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• C Program not running as intended, hangs after input

  - by user41419

  The program I am writing to take a number and display that number as a calculator would display it (shown below) is compiling with no issues, but when I try to run it, I am able to input my number, but nothing happens. It seems like it is "hanging", since no further output is shown as I would have expected. Might anyone know what the problem is? #include <stdio.h> #define MAX_DIGITS 20 char segments[10][7] = /* seven segment array */ {{'1','1','1','1','1','1','0'}, /* zero */ {'0','1','1','0','0','0','0'}, /* one */ {'1','1','0','1','1','0','1'}, /* two */ {'1','1','1','1','0','0','1'}, /* three */ {'0','1','1','0','0','1','1'}, /* four */ {'1','0','1','1','0','1','1'}, /* five */ {'1','0','1','1','1','1','1'}, /* six */ {'1','1','1','0','0','0','0'}, /* seven */ {'1','1','1','1','1','1','1'}, /* eight */ {'1','1','1','0','0','1','1'}};/* nine */ char digits[3][MAX_DIGITS * 4]; /* digits array */ int i, j; /* count variables */ int adjust; /* output formatting */ int main(void) { clear_digits_array(); int digit[20]; for (i = 0; i < 20; i++) { digit[i] = 0; } int count = 20; int position = 0; printf("Enter a number: "); int number = scanf("%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d", &digit[0], &digit[1], &digit[2], &digit[3], &digit[4], &digit[5], &digit[6], &digit[7], &digit[8], &digit[9], &digit[10], &digit[11], &digit[12], &digit[13], &digit[14], &digit[15], &digit[16], &digit[17], &digit[18], &digit[19]); //NOTHING HAPPENS AFTER HERE printf("Got input, number is %d", number); while (count > 0) { printf("Reading digits, count is %d", count); process_digit(digit[20 - count], position); position++; count--; } print_digits_array(); printf("\n"); return 0; } void clear_digits_array(void) { /* fill all positions in digits array with blank spaces */ for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) { for (j = 0; j < (MAX_DIGITS * 4); j++) { digits[i][j] = ' '; } } } void process_digit(int digit, int position) { /* check each segment to see if segment should be filled in for given digit */ for (i = 0; i < 7; i++) { printf("Processing digit %d at position %d, i is %d", digit, position, i); if (segments[digit][i] == 1) { switch (i) { case 0: digits[0][(position * 4) + 1] = '_'; break; case 1: digits[1][(position * 4) + 2] = '|'; break; case 2: digits[2][(position * 4) + 2] = '|'; break; case 3: digits[2][(position * 4) + 1] = '_'; break; case 4: digits[2][(position * 4) + 0] = '|'; break; case 5: digits[1][(position * 4) + 0] = '|'; break; case 6: digits[1][(position * 4) + 1] = '_'; break; } } } } void print_digits_array(void) { /* print each character in digits array */ for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) { for (j = 0; j < (MAX_DIGITS * 4); j++) { printf("%c", digits[i][j]); } printf("/n"); } }

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• How can I draw a line with a variable of width?

  - by user1729944

  #include <iostream> #include <cmath> #include "graph1.h" using namespace std; int main() { int diameter = 0; int height = 0; double rate = 0; char repeat = 'y'; int obj_num = 0; displayGraphics(); obj_num = drawRect(0,0,50,400); setColor(obj_num,200,200,200); obj_num = drawRect(0,400,640,79); setColor(obj_num,71,35,35); obj_num = drawLine(50,50,150,50,5); setColor(obj_num,80,80,80); displayBMP("faucet.bmp",150,12); do { do { cout << "Enter the diamater of the cylinder <in inches > 0 but <= 300: "; cin >> diameter; if((diameter<0) || (diameter>300)) { cout << "Incorrect diamater entered; value must be between 1 and 300" << endl; } }while((diameter<0) || (diameter>300)); do { cout << "Enter the height of the cylinder <in inches > 0 but <= 325: "; cin >> height; if((height<0) || (height>325)) { cout << "Incorrect height entered; value must be between 1 and 325" << endl; } }while((height<0) || (height>325)); do { cout << "Enter the facet water's rate: <gallons/minute> "; cin >> rate; if((rate<0) || (rate>100)) { cout << "Incorrect rate entered; value must be between 1 and 100" << endl; } }while((rate<0) || (rate>100)); //I need to draw the lines here. The graphics window has a faucet that is supposed to fill //up a cylinder made out of 3 lines. I don't know how to make the lines vary from the users //input since lines are hard coded with points and all i am receiving is the width for the //bottom line and the height for the left and right lines. cout << "Repeat program? (y/n): "; cin >> repeat; clearGraphics(); }while ( (repeat == 'y') || (repeat == 'Y') ); return 0; } Here is a screenshot for reference:

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• not able to show the file from the array...

  - by sjl

  Hi, i'm trying to do an image gallery. i was not able to display the thumbnails stored in the array. instead it keep showing the same thumbnails. anyone can help? very much appreciated.. // Arrays that store the filenames of the text, images and thumbnails var thumbnails:Array = [ "images/image1_thumb.jpg", "images/image2_thumb.jpg", "images/image3_thumb.jpg", "images/image4_thumb.jpg", "images/image5_thumb.jpg", "images/image6_thumb.jpg", "images/image7_thumb.jpg" ]; var images:Array = [ "images/image1.jpg", "images/image2.jpg", "images/image3.jpg", "images/image4.jpg", "images/image5.jpg", "images/image6.jpg", "images/image7.jpg" ]; var textFiles:Array = [ "text/picture1.txt", "text/picture2.txt", "text/picture3.txt", "text/picture4.txt", "text/picture5.txt", "text/picture6.txt", "text/picture7.txt" ]; // NOTE: thumbnail images are 60 x 43 pixels in size // loop through the array and create the thumbnails and position them vertically for (var i:int = 0; i <7; i++) { // create an instance of MyUIThumbnail var thumbs:MyUIThumbnail = new MyUIThumbnail(); // position the thumbnails on the left vertically thumbs.y = 43 * i;/*** FILL IN THE BLANK HERE ***/ // store the corresponding full size image name in the thumbnail // use the "images" array thumbs.image = "images/image1.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image2.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image3.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image4.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image5.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image6.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image7.jpg"; // store the corresponding text file name in the thumbnail // use the "textFiles" array thumbs.textFile = "text/picture1.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture2.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture3.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture4.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture5.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture6.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture7.txt"; thumbs.imageFullSize = full_image_mc ; // store the reference to the textfield in the thumbnail thumbs.infoText = info; // load and display the thumbnails // use the "thumbnails" array thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image1_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image2_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image3_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image4_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image5_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image6_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image7_thumb.jpg"); addChild(thumbs); } below is my thumbanail. as package{ import fl.containers.; import flash.events.; import flash.text.; import flash.net.; import flash.display.*; public class MyUIThumbnail extends MovieClip { public var image:String = ""; public var textFile:String = ""; var loader:UILoader = new UILoader(); public var imageFullSize:MyFullSizeImage; // reference to loader to show the full size image public var infoText:TextField; // reference to textfield that displays image infoText var txtLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); // loader to load the text file public function MyUIThumbnail() { buttonMode = true; addChild(loader); this.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myClick); txtLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, displayText); loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, thumbnailLoaded); } public function loadThumbnail(filename:String):void { loader.source = filename; preloader.trackLoading(loader); } function myClick(e:MouseEvent):void { // load and display the full size image imageFullSize.loadImage("my_full_mc"); // load and display the text textLoad("info"); } function textLoad(file:String) { // load the text description from the text file loader.load(new URLRequest(textFile)); } function displayText(e:Event) { //display the text when loading is completed addChild(infoText); } function thumbnailLoaded(e:Event) { loader.width = 60; loader.height = 43; } } }

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• Why is IE not adhering to my column widths?

  - by Trent

  This has been driving my crazy trying to solve Code: http://pastebin.com/rqyw35jG First of all, I'm rendering in standards mode. I have a table in IE, with width=100%, and all columns in the table with specified widths except the last column. The intended behaviour is for IE to size the final column so it stretches to the page. This more or less works. However; Certain conditions seem to break the table widths and cause IE to go and size the table however it pleases. The table contains a row which is merged across all columns AND This merged row contains enough text to fill the whole cell AND Enough text is entered into one of the cells whose column had unspecified width, causing the text to wrap. When this 3 conditions occur, all the columns move slightly. The text still wraps and you wouldn't normally notice that the columns are the wrong size unless you measure them, or compare the page to a version without wrapped text. Is this even supposed to happen in standards mode? Code: <%@ Page Language="VB" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Client" %> <%@ Import namespace="System.Data" %> <%@ Import Namespace="System.Data.SQLClient" %> <script runat="server"> Protected Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) End Sub </script> <% %> <!DOCTYPE html /> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head runat="server"> <title></title> </head> <body> <table style="width:100%;"> <tr> <td style="width:500px;">egqwgw gqgqwgqg qwgqgqg qgwgqgqg qwgqgg</td> <td style="width:500px;">gqgqwgqg gqwgqgqgq gqgqgqg qgg</td> <td>If too much text is entered into this column, the column sizes will begin to change. wehwehweh hwehwh whhwhwh hwehwhwh</td> </tr> <tr> <td>a gqwgqwg gqgqw </td><td>gqgqgqg gqgqg</td><td></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3">Columns only move if text on this line is filling out the whole width of the page. gqwgqwggqg qgqgqwgqg qgqwgqgqg gqgwqgqg gqgqgqgqg qgqgqgqg gqgggqg qgwgqgqg gqgqgqwgwg qgqwgqgqgq gqgwgwgqg gqgwgq gqwgwgqgqwg qgwgqgqgqwg qwgqwgqgqg qgwgqgqqg gqwgqwgqwgwqg gqgwgqgwg qwgqwgqgqgq qwgqgqgqg gwqgqgqg qggqwgqg qggwqgqg </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>

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• Problem in arranging contents of Class in JAVA

  - by LuckySlevin

  Hi, I have some classes and I'm trying to fill the objects of this class. Here is what i've tried. (Question is at the below) public class Team { private String clubName; private String preName; private ArrayList<String> branches; public Team(String clubName, String preName) { this.clubName = clubName; this.preName = preName; branches = new ArrayList<String>(); } public Team() { // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub } public String getClubName() { return clubName; } public String getPreName() { return preName; } public ArrayList<String> getBranches() { return branches; } public void setClubName(String clubName) { this.clubName = clubName; } public void setPreName(String preName) { this.preName = preName; } public void setBranches(ArrayList<String> branches) { this.branches = branches; } } public class Branch { private ArrayList<Player> players = new ArrayList<Player>(); String brName; public Branch() {} public void setBr(String brName){this.brName = brName;} public String getBr(){return brName;} public ArrayList<Player> getPlayers() { return players; } public void setPlayers(ArrayList<Player> players) { this.players = players; } } //TEST CLASS public class test { /** * @param args * @throws IOException */ public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { String a,b,c; String q = "q"; int brCount = 0, tCount = 0; BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in)); Team[] teams = new Team[30]; Branch[] myBranch = new Branch[30]; for(int z = 0 ; z <30 ;z++) { teams[z] = new Team(); myBranch[z] = new Branch(); } ArrayList<String> tmp = new ArrayList<String>(); int k = 0; int secim = Integer.parseInt(input.readLine()); while(secim != 0) { if(k!=0) secim = Integer.parseInt(input.readLine()); k++; switch(secim) { case 1 : brCount = 0; a = input.readLine(); teams[tCount].setClubName(a); b= input.readLine(); teams[tCount].setPreName(b); c = input.readLine(); while(c.equals(q) == false) { if(brCount != 0) {c = input.readLine();} if(c.equals(q)== false){ myBranch[brCount].brName = c; tmp.add(myBranch[brCount].brName); brCount++; } System.out.println(brCount); } teams[tCount].setBranches(tmp); for(int i=0;i<=tCount;i++ ){ System.out.print("a :" + teams[i].getClubName()+ " " + teams[i].getPreName()+ " "); System.out.println(teams[i].getBranches());} tCount++; break; case 2: String src = input.readLine();//LATERRRRRRRr } } } } The problem is one of my class elements. I have an arraylist as an element of a class. When i enter: AAA as preName BBB as clubName c d e as Branches Then as a second element www as preName GGG as clubName a b as branches The result is coming like: AAA BBB c,d,e,a,b GGG www c,d,e,a,b Which means ArrayList part of the class is putting it on and on. I tried to use clear() method but caused problems. Any ideas.

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• How is it possible my array is broken?

  - by user1812765

  I have this piece of code: public lot merge (lot otherlot){ wafer[] mWaferarray = new wafer[16]; byte[] bytearray = new byte[16]; wafer resultwafer = new wafer(bytearray); wafer w1; wafer w2; int i; int[][] assignmentmatrix = HungarianAlgorithm.computeAssignments(convertinttofloat (solutionmatrix(otherlot))); for (i=0; i != assignmentmatrix.length ;i++){ w1 = otherlot.getWaferarray()[assignmentmatrix[i][0]]; w2 = getWaferarray()[assignmentmatrix[i][1]]; resultwafer.setWafer(w1.wafercompare(w2)); mWaferarray[i] = resultwafer; mWaferarray[i].print(); } System.out.println("HERE\n"); mWaferarray[5].toString(); resultlot = new lot(mWaferarray); resultlot.print();// Problem occurs here. return resultlot; } As you can see I create an array of wafers (selfdefined class). Then I fill this up with new wafers. When I print this array (mWaferarray[i].print()) it gives me the wanted results. But when I go out of the "for"-loop the array is broken and it is as if the last item I add to mWaferarray fills it up (the entire array, 16 long, is filled with this wafer). So if run this program this is what I get: 1011110010111100 0011011111111110 0111110111101101 1010111001101111 0110110111101111 1010110101111010 1010110111011110 1011111010111100 1111110011101110 0111111111011011 1111111111011010 1101111011111010 1010110101011110 0101111011011010 1011111011011000 0101111011011010 HERE 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 0101111011011010 As you can see it is as if the array is filled with the last wafer. I have been looking at this for some time now, I hope you guy can help me out. Thx in advance PS: my print functions are written like this: void print(){ int j; for (j=0; j != waferarray.length ;j++){ waferarray[j].print(); } } EDIT: added code for lot this is the beginning of the lot class public class lot { wafer[] waferarray = new wafer[16]; lot resultlot; public lot (wafer wafer1,wafer wafer2,wafer wafer3,wafer wafer4, wafer wafer5,wafer wafer6,wafer wafer7,wafer wafer8, wafer wafer9,wafer wafer10,wafer wafer11,wafer wafer12, wafer wafer13,wafer wafer14,wafer wafer15,wafer wafer16){ waferarray[0] = wafer1; waferarray[1] = wafer2; waferarray[2] = wafer3; waferarray[3] = wafer4; waferarray[4] = wafer5; waferarray[5] = wafer6; waferarray[6] = wafer7; waferarray[7] = wafer8; waferarray[8] = wafer9; waferarray[9] = wafer10; waferarray[10] = wafer11; waferarray[11] = wafer12; waferarray[12] = wafer13; waferarray[13] = wafer14; waferarray[14] = wafer15; waferarray[15] = wafer16; } public lot (wafer[] thiswaferarray){ waferarray = thiswaferarray; }

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• DropDownList not working 100% in ASP.Net MVC

