parameter lists - Page 153

Anyone knows a portable wiki-like application?

- by user33508

I need a portable application, like a wikipedia, or notebook, or something similar, that can store notes, todo lists and files (think of code snippets). I need something similar to http://trac.wikidpad2.webfactional.com/, but with the possibility of storing files too.

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How do I recover JPEGs with no file size?

- by Jill

I downloaded some wedding photos into my external drive about a month ago. A total of 3 cards were downloaded into 3 different files. The first file lists all of the photos, about 600 images, but they have zero bytes. The other 2 files are fine. I can't recover the compact flash card because I have used it too many times since then. Is there any way to recover the images on my drive?

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How do I upgrade VIM to 7.2 when 7.1 is the only version listed in my aptitude?

- by rspeicher

I have two Ubuntu servers on which I'm trying to upgrade VIM to 7.2, but apt-get install vim only lists version 7.1 which is already installed. Same with a search in aptitude. I've made sure my sources are updated, but it looks like they're pulling from either 'intrepid' or 'hardy', which I assume is part of the problem. How should I go about installing 7.2?

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Sync multiple gmail contacts on iPhone

- by Webnet

I'm trying to setup my iPhone so that it is synced with 2 gmail contact lists. I'd prefer not to just "import" them and would like to avoid using any 3rd party software/sites. I have 1 gmail account setup as an exchange with gmail, contacts, and calendars. I'm hoping someone can tell me how to do this.

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Installing Windows 8 on vmware 6.5

- by Aditya

Is there any way to install Windows 8 on a VMWare Workstation 6.5. I can't install it, get this message: The installation failed with this error "vcpu-0:NOT_IMPLEMENTED vmcore/vmm/intr/apic.c I found this link http://www.sharepointsolutioncenter.net/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=46 It says don't try it but just in case anyone has done it please tell. I don't want to download vmware workstation 8 or 9

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Upgrading Server 2003 to Server 2008, any good checklists?

- by Mike

I'm upgrading from Server 2003 to Server 2008 for a domain with 100 users. Any good check-lists out there for things to think about for moving the users.

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Can I automatically map chrome's bookmarks bar to its jump list?

- by Alex Nye

I would like the contents of my bookmarks bar to be present in my Google Chrome jump list, without the manual tedium of managing both the bar's organization and contents and those of the jump list. If it's possible to automatically manage jump lists in such a way as to make this possible, I'd be delighted. I don't think I'm quite ready to attempt programming an extension thus myself. edit: it appears this is not possible. I have submitted the feature as a request to the chrome team.

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My computer address bar

- by java_geek

In windows xp, In the address bar of My Computer, when i type C, it lists some files that have been accessed in C drive. How can i delete that list?

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Can a SQL Server have a CPU bottleneck when Processor Time is under 30%

- by Sleepless

Is it in principle possible for the CPU to be the bottleneck on a SQL Server if the Performance Counter Processor:Processor Time is constantly under 30% on all cores? Or does low Processor Time automatically allow me to rule out the CPU as a potential trouble source? I am asking this because SQL Nexus lists CPU as the top bottleneck on a server with low Processor Time values.

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C# serial port driver wrapper class code and concept quality

