it is one of the first to deploy a large number of Oracle applications and related Fusion Middleware technologies (SOA, BI, Analytical Applications AIA Foundation Pack and AIA EBS to Siebel UCM prebuilt integration) on the combined Exalogic and Exadata environment. UL is planning to move to a virtualized architecture toward the end of 2012 to securely host external facing applications like iStore Fig 4: Underwrites Labs deployed e-Business Suite on Exalogic to achieve performance gains Key takeaways are: - Fusion Middleware platform is certified with major Oracle Applications Unlimited offerings. Fusion Middleware is the underlying technological infrastructure for Fusion Apps - Customers choose Oracle Fusion Middleware to extend their applications (Apps Unlimited or Fusion Apps) to keep applications upgrade safe and prepare for Fusion Apps - Exalogic is an optimum platform to consolidate applications deployments and enhance performance TAGS: Fusion Apps, Exalogic, BPM Suite, SOA Suite, e-Business Suite Integration

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• Announcing Windows Azure Mobile Services

  - by ScottGu

  I’m excited to announce a new capability we are adding to Windows Azure today: Windows Azure Mobile Services Windows Azure Mobile Services makes it incredibly easy to connect a scalable cloud backend to your client and mobile applications.  It allows you to easily store structured data in the cloud that can span both devices and users, integrate it with user authentication, as well as send out updates to clients via push notifications. Today’s release enables you to add these capabilities to any Windows 8 app in literally minutes, and provides a super productive way for you to quickly build out your app ideas.  We’ll also be adding support to enable these same scenarios for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android devices soon. Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “Todo List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services.  Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step. Getting Started If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign up for a no-obligation Free Trial.  Once you are signed-up, click the “preview features” section under the “account” tab of the www.windowsazure.com website and enable your account to support the “Mobile Services” preview.   Instructions on how to enable this can be found here. Once you have the mobile services preview enabled, log into the Windows Azure Portal, click the “New” button and choose the new “Mobile Services” icon to create your first mobile backend.  Once created, you’ll see a quick-start page like below with instructions on how to connect your mobile service to an existing Windows 8 client app you have already started working on, or how to create and connect a brand-new Windows 8 client app with it: Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “Todo List” app  that stores data in Windows Azure. Storing Data in the Cloud Storing data in the cloud with Windows Azure Mobile Services is incredibly easy.  When you create a Windows Azure Mobile Service, we automatically associate it with a SQL Database inside Windows Azure.  The Windows Azure Mobile Service backend then provides built-in support for enabling remote apps to securely store and retrieve data from it (using secure REST end-points utilizing a JSON-based ODATA format) – without you having to write or deploy any custom server code.  Built-in management support is provided within the Windows Azure portal for creating new tables, browsing data, setting indexes, and controlling access permissions. This makes it incredibly easy to connect client applications to the cloud, and enables client developers who don’t have a server-code background to be productive from the very beginning.  They can instead focus on building the client app experience, and leverage Windows Azure Mobile Services to provide the cloud backend services they require.  Below is an example of client-side Windows 8 C#/XAML code that could be used to query data from a Windows Azure Mobile Service.  Client-side C# developers can write queries like this using LINQ and strongly typed POCO objects, which are then translated into HTTP REST queries that run against a Windows Azure Mobile Service.   Developers don’t have to write or deploy any custom server-side code in order to enable client-side code below to execute and asynchronously populate their client UI: Because Mobile Services is part of Windows Azure, developers can later choose to augment or extend their initial solution and add custom server functionality and more advanced logic if they want.  This provides maximum flexibility, and enables developers to grow and extend their solutions to meet any needs. User Authentication and Push Notifications Windows Azure Mobile Services also make it incredibly easy to integrate user authentication/authorization and push notifications within your applications.  You can use these capabilities to enable authentication and fine grain access control permissions to the data you store in the cloud, as well as to trigger push notifications to users/devices when the data changes.  Windows Azure Mobile Services supports the concept of “server scripts” (small chunks of server-side script that executes in response to actions) that make it really easy to enable these scenarios. Below are some tutorials that walkthrough common authentication/authorization/push scenarios you can do with Windows Azure Mobile Services and Windows 8 apps: Enabling User Authentication Authorizing Users  Get Started with Push Notifications Push Notifications to multiple Users Manage and Monitor your Mobile Service Just like with every other service in Windows Azure, you can monitor usage and metrics of your mobile service backend using the “Dashboard” tab within the Windows Azure Portal. The dashboard tab provides a built-in monitoring view of the API calls, Bandwidth, and server CPU cycles of your Windows Azure Mobile Service.   You can also use the “Logs” tab within the portal to review error messages.  This makes it easy to monitor and track how your application is doing. Scale Up as Your Business Grows Windows Azure Mobile Services now allows every Windows Azure customer to create and run up to 10 Mobile Services in a free, shared/multi-tenant hosting environment (where your mobile backend will be one of multiple apps running on a shared set of server resources).  This provides an easy way to get started on projects at no cost beyond the database you connect your Windows Azure Mobile Service to (note: each Windows Azure free trial account also includes a 1GB SQL Database that you can use with any number of apps or Windows Azure Mobile Services). If your client application becomes popular, you can click the “Scale” tab of your Mobile Service and switch from “Shared” to “Reserved” mode.  Doing so allows you to isolate your apps so that you are the only customer within a virtual machine.  This allows you to elastically scale the amount of resources your apps use – allowing you to scale-up (or scale-down) your capacity as your traffic grows: With Windows Azure you pay for compute capacity on a per-hour basis – which allows you to scale up and down your resources to match only what you need.  This enables a super flexible model that is ideal for new mobile app scenarios, as well as startups who are just getting going.  Summary I’ve only scratched the surface of what you can do with Windows Azure Mobile Services – there are a lot more features to explore.  With Windows Azure Mobile Services you’ll be able to build mobile app experiences faster than ever, and enable even better user experiences – by connecting your client apps to the cloud. Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Services development center to learn more, and build your first Windows 8 app connected with Windows Azure today.  And read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “Todo List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.”  (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.     

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• September Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) Regional Events:

