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• Is the Cloud ready for an Enterprise Java web application? Seeking a JEE hosting advice.

  - by Jakub Holý

  Greetings to all the smart people around here! I'd like to ask whether it is feasible or a good idea at all to deploy a Java enterprise web application to a Cloud such as Amazon EC2. More exactly, I'm looking for infrastructure options for an application that shall handle few hundred users with long but neither CPU nor memory intensive sessions. I'm considering dedicated servers, virtual private servers (VPSs) and EC2. I've noticed that there is a project called JBoss Cloud so people are working on enabling such a deployment, on the other hand it doesn't seem to be mature yet and I'm not sure that the cloud is ready for this kind of applications, which differs from the typical cloud-based applications like Twitter. Would you recommend to deploy it to the cloud? What are the pros and cons? The application is a Java EE 5 web application whose main function is to enable users to compose their own customized Product by combining the available Parts. It uses stateless and stateful session beans and JPA for persistence of entities to a RDBMS and fetches information about Parts from the company's inventory system via a web service. Aside of external users it's used also by few internal ones, who are authenticated against the company's LDAP. The application should handle around 300-400 concurrent users building their product and should be reasonably scalable and available though these qualities are only of a medium importance at this stage. I've proposed an architecture consisting of a firewall (FW) and load balancer supporting sticky sessions and https (in the Cloud this would be replaced with EC2's Elastic Load Balancing service and FW on the app. servers, in a physical architecture the load-balancer would be a HW), then two physical clustered application servers combined with web servers (so that if one fails, a user doesn't loose his/her long built product) and finally a database server. The DB server would need a slave backup instance that can replace the master instance if it fails. This should provide reasonable availability and fault tolerance and provide good scalability as long as a single RDBMS can keep with the load, which should be OK for quite a while because most of the operations are done in the memory using a stateful bean and only occasionally stored or retrieved from the DB and the amount of data is low too. A problematic part could be the dependency on the remote inventory system webservice but with good caching of its outputs in the application it should be OK too. Unfortunately I've only vague idea of the system resources (memory size, number and speed of CPUs/cores) that such an "average Java EE application" for few hundred users needs. My rough and mostly unfounded estimate based on actual Amazon offerings is that 1.7GB and a single, 2-core "modern CPU" with speed around 2.5GHz (the High-CPU Medium Instance) should be sufficient for any of the two application servers (since we can handle higher load by provisioning more of them). Alternatively I would consider using the Large instance (64b, 7.5GB RAM, 2 cores at 1GHz) So my question is whether such a deployment to the cloud is technically and financially feasible or whether dedicated/VPS servers would be a better option and whether there are some real-world experiences with something similar. Thank you very much! /Jakub Holy PS: I've found the JBoss EAP in a Cloud Case Study that shows that it is possible to deploy a real-world Java EE application to the EC2 cloud but unfortunately there're no details regarding topology, instance types, or anything :-(

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• Cannot connect to MySQL with JDBC - Connection Timeout - Ubuntu 9.04

  - by gav

  I am running Ubuntu and am ultimately trying to connect Tomcat to my MySQL database using JDBC. It has worked previously but after a reboot the instance now fails to connect. Both Tomcat 6 and MySQL 5.0.75 are on the same machine Connection string: jdbc:mysql:///localhost:3306 I can connect to MySQL on the command line using the mysql command The my.cnf file is pretty standard (Available on request) has bind address: 127.0.0.1 I cannot Telnet to the MySQL port despite netstat saying MySQL is listening I have one IpTables rule to forward 80 - 8080 and no firewall I'm aware of. I'm pretty new to this and I'm not sure what else to test. I don't know whether I should be looking in etc/interfaces and if I did what to look for. It's weird because it used to work but after a reboot it's down so I must have changed something.... :). I realise a timeout indicates the server is not responding and I assume it's because the request isn't actually getting through. I installed MySQL via apt-get and Tomcat manually. MySqld processes root@88:/var/log/mysql# ps -ef | grep mysqld root 21753 1 0 May27 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe mysql 21792 21753 0 May27 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock root 21793 21753 0 May27 ? 00:00:00 logger -p daemon.err -t mysqld_safe -i -t mysqld root 21888 13676 0 11:23 pts/1 00:00:00 grep mysqld Netstat root@88:/var/log/mysql# netstat -lnp | grep mysql tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 21792/mysqld unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 1926205077 21792/mysqld /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock Toy Connection Class root@88:~# cat TestConnect/TestConnection.java import java.sql.Connection; import java.sql.DriverManager; import java.sql.SQLException; public class TestConnection { public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception { Connection con = null; try { Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance(); System.out.println("Got driver"); con = DriverManager.getConnection( "jdbc:mysql:///localhost:3306", "uname", "pass"); System.out.println("Got connection"); if(!con.isClosed()) System.out.println("Successfully connected to " + "MySQL server using TCP/IP..."); } finally { if(con != null) con.close(); } } } Toy Connection Class Output Note: This is the same error I get from Tomcat. root@88:~/TestConnect# java -cp mysql-connector-java-5.1.12-bin.jar:. TestConnection Got driver Exception in thread "main" com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure The last packet sent successfully to the server was 1 milliseconds ago. The driver has not received any packets from the server. at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27) at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513) at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.handleNewInstance(Util.java:409) at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createCommunicationsException(SQLError.java:1122) at TestConnection.main(TestConnection.java:14) Caused by: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure The last packet sent successfully to the server was 0 milliseconds ago. The driver has not received any packets from the server. at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27) at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513) at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.handleNewInstance(Util.java:409) at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createCommunicationsException(SQLError.java:1122) at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.<init>(MysqlIO.java:344) at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.createNewIO(ConnectionImpl.java:2181) ... 12 more Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method) ... 13 more Telnet Output root@88:~/TestConnect# telnet localhost 3306 Trying 127.0.0.1... telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out

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• WCF .svc Accessible Over HTTP But Accessing WSDL Causes "Connection Was Reset"

  - by Wolfwyrd

  I have a WCF service which is hosted on IIS6 on a Win2003 SP2 machine. The WCF service is hosting correctly and is visible over HTTP giving the usual "To test this service, you will need to create a client and use it to call the service" message. However accessing the .svc?WSDL link causes the connection to be reset. The server itself is returning a 200 in the logs for the WSDL request, an example of which is shown here, the first call gets a connection reset, the second is a successful call for the .svc file. 2010-04-09 11:00:21 W3SVC6 MACHINENAME 10.79.42.115 GET /IntegrationService.svc wsdl 80 - 10.75.33.71 HTTP/1.1 Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+5.1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705;+InfoPath.1;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506.30;+MS-RTC+LM+8;+.NET+CLR+3.0.4506.2152;+.NET+CLR+3.5.30729;) - - devsitename.mydevdomain.com 200 0 0 0 696 3827 2010-04-09 11:04:10 W3SVC6 MACHINENAME 10.79.42.115 GET /IntegrationService.svc - 80 - 10.75.33.71 HTTP/1.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-GB;+rv:1.9.1.9)+Gecko/20100315+Firefox/3.5.9+(.NET+CLR+3.5.30729) - - devsitename.mydevdomain.com 200 0 0 3144 457 265 My Web.Config looks like: <system.serviceModel> <serviceHostingEnvironment > <baseAddressPrefixFilters> <add prefix="http://devsitename.mydevdomain.com" /> </baseAddressPrefixFilters> </serviceHostingEnvironment> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="My.Service.IntegrationServiceBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="My.Service.IntegrationServiceBehavior" name="My.Service.IntegrationService"> <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="My.Service.Interfaces.IIntegrationService" bindingConfiguration="NoSecurityConfig" /> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="NoSecurityConfig"> <security mode="None" /> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> </system.serviceModel> I'm pretty much stumped by this one. It works fine through the local dev server in VS2008 but fails after deployment. For further information, the targeted machine does not have a firewall (it's on the internal network) and the logs show the site thinks it's fine with 200 OK responses. I've also tried updating the endpoint with the full URL to my service however it still makes no difference. I have looked into some of the other options - creating a separate WSDL manually and exposing it through the metadata properties (really don't want to do that due to the maintenance issues). If anyone can offer any thoughts on this or any other workarounds it would be greatly appreciated.

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• Recommended integration mechanism for bi-directional, authenticated, encrypted connection in C clien

  - by rcampbell

  Let me first give an example. Imagine you have a single server running a JVM application. This server keeps a collection of N equations, once for each client: Client #1: 2x Client #2: 1 + y Client #3: z/4 This server includes an HTTP interface so that random visitors can type https://www.acme.com/client/3 int their browsers and see the latest evaluated result of z/4. The tricky part is that either the client or the server may change the variable value at any time, informing the other party immediately. More specifically, Client #3 - a C app - can initially tell the server that z = 20. An hour later that same client informs the server that z = 23. Likewise the server can later inform the client that z = 28. As caf pointed out in the comments, there can be a race condition when values are changed by the client and server simultaneously. The solution would be for both client and server to send the operation performed in their message, which would need to be executed by the other party. To keep things simple, let's limit the operations to (commutative) addition, allowing us to disregard message ordering. For example, the client seeds the server with z = 20: server:z=20, client:z=20 server sends {+3} message (so z=23 locally) & client sends {-2} message (so z=18 locally) at the exact same time server receives {-2} message at some point, adds to his local copy so z=21 client receives {+3} message at some point, adds to his local copy so z=21 As long as all messages are eventually evaluated by both parties, the correct answer will eventually be given to the users of the client and server since we limited ourselves to commutative operations (addition of 3 and -2). This does mean that both client and server can be returning incorrect answers in the time it takes for messages to be exchanged and processed. While undesirable, I believe this is unavoidable. Some possible implementations of this idea include: Open an encrypted, always on TCP socket connection for communication Pros: no additional infrastructure needed, client and server know immediately if there is a problem (disconnect) with the other party, fairly straightforward (except the the encryption), native support from both JVM and C platforms Cons: pretty low-level so you end up writing a lot yourself (protocol, delivery verification, retry-on-failure logic), probably have a lot of firewall headaches during client app installation Asynchronous messaging (ex: ActiveMQ) Pros: transactional, both C & Java integration, free up the client and server apps from needing retry logic or delivery verification, pretty straightforward encryption, easy extensibility via message filters/routers/etc Cons: need additional infrastructure (message server) which must never fail, Database or file system as asynchronous integration point Same pros/cons as above but messier RESTful Web Service Pros: simple, possible reuse of the server's existing REST API, SSL figures out the encryption problem for you (maybe use RSA key a la GitHub for authentication?) Cons: Client now needs to run a C HTTP REST server w/SSL, client and server need retry logic. Axis2 has both a Java and C version, but you may be limited to SOAP. What other techniques should I be evaluating? What real world experiences have you had with these mechanisms? Which do you recommend for this problem and why?

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• A free standing ASP.NET Pager Web Control

  - by Rick Strahl

  Paging in ASP.NET has been relatively easy with stock controls supporting basic paging functionality. However, recently I built an MVC application and one of the things I ran into was that I HAD TO build manual paging support into a few of my pages. Dealing with list controls and rendering markup is easy enough, but doing paging is a little more involved. I ended up with a small but flexible component that can be dropped anywhere. As it turns out the task of creating a semi-generic Pager control for MVC was fairly easily. Now I’m back to working in Web Forms and thought to myself that the way I created the pager in MVC actually would also work in ASP.NET – in fact quite a bit easier since the whole thing can be conveniently wrapped up into an easily reusable control. A standalone pager would provider easier reuse in various pages and a more consistent pager display regardless of what kind of 'control’ the pager is associated with. Why a Pager Control? At first blush it might sound silly to create a new pager control – after all Web Forms has pretty decent paging support, doesn’t it? Well, sort of. Yes the GridView control has automatic paging built in and the ListView control has the related DataPager control. The built in ASP.NET paging has several issues though: Postback and JavaScript requirements If you look at paging links in ASP.NET they are always postback links with javascript:__doPostback() calls that go back to the server. While that works fine and actually has some benefit like the fact that paging saves changes to the page and post them back, it’s not very SEO friendly. Basically if you use javascript based navigation nosearch engine will follow the paging links which effectively cuts off list content on the first page. The DataPager control does support GET based links via the QueryStringParameter property, but the control is effectively tied to the ListView control (which is the only control that implements IPageableItemContainer). DataSource Controls required for Efficient Data Paging Retrieval The only way you can get paging to work efficiently where only the few records you display on the page are queried for and retrieved from the database you have to use a DataSource control - only the Linq and Entity DataSource controls  support this natively. While you can retrieve this data yourself manually, there’s no way to just assign the page number and render the pager based on this custom subset. Other than that default paging requires a full resultset for ASP.NET to filter the data and display only a subset which can be very resource intensive and wasteful if you’re dealing with largish resultsets (although I’m a firm believer in returning actually usable sets :-}). If you use your own business layer that doesn’t fit an ObjectDataSource you’re SOL. That’s a real shame too because with LINQ based querying it’s real easy to retrieve a subset of data that is just the data you want to display but the native Pager functionality doesn’t support just setting properties to display just the subset AFAIK. DataPager is not Free Standing The DataPager control is the closest thing to a decent Pager implementation that ASP.NET has, but alas it’s not a free standing component – it works off a related control and the only one that it effectively supports from the stock ASP.NET controls is the ListView control. This means you can’t use the same data pager formatting for a grid and a list view or vice versa and you’re always tied to the control. Paging Events In order to handle paging you have to deal with paging events. The events fire at specific time instances in the page pipeline and because of this you often have to handle data binding in a way to work around the paging events or else end up double binding your data sources based on paging. Yuk. Styling The GridView pager is a royal pain to beat into submission for styled rendering. The DataPager control has many more options and template layout and it renders somewhat cleaner, but it too is not exactly easy to get a decent display for. Not a Generic Solution The problem with the ASP.NET controls too is that it’s not generic. GridView, DataGrid use their own internal paging, ListView can use a DataPager and if you want to manually create data layout – well you’re on your own. IOW, depending on what you use you likely have very different looking Paging experiences. So, I figured I’ve struggled with this once too many and finally sat down and built a Pager control. The Pager Control My goal was to create a totally free standing control that has no dependencies on other controls and certainly no requirements for using DataSource controls. The idea is that you should be able to use this pager control without any sort of data requirements at all – you should just be able to set properties and be able to display a pager. The Pager control I ended up with has the following features: Completely free standing Pager control – no control or data dependencies Complete manual control – Pager can render without any data dependency Easy to use: Only need to set PageSize, ActivePage and TotalItems Supports optional filtering of IQueryable for efficient queries and Pager rendering Supports optional full set filtering of IEnumerable<T> and DataTable Page links are plain HTTP GET href Links Control automatically picks up Page links on the URL and assigns them (automatic page detection no page index changing events to hookup) Full CSS Styling support On the downside there’s no templating support for the control so the layout of the pager is relatively fixed. All elements however are stylable and there are options to control the text, and layout options such as whether to display first and last pages and the previous/next buttons and so on. To give you an idea what the pager looks like, here are two differently styled examples (all via CSS):   The markup for these two pagers looks like this: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager" PageSize="5" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PagesTextCssClass="gridpagertext" CssClass="gridpager" RenderContainerDiv="true" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" PagesText="Item Pages:" NextText="next" PreviousText="previous" /> <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager2" PageSize="5" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> The latter example uses default style settings so it there’s not much to set. The first example on the other hand explicitly assigns custom styles and overrides a few of the formatting options. Styling The styling is based on a number of CSS classes of which the the main pager, pagerbutton and pagerbutton-selected classes are the important ones. Other styles like pagerbutton-next/prev/first/last are based on the pagerbutton style. The default styling shown for the red outlined pager looks like this: .pagercontainer { margin: 20px 0; background: whitesmoke; padding: 5px; } .pager { float: right; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left; } .pagerbutton,.pagerbutton-selected,.pagertext { display: block; float: left; text-align: center; border: solid 2px maroon; min-width: 18px; margin-left: 3px; text-decoration: none; padding: 4px; } .pagerbutton-selected { font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold; color: maroon; border-width: 0px; background: khaki; } .pagerbutton-first { margin-right: 12px; } .pagerbutton-last,.pagerbutton-prev { margin-left: 12px; } .pagertext { border: none; margin-left: 30px; font-weight: bold; } .pagerbutton a { text-decoration: none; } .pagerbutton:hover { background-color: maroon; color: cornsilk; } .pagerbutton-prev { background-image: url(images/prev.png); background-position: 2px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-left: 20px; } .pagerbutton-next { background-image: url(images/next.png); background-position: 40px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 0px; } Yup that’s a lot of styling settings although not all of them are required. The key ones are pagerbutton, pager and pager selection. The others (which are implicitly created by the control based on the pagerbutton style) are for custom markup of the ‘special’ buttons. In my apps I tend to have two kinds of pages: Those that are associated with typical ‘grid’ displays that display purely tabular data and those that have a more looser list like layout. The two pagers shown above represent these two views and the pager and gridpager styles in my standard style sheet reflect these two styles. Configuring the Pager with Code Finally lets look at what it takes to hook up the pager. As mentioned in the highlights the Pager control is completely independent of other controls so if you just want to display a pager on its own it’s as simple as dropping the control and assigning the PageSize, ActivePage and either TotalPages or TotalItems. So for this markup: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPagerManual" PageSize="5" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> I can use code as simple as: ItemPagerManual.PageSize = 3; ItemPagerManual.ActivePage = 4;ItemPagerManual.TotalItems = 20; Note that ActivePage is not required - it will automatically use any Page=x query string value and assign it, although you can override it as I did above. TotalItems can be any value that you retrieve from a result set or manually assign as I did above. A more realistic scenario based on a LINQ to SQL IQueryable result is even easier. In this example, I have a UserControl that contains a ListView control that renders IQueryable data. I use a User Control here because there are different views the user can choose from with each view being a different user control. This incidentally also highlights one of the nice features of the pager: Because the pager is independent of the control I can put the pager on the host page instead of into each of the user controls. IOW, there’s only one Pager control, but there are potentially many user controls/listviews that hold the actual display data. The following code demonstrates how to use the Pager with an IQueryable that loads only the records it displays: protected voidPage_Load(objectsender, EventArgs e) {     Category = Request.Params["Category"] ?? string.Empty;     IQueryable<wws_Item> ItemList = ItemRepository.GetItemsByCategory(Category);     // Update the page and filter the list down     ItemList = ItemPager.FilterIQueryable<wws_Item>(ItemList); // Render user control with a list view Control ulItemList = LoadControl("~/usercontrols/" + App.Configuration.ItemListType + ".ascx"); ((IInventoryItemListControl)ulItemList).InventoryItemList = ItemList; phItemList.Controls.Add(ulItemList); // placeholder } The code uses a business object to retrieve Items by category as an IQueryable which means that the result is only an expression tree that hasn’t execute SQL yet and can be further filtered. I then pass this IQueryable to the FilterIQueryable() helper method of the control which does two main things: Filters the IQueryable to retrieve only the data displayed on the active page Sets the Totaltems property and calculates TotalPages on the Pager and that’s it! When the Pager renders it uses those values, plus the PageSize and ActivePage properties to render the Pager. In addition to IQueryable there are also filter methods for IEnumerable<T> and DataTable, but these versions just filter the data by removing rows/items from the entire already retrieved data. Output Generated and Paging Links The output generated creates pager links as plain href links. Here’s what the output looks like: <div id="ItemPager" class="pagercontainer"> <div class="pager"> <span class="pagertext">Pages: </span><a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=1" class="pagerbutton" />1</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=2" class="pagerbutton" />2</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton" />3</a> <span class="pagerbutton-selected">4</span> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton" />5</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=6" class="pagerbutton" />6</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=20" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-last" />20</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-prev" />Prev</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-next" />Next</a></div> <br clear="all" /> </div> </div> The links point back to the current page and simply append a Page= page link into the page. When the page gets reloaded with the new page number the pager automatically detects the page number and automatically assigns the ActivePage property which results in the appropriate page to be displayed. The code shown in the previous section is all that’s needed to handle paging. Note that HTTP GET based paging is different than the Postback paging ASP.NET uses by default. Postback paging preserves modified page content when clicking on pager buttons, but this control will simply load a new page – no page preservation at this time. The advantage of not using Postback paging is that the URLs generated are plain HTML links that a search engine can follow where __doPostback() links are not. Pager with a Grid The pager also works in combination with grid controls so it’s easy to bypass the grid control’s paging features if desired. In the following example I use a gridView control and binds it to a DataTable result which is also filterable by the Pager control. The very basic plain vanilla ASP.NET grid markup looks like this: <div style="width: 600px; margin: 0 auto;padding: 20px; "> <asp:DataGrid runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="True" ID="gdItems" CssClass="blackborder" style="width: 600px;"> <AlternatingItemStyle CssClass="gridalternate" /> <HeaderStyle CssClass="gridheader" /> </asp:DataGrid> <ww:Pager runat="server" ID="Pager" CssClass="gridpager" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PageSize="8" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> </div> and looks like this when rendered: using custom set of CSS styles. The code behind for this code is also very simple: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string category = Request.Params["category"] ?? ""; busItem itemRep = WebStoreFactory.GetItem(); var items = itemRep.GetItemsByCategory(category) .Select(itm => new {Sku = itm.Sku, Description = itm.Description}); // run query into a DataTable for demonstration DataTable dt = itemRep.Converter.ToDataTable(items,"TItems"); // Remove all items not on the current page dt = Pager.FilterDataTable(dt,0); // bind and display gdItems.DataSource = dt; gdItems.DataBind(); } A little contrived I suppose since the list could already be bound from the list of elements, but this is to demonstrate that you can also bind against a DataTable if your business layer returns those. Unfortunately there’s no way to filter a DataReader as it’s a one way forward only reader and the reader is required by the DataSource to perform the bindings.  However, you can still use a DataReader as long as your business logic filters the data prior to rendering and provides a total item count (most likely as a second query). Control Creation The control itself is a pretty brute force ASP.NET control. Nothing clever about this other than some basic rendering logic and some simple calculations and update routines to determine which buttons need to be shown. You can take a look at the full code from the West Wind Web Toolkit’s Repository (note there are a few dependencies). To give you an idea how the control works here is the Render() method: /// <summary> /// overridden to handle custom pager rendering for runtime and design time /// </summary> /// <param name="writer"></param> protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { base.Render(writer); if (TotalPages == 0 && TotalItems > 0) TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); if (DesignMode) TotalPages = 10; // don't render pager if there's only one page if (TotalPages < 2) return; if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(ContainerDivCssClass)) writer.AddAttribute("class", ContainerDivCssClass); writer.RenderBeginTag("div"); } // main pager wrapper writer.WriteBeginTag("div"); writer.AddAttribute("id", this.ClientID); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(CssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", this.CssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar + "\r\n"); // Pages Text writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PagesTextCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PagesTextCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(this.PagesText); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); // if the base url is empty use the current URL FixupBaseUrl(); // set _startPage and _endPage ConfigurePagesToRender(); // write out first page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _startPage != 1) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-first"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write("1"); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); writer.Write("&nbsp;"); } // write out all the page links for (int i = _startPage; i < _endPage + 1; i++) { if (i == ActivePage) { writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(SelectedPageCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", SelectedPageCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); } else { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, i.ToString()).TrimEnd('&'); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.Write("\r\n"); } // write out last page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _endPage < TotalPages) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-last"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Previous link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(PreviousText) && ActivePage > 1) { writer.Write("&nbsp;"); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage - 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-prev"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(PreviousText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Next link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(NextText) && ActivePage < TotalPages) { writer.Write("&nbsp;"); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage + 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-next"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(NextText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.WriteEndTag("div"); if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (RenderContainerDivBreak) writer.Write("<br clear=\"all\" />\r\n"); writer.WriteEndTag("div"); } } As I said pretty much brute force rendering based on the control’s property settings of which there are quite a few: You can also see the pager in the designer above. unfortunately the VS designer (both 2010 and 2008) fails to render the float: left CSS styles properly and starts wrapping after margins are applied in the special buttons. Not a big deal since VS does at least respect the spacing (the floated elements overlay). Then again I’m not using the designer anyway :-}. Filtering Data What makes the Pager easy to use is the filter methods built into the control. While this functionality is clearly not the most politically correct design choice as it violates separation of concerns, it’s very useful for typical pager operation. While I actually have filter methods that do something similar in my business layer, having it exposed on the control makes the control a lot more useful for typical databinding scenarios. Of course these methods are optional – if you have a business layer that can provide filtered page queries for you can use that instead and assign the TotalItems property manually. There are three filter method types available for IQueryable, IEnumerable and for DataTable which tend to be the most common use cases in my apps old and new. The IQueryable version is pretty simple as it can simply rely on on .Skip() and .Take() with LINQ: /// <summary> /// <summary> /// Queries the database for the ActivePage applied manually /// or from the Request["page"] variable. This routine /// figures out and sets TotalPages, ActivePage and /// returns a filtered subset IQueryable that contains /// only the items from the ActivePage. /// </summary> /// <param name="query"></param> /// <param name="activePage"> /// The page you want to display. Sets the ActivePage property when passed. /// Pass 0 or smaller to use ActivePage setting. /// </param> /// <returns></returns> public IQueryable<T> FilterIQueryable<T>(IQueryable<T> query, int activePage) where T : class, new() { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = query.Count(); if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return query; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) query = query.Skip(skip * PageSize); _TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); return query.Take(PageSize); } The IEnumerable<T> version simply  converts the IEnumerable to an IQuerable and calls back into this method for filtering. The DataTable version requires a little more work to manually parse and filter records (I didn’t want to add the Linq DataSetExtensions assembly just for this): /// <summary> /// Filters a data table for an ActivePage. /// /// Note: Modifies the data set permanently by remove DataRows /// </summary> /// <param name="dt">Full result DataTable</param> /// <param name="activePage">Page to display. 0 to use ActivePage property </param> /// <returns></returns> public DataTable FilterDataTable(DataTable dt, int activePage) { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = dt.Rows.Count; if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return dt; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) { for (int i = 0; i < skip * PageSize; i++ ) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(0); } while(dt.Rows.Count > PageSize) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(PageSize); return dt; } Using the Pager Control The pager as it is is a first cut I built a couple of weeks ago and since then have been tweaking a little as part of an internal project I’m working on. I’ve replaced a bunch of pagers on various older pages with this pager without any issues and have what now feels like a more consistent user interface where paging looks and feels the same across different controls. As a bonus I’m only loading the data from the database that I need to display a single page. With the preset class tags applied too adding a pager is now as easy as dropping the control and adding the style sheet for styling to be consistent – no fuss, no muss. Schweet. Hopefully some of you may find this as useful as I have or at least as a baseline to build ontop of… Resources The Pager is part of the West Wind Web & Ajax Toolkit Pager.cs Source Code (some toolkit dependencies) Westwind.css base stylesheet with .pager and .gridpager styles Pager Example Page © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• Remotely Schedule and Stream Recorded TV in Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Have you ever been away from home and suddenly realized you forgot to record your favorite program? Now Windows 7 Media Center, users can schedule recordings remotely from their phones or mobile devices with Remote Potato. How it Works Remote Potato installs server software on the host computer running Windows 7 Media Center. Once the software is installed, we’ll need to do some port forwarding on the router and setup an optional dynamic DNS address. When setup is completed, we will access the application through a web based interface. Silverlight is required for Streaming recorded TV, but scheduling recordings can be done through an HTML interface. Installing Remote Potato Download and install Remote Potato on the Media Center PC. (See download link below) If you plan to stream any Recorded TV, you’ll also want to install the streaming pack located on the same page. It isn’t required to stream all shows, only shows that require the AC3 audio codec. Click Yes to allow Remote Potato to add rules to the Windows Firewall for remote access. You’ll likely need to accept a few UAC prompts. When notified that the rules were added, click OK. Remote Potato will then prompt you to allow administrator privileges to reserve a URL for it’s web server. Click Yes. Remote Potato server will start. Click on the configuration button at the right to to reveal the settings tabs.   One the General tab, you’ll have the option to run Remote Potato on startup and minimized in the System Tray. If you’re running Media Center on a dedicated HTPC, you’ll probably want to enable both startup options. Forwarding Ports on Your Router You’ll need to forward a couple ports on your router. By default, these will be ports 9080 and 9081. In this example we’re using a Linksys WRT54GL router, however, the steps for port forwarding will vary from router to router. On the Linksys configuration page, click on the Applications & Gaming Tab, and then the Port Range Forward tab. Under Application, type in a name of your choosing. In both the Start and End boxes, type the port number 9080. Enter the local IP address of your Media Center computer in the IP address column. Click the check box under Enable. Repeat the process on the next line, but this time use port 9081. When finished, click the Save Settings button. Note: It’s highly recommended that you configure the home computer running Media Center & Remote Potato with a static IP address.   Find your IP Address You’ll need to find the IP address assigned to your router from your ISP. There are many ways to do this but a quick and easy way is to visit a site like checkip.dyndns.org (link available below) The current external IP address of your router will be displayed in the browser.   Dynamic DNS This is an optional step, but  it’s highly recommended. Many routers, such as the Linksys WRT54GL we are using, support Dynamic DNS (DDNS). What Dynamic DNS allows you to do is affiliate your home router’s external IP address to a domain name. Every time your home router is assigned a a new IP address by your ISP, the domain name is updated to point to your new IP address. Remote Potato’s user interface is accessed over the Internet is by connecting to your router’s IP address followed by a colon and the port number. (Ex: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9080) Instead of constantly having to look up and remember an IP address, you can use DDNS along with a 3rd party provider like DynDNS.com, to sign up for a free domain name and configure it to be updated each time your router is assigned a new IP address. Go to the DynDNS.com website (See link at the end of the article) and sign up for a free Domain name. You’ll need to register and confirm by email.   Once you’ve signed in and selected your domain name click Activate Services. You’ll get a confirmation message that your domain name has been activated.    On the Linksys WRT54GL click on the Setup tab an then DDNS. Select DynDNS.org, or TZO.com if you prefer to use their service, from the drop down list.   With DynDNS, you’ll need to fill in your username and password you signed up with at the DynDNS website and the hostname you chose. Note: You can connect over your local network with the IP Address of the computer running Remote Potato followed by a colon and the port number. Ex: 192.168.1.2:9080 Logging in Remote Potato and Recording a Show Once you connect, you’ll see the start page. To view the TV listings, click on TV Guide. You’ll then see your guide listings. There are a few ways to navigate the listings. At the top left, you can click on any of the preset time buttons to jump to  the listings at that time of the day.  Click on the arrows to the right and left of the day and date at the top center to proceed to the previous or next day. Or, jump to a specific day with the date and date buttons at the top right.   To setup a recording, click on a program.   You can choose to record the individual show or the entire series by clicking on Record Show or Record Series.   Remote Potato on Mobile Devices Perhaps the coolest feature of Remote Potato is the ability to schedule recording from your phone or mobile device. Note: For any devices or computers without Silverlight, you will be prompted to view the HTML page. Select Browse Listings. Select your program to record. In the Program Details, select Record Show to record the single episode or Record Series to record all instances of the series. You will then see a red dot on the program listing to indicate that the show is scheduled for recording.   Streaming Recorded TV Click on Recorded TV from the home screen to access your previously recorded TV programs. Click on the selection you wish to stream. Click on Play. If you receive this error message, you’ll need to install the streaming pack for Remote Potato. This is found on the same download page as installation files. (See link below) The Begin from slider allows you to start playback from the start (by default) or a different time of the program by moving the slider. The Quality (bitrate) setting  allows you to choose the quality of the playback. We found the video quality on the Normal setting to be pretty lousy, and Low was just pointless. High was the best overall viewing experience as it provided smooth quality video playback. We experienced significant stuttering during playback using the Ultra High setting.   Click Start when you are ready to begin. When playback begins you’ll see a slider at the top right.   Move the slider left or right to increase or decrease the size of the video. There’s also a button to switch to full screen.   Media Center users who travel frequently or are always on the go will likely find Remote Potato to be a blessing. Since being released earlier this year, updates for Remote Potato have come fast and furious. The latest beta release includes support for streaming music and photos. If you like those nice network TV logos, check out our article on adding TV channel logos to Windows Media Center. Downloads and Links Download Remote Potato and Streaming Pack Find your IP address Sign Up for a Domain Name at DynDNS.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterUsing Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Add a Sleep Timer to Windows 7 Media CenterStartup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7Enable Media Streaming in Windows Home Server to Windows Media Player TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos

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• New features of C# 4.0

  This article covers New features of C# 4.0. Article has been divided into below sections. Introduction. Dynamic Lookup. Named and Optional Arguments. Features for COM interop. Variance. Relationship with Visual Basic. Resources. Other interested readings… 22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .NET Professionals 50 New Features of SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 New features Introduction It is now close to a year since Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 shipped as part of Visual Studio 2008. In the VS Managed Languages team we are hard at work on creating the next version of the language (with the unsurprising working title of C# 4.0), and this document is a first public description of the planned language features as we currently see them. Please be advised that all this is in early stages of production and is subject to change. Part of the reason for sharing our plans in public so early is precisely to get the kind of feedback that will cause us to improve the final product before it rolls out. Simultaneously with the publication of this whitepaper, a first public CTP (community technology preview) of Visual Studio 2010 is going out as a Virtual PC image for everyone to try. Please use it to play and experiment with the features, and let us know of any thoughts you have. We ask for your understanding and patience working with very early bits, where especially new or newly implemented features do not have the quality or stability of a final product. The aim of the CTP is not to give you a productive work environment but to give you the best possible impression of what we are working on for the next release. The CTP contains a number of walkthroughs, some of which highlight the new language features of C# 4.0. Those are excellent for getting a hands-on guided tour through the details of some common scenarios for the features. You may consider this whitepaper a companion document to these walkthroughs, complementing them with a focus on the overall language features and how they work, as opposed to the specifics of the concrete scenarios. C# 4.0 The major theme for C# 4.0 is dynamic programming. Increasingly, objects are “dynamic” in the sense that their structure and behavior is not captured by a static type, or at least not one that the compiler knows about when compiling your program. Some examples include a. objects from dynamic programming languages, such as Python or Ruby b. COM objects accessed through IDispatch c. ordinary .NET types accessed through reflection d. objects with changing structure, such as HTML DOM objects While C# remains a statically typed language, we aim to vastly improve the interaction with such objects. A secondary theme is co-evolution with Visual Basic. Going forward we will aim to maintain the individual character of each language, but at the same time important new features should be introduced in both languages at the same time. They should be differentiated more by style and feel than by feature set. The new features in C# 4.0 fall into four groups: Dynamic lookup Dynamic lookup allows you to write method, operator and indexer calls, property and field accesses, and even object invocations which bypass the C# static type checking and instead gets resolved at runtime. Named and optional parameters Parameters in C# can now be specified as optional by providing a default value for them in a member declaration. When the member is invoked, optional arguments can be omitted. Furthermore, any argument can be passed by parameter name instead of position. COM specific interop features Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters both help making programming against COM less painful than today. On top of that, however, we are adding a number of other small features that further improve the interop experience. Variance It used to be that an IEnumerable<string> wasn’t an IEnumerable<object>. Now it is – C# embraces type safe “co-and contravariance” and common BCL types are updated to take advantage of that. Dynamic Lookup Dynamic lookup allows you a unified approach to invoking things dynamically. With dynamic lookup, when you have an object in your hand you do not need to worry about whether it comes from COM, IronPython, the HTML DOM or reflection; you just apply operations to it and leave it to the runtime to figure out what exactly those operations mean for that particular object. This affords you enormous flexibility, and can greatly simplify your code, but it does come with a significant drawback: Static typing is not maintained for these operations. A dynamic object is assumed at compile time to support any operation, and only at runtime will you get an error if it wasn’t so. Oftentimes this will be no loss, because the object wouldn’t have a static type anyway, in other cases it is a tradeoff between brevity and safety. In order to facilitate this tradeoff, it is a design goal of C# to allow you to opt in or opt out of dynamic behavior on every single call. The dynamic type C# 4.0 introduces a new static type called dynamic. When you have an object of type dynamic you can “do things to it” that are resolved only at runtime: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); The C# compiler allows you to call a method with any name and any arguments on d because it is of type dynamic. At runtime the actual object that d refers to will be examined to determine what it means to “call M with an int” on it. The type dynamic can be thought of as a special version of the type object, which signals that the object can be used dynamically. It is easy to opt in or out of dynamic behavior: any object can be implicitly converted to dynamic, “suspending belief” until runtime. Conversely, there is an “assignment conversion” from dynamic to any other type, which allows implicit conversion in assignment-like constructs: dynamic d = 7; // implicit conversion int i = d; // assignment conversion Dynamic operations Not only method calls, but also field and property accesses, indexer and operator calls and even delegate invocations can be dispatched dynamically: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); // calling methods d.f = d.P; // getting and settings fields and properties d[“one”] = d[“two”]; // getting and setting thorugh indexers int i = d + 3; // calling operators string s = d(5,7); // invoking as a delegate The role of the C# compiler here is simply to package up the necessary information about “what is being done to d”, so that the runtime can pick it up and determine what the exact meaning of it is given an actual object d. Think of it as deferring part of the compiler’s job to runtime. The result of any dynamic operation is itself of type dynamic. Runtime lookup At runtime a dynamic operation is dispatched according to the nature of its target object d: COM objects If d is a COM object, the operation is dispatched dynamically through COM IDispatch. This allows calling to COM types that don’t have a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA), and relying on COM features that don’t have a counterpart in C#, such as indexed properties and default properties. Dynamic objects If d implements the interface IDynamicObject d itself is asked to perform the operation. Thus by implementing IDynamicObject a type can completely redefine the meaning of dynamic operations. This is used intensively by dynamic languages such as IronPython and IronRuby to implement their own dynamic object models. It will also be used by APIs, e.g. by the HTML DOM to allow direct access to the object’s properties using property syntax. Plain objects Otherwise d is a standard .NET object, and the operation will be dispatched using reflection on its type and a C# “runtime binder” which implements C#’s lookup and overload resolution semantics at runtime. This is essentially a part of the C# compiler running as a runtime component to “finish the work” on dynamic operations that was deferred by the static compiler. Example Assume the following code: dynamic d1 = new Foo(); dynamic d2 = new Bar(); string s; d1.M(s, d2, 3, null); Because the receiver of the call to M is dynamic, the C# compiler does not try to resolve the meaning of the call. Instead it stashes away information for the runtime about the call. This information (often referred to as the “payload”) is essentially equivalent to: “Perform an instance method call of M with the following arguments: 1. a string 2. a dynamic 3. a literal int 3 4. a literal object null” At runtime, assume that the actual type Foo of d1 is not a COM type and does not implement IDynamicObject. In this case the C# runtime binder picks up to finish the overload resolution job based on runtime type information, proceeding as follows: 1. Reflection is used to obtain the actual runtime types of the two objects, d1 and d2, that did not have a static type (or rather had the static type dynamic). The result is Foo for d1 and Bar for d2. 2. Method lookup and overload resolution is performed on the type Foo with the call M(string,Bar,3,null) using ordinary C# semantics. 3. If the method is found it is invoked; otherwise a runtime exception is thrown. Overload resolution with dynamic arguments Even if the receiver of a method call is of a static type, overload resolution can still happen at runtime. This can happen if one or more of the arguments have the type dynamic: Foo foo = new Foo(); dynamic d = new Bar(); var result = foo.M(d); The C# runtime binder will choose between the statically known overloads of M on Foo, based on the runtime type of d, namely Bar. The result is again of type dynamic. The Dynamic Language Runtime An important component in the underlying implementation of dynamic lookup is the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), which is a new API in .NET 4.0. The DLR provides most of the infrastructure behind not only C# dynamic lookup but also the implementation of several dynamic programming languages on .NET, such as IronPython and IronRuby. Through this common infrastructure a high degree of interoperability is ensured, but just as importantly the DLR provides excellent caching mechanisms which serve to greatly enhance the efficiency of runtime dispatch. To the user of dynamic lookup in C#, the DLR is invisible except for the improved efficiency. However, if you want to implement your own dynamically dispatched objects, the IDynamicObject interface allows you to interoperate with the DLR and plug in your own behavior. This is a rather advanced task, which requires you to understand a good deal more about the inner workings of the DLR. For API writers, however, it can definitely be worth the trouble in order to vastly improve the usability of e.g. a library representing an inherently dynamic domain. Open issues There are a few limitations and things that might work differently than you would expect. · The DLR allows objects to be created from objects that represent classes. However, the current implementation of C# doesn’t have syntax to support this. · Dynamic lookup will not be able to find extension methods. Whether extension methods apply or not depends on the static context of the call (i.e. which using clauses occur), and this context information is not currently kept as part of the payload. · Anonymous functions (i.e. lambda expressions) cannot appear as arguments to a dynamic method call. The compiler cannot bind (i.e. “understand”) an anonymous function without knowing what type it is converted to. One consequence of these limitations is that you cannot easily use LINQ queries over dynamic objects: dynamic collection = …; var result = collection.Select(e => e + 5); If the Select method is an extension method, dynamic lookup will not find it. Even if it is an instance method, the above does not compile, because a lambda expression cannot be passed as an argument to a dynamic operation. There are no plans to address these limitations in C# 4.0. Named and Optional Arguments Named and optional parameters are really two distinct features, but are often useful together. Optional parameters allow you to omit arguments to member invocations, whereas named arguments is a way to provide an argument using the name of the corresponding parameter instead of relying on its position in the parameter list. Some APIs, most notably COM interfaces such as the Office automation APIs, are written specifically with named and optional parameters in mind. Up until now it has been very painful to call into these APIs from C#, with sometimes as many as thirty arguments having to be explicitly passed, most of which have reasonable default values and could be omitted. Even in APIs for .NET however you sometimes find yourself compelled to write many overloads of a method with different combinations of parameters, in order to provide maximum usability to the callers. Optional parameters are a useful alternative for these situations. Optional parameters A parameter is declared optional simply by providing a default value for it: public void M(int x, int y = 5, int z = 7); Here y and z are optional parameters and can be omitted in calls: M(1, 2, 3); // ordinary call of M M(1, 2); // omitting z – equivalent to M(1, 2, 7) M(1); // omitting both y and z – equivalent to M(1, 5, 7) Named and optional arguments C# 4.0 does not permit you to omit arguments between commas as in M(1,,3). This could lead to highly unreadable comma-counting code. Instead any argument can be passed by name. Thus if you want to omit only y from a call of M you can write: M(1, z: 3); // passing z by name or M(x: 1, z: 3); // passing both x and z by name or even M(z: 3, x: 1); // reversing the order of arguments All forms are equivalent, except that arguments are always evaluated in the order they appear, so in the last example the 3 is evaluated before the 1. Optional and named arguments can be used not only with methods but also with indexers and constructors. Overload resolution Named and optional arguments affect overload resolution, but the changes are relatively simple: A signature is applicable if all its parameters are either optional or have exactly one corresponding argument (by name or position) in the call which is convertible to the parameter type. Betterness rules on conversions are only applied for arguments that are explicitly given – omitted optional arguments are ignored for betterness purposes. If two signatures are equally good, one that does not omit optional parameters is preferred. M(string s, int i = 1); M(object o); M(int i, string s = “Hello”); M(int i); M(5); Given these overloads, we can see the working of the rules above. M(string,int) is not applicable because 5 doesn’t convert to string. M(int,string) is applicable because its second parameter is optional, and so, obviously are M(object) and M(int). M(int,string) and M(int) are both better than M(object) because the conversion from 5 to int is better than the conversion from 5 to object. Finally M(int) is better than M(int,string) because no optional arguments are omitted. Thus the method that gets called is M(int). Features for COM interop Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters greatly improve the experience of interoperating with COM APIs such as the Office Automation APIs. In order to remove even more of the speed bumps, a couple of small COM-specific features are also added to C# 4.0. Dynamic import Many COM methods accept and return variant types, which are represented in the PIAs as object. In the vast majority of cases, a programmer calling these methods already knows the static type of a returned object from context, but explicitly has to perform a cast on the returned value to make use of that knowledge. These casts are so common that they constitute a major nuisance. In order to facilitate a smoother experience, you can now choose to import these COM APIs in such a way that variants are instead represented using the type dynamic. In other words, from your point of view, COM signatures now have occurrences of dynamic instead of object in them. This means that you can easily access members directly off a returned object, or you can assign it to a strongly typed local variable without having to cast. To illustrate, you can now say excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Hello"; instead of ((Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]).Value2 = "Hello"; and Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; instead of Excel.Range range = (Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]; Compiling without PIAs Primary Interop Assemblies are large .NET assemblies generated from COM interfaces to facilitate strongly typed interoperability. They provide great support at design time, where your experience of the interop is as good as if the types where really defined in .NET. However, at runtime these large assemblies can easily bloat your program, and also cause versioning issues because they are distributed independently of your application. The no-PIA feature allows you to continue to use PIAs at design time without having them around at runtime. Instead, the C# compiler will bake the small part of the PIA that a program actually uses directly into its assembly. At runtime the PIA does not have to be loaded. Omitting ref Because of a different programming model, many COM APIs contain a lot of reference parameters. Contrary to refs in C#, these are typically not meant to mutate a passed-in argument for the subsequent benefit of the caller, but are simply another way of passing value parameters. It therefore seems unreasonable that a C# programmer should have to create temporary variables for all such ref parameters and pass these by reference. Instead, specifically for COM methods, the C# compiler will allow you to pass arguments by value to such a method, and will automatically generate temporary variables to hold the passed-in values, subsequently discarding these when the call returns. In this way the caller sees value semantics, and will not experience any side effects, but the called method still gets a reference. Open issues A few COM interface features still are not surfaced in C#. Most notably these include indexed properties and default properties. As mentioned above these will be respected if you access COM dynamically, but statically typed C# code will still not recognize them. There are currently no plans to address these remaining speed bumps in C# 4.0. Variance An aspect of generics that often comes across as surprising is that the following is illegal: IList<string> strings = new List<string>(); IList<object> objects = strings; The second assignment is disallowed because strings does not have the same element type as objects. There is a perfectly good reason for this. If it were allowed you could write: objects[0] = 5; string s = strings[0]; Allowing an int to be inserted into a list of strings and subsequently extracted as a string. This would be a breach of type safety. However, there are certain interfaces where the above cannot occur, notably where there is no way to insert an object into the collection. Such an interface is IEnumerable<T>. If instead you say: IEnumerable<object> objects = strings; There is no way we can put the wrong kind of thing into strings through objects, because objects doesn’t have a method that takes an element in. Variance is about allowing assignments such as this in cases where it is safe. The result is that a lot of situations that were previously surprising now just work. Covariance In .NET 4.0 the IEnumerable<T> interface will be declared in the following way: public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable { IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator(); } public interface IEnumerator<out T> : IEnumerator { bool MoveNext(); T Current { get; } } The “out” in these declarations signifies that the T can only occur in output position in the interface – the compiler will complain otherwise. In return for this restriction, the interface becomes “covariant” in T, which means that an IEnumerable<A> is considered an IEnumerable<B> if A has a reference conversion to B. As a result, any sequence of strings is also e.g. a sequence of objects. This is useful e.g. in many LINQ methods. Using the declarations above: var result = strings.Union(objects); // succeeds with an IEnumerable<object> This would previously have been disallowed, and you would have had to to some cumbersome wrapping to get the two sequences to have the same element type. Contravariance Type parameters can also have an “in” modifier, restricting them to occur only in input positions. An example is IComparer<T>: public interface IComparer<in T> { public int Compare(T left, T right); } The somewhat baffling result is that an IComparer<object> can in fact be considered an IComparer<string>! It makes sense when you think about it: If a comparer can compare any two objects, it can certainly also compare two strings. This property is referred to as contravariance. A generic type can have both in and out modifiers on its type parameters, as is the case with the Func<…> delegate types: public delegate TResult Func<in TArg, out TResult>(TArg arg); Obviously the argument only ever comes in, and the result only ever comes out. Therefore a Func<object,string> can in fact be used as a Func<string,object>. Limitations Variant type parameters can only be declared on interfaces and delegate types, due to a restriction in the CLR. Variance only applies when there is a reference conversion between the type arguments. For instance, an IEnumerable<int> is not an IEnumerable<object> because the conversion from int to object is a boxing conversion, not a reference conversion. Also please note that the CTP does not contain the new versions of the .NET types mentioned above. In order to experiment with variance you have to declare your own variant interfaces and delegate types. COM Example Here is a larger Office automation example that shows many of the new C# features in action. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq; using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel; using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var excel = new Excel.Application(); excel.Visible = true; excel.Workbooks.Add(); // optional arguments omitted excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Process Name"; // no casts; Value dynamically excel.Cells[1, 2].Value = "Memory Usage"; // accessed var processes = Process.GetProcesses() .OrderByDescending(p =&gt; p.WorkingSet) .Take(10); int i = 2; foreach (var p in processes) { excel.Cells[i, 1].Value = p.ProcessName; // no casts excel.Cells[i, 2].Value = p.WorkingSet; // no casts i++; } Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; // no casts Excel.Chart chart = excel.ActiveWorkbook.Charts. Add(After: excel.ActiveSheet); // named and optional arguments chart.ChartWizard( Source: range.CurrentRegion, Title: "Memory Usage in " + Environment.MachineName); //named+optional chart.ChartStyle = 45; chart.CopyPicture(Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen, Excel.XlCopyPictureFormat.xlBitmap, Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen); var word = new Word.Application(); word.Visible = true; word.Documents.Add(); // optional arguments word.Selection.Paste(); } } The code is much more terse and readable than the C# 3.0 counterpart. Note especially how the Value property is accessed dynamically. This is actually an indexed property, i.e. a property that takes an argument; something which C# does not understand. However the argument is optional. Since the access is dynamic, it goes through the runtime COM binder which knows to substitute the default value and call the indexed property. Thus, dynamic COM allows you to avoid accesses to the puzzling Value2 property of Excel ranges. Relationship with Visual Basic A number of the features introduced to C# 4.0 already exist or will be introduced in some form or other in Visual Basic: · Late binding in VB is similar in many ways to dynamic lookup in C#, and can be expected to make more use of the DLR in the future, leading to further parity with C#. · Named and optional arguments have been part of Visual Basic for a long time, and the C# version of the feature is explicitly engineered with maximal VB interoperability in mind. · NoPIA and variance are both being introduced to VB and C# at the same time. VB in turn is adding a number of features that have hitherto been a mainstay of C#. As a result future versions of C# and VB will have much better feature parity, for the benefit of everyone. Resources All available resources concerning C# 4.0 can be accessed through the C# Dev Center. Specifically, this white paper and other resources can be found at the Code Gallery site. Enjoy! span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Turn Photos and Home Videos into Movies with Windows Live Movie Maker