- by Ruben Trancoso

Hi folks, Would like to know from all you guys what you think about my Serial Wrapper class. Had be a while I've beem working with serial port but never shared the code what somekind make closed to my very own vision. Would like to know if it's a good/bad approach, if the interface is enough and what more you see on it. I know that Stackoverflow is for question but at the same time there's a lot of very good skilled people here and share code and opinion can also bennefit everybody, it's why I decided to post it anyway. thanks! using System.Text; using System.IO; using System.IO.Ports; using System; namespace Driver { class SerialSingleton { // The singleton instance reference private static SerialSingleton instance = null; // System's serial port interface private SerialPort serial; // Current com port identifier private string comPort = null; // Configuration parameters private int confBaudRate; private int confDataBits; private StopBits confStopBits; private Parity confParityControl; ASCIIEncoding encoding = new ASCIIEncoding(); // ================================================================================== // Constructors public static SerialSingleton getInstance() { if (instance == null) { instance = new SerialSingleton(); } return instance; } private SerialSingleton() { serial = new SerialPort(); } // =================================================================================== // Setup Methods public string ComPort { get { return comPort; } set { if (value == null) { throw new SerialException("Serial port name canot be null."); } if (nameIsComm(value)) { close(); comPort = value; } else { throw new SerialException("Serial Port '" + value + "' is not a valid com port."); } } } public void setSerial(string baudRate, int dataBits, StopBits stopBits, Parity parityControl) { if (baudRate == null) { throw new SerialException("Baud rate cannot be null"); } string[] baudRateRef = { "300", "600", "1200", "1800", "2400", "3600", "4800", "7200", "9600", "14400", "19200", "28800", "38400", "57600", "115200" }; int confBaudRate; if (findString(baudRateRef, baudRate) != -1) { confBaudRate = System.Convert.ToInt32(baudRate); } else { throw new SerialException("Baurate parameter invalid."); } int confDataBits; switch (dataBits) { case 5: confDataBits = 5; break; case 6: confDataBits = 6; break; case 7: confDataBits = 7; break; case 8: confDataBits = 8; break; default: throw new SerialException("Databits parameter invalid"); } if (stopBits == StopBits.None) { throw new SerialException("StopBits parameter cannot be NONE"); } this.confBaudRate = confBaudRate; this.confDataBits = confDataBits; this.confStopBits = stopBits; this.confParityControl = parityControl; } // ================================================================================== public string[] PortList { get { return SerialPort.GetPortNames(); } } public int PortCount { get { return SerialPort.GetPortNames().Length; } } // ================================================================================== // Open/Close Methods public void open() { open(comPort); } private void open(string comPort) { if (isOpen()) { throw new SerialException("Serial Port is Already open"); } else { if (comPort == null) { throw new SerialException("Serial Port not defined. Cannot open"); } bool found = false; if (nameIsComm(comPort)) { string portId; string[] portList = SerialPort.GetPortNames(); for (int i = 0; i < portList.Length; i++) { portId = (portList[i]); if (portId.Equals(comPort)) { found = true; break; } } } else { throw new SerialException("The com port identifier '" + comPort + "' is not a valid serial port identifier"); } if (!found) { throw new SerialException("Serial port '" + comPort + "' not found"); } serial.PortName = comPort; try { serial.Open(); } catch (UnauthorizedAccessException uaex) { throw new SerialException("Cannot open a serial port in use by another application", uaex); } try { serial.BaudRate = confBaudRate; serial.DataBits = confDataBits; serial.Parity = confParityControl; serial.StopBits = confStopBits; } catch (Exception e) { throw new SerialException("Serial port parameter invalid for '" + comPort + "'.\n" + e.Message, e); } } } public void close() { if (serial.IsOpen) { serial.Close(); } } // =================================================================================== // Auxiliary private Methods private int findString(string[] set, string search) { if (set != null) { for (int i = 0; i < set.Length; i++) { if (set[i].Equals(search)) { return i; } } } return -1; } private bool nameIsComm(string name) { int comNumber; int.TryParse(name.Substring(3), out comNumber); if (name.Substring(0, 3).Equals("COM")) { if (comNumber > -1 && comNumber < 256) { return true; } } return false; } // ================================================================================= // Device state Methods public bool isOpen() { return serial.IsOpen; } public bool hasData() { int amount = serial.BytesToRead; if (amount > 0) { return true; } else { return false; } } // ================================================================================== // Input Methods public char getChar() { int data = serial.ReadByte(); return (char)data; } public int getBytes(ref byte[] b) { int size = b.Length; char c; int counter = 0; for (counter = 0; counter < size; counter++) { if (tryGetChar(out c)) { b[counter] = (byte)c; } else { break; } } return counter; } public string getStringUntil(char x) { char c; string response = ""; while (tryGetChar(out c)) { response = response + c; if (c == x) { break; } } return response; } public bool tryGetChar(out char c) { c = (char)0x00; byte[] b = new byte[1]; long to = 10; long ft = System.Environment.TickCount + to; while (System.Environment.TickCount < ft) { if (hasData()) { int data = serial.ReadByte(); c = (char)data; return true; } } return false; } // ================================================================================ // Output Methods public void sendString(string data) { byte[] bytes = encoding.GetBytes(data); serial.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length); } public void sendChar(char c) { char[] data = new char[1]; data[0] = c; serial.Write(data, 0, 1); } public void sendBytes(byte[] data) { serial.Write(data, 0, data.Length); } public void clearBuffer() { if (serial.IsOpen) { serial.DiscardInBuffer(); serial.DiscardOutBuffer(); } } } }