  - by Program.X

  I am quite confused with how to effectively use the Html.DropDownList helper for ASP.NET MVC. Background: I have a 5-page form, which saves data to the form each time "Next" is clicked. Users may navigate back and forth between sections, so previous sections will already be pre-populated with previously-entered data. This works for TextBoxes. But not DropDownLists. I have tried a load of different methods, including: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/867117/how-to-add-static-list-of-items-in-mvc-html-dropdownlist/867218#867218 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2080802/setting-selected-item-to-dropdownlist-in-mvc-application I have a ViewModel such taht I have got my lists and my Model (a LINQ-to-SQL generated class) as properties. eg: public class ConsultantRegistrationFormViewModel { public IConsultantRegistration ConsultantRegistration { get; private set; } public SelectList Titles { get; private set; } public SelectList Countries { get; private set; } public SelectList Currencies { get; private set; } public int CurrentSection { get; private set; } private ConsultantRegistrationFormViewModel(IConsultantRegistration consultantRegistration) { ConsultantRegistration = consultantRegistration; CurrentSection = 1; Titles = new SelectList(new string[] { "Mr", "Mrs", "Miss", "Ms", "Dr", "Sir" }); Countries = new SelectList(countries.Select(q => q.Name)); Currencies = new SelectList(currencies,"CurrencyCode","FriendlyForm"); } } My Controller's Edit Action on GET looks like: public class ConsultantRegistrationController : Controller { public IConsultantRegistrationRepository ConsultantRegistrationRepository { get; private set; } public ICountryRepository CountryRepository { get; private set; } public IEnumerable<ICountry> Countries { get; private set; } public ConsultantRegistrationController() { ConsultantRegistrationRepository = RepositoryFactory.CreateConsultantRegistrationRepository(); CountryRepository = RepositoryFactory.CreateCountryRepository(); Countries = CountryRepository.GetCountries().ToArray(); } public ActionResult Edit(Guid id, int sectionIndex) { IConsultantRegistration consultantRegistration = ConsultantRegistrationRepository.GetConsultantRegistration(id); SelectList bankBranchCountriesSelectList = new SelectList(Countries, "BankBranchCountry", "CountryName", consultantRegistration.BankBranchCountry); ViewData["bankBranchCountrySelectList"] = bankBranchCountriesSelectList; return View(new ConsultantRegistrationFormViewModel(consultantRegistration,sectionIndex, Countries,Currencies)); } } With my View doing: <%: Html.DropDownList("ConsultantRegistration.BankBranchCountry",ViewData["bankBranchCountrySelectList"] as SelectList) %> This gives me the error: DataBinding: 'IWW.ArrowPay.ConsultantRegistration.Data.Country' does not contain a property with the name 'BankBranchCountry'. Which it does, have a look at the schema of this property: public interface IConsultantRegistration { Guid ID { get; set; } [DisplayName("Branch Country")] string BankBranchCountry { get; set; } } (My LINQ-to-SQL type ConsultantRegistration implemented IConsultantRegistration) It seems that it is trying to bind to the wrong type, though? If I use this in my view (and use my Controller's Countries property): <%: Html.DropDownList("ConsultantRegistration.BankBranchCountry ",Model.Countries,"(select a Country)") %> I get the saved value fine, but my model doesn't update on POST. And if I use this in my view: <%: Html.DropDownListFor(model=>model.ConsultantRegistration.BankBranchCountry ",Model.Countries,"(select a Country)") %> I get the list, and it POSTs the selected value back, but does not pre-select the currently selected item in my model on the view. So I have a bit of the solution all over the place, but not all in one place. Hope you can help fill in my ignorance.

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• HTML/CSS - No 100% height on div in IE

  - by Jordan Rynard

  Okay, so I've got a problem - and I'd love to have it fixed. I am using my favourite way of setting up a simple header/content/footer layout. The problem is that any elements I add to the 'content' div of my layout can not be expanded to 100% in Internet Explorer (as far as I know, IE only). I understand there is no height declared to the 'content' element, but because of the style of its positioning (declaring an absolute top AND bottom), the element fills the desired area. (The content element has a background color defined so you can see that the div is in fact filling between both the header and the footer.) So my problem is, since the div is clearly expanded between the two, why can't a child be set to 100% to fill that area? If anyone has any solutions, I'd love to hear them. (I'm looking for a solution that won't involve designing by an entire different layout.. or at least perhaps an explanation of why this is happening. I'm assuming at this point it's because of the lack of a height declaration -- but the div is expanded, so I don't get it!) You can view a page of the example here: http://www.elizabethlouter.com/html/index.html And here is the code as used on the page: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>No 100% height on 'content' child div in IE</title> </head> <style> html, body { width:100%; height:100%; margin:0px; padding:0px; } body { position:relative; } #wrapper { position:absolute; top:0px; width:960px; height:100%; left:50%; margin-left:-480px; } #header{ position:absolute; top:0px; left:0px; width:100%; height:200px; background-color:#999; } #content{ position:absolute; top:100px; bottom:50px; left:0px; width:100%; background-color:#F7F7F7; } #content_1{ width:200px; background-color:black; height:100%; } #footer{ position:absolute; bottom:0px; left:0px; width:100%; height:50px; background-color:#999; } </style> <body> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="header"> </div> <div id="content"> <div id="content_1"> </div> </div> <div id="footer"> </div> </div> </body> </html>

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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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• ASP.NET MVC Paging/Sorting/Filtering a list using ModelMetadata

  - by rajbk

  This post looks at how to control paging, sorting and filtering when displaying a list of data by specifying attributes in your Model using the ASP.NET MVC framework and the excellent MVCContrib library. It also shows how to hide/show columns and control the formatting of data using attributes.  This uses the Northwind database. A sample project is attached at the end of this post. Let’s start by looking at a class called ProductViewModel. The properties in the class are decorated with attributes. The OrderBy attribute tells the system that the Model can be sorted using that property. The SearchFilter attribute tells the system that filtering is allowed on that property. Filtering type is set by the  FilterType enum which currently supports Equals and Contains. The ScaffoldColumn property specifies if a column is hidden or not The DisplayFormat specifies how the data is formatted. public class ProductViewModel { [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? ProductID { get; set; }   [SearchFilter(FilterType.Contains)] [OrderBy] [DisplayName("Product Name")] public string ProductName { get; set; }   [OrderBy] [DisplayName("Unit Price")] [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:c}")] public System.Nullable<decimal> UnitPrice { get; set; }   [DisplayName("Category Name")] public string CategoryName { get; set; }   [SearchFilter] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? CategoryID { get; set; }   [SearchFilter] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? SupplierID { get; set; }   [OrderBy] public bool Discontinued { get; set; } } Before we explore the code further, lets look at the UI.  The UI has a section for filtering the data. The column headers with links are sortable. Paging is also supported with the help of a pager row. The pager is rendered using the MVCContrib Pager component. The data is displayed using a customized version of the MVCContrib Grid component. The customization was done in order for the Grid to be aware of the attributes mentioned above. Now, let’s look at what happens when we perform actions on this page. The diagram below shows the process: The form on the page has its method set to “GET” therefore we see all the parameters in the query string. The query string is shown in blue above. This query gets routed to an action called Index with parameters of type ProductViewModel and PageSortOptions. The parameters in the query string get mapped to the input parameters using model binding. The ProductView object created has the information needed to filter data while the PageAndSorting object is used for paging and sorting the data. The last block in the figure above shows how the filtered and paged list is created. We receive a product list from our product repository (which is of type IQueryable) and first filter it by calliing the AsFiltered extension method passing in the productFilters object and then call the AsPagination extension method passing in the pageSort object. The AsFiltered extension method looks at the type of the filter instance passed in. It skips properties in the instance that do not have the SearchFilter attribute. For properties that have the SearchFilter attribute, it adds filter expression trees to filter against the IQueryable data. The AsPagination extension method looks at the type of the IQueryable and ensures that the column being sorted on has the OrderBy attribute. If it does not find one, it looks for the default sort field [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]. It is required that at least one attribute in your model has the [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]. This because a person could be performing paging without specifying an order by column. As you may recall the LINQ Skip method now requires that you call an OrderBy method before it. Therefore we need a default order by column to perform paging. The extension method adds a order expressoin tree to the IQueryable and calls the MVCContrib AsPagination extension method to page the data. Implementation Notes Auto Postback The search filter region auto performs a get request anytime the dropdown selection is changed. This is implemented using the following jQuery snippet $(document).ready(function () { $("#productSearch").change(function () { this.submit(); }); }); Strongly Typed View The code used in the Action method is shown below: public ActionResult Index(ProductViewModel productFilters, PageSortOptions pageSortOptions) { var productPagedList = productRepository.GetProductsProjected().AsFiltered(productFilters).AsPagination(pageSortOptions);   var productViewFilterContainer = new ProductViewFilterContainer(); productViewFilterContainer.Fill(productFilters.CategoryID, productFilters.SupplierID, productFilters.ProductName);   var gridSortOptions = new GridSortOptions { Column = pageSortOptions.Column, Direction = pageSortOptions.Direction };   var productListContainer = new ProductListContainerModel { ProductPagedList = productPagedList, ProductViewFilterContainer = productViewFilterContainer, GridSortOptions = gridSortOptions };   return View(productListContainer); } As you see above, the object that is returned to the view is of type ProductListContainerModel. This contains all the information need for the view to render the Search filter section (including dropdowns),  the Html.Pager (MVCContrib) and the Html.Grid (from MVCContrib). It also stores the state of the search filters so that they can recreate themselves when the page reloads (Viewstate, I miss you! :0)  The class diagram for the container class is shown below.   Custom MVCContrib Grid The MVCContrib grid default behavior was overridden so that it would auto generate the columns and format the columns based on the metadata and also make it aware of our custom attributes (see MetaDataGridModel in the sample code). The Grid ensures that the ShowForDisplay on the column is set to true This can also be set by the ScaffoldColumn attribute ref: http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/aspnet-mvc-2-templates-part-2-modelmetadata.html) Column headers are set using the DisplayName attribute Column sorting is set using the OrderBy attribute. The data is formatted using the DisplayFormat attribute. Generic Extension methods for Sorting and Filtering The extension method AsFiltered takes in an IQueryable<T> and uses expression trees to query against the IQueryable data. The query is constructed using the Model metadata and the properties of the T filter (productFilters in our case). Properties in the Model that do not have the SearchFilter attribute are skipped when creating the filter expression tree.  It returns an IQueryable<T>. The extension method AsPagination takes in an IQuerable<T> and first ensures that the column being sorted on has the OrderBy attribute. If not, we look for the default OrderBy column ([OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]). We then build an expression tree to sort on this column. We finally hand off the call to the MVCContrib AsPagination which returns an IPagination<T>. This type as you can see in the class diagram above is passed to the view and used by the MVCContrib Grid and Pager components. Custom Provider To get the system to recognize our custom attributes, we create our MetadataProvider as mentioned in this article (http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/why-you-dont-need-modelmetadataattributes.html) protected override ModelMetadata CreateMetadata(IEnumerable<Attribute> attributes, Type containerType, Func<object> modelAccessor, Type modelType, string propertyName) { ModelMetadata metadata = base.CreateMetadata(attributes, containerType, modelAccessor, modelType, propertyName);   SearchFilterAttribute searchFilterAttribute = attributes.OfType<SearchFilterAttribute>().FirstOrDefault(); if (searchFilterAttribute != null) { metadata.AdditionalValues.Add(Globals.SearchFilterAttributeKey, searchFilterAttribute); }   OrderByAttribute orderByAttribute = attributes.OfType<OrderByAttribute>().FirstOrDefault(); if (orderByAttribute != null) { metadata.AdditionalValues.Add(Globals.OrderByAttributeKey, orderByAttribute); }   return metadata; } We register our MetadataProvider in Global.asax.cs. protected void Application_Start() { AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();   RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);   ModelMetadataProviders.Current = new MvcFlan.QueryModelMetaDataProvider(); } Bugs, Comments and Suggestions are welcome! You can download the sample code below. This code is purely experimental. Use at your own risk. Download Sample Code (VS 2010 RTM) MVCNorthwindSales.zip

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• Azure - Part 4 - Table Storage Service in Windows Azure

  - by Shaun

  In Windows Azure platform there are 3 storage we can use to save our data on the cloud. They are the Table, Blob and Queue. Before the Chinese New Year Microsoft announced that Azure SDK 1.1 had been released and it supports a new type of storage – Drive, which allows us to operate NTFS files on the cloud. I will cover it in the coming few posts but now I would like to talk a bit about the Table Storage.   Concept of Table Storage Service The most common development scenario is to retrieve, create, update and remove data from the data storage. In the normal way we communicate with database. When we attempt to move our application over to the cloud the most common requirement should be have a storage service. Windows Azure provides a in-build service that allow us to storage the structured data, which is called Windows Azure Table Storage Service. The data stored in the table service are like the collection of entities. And the entities are similar to rows or records in the tradtional database. An entity should had a partition key, a row key, a timestamp and set of properties. You can treat the partition key as a group name, the row key as a primary key and the timestamp as the identifer for solving the concurrency problem. Different with a table in a database, the table service does not enforce the schema for tables, which means you can have 2 entities in the same table with different property sets. The partition key is being used for the load balance of the Azure OS and the group entity transaction. As you know in the cloud you will never know which machine is hosting your application and your data. It could be moving based on the transaction weight and the number of the requests. If the Azure OS found that there are many requests connect to your Book entities with the partition key equals “Novel” it will move them to another idle machine to increase the performance. So when choosing the partition key for your entities you need to make sure they indecate the category or gourp information so that the Azure OS can perform the load balance as you wish.   Consuming the Table Although the table service looks like a database, you cannot access it through the way you are using now, neither ADO.NET nor ODBC. The table service exposed itself by ADO.NET Data Service protocol, which allows you can consume it through the RESTful style by Http requests. The Azure SDK provides a sets of classes for us to connect it. There are 2 classes we might need: TableServiceContext and TableServiceEntity. The TableServiceContext inherited from the DataServiceContext, which represents the runtime context of the ADO.NET data service. It provides 4 methods mainly used by us: CreateQuery: It will create a IQueryable instance from a given type of entity. AddObject: Add the specified entity into Table Service. UpdateObject: Update an existing entity in the Table Service. DeleteObject: Delete an entity from the Table Service. Beofre you operate the table service you need to provide the valid account information. It’s something like the connect string of the database but with your account name and the account key when you created the storage service on the Windows Azure Development Portal. After getting the CloudStorageAccount you can create the CloudTableClient instance which provides a set of methods for using the table service. A very useful method would be CreateTableIfNotExist. It will create the table container for you if it’s not exsited. And then you can operate the eneities to that table through the methods I mentioned above. Let me explain a bit more through an exmaple. We always like code rather than sentence.   Straightforward Accessing to the Table Here I would like to build a WCF service on the Windows Azure platform, and for now just one requirement: it would allow the client to create an account entity on the table service. The WCF service would have a method named Register and accept an instance of the account which the client wants to create. After perform some validation it will add the entity into the table service. So the first thing I should do is to create a Cloud Application on my VIstial Studio 2010 RC. (The Azure SDK 1.1 only supports VS2008 and VS2010 RC.) The solution should be like this below. Then I added a configuration items for the storage account through the Settings section under the cloud project. (Double click the Services file under Roles folder and navigate to the Setting section.) This setting will be used when to retrieve my storage account information. Since for now I just in the development phase I will select “UseDevelopmentStorage=true”. And then I navigated to the WebRole.cs file under my WCF project. If you have read my previous posts you would know that this file defines the process when the application start, and terminate on the cloud. What I need to do is to when the application start, set the configuration publisher to load my config file with the config name I specified. So the code would be like below. I removed the original service and contract created by the VS template and add my IAccountService contract and its implementation class - AccountService. And I add the service method Register with the parameters: email, password and it will return a boolean value to indicates the result which is very simple. At this moment if I press F5 the application will be established on my local development fabric and I can see my service runs well through the browser. Let’s implement the service method Rigister, add a new entity to the table service. As I said before the entities you want to store in the table service must have 3 properties: partition key, row key and timespan. You can create a class with these 3 properties. The Azure SDK provides us a base class for that named TableServiceEntity in Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient namespace. So what we need to do is more simply, create a class named Account and let it derived from the TableServiceEntity. And I need to add my own properties: Email, Password, DateCreated and DateDeleted. The DateDeleted is a nullable date time value to indecate whether this entity had been deleted and when. Do you notice that I missed something here? Yes it’s the partition key and row key I didn’t assigned. The TableServiceEntity base class defined 2 constructors one was a parameter-less constructor which will be used to fill values into the properties from the table service when retrieving data. The other was one with 2 parameters: partition key and row key. As I said below the partition key may affect the load balance and the row key must be unique so here I would like to use the email as the parition key and the email plus a Guid as the row key. OK now we finished the entity class we need to store onto the table service. The next step is to create a data access class for us to add it. Azure SDK gives us a base class for it named TableServiceContext as I mentioned below. So let’s create a class for operate the Account entities. The TableServiceContext need the storage account information for its constructor. It’s the combination of the storage service URI that we will create on Windows Azure platform, and the relevant account name and key. The TableServiceContext will use this information to find the related address and verify the account to operate the storage entities. Hence in my AccountDataContext class I need to override this constructor and pass the storage account into it. All entities will be saved in the table storage with one or many tables which we call them “table containers”. Before we operate an entity we need to make sure that the table container had been created on the storage. There’s a method we can use for that: CloudTableClient.CreateTableIfNotExist. So in the constructor I will perform it firstly to make sure all method will be invoked after the table had been created. Notice that I passed the storage account enpoint URI and the credentials to specify where my storage is located and who am I. Another advise is that, make your entity class name as the same as the table name when create the table. It will increase the performance when you operate it over the cloud especially querying. Since the Register WCF method will add a new account into the table service, here I will create a relevant method to add the account entity. Before implement, I should add a reference - System.Data.Services.Client to the project. This reference provides some common method within the ADO.NET Data Service which can be used in the Windows Azure Table Service. I will use its AddObject method to create my account entity. Since the table service are not fully implemented the ADO.NET Data Service, there are some methods in the System.Data.Services.Client that TableServiceContext doesn’t support, such as AddLinks, etc. Then I implemented the serivce method to add the account entity through the AccountDataContext. You can see in the service implmentation I load the storage account information through my configuration file and created the account table entity from the parameters. Then I created the AccountDataContext. If it’s my first time to invoke this method the constructor of the AccountDataContext will create a table container for me. Then I use Add method to add the account entity into the table. Next, let’s create a farely simple client application to test this service. I created a windows console application and added a service reference to my WCF service. The metadata information of the WCF service cannot be retrieved if it’s deployed on the Windows Azure even though the <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/> had been set. If we need to get its metadata we can deploy it on the local development service and then changed the endpoint to the address which is on the cloud. In the client side app.config file I specified the endpoint to the local development fabric address. And the just implement the client to let me input an email and a password then invoke the WCF service to add my acocunt. Let’s run my application and see the result. Of course it should return TRUE to me. And in the local SQL Express I can see the data had been saved in the table.   Summary In this post I explained more about the Windows Azure Table Storage Service. I also created a small application for demostration of how to connect and consume it through the ADO.NET Data Service Managed Library provided within the Azure SDK. I only show how to create an eneity in the storage service. In the next post I would like to explain about how to query the entities with conditions thruogh LINQ. I also would like to refactor my AccountDataContext class to make it dyamic for any kinds of entities.   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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• 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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• December release of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is available now.