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for an easy way to take your digital photos and videos and turn them into a movie or slideshow? Today we’ll take a detailed look at how to do use Windows Live Movie Maker. Installation Windows Live Movie Maker comes bundled as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite (link below). However, you don’t have to install any of the programs you may not want. Take notice of the You’re almost done screen. Before clicking Continue, be sure to uncheck the boxes to set your search provider and homepage. Adding Pictures and Videos Open Windows Live Movie Maker. You can add videos or photos by simply dragging and dropping them onto the storyboard area. You can also click on the storyboard area or on the Add videos and photos button on the Home tab to browse for videos and photos. Windows Live Movie Maker supports most video, image, and audio file types. Select your files and add click Open to add them to Windows Live Movie Maker. By default WLMM doesn’t allow you to add files from network locations…so check out our article on how to add network support to Windows Live MovieMaker if the files you want to add are on a network drive. Layout All of your added clips will appear in the storyboard area on the right, while the currently selected clip will appear in the preview window on the left. You can adjust the size of the two areas by clicking and dragging the dividing line in the middle.    Make the clips on the storyboard bigger or smaller by clicking on the thumbnail size icon. The slider at the lower right adjusts the zoom time scale.   Previewing your Movie At any time, you can playback your movie and preview how it will look in the Preview window by clicking the space bar, or by pushing the play button under the preview window. You can also manually move the preview bar slider across the storyboard to view the clips as the video progresses. Adjusting Clips on the Storyboard You can click and drag clips on the storyboard to change the order in which the photos and videos appear.   Adding Music Nothing brings a movie to life quite like music. Selecting Add music will add your music to the beginning of the movie. Select Add music at the current point to include it in the movie to the current location of your preview bar slider, then browse for your music clip. WLMM supports many common audio files such as WAV, MP3, M4A, WMA, AIFF, and ASF. The music clip will appear above the video / photos clips on the storyboard.   You can change the location of music clips by clicking and dragging them to a different location on the storyboard. Add Titles, Captions, and Credits To add a Title screen to your movie, click the Title button on the Home tab. Type your title directly into the text box on the preview screen. The title will be placed at the location of the preview slider on the storyboard. However, you can change the location by clicking and dragging title to other areas of the storyboard. On the Format tab, there are a handful of text settings. You can change the font, color, size, alignment,  and transparency. The Adjust group allows you to change the background color, edit the text, and set the length of time the Title will appear in the movie.   The Effects group on the Format tab allows you to select an effect for your title screen. By hovering your cursor over each option, you will get a live preview of how each effect will appear in the preview window. Click to apply any of the effects. For captions, select where you want your caption to appear with the preview slider on the storyboard, then click the captions button on the Home tab. Just like the title, you type your caption directly into the text box on the preview screen, and you can make any adjustments by using the Font and Paragraph, Adjust, and Effects groups above. Credits are done the same as titles and captions, except they are automatically placed at the end of the movie.   Transitions Go to the Animation tab on the ribbon to apply transitions. Select a clip from the storyboard and hover over one of the transition to see it in the preview window. Click on the transition to apply it to the clip. You can apply transitions separately to clips or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same transition. Pan and zoom effects are also located on the Animations tab, but can be applied to photos only. Like transition, you can apply them individually to a clip or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same pan and zoom effect. Once applied, you can adjust the duration of the transitions and pan and zoom effects. You can also click the dropdown for additional transitions or effects. Visual Effects Similar to Pan and Zoom and Transitions, you can apply a variety of Visual Effects to individual or multiple clips. Editing Video and Music Note: This does not actually edit the original video you imported into your Windows Live Movie Maker project, only how it appears in your WLMM project. There are some very basic editing tools located on the Home tab. The Rotate left and Rotate right button will adjust any clip that may be oriented incorrectly. The Fit to music button will automatically adjust the duration of the photos (if you have any in your project) to fit the length of the music in your movie. Audio mix allows you to change the volume level   You can also do some slightly more advanced editing from the Edit tab. Select the video clip on the storyboard and click the Trim tool to edit or remove portions of a video clip. Next, click and drag the sliders in the preview windows to select the are you wish to keep. For example, the area outside the sliders is the area trimmed from the movie. The area inside is the section that is kept in the movie. You can also adjust the Start and End points manually on the ribbon.   When you are finished, click Save trim. You can also split your video clips. Move the preview slider to the location in the video clip where you’d like to split it, and select Split. Your video will be split into separate sections. Now you can apply different effects or move them to different locations on the storyboard. Editing Music Clips Select the music clip on the storyboard and then the Options tab on the ribbon. You can adjust the music volume by moving the slider right and left.   You can also choose to have your music clip fade in or out at the beginning and end of your movie. From the Fade in and Fade out dropdowns, select None, Slow, Medium, or Fast. To adjust the sound of your audio clips, click on the Edit tab, select the Video volume button, and adjust the slider. Move it all the way to the left to mute any background noise in your video clips.   AutoMovie As you have seen, Windows Live Movie Maker allows you to add effects, transitions, titles, and more. If you don’t want to do any of that stuff yourself, AutoMovie will automatically add title, credits, cross fade transitions between items, pan and zoom effects to photos, and fit your project to the music. Just select the AutoMovie button on the Home tab. You can go from zero to movie in literally a couple minutes.   Uploading to YouTube You can share your video on YouTube directly from Windows Live Movie Maker. Click on the YouTube icon in the Sharing group on the Home tab. You’ll be prompted for your YouTube username and password. Fill in the details about your movie and click Publish. The movie will be converted to WMV before being uploaded to YouTube. As soon as the YouTube conversion is complete, you’re new movie is live and ready to be viewed. Saving your Movie as a Video File Select the icon at the top left, then select Save movie. As you hover your mouse over each of the options, you will see the output display size, aspect ratio, and estimated file size per minute of video. All of these settings will output your movie as a WMV file. (Unfortunately, the only option is to save a movie as a WMV file.) The only difference is how they are encoded based on preset common settings. The Burn to DVD option also outputs a WMV file, but then opens Windows DVD Maker and walks you through the process of creating and burning a DVD.   If you choose the Burn to DVD option, close this window when the WMV file conversion is complete and the Windows DVD Maker will prompt you to begin. When your movie is finished, it’s time to relax and enjoy.   Conclusion Windows Live Movie Maker makes it easy for the average person to quickly churn out nice looking movies and slideshows from there own pictures and videos. However, long time users of previous editions (formerly called Windows Movie Maker) will likely be disappointed by some features missing in Windows Live Movie Maker that existed in earlier editions. Looking for details on burning your new project to DVD, check out our article on how to create and author DVDs with Windows DVD Maker. Download Windows Live Movie Maker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesCreate and Author DVDs in Windows 7Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie MakerInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7How to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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• Customize the Windows Media Center Start Menu with Media Center Studio

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you ever wish you could change the WMC start menu? Maybe move some of the tiles and strips around to different locations, add new ones, or eliminate some altogether? Today we look at how to do it using Media Center Studio. Download and install Media Center Studio. (Download link below) You’ll also want to make sure you have Windows Media Center closed before running Media Center Studio. Many of the actions cannot be performed with Media Center open. Once installed, you can open Media Center Studio from the Windows Start Menu. When you first open Media Center Studio you’ll be on the Themes tab. Click on the Start Menu tab. It should be noted that Media Center Studio is a Beta application, and it did crash on us a few times, so it’s a good idea to save your work frequently. You can save your changes by selecting Save on the Home tab, or by clicking the small disk icon at the top left. We also found that that trying to launch Media Center from the Start Media Center button on the application ribbon typically didn’t work. Opening Windows Media Center from the Windows Start Menu is preferred.   When you’re on the Start Menu tab you will see the Windows Media Center menu strips and tiles. Click the arrows located at the right, left, top, and bottom of the screen to scroll through the various menu strips.   Hiding and Removing Tiles and Menu Strips. If there is an entire menu strip that you never use and would like to remove from Media Center, simply uncheck the box to the left of the the title above that menu strip. If you’d like to hide individual tiles, uncheck the box next to the name of the individual tile. Renaming Tiles and Strips To rename a tile or menu strip, click on the small notepad icon next to the title. Note: If you do not see a small notepad icon next to the title, then the title is not editable. This applies to many of the “Promo” tiles. The title will turn into a text input box so that you can edit the name. Click away from the text box when finished. Here we will change the title of the default Movie strip to “Flicks.” Change the Default Tile and Menu Strip The Default menu strip is the strip that is highlighted, or on focus, when you open Media Center.   To change the default strip, simply click once on another strip to highlight it, and then save your work. In our example, I’m going to make our newly renamed “Flicks” strip the default.   Each menu strip has a default tile. This is the tile that is active, or on focus, when you select the menu strip. To change the default tile on a strip, click once on the tile. You will see it outlined in light blue. Now just simply save your changes. In our example below, we’ve changed the default tile on the TV strip to “guide.”   Moving Tiles and Menu Strips You can move an entire Menu Strip up or down on the screen. When you hover your mouse over the a menu strip, you will see up and down arrows appear to the right and left of the title. Click on the arrows to move the strip up or down.   You will see the menu strip appear in it’s new position.   To move a tile to a new menu strip, click and drag the tile you’d like to move. When you begin to drag the tile, green plus (+) signs will appear in between the tiles. Drag and drop the tile onto to any of these green plus signs to move it to that location. When you’ve dragged the tile over an acceptable position, you’ll see the  red “Move” label next to your cursor turn to a blue “Move to” label. Now you can drop the tile into position. You’ll see the tile located in it’s new position.   Adding a New Custom Menu Strip Click on the Start Menu tab and then select the Menu Strip button.   You will see a new Custom Menu strip appear on your Start Menu with the default name of Custom menu. You can change the name by clicking on the notepad icon just as we did earlier. For our example, we’ll change the name of the new strip to Add-ins. To add a new tile, click on Entry Points at the lower left of the application window. This will reveal all of your available Entry Points that can be added to the Media Center Menu. You should see the built-in Media Center Games and any Media Center Plug-ins you have added to your system. You can then drag and drop any of the Entry Points onto any of the Menu Strips. Below we’ve added Media Browser to our custom Add-ins menu strip. You can also add additional applications to launch directly from Media Center. Click on the Application button on the Start Menu tab. Note: Many applications may not work with your remote, but with keyboard and mouse only.    Type in a title which will appear under the tile in Media Center, and then type the path to the application. In our example, we will add Internet Explorer 8. Note: Be sure to add the actual path to the application and not just a link on the desktop. Click any of the check boxes to select any options under Required Capabilities. You can also browse to choose an image if you don’t care for the image that appears automatically.   Next, you can select keyboard strokes to press to exit the application and return to Media Center. Click the green plus (+) button. When prompted, press a key you’ll use to close the program. Repeat the process if you’d also like to select a keystroke to kill the program.   You’ll see your button programs listed below. When you’re finished, save your work and close out of Media Center Studio.   Now your new program entry point will appear in the Entry Points section. Drag the icon to the desired position on the Start Menu and save again before exiting Media Center Studio. When you open Media Center you will see your new application on the start menu. Click the tile to open the application just as you would any other tile. The application will open and minimize Media Center. When you press the key you choose to close the program, Windows Media Center will automatically be restored. Note: You can also exit the application through normal methods by clicking the red “X” or File > Exit. Conclusion Media Center Studio is a Beta application which the developer freely admits still has some bugs. Despite it’s flaws Media Center Studio is a powerful tool, and when it comes to customizing your Media Center start menu, it’s pretty much the only game in town. It works with both Vista and Windows 7, and according to the developer, has not been officially tested with extenders. Media Center Studio can also be used to add custom themes to Windows 7 Media Center and we’ll be covering that in a future article. Looking for more ways to customize your Media Center experience? Be sure to check out our earlier posts on Media Browser, as well as how to add Hulu, Boxee, and weather conditions your Windows 7 Media Center. Download Media Center Studio Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)How To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterStartup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7Automatically Start Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall

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• Communication Between Your PC and Azure VM via Windows Azure Connect