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LINQ 4 XML - What is the proper way to query deep in the tree structure?

- by Keith Barrows

I have an XML structure that is 4 deep: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <EmailRuleList xmlns:xsd="EmailRules.xsd"> <TargetPST name="Tech Communities"> <Parse emailAsList="true" useJustDomain="false" fromAddress="false" toAddress="true"> <EmailRule address="@aspadvice.com" folder="Lists, ASP" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@sqladvice.com" folder="Lists, SQL" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@xmladvice.com" folder="Lists, XML" saveAttachments="false" /> </Parse> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="false" fromAddress="false" toAddress="true"> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Special Interest Groups|Northern Colorado Architects Group" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Support|SpamBayes" saveAttachments="false" /> </Parse> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="false" fromAddress="true" toAddress="false"> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Support|GoDaddy" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Support|No-IP.com" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Discussions|Orchard Project" saveAttachments="false" /> </Parse> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="true" fromAddress="true" toAddress="false"> <EmailRule address="@agilejournal.com" folder="Newsletters|Agile Journal" saveAttachments="false"/> <EmailRule address="@axosoft.ccsend.com" folder="Newsletters|Axosoft Newsletter" saveAttachments="false"/> <EmailRule address="@axosoft.com" folder="Newsletters|Axosoft Newsletter" saveAttachments="false"/> <EmailRule address="@cmcrossroads.com" folder="Newsletters|CM Crossroads" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@urbancode.com" folder="Newsletters|Urbancode" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@urbancode.ccsend.com" folder="Newsletters|Urbancode" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@Infragistics.com" folder="Newsletters|Infragistics" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@zdnet.online.com" folder="Newsletters|ZDNet Tech Update Today" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@sqlservercentral.com" folder="Newsletters|SQLServerCentral.com" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@simple-talk.com" folder="Newsletters|Simple-Talk Newsletter" saveAttachments="false" /> </Parse> </TargetPST> <TargetPST name="[Sharpen the Saw]"> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="false" fromAddress="false" toAddress="true"> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Head Geek|Job Alerts" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Social|LinkedIn USMC" saveAttachments="false"/> </Parse> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="false" fromAddress="true" toAddress="false"> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Head Geek|Job Alerts" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Head Geek|Job Alerts" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="[email protected]" folder="Social|Cruise Critic" saveAttachments="false"/> </Parse> <Parse emailAsList="false" useJustDomain="true" fromAddress="true" toAddress="false"> <EmailRule address="@moody.edu" folder="Social|5 Love Languages" saveAttachments="false" /> <EmailRule address="@postmaster.twitter.com" folder="Social|Twitter" saveAttachments="false"/> <EmailRule address="@diabetes.org" folder="Physical|American Diabetes Association" saveAttachments="false"/> <EmailRule address="@membership.webshots.com" folder="Social|Webshots" saveAttachments="false"/> </Parse> </TargetPST> </EmailRuleList> Now, I have both an FromAddress and a ToAddress that is parsed from an incoming email. I would like to do a LINQ query against a class set that was deserialized from this XML. For instance: ToAddress = [email protected] FromAddress = [email protected] Query: Get EmailRule.Include(Parse).Include(TargetPST) where address == ToAddress AND Parse.ToAddress==true AND Parse.useJustDomain==false Get EmailRule.Include(Parse).Include(TargetPST) where address == [ToAddress Domain Only] AND Parse.ToAddress==true AND Parse.useJustDomain==true Get EmailRule.Include(Parse).Include(TargetPST) where address == FromAddress AND Parse.FromAddress==true AND Parse.useJustDomain==false Get EmailRule.Include(Parse).Include(TargetPST) where address == [FromAddress Domain Only] AND Parse.FromAddress==true AND Parse.useJustDomain==true I am having a hard time figuring this LINQ query out. I can, of course, loop on all the bits in the XML like so (includes deserialization into objects): XmlSerializer s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(EmailRuleList)); TextReader r = new StreamReader(path); _emailRuleList = (EmailRuleList)s.Deserialize(r); TargetPST[] PSTList = _emailRuleList.Items; foreach (TargetPST targetPST in PSTList) { olRoot = GetRootFolder(targetPST.name); if (olRoot != null) { Parse[] ParseList = targetPST.Items; foreach (Parse parseRules in ParseList) { EmailRule[] EmailRuleList = parseRules.Items; foreach (EmailRule targetFolders in EmailRuleList) { } } } } However, this means going through all these loops for each and every address. It makes more sense to me to query against the Objects. Any tips appreciated!