  - by Jialiang

  The code samples in Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework are updated on 2010-12-13. Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If it’s the first time that you hear about Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, please watch the introduction video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5Li3APU58, or read the introduction on our homepage http://1code.codeplex.com/,  and this Port25 article http://port25.technet.com/archive/2010/01/18/the-all-in-one-code-framework.aspx.  -------------- New ASP.NET Code Samples VBASPNETAJAXWebChat and CSASPNETAJAXWebChat Most of you have some experience in chatting with friends on the web. So you may want to know how to make a web chat application, it seems to be quite complicated. But ASP.NET gives you the power to buiild a chat room easily. In this code sample, we will construct our own web chat room with the amazing AJAX feature. The principle is simple relatively. As we all know, a base chat application need 4 base controls: one List control to show the chat room members, one List control to show the message list, one TextBox control to input messages and one button to send message. User inputs his message in the textbox first and then presses Send button, it will send the message to the server. The message list will update every 2 seconds to get the newest message list in the chat room from the server. We need to know, it is hard for us to make an AJAX web chat application like a windows form application because we cannot keep the connection after one web request ended. So a lot of events which communicates between client side and server side cannot be realized. The common workaround is to make web requests in every some seconds to check whether the server side has been updated. But another technique called COMET makes it possible. But it is different with AJAX and will not be talked in details in this KB. For more details about COMET, we can get some clues from the Reference.   CSASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList and VBASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList This sample demos a system that needs to display a list of current online users' information. As a matter of fact, Membership.GetNumberOfUsersOnline Method  can get the number of online users and there is a convenient approach to check whether the user is online by using Membership.GetUser(string userName).IsOnline property,however many asp.net projects are not using membership.So in this case,the sample shows how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider. It is not difficult to check whether the user is online by using session.Many projects tend to be used “Session_End” event to mark a user as “Offline”,however ,it may not be a good idea,because it can’t detect the user status accurately. In addition, "Session_End" event is only available in the "InProc" session mode. If you are storing session states in the State Server or SQL Server, "Session_End" event will never fire. To handle this issue, we need to save the user online status to a  global DataTable or  DataBase. In the sample application, define a global DataTable to store the information of online users.Use XmlHttpRequest in the pages to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. The sample project can auto delete offline users' information from a global DataTable by checking users’ last active time. A step-by-step guide illustrating how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider: 1. Login page. Let user sign in and add current user’s information to a global datatable while Initialize the global datatable which used to store information of current online users. 2. Current online user list page. Use XmlHttpRequest in this page to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. 3. If user closes the page without clicking  the sign out link button ,the sample project can auto mark the user as offline and delete offline users' information from a global DataTable which used to store information of current online users  by checking users’ last active time. Then the current online user list will be like this:   CSASPNETIPtoLocation This sample demonstrates how to find the geographical location from an IP address. As we know, it is not hard for us to get the IP address of visitors via Request.ServerVariable property, but it is really difficult for us to know where they come from. To achieve this feature, the sample uses a free third party web service from http://freegeoip.appspot.com/, which returns the information about an IP address we send to the server in the format of XML, JSON or CSV. It makes all things easier.   CSASPNETBackgroundWorker Sometimes we do an operation which needs long time to complete. It will stop the response and the page is blank until the operation finished. In this case, we want the operation to run in the background, and in the page, we want to display the progress of the running operation. Therefore, the user can know the operation is running and can know the progress. CSASPNETInheritingFromTreeNode In windows forms TreeView, each tree node has a property called "Tag" which can be used to store a custom object. Many customers want to implement the same tag feature in ASP.NET TreeView. This project creates a custom TreeView control named "CustomTreeView" to achieve this goal. CSASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload and VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload This code sample was created in response to a code sample request in our new code sample request frunction for customers. The code samples demonstrate uploading files to and downloading files from a remote HTTP or FTP server. In .NET Framework 2.0 and higher versions, there are some lightweight class libraries which support HTTP and FTP protocol transmission. By using these classes, we can achieve this programming requirement.   CSASPNETImageEditUpload and VBASPNETImageEditUpload This demo will shows how to insert, edit and update a common image with the type of "jpg", "png", "gif" or "bmp" . We mainly use two different SqlDataSources with the same database to bind to GridView and FormView in order to establish the “cascading” effort. Besides we apply our self-made ImageHanlder to encoding or decoding images of different types, and use context to output the stream of images. We will explicitly assign the binary streams of images through the event of “FormView_ItemInserting” or “Form_ItemUpdating” to synchronize the stream both in what we can see on an aspx page as well as in what’s really stored in the database.   WebBrowser Control, Network and other Windows General New Code Samples   CSWebBrowserSuppressError and VBWebBrowserSuppressError The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser suppress errors, such as script error, navigation error and so on.   CSWebBrowserWithProxy and VBWebBrowserWithProxy The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser use a proxy server.   CSWebDownloadProgress and VBWebDownloadProgress The sample demonstrates how to show progress during the download. It also supplies the features to Start, Pause, Resume and Cancel a download.   CppSetDesktopWallpaper, CSSetDesktopWallpaper and VBSetDesktopWallpaper This code sample application allows you select an image, view a preview (resized smaller to fit if necessary), select a display style among Tile, Center, Stretch, Fit (Windows 7 and later) and Fill (Windows 7 and later), and set the image as the Desktop wallpaper. CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty and VBWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty example demonstrates how to use ChangeServiceConfig2 to configure the service "Recovery" properties in C#. This example operates all the options you can see on the service "Recovery" tab, including setting the "Enable actions for stops with errors" option in Windows Vista and later operating systems. This example also include how to grant the shut down privilege to the process, so that we can configure a special option in the "Recovery" tab - "Restart Computer Options...".   New Office Development Code Samples   CSOneNoteRibbonAddIn and VBOneNoteRibbonAddIn The code sample demonstrates a OneNote 2010 COM add-in that implements IDTExtensibility2. The add-in also supports customizing the Ribbon by implementing the IRibbonExtensibility interface. It is a skeleton OneNote add-in that developers can extend it to implement more functions. The code sample was requested by a customer in our code sample request service. We expect that this could help developers in the community.   New Windows Shell Code Samples   CppShellExtPreviewHandler, CSShellExtPreviewHandler and VBShellExtPreviewHandler In the past two months, we released the code samples of Windows Context Menu Handler, Infotip Handler, and Thumbnail Handler. This is the fourth part of the shell extension series: Preview Handler. The code samples demo the C++, C# and VB.NET implementation of a preview handler for a new file type registered with the .recipe extension. Preview handlers are called when an item is selected to show a lightweight, rich, read-only preview of the file's contents in the view's reading pane. This is done without launching the file's associated application. Windows Vista and later operating systems support preview handlers. To be a valid preview handler, several interfaces must be implemented. This includes IPreviewHandler (shobjidl.h); IInitializeWithFile, IInitializeWithStream, or IInitializeWithItem (propsys.h); IObjectWithSite (ocidl.h); and IOleWindow (oleidl.h). There are also optional interfaces, such as IPreviewHandlerVisuals (shobjidl.h), that a preview handler can implement to provide extended support. Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework makes the implementation of these interfaces very easy in .NET. The example preview handler provides previews for .recipe files. The .recipe file type is simply an XML file registered as a unique file name extension. It includes the title of the recipe, its author, difficulty, preparation time, cook time, nutrition information, comments, an embedded preview image, and so on. The preview handler extracts the title, comments, and the embedded image, and display them in a preview window.   In response to many customers' request, we added setup projects in every shell extension samples in this release. Those setup projects allow you to deploy the shell extensions to your end users' machines. ---------- Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If you have any feedback for us, please email: [email protected]. We look forward to your comments.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 12, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 12, 2010New ProjectsAdverTool (Advertisement tool): AdverTool is an online tool which integrates the most popular advertisement networks (such as Microsoft adCenter, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Mar...Authentication Configuration Tool for SharePoint: Helpful tools to automatically configure SharePoint 2007 and 2010 for forms based authentication and other authentication mechanisms.Bacicworx: A C# .Net 3.5 helper library containing functionality for compression, encryption, hashes, downloading, PayPal API, text analysis and generation, a...BlogEngine.Net iPhone Theme: A port of BETouch originally created by soundbbgBT UPnP Nat Library: This Library makes it extremly simple to add NAT upnp port forwarding to your .net applications. Developed in C# using .Net 4.0CheckBox & CheckBoxList Validators: These validators fill the much needed gap in the Asp.Net Server controlsDataFactories: The DataFactories project was created to provide a standardized interface to SSAS and MSSQL data. However, as it is implemented using the Abstract ...DVD Swarm: Converts unprotected DVD video & audio streams to H.264 with AAC/Vorbis.Frio IM: Frio IM - is cross protocol instant messenger.jiuyuan: jiuyuan management systemMGM: MyGroupManager is a simple graphical interface written in PowerShell that can be deployed to Active Directory users to simplify the managed of grou...MGR2010: This the MA thesis by Witold Stanik & Michał Sereja, PJWSTK.Nauplius.ActiveDirectory: Web-based Active Directory management.Partial rendering control using JQuery: This article show a web custom control that allows partial rendering using JQueryREG - The Random Entertainment Generator: A simple tool to make your mid up when you can't figure out what you want to do!Runes of Magic - Heilerrechner: Heilerrechner für die Heiler von Runes of Magic (www.runes.ofmagic.com)Semagsoft Calculator: Basic calculator for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.SO League Tables: SOLT: Stack Overflow League Tables. A fun little app that lets you compare your stack overflow performance for each month, relative to other member...Stacky StackApps .Net Client Library: StackApps is a REST API for which provides access to the stackoverflow.com family of websites. Stacky is a .net client for that API. Stacky current...TwitterDotNet: TwitterDotNet is a TwitterLibrary for .NET Framework.ValiVIN: VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) Validator Validate Vin NumberWorkLogger: Simple work hour logger in WPFNew ReleasesAdverTool (Advertisement tool): Official releases: Please visit http://advertool.org to access the complete source code and downloads.Authentication Configuration Tool for SharePoint: Auth Config Tool (WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 version): This tool automates the setup of dual authentication web applications in SharePoint that use Windows Authentication and Forms Based Authentication....BlogEngine.Net iPhone Theme: Version 0.1: Original version 0.1 from soundbbgBraintree Client Library: Braintree-2.3.0: Return AvsErrorResponseCode, AvsPostalCodeResponseCode, AvsStreetAddressResponseCode, CurrencyIsoCode, CvvResponseCode with Transaction Return Cr...BT UPnP Nat Library: Bt_Upnp Nat Library Alpha: Alpha Release of the libraryCNZK Library: Silverlight Behaviors - Deep Zoom Tag Filter: Behavior library for Silverlight 4 containing a Deep Zoom Tag Filter Behavior. Sample at the Expression Gallery http://gallery.expression.microsof...Demina: Demina Binaries version 0.2: Updated binaries. This release contains all of the new features, including simple animation transitions.DTLoggedExec: 1.0.0.2: -Fixed a bug that prevented loading packages from SSIS Package Store -Added support for {filename} placeholder in both Data Flow Profiling and CSV ...DVD Swarm: v0.8.10.611: Initial release, mostly stable.Exchange 2010 RBAC Editor (RBAC GUI) - updated on 6/11/2010: RBAC Editor 0.9.5.1: now supports creating and editing Role Assignment Policies; rest of the stuff is the same - still a lot of way to go :) Please use email address i...Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.021: Compatible with SmallBasic v0.9 Lame version of TicTacToe Added - more coming later.Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.1.1 GA Released: Hi, Today we are releasing Visifire 3.1.1 GA with the following features: * Logarithmic Axis * ShowIndicator() in Chart. * HideIndica...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.5.4 GA Released: Hi, Today we are releasing Visifire 3.1.1 GA with the following features: Logarithmic Axis ShowIndicator() in Chart. HideIndicator() in Chart...Keep Focused - an enhanced tool for Time Management using Pomodoro Technique: Release 0.3.1 Alpha: Release 0.3.1 Alpha Technical patch. The previous release 0.3 Alpha had some errors and missing features. It was probably not build from the source...Mesopotamia Experiment: Mesopotamia 1.2.96: Bug Fixes - Fixed duplicate cells being added on creating new cells via mutations - Fixed bug where organisms without IO synapses where getting ios...NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: Nightly Build 2010.06.11.001: Changes since the last build:No changes. Unit test results:Passed 243/243 (100%) Passed 243/243 (100%) Passed 267/267 (100%) Passed 269/269 (100%)...Partial rendering control using JQuery: JQuery Web Control V 1.0: This is the first release of the code. It includes the source code and a web application to see how it worksphpxw: Phpxw2.0: 框架目录说明 ./_mod 模块存放目录 ./phpxw/ 框架核心目录 ./phpxw/common/ 框架核心函数 ./phpxw/system/ 框架核心基础类存放目录 ./phpxw/userlib/ 用户继承类存放目录 ./temp...Questionable Content Screensaver: Questionable Content Screensaver: Should be pretty self explanatory, install the appropriate version for your computer (x64 or x86). Features Include Cache comics for offline viewi...Quick Performance Monitor: Version 1.4.1: Added option to change the 'minimum' maximum value visible on the graph at run-time. Also fixed a number of other bugs.Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix v0.1.0.82 ALPHA: This has now been run against a real life project to tease out some of the issues. While this remains alpha software, which you use at your own ris...Rhyduino - Arduino and Managed Code: Beta Release (v0.8.2): ContentsSample Project - Demonstrates basic functionality and is flooded with code comments, so it's capable of being used as a learning tool. It d...Runes of Magic - Heilerrechner: Rom_Heiler_0.1: Erste Version von "RoM Heilerrechner". .Net 4.0 Framework wird vorausgesetzt. Das erhälst du hier: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?...Semagsoft Calculator: 2.0: new theme and bug fix'sSilverlight Reporting: Release 2: Updated to correct issue in report footer xaml, and to add support for a calculated report footer.Stacky StackApps .Net Client Library: Beta Preview: This is a beta preview to go along with the StackApps beta.TwitterDotNet: TwitterDotNet Library: first versionUnOfficial AW Wrapper dot Net: Aw Wrapper 1.0.0.0 (5.0): New Functions :DValiVIN: ValiVIN first release: First Iteration. METHODS: IsValid(string vin) - Checks if a string is a valid VIN (returns true or false) GetCheckSumValue(string vin) - Returns...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30611.0: Automatic drop of latest buildViewModelSupport: ViewModelSupport 1.0: Version 1.0 More information: http://houseofbilz.net/archives/2010/05/08/adventures-in-mvvm-my-viewmodel-base/ http://houseofbilz.net/archives/201...VolgaTransTelecomClient: v.1.0.3.0: v.1.0.3.0WCF Client Generator: Version 0.9.3.19259: Changed: - Always generate full type names for parameters and return typesWCF Client Generator: Version 0.9.3.21153: Fixed: - Service contracts namespace generation Added: - Templates assembly code base read from configurationXen: Graphics API for XNA: Xen 2.0 ALPHA: This is a very early alpha for Xen 2.0. Please note: The documentation for this alpha has not been updated yet. Xen 2.0 is not backwards compatib...ZGuideTV.NET: ZGuideTV.NET 0.93: Vendredi 11 avril 2010 (ZGuideTV.NET bêta 9 build 0.93) - English below Ajout : - Classement du contenu dans la description (affichage légende si...Most Popular ProjectsCAML GeneratorSharePoint Geographic Data VisualizerDbIdiom for ADO.NET CorestudyDTSRun Job RunnerXBStudio.asp.net.automationSilverlight load on demand with MEFCloud Business ServicesSharePoint 2010 Taxonomy Import UtilitySTS Federation Metadata EditorMost Active ProjectsRhyduino - Arduino and Managed Codepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeCassandraemonBlogEngine.NETMediaCoder.NETMicrosoft Silverlight Media FrameworkAndrew's XNA Helpers