  - by Mandy Ho

  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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} September 5, 2012 – Denver, CO Oracle 11g Database Upgrade Seminar Join Roy Swonger, Senior Director of software development at Oracle to learn about upgrading to Oracle Database 11g. Topics include: All the required preparatory steps Database upgrade strategies Post-upgrade performance analysis Helpful tips and common pitfalls to watch out for http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=152242&src=7598177&src=7598177&Act=4 September 6, 2012 – Salt Lake City, UT Fall Symposium 2012 Plan to join us for our annual fall event on Sept 6. They day will be filled with learning and networking with tracks focused on Applications, APEX, BI, Development and DBA Topics. This event is free for UTOUG members to attend, but please register. http://www.utoug.org/apex/f?p=972:2:6686308836668467::::P2_EVENT_ID:121 September 6, 2012 – Portland, OR Oracle’s Hands on Workshop Series focused on providing Defense-in-Depth Solutions to secure data at the source, reduce risk and simplify compliance The Oracle Database Security Workshop is a one-day hands-on session for IT Managers, IT Security Architects and Oracle DBAs who are looking for solutions to address their information protection, privacy, and accountability challenges within their Oracle database environment. Most security programs offered today fail toadequately address database security. Customers continue to be challenged tosecure information against loss and protect the integrity of sensitiveinformation like critical financial data, personally identifiable information(PII) and credit card data for PCI compliance. http://nwoug.org/content.aspx?page_id=87&club_id=165905&item_id=241082 September 11, 2012 – Montreal, QC APEXposed! For APEX aficionados – join ODTUG in Montreal, September 11-12 for APEXposed! Topics will include Dynamic Actions, Plug-ins, Tuning, and Building Mobile Apps. The cost is $399 US and early registration ends August 15th. For more information: http://www.odtugapextraining.com  September 11, 2012 – Philadelphia, PA Big Data & What are we still doing wrong with Tom Kyte Tom Kyte is a Senior Technical Architect in Oracle's Server Technology Division. Tom is the Tom behind the AskTom column in Oracle Magazine and is also the author of Expert Oracle Database Architecture (Apress, 2005/2009) among other books Abstract: Big Data The term "big data" draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there's a simple story. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. However, beyond that critical data is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and photographs that can be mined for useful information. This presentation will take a look at what Big Data is and means - and Oracle's strategy for handling it Abstract: What are we still doing wrong? I've given many best practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've given many worst practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've seen some things change over the last ten years and many other things stay exactly the same. In this talk - we'll be taking a look at the good and the bad - what we do right and what we continue to do wrong over and over again. We'll look at why "Why" is probably the right initial answer to most any question. We'll look at how we get to "Know what we Know", and why that can be both a help and a hindrance. We'll peek at "Best Practices" and tie them into what I term "Worst Practices". In short, a talk on the good and the bad. 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://ioug.itconvergence.com/pls/apex/f?p=207:27:3669516430980563::NO September 12, 2012- New York, NY NYOUG Fall General Meeting “Trends in Database Administration and Why the Future of Database Administration is the Vdba” http://www.nyoug.org/upcoming_events.htm#General_Meeting1 September 21, 2012 – Cleveland, OH Oracle Database 11g for Developers: What You need to know or Oracle Database 11g New Features for Developers Attendees are introduced to the new and improved features of Oracle 11g (both Oracle 11g R1 and Oracle 11g R2) that directly impact application development. Special emphasis is placed on features that reduce development time, make development simpler, improve performance, or speed deployment. Specific topics include: New SQL functions, virtual columns, result caching, XML improvements, pivot statements, JDBC improvements, and PL/SQL enhancements such as compound triggers. http://www.neooug.org/ September 24, 2012 – Ottawa, ON Introduction to Oracle Spatial The free Oracle Locator functionality, and the Oracle Spatial option which dramatically extends Locator, are very useful, but poorly understood capabilities of the database. In the afternoon we will extend into additional areas selected from: storage and performance; answering business problems with spatial queries; using Oracle Maps in OBIEE; an overview and capabilities of Oracle Topology; under the covers with GeoCoding. 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://www.oug-ottawa.org/pls/htmldb/f?p=327:27:4209274028390246::NO

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• Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine

  - by danx

  Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine Cryptography is a major component of secure e-commerce. Since cryptography is compute intensive and adds a significant load to applications, such as SSL web servers (https), crypto performance is an important factor. Providing accelerated crypto hardware greatly helps these applications and will help lead to a wider adoption of cryptography, and lower cost, in e-commerce and other applications. The Intel Westmere microprocessor has six new instructions to acclerate AES encryption. They are called "AESNI" for "AES New Instructions". These are unprivileged instructions, so no "root", other elevated access, or context switch is required to execute these instructions. These instructions are used in a new built-in OpenSSL 1.0 engine available in Solaris 11, the aesni engine. Previous Work Previously, AESNI instructions were introduced into the Solaris x86 kernel and libraries. That is, the "aes" kernel module (used by IPsec and other kernel modules) and the Solaris pkcs11 library (for user applications). These are available in Solaris 10 10/09 (update 8) and above, and Solaris 11. The work here is to add the aesni engine to OpenSSL. X86 AESNI Instructions Intel's Xeon 5600 is one of the processors that support AESNI. This processor is used in the Sun Fire X4170 M2 As mentioned above, six new instructions acclerate AES encryption in processor silicon. The new instructions are: aesenc performs one round of AES encryption. One encryption round is composed of these steps: substitute bytes, shift rows, mix columns, and xor the round key. aesenclast performs the final encryption round, which is the same as above, except omitting the mix columns (which is only needed for the next encryption round). aesdec performs one round of AES decryption aesdeclast performs the final AES decryption round aeskeygenassist Helps expand the user-provided key into a "key schedule" of keys, one per round aesimc performs an "inverse mixed columns" operation to convert the encryption key schedule into a decryption key schedule pclmulqdq Not a AESNI instruction, but performs "carryless multiply" operations to acclerate AES GCM mode. Since the AESNI instructions are implemented in hardware, they take a constant number of cycles and are not vulnerable to side-channel timing attacks that attempt to discern some bits of data from the time taken to encrypt or decrypt the data. Solaris x86 and OpenSSL Software Optimizations Having X86 AESNI hardware crypto instructions is all well and good, but how do we access it? The software is available with Solaris 11 and is used automatically if you are running Solaris x86 on a AESNI-capable processor. AESNI is used internally in the kernel through kernel crypto modules and is available in user space through the PKCS#11 library. For OpenSSL on Solaris 11, AESNI crypto is available directly with a new built-in OpenSSL 1.0 engine, called the "aesni engine." This is in lieu of the extra overhead of going through the Solaris OpenSSL pkcs11 engine, which accesses Solaris crypto and digest operations. Instead, AESNI assembly is included directly in the new aesni engine. Instead of including the aesni engine in a separate library in /lib/openssl/engines/, the aesni engine is "built-in", meaning it is included directly in OpenSSL's libcrypto.so.1.0.0 library. This reduces overhead and the need to manually specify the aesni engine. Since the engine is built-in (that is, in libcrypto.so.1.0.0), the openssl -engine command line flag or API call is not needed to access the engine—the aesni engine is used automatically on AESNI hardware. Ciphers and Digests supported by OpenSSL aesni engine The Openssl aesni engine auto-detects if it's running on AESNI hardware and uses AESNI encryption instructions for these ciphers: AES-128-CBC, AES-192-CBC, AES-256-CBC, AES-128-CFB128, AES-192-CFB128, AES-256-CFB128, AES-128-CTR, AES-192-CTR, AES-256-CTR, AES-128-ECB, AES-192-ECB, AES-256-ECB, AES-128-OFB, AES-192-OFB, and AES-256-OFB. Implementation of the OpenSSL aesni engine The AESNI assembly language routines are not a part of the regular Openssl 1.0.0 release. AESNI is a part of the "HEAD" ("development" or "unstable") branch of OpenSSL, for future release. But AESNI is also available as a separate patch provided by Intel to the OpenSSL project for OpenSSL 1.0.0. A minimal amount of "glue" code in the aesni engine works between the OpenSSL libcrypto.so.1.0.0 library and the assembly functions. The aesni engine code is separate from the base OpenSSL code and requires patching only a few source files to use it. That means OpenSSL can be more easily updated to future versions without losing the performance from the built-in aesni engine. OpenSSL aesni engine Performance Here's some graphs of aesni engine performance I measured by running openssl speed -evp $algorithm where $algorithm is aes-128-cbc, aes-192-cbc, and aes-256-cbc. These are using the 64-bit version of openssl on the same AESNI hardware, a Sun Fire X4170 M2 with a Intel Xeon E5620 @2.40GHz, running Solaris 11 FCS. "Before" is openssl without the aesni engine and "after" is openssl with the aesni engine. The numbers are MBytes/second. OpenSSL aesni engine performance on Sun Fire X4170 M2 (Xeon E5620 @2.40GHz) (Higher is better; "before"=OpenSSL on AESNI without AESNI engine software, "after"=OpenSSL AESNI engine) As you can see the speedup is dramatic for all 3 key lengths and for data sizes from 16 bytes to 8 Kbytes—AESNI is about 7.5-8x faster over hand-coded amd64 assembly (without aesni instructions). Verifying the OpenSSL aesni engine is present The easiest way to determine if you are running the aesni engine is to type "openssl engine" on the command line. No configuration, API, or command line options are needed to use the OpenSSL aesni engine. If you are running on Intel AESNI hardware with Solaris 11 FCS, you'll see this output indicating you are using the aesni engine: intel-westmere $ openssl engine (aesni) Intel AES-NI engine (no-aesni) (dynamic) Dynamic engine loading support (pkcs11) PKCS #11 engine support If you are running on Intel without AESNI hardware you'll see this output indicating the hardware can't support the aesni engine: intel-nehalem $ openssl engine (aesni) Intel AES-NI engine (no-aesni) (dynamic) Dynamic engine loading support (pkcs11) PKCS #11 engine support For Solaris on SPARC or older Solaris OpenSSL software, you won't see any aesni engine line at all. Third-party OpenSSL software (built yourself or from outside Oracle) will not have the aesni engine either. Solaris 11 FCS comes with OpenSSL version 1.0.0e. The output of typing "openssl version" should be "OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011". 64- and 32-bit OpenSSL OpenSSL comes in both 32- and 64-bit binaries. 64-bit executable is now the default, at /usr/bin/openssl, and OpenSSL 64-bit libraries at /lib/amd64/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 and libssl.so.1.0.0 The 32-bit executable is at /usr/bin/i86/openssl and the libraries are at /lib/libcrytpo.so.1.0.0 and libssl.so.1.0.0. Availability The OpenSSL AESNI engine is available in Solaris 11 x86 for both the 64- and 32-bit versions of OpenSSL. It is not available with Solaris 10. You must have a processor that supports AESNI instructions, otherwise OpenSSL will fallback to the older, slower AES implementation without AESNI. Processors that support AESNI include most Westmere and Sandy Bridge class processor architectures. Some low-end processors (such as for mobile/laptop platforms) do not support AESNI. The easiest way to determine if the processor supports AESNI is with the isainfo -v command—look for "amd64" and "aes" in the output: $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu Conclusion The Solaris 11 OpenSSL aesni engine provides easy access to powerful Intel AESNI hardware cryptography, in addition to Solaris userland PKCS#11 libraries and Solaris crypto kernel modules.