  - by Shaun

  With the new release of the Windows Azure platform there are a lot of new features available. In my previous post I introduced a little bit about one of them, the remote desktop access to azure virtual machine. Now I would like to talk about another cool stuff – Windows Azure Connect.   What’s Windows Azure Connect I would like to quote the definition of the Windows Azure Connect in MSDN With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IP-sec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. IP-sec protects communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks through the use of cryptographic security services. There’s an image available at the MSDN as well that I would like to forward here As we can see, using the Windows Azure Connect the Worker Role 1 and Web Role 1 are connected with the development machines and database servers which some of them are inside the organization some are not. With the Windows Azure Connect, the roles deployed on the cloud could consume the resource which located inside our Intranet or anywhere in the world. That means the roles can connect to the local database, access the local shared resource such as share files, folders and printers, etc.   Difference between Windows Azure Connect and AppFabric It seems that the Windows Azure Connect are duplicated with the Windows Azure AppFabric. Both of them are aiming to solve the problem on how to communication between the resource in the cloud and inside the local network. The table below lists the differences in my understanding. Category Windows Azure Connect Windows Azure AppFabric Purpose An IP-sec connection between the local machines and azure roles. An application service running on the cloud. Connectivity IP-sec, Domain-joint Net Tcp, Http, Https Components Windows Azure Connect Driver Service Bus, Access Control, Caching Usage Azure roles connect to local database server Azure roles use local shared files,  folders and printers, etc. Azure roles join the local AD. Expose the local service to Internet. Move the authorization process to the cloud. Integrate with existing identities such as Live ID, Google ID, etc. with existing local services. Utilize the distributed cache.   And also some scenarios on which of them should be used. Scenario Connect AppFabric I have a service deployed in the Intranet and I want the people can use it from the Internet.   Y I have a website deployed on Azure and need to use a database which deployed inside the company. And I don’t want to expose the database to the Internet. Y   I have a service deployed in the Intranet and is using AD authorization. I have a website deployed on Azure which needs to use this service. Y   I have a service deployed in the Intranet and some people on the Internet can use it but need to be authorized and authenticated.   Y I have a service in Intranet, and a website deployed on Azure. This service can be used from Internet and that website should be able to use it as well by AD authorization for more functionalities. Y Y   How to Enable Windows Azure Connect OK we talked a lot information about the Windows Azure Connect and differences with the Windows Azure AppFabric. Now let’s see how to enable and use the Windows Azure Connect. First of all, since this feature is in CTP stage we should apply before use it. On the Windows Azure Portal we can see our CTP features status under Home, Beta Program page. You can send the apply to join the Beta Programs to Microsoft in this page. After a few days the Microsoft will send an email to you (the email of your Live ID) when it’s available. In my case we can see that the Windows Azure Connect had been activated by Microsoft and then we can click the Connect button on top, or we can click the Virtual Network item from the left navigation bar.   The first thing we need, if it’s our first time to enter the Connect page, is to enable the Windows Azure Connect. After that we can see our Windows Azure Connect information in this page.   Add a Local Machine to Azure Connect As we explained below the Windows Azure Connect can make an IP-sec connection between the local machines and azure role instances. So that we firstly add a local machine into our Azure Connect. To do this we will click the Install Local Endpoint button on top and then the portal will give us an URL. Copy this URL to the machine we want to add and it will download the software to us. This software will be installed in the local machines which we want to join the Connect. After installed there will be a tray-icon appeared to indicate this machine had been joint our Connect. The local application will be refreshed to the Windows Azure Platform every 5 minutes but we can click the Refresh button to let it retrieve the latest status at once. Currently my local machine is ready for connect and we can see my machine in the Windows Azure Portal if we switched back to the portal and selected back Activated Endpoints node.   Add a Windows Azure Role to Azure Connect Let’s create a very simple azure project with a basic ASP.NET web role inside. To make it available on Windows Azure Connect we will open the azure project property of this role from the solution explorer in the Visual Studio, and select the Virtual Network tab, check the Activate Windows Azure Connect. The next step is to get the activation token from the Windows Azure Portal. In the same page there is a button named Get Activation Token. Click this button then the portal will display the token to me. We copied this token and pasted to the box in the Visual Studio tab. Then we deployed this application to azure. After completed the deployment we can see the role instance was listed in the Windows Azure Portal - Virtual Connect section.   Establish the Connect Group The final task is to create a connect group which contains the machines and role instances need to be connected each other. This can be done in the portal very easy. The machines and instances will NOT be connected until we created the group for them. The machines and instances can be used in one or more groups. In the Virtual Connect section click the Groups and Roles node from the left side navigation bar and clicked the Create Group button on top. This will bring up a dialog to us. What we need to do is to specify a group name, description; and then we need to select the local computers and azure role instances into this group. After the Azure Fabric updated the group setting we can see the groups and the endpoints in the page. And if we switch back to the local machine we can see that the tray-icon have been changed and the status turned connected. The Windows Azure Connect will update the group information every 5 minutes. If you find the status was still in Disconnected please right-click the tray-icon and select the Refresh menu to retrieve the latest group policy to make it connected.   Test the Azure Connect between the Local Machine and the Azure Role Instance Now our local machine and azure role instance had been connected. This means each of them can communication to others in IP level. For example we can open the SQL Server port so that our azure role can connect to it by using the machine name or the IP address. The Windows Azure Connect uses IPv6 to connect between the local machines and role instances. You can get the IP address from the Windows Azure Portal Virtual Network section when select an endpoint. I don’t want to take a full example for how to use the Connect but would like to have two very simple tests. The first one would be PING.   When a local machine and role instance are connected through the Windows Azure Connect we can PING any of them if we opened the ICMP protocol in the Filewall setting. To do this we need to run a command line before test. Open the command window on the local machine and the role instance, execute the command as following netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ICMPv6" dir=in action=allow enable=yes protocol=icmpv6 Thanks to Jason Chen, Patriek van Dorp, Anton Staykov and Steve Marx, they helped me to enable  the ICMPv6 setting. For the full discussion we made please visit here. You can use the Remote Desktop Access feature to logon the azure role instance. Please refer my previous blog post to get to know how to use the Remote Desktop Access in Windows Azure. Then we can PING the machine or the role instance by specifying its name. Below is the screen I PING my local machine from my azure instance. We can use the IPv6 address to PING each other as well. Like the image following I PING to my role instance from my local machine thought the IPv6 address.   Another example I would like to demonstrate here is folder sharing. I shared a folder in my local machine and then if we logged on the role instance we can see the folder content from the file explorer window.   Summary In this blog post I introduced about another new feature – Windows Azure Connect. With this feature our local resources and role instances (virtual machines) can be connected to each other. In this way we can make our azure application using our local stuff such as database servers, printers, etc. without expose them to Internet.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 1: Securing User Accounts and Passwords in Windows

  - by Matt Klein

  This How-To Geek School class is intended for people who want to learn more about security when using Windows operating systems. You will learn many principles that will help you have a more secure computing experience and will get the chance to use all the important security tools and features that are bundled with Windows. Obviously, we will share everything you need to know about using them effectively. In this first lesson, we will talk about password security; the different ways of logging into Windows and how secure they are. In the proceeding lesson, we will explain where Windows stores all the user names and passwords you enter while working in this operating systems, how safe they are, and how to manage this data. Moving on in the series, we will talk about User Account Control, its role in improving the security of your system, and how to use Windows Defender in order to protect your system from malware. Then, we will talk about the Windows Firewall, how to use it in order to manage the apps that get access to the network and the Internet, and how to create your own filtering rules. After that, we will discuss the SmartScreen Filter – a security feature that gets more and more attention from Microsoft and is now widely used in its Windows 8.x operating systems. Moving on, we will discuss ways to keep your software and apps up-to-date, why this is important and which tools you can use to automate this process as much as possible. Last but not least, we will discuss the Action Center and its role in keeping you informed about what’s going on with your system and share several tips and tricks about how to stay safe when using your computer and the Internet. Let’s get started by discussing everyone’s favorite subject: passwords. The Types of Passwords Found in Windows In Windows 7, you have only local user accounts, which may or may not have a password. For example, you can easily set a blank password for any user account, even if that one is an administrator. The only exception to this rule are business networks where domain policies force all user accounts to use a non-blank password. In Windows 8.x, you have both local accounts and Microsoft accounts. If you would like to learn more about them, don’t hesitate to read the lesson on User Accounts, Groups, Permissions & Their Role in Sharing, in our Windows Networking series. Microsoft accounts are obliged to use a non-blank password due to the fact that a Microsoft account gives you access to Microsoft services. Using a blank password would mean exposing yourself to lots of problems. Local accounts in Windows 8.1 however, can use a blank password. On top of traditional passwords, any user account can create and use a 4-digit PIN or a picture password. These concepts were introduced by Microsoft to speed up the sign in process for the Windows 8.x operating system. However, they do not replace the use of a traditional password and can be used only in conjunction with a traditional user account password. Another type of password that you encounter in Windows operating systems is the Homegroup password. In a typical home network, users can use the Homegroup to easily share resources. A Homegroup can be joined by a Windows device only by using the Homegroup password. If you would like to learn more about the Homegroup and how to use it for network sharing, don’t hesitate to read our Windows Networking series. What to Keep in Mind When Creating Passwords, PINs and Picture Passwords When creating passwords, a PIN, or a picture password for your user account, we would like you keep in mind the following recommendations: Do not use blank passwords, even on the desktop computers in your home. You never know who may gain unwanted access to them. Also, malware can run more easily as administrator because you do not have a password. Trading your security for convenience when logging in is never a good idea. When creating a password, make it at least eight characters long. Make sure that it includes a random mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Ideally, it should not be related in any way to your name, username, or company name. Make sure that your passwords do not include complete words from any dictionary. Dictionaries are the first thing crackers use to hack passwords. Do not use the same password for more than one account. All of your passwords should be unique and you should use a system like LastPass, KeePass, Roboform or something similar to keep track of them. When creating a PIN use four different digits to make things slightly harder to crack. When creating a picture password, pick a photo that has at least 10 “points of interests”. Points of interests are areas that serve as a landmark for your gestures. Use a random mixture of gesture types and sequence and make sure that you do not repeat the same gesture twice. Be aware that smudges on the screen could potentially reveal your gestures to others. The Security of Your Password vs. the PIN and the Picture Password Any kind of password can be cracked with enough effort and the appropriate tools. There is no such thing as a completely secure password. However, passwords created using only a few security principles are much harder to crack than others. If you respect the recommendations shared in the previous section of this lesson, you will end up having reasonably secure passwords. Out of all the log in methods in Windows 8.x, the PIN is the easiest to brute force because PINs are restricted to four digits and there are only 10,000 possible unique combinations available. The picture password is more secure than the PIN because it provides many more opportunities for creating unique combinations of gestures. Microsoft have compared the two login options from a security perspective in this post: Signing in with a picture password. In order to discourage brute force attacks against picture passwords and PINs, Windows defaults to your traditional text password after five failed attempts. The PIN and the picture password function only as alternative login methods to Windows 8.x. Therefore, if someone cracks them, he or she doesn’t have access to your user account password. However, that person can use all the apps installed on your Windows 8.x device, access your files, data, and so on. How to Create a PIN in Windows 8.x If you log in to a Windows 8.x device with a user account that has a non-blank password, then you can create a 4-digit PIN for it, to use it as a complementary login method. In order to create one, you need to go to “PC Settings”. If you don’t know how, then press Windows + C on your keyboard or flick from the right edge of the screen, on a touch-enabled device, then press “Settings”. The Settings charm is now open. Click or tap the link that says “Change PC settings”, on the bottom of the charm. In PC settings, go to Accounts and then to “Sign-in options”. Here you will find all the necessary options for changing your existing password, creating a PIN, or a picture password. To create a PIN, press the “Add” button in the PIN section. The “Create a PIN” wizard is started and you are asked to enter the password of your user account. Type it and press “OK”. Now you are asked to enter a 4-digit pin in the “Enter PIN” and “Confirm PIN” fields. The PIN has been created and you can now use it to log in to Windows. How to Create a Picture Password in Windows 8.x If you log in to a Windows 8.x device with a user account that has a non-blank password, then you can also create a picture password and use it as a complementary login method. In order to create one, you need to go to “PC settings”. In PC Settings, go to Accounts and then to “Sign-in options”. Here you will find all the necessary options for changing your existing password, creating a PIN, or a picture password. To create a picture password, press the “Add” button in the “Picture password” section. The “Create a picture password” wizard is started and you are asked to enter the password of your user account. You are shown a guide on how the picture password works. Take a few seconds to watch it and learn the gestures that can be used for your picture password. You will learn that you can create a combination of circles, straight lines, and taps. When ready, press “Choose picture”. Browse your Windows 8.x device and select the picture you want to use for your password and press “Open”. Now you can drag the picture to position it the way you want. When you like how the picture is positioned, press “Use this picture” on the left. If you are not happy with the picture, press “Choose new picture” and select a new one, as shown during the previous step. After you have confirmed that you want to use this picture, you are asked to set up your gestures for the picture password. Draw three gestures on the picture, any combination you wish. Please remember that you can use only three gestures: circles, straight lines, and taps. Once you have drawn those three gestures, you are asked to confirm. Draw the same gestures one more time. If everything goes well, you are informed that you have created your picture password and that you can use it the next time you sign in to Windows. If you don’t confirm the gestures correctly, you will be asked to try again, until you draw the same gestures twice. To close the picture password wizard, press “Finish”. Where Does Windows Store Your Passwords? Are They Safe? All the passwords that you enter in Windows and save for future use are stored in the Credential Manager. This tool is a vault with the usernames and passwords that you use to log on to your computer, to other computers on the network, to apps from the Windows Store, or to websites using Internet Explorer. By storing these credentials, Windows can automatically log you the next time you access the same app, network share, or website. Everything that is stored in the Credential Manager is encrypted for your protection.

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• Windows Azure Evolution &ndash; Preview Developer Portal

  - by Shaun

  With the MEET Windows Azure event on 7th June, there are many new features and updates in windows azure platform. In the coming several posts I will try to cover some of them. And in the first post here I would like to just have a quick walkthrough of the new preview developer portal.   History of the Developer Portal If you have been working with windows azure since 2009 or 2010, you should remember the first version of the developer portal. It was built in HTML with very limited features. I have the impression when I was using is old one. The layout is not that attractive and you have very limited features. On November, 2010 alone with the SDK 1.3 release, the developer portal was getting a big jump. In order to give more usability and features this it turned to be built on Silverlight. Hence it runs like a desktop application with many windows, lists, commands and context menus. From 2010 till now many features were involved into this portal, such as the remote desktop, co-admin, virtual connect, VM role, etc.. And the portal itself became more and more complicated. But it brought some problems by using the Silverlight. The first one is the browser capability. As you know in most mobile and tablet device the browser doesn’t allow the rich content plugin, such as Flash and Silverlight. This means people cannot open and configure their azure services from their iPad, iPhone and Windows Phone, etc., even though what they need may just be restart a hosted service, or view the status of their databases. Another problem is the performance. Silverlight provides rich experience to the users, but also needs more bandwidth. So in this upgrade the preview developer portal will be back to use HTML, with JavaScript, as a mobile friendly, cross browser, interactively web site.   Preview Portal vs. Silverlight Portal Before I started to talk about the new preview portal I’d better highlight that, this preview portal is a PREVIEW version, which means even though you can do almost all features that already in the old one, as long as some cool new features I will mention in the coming several posts, there are something still under developed and migrated. So sometimes you need to switch back to the old one. For example, in preview portal there is no co-admin manage function, no remote desktop function and the SQL database manage function will take you back to the old SQL Azure Manage Portal. But as Microsoft said these missing features will be moved in the preview portal in the couple of next few months. Since the public URL of the developer portal, https://windows.azure.com/, had been changed to point to this preview one, you need to click to preview button on top of the page and click the “Take me to the previous portal” link.   Overview There are four parts in the preview portal. On the top is the header which shows the account you are currently logging in. If you click on the header it will show the top menu of windows azure, where you can navigate to the windows azure home page, the price information page, community and account, etc.. The navigation bar is on the left hand side, with the categories listed below. ALL ITEMS All items in your windows azure account, includes the web sites, services, databases, etc.. WEB SITES The web sites in your windows azure account. It will only show the web sites you have. The linked resources will be shown if you drill down into a web site. VIRTUAL MACHINES The virtual machines that you had been deployed to azure. CLOUD SERVICES All windows azure hosted services in your account. SQL DATABASES All SQL databases (SQL Azure) in your account. STORAGE All windows azure storage services in your account. NETWORKS The virtual network (Windows Azure Connect) you had been created. The available items will be listed in the main part of the page based on which category your currently selected. If there’s no item it will show the link to you to quick create. At the bottom of the page there will be the command and information bar. Based on what is selected and what is performed by the user, it will show the related information and commands. For example, in the image below when I was creating a new web site, the information bar told me that my web site is being provisioned; and there are two commands in the command bar. And once it ready the command bar will show some commands that I can do to my new web site. The “Web Sites” is a new feature introduced alone with this upgrade. It gives us an easier and quicker way to establish a website from the scratch or from some existing library. I will introduce it more details in the coming next post. Also in the command bar you can create a service by clicking the NEW button. It will slide the creation panel up to you.   Where’s My Hosted Services The Windows Azure Hosted Services had been renamed to the Cloud Services. Create a new service would be very easy. Just click the NEW button at the bottom of the page, and select the CLOUD SERVICE and QIUICK CREATE. This will create a blank hosted service without deployment and certificate. It just needs you to specify the service URL and the affinity/region. Then the service will be shown in the list. If you clicked the item all information will be shown in the main part. Since there’s no package deployed to this service so currently we cannot see any information about it. But we can upload the package by using the command at the bottom. And as you can see, we could manage the configuration, instances, certificates and we can scale up and down (change the VM size), in and out (increase and decrease the instance count) to our service. Assuming I had created an ASP.NET MVC 3 web role project in Visual Studio and completed the package. Then I can click the UPLOAD button in this page to deploy my package. In the popping up window I just specify my deployment name, package file and configure file. Also I can check the box below so that it will NOT warn me if only one instance of this deployment. Once we clicked the OK button our package will be uploaded and provisioned by the platform. After a while we can see the service was ready from the information bar. We can have the basic information about this service and deployment if we to the dashboard page. For example the usage overview diagram, status, URL, public IP address, etc.. In the configure page we can view and change the CSCFG content such as the monitor setting, connection strings, OS family. In scale page we can increase and decrease the count of the instances. And in the instances page we can view all instances status. And, if your services is using some SQL databases and storages they will be shown as the linked resources under the linked resources page. And you can manage the certificates of this service as well under the certificates page.   How About My Storage Services The storage service can be managed by clicking into the STORAGES link in the navigation bar. And we can create a new storage service from the NEW button. After specify the storage name and region it will be previsioned by the platform. If you want to copy or manage the storage key you can just click the Manage Keys button at the bottom, which is very easy. What I want to highlight here is that, you can monitor your storage service by enabling the monitor configuration. Click the storage item in the list and navigate to the configure page. As you can see in the page you can enable the monitoring for blob, table and queue. And you can also enable the logging when any requests come to the storage. But as the tooltip shown in the page, enabling the monitoring and logging will increase the usage of the storage, which means increase the bill of them. So make sure you enable them properly.   And My SQL Databases (SQL Azure) The last thing I want to quick introduce is the SQL databases, which was formally named SQL Azure. You can create a new SQL Database Server and a new database by clicking the ADD button under the SQL Database navigation item. In the popping up windows just specify the database name, the edition, size, collation and the server. You can select an existing SQL Database Server if you have, or cerate a new one. If you selected to create a new server, there will be another step you need to do, which is specify the server login, password and the region. Once it ready you can mange your databases as well as the servers in the portal. In a particular server you can update the firewall settings in its Configure page. So, What Else There are some other area on the preview portal I didn’t cover, such as the virtual machines, virtual network and web sites. Regarding the virtual machines and web sites I will talk about them in the future separated post. Regarding the virtual network, it the Windows Azure Connect we are familiar with. But as I mention in the beginning of this post, the preview portal is still under developed. Some features are not available here. For example, you cannot manage the co-admin of your subscriptions, you cannot open the remote desktop on your hosted services, and you cannot navigate to the Windows Azure Service Bus, Access Control and Caching, which formally named Windows Azure AppFabric directly. In these cases you need to navigate back to the old portal. So in the coming several months we might need to use both these two sites.   Summary In this post I quick introduced the new windows azure developer portal. Since it had been rearranged and renamed I demonstrated some features that existing in the old portal, such as how to create and deploy a hosted service, how to provision a storage service and SQL database. All features in the old portal had been, is being and will be migrated into this new portal, but some of them were in a different category and page we need to figure out.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 2: Preventing Disaster with User Account Control

  - by Ciprian Rusen

  In this second lesson in our How-To Geek School about securing the Windows devices in your network, we will talk about User Account Control (UAC). Users encounter this feature each time they need to install desktop applications in Windows, when some applications need administrator permissions in order to work and when they have to change different system settings and files. UAC was introduced in Windows Vista as part of Microsoft’s “Trustworthy Computing” initiative. Basically, UAC is meant to act as a wedge between you and installing applications or making system changes. When you attempt to do either of these actions, UAC will pop up and interrupt you. You may either have to confirm you know what you’re doing, or even enter an administrator password if you don’t have those rights. Some users find UAC annoying and choose to disable it but this very important security feature of Windows (and we strongly caution against doing that). That’s why in this lesson, we will carefully explain what UAC is and everything it does. As you will see, this feature has an important role in keeping Windows safe from all kinds of security problems. In this lesson you will learn which activities may trigger a UAC prompt asking for permissions and how UAC can be set so that it strikes the best balance between usability and security. You will also learn what kind of information you can find in each UAC prompt. Last but not least, you will learn why you should never turn off this feature of Windows. By the time we’re done today, we think you will have a newly found appreciation for UAC, and will be able to find a happy medium between turning it off completely and letting it annoy you to distraction. What is UAC and How Does it Work? UAC or User Account Control is a security feature that helps prevent unauthorized system changes to your Windows computer or device. These changes can be made by users, applications, and sadly, malware (which is the biggest reason why UAC exists in the first place). When an important system change is initiated, Windows displays a UAC prompt asking for your permission to make the change. If you don’t give your approval, the change is not made. In Windows, you will encounter UAC prompts mostly when working with desktop applications that require administrative permissions. For example, in order to install an application, the installer (generally a setup.exe file) asks Windows for administrative permissions. UAC initiates an elevation prompt like the one shown earlier asking you whether it is okay to elevate permissions or not. If you say “Yes”, the installer starts as administrator and it is able to make the necessary system changes in order to install the application correctly. When the installer is closed, its administrator privileges are gone. If you run it again, the UAC prompt is shown again because your previous approval is not remembered. If you say “No”, the installer is not allowed to run and no system changes are made. If a system change is initiated from a user account that is not an administrator, e.g. the Guest account, the UAC prompt will also ask for the administrator password in order to give the necessary permissions. Without this password, the change won’t be made. Which Activities Trigger a UAC Prompt? There are many types of activities that may trigger a UAC prompt: Running a desktop application as an administrator Making changes to settings and files in the Windows and Program Files folders Installing or removing drivers and desktop applications Installing ActiveX controls Changing settings to Windows features like the Windows Firewall, UAC, Windows Update, Windows Defender, and others Adding, modifying, or removing user accounts Configuring Parental Controls in Windows 7 or Family Safety in Windows 8.x Running the Task Scheduler Restoring backed-up system files Viewing or changing the folders and files of another user account Changing the system date and time You will encounter UAC prompts during some or all of these activities, depending on how UAC is set on your Windows device. If this security feature is turned off, any user account or desktop application can make any of these changes without a prompt asking for permissions. In this scenario, the different forms of malware existing on the Internet will also have a higher chance of infecting and taking control of your system. In Windows 8.x operating systems you will never see a UAC prompt when working with apps from the Windows Store. That’s because these apps, by design, are not allowed to modify any system settings or files. You will encounter UAC prompts only when working with desktop programs. What You Can Learn from a UAC Prompt? When you see a UAC prompt on the screen, take time to read the information displayed so that you get a better understanding of what is going on. Each prompt first tells you the name of the program that wants to make system changes to your device, then you can see the verified publisher of that program. Dodgy software tends not to display this information and instead of a real company name, you will see an entry that says “Unknown”. If you have downloaded that program from a less than trustworthy source, then it might be better to select “No” in the UAC prompt. The prompt also shares the origin of the file that’s trying to make these changes. In most cases the file origin is “Hard drive on this computer”. You can learn more by pressing “Show details”. You will see an additional entry named “Program location” where you can see the physical location on your hard drive, for the file that’s trying to perform system changes. Make your choice based on the trust you have in the program you are trying to run and its publisher. If a less-known file from a suspicious location is requesting a UAC prompt, then you should seriously consider pressing “No”. What’s Different About Each UAC Level? Windows 7 and Windows 8.x have four UAC levels: Always notify – when this level is used, you are notified before desktop applications make changes that require administrator permissions or before you or another user account changes Windows settings like the ones mentioned earlier. When the UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is dimmed and you must choose “Yes” or “No” before you can do anything else. This is the most secure and also the most annoying way to set UAC because it triggers the most UAC prompts. Notify me only when programs/apps try to make changes to my computer (default) – Windows uses this as the default for UAC. When this level is used, you are notified before desktop applications make changes that require administrator permissions. If you are making system changes, UAC doesn’t show any prompts and it automatically gives you the necessary permissions for making the changes you desire. When a UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is dimmed and you must choose “Yes” or “No” before you can do anything else. This level is slightly less secure than the previous one because malicious programs can be created for simulating the keystrokes or mouse moves of a user and change system settings for you. If you have a good security solution in place, this scenario should never occur. Notify me only when programs/apps try to make changes to my computer (do not dim my desktop) – this level is different from the previous in in the fact that, when the UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is not dimmed. This decreases the security of your system because different kinds of desktop applications (including malware) might be able to interfere with the UAC prompt and approve changes that you might not want to be performed. Never notify – this level is the equivalent of turning off UAC. When using it, you have no protection against unauthorized system changes. Any desktop application and any user account can make system changes without your permission. How to Configure UAC If you would like to change the UAC level used by Windows, open the Control Panel, then go to “System and Security” and select “Action Center”. On the column on the left you will see an entry that says “Change User Account Control settings”. The “User Account Control Settings” window is now opened. Change the position of the UAC slider to the level you want applied then press “OK”. Depending on how UAC was initially set, you may receive a UAC prompt requiring you to confirm this change. Why You Should Never Turn Off UAC If you want to keep the security of your system at decent levels, you should never turn off UAC. When you disable it, everything and everyone can make system changes without your consent. This makes it easier for all kinds of malware to infect and take control of your system. It doesn’t matter whether you have a security suite or antivirus installed or third-party antivirus, basic common-sense measures like having UAC turned on make a big difference in keeping your devices safe from harm. We have noticed that some users disable UAC prior to setting up their Windows devices and installing third-party software on them. They keep it disabled while installing all the software they will use and enable it when done installing everything, so that they don’t have to deal with so many UAC prompts. Unfortunately this causes problems with some desktop applications. They may fail to work after you enable UAC. This happens because, when UAC is disabled, the virtualization techniques UAC uses for your applications are inactive. This means that certain user settings and files are installed in a different place and when you turn on UAC, applications stop working because they should be placed elsewhere. Therefore, whatever you do, do not turn off UAC completely! Coming up next … In the next lesson you will learn about Windows Defender, what this tool can do in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, what’s different about it in these operating systems and how it can be used to increase the security of your system.