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• Add Free Google Apps to Your Website or Blog

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to have an email address from your own domain, but prefer Gmail’s interface and integration with Google Docs?  Here’s how you can add the free Google Apps Standard to your site and get the best of both worlds. Note: To signup for Google Apps and get it setup on your domain, you will need to be able to add info to your WordPress blog or change Domain settings manually. Getting Started Head to the Google Apps signup page (link below), and click the Get Started button on the right.  Note that we are signing up for the free Google Apps which allows a max of 50 users; if you need more than 50 email addresses for your domain, you can choose Premiere Edition instead for $50/year. Select that you are the Administrator of the domain, and enter the domain or subdomain you want to use with Google Apps.  Here we’re adding Google Apps to the techinch.com site, but we could instead add Apps to mail.techinch.com if needed…click Get Started. Enter your name, phone number, an existing email address, and other Administrator information.  The Apps signup page also includes some survey questions about your organization, but you only have to fill in the required fields. On the next page, enter a username and password for the administrator account.  Note that the user name will also be the administrative email address as [email protected]. Now you’re ready to authenticate your Google Apps account with your domain.  The steps are slightly different depending on whether your site is on WordPress.com or on your own hosting service or server, so we’ll show how to do it both ways.   Authenticate and Integrate Google Apps with WordPress.com To add Google Apps to a domain you have linked to your WordPress.com blog, select Change yourdomain.com CNAME record and click Continue. Copy the code under #2, which should be something like googleabcdefg123456.  Do not click the button at the bottom; wait until we’ve completed the next step.   Now, in a separate browser window or tab, open your WordPress Dashboard.  Click the arrow beside Upgrades, and select Domains from the menu. Click the Edit DNS link beside the domain name you’re adding to Google Apps. Scroll down to the Google Apps section, and paste your code from Google Apps into the verification code field.  Click Generate DNS records when you’re done. This will add the needed DNS settings to your records in the box above the Google Apps section.  Click Save DNS records. Now, go back to the Google Apps signup page, and click I’ve completed the steps above. Authenticate Google Apps on Your Own Server If your website is hosted on your own server or hosting account, you’ll need to take a few more steps to add Google Apps to your domain.  You can add a CNAME record to your domain host using the same information that you would use with a WordPress account, or you can upload an HTML file to your site’s main directory.  In this test we’re going to upload an HTML file to our site for verification. Copy the code under #1, which should be something like googleabcdefg123456.  Do not click the button at the bottom; wait until we’ve completed the next step first. Create a new HTML file and paste the code in it.  You can do this easily in Notepad: create a new document, paste the code, and then save as googlehostedservice.html.  Make sure to select the type as All Files or otherwise the file will have a .txt extension. Upload this file to your web server via FTP or a web dashboard for your site.  Make sure it is in the top level of your site’s directory structure, and try visiting it at yoursite.com/googlehostedservice.html. Now, go back to the Google Apps signup page, and click I’ve completed the steps above. Setup Your Email on Google Apps When this is done, your Google Apps account should be activated and ready to finish setting up.  Google Apps will offer to launch a guide to step you through the rest of the process; you can click Launch guide if you want, or click Skip this guide to continue on your own and go directly to the Apps dashboard.   If you choose to open the guide, you’ll be able to easily learn the ropes of Google Apps administration.  Once you’ve completed the tutorial, you’ll be taken to the Google Apps dashboard. Most of the Google Apps will be available for immediate use, but Email may take a bit more setup.  Click Activate email to get your Gmail-powered email running on your domain.    Add Google MX Records to Your Server You will need to add Google MX records to your domain registrar in order to have your mail routed to Google.  If your domain is hosted on WordPress.com, you’ve already made these changes so simply click I have completed these steps.  Otherwise, you’ll need to manually add these records before clicking that button.   Adding MX Entries is fairly easy, but the steps may depend on your hosting company or registrar.  With some hosts, you may have to contact support to have them add the MX records for you.  Our site’s host uses the popular cPanel for website administration, so here’s how we added the MX Entries through cPanel. Add MX Entries through cPanel Login to your site’s cPanel, and click the MX Entry link under Mail. Delete any existing MX Records for your domain or subdomain first to avoid any complications or interactions with Google Apps.  If you think you may want to revert to your old email service in the future, save a copy of the records so you can switch back if you need. Now, enter the MX Records that Google listed.  Here’s our account after we added all of the entries to our account. Finally, return to your Google Apps Dashboard and click the I have completed these steps button at the bottom of the page. Activating Service You’re now officially finished activating and setting up your Google Apps account.  Google will first have to check the MX records for your domain; this only took around an hour in our test, but Google warns it can take up to 48 hours in some cases. You may then see that Google is updating its servers with your account information.  Once again, this took much less time than Google’s estimate. When everything’s finished, you can click the link to access the inbox of your new Administrator email account in Google Apps. Welcome to Gmail … at your own domain!  All of the Google Apps work just the same in this version as they do in the public @gmail.com version, so you should feel right at home. You can return to the Google Apps dashboard from the Administrative email account by clicking the Manage this domain at the top right. In the Dashboard, you can easily add new users and email accounts, as well as change settings in your Google Apps account and add your site’s branding to your Apps. Your Google Apps will work just like their standard @gmail.com counterparts.  Here’s an example of an inbox customized with the techinch logo and a Gmail theme. Links to Remember Here are the common links to your Google Apps online.  Substitute your domain or subdomain for yourdomain.com. Dashboard https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com Email https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Calendar https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/yourdomain.com Docs https://docs.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Sites https://sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Conclusion Google Apps offers you great webapps and webmail for your domain, and let’s you take advantage of Google’s services while still maintaining the professional look of your own domain.  Setting up your account can be slightly complicated, but once it’s finished, it will run seamlessly and you’ll never have to worry about email or collaboration with your team again. Signup for the free Google Apps Standard Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mysticgeek Blog: Create Your Own Simple iGoogle GadgetAccess Your Favorite Google Services in Chrome the Easy WayRevo Uninstaller Pro [REVIEW]Mysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPFind Similar Websites in Google Chrome 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox

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• CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server

  - by The Geek

  Overview CloudBerry Online Backup version 1.5 is a front end application for Amazon S3 storage for backing up your Windows Home Server data. It makes backing up your essential data to Amazon S3 an easy process in the event the disaster strikes. Installation You install the Cloudberry Addin as you do for any addins for Windows Home Server. On a PC on your network, browse to the shared folders on your server and open the Add-Ins folder and copy over WHS_CloudBerryOnlineBackupSetup_v1.5.0.81S3o.msi (link below), then close out of the folder. Next launch the Windows Home Server Console, click Settings, then Add-Ins. Click on the Available tab and click the Install button. It installs very quickly, and when you get the Installation Succeeded dialog click OK. You will lose connection through the Console, just click OK, then reconnect. After reconnecting, you’ll see CloudBerry Backup has been installed, and you can begin using it. You can setup a backup plan right away or find out what’s new with version 1.5. Amazon S3 Account If you don’t already have an Amazon S3 account, you’ll be prompted to create a new one. Click on the Create an account hyperlink, which takes you to the Amazon S3 page where you can sign up. After reviewing the functionality of Amazon S3, click on the Sign Up for Amazon S3 button. Enter in your contact information and accept the Amazon Web Services Customer Agreement. You’re then shown their pricing for storage plans. The amount of storage space you use will depend on your needs. It’s relatively cheap for smaller amounts of data. Just keep in mind the more data you store and download, the more S3 is going to cost. Note: Amazon S3 is introducing Reduced Redundancy Storage which will lower the cost of the data stored on S3. CloudBerry 1.5 will support this new feature. You can find out more about this new pricing structure. Note: Keep in mind that after you first sign up for an Amazon S3 account, it can take up to 24 hours to be authorized. In fact, you may want to sign up for the S3 account before installing the Add-In. After you sign up for your S3 Account, you’ll be given access credentials which you can enter in and create a Storage Bucket name. Features & Use CloudBerry is wizard driven, straight-forward and easy to use. Here we take a look at creating a backup plan. To begin, click on the Setup Backup Plan button to kick off the wizard. Select your backup mode based on the amount of features you want. In our example we’re going to select Advanced Mode as it offers more features than Simple Mode. Select your backup storage account or create a new one. You can select a default account by checking Use currently selected account as default. Now you can go through and select the files and folders you want to backup from your home server. Check the box Show physical drives to get more of a selection of files and folders. This also allows you to backup files from your data drive as well. It has full support for drive extenders so you can backup your shares as well. The cool thing about Cloudberry is it allows you to drill down specific files and folders unlike other WHS backup utilities. Next you can use advanced filters to specify files and/or folders to skip if you want. There are compression and encryption options as well. This will save storage space, bandwidth, and keep your data secure. Purge Options allow you to customize options for getting rid of older files. You can also select the option to delete files from the S3 service that have been deleted locally. Be careful with this option however, as you won’t be able to restore files if you delete them locally. You have some nice scheduling options from running backups manually, specific date and time, or recurring daily, weekly or monthly. Receive email notifications in all cases or when a backup fails. This is a good option so you know if things were successful or something failed, and you need to back it up manually. Email notifications… Give your plan a name… Then if the summary page looks good you can continue, or still go back at this point if something doesn’t look correct and needs adjusting. That’s it! You’re ready to go, and you have an option to start your first backup right away. After you’ve created a backup plan, you can go in and edit, delete, view history, or restore files. Restoring Files using CloudBerry To restore data from your backups kick off the Restore Wizard and select the backup to restore from. You can select the last backup, a specific point in time, or manually browse through the files. Browse through the directory and select the files you need to restore. Choose the destination to restore the files to. You can select from the original location, a specific location, to overwrite existing files, or set the location as the default for future restores. If the files are encrypted, enter in the correct passwords. If the summary looks good, click on Next to start the restore process. You’ll be shown a progress bar at the bottom of the screen while the files are restored. After the process has completed, close out of the Restore Wizard. In this example we restored a couple of music files to the desktop of Windows Home Server… But as shown above you can save them to the original location, other network locations, or WHS shared folders. This can make it a lot easier to keep track of files you’ve restored. You can also access different options for CloudBerry by clicking Settings in WHS Console then CloudBerry Backup. Here you can set up a new storage account, check for updates, app options, Diagnostics, and send feedback. Under Options there are several settings you can tweak to get the best experience for your WHS backups. CloudBerry Web Interface Another nice feature is the CloudBerry Web Interface so you can access your data from anywhere you have an Internet connection. To check it out in WHS Console, click on the Backup Web Interface link…you’ll probably want to bookmark the link in your favorite browser. Note: This feature is still in beta and at the time of this review, the Web Interface wasn’t up and running so we weren’t able to test it out. Performance The Cloudberry app works very well through the Windows Home Server Console. The amount of time it takes to backup or restore your data will depend on the speed of your Internet connection and size of the files. In our tests, backing up 1GB of data to the Amazon S3 account took around an hour, but we were running it on a DSL with limited upload speeds so your mileage will vary. Product Support In our experience, the team at CloudBerry offered great support in a timely manner when contacting them. You can fill out a help request through a form on their website and they also have a community forum. Conclusion We were very pleased with CloudBerry Online Backup for WHS. It’s wizard driven interface makes it extremely easy to use, and offers comprehensive backup choices for your Amazon S3 account. CloudBerry will only backup files that have been modified, so if files haven’t been changed, they won’t be backed up again.They offer a free 15 day trial and is $29.99 after that for a full license. Once you buy the app you own it, and charges to your S3 account will vary depending on the amount of data you upload. If you’re looking for an effective and easy to use front end application to backup your Windows Home Server data to your Amazon S3 account, CloudBerry is a recommended affordable choice. Download CloudBerry for Windows Home Server Sign Up For Amazon S3 Account Rating Installation: 9 Ease of Use: 8 Features: 8 Performance: 8 Product Support: 8 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Restore Files from Backups on Windows Home ServerGMedia Blog: Setting Up a Windows Home ServerBackup Windows Home Server Folders to an External Hard DriveBackup Your Windows Home Server Off-Site with Asus WebstorageRemove a Network Computer from Windows Home Server 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 Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010 Daily Motivator (Firefox)

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• Run WordPress & Other Web Apps with Windows Web Platform