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• How to configure VPN in Windows XP

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  VPN Overview A VPN is a private network created over a public one. It’s done with encryption, this way, your data is encapsulated and secure in transit – this creates the ‘virtual’ tunnel. A VPN is a method of connecting to a private network by a public network like the Internet. An internet connection in a company is common. An Internet connection in a Home is common too. With both of these, you could create an encrypted tunnel between them and pass traffic, safely - securely. If you want to create a VPN connection you will have to use encryption to make sure that others cannot intercept the data in transit while traversing the Internet. Windows XP provides a certain level of security by using Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) or Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). They are both considered tunneling protocols – simply because they create that virtual tunnel just discussed, by applying encryption. Configure a VPN with XP If you want to configure a VPN connection from a Windows XP client computer you only need what comes with the Operating System itself, it's all built right in. To set up a connection to a VPN, do the following: 1. On the computer that is running Windows XP, confirm that the connection to the Internet is correctly configured. • You can try to browse the internet • Ping a known host on the Internet, like yahoo.com, something that isn’t blocking ICMP 2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 3. In Control Panel, double click Network Connections 4. Click Create a new connection in the Network Tasks task pad 5. In the Network Connection Wizard, click Next. 6. Click Connect to the network at my workplace, and then click Next. 7. Click Virtual Private Network connection, and then click Next. 8. If you are prompted, you need to select whether you will use a dialup connection or if you have a dedicated connection to the Internet either via Cable, DSL, T1, Satellite, etc. Click Next. 9. Type a host name, IP or any other description you would like to appear in the Network Connections area. You can change this later if you want. Click Next. 10. Type the host name or the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that you want to connect to, and then click Next. 11. You may be asked if you want to use a Smart Card or not. 12. You are just about done, the rest of the screens just verify your connection, click Next. 13. Click to select the Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop check box if you want one, if not, then leave it unchecked and click finish. 14. You are now done making your connection, but by default, it may try to connect. You can either try the connection now if you know its valid, if not, then just close it down for now. 15. In the Network Connections window, right-click the new connection and select properties. Let’s take a look at how you can customize this connection before it’s used. 16. The first tab you will see if the General Tab. This only covers the name of the connection, which you can also rename from the Network Connection dialog box by right clicking the connection and selecting to rename it. You can also configure a First connect, which means that Windows can connect the public network (like the Internet) before starting to attempt the ‘VPN’ connection. This is a perfect example as to when you would have configured the dialup connection; this would have been the first thing that you would have to do. It's simple, you have to be connected to the Internet first before you can encrypt and send data over it. This setting makes sure that this is a reality for you. 17. The next tab is the Options Tab. It is The Options tab has a lot you can configure in it. For one, you have the option to connect to a Windows Domain, if you select this check box (unchecked by default), then your VPN client will request Windows logon domain information while starting to work up the VPN connection. Also, you have options here for redialing. Redial attempts are configured here if you are using a dial up connection to get to the Internet. It is very handy to redial if the line is dropped as dropped lines are very common. 18. The next tab is the Security Tab. This is where you would configure basic security for the VPN client. This is where you would set any advanced IPSec configurations other security protocols as well as requiring encryption and credentials. 19. The next tab is the Networking Tab. This is where you can select what networking items are used by this VPN connection. 20. The Last tab is the Advanced Tab. This is where you can configure options for configuring a firewall, and/or sharing. Connecting to Corporate Now that you have your XP VPN client all set up and ready, the next step is to attempt a connection to the Remote Access or VPN server set up at the corporate office. To use the connection follow these simple steps. To open the client again, go back to the Network Connections dialog box. 1. One you are in the Network Connection dialog box, double-click, or right click and select ‘Connect’ from the menu – this will initiate the connection to the corporate office. 2. Type your user name and password, and then click Connect. Properties bring you back to what we just discussed in this article, all the global settings for the VPN client you are using. 3. To disconnect from a VPN connection, right-click the icon for the connection, and then click “Disconnect” Summary In this article we covered the basics of building a VPN connection using Windows XP. This is very handy when you have a VPN device but don’t have the ‘client’ that may come with it. If the VPN Server doesn’t use highly proprietary protocols, then you can use the XP client to connect with. In a future article I will get into the nuts and bolts of both IPSec and more detail on how to configure the advanced options in the Security tab of this client. 678: The remote computer did not respond. 930: The authentication server did not respond to authentication requests in a timely fashion. 800: Unable to establish the VPN connection. 623: The system could not find the phone book entry for this connection. 720: A connection to the remote computer could not be established. More on : http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Configure-VPN-Connection-Windows-XP.html