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Ninject.ActivationException: Error activating IMainLicense

- by Stefan Karlsson

Im don't know fully how Ninject works thats wye i ask this question here to figure out whats wrong. If i create a empty constructor in ClaimsSecurityService it gets hit. This is my error: Error activating IMainLicense No matching bindings are available, and the type is not self-bindable. Activation path: 3) Injection of dependency IMainLicense into parameter mainLicenses of constructor of type ClaimsSecurityService 2) Injection of dependency ISecurityService into parameter securityService of constructor of type AccountController 1) Request for AccountController Stack: Ninject.KernelBase.Resolve(IRequest request) +474 Ninject.Planning.Targets.Target`1.GetValue(Type service, IContext parent) +153 Ninject.Planning.Targets.Target`1.ResolveWithin(IContext parent) +747 Ninject.Activation.Providers.StandardProvider.GetValue(IContext context, ITarget target) +269 Ninject.Activation.Providers.<>c__DisplayClass4.<Create>b__2(ITarget target) +69 System.Linq.WhereSelectArrayIterator`2.MoveNext() +66 System.Linq.Buffer`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 source) +216 System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray(IEnumerable`1 source) +77 Ninject.Activation.Providers.StandardProvider.Create(IContext context) +847 Ninject.Activation.Context.ResolveInternal(Object scope) +218 Ninject.Activation.Context.Resolve() +277 Ninject.<>c__DisplayClass15.<Resolve>b__f(IBinding binding) +86 System.Linq.WhereSelectEnumerableIterator`2.MoveNext() +145 System.Linq.Enumerable.SingleOrDefault(IEnumerable`1 source) +4059897 Ninject.Planning.Targets.Target`1.GetValue(Type service, IContext parent) +169 Ninject.Planning.Targets.Target`1.ResolveWithin(IContext parent) +747 Ninject.Activation.Providers.StandardProvider.GetValue(IContext context, ITarget target) +269 Ninject.Activation.Providers.<>c__DisplayClass4.<Create>b__2(ITarget target) +69 System.Linq.WhereSelectArrayIterator`2.MoveNext() +66 System.Linq.Buffer`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 source) +216 System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray(IEnumerable`1 source) +77 Ninject.Activation.Providers.StandardProvider.Create(IContext context) +847 Ninject.Activation.Context.ResolveInternal(Object scope) +218 Ninject.Activation.Context.Resolve() +277 Ninject.<>c__DisplayClass15.<Resolve>b__f(IBinding binding) +86 System.Linq.WhereSelectEnumerableIterator`2.MoveNext() +145 System.Linq.Enumerable.SingleOrDefault(IEnumerable`1 source) +4059897 Ninject.Web.Mvc.NinjectDependencyResolver.GetService(Type serviceType) +145 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultControllerActivator.Create(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType) +87 [InvalidOperationException: An error occurred when trying to create a controller of type 'Successful.Struct.Web.Controllers.AccountController'. Make sure that the controller has a parameterless public constructor.] System.Web.Mvc.DefaultControllerActivator.Create(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType) +247 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultControllerFactory.GetControllerInstance(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType) +438 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultControllerFactory.CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, String controllerName) +257 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.ProcessRequestInit(HttpContextBase httpContext, IController& controller, IControllerFactory& factory) +326 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.BeginProcessRequest(HttpContextBase httpContext, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) +157 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.BeginProcessRequest(HttpContext httpContext, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) +88 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.System.Web.IHttpAsyncHandler.BeginProcessRequest(HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, Object