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to run WordPress or other web apps on your PC so you can easily test and design websites?  Here we’ll look at how you can get the latest web apps on your computer in only a few quick steps. Many web apps today, such as WordPress, MediaWiki, and more, are open source and can be run for free from any computer with even a simple local web server.  They are often very difficult to install on your computer, since they require a number of dependencies such as PHP and MySQL.  Microsoft has worked to make this easier, releasing the Windows Web Platform Installer.  This lets you install many popular web apps and free tools in Windows with only a few clicks. Here we’re going to look at how to install WordPress and the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express to edit web code with the Web Platform Installer.  But, if you’d rather install a different web app or tool, feel free to choose those as the installations are generally similar. Getting Started Head over to Microsoft’s Web development site and download the Web Platform Installer (link below).  This will download very quick, as it is just a small loader.  When you run this loader, it will download the Web Platform Installer files.  The Web Platform Installer works on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, as well as the related versions of Windows Server. After a couple moments, the Web Platform Installer will open and load information about the latest web offerings.    Now you can choose what you want to install.  You can quickly select the recommended products for several categories such as Web Server, Database, and more. Alternately, click Customize under the category and select exactly what you want to install.  Note that items already installed on your computer will be grayed out. We wanted to install Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, so select Customize under Tools, and select Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. Or, for more preset choices, select Options on the bottom of the window. You can choose to add Multimedia, Developer, and Enterprise tools to the lists, or add a new preset list from a feed. Choose Specific Web apps to Install We wanted to install WordPress, so instead of choosing a preset, select the Web Applications tab on the left.  Now you can choose from a variety of apps based on category, or you can view them all together in an A to Z, Most Popular, or Highest Rating list. Click the checkbox beside the app you want to install to select it, or click the “i” for more information. Here’s the More Information pane for WordPress.  If you’re ready to install it, click the checkbox. Now you can go back and add more web apps or tools to the install list if you like.  The Web Platform Installer will automatically find and select prerequisite apps such as MySQL, so you won’t need to worry about finding them. Once you’ve selected everything you want to install, click the Install button on the bottom of the window. The Web Platform Installer will now show you everything that’s selected, including components that it automatically selected.  Notice we only chose to install WordPress and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, but it also has selected MySQL and PHP automatically.  Click I Accept to proceed. Enter an administrator password for MySQL before the setup begins. Now the Web Platform Installer will take over, automatically downloading, installing, and configuring all of your web apps.  It will also activate optional Windows components that may be needed on your computer.  This may take several minutes, depending on the components you selected and your internet speed.   Setting up Your Test Site Once the installation is finished, you’ll be asked to enter some information about your site.  You can simply accept the defaults or enter your own choices, and then click Continue. Now you’ll need to enter some information for your web apps.  When installing WordPress, you’ll need to choose a database and enter administrative usernames and passwords.  You may also be asked to enter extra information for additional security, but for a local-only test site this isn’t necessary.  Click Continue when you’re finished. You’ll need to wait a few more moments as it complete the setup of your web apps.  The good thing is, once it’s finished, they’ll be ready to go with only minimal configuration. And you’re finished!  The installer will let you know everything it installed, and if there were any problems.  In our test, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express failed to install successfully.  Often the problems may be with the download, so click Finish and then reselect the apps that didn’t install and run the installer again. Now you’re ready to run WordPress from your PC.  Click the Launch WordPress link or enter http://localhost:80/wordpress in your browser to get started. You’ll only have a little more setup to do on WordPress to get it running.  Once you’ve opened your WordPress page in your browser, enter a name for your blog and your email address, and click Install WordPress.   After a few seconds, you should see a Success! page with your username and a temporary password.  Copy the password, and then click Log In. Enter admin as the Username and paste the random generated password, and click Log In. WordPress will remind you to change the default password.  Click the Yes, Take me to my profile page link to do this. Enter something easier for you to remember, and click Update Profile. Now you’re ready to enjoy your new WordPress install on Windows.  You can add plugins and themes, and everything else you’d do with a normal WordPress site.  Here’s the dashboard running from localhost. And here’s the default blog running. Setting up Visual Web Developer 2010 Express As mentioned before, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express didn’t install correctly on our first try, but the second time it installed seamlessly.  Once it’s installed, launch it from your start menu as normal.  It may take a few minutes to load on the first run as it is finishing up setup. You may notice that the splash screen displayed while the program is loading says For Evaluation Purposes Only.  This is because you still need to register the program. You have 30 days to register the program, but let’s go ahead and do it to get this step out of the way.  Click Help in the menu bar, and select Register Product. Click Obtain a registration key online in the popup window. You’ll need to sign in with your Windows Live ID, and then fill out a quick form. When you’re done, copy the registration key displayed and paste it into the registration dialog in Visual Web Developer.   Now you’ve got a registered, free web development program with full standards compliance and IntelliSense to help you work smarter and faster.  And it works great with your local web apps, so you can create, tweak, and then deploy, all from your desktop with this simple installer! Install More Apps You can always run the Web Platform Installer again in the future and add more apps if you’d like.  The install adds a link to the Installer in the Start menu; just run it and repeat the steps above with your new selections. Also, from the installer, you can cleanup the setup files downloaded during the installation if you want.  Click the Options link in the bottom of the window, and then scroll down and select Delete installer cache folder. Uninstalling the apps is not as easy, unfortunately.  If you wish to uninstall the Web Platform Installer and everything you installed with it, you’ll need to uninstall each item individually.  One easy way to see what was all installed together is to sort the entries in Uninstall Programs by date.  In our case, we also installed some other applications on the same day, but it’s easier to see what was installed together. Or if you are not a fan of using Programs and Features to uninstall them, try out a program like Revo Uninstaller Pro. Conclusion Whether you’re a full-time web developer or just enjoy testing out the latest web apps, the Web Platform Installer makes it quick and easy to get your computer loaded up with the latest bits.  In fact, it’s easier to install these tools with all their dependencies than it is to install many standard boxed programs. If you’d like to take your web server anywhere you go and not have it confined to your desktop, then check out our article on how to Turn Your Flashdrive into a Portable Webserver. Link Download the Microsoft Web Platform Installer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Linux QuickTip: Downloading and Un-tarring in One StepQuick Tip: Set a Future Date for a Post in WordPressHow-To Geek SoftwareAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek Software: WordPress Comment Moderation Notifier 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7

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• Pluralsight Meet the Author Podcast on HTML5 Canvas Programming

  - by dwahlin

    In the latest installment of Pluralsight’s Meet the Author podcast series, Fritz Onion and I talk about my new course, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals.  In the interview I describe different canvas technologies covered throughout the course and a sample application at the end of the course that covers how to build a custom business chart from start to finish. Meet the Author:  Dan Wahlin on HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals   Transcript [Fritz] Hi. This is Fritz Onion. I’m here today with Dan Wahlin to talk about his new course HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals. Dan founded the Wahlin Group, which you can find at thewahlingroup.com, which specializes in ASP.NET, jQuery, Silverlight, and SharePoint consulting. He’s a Microsoft Regional Director and has been awarded Microsoft’s MVP for ASP.NET, Connected Systems, and Silverlight. Dan is on the INETA Bureau’s — Speaker’s Bureau, speaks at conferences and user groups around the world, and has written several books on .NET. Thanks for talking to me today, Dan. [Dan] Always good to talk with you, Fritz. [Fritz] So this new course of yours, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals, I have to say that most of the really snazzy demos I’ve seen with HTML5 have involved Canvas, so I thought it would be a good starting point to chat with you about why we decided to create a course dedicated just to Canvas. If you want to kind of give us that perspective. [Dan] Sure. So, you know, there’s quite a bit of material out there on HTML5 in general, and as people that have done a lot with HTML5 are probably aware, a lot of HTML5 is actually JavaScript centric. You know, a lot of people when they first learn it, think it’s tags, but most of it’s actually JavaScript, and it just so happens that the HTML5 Canvas is one of those things. And so it’s not just, you know, a tag you add and it just magically draws all these things. You mentioned there’s a lot of cool things you can do from games to there’s some really cool multimedia applications out there where they integrate video and audio and all kinds of things into the Canvas, to more business scenarios such as charting and things along those lines. So the reason we made a course specifically on it is, a lot of the material out there touches on it but the Canvas is actually a pretty deep topic. You can do some pretty advanced stuff or easy stuff depending on what your application requirements are, and the API itself, you know, there’s over 30 functions just in the Canvas API and then a whole set of properties that actually go with that as well. So it’s a pretty big topic, and that’s why we created a course specifically tailored towards just the Canvas. [Fritz] Right. And let’s — let me just review the outline briefly here for everyone. So you start off with an introduction to getting started with Canvas, drawing with the HTML5 Canvas, then you talk about manipulating pixels, and you finish up with building a custom data chart. So I really like your example flow here. I think it will appeal to even business developers, right. Even if you’re not into HTML5 for the games or the media capabilities, there’s still something here for everyone I think working with the Canvas. Which leads me to another question, which is, where do you see the Canvas fitting in to kind of your day-to-day developer, people that are working business applications and maybe vanilla websites that aren’t doing kind of cutting edge stuff with interactivity with users? Is there a still a place for the Canvas in those scenarios? [Dan] Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of us — and I include myself here — over the last few years, the focus has generally been, especially if you’re, let’s say, a PHP or ASP.NET or Java type of developer, we’re kind of accustomed to working on the server side, and, you know, we kind of relied on Flash or Silverlight or these other plug-ins for the client side stuff when it was kind of fancy, like charts and graphs and things along those lines. With the what I call massive shift of applications, you know, mainly because of mobile, to more of client side, one of the big benefits I think from a maybe corporate standard way of thinking of things, since we do a lot of work with different corporations, is that, number one, rather than having to have the plug-in, which of course isn’t going to work on iPad and some of these other devices out there that are pretty popular, you can now use a built-in technology that all the modern browsers support, and that includes things like Safari on the iPad and iPhone and the Android tablets and things like that with their browsers, and actually render some really sophisticated charts. Whether you do it by scratch or from scratch or, you know, get a third party type of library involved, it’s just JavaScript. So it downloads fast so it’s good from a performance perspective; and when it comes to what you can render, it’s extremely robust. You can do everything from, you know, your basic circles to polygons or polylines to really advanced gradients as well and even provide some interactivity and animations, and that’s some of the stuff I touch upon in the class. In fact, you mentioned the last part of the outline there is building a custom data chart and that’s kind of gears towards more of the, what I’d call enterprise or corporate type developer. [Fritz] Yeah, that makes sense. And it’s, you know, a lot of the demos I’ve seen with HTML5 focus on more the interactivity and kind of game side of things, but the Canvas is such a diverse element within HTML5 that I can see it being applicable pretty much anywhere. So why don’t we talk a little bit about some of the specifics of what you cover? You talk about drawing and then manipulating pixels. You want to kind of give us the different ways of working with the Canvas and what some of those APIs provide for you? [Dan] Sure. So going all the way back to the start of the outline, we actually started off by showing different demonstrations of the Canvas in action, and we show some fun stuff — multimedia apps and games and things like that — and then also some more business scenarios; and then once you see that, hopefully it kinds of piques your interest and you go, oh, wow, this is actually pretty phenomenal what you can do. So then we start you off with, so how to you actually draw things. Now, there are some libraries out there that will draw things like graphs, but if you want to customize those or just build something you have from scratch, you need to know the basics, such as, you know, how do you draw circles and lines and arcs and Bezier curves and all those fancy types of shapes that a given chart may have on it or that a game may have in it for that matter. So we start off by covering what I call the core API functions; how do you, for instance, fill a rectangle or convert that to a square by setting the height and the width; how do you draw arcs or different types of curves and there’s different types supported such as I mentioned Bezier curves or quadratic curves; and then we also talk about how do you integrate text into it. You might have some images already that are just regular bitmap type images that you want to integrate, you can do that with a Canvas. And you can even sync video into the Canvas, which actually opens up some pretty interesting possibilities for both business and I think just general multimedia apps. Once you kind of get those core functions down for the basic shapes that you need to be able to draw on any type of Canvas, then we go a little deeper into what are the pixels that are there to manipulate. And that’s one of the important things to understand about the HTML5 Canvas, scalable vector graphics is another thing you can use now in the modern browsers; it’s vector based. Canvas is pixel based. And so we talk about how to do gradients, how can you do transforms, you know, how do you scale things or rotate things, which is extremely useful for charts ’cause you might have text that, you know, flips up on its side for a y-axis or something like that. And you can even do direct pixel manipulation. So it’s really, really powerful. If you want to get down to the RGBA level, you can do that, and I show how to do that in the course, and then kind of wrap that section up with some animation fundamentals. [Fritz] Great. Yeah, that’s really powerful stuff for programmatically rendering data to clients and responding to user inputs. Look forward to seeing what everyone’s going to come up with building this stuff. So great. That’s — that’s HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals with Dan Wahlin. Thanks very much, Dan. [Dan] Thanks again. I appreciate it.

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• Windows Azure AppFabric: ServiceBus Queue WPF Sample

  - by xamlnotes

  The latest version of the AppFabric ServiceBus now has support for queues and topics. Today I will show you a bit about using queues and also talk about some of the best practices in using them. If you are just getting started, you can check out this site for more info on Windows Azure. One of the 1st things I thought if when Azure was announced back when was how we handle fault tolerance. Web sites hosted in Azure are no much of an issue unless they are using SQL Azure and then you must account for potential fault or latency issues. Today I want to talk a bit about ServiceBus and how to handle fault tolerance.  And theres stuff like connecting to the servicebus and so on you have to take care of. To demonstrate some of the things you can do, let me walk through this sample WPF app that I am posting for you to download. To start off, the application is going to need things like the servicenamespace, issuer details and so forth to make everything work.  To facilitate this I created settings in the wpf app for all of these items. Then I mapped a static class to them and set the values when the program loads like so: StaticElements.ServiceNamespace = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["ServiceNamespace"]); StaticElements.IssuerName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerName"]); StaticElements.IssuerKey = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerKey"]); StaticElements.QueueName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["QueueName"]);   Now I can get to each of these elements plus some other common values or instances directly from the StaticElements class. Now, lets look at the application.  The application looks like this when it starts:   The blue graphic represents the queue we are going to use.  The next figure shows the form after items were added and the queue stats were updated . You can see how the queue has grown: To add an item to the queue, click the Add Order button which displays the following dialog: After you fill in the form and press OK, the order is published to the ServiceBus queue and the form closes. The application also allows you to read the queued items by clicking the Process Orders button. As you can see below, the form shows the queued items in a list and the  queue has disappeared as its now empty. In real practice we normally would use a Windows Service or some other automated process to subscribe to the queue and pull items from it. I created a class named ServiceBusQueueHelper that has the core queue features we need. There are three public methods: * GetOrCreateQueue – Gets an instance of the queue description if the queue exists. if not, it creates the queue and returns a description instance. * SendMessageToQueue = This method takes an order instance and sends it to the queue. The call to the queue is wrapped in the ExecuteAction method from the Transient Fault Tolerance Framework and handles all the retry logic for the queue send process. * GetOrderFromQueue – Grabs an order from the queue and returns a typed order from the queue. It also marks the message complete so the queue can remove it.   Now lets turn to the WPF window code (MainWindow.xaml.cs). The constructor contains the 4 lines shown about to setup the static variables and to perform other initialization tasks. The next few lines setup certain features we need for the ServiceBus: TokenProvider credentials = TokenProvider.CreateSharedSecretTokenProvider(StaticElements.IssuerName, StaticElements.IssuerKey); Uri serviceUri = ServiceBusEnvironment.CreateServiceUri("sb", StaticElements.ServiceNamespace, string.Empty); StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager = new NamespaceManager(serviceUri, credentials); StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory = MessagingFactory.Create(serviceUri, credentials); The next two lines update the queue name label and also set the timer to 20 seconds.             QueueNameLabel.Content = StaticElements.QueueName;             _timer.Interval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20);             Next I call the UpdateQueueStats to initialize the UI for the queue:             UpdateQueueStats();             _timer.Tick += new EventHandler(delegate(object s, EventArgs a)                         {                      UpdateQueueStats();                  });             _timer.Start();         } The UpdateQueueStats method shown below. You can see that it uses the GetOrCreateQueue method mentioned earlier to grab the queue description, then it can get the MessageCount property.         private void UpdateQueueStats()         {             _queueDescription = _serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             QueueCountLabel.Content = "(" + _queueDescription.MessageCount + ")";             long count = _queueDescription.MessageCount;             long queueWidth = count * 20;             QueueRectangle.Width = queueWidth;             QueueTickCount += 1;             TickCountlabel.Content = QueueTickCount.ToString();         }   The ReadQueueItemsButton_Click event handler calls the GetOrderFromQueue method and adds the order to the listbox. If you look at the SendQueueMessageController, you can see the SendMessage method that sends an order to the queue. Its pretty simple as it just creates a new CustomerOrderEntity instance,fills it and then passes it to the SendMessageToQueue. As you can see, all of our interaction with the queue is done through the helper class (ServiceBusQueueHelper). Now lets dig into the helper class. First, before you create anything like this, download the Transient Fault Handling Framework. Microsoft provides this free and they also provide the C# source. Theres a great article that shows how to use this framework with ServiceBus. I included the entire ServiceBusQueueHelper class in List 1. Notice the using statements for TransientFaultHandling: using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; The SendMessageToQueue in Listing 1 shows how to use the async send features of ServiceBus with them wrapped in the Transient Fault Handling Framework.  It is not much different than plain old ServiceBus calls but it sure makes it easy to have the fault tolerance added almost for free. The GetOrderFromQueue uses the standard synchronous methods to access the queue. The best practices article walks through using the async approach for a receive operation also.  Notice that this method makes a call to Receive to get the message then makes a call to GetBody to get a new strongly typed instance of CustomerOrderEntity to return. Listing 1 using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging; using System.Xml.Serialization; using System.Diagnostics; namespace WPFServicebusPublishSubscribeSample {     class ServiceBusQueueHelper     {         RetryPolicy currentPolicy = new RetryPolicy<ServiceBusTransientErrorDetectionStrategy>(RetryPolicy.DefaultClientRetryCount);         QueueClient currentQueueClient;         public QueueDescription GetOrCreateQueue()         {                        QueueDescription queue = null;             bool createNew = false;             try             {                 // First, let's see if a queue with the specified name already exists.                 queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 createNew = (queue == null);             }             catch (MessagingEntityNotFoundException)             {                 // Looks like the queue does not exist. We should create a new one.                 createNew = true;             }             // If a queue with the specified name doesn't exist, it will be auto-created.             if (createNew)             {                 try                 {                     var newqueue = new QueueDescription(StaticElements.QueueName);                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.CreateQueue(newqueue); });                 }                 catch (MessagingEntityAlreadyExistsException)                 {                     // A queue under the same name was already created by someone else,                     // perhaps by another instance. Let's just use it.                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 }             }             currentQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName);             return queue;         }         public void SendMessageToQueue(CustomerOrderEntity Order)         {             BrokeredMessage msg = null;             GetOrCreateQueue();             // Use a retry policy to execute the Send action in an asynchronous and reliable fashion.             currentPolicy.ExecuteAction             (                 (cb) =>                 {                     // A new BrokeredMessage instance must be created each time we send it. Reusing the original BrokeredMessage instance may not                     // work as the state of its BodyStream cannot be guaranteed to be readable from the beginning.                     msg = new BrokeredMessage(Order);                     // Send the event asynchronously.                     currentQueueClient.BeginSend(msg, cb, null);                 },                 (ar) =>                 {                     try                     {                         // Complete the asynchronous operation.                         // This may throw an exception that will be handled internally by the retry policy.                         currentQueueClient.EndSend(ar);                     }                     finally                     {                         // Ensure that any resources allocated by a BrokeredMessage instance are released.                         if (msg != null)                         {                             msg.Dispose();                             msg = null;                         }                     }                 },                 (ex) =>                 {                     // Always dispose the BrokeredMessage instance even if the send                     // operation has completed unsuccessfully.                     if (msg != null)                     {                         msg.Dispose();                         msg = null;                     }                     // Always log exceptions.                     Trace.TraceError(ex.Message);                 }             );         }                 public CustomerOrderEntity GetOrderFromQueue()         {             CustomerOrderEntity Order = new CustomerOrderEntity();             QueueClient myQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName, ReceiveMode.PeekLock);             BrokeredMessage message;             ServiceBusQueueHelper serviceBusQueueHelper = new ServiceBusQueueHelper();             QueueDescription queueDescription;             queueDescription = serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             if (queueDescription.MessageCount > 0)             {                 message = myQueueClient.Receive(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(90));                 if (message != null)                 {                     try                     {                         Order = message.GetBody<CustomerOrderEntity>();                         message.Complete();                     }                     catch (Exception ex)                     {                         throw ex;                     }                 }                 else                 {                     throw new Exception("Did not receive the messages");                 }             }             return Order;         }     } } I will post a link to the download demo in a separate post soon.