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 23, 2010New Projects.NET StarCraft II Replay Parser: A .NET 3.5 Library used to parse StarCraft II replays. Developed in C# 3.5.BackToBasics "B2B" Chat: With technology and software getting more and more complicated, why not get back to basics with BackToBasicsChat. B2B allows you to chat over a ser...Dark Neuron Game Engine: Dark Neuron allows you to easily create fun and interesting games with no need of developing basic game components. This engine is developed for C#...DeepZoom Pivot Constructor: Library to make building DeepZoom images and Pivot displays simpler.ePaper reader: The project is aimed at creating a tool which helps in reading electronic editions of news papers(pdf/flash)FSharpPageProvider for EPiServer CMS 6: This project starts as the port of EPiServer XmlPageProvider to F# programming language. Hammock for REST: Hammock is a REST library for .NET that greatly simplifies consuming and wrapping RESTful services.Kirill Osenkov: Various small projects, tools, utilities and samples by Kirill OsenkovliveDB: liveDB - web client for sql serverLucilla Framework: lucilla frameworkMVC Foolproof Validation: MVC Foolproof Validation aims to extend the Data Annotation validation provided in ASP.NET MVC. Initial efforts are focused on adding contingent va...MVC2Forums: MVC2Forums is simply a forum system based upon MVC2.Mvvm Foundation Silverlight: Mvvm Foundation Silverlight is a library of classes that are helpful when building Silverlight applications based in the MVVM pattern. This librar...MyPersonalWebsite: This is my personal web site developed using ASP.NET MVC 2Planner: Planner makes it easier for all peoples to plan your tasks. It's developed in Delphi.Prose: Prose is an playground for an experimental JavaScript like language compiler. Eventually it will implement 0-CFA, CFA2, and a Tracing JITQuestTracker: QuestTracker is a todo list presented in the format of a quest tracking list such as the one in World of Warcraft.SevenZipLib: SevenZipLib is a C# interface to the 7-zip library.SimpleGeo .Net: .Net Client library for the SimpleGeo.com serviceNew ReleasesAutenticar no OpenLDAP utilizando pGIna: DLL LDAPAuth Plus: New Group: No LoginBMap.NET: BMap.NET 2: This is the 2nd version of BMap.NET. It has included these tags: Bing Maps, and "About BMap.NET".Cronos: Version 2.04: This is primarily a bug-fix release. Several numerical issues have been resolved, and a resource leak (of MS Windows graphics objects) has been fi...EV Dashboard: v1.0: This release includes support for an App.config file and Auto Connect, which will connect to the specified BMS at startup. Note: You still have to ...GKO Libraries: GKO Libraries 0.1 Beta: 0.1 Beta Added More utilities and functions RefactoringsGLB Virtual Player Builder: 0.4.2 Beta: Beta build that includes a new player creator.HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003222215): New features: (None) Bug fix: Fixed bugs of unable to parse XML file stream returned from HKGolden API, as the encoding of XML file stream chang...jQuery Web Controls ASP.Net: jQueryWebControls 1.1.1.2: En esta versión se han corregido problemas existentes en la ejecución de los scripts de jquery cuando se utilizaban MasterPage y/o Ajax Control Too...LightKit: Version 0.2.2: Fixed: fixed bug when CollectionItemsEditor ditermines IsChanged property incorrectly fixed ObjectEditor`a thisstring propertyName method wrong l...LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.8: New items added since v1.1 include: Support for OAuth (via DotNetOpenAuth), secure communication via https, VB language support, serialization of ...MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 22): This version fixes the icons for the desktop installer and changes the install directory to Program Files\MapWindow instead of Program Files\ISU.Math.NET Numerics: 2010.3.22.1334 Build: Latest alpha buildMiniCalendar Web Part: MiniCalendar Web Part 1.8: A small web part to display links to events stored in a list (or document library) in a mini calendar (in month view mode). It shows tooltips for t...OCInject: Release Two: This release brings some missing features such as Singleton support, Func<T> factories and child containers. It, also, has an updated constructor ...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (March 2010): Installer of the latest binaries of Phalanger 2.0 (March 2010) and its integration into Visual Studio 2008. Easy installer with automatic IIS int...Planner: Planner: firstQuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1: This is the preliminary release of QuestTracker. There's not much documentation or many features yet, but it is functional. Any feedback would be a...QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1.1: Bugfix for QuestTracker 0.1QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1.2: Fixes an issue with saving the quest list.Rawr: Rawr 2.3.13: We're pleased to announce that, after long last, Rawr3 has entered public beta. You're still welcome to continue using Rawr2 (that's what you're re...Single Web Session: Alpha Model Plugin: !How to use Single Web Session add following line into your web config <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.W...SMIL - SharePoint Map Integration Layer: SMIL 1.0: Custom data field Extracts Lat/Lon from EXIF from images being uploaded. Map Web Part Filter with SharePoint views Filter by connecting to...sTASKedit: sTASKedit 42532 (Developer Alpha): This release is only to verify the currently decoded task structure... Supported files: tasks.data (v1.3.6 client)VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30322.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Advanced Notepad (Visual C++ 2008): An notepad written in c that can save in a rich text file format.Wallpaper Rotator: Wallpaper Rotator 0.5: Wallpaper Rotator 0.5 This version includes the following improvements: Saving the choice of "Random Order (Shuffle Mode)" Updating the configu...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETLINQ to TwitterPHPExcelFarseer Physics EngineFacebook Developer ToolkitNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Modulepatterns & practices: Composite WPF and SilverlightN2 CMS

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• Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM by Brian Mozinski (Accenture)