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• Customize Your WordPress Blog & Build an Audience

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to quickly give your blog a fresh coat of paint and make it stand out from the pack?  Here’s how you can customize your WordPress blog and make it uniquely yours. WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be.  Although it doesn’t offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like.  Here we’ll look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience. Personalize Your Blog WordPress make it easy to personalize your blog.  Most of the personalization options are available under the Appearance menu on the left.  Here we’ll look at how you can use most of these. Add New Theme WordPress is popular for the wide range of themes available for it.  While you cannot upload your own theme to your blog, you can choose from over 90 free themes currently available with more added all the time.  To change your theme, select the Themes page under Appearance. The Themes page will show random themes, but you can choose to view them in alphabetical order, by popularity, or how recently they were added.  Or, you can search for a theme by name or features. One neat way to find a theme that suites your needs is the Feature Filter.  Click the link on the right of the search button, and then select the options you want to make sure your theme has.  Click Apply Filters and WordPress will streamline your choices to themes that contain these features. Once you find a theme you like, click Preview under its name to see how your blog will look. This will open a popup that shows your blog with the new theme.  Click the Activate link in the top right corner of the popup if you want to keep this theme; otherwise, click the x in the top left corner to close the preview and continue your search for one you want.   Edit Current Theme Many of the themes on WordPress have customization options so you can make your blog stand out from others using the same theme.  The default theme Twenty Ten lets you customize both the header and background image, and many themes have similar options. To choose a new header image, select the Header page under Appearance.  Select one of the pre-installed images and click Save Changes, or upload your own image. If you upload an image larger than the size for the header, WordPress will let you crop it directly in the web interface.  Click Crop Header when you’ve selected the portion you want for the header of your blog. You can also customize your blog’s background from the Background page under Appearance.  You can upload an image for the background, or can enter a hex value of a color for a solid background.  If you’d rather visually choose a color, click Select a Color to open a color wheel that makes it easy to choose a nice color.  Click Save Changes when you’re done. Note: that all themes may not contain these customization options, but many are flexible.  You cannot edit the actual CSS of your theme on free WordPress blogs, but you you can purchase the Custom CSS Upgrade for $14.97/year to add this ability. Add Widgets With Extra Content Widgets are small addons for your blog, similar to Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 or Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X.  You can add widgets to your blog to show recent Tweets, favorite Flickr pictures, popular articles, and more.  To add widgets to your blog, open the Widgets page under Appearance. You’ll see a variety of widgets available in the main white box.  Select one you want to add, and drag it to the widget area of your choice.  Different themes may offer different areas to place Widgets, such as the sidebar or footer. Most of the widgets offer configuration options.  Click the down arrow beside its name to edit it.  Set them up as you wish, and click Save on the bottom of the widget. Now we’ve got some nice dynamic content on our blog that’s automatically updated from the net. Choose Blog Extras By default, WordPress shows previews of websites when visitors hover over links on your blog, uses a special mobile theme when people visit from a mobile device, and shows related links to other blogs on the WordPress network at the end of your posts.  If you don’t like these features, you can disable them on the Extras page under Appearance. Build Your Audience Now that your blog is looking nice, we can make sure others will discover it.  WordPress makes it easy for you to make your site discoverable on search engines or social network, and even gives you the option to keep your site private if you’d prefer.  Open the Privacy page under Tools to change your site’s visibility.  By default, it will be indexed by search engines and be viewable to everyone.  You can also choose to leave your blog public but block search engines, or you can make it fully private. If you choose to make your blog private, you can enter up to 35 usernames of people you want to be able to see it.  Each private visitor must have a WordPress.com account so they can login.  If you need more than 35 private members, you can upgrade to allow unlimited private members for $29.97/year. Then, if you do want your site visible from search engines, one of the best ways to make sure your content is discovered by search engines is to register with their webmaster tools.  Once registered, you need to add your key to your site so the search engine will find and index it.  On the bottom of the Tools page, WordPress lets you enter your key from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to make sure your site is discovered.  If you haven’t signed up with these tools yet, you can signup via the links on this page as well. Post Blog Updates to Social Networks Many people discover the sites they visit from friends and others via social networks.  WordPress makes it easy to automatically share links to your content on popular social networks.  To activate this feature, open the My Blogs page under Dashboard. Now, select the services you want to activate under the Publicize section.  This will automatically update Yahoo!, Twitter, and/or Facebook every time you publish a new post. You’ll have to authorize your connection with the social network.  With Twitter and Yahoo!, you can authorize them with only two clicks, but integrating with Facebook will take several steps.   If you’d rather share links yourself on social networks, you can get shortened URLs to your posts.  When you write a new post or edit an existing one, click the Get Shortlink button located underneath the post’s title. This will give you a small URL, usually 20 characters or less, that you can use to post on social networks such as Twitter.   This should help build your traffic, and if you want to see how many people are checking out your site, check out the stats on your Dashboard.  This shows a graph of how many people are visiting, and popular posts.  Click View All if you’d like more detailed stats including search engine terms that lead people to your blog. Conclusion Whether you’re looking to make a private blog for your group or publish a blog that’s read by millions around the world, WordPress is a great way to do it for free.  And with all of the personalization options, you can make your it memorable and exciting for your visitors. If you don’t have a blog, you can always signup for a free one from WordPress.com.  Also make sure to check out our article on how to Start Your Own Blog with WordPress. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Manage Your WordPress Blog Comments from Your Windows DesktopAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek SoftwareMake a Backup Copy of your Production Wordpress Blog on UbuntuOops! Sorry About the Feed Errors TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, September 04, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, September 04, 2012Popular ReleasesPE file reader: READPE-e9ff717a638d.zip: Introduced some new code which parses the IMAGENTHEADERS. At the moment the command line options dosheader and imagentheaders are working and and example of their usage can be... D:\>readpe pe-files\main.exe dosheader imagentheadersMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.64: Another attempt to fix the fiasco that was my bad decision to rename the DLLs to get away from a strong-name collision that was causing lots of problems for me. Too many existing projects expected AjaxMin.dll, and lots of things broke downstream from me. This release keeps the .net 2.0 version named AjaxMin.dll. The new .net 3.5 and .net 4.0 versions are named AjaxMinLibrary.dll. If an existing project is expecting the old name, they should continue to pick up the .net 2.0 version (since the ...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83NWebsec: NWebsec 1.0.3: This release fixes two bugs in the NWebsec.Mvc package. Go get it on NuGet! http://nuget.org/packages/NWebsec.Mvc/ These work items made it into the release: 9 10 Check out the Documentation to learn how it works. This release has been tagged v1.0.3 in source control. Enjoy!RBAC Manager R2 for Exchange 2010 SP2, Exchange 2013 Preview and Office 365: RBAC Manager R2 1.5.5.0: now supports to manage RBAC on Office 365 'remember password' feature now saves the password as encrypted as opposed to plain-text format in version 1.5.0.0 DPAPI is used to encrypt the saved password; for more information about DPAPI please check: Managed DPAPI Part I: ProtectedData http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnfa/archive/2004/05/05/126825.aspx The tool requires HTTP/HTTPS network connection to the Exchange server Known Bugs: Active Directory lookup is not working remotely and crashes the ...WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.Dynamics AX Build Scripts: AX TFS Build Library Beta - v0.2.0.0: Beta release of TFS 2010 workflow code activities for AX 2009 and AX 2012. Build template for AX 2012 included. There is one refactor of code that will break your existing workflows. The AOS workflow step to stop/start AOS now expects the actual windows service name, not the port number of the AOS. There now is a new step to retrieve server settings, which can get the service identifier based on the port number. The registry has to be read to retrieve these settings, and we didn't want to ke...Cosmo OS: Cosmo OS Lama Preview: Info Sulla Release Lama Preview ( Prima Preview Pubblica ) Data Di Rilascio: 2 / 09 / 12 Build: 1950 Ramo Di Sviluppo: cosmo_os.preview.lama.bid1535543 Tipo Release: Stable / PreviewNETDeob0: NETDeob 0.3.1 BETA binaries: 0.3.1Custom Captcha Plugin for Kooboo CMS for adding content or sending feedback: Custom Captcha Validator Plugin v1.1 for Kooboo: Download file CustomCaptchaValidatorPlugin.dll and install it to KooBoo CMS. Release 1.1: Fixed error: "A generic error occurred in GDI+" (if hosting is less than Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7) - http://forum.kooboo.com/yafpostsm6602Custom-captcha---any-best-practice.aspx#post6602TSQL Code Smells Finder: POC 1.01: Proof of concept 1.01 TSQLDomTest.ps1 and Errors.Txt are requiredSaturn Kinect: Saturn Kinect + Sample Applications - Release 3: This release includes : - Saturn Kinect Library - Kinect Motion Capture Application - Controlling mouse cursor sample - Hand swip detection sample + Source CodesDiscuzViet: DiscuzX2.5_02092012_Vietnam: DiscuzX2.502092012VietnamBookmark Collector: 01.00.00: This is the first release with a minimal feature set. You can save, edit, delete, and display a list of URLs from various sites.EntLib.com????????: EntLib.com???????? v3.0: EntLib eCommerce Solution ???Microsoft .Net Framework?????????????????????。Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.24: Add a sample database, and installation instructions.Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.2.1: Major linear algebra rework since v2.1, now available on Codeplex as well (previous versions were only available via NuGet). Since v2.2.0: Student-T density more robust for very large degrees of freedom Sparse Kronecker product much more efficient (now leverages sparsity) Direct access to raw matrix storage implementations for advanced extensibility Now also separate package for signed core library with a strong name (we dropped strong names in v2.2.0) Also available as NuGet packages...New ProjectsAction Bar: Action Bar is a SNS network based on activities.async/await C# Samples: Project demonstrating new C# feature - async and await. You can find here several solutions to make UI calls asynchronous: APM, EAP and async.Attribute Based Xaml Generator: Dynamic Xaml UI Generator and Editor Just point it to a dll or an exe and then navigate through your namespaces to your classB INI Sharp Library: Full support for INI files.brevis nopCommerce Extensions: Extensions for nopCommerce open soruce e-commerce solution (several Versions). !Contents nop 1.90 fpr testing the new Lib! This will be removed after 1. releaseConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu (short for Console Emulator) is a console window and tabbed environment for Windows. Tabs, Fonts, Quake style, Transparency and hundreds of other optionsContrib.Mod.AccountWidgets: Orchard module for adding login and registration widgetsCSharp GUI for Mono: This is an application which makes use of "Mono" to execute CSharp programs. It provides a graphical user interface to run the CSharp program. DocCollection: ???????????????http://www.qlili.comfanpages: Fanatics!ISIS Associations Manager: Application Web permettant la gestion d'Associations. (Membres, Emailing, Calendier)LogMan: ????????????b/s??，??python?? require: web.pyLucifure Stash - Azure Table Storage Client: Lucifure Stash is an alternate Azure table storage client, which supports arrays, enumerations, large data > 64KB, serialization, morphing and more.Mod.EverlastingLogin: Orchard module to allow a user to stay logged in for a certain amount of time using cookiesPHP Extra Functions: PHP Extra Functions is a suite of functions that extend common libraries with easy to use functions. For example, functions are added to MySQLi to simplify use.Raise events controlled: This is an example of raising you events controlled (with exception handling)sb0t v.5: sb0t 5 development page.SharePoint Mobile OA Platform: Via mobile device, by using the SharePoint Mobile Support, Web Service, Client OM, WCF Data Service bring about mobile office.Simple Guestbook: I just want to share simple code, may be will be helpful for newbies.SimplyWeather2.gadget: A neat little weather gadget for your Windows Desktop.Tanks: Required summary is hereUtility Project: Utilities ProjectWindows Phone: The goal of this project is to improve my skills in Windows Phonewords: ?????????Wpf Testing Lib: This is a project for auto testing wpf appswtstudy: wtstudy

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #039

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 FQL – Facebook Query Language Facebook list following advantages of FQL: Condensed XML reduces bandwidth and parsing costs. More complex requests can reduce the number of requests necessary. Provides a single consistent, unified interface for all of your data. It’s fun! UDF – Get the Day of the Week Function The day of the week can be retrieved in SQL Server by using the DatePart function. The value returned by the function is between 1 (Sunday) and 7 (Saturday). To convert this to a string representing the day of the week, use a CASE statement. UDF – Function to Get Previous And Next Work Day – Exclude Saturday and Sunday While reading ColdFusion blog of Ben Nadel Getting the Previous Day In ColdFusion, Excluding Saturday And Sunday, I realize that I use similar function on my SQL Server Database. This function excludes the Weekends (Saturday and Sunday), and it gets previous as well as next work day. Complete Series of SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Introduction Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 2 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 3 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers Complete List Download 2008 Introduction to Log Viewer In SQL Server all the windows event logs can be seen along with SQL Server logs. Interface for all the logs is same and can be launched from the same place. This log can be exported and filtered as well. DBCC SHRINKFILE Takes Long Time to Run If you are DBA who are involved with Database Maintenance and file group maintenance, you must have experience that many times DBCC SHRINKFILE operations takes a long time but any other operations with Database are relatively quicker. mssqlsystemresource – Resource Database The purpose of resource database is to facilitates upgrading to the new version of SQL Server without any hassle. In previous versions whenever version of SQL Server was upgraded all the previous version system objects needs to be dropped and new version system objects to be created. 2009 Puzzle – Write Script to Generate Primary Key and Foreign Key In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), there is no option to script all the keys. If one is required to script keys they will have to manually script each key one at a time. If database has many tables, generating one key at a time can be a very intricate task. I want to throw a question to all of you if any of you have scripts for the same purpose. Maximizing View of SQL Server Management Studio – Full Screen – New Screen I had explained the following two different methods: 1) Open Results in Separate Tab - This is a very interesting method as result pan shows up in a different tab instead of the splitting screen horizontally. 2) Open SSMS in Full Screen - This works always and to its best. Not many people are aware of this method; hence, very few people use it to enhance performance. 2010 Find Queries using Parallelism from Cached Plan T-SQL script gets all the queries and their execution plan where parallelism operations are kicked up. Pay attention there is TOP 10 is used, if you have lots of transactional operations, I suggest that you change TOP 10 to TOP 50 This is the list of the all the articles in the series of computed columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage This article talks about how computed columns are created and why they take more storage space than before. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance This article talks about how PERSISTED columns give better performance than non-persisted columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance – Part 2 This article talks about how non-persisted columns give better performance than PERSISTED columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column and Performance – Part 3 This article talks about how Index improves the performance of Computed Columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage – Part 2 This article talks about how creating index on computed column does not grow the row length of table. SQL SERVER – Computed Columns – Index and Performance This article summarized all the articles related to computed columns. 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 21 of 31 What is Data Warehousing? What is Business Intelligence (BI)? What is a Dimension Table? What is Dimensional Modeling? What is a Fact Table? What are the Fundamental Stages of Data Warehousing? What are the Different Methods of Loading Dimension tables? Describes the Foreign Key Columns in Fact Table and Dimension Table? What is Data Mining? What is the Difference between a View and a Materialized View? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 22 of 31 What is OLTP? What is OLAP? What is the Difference between OLTP and OLAP? What is ODS? What is ER Diagram? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 23 of 31 What is ETL? What is VLDB? Is OLTP Database is Design Optimal for Data Warehouse? If denormalizing improves Data Warehouse Processes, then why is the Fact Table is in the Normal Form? What are Lookup Tables? What are Aggregate Tables? What is Real-Time Data-Warehousing? What are Conformed Dimensions? What is a Conformed Fact? How do you Load the Time Dimension? What is a Level of Granularity of a Fact Table? What are Non-Additive Facts? What is a Factless Facts Table? What are Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD)? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 24 of 31 What is Hybrid Slowly Changing Dimension? What is BUS Schema? What is a Star Schema? What Snow Flake Schema? Differences between the Star and Snowflake Schema? What is Difference between ER Modeling and Dimensional Modeling? What is Degenerate Dimension Table? Why is Data Modeling Important? What is a Surrogate Key? What is Junk Dimension? What is a Data Mart? What is the Difference between OLAP and Data Warehouse? What is a Cube and Linked Cube with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Snapshot with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Active Data Warehousing? What is the Difference between Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence? What is MDS? Explain the Paradigm of Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball. SQL SERVER – Azure Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Paras Doshi – Day 25 of 31 Paras Doshi has submitted 21 interesting question and answers for SQL Azure. 1.What is SQL Azure? 2.What is cloud computing? 3.How is SQL Azure different than SQL server? 4.How many replicas are maintained for each SQL Azure database? 5.How can we migrate from SQL server to SQL Azure? 6.Which tools are available to manage SQL Azure databases and servers? 7.Tell me something about security and SQL Azure. 8.What is SQL Azure Firewall? 9.What is the difference between web edition and business edition? 10.How do we synchronize On Premise SQL server with SQL Azure? 11.How do we Backup SQL Azure Data? 12.What is the current pricing model of SQL Azure? 13.What is the current limitation of the size of SQL Azure DB? 14.How do you handle datasets larger than 50 GB? 15.What happens when the SQL Azure database reaches Max Size? 16.How many databases can we create in a single server? 17.How many servers can we create in a single subscription? 18.How do you improve the performance of a SQL Azure Database? 19.What is code near application topology? 20.What were the latest updates to SQL Azure service? 21.When does a workload on SQL Azure get throttled? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Malathi Mahadevan – Day 26 of 31 Malachi had asked a simple question which has several answers. Each answer makes you think and ponder about the reality of the IT world. Look at the simple question – ‘What is the toughest challenge you have faced in your present job and how did you handle it’? and its various answers. Each answer has its own story. SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Rick Morelan – Day 27 of 31 Rick Morelan of Joes2Pros has written an excellent blog post on the subject how to find top N values. Most people are fully aware of how the TOP keyword works with a SELECT statement. After years preparing so many students to pass the SQL Certification I noticed they were pretty well prepared for job interviews too. Yes, they would do well in the interview but not great. There seemed to be a few questions that would come up repeatedly for almost everyone. Rick addresses similar questions in his lucid writing skills. 2012 Observation of Top with Index and Order of Resultset SQL Server has lots of things to learn and share. It is amazing to see how people evaluate and understand different techniques and styles differently when implementing. The real reason may be absolutely different but we may blame something totally different for the incorrect results. Read the blog post to learn more. How do I Record Video and Webcast How to Convert Hex to Decimal or INT Earlier I asked regarding a question about how to convert Hex to Decimal. I promised that I will post an answer with Due Credit to the author but never got around to post a blog post around it. Read the original post over here SQL SERVER – Question – How to Convert Hex to Decimal. Query to Get Unique Distinct Data Based on Condition – Eliminate Duplicate Data from Resultset The natural reaction will be to suggest DISTINCT or GROUP BY. However, not all the questions can be solved by DISTINCT or GROUP BY. Let us see the following example, where a user wanted only latest records to be displayed. Let us see the example to understand further. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Juju Openstack bundle: Can't launch an instance