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• SQL – NuoDB and Third Party Explorer – SQuirreL SQL Client, SQL Workbench/J and DbVisualizer

  - by Pinal Dave

  I recently wrote a four-part series on how I started to learn about and begin my journey with NuoDB. Big Data is indeed a big world and the learning of the Big Data is like spaghetti – no one knows in reality where to start, so I decided to learn it with the help of NuoDB. You can download NuoDB and continue your journey with me as well. Part 1 – Install NuoDB in 90 Seconds Part 2 – Manage NuoDB Installation Part 3 – Explore NuoDB Database Part 4 – Migrate from SQL Server to NuoDB …and in this blog post we will try to answer the most asked question about NuoDB. “I like the NuoDB Explorer but can I connect to NuoDB from my preferred Graphical User Interface?” Honestly, I did not expect this question to be asked of me so many times but from the question it is clear that we developers absolutely want to learn new things and along with that we do want to continue to use our most efficient developer tools. Now here is the answer to the question: “Absolutely, you can continue to use any of the following most popular SQL clients.” NuoDB supports the three most popular 3rd-party SQL clients. In all the leading development environments there are always more than one database installed and managing each of them with a different tool is often a very difficult task. Developers like to use one tool, which can control most of the databases. Once developers are familiar with one database tool it is very difficult for them to switch to another tool. This is particularly difficult when we developers find that tool to be the key reason for our efficiency. Let us see how to install each of the NuoDB supported 3rd party tools along with a quick tutorial on how to go about using them. SQuirreL SQL Client First download SQuirreL Universal SQL client. On the Windows platform you can double-click on the file and it will install the SQuirrel client. Once it is installed, open the application and it will bring up the following screen. Now go to the Drivers tab on the left side and scroll it down. You will find NuoDB mentioned there. Now right click over it and click on Modify Driver. Now here is where you need to make sure that you make proper entries or your client will not work with the database. Enter following values: Name: NuoDB Example URL: jdbc:com:nuodb://localhost:48004/test Website URL: http://www.nuodb.com Now click on the Extra Class Path tab and Add the location of the nuodbjdbc.jar file. If you are following my blog posts and have installed NuoDB in the default location, you will find the default path as C:\Program Files\NuoDB\jar\nuodbjdbc.jar. The class name of the driver is automatically populated. Once you click OK you will see that there is a small icon displayed to the left of NuoDB, which shows that you have successfully configured and installed the NuoDB driver. Now click on the tab of Alias tab and you can notice that it is empty. Now click on the big Plus icon and it will open screen of adding an alias. “Alias” means nothing more than adding a database to your system. The database name of the original installation can be anything and, if you wish, you can register the database with any other alternative name. Here are the details you should fill into the Alias screen below. Name: Test (or your preferred alias) Driver: NuoDB URL: jdbc:com:nuodb://localhost:48004/test (This is for test database) User Name: dba (This is the username which I entered for test Database) Password: goalie (This is the password which I entered for test Database) Check Auto Logon and Connect at Startup and click on OK. That’s it! You are done. On the right side you will see a table name and on the left side you will see various tabs with all the relevant details from respective table. You can see various metadata, schemas, data types and other information in the table. In addition, you can also generate script and do various important tasks related to database. You can see how easy it is to configure NuoDB with the SQuirreL Client and get going with it immediately. SQL Workbench/J This is another wonderful client tool, which works very well with NuoDB. The best part is that in the Driver dropdown you will see NuoDB being mentioned there. Click here to download  SQL Workbench/J Universal SQL client. The download process is straight forward and the installation is a very easy process for SQL Workbench/J. As soon as you open the client, you will notice on following screen the NuoDB driver when selecting a New Connection Profile. Select NuoDB from the drop down and click on OK. In the driver information, enter following details: Driver: NuoDB (com.nuodb.jdbc.Driver) URL: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost/test Username: dba Password: goalie While clicking on OK, it will bring up the following pop-up. Click Yes to edit the driver information. Click on OK and it will bring you to following screen. This is the screen where you can perform various tasks. You can write any SQL query you want and it will instantly show you the results. Now click on the database icon, which you see right on the left side of the word User=dba.  Once you click on Database Explorer, you can perform various database related tasks. As a developer, one of my favorite tasks is to look at the source of the table as it gives me a proper view of the structure of the database. I find SQL Workbench/J very efficient in doing the same. DbVisualizer DBVisualizer is another great tool, which helps you to connect to NuoDB and retrieve database information in your desired format. A developer who is familiar with DBVisualizer will find this client to be very easy to work with. The installation of the DBVisualizer is very pretty straight forward. When we open the client, it will bring us to the following screen. As a first step we need to set up the driver. Go to Tools >> Driver Manager. It will bring up following screen where we set up the diver. Click on Create Driver and it will open up the driver settings on the right side. On the right side of the area where it displays Driver Settings please enter the following values- Name: NuoDB URL Format: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/test Now under the driver path, click on the folder icon and it will ask for the location of the jar file. Provide the path as a C:\Program Files\NuoDB\jar\nuodbjdbc.jar and click OK. You will notice there is a green button displayed at the bottom right corner. This means the driver is configured properly. Once driver is configured properly, we can go to Create Database Connection and create a database. If the pop up show up for the Wizard. Click on No Wizard and continue to enter the settings manually. Here is the Database Connection screen. This screen can be bit tricky. Here are the settings you need to remember to enter. Name: NuoDB Database Type: Generic Driver: NuoDB Database URL: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/test Database Userid: dba Database Password: goalie Once you enter the values, click on Connect. Once Connect is pressed, it will change the button value to Reconnect if the connection is successfully established and it will show the connection details on lthe eft side. When we further explore the NuoDB, we can see various tables created in our test application. We can further click on the right side screen and see various details on the table. If you click on the Data Tab, it will display the entire data of the table. The Tools menu also has some very interesting and cool features like Driver Manager, Data Monitor and SQL History. Summary Well, this was a relatively long post but I find it is extremely essential to cover all the three important clients, which we developers use in our daily database development. Here is my question to you? Which one of the following is your favorite NuoDB 3rd-Party Database Client? (Pick One) SQuirreL SQL Client SQL Workbench/J DbVisualizer I will be very much eager to read your experience about NuoDB. You can download NuoDB from here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010New ProjectsAStar.net: AStar.net is a project for compute the A* path finding algorithm. It expose classes and interface that can be used for all purpose with multi-threa...Auto Complete for MOSS 2007: Auto Complete for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for all user to fill list of nessesary string in the field. AutoPoco: AutoPoco is a framework with the purpose of fluently building test data from Plain Old CLR ObjectsBlueProject: BlueProjectColor Picker for MOSS 2007: Color picker for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to choose color in the field. ComBrowser2: ComBrowser2DCommunication: Communication Components and Software By Delphi On Windows.DirST: Allows one to replicate a DIRectory STructure without copying files. Written in C#.Discussion column for MOSS 2007: Discussion column for MOSS 2007/ (WSS 3.0) is a field column for different type lists such as Custom List, Document Library, Issue Tracking, not on...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Energon: Energon is a framework to create and run software energy consumption tests. Requires a couple of PC with a TCP connections, a phidgets ammeter and ...Fiansa: Proyecto FiansaFirstSpark: FirstSpark is a sample Spark View Engine projectISOM: Internetowy System Obsługi Magisterek La Carta Mas Alta: La Carta Mas Alta is an open source card game totally written in PHP and HTML. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Li...Near forums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Open source SEO friendly ASP.NET MVC forum engine. Features: Navigation in forums, topics and tags; login with Facebook Connect and Single sign-on;...PEC: Still editingPowershell Zip Export/Import Cmdlet Module: Powershellzip is a powershell module with a set of Cmdlets for zip file export, import and processingProgress bar for MOSS 2007: Progress bar for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to display progress in the field in percent (0-100%). SharePoint Accelerators: This project delivers a number of SharePoint accelerators that make your every-day SharePoint life easier.Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pex: Shweet is a simple SharePoint Foundation 2010 application that allows teams to do messaging and subscriptions in the style similar to twitter. De...SilverlightEncoder: Video and audio encoder for Silverlight 4 Out-of-BrowserStarMath: Static Array Math Library: While there are already countless math libraries for performing common matrix/array functions, StarMath is distinguished by its simplicity and flex...StringToNumber: StringToNumber is a .NET library for parsing numbers in their written form into their numeric equivalent. It's developed in C#. It was created to...SubstitutionITIS: <project name="Substitution" language="c-sharp" to="myschool" whatdo="manageSubstitutionTeachers" />TamTam.SharePoint2010.LinkedIn: SP2010 and LinkedIn working togetherThink And Explore: Think my own wayusenet-o-matic: small mobile optimised webscript to search various NZB sources like newzbin and NZBmatrix and send donwloads to your SABnzbd server. Valid HTML5 Templates for VisualStudio: This project will host valid HTML templates for Visual Studio. The primary focus however will be on the newer standard HTML5 and Visual Studio 2010XSS Attack: This tool will simulate an attack on your database and update up to 5000 rows in every table and replace your strings in your database with random ...Yazgelistir Beta: Yazgelistir'in beta sitesiNew ReleasesAStar.net: AStar.net 1.0 downloads: AStar.net 1.0 downloadsAvalaible downloads:Astar.net dll - Runtime library ready to be included in a project. Astar.net source project - The Visu...AutoPoco: 0.1 - Initial Release: This is the initial release, changes pending, lots left to do, check it out though!Bag of Tricks: Bag of Tricks - WPF - Libraries and Sample App: Here is a drop of the Bag of Tricks. It targets the 3.5 Client Profile.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher 1.0.1.4: Taskbar will now be hiddenDesignit Umbraco Newsletter Package: ver 1.0.0 beta1: Please remember this is a beta version. If you have any problems or issues, don't hesitate to use the issue tracker and/or forum on this site. Ple...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio 2008: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1 Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) Showcase Application Samples Foundation (Tabs, Groups, Contextual Tab...GsGrid: gsgrid 1.6.5: gsgrid 1.6.5Home Access Plus+: v3.2.5.2: v3.2.5.1 Release Change Log: Attempt to fix Domain Admin Lookup box File Changes: ~/bin/CHS Extranet.dll ~/bin/CHS Extranet.pdbHulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher 1.0.1.4: Will now hide taskbar.Icarus Scene Engine: Icarus Professional 2 Alpha 2a v 1.10.404.936: Alpha release 2 of Icarus Professional. This release includes: IcarusX: The ActiveX-based browser control for rendering IPX projects online. Icaru...kdar: KDAR 0.0.19: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - thread start notifier routine check added - registry callback сheck added - NDIS6 checks added - some bug i...Mobile Device Browser File: Mobile Device Browser File (2010-04-07): The Mobile Browser Definition File contains definitions for individual mobile devices and browsers. At run time, ASP.NET uses the information in th...MvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation project: Portable Area Template: Use this Visual Studio 2008 Project template to create new portable areas. Drop this file in your Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Templates\ProjectTe...Office Apps: 0.8.8: new ui for Document.Viewer bug fix'sProtoforma | Tactica Adversa: Skilful 0.3.4.477: RC1ROOT Builder: ROOT Builder 1.41: Simplifies building of ROOT on the windows platform by generating a Visual Studio C make project that will build and run (and debug ROOT). See Inst...SharePoint Accelerators: Search AutoComplete for SharePoint Lists: Search AutoComplete for SharePoint List is a Web Part that allows you to search contents of a SharePoint. Search is interactive and offers you resu...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4002A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4002A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 2nd best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4003A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4003A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 3rd best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SQL Compact data and schema script utility: Version 3.0: This release contains 4 downloadable files: - SSMS 2008 scripting add-in - SQL Server 2005/2008 command line utility to generate a script with sch...StarMath: Static Array Math Library: StarMath Source Files: The source file package includes the main library StarMath.dll (and it's source files), and an example exe project to invoke commands from StarMath.stefvanhooijdonk.com: Powershell Solution Install Script: Powershell Example script to install a SP2010 Solution, which actually waits for the Retraction and Deployment jobs.TamTam.SharePoint2010.LinkedIn: 0.0.0.1: How to use/install Small instruction to use this code/solution step 1 Add the Farm Solution to your SP2010 installation step 2 Go to the MySite H...usenet-o-matic: V 0.2: supports Newzbin and NZBmatrix as index sources and SABnzbd as download serverVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30406.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: E-Z Image To PDF Converter Beta: This simple little program can convert all common image formats into pdfs and can even encrypt the pdf with an encrpytion key.Web and Load Test Plugins for Visual Studio Team Test: Release 2.0: Release 2.0 is targeted at VS 2010. VS 2010 exposes major new extensibility points: 1) Recorder plugins enable you to do custom correlations and o...Wicked Compression ASP.NET HTTP Module: WickedCompressionModule 4.0 Alpha: New Features, New Enhancements! - Visual Studio 2010 Projects! - Support for ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0 - AJAX Support for ASP.NET 3.5 and 4.0 - Bu...x5s - test encodings and character transformations to find XSS hotspots: x5s v1.0.0 beta: This is the v1.0 beta release of x5s. All feedback welcome in planning for the next release. Make sure Fiddler is installed prior to running th...xvanneste: Silverlight SharePoint: Fichiers du webcast sur silverlight: Silverlight OM Silverlight Webpart Silverlight Embedded ressource Silverlight List ViewYet Another Web App Monitoring Tool (YAWAMT): yawamt v0.5: A new release has seen the light :-) I've lowered the release to version 0.5 but changed some major things: - deletion of URLS works - settings can...Zinc Launcher: Zinc Launcher 1.0.1.1: Taskbar will now be hidden Delay to show Zinc was reduced to improve responsiveness.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesFacebook Developer ToolkitMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.RawrFacebook Developer ToolkitShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pexpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterAcadsys

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• Your Day-by-Day Guide to Agile PLM at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by Kerrie Foy

  This year’s Oracle OpenWorld conference is nearly here, and we’re all excited about what we have planned! With five days of activities and customer presenters from market leaders and top innovators like The Coca-Cola Company, Starbucks, JDSU, Facebook, GlobalFoundries, and more, this is an event you don't want to miss. I've compiled this day-by-day guide to help anyone keep track of all the “Product Lifecycle Management and Product Value Chain” sessions and activities at OpenWorld 2012, September 30 – October 4 in San Francisco, California.  Monday, October 1 There are great networking activities on Sunday September 30, but PLM specific sessions start after general conference keynotes on Monday, October 1 at 10:45 a.m. at the InterContinental Hotel in room Telegraph Hill. In fact, most of our sessions this year will be held in this room, which is still close to the conference keynotes in Moscone, but just far enough away to allow some focused networking and discussions.   This first session, 10:45 – 11:45 a.m. is a joint session with the Agile and AutoVue teams, entitled “Streamline PLM Design-to-Manufacturing Processes with AutoVue Visualization Soltuions” featuring presenters from Oracle as well as joint AutoVue and Agile PLM customer GlobalFoundries. In the following 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. slot, there are two sessions to choose from, so if you have a team of representatives attending OpenWorld, you may consider splitting up to catch both of these: a) Our General Session will be held in the InterContinental Hotel Ballroom C, which will cover our complete enterprise PLM strategy, product updates, and roadmaps. It’s our pleasure to feature a customer keynote presentation from Chris Bedi, CIO, and Rajeev Sethi, Director IT Business Engagement, of JDSU. b) A focused session on integrating PLM with Engineering and Supply Chain Systems will be held on the second floor of Moscone West (next to the InterContinental) in room 2022. Join to discover how these types of integrations help companies manage common and integrated design information across all MCAD, ECAD, and software components. After a lunch break and perhaps a visit to the Demogrounds in Moscone West, select from two product roadmap sessions in the next time slot (3:15 – 4:15 p.m.): an Agile 9.3.x session located in the InterContinental’s Ballroom C, and an Agile PLM for Process session located back in the InterContinental’s Telegraph Room. Both sessions will have strong content around each product line’s latest releases, vision, and customer examples. We are very pleased to feature Daniel Soosai of Facebook in the A9 session and Vinnie D’Agostino of The Coca-Cola Company in the PLM for Process session. Afterwards, hang in there for one last session of the day from 4:45 – 5:45 p.m.; it’s an insightful discussion on leveraging Agile PLM as the Foundation for Enterprise Quality Management, and it’s sure to be one of the best. In the Telegraph Room, this session will feature Oracle experts, partner co-presenter David Bartlett from CPG Solutions, and customer co-presenter Thomas Crowe, CIO of PL Developments. Hear their experience around implementing collaborative, integrated solutions to ensure effective knowledge transfer throughout an organization, and how to perform analysis in real time to resolve product quality issues swiftly and efficiently. On Monday evening there will be plenty of industry, product, and partner dinners, so take advantage of all the networking opportunities and catch some great tunes at the 5 day Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival! Tuesday, October 2 Tuesday starts early with a special PLM Networking Brunch, sponsored by several partners, from 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. at the B Restaurant that sits atop Yerba Buena Gardens. You’ll have the unique opportunity to meet with like-minded industry peers and a PLM partner to discuss a topic of your choosing while enjoying a delicious meal. Registration is required, so to inquire about attending this brunch, please email Terri.Hiskey-AT-oracle.com. After wrapping up your conversations over brunch, head over to the Marriott Marquis in the Nob Hill CD room for a chance to experience the Oracle Product Lifecycle Analytics solution in a Hands-On Lab, open from 10:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Experts will be there to answer your questions. Back in the InterContinental Hotel’s Telegraph room, the session on “Ideation and Requirements Management: Capturing the Voice of the Customer” begins at 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. This may be the session for you if you’re struggling with challenges like too many repositories of customer needs, requests, and ideas; limited visibility into which ideas are being advanced by customers and field resources; or if you’re unable to leverage internal expertise to expose effort and potential risks. This session will discuss how Agile PLM can help you overcome ideation challenges to deliver the right products to their targeted markets and fulfill customer desires. Next, from 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. join us for a session on Managing Profitable Innovation with Oracle Product Lifecycle Analytics. If you missed the Hands-on Lab, have more questions, or simply want to be inspired by the product’s forward-thinking vision and capabilities, this is a great opportunity to meet the progressive-minded executives behind the application. After this session, it may be a good opportunity to swing by the Demogrounds in Moscone West and visit the Agile PLM demos at exhibit booths #81 for Agile PLM for Discrete Manufacturing, #70 for Agile PLM for Process, and #82 for AutoVue and Agile PLM Enterprise Visualization. Check out the related Supply Chain Management booths close by if you’re interested - here's the map. There’s always lots to see and do around the exhibit area. But don’t forget the last session of the day from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. in Telegraph Hill on Managing Product Innovation and Compliance in Life Science Companies, a “must-see” if you’re in this industry. Launching innovative products quickly is already a high-stakes challenge, but companies in the life sciences industry face uniquely severe consequences when new products don’t perform or comply as required. In recent years, more and more regulations have become mandatory, and new ones, such as REACH, are currently going into effect for several companies. Customer presenters from pharmaceutical leader Eli Lilly will share how they’ve leveraged Agile PLM to deliver high-quality, innovative products in a fast-paced, heavily regulated market environment. Tuesday evening unwind at the Supply Chain Management Reception from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at the premier boutique Roe Nightclub and Lounge, which is located about three blocks down on Howard Street (on the other side of Moscone from the InterContinental Hotel). Registration is required. Click here for the details.   Wednesday, October 3 We have another full line-up on Wednesday, so be ready for an action-packed day. We start with a session at 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. in the Telegraph Room where we have a session on “PLM for Consumer Products: Building an Engine for Quality and Innovation” with featured presenters from Starbucks and partner Kalypso. This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from Starbucks how they instill quality and innovation throughout their organization, products, and processes, leveraging PLM disciplines with strong support from their partner.  If you’re not in the consumer products industry, we recommend attending another session at 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. in Moscone West room 3005: “Eco-Enterprise Innovation Awards and the Business Case for Sustainability” featuring Jeff Henley, Oracle’s Chairman of the Board and Jon Chorley, Chief Sustainability Officer. Oracle will honor select customers with Oracle’s Eco-Enterprise Innovation award, which recognizes customers and their respective partners who rely on Oracle products to support their green business practices to reduce their environmental impact while improving business efficiencies and reducing costs. The awards presentation is followed by a panel discussion with customers and Oracle executives, who describe how these award-winning organizations are embracing environmental initiatives as a central part of their business strategy and how information technology plays a pivotal role. Next at 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. in Telegraph Hill attend our session devoted to exploring Product Lifecycle Management’s role in Software Lifecycle Management. This is a thought leadership session with Oracle experts in the field on the importance of change management, and we’ll discuss how Oracle has for years leveraged Agile PLM to develop Agile PLM. If software lifecycle management doesn’t apply to your business or you’d rather engage in some lively one-on-one discussions, we also have a “Supply Chain Meet the Experts” session in Moscone West Room 2001A. Product experts, thought leaders and executives will be on hand to discuss your questions/topics, so come prepared. This session tends to fill up fast so try to get in early. At 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. join us back in Telegraph Hill for a session focused on leveraging the Agile Product Portfolio Management application as the Product Development Master Schedule to improve efficiencies, optimize resources, and gain visibility across projects enterprise-wide to improve portfolio profitability. Customer presenters from Broadcom will explain how they’ve leveraged the product to enable a master schedule with enterprise-level, phase-gate program and project collaboration and resource optimization. Again in Telegraph Hill from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. we have an interesting session with leading semiconductor customer LSI and partner Kalypso on how LSI leveraged Agile PLM to advance from homegrown applications to complete Product Value Chain Management. That type of transition can be challenging, and LSI details how they were able to achieve their goals and the value they gained along the journey – a fascinating account for any company interested in leveraging best practices to innovate their business processes and even end products. Lastly, we’ll wrap up in Telegraph Hill from 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. with a session on “Ensuring New Product Success by Achieving Excellence in New Product Introduction.” This is a cross-industry session, guaranteed to deliver insight in the often elusive practice of creating winning products, and we’re very excited about. According to IDC Manufacturing Insights analyst Joe Barkai, “Product Failures are not necessarily a result of bad ideas…they are a result of suboptimal decisions.” We’ll show you how to wire your business processes to enhance decision-making and maximize product potential. Now, quickly hit your hotel room to freshen up and then catch one of the many complimentary shuttles to the much-anticipated Oracle Customer Appreciation Event on Treasure Island. We have a very exciting show planned – check out what’s in store here. Thursday, October 4 PLM has a light schedule on Thursday this year with just one session, but this again is one of our best sessions on managing the Product Value Chain: at 11:15 a.m – 12:15 p.m.in Telegraph Hill, it’s a customer and partner driven session with Sonoco Products and Deloitte telling their story about how to achieve integrated change control by interfacing Agile PLM with Oracle E-Business Suite. Sonoco Products, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging materials, with its systems integrator, Deloitte, is doing this by implementing prebuilt integration (Oracle Design-to-Release Integration Pack for Agile Product Lifecycle Management for Process and Oracle Process) to integrate Agile with Oracle Product Hub/Oracle Product Information Management and Oracle E-Business Suite. This session presents a case study of how Sonoco is leveraging this solution to improve data quality and build a framework for stronger master data governance. Even though that ends our PLM line-up at OpenWorld, there will still be many sessions and activities at the conference, so visit the Oracle OpenWorld website to review agendas and build your schedule. And of course, download and bring this guide and the latest version of the Agile PLM Focus-On Document (available soon!). San Francisco is a wonderful city to explore, and we’re glad you’re considering joining the Agile PLM team at Oracle OpenWorld!  I hope to see you there! Follow me before the conference and on site for real-time updates about #OOW12 on Twitter @Kerrie_Foy or @AgilePLM.

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• Uploading and Importing CSV file to SQL Server in ASP.NET WebForms

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

  Few weeks ago I was working with a small internal project  that involves importing CSV file to Sql Server database and thought I'd share the simple implementation that I did on the project. In this post I will demonstrate how to upload and import CSV file to SQL Server database. As some may have already know, importing CSV file to SQL Server is easy and simple but difficulties arise when the CSV file contains, many columns with different data types. Basically, the provider cannot differentiate data types between the columns or the rows, blindly it will consider them as a data type based on first few rows and leave all the data which does not match the data type. To overcome this problem, I used schema.ini file to define the data type of the CSV file and allow the provider to read that and recognize the exact data types of each column. Now what is schema.ini? Taken from the documentation: The Schema.ini is a information file, used to define the data structure and format of each column that contains data in the CSV file. If schema.ini file exists in the directory, Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB provider automatically reads it and recognizes the data type information of each column in the CSV file. Thus, the provider intelligently avoids the misinterpretation of data types before inserting the data into the database. For more information see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353%28VS.85%29.aspx Points to remember before creating schema.ini:   1. The schema information file, must always named as 'schema.ini'.   2. The schema.ini file must be kept in the same directory where the CSV file exists.   3. The schema.ini file must be created before reading the CSV file.   4. The first line of the schema.ini, must the name of the CSV file, followed by the properties of the CSV file, and then the properties of the each column in the CSV file. Here's an example of how the schema looked like: [Employee.csv] ColNameHeader=False Format=CSVDelimited DateTimeFormat=dd-MMM-yyyy Col1=EmployeeID Long Col2=EmployeeFirstName Text Width 100 Col3=EmployeeLastName Text Width 50 Col4=EmployeeEmailAddress Text Width 50 To get started lets's go a head and create a simple blank database. Just for the purpose of this demo I created a database called TestDB. After creating the database then lets go a head and fire up Visual Studio and then create a new WebApplication project. Under the root application create a folder called UploadedCSVFiles and then place the schema.ini on that folder. The uploaded CSV files will be stored in this folder after the user imports the file. Now add a WebForm in the project and set up the HTML mark up and add one (1) FileUpload control one(1)Button and three (3) Label controls. After that we can now proceed with the codes for uploading and importing the CSV file to SQL Server database. Here are the full code blocks below: 1: using System; 2: using System.Data; 3: using System.Data.SqlClient; 4: using System.Data.OleDb; 5: using System.IO; 6: using System.Text; 7:   8: namespace WebApplication1 9: { 10: public partial class CSVToSQLImporting : System.Web.UI.Page 11: { 12: private string GetConnectionString() 13: { 14: return System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["DBConnectionString"].ConnectionString; 15: } 16: private void CreateDatabaseTable(DataTable dt, string tableName) 17: { 18:   19: string sqlQuery = string.Empty; 20: string sqlDBType = string.Empty; 21: string dataType = string.Empty; 22: int maxLength = 0; 23: StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 24:   25: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format("CREATE TABLE {0} (", tableName)); 26:   27: for (int i = 0; i < dt.Columns.Count; i++) 28: { 29: dataType = dt.Columns[i].DataType.ToString(); 30: if (dataType == "System.Int32") 31: { 32: sqlDBType = "INT"; 33: } 34: else if (dataType == "System.String") 35: { 36: sqlDBType = "NVARCHAR"; 37: maxLength = dt.Columns[i].MaxLength; 38: } 39:   40: if (maxLength > 0) 41: { 42: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" {0} {1} ({2}), ", dt.Columns[i].ColumnName, sqlDBType, maxLength)); 43: } 44: else 45: { 46: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" {0} {1}, ", dt.Columns[i].ColumnName, sqlDBType)); 47: } 48: } 49:   50: sqlQuery = sb.ToString(); 51: sqlQuery = sqlQuery.Trim().TrimEnd(','); 52: sqlQuery = sqlQuery + " )"; 53:   54: using (SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(GetConnectionString())) 55: { 56: sqlConn.Open(); 57: SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConn); 58: sqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); 59: sqlConn.Close(); 60: } 61:   62: } 63: private void LoadDataToDatabase(string tableName, string fileFullPath, string delimeter) 64: { 65: string sqlQuery = string.Empty; 66: StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 67:   68: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format("BULK INSERT {0} ", tableName)); 69: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" FROM '{0}'", fileFullPath)); 70: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" WITH ( FIELDTERMINATOR = '{0}' , ROWTERMINATOR = '\n' )", delimeter)); 71:   72: sqlQuery = sb.ToString(); 73:   74: using (SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(GetConnectionString())) 75: { 76: sqlConn.Open(); 77: SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConn); 78: sqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); 79: sqlConn.Close(); 80: } 81: } 82: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 83: { 84:   85: } 86: protected void BTNImport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 87: { 88: if (FileUpload1.HasFile) 89: { 90: FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo(FileUpload1.PostedFile.FileName); 91: if (fileInfo.Name.Contains(".csv")) 92: { 93:   94: string fileName = fileInfo.Name.Replace(".csv", "").ToString(); 95: string csvFilePath = Server.MapPath("UploadedCSVFiles") + "\\" + fileInfo.Name; 96:   97: //Save the CSV file in the Server inside 'MyCSVFolder' 98: FileUpload1.SaveAs(csvFilePath); 99:   100: //Fetch the location of CSV file 101: string filePath = Server.MapPath("UploadedCSVFiles") + "\\"; 102: string strSql = "SELECT * FROM [" + fileInfo.Name + "]"; 103: string strCSVConnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + filePath + ";" + "Extended Properties='text;HDR=YES;'"; 104:   105: // load the data from CSV to DataTable 106:   107: OleDbDataAdapter adapter = new OleDbDataAdapter(strSql, strCSVConnString); 108: DataTable dtCSV = new DataTable(); 109: DataTable dtSchema = new DataTable(); 110:   111: adapter.FillSchema(dtCSV, SchemaType.Mapped); 112: adapter.Fill(dtCSV); 113:   114: if (dtCSV.Rows.Count > 0) 115: { 116: CreateDatabaseTable(dtCSV, fileName); 117: Label2.Text = string.Format("The table ({0}) has been successfully created to the database.", fileName); 118:   119: string fileFullPath = filePath + fileInfo.Name; 120: LoadDataToDatabase(fileName, fileFullPath, ","); 121:   122: Label1.Text = string.Format("({0}) records has been loaded to the table {1}.", dtCSV.Rows.Count, fileName); 123: } 124: else 125: { 126: LBLError.Text = "File is empty."; 127: } 128: } 129: else 130: { 131: LBLError.Text = "Unable to recognize file."; 132: } 133:   134: } 135: } 136: } 137: } The code above consists of three (3) private methods which are the GetConnectionString(), CreateDatabaseTable() and LoadDataToDatabase(). The GetConnectionString() is a method that returns a string. This method basically gets the connection string that is configured in the web.config file. The CreateDatabaseTable() is method that accepts two (2) parameters which are the DataTable and the filename. As the method name already suggested, this method automatically create a Table to the database based on the source DataTable and the filename of the CSV file. The LoadDataToDatabase() is a method that accepts three (3) parameters which are the tableName, fileFullPath and delimeter value. This method is where the actual saving or importing of data from CSV to SQL server happend. The codes at BTNImport_Click event handles the uploading of CSV file to the specified location and at the same time this is where the CreateDatabaseTable() and LoadDataToDatabase() are being called. If you notice I also added some basic trappings and validations within that event. Now to test the importing utility then let's create a simple data in a CSV format. Just for the simplicity of this demo let's create a CSV file and name it as "Employee" and add some data on it. Here's an example below: 1,VMS,Durano,[email protected] 2,Jennifer,Cortes,[email protected] 3,Xhaiden,Durano,[email protected] 4,Angel,Santos,[email protected] 5,Kier,Binks,[email protected] 6,Erika,Bird,[email protected] 7,Vianne,Durano,[email protected] 8,Lilibeth,Tree,[email protected] 9,Bon,Bolger,[email protected] 10,Brian,Jones,[email protected] Now save the newly created CSV file in some location in your hard drive. Okay let's run the application and browse the CSV file that we have just created. Take a look at the sample screen shots below: After browsing the CSV file. After clicking the Import Button Now if we look at the database that we have created earlier you'll notice that the Employee table is created with the imported data on it. See below screen shot.   That's it! I hope someone find this post useful! Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,CSV,SQL,C#,ADO.NET