  - by Greg Jensen

  Today, technical requirements for IAM are evolving rapidly, and the bar is continuously raised for high performance IAM solutions as organizations look to roll out high volume use cases on the back of legacy systems.  Existing solutions were often designed and architected to support offline transactions and manual processes, and the business owners today demand globally scalable infrastructure to support the growth their business cases are expected to deliver. To help IAM practitioners address these challenges and make their organizations and themselves more successful, this series we will outline the: • Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM The explosive growth in expectations for IAM infrastructure, and the business cases they support to gain investment in new security programs. • "Necessity is the mother of invention": Technical solutions developed in the field Well proven tricks of the trade, used by IAM guru’s to maximize your solution while addressing the requirements of global organizations. • The Art & Science of Performance Tuning of Oracle IAM 11gR2 Real world examples of performance tuning with Oracle IAM • No Where to go but up: Extending the benefits of accelerated IAM Anything is possible, compelling new solutions organizations are unlocking with accelerated Oracle IAM Let’s get started … by talking about the changing dynamics driving these discussions. Big Companies are getting bigger everyday, and increasingly organizations operate across state lines, multiple times zones, and in many countries or continents at the same time.  No longer is midnight to 6am a safe time to take down the system for upgrades, to run recon’s and import or update user accounts and attributes.  Further IT organizations are operating as shared services with SLA’s similar to telephone carrier levels expected by their “clients”.  Workers are moved in and out of roles on a weekly, daily, or even hourly rate and IAM is expected to support those rapid changes.  End users registering for services during business hours in Singapore are expected their access to be green-lighted in custom apps hosted in Portugal within the hour.  Many of the expectations of asynchronous systems and batched updates are not adequate and the number and types of users is growing. When organizations acted more like independent teams at functional or geographic levels it was manageable to have processes that relied on a handful of people who knew how to make things work …. Knew how to get you access to the key systems to get your job done.  Today everyone is expected to do more with less, the finance administrator previously supporting their local Atlanta sales office might now be asked to help close the books for the Johannesburg team, and access certification process once completed monthly by Joan on the 3rd floor is now done by a shared pool of resources in Sao Paulo.   Fragmented processes that rely on institutional knowledge to get access to systems and get work done quickly break down in these scenarios.  Highly robust processes that have automated workflows for connected or disconnected systems give organizations the dynamic flexibility to share work across these lines and cut costs or increase productivity. As the IT industry computing paradigms continue to change with the passing of time, and as mature or proven approaches become clear, it is normal for organizations to adjust accordingly. Businesses must manage identity in an increasingly hybrid world in which legacy on-premises IAM infrastructures are extended or replaced to support more and more interconnected and interdependent services to a wider range of users. The old legacy IAM implementation models we had relied on to manage identities no longer apply. End users expect to self-request access to services from their tablet, get supervisor approval over mobile devices and email, and launch the application even if is hosted on the cloud, or run by a partner, vendor, or service provider. While user expectations are higher, they are also simpler … logging into custom desktop apps to request approvals, or going through email or paper based processes for certification is unacceptable.  Users expect security to operate within the paradigm of the application … i.e. feel like the application they are using. Citizen and customer facing applications have evolved from every where, with custom applications, 3rd party tools, and merging in from acquired entities or 3rd party OEM’s resold to expand your portfolio of services.  These all have their own user stores, authentication models, user lifecycles, session management, etc.  Often the designers/developers are no longer accessible and the documentation is limited.  Bringing together underlying directories to scale for growth, and improve user experience is critical for revenue … but also for operations. Job functions are more dynamic.... take the Olympics for example.  Endless organizations from corporations broadcasting, endorsing, or marketing through the event … to non-profit athletic foundations and public/government entities for athletes and public safety, all operate simultaneously on the world stage.  Each organization needs to spin up short-term teams, often dealing with proprietary information from hot ads to racing strategies or security plans.  IAM is expected to enable team’s to spin up, enable new applications, protect privacy, and secure critical infrastructure.  Then it needs to be disabled just as quickly as users go back to their previous responsibilities. On a more technical level … Optimized system directory; tuning guidelines and parameters are needed by businesses today. Business’s need to be making the right choices (virtual directories) and considerations via choosing the correct architectural patterns (virtual, direct, replicated, and tuning), challenge is that business need to assess and chose the correct architectural patters (centralized, virtualized, and distributed) Today's Business organizations have very complex heterogeneous enterprises that contain diverse and multifaceted information. With today's ever changing global landscape, the strategic end goal in challenging times for business is business agility. The business of identity management requires enterprise's to be more agile and more responsive than ever before. The continued proliferation of networking devices (PC, tablet, PDA's, notebooks, etc.) has caused the number of devices and users to be granted access to these devices to grow exponentially. Business needs to deploy an IAM system that can account for the demands for authentication and authorizations to these devices. Increased innovation is forcing business and organizations to centralize their identity management services. Access management needs to handle traditional web based access as well as handle new innovations around mobile, as well as address insufficient governance processes which can lead to rouge identity accounts, which can then become a source of vulnerabilities within a business’s identity platform. Risk based decisions are providing challenges to business, for an adaptive risk model to make proper access decisions via standard Web single sign on for internal and external customers,. Organizations have to move beyond simple login and passwords to address trusted relationship questions such as: Is this a trusted customer, client, or citizen? Is this a trusted employee, vendor, or partner? Is this a trusted device? Without a solid technological foundation, organizational performance, collaboration, constituent services, or any other organizational processes will languish. A Single server location presents not only network concerns for distributed user base, but identity challenges. The network risks are centered on latency of the long trip that the traffic has to take. Other risks are a performance around availability and if the single identity server is lost, all access is lost. As you can see, there are many reasons why performance tuning IAM will have a substantial impact on the success of your organization.  In our next installment in the series we roll up our sleeves and get into detailed tuning techniques used everyday by thought leaders in the field implementing Oracle Identity & Access Management Solutions.

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• La Universidad Estatal de California estandariza 23 campus a través de Oracle PeopleSoft