extraData) +50 System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +301 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +155 Account controller: public class AccountController : Controller { private readonly ISecurityService _securityService; public AccountController(ISecurityService securityService) { _securityService = securityService; } // // GET: /Account/Login [AllowAnonymous] public ActionResult Login(string returnUrl) { ViewBag.ReturnUrl = returnUrl; return View(); } } NinjectWebCommon: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Web.Http; using System.Web.Http.Dependencies; using Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper; using Ninject; using Ninject.Extensions.Conventions; using Ninject.Parameters; using Ninject.Syntax; using Ninject.Web.Common; using Successful.Struct.Web; [assembly: WebActivator.PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(NinjectWebCommon), "Start")] [assembly: WebActivator.ApplicationShutdownMethodAttribute(typeof(NinjectWebCommon), "Stop")] namespace Successful.Struct.Web { public static class NinjectWebCommon { private static readonly Bootstrapper Bootstrapper = new Bootstrapper(); /// <summary> /// Starts the application /// </summary> public static void Start() { DynamicModuleUtility.RegisterModule(typeof(OnePerRequestHttpModule)); DynamicModuleUtility.RegisterModule(typeof(NinjectHttpModule)); Bootstrapper.Initialize(CreateKernel); } /// <summary> /// Stops the application. /// </summary> public static void Stop() { Bootstrapper.ShutDown(); } /// <summary> /// Creates the kernel that will manage your application. /// </summary> /// <returns>The created kernel.</returns> private static IKernel CreateKernel() { var kernel = new StandardKernel(); kernel.Bind<Func<IKernel>>().ToMethod(ctx => () => new Bootstrapper().Kernel); kernel.Bind<IHttpModule>().To<HttpApplicationInitializationHttpModule>(); kernel.Load("Successful*.dll"); kernel.Bind(x => x.FromAssembliesMatching("Successful*.dll") .SelectAllClasses() .BindAllInterfaces() ); GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver = new NinjectResolver(kernel); RegisterServices(kernel); return kernel; } /// <summary> /// Load your modules or register your services here! /// </summary> /// <param name="kernel">The kernel.</param> private static void RegisterServices(IKernel kernel) { } } public class NinjectResolver : NinjectScope, IDependencyResolver { private readonly IKernel _kernel; public NinjectResolver(IKernel kernel) : base(kernel) { _kernel = kernel; } public IDependencyScope BeginScope() { return new NinjectScope(_kernel.BeginBlock()); } } public class NinjectScope : IDependencyScope { protected IResolutionRoot ResolutionRoot; public NinjectScope(IResolutionRoot kernel) { ResolutionRoot = kernel; } public object GetService(Type serviceType) { var request = ResolutionRoot.CreateRequest(serviceType, null, new Parameter[0], true, true); return ResolutionRoot.Resolve(request).SingleOrDefault(); } public IEnumerable<object> GetServices(Type serviceType) { var request = ResolutionRoot.CreateRequest(serviceType, null, new Parameter[0], true, true); return ResolutionRoot.Resolve(request).ToList(); } public void Dispose() { var disposable = (IDisposable)ResolutionRoot; if (disposable != null) disposable.Dispose(); ResolutionRoot = null; } } } ClaimsSecurityService: public class ClaimsSecurityService : ISecurityService { private const string AscClaimsIdType = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/accesscontrolservice/2010/07/claims/identityprovider"; private const string SuccessfulStructWebNamespace = "Successful.Struct.Web"; private readonly IMainLicense _mainLicenses; private readonly ICompany _companys; private readonly IAuthTokenService _authService; [Inject] public IApplicationContext ApplicationContext { get; set; } [Inject] public ILogger<LocationService> Logger { get; set; } public ClaimsSecurityService(IMainLicense mainLicenses, ICompany companys, IAuthTokenService authService) { _mainLicenses = mainLicenses; _companys = companys; _authService = authService; } }