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• Move Files from a Failing PC with an Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  You’ve loaded the Ubuntu Live CD to salvage files from a failing system, but where do you store the recovered files? We’ll show you how to store them on external drives, drives on the same PC, a Windows home network, and other locations. We’ve shown you how to recover data like a forensics expert, but you can’t store recovered files back on your failed hard drive! There are lots of ways to transfer the files you access from an Ubuntu Live CD to a place that a stable Windows machine can access them. We’ll go through several methods, starting each section from the Ubuntu desktop – if you don’t yet have an Ubuntu Live CD, follow our guide to creating a bootable USB flash drive, and then our instructions for booting into Ubuntu. If your BIOS doesn’t let you boot using a USB flash drive, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Use a Healthy Hard Drive If your computer has more than one hard drive, or your hard drive is healthy and you’re in Ubuntu for non-recovery reasons, then accessing your hard drive is easy as pie, even if the hard drive is formatted for Windows. To access a hard drive, it must first be mounted. To mount a healthy hard drive, you just have to select it from the Places menu at the top-left of the screen. You will have to identify your hard drive by its size. Clicking on the appropriate hard drive mounts it, and opens it in a file browser. You can now move files to this hard drive by drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, both of which are done the same way they’re done in Windows. Once a hard drive, or other external storage device, is mounted, it will show up in the /media directory. To see a list of currently mounted storage devices, navigate to /media by clicking on File System in a File Browser window, and then double-clicking on the media folder. Right now, our media folder contains links to the hard drive, which Ubuntu has assigned a terribly uninformative label, and the PLoP Boot Manager CD that is currently in the CD-ROM drive. Connect a USB Hard Drive or Flash Drive An external USB hard drive gives you the advantage of portability, and is still large enough to store an entire hard disk dump, if need be. Flash drives are also very quick and easy to connect, though they are limited in how much they can store. When you plug a USB hard drive or flash drive in, Ubuntu should automatically detect it and mount it. It may even open it in a File Browser automatically. Since it’s been mounted, you will also see it show up on the desktop, and in the /media folder. Once it’s been mounted, you can access it and store files on it like you would any other folder in Ubuntu. If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t mount automatically, click on Places in the top-left of your screen and select your USB device. If it does not show up in the Places list, then you may need to format your USB drive. To properly remove the USB drive when you’re done moving files, right click on the desktop icon or the folder in /media and select Safely Remove Drive. If you’re not given that option, then Eject or Unmount will effectively do the same thing. Connect to a Windows PC on your Local Network If you have another PC or a laptop connected through the same router (wired or wireless) then you can transfer files over the network relatively quickly. To do this, we will share one or more folders from the machine booted up with the Ubuntu Live CD over the network, letting our Windows PC grab the files contained in that folder. As an example, we’re going to share a folder on the desktop called ToShare. Right-click on the folder you want to share, and click Sharing Options. A Folder Sharing window will pop up. Check the box labeled Share this folder. A window will pop up about the sharing service. Click the Install service button. Some files will be downloaded, and then installed. When they’re done installing, you’ll be appropriately notified. You will be prompted to restart your session. Don’t worry, this won’t actually log you out, so go ahead and press the Restart session button. The Folder Sharing window returns, with Share this folder now checked. Edit the Share name if you’d like, and add checkmarks in the two checkboxes below the text fields. Click Create Share. Nautilus will ask your permission to add some permissions to the folder you want to share. Allow it to Add the permissions automatically. The folder is now shared, as evidenced by the new arrows above the folder’s icon. At this point, you are done with the Ubuntu machine. Head to your Windows PC, and open up Windows Explorer. Click on Network in the list on the left, and you should see a machine called UBUNTU in the right pane. Note: This example is shown in Windows 7; the same steps should work for Windows XP and Vista, but we have not tested them. Double-click on UBUNTU, and you will see the folder you shared earlier! As well as any other folders you’ve shared from Ubuntu. Double click on the folder you want to access, and from there, you can move the files from the machine booted with Ubuntu to your Windows PC. Upload to an Online Service There are many services online that will allow you to upload files, either temporarily or permanently. As long as you aren’t transferring an entire hard drive, these services should allow you to transfer your important files from the Ubuntu environment to any other machine with Internet access. We recommend compressing the files that you want to move, both to save a little bit of bandwidth, and to save time clicking on files, as uploading a single file will be much less work than a ton of little files. To compress one or more files or folders, select them, and then right-click on one of the members of the group. Click Compress…. Give the compressed file a suitable name, and then select a compression format. We’re using .zip because we can open it anywhere, and the compression rate is acceptable. Click Create and the compressed file will show up in the location selected in the Compress window. Dropbox If you have a Dropbox account, then you can easily upload files from the Ubuntu environment to Dropbox. There is no explicit limit on the size of file that can be uploaded to Dropbox, though a free account begins with a total limit of 2 GB of files in total. Access your account through Firefox, which can be opened by clicking on the Firefox logo to the right of the System menu at the top of the screen. Once into your account, press the Upload button on top of the main file list. Because Flash is not installed in the Live CD environment, you will have to switch to the basic uploader. Click Browse…find your compressed file, and then click Upload file. Depending on the size of the file, this could take some time. However, once the file has been uploaded, it should show up on any computer connected through Dropbox in a matter of minutes. Google Docs Google Docs allows the upload of any type of file – making it an ideal place to upload files that we want to access from another computer. While your total allocation of space varies (mine is around 7.5 GB), there is a per-file maximum of 1 GB. Log into Google Docs, and click on the Upload button at the top left of the page. Click Select files to upload and select your compressed file. For safety’s sake, uncheck the checkbox concerning converting files to Google Docs format, and then click Start upload. Go Online – Through FTP If you have access to an FTP server – perhaps through your web hosting company, or you’ve set up an FTP server on a different machine – you can easily access the FTP server in Ubuntu and transfer files. Just make sure you don’t go over your quota if you have one. You will need to know the address of the FTP server, as well as the login information. Click on Places > Connect to Server… Choose the FTP (with login) Service type, and fill in your information. Adding a bookmark is optional, but recommended. You will be asked for your password. You can choose to remember it until you logout, or indefinitely. You can now browse your FTP server just like any other folder. Drop files into the FTP server and you can retrieve them from any computer with an Internet connection and an FTP client. Conclusion While at first the Ubuntu Live CD environment may seem claustrophobic, it has a wealth of options for connecting to peripheral devices, local computers, and machines on the Internet – and this article has only scratched the surface. Whatever the storage medium, Ubuntu’s got an interface for it! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Backup Your Windows Live Writer SettingsMove a Window Without Clicking the Titlebar in UbuntuRecover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CDCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayReset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CD 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 Tech Fanboys Field Guide Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals

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• When Your Boss Doesn't Want you to Succeed

  - by Phil Factor

  You're working hard to get an application finished. You are programming long into the evenings sometimes, and eating sandwiches at your desk instead of taking a lunch break. Then one day you glance up at the IT manager, serene in his mysterious round of meetings, and think 'Does he actually care whether this project succeeds or not?'. The question may seem absurd. Of course the project must succeed. The truth, as always, is often far more complex. Your manager may even be doing his best to make sure you don't succeed. Why? There have always been rich pickings for the unscrupulous in IT.  In extreme cases, where administrators struggle with scarcely-comprehended technical issues, huge sums of money can be lost and gained without any perceptible results. In a very few cases can fraud be proven: most of the time, the intricacies of the 'game' are such that one can do little more than harbor suspicion.  Where does over-enthusiastic salesmanship end and fraud begin? The Business of Information Technology provides rich opportunities for White-collar crime. The poor developer has his, or her, hands full with the task of wrestling with the sheer complexity of building an application. He, or she, has no time for following the complexities of the chicanery of the management that is directing affairs.  Most likely, the developers wouldn't even suspect that their company management had ulterior motives. I'll illustrate what I mean with an entirely fictional, hypothetical, example. The Opportunist and the Aged Charities often do good, unexciting work that is funded by the income from a bequest that dates back maybe hundreds of years.  In our example, it isn't exciting work, for it involves the welfare of elderly people who have fallen on hard times.  Volunteers visit, giving a smile and a chat, and check that they are all right, but are able to spend a little money on their discretion to ameliorate any pressing needs for these old folk.  The money is made to work very hard and the charity averts a great deal of suffering and eases the burden on the state. Daisy hears the garden gate creak as Mrs Rainer comes up the path. She looks forward to her twice-weekly visit from the nice lady from the trust. She always asked ‘is everything all right, Love’. Cheeky but nice. She likes her cheery manner. She seems interested in hearing her memories, and talking about her far-away family. She helps her with those chores in the house that she couldn’t manage and once even paid to fill the back-shed with coke, the other year. Nice, Mrs. Rainer is, she thought as she goes to open the door. The trustees are getting on in years themselves, and worry about the long-term future of the charity: is it relevant to modern society? Is it likely to attract a new generation of workers to take it on. They are instantly attracted by the arrival to the board of a smartly dressed University lecturer with the ear of the present Government. Alain 'Stalin' Jones is earnest, persuasive and energetic. The trustees welcome him to the board and quickly forgive his humorless political-correctness. He talks of 'diversity', 'relevance', 'social change', 'equality' and 'communities', but his eye is on that huge bequest. Alain first came to notice as a Trotskyite union official, who insinuated himself into one of the duller Trades Unions and turned it, through his passionate leadership, into a radical, headline-grabbing organization.  Middle age, and the rise of European federal socialism, had brought him quiet prosperity and charcoal suits, an ear in the current government, and a wide influence as a member of various Quangos (government bodies staffed by well-paid unelected courtiers).  He was employed as a 'consultant' by several organizations that relied on government contracts. After gaining the confidence of the trustees, and showing a surprising knowledge of mundane processes and the regulatory framework of charities, Alain launches his plan.  The trust will expand their work by means of a bold IT initiative that will coordinate the interventions of several 'caring agencies', and provide  emergency cover, a special Website so anxious relatives can see how their elderly charges are doing, and a vastly more efficient way of coordinating the work of the volunteer carers. It will also provide a special-purpose site that gives 'social networking' facilities, rather like Facebook, to the few elderly folk on the lists with access to the internet. The trustees perk up. Their own experience of the internet is restricted to the occasional scanning of railway timetables, but they can see that it is 'relevant'. In his next report to the other trustees, Alain proudly announces that all this glamorous and exciting technology can be paid for by a grant from the government. He admits darkly that he has influence. True to his word, the government promises a grant of a size that is an order of magnitude greater than any budget that the trustees had ever handled. There was the understandable proviso that the company that would actually do the IT work would have to be one of the government's preferred suppliers and the work would need to be tendered under EU competition rules. The only company that tenders, a multinational IT company with a long track record of government work, quotes ten million pounds for the work. A trustee questions the figure as it seems enormous for the reasonably trivial internet facilities being built, but the IT Salesmen dazzle them with presentations and three-letter acronyms until they subside into quiescent acceptance. After all, they can’t stay locked in the Twentieth century practices can they? The work is put in hand with a large project team, in a splendid glass building near west London. The trustees see rooms of programmers working diligently at screens, and who talk with enthusiasm of the project. Paul, the project manager, looked through his resource schedule with growing unease. His initial excitement at being given his first major project hadn’t lasted. He’d been allocated a lackluster team of developers whose skills didn’t seem right, and he was allowed only a couple of contractors to make good the deficit. Strangely, the presentation he’d given to his management, where he’d saved time and resources with a OTS solution to a great deal of the development work, and a sound conservative architecture, hadn’t gone down nearly as big as he’d hoped. He almost got the feeling they wanted a more radical and ambitious solution. The project starts slipping its dates. The costs build rapidly. There are certain uncomfortable extra charges that appear, such as the £600-a-day charge by the 'Business Manager' appointed to act as a point of liaison between the charity and the IT Company.  When he appeared, his face permanently split by a 'Mr Sincerity' smile, they'd thought he was provided at the cost of the IT Company. Derek, the DBA, didn’t have to go to the server room quite some much as he did: but It got him away from the poisonous despair of the development group. Wave after wave of events had conspired to delay the project.  Why the management had imposed hideous extra bureaucracy to cover ISO 9000 and 9001:2008 accreditation just as the project was struggling to get back on-schedule was  beyond belief.  Then  the Business manager was coming back with endless changes in scope, sorrowing saying that the Trustees were very insistent, though hopelessly out in touch with the reality of technical challenges. Suddenly, the costs mount to the point of consuming the government grant in its entirety. The project remains tantalizingly just out of reach. Alain Jones gives an emotional rallying speech at the trustees review meeting, urging them not to lose their nerve. Sadly, the trustees dip into the accumulated capital of the trust, the seed-corn of all their revenues, in order to save the IT project. A few months later it is all over. The IT project is never delivered, even though it had seemed so incredibly close.  With the trust's capital all gone, the activities it funded have to be terminated and the trust becomes just a shell. There aren't even the funds to mount a legal challenge against the IT company, even had the trust's solicitor advised such a foolish thing. Alain leaves as suddenly as he had arrived, only to pop up a few months later, bronzed and rested, at another charity. The IT workers who were permanent employees are dispersed to other projects, and the contractors leave to other contracts. Within months the entire project is but a vague memory. One or two developers remain  puzzled that their managers had been so obstructive when they should have welcomed progress toward completion of the project, but they put it down to incompetence and testosterone. Few suspected that they were actively preventing the project from getting finished. The relationships between the IT consultancy, and the government of the day are intricate, and made more complex by the Private Finance initiatives and political patronage.  The losers in this case were the taxpayers, and the beneficiaries of the trust, and, perhaps the soul of the original benefactor of the trust, whose bid to give his name some immortality had been scuppered by smooth-talking white-collar political apparatniks.  Even now, nobody is certain whether a crime was ever committed. The perfect heist, I guess. Where’s the victim? "I hear that Daisy’s cottage is up for sale. She’s had to go into a care home.  She didn’t want to at all, but then there is nobody to keep an eye on her since she had that minor stroke a while back.  A charity used to help out. The ‘social’ don’t have the funding, evidently for community care. Yes, her old cat was put down. There was a good clearout, and now the house is all scrubbed and cleared ready for sale. The skip was full of old photos and letters, memories. No room in her new ‘home’."

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