  - by Noelia Gomez

  Normal 0 21 false false false ES 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-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} El sistema universitario más grande de los Estados Unidos consolida la Gestión Financiera y consolidará la gestión del capital humano para mejorar la eficiencia y reducir los costes. Normal 0 21 false false false ES 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-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} La Universidad Estatal de California (CSU) está estandarizando su sistema de 23 campus y la Oficina del Rector con las aplicaciones de Oracle PeopleSoft. La CSU es el mayor sistema universitario público en los Estados Unidos. Los premios CSU con 90.000 grados por año y desde su creación en 1961, ha otorgado casi 2,6 millones. Como parte de su plan estratégico, “Acces to Excellence”, la CSU se ha comprometido a tomar ventaja de la tecnología para satisfacer las futuras necesidades de educación y ha creado los Sistemas Comunes de Gestión (CMS). La misión de CMS es brindar un servicio de calidad eficiente, eficaz y de calidad a los estudiantes, profesores y personal de los 23 campus de la CSU y la Oficina del Decanato. En un esfuerzo por mejorar la eficiencia y reducir los costes de todo el sistema, la CSU ha consolidado sus procesos de gestión financiera y los sistemas a través de PeopleSoft Financial Management. Para proporcionar una visión unificada de las operaciones financieras, CSU ha consolidado 22 campus en un mismo sistema a través de PeopleSoft Financials. Estas aplicaciones incluyen: Contabilidad, Facturación, Cuentas a Pagar, Cuentas a Cobrar y Compras. CSU también utiliza Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition para el análisis y presentación de informes. CSU está consolidando en PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) en pos de varios objetivos estratégicos como, entre otros: atraer y retener al personal superior y de la facultad. El sistema financiero consolidad de la CSU es ahora el mayor despliegue único de educación superior de PeopleSoft Financials en los Estados Unidos. Una centralización de esta envergadura no tiene precedentes, y sin embargo todavía se completó a tiempo y dentro del presupuesto. Una vez completado, la CSU también será el mayor despliegue de educación superior de PeopleSoft HCM. CSU también utiliza PeopleSoft Campus Solutions para gestionar sus operaciones académicas de los estudiantes, incluyendo la programación y registro de clases, cálculo y recaudación de las tasas, la concesión de la ayuda financiera y la evaluación y el progreso académico de los estudiantes. Las aplicaciones de Oracle PeopleSoft están diseñadas para atender las necesidades de negocio más complejas. Estas proveen soluciones integrales de negocios y de industria, permitiendo a las organizaciones aumentar la productividad, acelerar el rendimiento del negocio y un menor coste total de propiedad.PeopleSoft de Oracle Campus Solutions es una completa suite de software diseñado para las necesidades cambiantes de las instituciones de educación superior. Oracle sigue colaborando con la CSU y los colegios y universidades de todo el mundo para ofrecer los sistemas de administración y desarrollo de estudiantes más sensible y comprensivo y disponibles en la actualidad. Unisys está implantando aplicaciones PeopleSoft CSU y facilitando el acceso a los estudiantes, profesores y personal de las universidades a través de la solución de Unisys Hosted Secure Private Cloud. Unisys es un miembro de nivel Platino de Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). "Con el fin de seguir cumpliendo los objetivos de nuestro plan estratégico, creemos que es fundamental para estandarizar nuestros procesos operativos - tanto en el back office como allí donde lleguen nuestros estudiantes todos los días - maximizar nuestra inversión en tecnología y reducir costes", dijo Larry Furukawa-Schlereth, Director de Finanzas, Sonoma State University, y presidente del Comité Global Ejecutivo de Gestión de la CSU, California State University. "Contar con una vista única de toda la información importante en un sistema ayuda a la Universidad Estatal de California a continuar ofreciendo excelentes oportunidades de educación a un coste asequible mientras ayudamos a dar forma a la futura calidad de vida cívica y económica en California". Conozca más sobre Peoplesoft aquí: Normal 0 21 false false false ES 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-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Oracle’s PeopleSoft Applications Oracle in Higher Education Oracle’s PeopleSoft Financial Management Oracle’s PeopleSoft Human Capital Management Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Oracle Human Capital Management Blog Oracle HCM on Twitter Oracle Higher Education on Facebook Oracle Higher Education on Diigo

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• Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business - Q&A from the Webcast

  - by [email protected]

  A few weeks ago, Vince Casarez and I presented with KMWorld on the Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business. It was an enjoyable, interactive webcast in which Vince and I discussed the ways Enterprise 2.0 can transform your business and more importantly, highlighted key customer examples of how to do so. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay here. We had a lot of audience participation in some of the polls we conducted and in the Q&A session. We weren't able to address all of the questions during the broadcast, so we attempted to answer them here: Q: Which area within your firm focuses on Web 2.0? Meaning, do you find new departments developing just to manage the web 2.0 (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) user experience or are you structuring current departments? A: There are three distinct efforts within Oracle. The first is around delivery of these Web 2.0 services for enterprise deployments. This is the focus of the WebCenter team. The second effort is injecting these Web 2.0 services into use cases that drive the different enterprise applications. This effort is focused on how to manage these external services and bring them into a cohesive flow for marketing programs, customer care, and purchasing. The third effort is how we consume these services internally to enhance Oracle's business delivery. It leverages the technologies and use cases of the first two but also pushes the envelope with regards to future directions of these other two areas. Q: In a business, Web 2.0 is mostly like action logs. How can we leverage the official process practice versus the logs of a recent action? Example: a system configuration modified last night on a call out versus the official practice that everybody would use in the morning.A: The key thing to remember is that most Web 2.0 actions / activity streams today are based on collaboration and communication type actions. At least with public social sites like Facebook and Twitter. What we're delivering as part of the WebCenter Suite are not just these types of activities but also enterprise application activities. These enterprise application activities come from different application modules: purchasing, HR, order entry, sales opportunity, etc. The actions within these systems are normally tied to a business object or process: purchase order/customer, employee or department, customer and supplier, customer and product, respectively. Therefore, the activities or "logs" as you name them are able to be "typed" so that as a viewer, you can filter or decide to see only certain types of information. In your example, you could have a view that only showed you recent "configuration" changes and this could be right next to a view that showed off the items to be watched every morning. Q: It's great to hear about customers using the software but is there any plan for future webinars to show what the products/installs look like? That would be very helpful.A: We don't have a webinar planned to show off the install process. However, we have a viewlet that's posted on Oracle Technology Network. You can see it here:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/testcontent/wcs-install-098014.htmlAnd we've got excellent documentation that walks you through the steps here:http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/install.1111/e12001/install.htmAnd there's a whole set of demos and examples of what WebCenter can do at this URL:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/webcenter/release11-demos-097468.html Q: How do you anticipate managing metadata across the enterprise to make content findable?A: We need to first make sure we are all talking about the same thing when we use a word like "metadata". Here's why...  For a developer, metadata means information that describes key elements of the portal or application and what the portal or application can do. For content systems, metadata means key terms that provide a taxonomy or folksonomy about the information that is being indexed, ordered, and managed. For business intelligence systems, metadata means key terms that provide labels to groups of data that most non-mathematicians need to understand. And for SOA, metadata means labels for parts of the processes that business owners should understand that connect development terminology. There are also additional requirements for metadata to be available to the team building these new solutions as well as requirements to make this metadata available to the running system. These requirements are often separated by "design time" and "run time" respectively. So clearly, a general goal of managing metadata across the enterprise is very challenging. We've invested a huge amount of resources around Oracle Metadata Services (MDS) to be able to provide a more generic system for all of these elements. No other vendor has anything like this technology foundation in their products. This provides a huge benefit to our customers as they will now be able to find content, processes, people, and information from a common set of search interfaces with consistent enterprise wide results. Q: Can you give your definition of terms as to document and content, please?A: Content applies to a broad category of information from Word documents, presentations and reports through attachments to invoices and/or purchase orders. Content is essentially any type of digital asset including images, video, and voice. A document is just one type of content. Q: Do you have special integration tools to realize an interaction between UCM and WebCenter Spaces/Services?A: Yes, we've dedicated a whole team of engineers to exploit the key features of Oracle UCM within WebCenter.  While ensuring that WebCenter can connect to other non-Oracle systems, we've made sure that with the combined set of Oracle technology, no other solution can match the combined power and integration.  This is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware strategy which is to provide best in class capabilities for Content and Portals.  When combined together, the synergy between the two products enables users to quickly add capabilities when they are needed.  For example, simple document sharing is part of the combined product offering, but if legal discovery or archiving is required, Oracle UCM product includes these capabilities that can be quickly added.  There's no need to move content around or add another system to support this, it's just a feature that gets turned on within Oracle UCM. Q: All customers have some interaction with their applications and have many older versions, how do you see some of these new Enterprise 2.0 capabilities adding value to existing enterprise application deployments?A: Just as Service Oriented Architectures allowed for connecting the processes of different applications systems to work together, there's a need for a similar approach with regards to these enterprise 2.0 capabilities. Oracle WebCenter is built on a core architecture that allows for SOA of these Enterprise 2.0 services so that one set of scalable services can be used and integrated directly into any type of application. In this way, users can get immediate value out of the Enterprise 2.0 capabilities without having to wait for the next major release or upgrade. These centrally managed WebCenter services expose a set of standard interfaces that make it extremely easy to add them into existing applications no matter what technology the application has been implemented. Q: We've heard about Oracle Next Generation applications called "Fusion Applications", can you tell me how all this works together?A: Oracle WebCenter powers the core collaboration and social computing services found within Fusion Applications. It is the core user experience technology for how all the application screens have been implemented. And the core concept of task flows allows for all the Fusion Applications modules to be adaptable and composable by business users and IT without needing to be a professional developer. Oracle WebCenter is at the heart of the new Fusion Applications. In addition, the same patterns and technologies are now being added to the existing applications including JD Edwards, Siebel, Peoplesoft, and eBusiness Suite. The core technology enables all these customers to have a much smoother upgrade path to Fusion Applications. They get immediate benefits of injecting new user interactions into their existing applications without having to completely move to Fusion Applications. And then when the time comes, their users will already be well versed in how the new capabilities work. Q: Does any of this work with non Oracle software? Other databases? Other application servers? etc.A: We have made sure that Oracle WebCenter delivers the broadest set of development choices so that no matter what technology you developers are using, WebCenter capabilities can be quickly and easily added to the site or application. In addition, we have certified Oracle WebCenter to run against non-Oracle databases like DB2 and SQLServer. We have stated plans for certification against MySQL as well. Later in CY 2011, Oracle will provide certification on non-Oracle application servers such as WebSphere and JBoss. Q: How do we balance User and IT requirements in regards to Enterprise 2.0 technologies?A: Wrong decisions are often made because employee knowledge is not tapped efficiently and opportunities to innovate are often missed because the right people do not work together. Collaboration amongst workers in the right business context is critical for success. While standalone Enterprise 2.0 technologies can improve collaboration for collaboration's sake, using social collaboration tools in the context of business applications and processes will improve business responsiveness and lead companies to a more competitive position. As these systems become more mission critical it is essential that they maintain the highest level of performance and availability while scaling to support larger communities. Q: What are the ways in which Enterprise 2.0 can improve business responsiveness?A: With a wide range of Enterprise 2.0 tools in the marketplace, CIOs need to deploy solutions that will meet the requirements from users as well as address the requirements from IT. Workers want a next-generation user experience that is personalized and aggregates their daily tools and tasks, while IT needs to ensure the solution is secure, scalable, flexible, reliable and easily integrated with existing systems. An open and integrated approach to deploying portals, content management, and collaboration can enhance your business by addressing both the needs of knowledge workers for better information and the IT mandate to conserve resources by simplifying, consolidating and centralizing infrastructure and administration.  