  - by user281985

  Deployed bundle:~makyo/openstack/2/openstack, on top of 7 physical boxes and 3 virtual ones. After changing vip_iface strings to point to right devices, e.g., br0 instead of eth0, and defining "/mnt/loopback|30G", in Cinder's block-device string, am able to navigate through openstack dashboard, error free. Following http://docs.openstack.org/grizzly/openstack-compute/install/apt/content/running-an-instance.html instructions, attempted to launch cirros 0.3.1 image; however, novalist shows the instance in error state. ubuntu@node7:~$ nova --debug boot --flavor 1 --image 28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd --key_name key2 --security_group default cirros REQ: curl -i http://keyStone.IP:5000/v2.0/tokens -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -d '{"auth": {"tenantName": "admin", "passwordCredentials": {"username": "admin", "password": "openstack"}}}' INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): keyStone.IP DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "POST /v2.0/tokens HTTP/1.1" 200 None RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:02 GMT', 'transfer-encoding': 'chunked', 'vary': 'X-Auth-Token', 'content-type': 'application/json'} RESP BODY: {"access": {"token": {"expires": "2014-06-11T00:01:02Z", "id": "3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534", "tenant": {"description": "Created by Juju", "enabled": true, "id": "08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "name": "admin"}}, "serviceCatalog": [{"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "publicURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "compute", "name": "nova"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:9696", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:9696", "publicURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:9696"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "network", "name": "quantum"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:3333", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:3333", "publicURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:3333"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "s3", "name": "s3"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://i.p.s.36:9292", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://i.p.s.36:9292", "publicURL": "http://i.p.s.36:9292"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "image", "name": "glance"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://i.p.s.39:8776/v1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://i.p.s.39:8776/v1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "publicURL": "http://i.p.s.39:8776/v1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "volume", "name": "cinder"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8773/services/Cloud", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8773/services/Cloud", "publicURL": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8773/services/Cloud"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "ec2", "name": "ec2"}, {"endpoints": [{"adminURL": "http://keyStone.IP:35357/v2.0", "region": "RegionOne", "internalURL": "http://keyStone.IP:5000/v2.0", "publicURL": "http://i.p.s.44:5000/v2.0"}], "endpoints_links": [], "type": "identity", "name": "keystone"}], "user": {"username": "admin", "roles_links": [], "id": "b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d", "roles": [{"id": "e020001eb9a049f4a16540238ab158aa", "name": "Admin"}, {"id": "b84fbff4d5554d53bbbffdaad66b56cb", "name": "KeystoneServiceAdmin"}, {"id": "129c8b49d42b4f0796109aaef2069aa9", "name": "KeystoneAdmin"}], "name": "admin"}}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd -X GET -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "GET /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd HTTP/1.1" 200 719 RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:03 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-7f3459f8-d3d5-47f1-97a3-8407a4419a69', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'content-length': '719'} RESP BODY: {"image": {"status": "ACTIVE", "updated": "2014-06-09T22:17:54Z", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "rel": "bookmark"}, {"href": "http://External.Public.Port:9292/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "type": "application/vnd.openstack.image", "rel": "alternate"}], "id": "28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "OS-EXT-IMG-SIZE:size": 13147648, "name": "Cirros 0.3.1", "created": "2014-06-09T22:17:54Z", "minDisk": 0, "progress": 100, "minRam": 0, "metadata": {}}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1 -X GET -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "GET /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1 HTTP/1.1" 200 418 RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:04 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-2c153110-6969-4f3a-b51c-8f1a6ce75bee', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'content-length': '418'} RESP BODY: {"flavor": {"name": "m1.tiny", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}], "ram": 512, "OS-FLV-DISABLED:disabled": false, "vcpus": 1, "swap": "", "os-flavor-access:is_public": true, "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 0, "disk": 0, "id": "1"}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers -X POST -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" -d '{"server": {"name": "cirros", "imageRef": "28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "key_name": "key2", "flavorRef": "1", "max_count": 1, "min_count": 1, "security_groups": [{"name": "default"}]}}' INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "POST /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers HTTP/1.1" 202 436 RESP: [202] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:05 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'location': 'http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43', 'content-length': '436'} RESP BODY: {"server": {"security_groups": [{"name": "default"}], "OS-DCF:diskConfig": "MANUAL", "id": "2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "rel": "bookmark"}], "adminPass": "oFRbvRqif2C8"}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43 -X GET -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "GET /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43 HTTP/1.1" 200 1349 RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:05 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-d91d0858-7030-469d-8e55-40e05e4d00fd', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'content-length': '1349'} RESP BODY: {"server": {"status": "BUILD", "updated": "2014-06-10T00:01:05Z", "hostId": "", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host": null, "addresses": {}, "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/servers/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "rel": "bookmark"}], "key_name": "key2", "image": {"id": "28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "OS-EXT-STS:task_state": "scheduling", "OS-EXT-STS:vm_state": "building", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name": "instance-00000004", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname": null, "flavor": {"id": "1", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "id": "2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43", "security_groups": [{"name": "default"}], "OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone": "nova", "user_id": "b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d", "name": "cirros", "created": "2014-06-10T00:01:04Z", "tenant_id": "08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239", "OS-DCF:diskConfig": "MANUAL", "accessIPv4": "", "accessIPv6": "", "progress": 0, "OS-EXT-STS:power_state": 0, "config_drive": "", "metadata": {}}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1 -X GET -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "GET /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1 HTTP/1.1" 200 418 RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:05 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-896c0120-1102-4408-9e09-cd628f2dd699', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'content-length': '418'} RESP BODY: {"flavor": {"name": "m1.tiny", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}], "ram": 512, "OS-FLV-DISABLED:disabled": false, "vcpus": 1, "swap": "", "os-flavor-access:is_public": true, "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 0, "disk": 0, "id": "1"}} REQ: curl -i http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd -X GET -H "X-Auth-Project-Id: admin" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: 3eefa1837d984426a633fe09259a1534" INFO (connectionpool:191) Starting new HTTP connection (1): nova.cloud.controller DEBUG (connectionpool:283) "GET /v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd HTTP/1.1" 200 719 RESP: [200] {'date': 'Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:01:05 GMT', 'x-compute-request-id': 'req-454e9651-c247-4d31-8049-6b254de050ae', 'content-type': 'application/json', 'content-length': '719'} RESP BODY: {"image": {"status": "ACTIVE", "updated": "2014-06-09T22:17:54Z", "links": [{"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/v1.1/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://nova.cloud.controller:8774/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "rel": "bookmark"}, {"href": "http://External.Public.Port:9292/08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239/images/28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "type": "application/vnd.openstack.image", "rel": "alternate"}], "id": "28bed1bc-bc1c-4533-beee-8e0428ad40dd", "OS-EXT-IMG-SIZE:size": 13147648, "name": "Cirros 0.3.1", "created": "2014-06-09T22:17:54Z", "minDisk": 0, "progress": 100, "minRam": 0, "metadata": {}}} +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Property | Value | +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | OS-EXT-STS:task_state | scheduling | | image | Cirros 0.3.1 | | OS-EXT-STS:vm_state | building | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name | instance-00000004 | | flavor | m1.tiny | | id | 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43 | | security_groups | [{u'name': u'default'}] | | user_id | b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d | | OS-DCF:diskConfig | MANUAL | | accessIPv4 | | | accessIPv6 | | | progress | 0 | | OS-EXT-STS:power_state | 0 | | OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone | nova | | config_drive | | | status | BUILD | | updated | 2014-06-10T00:01:05Z | | hostId | | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host | None | | key_name | key2 | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname | None | | name | cirros | | adminPass | oFRbvRqif2C8 | | tenant_id | 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239 | | created | 2014-06-10T00:01:04Z | | metadata | {} | +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ ubuntu@node7:~$ ubuntu@node7:~$ nova list +--------------------------------------+--------+--------+----------+ | ID | Name | Status | Networks | +--------------------------------------+--------+--------+----------+ | 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43 | cirros | ERROR | | +--------------------------------------+--------+--------+----------+ ubuntu@node7:~$ var/log/nova/nova-compute.log shows the following error: ... 2014-06-10 00:01:06.048 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Attempting claim: memory 512 MB, disk 0 GB, VCPUs 1 2014-06-10 00:01:06.049 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Total Memory: 3885 MB, used: 512 MB 2014-06-10 00:01:06.049 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Memory limit: 5827 MB, free: 5315 MB 2014-06-10 00:01:06.049 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Total Disk: 146 GB, used: 0 GB 2014-06-10 00:01:06.050 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Disk limit not specified, defaulting to unlimited 2014-06-10 00:01:06.050 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Total CPU: 2 VCPUs, used: 0 VCPUs 2014-06-10 00:01:06.050 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] CPU limit not specified, defaulting to unlimited 2014-06-10 00:01:06.051 AUDIT nova.compute.claims [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Claim successful 2014-06-10 00:01:06.963 WARNING nova.network.quantumv2.api [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] No network configured! 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 ERROR nova.compute.manager [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Instance failed to spawn 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Traceback (most recent call last): 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 1118, in _spawn 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] self._legacy_nw_info(network_info), 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 703, in _legacy_nw_info 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] network_info = network_info.legacy() 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'legacy' 2014-06-10 00:01:08.347 32223 TRACE nova.compute.manager [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] 2014-06-10 00:01:08.919 AUDIT nova.compute.manager [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Terminating instance 2014-06-10 00:01:09.712 32223 ERROR nova.virt.libvirt.driver [-] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] During wait destroy, instance disappeared. 2014-06-10 00:01:09.718 INFO nova.virt.libvirt.firewall [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Attempted to unfilter instance which is not filtered 2014-06-10 00:01:09.719 INFO nova.virt.libvirt.driver [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Deleting instance files /var/lib/nova/instances/2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43 2014-06-10 00:01:10.044 ERROR nova.compute.manager [req-41e53086-6454-4efb-bb35-a30dc2c780be b3730a52a32e40f0a9500440d1ef1c7d 08cff06d13b74492b780d9ceed699239] [instance: 2eb5e3ad-3044-41c1-bbb7-10f398f83e43] Error: ['Traceback (most recent call last):\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 864, in _run_instance\n set_access_ip=set_access_ip)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 1123, in _spawn\n LOG.exception(_(\'Instance failed to spawn\'), instance=instance)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.7/contextlib.py", line 24, in __exit__\n self.gen.next()\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 1118, in _spawn\n self._legacy_nw_info(network_info),\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nova/compute/manager.py", line 703, in _legacy_nw_info\n network_info = network_info.legacy()\n', "AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'legacy'\n"] 2014-06-10 00:01:40.951 32223 AUDIT nova.compute.resource_tracker [-] Auditing locally available compute resources 2014-06-10 00:01:41.072 32223 AUDIT nova.compute.resource_tracker [-] Free ram (MB): 2861 2014-06-10 00:01:41.072 32223 AUDIT nova.compute.resource_tracker [-] Free disk (GB): 146 2014-06-10 00:01:41.073 32223 AUDIT nova.compute.resource_tracker [-] Free VCPUS: 1 2014-06-10 00:01:41.262 32223 INFO nova.compute.resource_tracker [-] Compute_service record updated for node5:node5.maas ... Can't seem to find any entries in quantum.conf related to "legacy". Any help would be appreciated. Cheers,

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, September 08, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, September 08, 2012Popular ReleasesJson.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 9: New feature - Added JsonValueConverter Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Ignore not igoring default values of non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Populate error with non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed error when writing JSON for a JProperty with no value Fix - Fixed error when calling ToList on empty JObjects and JArrays Fix - Fixed losing decimal precision when writing decimal JValuesfastJSON: v2.0.4: 2.0.4 - fixed null objects -> returns "null" - added sealed keyword to classes - bug fix SerializeNullValues=false and an extra comma at the end - UseExtensions=false will disable global types also - fixed paramerters setting for Parse()Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.66: Just going to bite the bullet and rip off the band-aid... SEMI-BREAKING CHANGE! Well, it's a BREAKING change to those who already adjusted their projects to use the previous breaking change's ill-conceived renamed DLLs (versions 4.61-4.65). For those who had not adapted and were still stuck in this-doesn't-work-please-fix-me mode, this is more like a fixing change. The previous breaking change just broke too many people, I'm sorry to say. Renaming the DLL from AjaxMin.dll to AjaxMinLibrary.dl...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 07.00.00 CTP (Not for Production Use): NOTE: New Minimum Requirementshttp://www.dotnetnuke.com/Portals/25/Blog/Files/1/3418/Windows-Live-Writer-1426fd8a58ef_902C-MinimumVersionSupport_2.png Simplified InstallerThe first thing you will notice is that the installer has been updated. Not only have we updated the look and feel, but we also simplified the overall install process. You shouldn’t have to click through a series of screens in order to just get your website running. With the 7.0 installer we have taken an approach that a...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.9.0: Whats newThe media section has been overhauled to support HTML5 uploads, just drag and drop files in, even multiple files are supported on any HTML5 capable browser. The folder content overview is also much improved allowing you to filter it and perform common actions on your media items. The Rich Text Editor’s “Media” button now uses an embedder based on the open oEmbed standard (if you’re upgrading, enable the media button in the Rich Text Editor datatype settings and set TidyEditorConten...menu4web: menu4web 0.4.1 - javascript menu for web sites: This release is for those who believe that global variables are evil. menu4web has been wrapped into m4w singleton object. Added "Vertical Tabs" example which illustrates object notation.Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks OData Feed: The AdventureWorks OData service exposes resources based on specific SQL views. The SQL views are a limited subset of the AdventureWorks database that results in several consuming scenarios: CompanySales Documents ManufacturingInstructions ProductCatalog TerritorySalesDrilldown WorkOrderRouting How to install the sample You can consume the AdventureWorks OData feed from http://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. You can also consume the AdventureWorks OData fe...Desktop Google Reader: 1.4.6: Sorting feeds alphabetical is now optional (see preferences window)Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.7 Beta: Bug in the display icon for apk's, will fix with next release Added fallback icon if unable to get the image/icon from the Cloud Service Removed some stale plugins that were either out dated or incomplete. Added handler for *.ab files for restoring backups Added plugin to create device backups Backups stored in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups\%DEVICE_ID%\ Added custom folder icon for the android backups directory better error handling for installing an apk bug fixes for the Runn...The Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments: Version 1: --Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83JQuery SharePoint Autocomplete People Picker: jquery-ui-sppeoplepicker-1.0: This is the first releaes of the jquery sharepoint people picker. Currently it supports searching, selecting and getting selectable value of SharePoint profiles. This version requires the jquery-ui which can be found here: http://jqueryui.com/demosjos .net sdk: 1.0 beta: 1.0 betaWordPress???? on Windows Azure: WordPress 3.4.1 ????: v3.4.1???????????????????????? WordPress?3.4.1????????????? Windows Azure Storage for WordPress?2.0????????????? WordPress 3.4.1 ???? ★updated WP Db Abstraction 1.1.3 Windows Azure Storage for WordPress 2.0 ★updated WP Mail SMTP 0.9.1 ???????????????????、????????????「500 - Internal server error.」??????。（????????????）WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...SharePoint Developers & Admins: SPUserManager - Get users info: IntroductionSP User Manager is a tool that allows you to extract a list of unique users who accessed a certain site collection. The tool will list all available SharePoint Applications and the underlying site collection. You can then choose which Site Collection you are interested to extract their user list. You can then store the extracted list in a comma separated file (*.CSV). If you are interested to see each site collection that users belong to you can get that done by selecting the ch...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...YUGI-AR Project: YUGI-AR 1.0: yugi-ar 1.0GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.New Projects.NET diagnosing toolkit: Contains tools useful for analyzing and collecting .net traces.[ITFA GROUP] Code Gener: Code Gener (For .NET) is a tool to help programmers and system builders in building applications. 2D Rubik Cube Game: 2D Rubik Cube game that challenges the player to arrange a random sequence of numbers from 1 to 8 (inclusive), using a predefined set of transform operations.Automated SQL Index Generator: Automated SQL Index Generator is a utility application for developers working with SQL Server. It is a stand-alone windows application that can be used to generBootstrap .NET Framework 4 Template: Bootstrap .NET Framework 4 Template is an attempt a standardizing the way my software enigneers begin their projects.Bore Holes Manager: Supports CRUD operations on bore hole data via console. Also, draws a visual representation/map of the bore holes, displaying soil type, color & harness.CarrotCake CMS: CMS built in C# + SQL server to leverage jQuery UI and TinyMCECSharpGo: Learn C# by ExamplesDream Cheeky USB Drivers for Webmail Notifier and Stress Button: DreamCheekyUSB provides a Console App and .NET drivers for the Dream Cheeky Webmail Notifier and the Dream Cheeky Iron Man USB Stress Button.EFMetaProvider: Extends the Entity Framework to obtain sql specific columns metadata for linq queriesEstimation Studio: This is a small desktop application to assist developers in estimating projects.Example App: A sample using patterns and practices for trying out techniques to improve cohesion.FIM MA for Salesforce.com: Project providing an Extensible Connectivity 2.0 (ECMA) Connector (previously Management Agent) for Salesforce.com FRC Scout: FIRST Robotics ScoutingHDWebSite: new project for HDWebSiteIconBuild: IconBuild???Windows??????????????，????????，?????。 ??Metro??。 StandUp????????? ?????????。MyAppWithBranch2: MyAppWithBranch2MyTfsProject: dfasdfRomeo: Yet another Othello playing program...Stefano Tempesta: This project is a repository of .NET libraries released as open source under the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).TOOL of COBOL - TOC: Little Tools for COBOLWin Hosts Manager: It's just a simple program that helps people to edit and manage HOSTS file. Read more on Project Page.WPF Mineral Recopilation Simulation: WPF Project that simulate mineral recopilation. It had several wpf useful things.XNA and Level Validation: This project includes code for XNA and Level Validation

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 31, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 31, 2012Popular ReleasesAuto-LiMPoT: Auto-LiMPoT - v.1.1 - binary: Changelog: +Now patches updater-script with correct packager name and version number +Added option to choose position of java.exe manually if not found automaticallyExtended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.6.0: Want an easier way to install the Extended WPF Toolkit?The Extended WPF Toolkit is available on Nuget. What's in the 1.6.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner Calculator CalculatorUpDown CheckListBox - Breaking Changes CheckComboBox - New Control ChildWindow CollectionEditor CollectionEditorDialog ColorCanvas ColorPicker DateTimePicker DateTimeUpDown DecimalUpDown DoubleUpDown DropDownButton IntegerUpDown Magnifier MaskedTextBox MessageBox MultiLineTex...ScriptIDE: Release 4.4: ...Media Companion: MC 3.434b Release: General This release should be the last beta for 3.4xx. If there are no major problems, by the end of the week it will upgraded to 3.500 Stable! The latest mc_com.exe should be included too! TV Bug fix - crash when using XBMC scraper for TV episodes. Bug fix - episode count update when adding new episodes. Bug fix - crash when actors name was missing. Enhanced TV scrape progress text. Enhancements made to missing episodes display. Movies Bug fix - hide "Play Trailer" when multisaev...Better Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.831 Alpha: - A new release with: - many bugfixes - changed icon - added code for more failsafe registry usage on x64 systems - not needed regfix anymore - added ribbon shortcut keys - Other fixes Note: If you have problems opening system libraries, a suggestion was given to copy all of these libraries and then delete the originals. Thanks to Gaugamela for that! (see discussion here: 349015 ) Note2: I was upload again the setup due to missing file!XAML Dialect Comparer Tool: Beta 1: This is a first beta version of this tool (as shown at DevConncetions in Vegas, March 2012). Community participation and suggestions are appreciated.LINQ Extensions Library: 1.0.2.7: Append and Prepend extensions (1.0.2.7) IndexOf extensions (1.0.2.7) New Align/Match extensions (1.0.2.6) Ready to use stable code with comprehensive unit tests and samples New Pivot extensions New Filter ExtensionsMonoGame - Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 2.5: The MonoGame team are pleased to announce that MonoGame v2.5 has been released. This release contains important bug fixes, implements optimisations and adds key features. MonoGame now has the capability to use OpenGLES 2.0 on Android and iOS devices, meaning it now supports custom shaders across mobile and desktop platforms. Also included in this release are native orientation animations on iOS devices and better Orientation support for Android. There have also been a lot of bug fixes since t...callisto: callisto 2.0.23: Patched Script static class and peak user count bug fix.Circuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Alpha 3: New in this release: Added components: Microcontroller Demultiplexer Flip & rotate components Open XML files from older versions of Circuit Diagram Text formatting for components New CDDX syntax Other fixesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.1 CMS (Beta): Beta build for testing - please report issues at issues.umbraco.org (Latest uploaded: 5.1.0.123) What's new in 5.1? The full list of changes is on our http://progress.umbraco.org task tracking page. It shows items complete for 5.1, and 5.1 includes items for 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 listed there too. Here's two headline acts: Members5.1 adds support for backoffice editing of Members. We support the pairing up of our content type system in Hive with regular ASP.NET Membership providers (we ship a def...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.2.11: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla Public Licence 2. 2. User interface control and associated data access layer classes have been added to aid developers integrating 51Degrees.mobi into wider projects such as content management systems or web hosting management solutions. Use the following in a web form or user control to access these new UI components. <%@ Register Assembly="FiftyOne.Foundation" Namespace="...JSON Toolkit: JSON Toolkit 3.1: slight performance improvement (5% - 10%) new JsonException classPicturethrill: Version 2.3.28.0: Straightforward image selection. New clean UI look. Super stable. Simplified user experience.SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQL Monitor 4.2 alpha 16: 1. finally fixed problem with logic fault checking for temporary table name... I really mean finally ...ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5: A slew of bug-fixes with a few new features sprinkled in. This release also upgrades the SciLexer and SciLexer64 DLLs to version 3.0.4. The official stuff: Issue # Title 32402 32402 27137 27137 31548 31548 30179 30179 24932 24932 29701 29701 31238 31238 26875 26875 30052 30052 Mugen MVVM Toolkit: Mugen MVVM Toolkit ver 1.1: Added Design mode support.Harness: Harness 2.0.2: change to .NET Framework Client Profile bug fix the download dialog auto answer. bug fix setFocus command. add "SendKeys" command. remove "closeAll" command. minor bugs fixed.BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.161: Below is a list of fixes in this release. Bug BGN-2092 - Link in Email "visit your profile" not functional BGN-2083 - Manager of bugnet can not edit project when it is not public BGN-2080 - clicking on a link in the project summary causes error (0.9.152.0) BGN-2070 - Missing Functionality On Feed.aspx BGN-2069 - Calendar View does not work BGN-2068 - Time tracking totals not ok BGN-2067 - Issues List Page Size Bug: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the si...YAF.NET (aka Yet Another Forum.NET): v1.9.6.1 RTW: v1.9.6.1 FINAL is .NET v4.0 ONLY v1.9.6.1 has: Performance Improvements .NET v4.0 improvements Improved FaceBook Integration KNOWN ISSUES WITH THIS RELEASE: ON INSTALL PLEASE DON'T CHECK "Upgrade BBCode Extensions...". More complete change list and discussion here: http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postst14201_v1-9-6-1-RTW-Dated--3-26-2012.aspxNew ProjectsAlloCiné API: API AlloCiné v3 This is a library to use the API of AlloCiné. It covers the version 3 of the AlloCiné service as described here GroWiki API AlloCiné v3. The data-interchange format used behind the scene is JSON. Auto-LiMPoT: An automated tool to convert an N1 MIUI Rom to an AcerLiquid-compatible Rom.Azure Management API (via F#): This lib is a wrapper for Azure Management REST API. Can be used by .Net languages but adapted for F# (used asyncs and other). Supported operations: AffinityGroups (all), HostedServices (all), StorageServices (all), Azure Sql (all = manage server + firewall rules), AsyncOperationCraigsPack: This is a Light weight and Expandable library that helps search through craigslist ads but not bound to only one website. It includes interfaces and base classes to help create custom web providers for other specific websites. Written in c#Cygnus v3: Cygnus internal.DataHelperCS: Porject about DataHelper for rapid development and Simplist Architectur Model.Datewise Picture Arranger: Arranges/Renames pictures based on the date taken. d? án web: Ð? án môn phát tri?n ?ng d?ng webDrawbot: IRC Bot for /r/sketchdaily on reddit.FONIS prezenter: FONIS prezenter je aplikacija koja omogucava korisniku da odredenom kombinacijom sa tastature pozove odgovarajucu PowerPoint prezentaciju. Program je razvijen u C#. Za instaliranje i pokretanje ovog programa, potrebno je instalirati .NET Framework 4. Grammars: Grammars makes it easy to design regular, context-free and context-dependent grammars and apply various tools for parsing and language analysis. It is developed in C# and provides a BNF-like syntax with operator overloading and semantic rules as delegates, allowing you to design and code your grammar right in the middle of your C# code. It fleets with a fully-functional LR parser generator.iConference: Conference Management System.IQCare: IQCare is a Open Source, data capture and reporting system with patient management tools designed to measure patient outcomes. Having the ability to analyze data and then use the resulting analysis to provide improved care is the end goal of IQCare. IQCare has all of the key features needed to collect clean data and to do patient and facility analysis and reporting.Memory Management: General purpose memory management in C++ with policy-based architecture.Metro Style App Study Project: Metro Style App demos from QQ Group 95331609OpenNETCF CAB Installer SDK: The OpenNETCF CAB Installer SDK provides programmatic access to the extraction of CAB files under Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Embedded Compact and Windows Embedded HandheldOrchard Private Content: Allows content items to be displayed by only users with roles that have permission.Pete Brown NETMF and Gadgeteer Code: Module drivers and other code for my .NET Micro Framework projects.QuanLyBanHang-Nhom100: Qu?n lý bán hàng - nhóm 100 Bùi vi?t sang Nguy?n van longRegeXml: This is about a Framework that allow you to transform a bunch of dirty data into a one and well formated XML.SSIS Row Number Component: This Rownumber component allows you to add a rownumber in the case your destination doesn't support auto-increment.Sunburn XNA advanced help custom samples: This project will include samples I do using sunburns engine. If you use it correctly it is a very powerful engine i found out. I will post samples for things that people have been trying to do in xna 4 and above with sunburn for awhile. THE webpage: gffgfgdhhgghdj91Transbin for anyone: Transbin makes it easier to contorl your computer anywhere.Wazzup module for DotNetNuke: Wazzup is a simple module for the DotNetNuke CMS to display the newest content added to your site. It leverage's DNN's search indexer and displays a simple link with publishing date and text summary. Developed in VB. Fits well into narrow vertical content areasWLCompus: WLCompusXNA Game Studio 3.0 Unleashed Book Source Code: C# Source Code and Assets from the XNA Game Studio 3.0 Unleashed book. The code is released under the Ms-PL license.

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• Mal kurz erklärt: Advanced Security Option (ASO)

  - by Anne Manke

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} WER? Kunden, die die Oracle Datenbank Enterprise Edition einsetzen und deren Sicherheitsabteilungen bzw. Fachabteilungen die Daten- und/oder Netzwerkverschlüsselung fordern und / oder die personenbezogene Daten in Oracle Datenbanken speichern und / oder die den Zugang zu Datenbanksystemen von der Eingabe Benutzername/Passwort auf Smartcards oder Kerberos umstellen wollen. Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} WAS? Durch das Aktivieren der Option Advanced Security können folgende Anforderungen leicht erfüllt werden: Einzelne Tabellenspalten gezielt verschlüsselt ablegen, wenn beispielsweise der Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) oder der Europäischen Datenschutzrichtlinie eine Verschlüsselung bestimmter Daten nahelegen Sichere Datenablage – Verschlüsselung aller Anwendungsdaten Keine spürbare Performance-Veränderung Datensicherungen sind automatisch verschlüsselt - Datendiebstahl aus Backups wird verhindert Verschlüsselung der Netzwerkübertragung – Sniffer-Tools können keine lesbaren Daten abgreifen Aktuelle Verschlüsselungsalgorithmen werden genutzt (AES256, 3DES168, u.a.) Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} WIE? Die Oracle Advanced Security Option ist ein wichtiger Baustein einer ganzheitlichen Sicherheitsarchitektur. Mit ihr lässt sich das Risiko eines Datenmissbrauchs erheblich reduzieren und implementiert ebenfalls den Schutz vor Nicht-DB-Benutzer, wie „root unter Unix“. Somit kann „root“ nicht mehr unerlaubterweise die Datenbank-Files lesen . ASO deckt den kompletten physikalischen Stack ab. Von der Kommunikation zwischen dem Client und der Datenbank, über das verschlüsselte Ablegen der Daten ins Dateisystem bis hin zur Aufbewahrung der Daten in einem Backupsystem. Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Das BVA (Bundesverwaltungsamt) bietet seinen Kunden mit dem neuen Personalverwaltungssystem EPOS 2.0 mehr Sicherheit durch Oracle Sicherheitstechnologien an. Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Und sonst so? Verschlüsselung des Netzwerkverkehrs Wie beeinflusst die Netzwerkverschlüsselung die Performance? Unsere Kunden bestätigen ständig, dass sie besonders in modernen Mehr-Schichten-Architekturen Anwender kaum Performance-Einbußen feststellen. Falls genauere Daten zur Performance benötigt werden, sind realitätsnahe, kundenspezifische Tests unerlässlich. Verschlüsselung von Anwendungsdaten (Transparent Data Encryption-TDE ) Muss ich meine Anwendungen umschreiben, damit sie TDE nutzen können? NEIN. TDE ist völlig transparent für Ihre Anwendungen. Kann ich nicht auch durch meine Applikation die Daten verschlüsseln? Ja - die Applikationsdaten werden dadurch allerdings nur in LOBs oder Textfeldern gespeichert. Und das hat gravierende Nachteile: Es existieren zum Beispiel keine Datums- /Zahlenfelder. Daraus folgt, dass auf diesen Daten kein sinnvolles Berichtsverfahren funktioniert. Auch können Applikationen nicht mit den Daten arbeiten, die von einer anderen Applikation verschlüsselt wurden. Der wichtigste Aspekt gegen die Verschlüsselung innerhalb einer Applikation ist allerdings die Performanz. Da keine Indizes auf die durch eine Applikation verschlüsselten Daten erstellt werden können, wird die Datenbank bei jedem Zugriff ein Full-Table-Scan durchführen, also jeden Satz der betroffenen Tabelle lesen. Dadurch steigt der Ressourcenbedarf möglicherweise enorm und daraus resultieren wiederum möglicherweise höhere Lizenzkosten. Mit ASO verschlüsselte Daten können von der Oracle DB Firewall gelesen und ausgewertet werden. Warum sollte ich TDE nutzen statt einer kompletten Festplattenverschlüsselung? TDE bietet einen weitergehenden Schutz. Denn TDE schützt auch vor Systemadministratoren, die zwar keinen Zugriff auf die Datenbank, aber auf der Betriebssystemebene Zugriff auf die Datenbankdateien haben. Ausserdem bleiben einmal verschlüsselte Daten verschlüsselt, egal wo diese hinkopiert werden. Dies ist bei einer Festplattenverschlüssung nicht der Fall. Welche Verschlüsselungsalgorithmen stehen zur Verfügung? AES (256-, 192-, 128-bit key) 3DES (3-key)

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• Oracle Linux Tips and Tricks: Using SSH

  - by Robert Chase

  Out of all of the utilities available to systems administrators ssh is probably the most useful of them all. Not only does it allow you to log into systems securely, but it can also be used to copy files, tunnel IP traffic and run remote commands on distant servers. It’s truly the Swiss army knife of systems administration. Secure Shell, also known as ssh, was developed in 1995 by Tau Ylonen after the University of Technology in Finland suffered a password sniffing attack. Back then it was common to use tools like rcp, rsh, ftp and telnet to connect to systems and move files across the network. The main problem with these tools is they provide no security and transmitted data in plain text including sensitive login credentials. SSH provides this security by encrypting all traffic transmitted over the wire to protect from password sniffing attacks. One of the more common use cases involving SSH is found when using scp. Secure Copy (scp) transmits data between hosts using SSH and allows you to easily copy all types of files. The syntax for the scp command is: scp /pathlocal/filenamelocal remoteuser@remotehost:/pathremote/filenameremote In the following simple example, I move a file named myfile from the system test1 to the system test2. I am prompted to provide valid user credentials for the remote host before the transfer will proceed.  If I were only using ftp, this information would be unencrypted as it went across the wire.  However, because scp uses SSH, my user credentials and the file and its contents are confidential and remain secure throughout the transfer.  [user1@test1 ~]# scp /home/user1/myfile user1@test2:/home/user1user1@test2's password: myfile                                    100%    0     0.0KB/s   00:00 You can also use ssh to send network traffic and utilize the encryption built into ssh to protect traffic over the wire. This is known as an ssh tunnel. In order to utilize this feature, the server that you intend to connect to (the remote system) must have TCP forwarding enabled within the sshd configuraton. To enable TCP forwarding on the remote system, make sure AllowTCPForwarding is set to yes and enabled in the /etc/ssh/sshd_conf file: AllowTcpForwarding yes Once you have this configured, you can connect to the server and setup a local port which you can direct traffic to that will go over the secure tunnel. The following command will setup a tunnel on port 8989 on your local system. You can then redirect a web browser to use this local port, allowing the traffic to go through the encrypted tunnel to the remote system. It is important to select a local port that is not being used by a service and is not restricted by firewall rules.  In the following example the -D specifies a local dynamic application level port forwarding and the -N specifies not to execute a remote command.   ssh –D 8989 [email protected] -N You can also forward specific ports on both the local and remote host. The following example will setup a port forward on port 8080 and forward it to port 80 on the remote machine. ssh -L 8080:farwebserver.com:80 [email protected] You can even run remote commands via ssh which is quite useful for scripting or remote system administration tasks. The following example shows how to  log in remotely and execute the command ls –la in the home directory of the machine. Because ssh encrypts the traffic, the login credentials and output of the command are completely protected while they travel over the wire. [rchase@test1 ~]$ ssh rchase@test2 'ls -la'rchase@test2's password: total 24drwx------  2 rchase rchase 4096 Sep  6 15:17 .drwxr-xr-x. 3 root   root   4096 Sep  6 15:16 ..-rw-------  1 rchase rchase   12 Sep  6 15:17 .bash_history-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase   18 Dec 20  2012 .bash_logout-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase  176 Dec 20  2012 .bash_profile-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase  124 Dec 20  2012 .bashrc You can execute any command contained in the quotations marks as long as you have permission with the user account that you are using to log in. This can be very powerful and useful for collecting information for reports, remote controlling systems and performing systems administration tasks using shell scripts. To make your shell scripts even more useful and to automate logins you can use ssh keys for running commands remotely and securely without the need to enter a password. You can accomplish this with key based authentication. The first step in setting up key based authentication is to generate a public key for the system that you wish to log in from. In the following example you are generating a ssh key on a test system. In case you are wondering, this key was generated on a test VM that was destroyed after this article. [rchase@test1 .ssh]$ ssh-keygen -t rsaGenerating public/private rsa key pair.Enter file in which to save the key (/home/rchase/.ssh/id_rsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /home/rchase/.ssh/id_rsa.Your public key has been saved in /home/rchase/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.The key fingerprint is:7a:8e:86:ef:59:70:ef:43:b7:ee:33:03:6e:6f:69:e8 rchase@test1The key's randomart image is:+--[ RSA 2048]----+|                 ||  . .            ||   o .           ||    . o o        ||   o o oS+       ||  +   o.= =      ||   o ..o.+ =     ||    . .+. =      ||     ...Eo       |+-----------------+ Now that you have the key generated on the local system you should to copy it to the target server into a temporary location. The user’s home directory is fine for this. [rchase@test1 .ssh]$ scp id_rsa.pub rchase@test2:/home/rchaserchase@test2's password: id_rsa.pub                  Now that the file has been copied to the server, you need to append it to the authorized_keys file. This should be appended to the end of the file in the event that there are other authorized keys on the system. [rchase@test2 ~]$ cat id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys Once the process is complete you are ready to login. Since you are using key based authentication you are not prompted for a password when logging into the system.   [rchase@test1 ~]$ ssh test2Last login: Fri Sep  6 17:42:02 2013 from test1 This makes it much easier to run remote commands. Here’s an example of the remote command from earlier. With no password it’s almost as if the command ran locally. [rchase@test1 ~]$ ssh test2 'ls -la'total 32drwx------  3 rchase rchase 4096 Sep  6 17:40 .drwxr-xr-x. 3 root   root   4096 Sep  6 15:16 ..-rw-------  1 rchase rchase   12 Sep  6 15:17 .bash_history-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase   18 Dec 20  2012 .bash_logout-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase  176 Dec 20  2012 .bash_profile-rw-r--r--  1 rchase rchase  124 Dec 20  2012 .bashrc As a security consideration it's important to note the permissions of .ssh and the authorized_keys file.  .ssh should be 700 and authorized_keys should be set to 600.  This prevents unauthorized access to ssh keys from other users on the system.   An even easier way to move keys back and forth is to use ssh-copy-id. Instead of copying the file and appending it manually to the authorized_keys file, ssh-copy-id does both steps at once for you.  Here’s an example of moving the same key using ssh-copy-id.The –i in the example is so that we can specify the path to the id file, which in this case is /home/rchase/.ssh/id_rsa.pub [rchase@test1]$ ssh-copy-id -i /home/rchase/.ssh/id_rsa.pub rchase@test2 One of the last tips that I will cover is the ssh config file. By using the ssh config file you can setup host aliases to make logins to hosts with odd ports or long hostnames much easier and simpler to remember. Here’s an example entry in our .ssh/config file. Host dev1 Hostname somereallylonghostname.somereallylongdomain.com Port 28372 User somereallylongusername12345678 Let’s compare the login process between the two. Which would you want to type and remember? ssh somereallylongusername12345678@ somereallylonghostname.somereallylongdomain.com –p 28372 ssh dev1 I hope you find these tips useful.  There are a number of tools used by system administrators to streamline processes and simplify workflows and whether you are new to Linux or a longtime user, I'm sure you will agree that SSH offers useful features that can be used every day.  Send me your comments and let us know the ways you  use SSH with Linux.  If you have other tools you would like to see covered in a similar post, send in your suggestions.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, September 09, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, September 09, 2012Popular ReleasesMishra Reader: Mishra Reader Beta 4: Additional bug fixes and logging in this release to try to find the reason some users aren't able to see the main window pop up. Also, a few UI tweaks to tighten up the feed item list. This release requires the final version of .NET 4.5. If the ClickOnce installer doesn't work for you, please try the additional setup exe.Xenta Framework - extensible enterprise n-tier application framework: Xenta Framework 1.9.0: Release Notes Imporved framework architecture Improved the framework security More import/export formats and operations New WebPortal application which includes forum, new, blog, catalog, etc. UIs Improved WebAdmin app. Reports, navigation and search Perfomance optimization Improve Xenta.Catalog domain More plugin interfaces and plugin implementations Refactoring Windows Azure support and much more... Package Guide Source Code - package contains the source code Binaries...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 9: New feature - Added JsonValueConverter Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Ignore not igoring default values of non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Populate error with non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed error when writing JSON for a JProperty with no value Fix - Fixed error when calling ToList on empty JObjects and JArrays Fix - Fixed losing decimal precision when writing decimal JValuesMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.66: Just going to bite the bullet and rip off the band-aid... SEMI-BREAKING CHANGE! Well, it's a BREAKING change to those who already adjusted their projects to use the previous breaking change's ill-conceived renamed DLLs (versions 4.61-4.65). For those who had not adapted and were still stuck in this-doesn't-work-please-fix-me mode, this is more like a fixing change. The previous breaking change just broke too many people, I'm sorry to say. Renaming the DLL from AjaxMin.dll to AjaxMinLibrary.dl...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 07.00.00 CTP (Not for Production Use): NOTE: New Minimum Requirementshttp://www.dotnetnuke.com/Portals/25/Blog/Files/1/3418/Windows-Live-Writer-1426fd8a58ef_902C-MinimumVersionSupport_2.png Simplified InstallerThe first thing you will notice is that the installer has been updated. Not only have we updated the look and feel, but we also simplified the overall install process. You shouldn’t have to click through a series of screens in order to just get your website running. With the 7.0 installer we have taken an approach that a...BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.1: In addition to fixing a number of bugs that beta testers reported, this release includes the following new features for Tabular models in SQL 2012: New Features: Tabular Display Folders Tabular Translations Editor Tabular Sync Descriptions Fixed Issues: Biml issues 32849 fixing bug in Tabular Actions Editor Form where you type in an invalid action name which is a reserved word like CON or which is a duplicate name to another action 32695 - fixing bug in SSAS Sync Descriptions whe...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.9.0: Whats newThe media section has been overhauled to support HTML5 uploads, just drag and drop files in, even multiple files are supported on any HTML5 capable browser. The folder content overview is also much improved allowing you to filter it and perform common actions on your media items. The Rich Text Editor’s “Media” button now uses an embedder based on the open oEmbed standard (if you’re upgrading, enable the media button in the Rich Text Editor datatype settings and set TidyEditorConten...menu4web: menu4web 0.4.1 - javascript menu for web sites: This release is for those who believe that global variables are evil. menu4web has been wrapped into m4w singleton object. Added "Vertical Tabs" example which illustrates object notation.Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks OData Feed: The AdventureWorks OData service exposes resources based on specific SQL views. The SQL views are a limited subset of the AdventureWorks database that results in several consuming scenarios: CompanySales Documents ManufacturingInstructions ProductCatalog TerritorySalesDrilldown WorkOrderRouting How to install the sample You can consume the AdventureWorks OData feed from http://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. You can also consume the AdventureWorks OData fe...Desktop Google Reader: 1.4.6: Sorting feeds alphabetical is now optional (see preferences window)Lightweight Fluent Workflow: objectflow 1.4.0.1: Changes in this release;Exception handling policies Install on NuGet console; Install-Package objectflow.core -pre Supported work-flow patterns Exception policies Sequence Parallel split Simple merge Exclusive choice Retry Arbitrary cycles Framework Features Handle exceptions with workflow.Configure().On<Exception>() Repeat operations and functions an arbitrary number of times Retry failed lamda functions Generic interface for concise workflow registration Operations t...Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.7 Beta: Bug in the display icon for apk's, will fix with next release Added fallback icon if unable to get the image/icon from the Cloud Service Removed some stale plugins that were either out dated or incomplete. Added handler for *.ab files for restoring backups Added plugin to create device backups Backups stored in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups\%DEVICE_ID%\ Added custom folder icon for the android backups directory better error handling for installing an apk bug fixes for the Runn...LibXmlSocket: Binary: .net4.5,.netCore???????Hidden Capture (HC): Hidden Capture 1.1: Hidden Capture 1.1 by Mohsen E.Dawatgar http://Hidden-Capture.blogfa.comThe Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments: Version 1: --Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.New ProjectsAjax based Multi Forms ASP.NET Framework (Amfan): Ajax based Multi Forms ASP.NET Framework (Amfan) reduces the limitations of the Asp.Net by creating multiple sub-forms of the page as separate aspx pages.APO-CS: A straight port of Apophysis to C#.BaceCP / ???? ????? ?? ???????? ????: BaceCP e ??????????? ???????? ?? ????????, ??????????? ? ????????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???????? ????.CafeAdm Messenger: CafeAdm Messenger Allows a server connection for CafeAdm Schedule and MessengerDECnet 2.0 Router: A user mode DECnet 2.0 router that will interoperate with the HECnet bridge.DriveManager: This is a common utility to provide an interface for all cloud based drive providers like google drive, dropbox, MS Sky Drive. Email Tester: This utility will help you check your SMTP settings for SharePoint. It is best for Pre-PROD and PROD environment where you can't modify code.EvoGame: The evo game that im working onforebittims: Project Owner : ForeBitt Inc. Sri Lanka Project Manager : Chackrapani Wickramarathne Technologies : VS 2010, C#, Linq to Sql, Sql server 2008 R2, Dev ExpressMCServe: MCServe is the minecraft-server which takes advantage of the performance of the .NET FrameworkMental: Ðang trong quá trình phát tri?nSalaryManagementSys: SalaryManagementSysVKplay: This application is audio player, launches on windows phone platform and uses music from vk.com social network.