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• Can Microsoft Build Appliances?

  - by andrewbrust

  Billy Hollis, my Visual Studio Live! colleague and fellow Microsoft Regional Director said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that the computing world, especially on the consumer side, has shifted from one of building hardware and software that makes things possible to do, to building products and technologies that make things easy to do.  Billy crystalized things perfectly, as he often does. In this new world of “easy to do,” Apple has done very well and Microsoft has struggled.  In the old world, customers wanted a Swiss Army Knife, with the most gimmicks and gadgets possible.  In the new world, people want elegantly cutlery.  They may want cake cutters and utility knives too, but they don’t want one device that works for all three tasks.  People don’t want tools, they want utensils.  People don’t want machines.  They want appliances. Microsoft Appliances: They Do Exist Microsoft has built a few appliance-like devices.  I would say XBox 360 is an appliance,  It’s versatile, mind you, but it’s the kind of thing you plug in, turn on and use, as opposed to set-up, tune, and open up to upgrade the internals.  Windows Phone 7 is an appliance too.  It’s a true smartphone, unlike Windows Mobile which was a handheld computer with a radio stack.  Zune is an appliance too, and a nice one.  It hasn’t attained much traction in the market, but that’s probably because the seminal consumer computing appliance -- the iPod – got there so much more quickly. In the embedded world, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s set-top product for the cable industry (used by AT&T U-Verse and others) is an appliance.  So is Microsoft’s Sync technology, used in Ford automobiles.  Even on the enterprise side, Microsoft has an appliance: SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse Edition (PDW) combines Microsoft software with select OEMs’ server, networking and storage hardware.  You buy the appliance units from the OEMs, plug them in, connect them and go. I would even say that Bing is an appliance.  Not in the hardware sense, mind you.  But from the software perspective, it’s a single-purpose product that you visit or run, use and then move on.  You don’t have to install it (except the iOS and Android native apps where it’s pretty straightforward), you don’t have to customize it, you don’t have to program it.  Basically, you just use it. Microsoft Appliances that Should Exist But Microsoft builds a bunch of things that are not appliances.  Media Center is not an appliance, and it most certainly should be.  Instead, it’s an app that runs on Windows 7.  It runs full-screen and you can use this configuration to conceal the fact that Windows is under it, but eventually something will cause you to abandon that masquerade (like Patch Tuesday). The next version of Windows Home Server won’t, in my opinion, be an appliance either.  Now that the Drive Extender technology is gone, and users can’t just add and remove drives into and from a single storage pool, the product is much more like a IT server and less like an appliance-premised one.  Much has been written about this decision by Microsoft.  I’ll just sum it up in one word: pity. Microsoft doesn’t have anything remotely appliance-like in the tablet category, either.  Until it does, it likely won’t have much market share in that space either.  And of course, the bulk of Microsoft’s product catalog on the business side is geared to enterprise machines and not personal appliances. Appliance DNA: They Gotta Have It. The consumerization of IT is real, because businesspeople are consumers too.  They appreciate the fit and finish of appliances at home, and they increasingly feel entitled to have it at work too.  Secure and reliable push email in a smartphone is necessary, but it isn’t enough.  People want great apps and a pleasurable user experience too.  The full Microsoft Office product is needed at work, but a PC with a keyboard and mouse, or maybe a touch screen that uses a stylus (or requires really small fingers), to run Office isn’t enough either.  People want a flawless touch experience available for the times they want to read and take quick notes.  Until Microsoft realizes this fully and internalizes it, it will suffer defeats in the consumer market and even setbacks in the business market.  Think about how slow the Office upgrade cycle is…now imagine if the next version of Office had a first-class alternate touch UI and consider the possible acceleration in adoption rates. Can Microsoft make the appliance switch?  Can the appliance mentality become pervasive at the company?  Can Microsoft hasten its release cycles dramatically and shed the “some assembly required” paradigm upon which many of its products are based?  Let’s face it, the chances that Microsoft won’t make this transition are significant. But there are also encouraging signs, and they should not be ignored.  The appliances we have already discussed, especially Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7, are the most obvious in this regard.  The fact that SQL Server has an appliance SKU now is a more subtle but perhaps also more significant outcome, because that product sits so smack in the middle of Microsoft’s enterprise stack.  Bing is encouraging too, especially given its integrated travel, maps and augmented reality capabilities.  As Bing gains market share, Microsoft has tangible proof that it can transform and win, even when everyone outside the company, and many within it, would bet otherwise. That Great Big Appliance in the Sky Perhaps the most promising (and evolving) proof points toward the appliance mentality, though, are Microsoft’s cloud offerings -- Azure and BPOS/Office 365.  While the cloud does not represent a physical appliance (quite the opposite in fact) its ability to make acquisition, deployment and use of technology simple for the user is absolutely an embodiment of the appliance mentality and spirit.  Azure is primarily a platform as a service offering; it doesn’t just provide infrastructure.  SQL Azure does likewise for databases.  And Office 365 does likewise for SharePoint, Exchange and Lync. You don’t administer, tune and manage servers; instead, you create databases or site collections or mailboxes and start using them. Upgrades come automatically, and it seems like releases will come more frequently.  Fault tolerance and content distribution is just there.  No muss.  No fuss.  You use these services; you don’t have to set them up and think about them.  That’s how appliances work.  To me, these signs point out that Microsoft has the full capability of transforming itself.  But there’s a lot of work ahead.  Microsoft may say they’re “all in” on the cloud, but the majority of the company is still oriented around its old products and models.  There needs to be a wholesale cultural transformation in Redmond.  It can happen, but product management, program management, the field and executive ranks must unify in the effort. So must partners, and even customers.  New leaders must rise up and Microsoft must be able to see itself as a winner.  If Microsoft does this, it could lock-in decades of new success, and be a standard business school case study for doing so.  If not, the company will have missed an opportunity, and may see its undoing.

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• Recap: Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategies Driving Business Innovation

  - by Harish Gaur

  Hasan Rizvi, Executive Vice President of Oracle Fusion Middleware & Java took the stage on Tuesday to discuss how Oracle Fusion Middleware helps enable business innovation. Through a series of product demos and customer showcases, Hassan demonstrated how Oracle Fusion Middleware is a complete platform to harness the latest technological innovations (cloud, mobile, social and Fast Data) throughout the application lifecycle. Fig 1: Oracle Fusion Middleware is the foundation of business innovation This Session included 4 demonstrations to illustrate these strategies: 1. Build and deploy native mobile applications using Oracle ADF Mobile 2. Empower business user to model processes, design user interface and have rich mobile experience for process interaction using Oracle BPM Suite PS6. 3. Create collaborative user experience and integrate social sign-on using Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, Oracle Social Network & Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 4. Deploy and manage business applications on Oracle Exalogic Nike, LA Department of Water & Power and Nintendo joined Hasan on stage to share how their organizations are leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware to enable business innovation. Managing Performance in the Wrld of Social and Mobile How do you provide predictable scalability and performance for an application that monitors active lifestyle of 8 million users on a daily basis? Nike’s answer is Oracle Coherence, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Exadata. Fig 2: Oracle Coherence enabled data grid improves performance of Nike+ Digital Sports Platform Nicole Otto, Sr. Director of Consumer Digital Technology discussed the vision of the Nike+ platform, a platform which represents a shift for NIKE from a  "product"  to  a "product +" experience.  There are currently nearly 8 million users in the Nike+ system who are using digitally-enabled Nike+ devices.  Once data from the Nike+ device is transmitted to Nike+ application, users access the Nike+ website or via the Nike mobile applicatoin, seeing metrics around their daily active lifestyle and even engage in socially compelling experiences to compare, compete or collaborate their data with their friends. Nike expects the number of users to grow significantly this year which will drive an explosion of data and potential new experiences. To deal with this challenge, Nike envisioned building a shared platform that would drive a consumer-centric model for the company. Nike built this new platform using Oracle Coherence and Oracle Exadata. Using Coherence, Nike built a data grid tier as a distributed cache, thereby provide low-latency access to most recent and relevant data to consumers. Nicole discussed how Nike+ Digital Sports Platform is unique in the way that it utilizes the Coherence Grid.  Nike takes advantage of Coherence as a traditional cache using both cache-aside and cache-through patterns.  This new tier has enabled Nike to create a horizontally scalable distributed event-driven processing architecture. Current data grid volume is approximately 150,000 request per minute with about 40 million objects at any given time on the grid. Improving Customer Experience Across Multiple Channels Customer experience is on top of every CIO's mind. Customer Experience needs to be consistent and secure across multiple devices consumers may use.  This is the challenge Matt Lampe, CIO of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) was faced with. Despite being the largest utilities company in the country, LADWP had been relying on a 38 year old customer information system for serving its customers. Their prior system  had been unable to keep up with growing customer demands. Last year, LADWP embarked on a journey to improve customer experience for 1.6million LA DWP customers using Oracle WebCenter platform. Figure 3: Multi channel & Multi lingual LADWP.com built using Oracle WebCenter & Oracle Identity Management platform Matt shed light on his efforts to drive customer self-service across 3 dimensions – new website, new IVR platform and new bill payment service. LADWP has built a new portal to increase customer self-service while reducing the transactions via IVR. LADWP's website is powered Oracle WebCenter Portal and is accessible by desktop and mobile devices. By leveraging Oracle WebCenter, LADWP eliminated the need to build, format, and maintain individual mobile applications or websites for different devices. Their entire content is managed using Oracle WebCenter Content and secured using Oracle Identity Management. This new portal automated their paper based processes to web based workflows for customers. This includes automation of Self Service implemented through My Account -  like Bill Pay, Payment History, Bill History and Usage Analysis. LADWP's solution went live in April 2012. Matt indicated that LADWP's Self-Service Portal has greatly improved customer satisfaction.  In a JD Power Associates website satisfaction survey, results indicate rankings have climbed by 25+ points, marking a remarkable increase in user experience. Bolstering Performance and Simplifying Manageability of Business Applications Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice Preisdent of IT at Nintendo America joined Hasan on-stage to discuss their choice of Exalogic. Nintendo had significant new requirements coming their way for business systems, both internal and external, in the years to come, especially with new products like the WiiU on the horizon this holiday season. Nintendo needed a platform that could give them performance, availability and ease of management as they deploy business systems. Ingvar selected Engineered Systems for two reasons: 1. High performance  2. Ease of management Figure 4: Nintendo relies on Oracle Exalogic to run ATG eCommerce, Oracle e-Business Suite and several business applications Nintendo made a decision to run their business applications (ATG eCommerce, E-Business Suite) and several Fusion Middleware components on the Exalogic platform. What impressed Ingvar was the "stress” testing results during evaluation. Oracle Exalogic could handle their 3-year load estimates for many functions, which was better than Nintendo expected without any hardware expansion. Faster Processing of Big Data Middleware plays an increasingly important role in Big Data. Last year, we announced at OpenWorld the introduction of Oracle Data Integrator for Hadoop and Oracle Loader for Hadoop which helps in the ability to move, transform, load data to and from Big Data Appliance to Exadata.  This year, we’ve added new capabilities to find, filter, and focus data using Oracle Event Processing. This product can natively integrate with Big Data Appliance or runs standalone. Hasan briefly discussed how NTT Docomo, largest mobile operator in Japan, leverages Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence to process mobile data (from 13 million smartphone users) at a speed of 700K events per second before feeding it Hadoop for distributed processing of big data. Figure 5: Mobile traffic data processing at NTT Docomo with Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence    

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