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• Android strange behavior with listview and custom cursor adapter

  - by Michael Little

  I have a problem with a list view and a custom cursor adapter and I just can't seem to figure out what is wrong with my code. Basically, in my activity I call initalize() that does a bunch of stuff to handle getting the proper data and initializing the listview. On first run of the activity you can see from the images that one of the items is missing from the list. If I go to another activity and go back to this activity the item that was missing shows up. I believe it has something to do with setContentView(R.layout.parent). If I move that to my initialize() then the item never shows up even when returning from another activity. So, for some reason, returning from another activity bypasses setContentView(R.layout.parent) and everything works fine. I know it's impossible for me to bypass setContentView(R.layout.parent) so I need to figure out what the problem is. Also, I did not include the layout because it is nothing more then two textviews. Also, the images I have attached do not show that the missing item is the last one on the list. Custom Cursor Adapter: public class CustomCursorAdapter extends SimpleCursorAdapter { private Context context; private int layout; public CustomCursorAdapter (Context context, int layout, Cursor c, String[] from, int[] to) { super(context, layout, c, from, to); this.context = context; this.layout = layout; } public View newView(Context context, Cursor cursor, ViewGroup parent) { LayoutInflater inflater = LayoutInflater.from(context); final View view = inflater.inflate(layout, parent, false); return view; } @Override public void bindView(View v, Context context, Cursor c) { if (c.getColumnName(0).matches("section")){ int nameCol = c.getColumnIndex("section"); String section = c.getString(nameCol); TextView section_text = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.text1); if ((section.length() > 0)) { section_text.setText(section); } else { //so we don't have an empty spot section_text.setText(""); section_text.setVisibility(2); section_text.setHeight(1); } } else if (c.getColumnName(0).matches("code")) { int nameCol = c.getColumnIndex("code"); String mCode = c.getString(nameCol); TextView code_text = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.text1); if (code_text != null) { int i = 167; byte[] data = {(byte) i}; String strSymbol = EncodingUtils.getString(data, "windows-1252"); mCode = strSymbol + " " + mCode; code_text.setText(mCode); code_text.setSingleLine(); } } if (c.getColumnName(1).matches("title")){ int nameCol = c.getColumnIndex("title"); String mTitle = c.getString(nameCol); TextView title_text = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.text2); if (title_text != null) { title_text.setText(mTitle); } } else if (c.getColumnName(1).matches("excerpt")) { int nameCol = c.getColumnIndex("excerpt"); String mExcerpt = c.getString(nameCol); TextView excerpt_text = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.text2); if (excerpt_text != null) { excerpt_text.setText(mExcerpt); excerpt_text.setSingleLine(); } } } The Activity: public class parent extends ListActivity { private static String[] TITLE_FROM = { SECTION, TITLE, _ID, }; private static String[] CODE_FROM = { CODE, EXCERPT, _ID, }; private static String ORDER_BY = _ID + " ASC"; private static int[] TO = { R.id.text1, R.id.text2, }; String breadcrumb = null; private MyData data; private SQLiteDatabase db; CharSequence parent_id = ""; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); data = new MyData(this); db = data.getReadableDatabase(); setContentView(R.layout.parent); initialize(); } public void initialize() { breadcrumb = null; Bundle bun = getIntent().getExtras(); TextView tvBreadCrumb; tvBreadCrumb = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.breadcrumb); if (bun == null) { //this is the first run tvBreadCrumb.setText(null); tvBreadCrumb.setHeight(0); parent_id = "0"; try { Cursor cursor = getData(parent_id); showSectionData(cursor); } finally { data.close(); } } else { CharSequence state = bun.getString("state"); breadcrumb = bun.getString("breadcrumb"); tvBreadCrumb.setText(breadcrumb); CharSequence code = bun.getString("code"); parent_id = code; if (state.equals("chapter")) { try { Cursor cursor = getData(parent_id); showSectionData(cursor); } finally { data.close(); } } else if (state.equals("code")) { try { Cursor cursor = getCodeData(parent_id); showCodeData(cursor); } finally { data.close(); } } } } @Override public void onStart() { //initialize(); super.onResume(); } @Override public void onResume() { initialize(); super.onResume(); } private Cursor getData(CharSequence parent_id) { Cursor cTitles = db.query(TITLES_TABLE_NAME, TITLE_FROM, "parent_id = " + parent_id, null, null, null, ORDER_BY); Cursor cCodes = db.query(CODES_TABLE_NAME, CODE_FROM, "parent_id = " + parent_id, null, null, null, ORDER_BY); Cursor[] c = {cTitles, cCodes}; Cursor cursor = new MergeCursor(c); startManagingCursor(cursor); return cursor; } private Cursor getCodeData(CharSequence parent_id2) { Bundle bun = getIntent().getExtras(); CharSequence intent = bun.getString("intent"); CharSequence searchtype = bun.getString("searchtype"); //SQLiteDatabase db = data.getReadableDatabase(); if (intent != null) { String sWhere = null; if(searchtype.equals("code")) { sWhere = "code LIKE '%"+parent_id2+"%'"; } else if(searchtype.equals("within")){ sWhere = "definition LIKE '%"+parent_id2+"%'"; } //This is a search request Cursor cursor = db.query(CODES_TABLE_NAME, CODE_FROM, sWhere, null, null, null, ORDER_BY); startManagingCursor(cursor); return cursor; } else { Cursor cursor = db.query(CODES_TABLE_NAME, CODE_FROM, "parent_id = "+ parent_id2, null, null, null, ORDER_BY); startManagingCursor(cursor); return cursor; } } private void showSectionData(Cursor cursor) { CustomCursorAdapter adapter= new CustomCursorAdapter(this, R.layout.item, cursor, TITLE_FROM, TO); setListAdapter(adapter); } private void showCodeData(Cursor cursor) { CustomCursorAdapter adapter = new CustomCursorAdapter(this, R.layout.item, cursor, CODE_FROM, TO); setListAdapter(adapter); Bundle bun = getIntent().getExtras(); CharSequence intent = bun.getString("intent"); if (intent != null) { Cursor cursor1 = ((CursorAdapter)getListAdapter()).getCursor(); startManagingCursor(cursor1); TextView tvBreadCrumb; tvBreadCrumb = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.breadcrumb); tvBreadCrumb.setText(cursor1.getCount() + " Records Found"); //cursor1.close(); //mdl } }

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• migrating Solaris to RH: network latency issue, tcp window size & other tcp parameters

  - by Bastien

  Hello I have a client/server app (Java) that I'm migrating from Solaris to RH Linux. since I started running it in RH, I noticed some issues related to latency. I managed to isolate the problem that looks like this: client sends 5 messages (32 bytes each) in a row (same application timestamp) to the server. server echos messages. client receives replies and prints round trip time for each msg. in Solaris, all is well: I get ALL 5 replies at the same time, roughly 80ms after having sent original messages (client & server are several thousands miles away from each other: my ping RTT is 80ms, all normal). in RH, first 3 messages are echoed normally (they arrive 80ms after they've been sent), however the following 2 arrive 80ms later (so total 160ms RTT). the pattern is always the same. clearly looked like a TCP problem. on my solaris box, I had previously configured the tcp stack with 2 specific options: disable nagle algorithm globally set tcp_deferred_acks_max to 0 on RH, it's not possible to disable nagle globally, but I disabled it on all of my apps' sockets (TCP_NODELAY). so I started playing with tcpdump (on the server machine), and compared both outputs: SOLARIS: 22 2.085645 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=111 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_1 RCV" 23 2.085680 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [ACK] Seq=106 Ack=133 Win=50400 Len=0 24 2.085908 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=133 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_2 RCV" 25 2.085925 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [ACK] Seq=106 Ack=155 Win=50400 Len=0 26 2.086175 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=155 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_3 RCV" 27 2.086192 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [ACK] Seq=106 Ack=177 Win=50400 Len=0 28 2.086243 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [PSH, ACK] Seq=106 Ack=177 Win=50400 Len=21 "MSG_1 ECHO" 29 2.086440 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=177 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_4 RCV" 30 2.086454 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [ACK] Seq=127 Ack=199 Win=50400 Len=0 31 2.086659 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [PSH, ACK] Seq=127 Ack=199 Win=50400 Len=21 "MSG_2 ECHO" 32 2.086708 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=199 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_5 RCV" 33 2.086721 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [ACK] Seq=148 Ack=221 Win=50400 Len=0 34 2.086947 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [PSH, ACK] Seq=148 Ack=221 Win=50400 Len=21 "MSG_3 ECHO" 35 2.087196 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [PSH, ACK] Seq=169 Ack=221 Win=50400 Len=21 "MSG_4 ECHO" 36 2.087500 server client TCP 6006 > 56150 [PSH, ACK] Seq=190 Ack=221 Win=50400 Len=21 "MSG_5 ECHO" 37 2.165390 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [ACK] Seq=221 Ack=148 Win=66632 Len=0 38 2.166314 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [ACK] Seq=221 Ack=190 Win=66588 Len=0 39 2.364135 client server TCP 56150 > 6006 [ACK] Seq=221 Ack=211 Win=66568 Len=0 REDHAT: 17 2.081163 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=111 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_1 RCV" 18 2.081178 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [ACK] Seq=106 Ack=133 Win=5888 Len=0 19 2.081297 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [PSH, ACK] Seq=106 Ack=133 Win=5888 Len=21 "MSG_1 ECHO" 20 2.081711 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=133 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_2 RCV" 21 2.081761 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=155 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_3 RCV" 22 2.081846 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [PSH, ACK] Seq=127 Ack=177 Win=5888 Len=21 "MSG_2 ECHO" 23 2.081995 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [PSH, ACK] Seq=148 Ack=177 Win=5888 Len=21 "MSG_3 ECHO" 24 2.082011 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=177 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_4 RCV" 25 2.082362 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [PSH, ACK] Seq=199 Ack=106 Win=66672 Len=22 "MSG_5 RCV" 26 2.082377 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [ACK] Seq=169 Ack=221 Win=5888 Len=0 27 2.171003 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [ACK] Seq=221 Ack=148 Win=66632 Len=0 28 2.171019 server client TCP 6006 > 55879 [PSH, ACK] Seq=169 Ack=221 Win=5888 Len=42 "MSG_4 ECHO + MSG_5 ECHO" 29 2.257498 client server TCP 55879 > 6006 [ACK] Seq=221 Ack=211 Win=66568 Len=0 so, I got confirmation things are not working correctly for RH: packet 28 is sent TOO LATE, it looks like the server is waiting for packet 27's ACK before doing anything. seems to me it's the most likely reason... then I realized that the "Win" parameters are different on Solaris & RH dumps: 50400 on Solaris, only 5888 on RH. that's another hint... I read the doc about the slide window & buffer window, and played around with the rcvBuffer & sendBuffer in java on my sockets, but never managed to change this 5888 value to anything else (I checked each time directly with tcpdump). does anybody know how to do this ? I'm having a hard time getting definitive information, as in some cases there's "auto-negotiation" that I might need to bypass, etc... I eventually managed to get only partially rid of my initial problem by setting the "tcp_slow_start_after_idle" parameter to 0 on RH, but it did not change the "win" parameter at all. the same problem was there for the first 4 groups of 5 messages, with TCP retransmission & TCP Dup ACK in tcpdump, then the problem disappeared altogether for all following groups of 5 messages. It doesn't seem like a very clean and/or generic solution to me. I'd really like to reproduce the exact same conditions under both OSes. I'll keep researching, but any help from TCP gurus would be greatly appreciated ! thanks !

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• PSTN Trunk TDM400P Install on Asterisk / Trixbox

  - by Jona

  Hey All, I'm trying to get a TDM400P card with FXO module to connect to our PSTN line. The card is correctly detected by Linux: [trixbox1.localdomain asterisk]# lspci 00:09.0 Communication controller: Tiger Jet Network Inc. Tiger3XX Modem/ISDN interface I've run setup-pstn which produces the following output trixbox1.localdomain ~]# setup-pstn -------------------------------------------------------------- Detecting PSTN cards and USB PSTN Devices -------------------------------------------------------------- Hardware present! STOPPING ASTERISK Asterisk Stopped STOPPING FOP SERVER FOP Server Stopped Unloading DAHDI hardware modules: done Loading DAHDI hardware modules: wct4xxp: [ OK ] wcte12xp: [ OK ] wct1xxp: [ OK ] wcte11xp: [ OK ] wctdm24xxp: [ OK ] opvxa1200: [ OK ] wcfxo: [ OK ] wctdm: [ OK ] wcb4xxp: [ OK ] wctc4xxp: [ OK ] xpp_usb: [ OK ] Running dahdi_cfg: [ OK ] SETTING FILE PERMISSIONS Permissions OK STARTING ASTERISK Asterisk Started STARTING FOP SERVER FOP Server Started Chan Extension Context Language MOH Interpret Blocked State pseudo default en default In Service 1 from-pstn en default In Service dahdi_scan returns: dahdi_scan [1] active=yes alarms=OK description=Wildcard TDM400P REV I Board 5 name=WCTDM/4 manufacturer=Digium devicetype=Wildcard TDM400P REV I location=PCI Bus 00 Slot 10 basechan=1 totchans=4 irq=209 type=analog port=1,FXO port=2,none port=3,none port=4,none And asterisk can see the channel: > trixbox1*CLI> dahdi show channel 1 > Channel: 1LI> File Descriptor: 14 > Span: 11*CLI> Extension: I> Dialing: > noI> Context: from-pstn Caller ID: I> > Calling TON: 0 Caller ID name: > Mailbox: none Destroy: 0LI> InAlarm: > 1LI> Signalling Type: FXS Kewlstart > Radio: 0*CLI> Owner: <None> Real: > <None>> Callwait: <None> Threeway: > <None> Confno: -1LI> Propagated > Conference: -1 Real in conference: 0 > DSP: no1*CLI> Busy Detection: no TDD: > no1*CLI> Relax DTMF: no > Dialing/CallwaitCAS: 0/0 Default law: > ulaw Fax Handled: no Pulse phone: no > DND: no1*CLI> Echo Cancellation: > trixbox1128 taps trixbox1(unless TDM > bridged) currently OFF Actual > Confinfo: Num/0, Mode/0x0000 Actual > Confmute: No > Hookstate (FXS only): Onhook A cat of /etc/asterisk/dahdi.conf shows: [trixbox1.localdomain ~]# cat /etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf ; Autogenerated by /usr/sbin/dahdi_genconf on Tue May 25 17:45:13 2010 ; If you edit this file and execute /usr/sbin/dahdi_genconf again, ; your manual changes will be LOST. ; Dahdi Channels Configurations (chan_dahdi.conf) ; ; This is not intended to be a complete chan_dahdi.conf. Rather, it is intended ; to be #include-d by /etc/chan_dahdi.conf that will include the global settings ; ; Span 1: WCTDM/4 "Wildcard TDM400P REV I Board 5" (MASTER) ;;; line="1 WCTDM/4/0 FXSKS (SWEC: MG2)" signalling=fxs_ks callerid=asreceived group=0 context=from-pstn channel => 1 callerid= group= context=default I have configured a "ZAP Trunk (DAHDI compatibility Mode)" with the ZAP identifier 1 and an outbound route, but when ever I try to make an external call via it I get the "All Circuits are busy now, please try your call again later message". I have one outbound route which uses the dial pattern 9|. and the Trunk Zap/1 and one Zap Trunk which uses Zap Identifier (trunk name): 1 and has no Dial Rules. The FXO module is directly connected to our phone line from BT via a BT-RJ11 cable. When running tail -f /var/log/asterisk/full and placing a call I get the following output: [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2723] logger.c: == Using SIP RTP TOS bits 184 [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2723] logger.c: == Using SIP RTP CoS mark 5 [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2723] logger.c: == Using SIP VRTP TOS bits 136 [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2723] logger.c: == Using SIP VRTP CoS mark 6 [May 26 11:10:52] WARNING[2661] pbx.c: FONALITY: This thread has already held the conlock, skip locking [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [901483890915@from-internal:1] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "user-callerid,SKIPTTL,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:1] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "AMPUSER=801") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:2] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?report") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:3] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?Set(REALCALLERIDNUM=801)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:4] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "AMPUSER=801") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:5] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "AMPUSERCIDNAME=Jona") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:6] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?report") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:7] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "AMPUSERCID=801") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:8] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "CALLERID(all)="Jona" <801>") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:9] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "REALCALLERIDNUM=801") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:10] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(CHANNEL(language)=)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:11] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?continue") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-user-callerid,s,20) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:20] NoOp("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "Using CallerID "Jona" <801>") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [901483890915@from-internal:2] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "_NODEST=") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [901483890915@from-internal:3] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "record-enable,801,OUT,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-record-enable:1] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?check") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-record-enable,s,4) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-record-enable:4] AGI("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "recordingcheck,20100526-111052,1274868652.1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Launched AGI Script /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/recordingcheck [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: recordingcheck,20100526-111052,1274868652.1: Outbound recording not enabled [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- <SIP/801-b7ce8c28>AGI Script recordingcheck completed, returning 0 [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-record-enable:5] MacroExit("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [901483890915@from-internal:4] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "dialout-trunk,1,01483890915,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:1] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "DIAL_TRUNK=1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:2] GosubIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?sub-pincheck,s,1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:3] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?disabletrunk,1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:4] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "DIAL_NUMBER=01483890915") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:5] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "DIAL_TRUNK_OPTIONS=tr") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:6] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "OUTBOUND_GROUP=OUT_1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:7] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?nomax") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-dialout-trunk,s,9) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:9] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?skipoutcid") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:10] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "DIAL_TRUNK_OPTIONS=") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:11] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "outbound-callerid,1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:1] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(CALLERPRES()=)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:2] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(REALCALLERIDNUM=801)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:3] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?normcid") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-outbound-callerid,s,6) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:6] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "USEROUTCID=") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:7] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "EMERGENCYCID=") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:8] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "TRUNKOUTCID=") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:9] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?trunkcid") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-outbound-callerid,s,12) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:12] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(CALLERID(all)=)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:13] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(CALLERID(all)=)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outbound-callerid:14] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(CALLERPRES()=prohib_passed_screen)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:12] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?AGI(fixlocalprefix)") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:13] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "OUTNUM=01483890915") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:14] Set("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "custom=DAHDI/1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:15] ExecIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?Set(DIAL_TRUNK_OPTIONS=M(setmusic^))") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:16] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "dialout-trunk-predial-hook,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk-predial-hook:1] MacroExit("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:17] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?bypass,1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:18] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "0?customtrunk") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:19] Dial("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "DAHDI/1/01483890915,300,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] WARNING[2858] app_dial.c: Unable to create channel of type 'DAHDI' (cause 0 - Unknown) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: == Everyone is busy/congested at this time (1:0/0/1) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-dialout-trunk:20] Goto("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "s-CHANUNAVAIL,1") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-dialout-trunk,s-CHANUNAVAIL,1) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s-CHANUNAVAIL@macro-dialout-trunk:1] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?noreport") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-dialout-trunk,s-CHANUNAVAIL,3) [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s-CHANUNAVAIL@macro-dialout-trunk:3] NoOp("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "TRUNK Dial failed due to CHANUNAVAIL (hangupcause: 0) - failing through to other trunks") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [901483890915@from-internal:5] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "outisbusy,") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outisbusy:1] Playback("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "all-circuits-busy-now,noanswer") in new stack [May 26 11:10:52] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- <SIP/801-b7ce8c28> Playing 'all-circuits-busy-now.ulaw' (language 'en') [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-outisbusy:2] Playback("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "pls-try-call-later,noanswer") in new stack [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- <SIP/801-b7ce8c28> Playing 'pls-try-call-later.ulaw' (language 'en') [May 26 11:10:54] WARNING[2661] pbx.c: FONALITY: This thread has already held the conlock, skip locking [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: == Spawn extension (macro-outisbusy, s, 2) exited non-zero on 'SIP/801-b7ce8c28' in macro 'outisbusy' [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: == Spawn extension (from-internal, 901483890915, 5) exited non-zero on 'SIP/801-b7ce8c28' [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [h@from-internal:1] Macro("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "hangupcall") in new stack [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:1] ResetCDR("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "vw") in new stack [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:2] NoCDR("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "") in new stack [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:3] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?skiprg") in new stack [May 26 11:10:54] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-hangupcall,s,6) [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:6] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?skipblkvm") in new stack [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-hangupcall,s,9) [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:9] GotoIf("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "1?theend") in new stack [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Goto (macro-hangupcall,s,11) [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: -- Executing [s@macro-hangupcall:11] Hangup("SIP/801-b7ce8c28", "") in new stack [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: == Spawn extension (macro-hangupcall, s, 11) exited non-zero on 'SIP/801-b7ce8c28' in macro 'hangupcall' [May 26 11:10:55] VERBOSE[2858] logger.c: == Spawn extension (from-internal, h, 1) exited non-zero on 'SIP/801-b7ce8c28' I'm guessing I've missed a configuration step somewhere but no idea where, any help greatly appreciated.

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