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YouTube API Security Error Flex

- by 23tux

Hi, I've tried to use the YoutTube API within a Flex project. But i got this error: *** Security Sandbox Violation *** SecurityDomain 'http://www.youtube.com/apiplayer?version=3' tried to access incompatible context 'file:///Users/YouTubePlayer/bin-debug/YouTubePlayer.html' Here are the two files: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" minWidth="1024" minHeight="768" xmlns:youtube="youtube.*" creationComplete="init();"> <fx:Script> <![CDATA[ [Bindable] private var ready:Boolean = true; private function init():void { Security.allowInsecureDomain("*"); Security.allowDomain("*"); Security.allowDomain('www.youtube.com'); Security.allowDomain('youtube.com'); Security.allowDomain('s.ytimg.com'); Security.allowDomain('i.ytimg.com'); } private function changing():void { /* trace("currentTime: " + player.getCurrentTime()); trace("startTime: " + player.startTime); trace("stopTime: " + player.stopTime); timeSlider.value = player.getCurrentTime() */ } private function startPlaying():void { player.play(); } private function checkStartSlider():void { if(startSlider.value > stopSlider.value) stopSlider.value = startSlider.value + 1; } private function checkStopSlider():void { if(stopSlider.value < startSlider.value) startSlider.value = stopSlider.value - 1; } ]]> </fx:Script> <s:VGroup> <youtube:Player id="player" videoID="DVFvcVuWyfE" change="changing();" ready="ready=true"/> <s:HGroup> <s:Button label="play" click="startPlaying();" /> </s:HGroup> <s:HGroup> <s:HSlider id="timeSlider" width="250" minimum="0" maximum="{player.stopTime}" snapInterval=".01" enabled="{ready}"/> <s:Label id="currentTimeLbl" text="current time: 0" /> </s:HGroup> <s:HGroup> <s:HSlider id="startSlider" width="250" minimum="0" maximum="{player.stopTime}" snapInterval=".01" change="checkStartSlider();" enabled="{ready}" value="0"/> <s:Label id="startTimeLbl" text="start time: {player.startTime}" /> </s:HGroup> <s:HGroup> <s:HSlider id="stopSlider" width="250" minimum="0" maximum="{player.stopTime}" snapInterval=".01" change="checkStopSlider();" enabled="{ready}" value="{player.stopTime}"/> <s:Label id="stopTimeLbl" text="stop time: {player.stopTime}" /> </s:HGroup> </s:VGroup> </s:Application> Here is the player package youtube { import flash.display.Loader; import flash.events.Event; import flash.events.TimerEvent; import flash.net.URLRequest; import flash.system.Security; import flash.utils.Timer; import mx.core.UIComponent; [Event(name="change", type="flash.events.Event")] [Event(name="ready", type="flash.events.Event")] public class Player extends UIComponent { private var player:Object; private var loader:Loader; private var _startTime:Number = 0; private var _stopTime:Number = 0; private var _videoID:String; private var metadataTimer:Timer = new Timer(200); private var playTimer:Timer = new Timer(200); public function Player() { // The player SWF file on www.youtube.com needs to communicate with your host // SWF file. Your code must call Security.allowDomain() to allow this // communication. Security.allowInsecureDomain("*"); Security.allowDomain("*"); // This will hold the API player instance once it is initialized. loader = new Loader(); loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.INIT, onLoaderInit); loader.load(new URLRequest("http://www.youtube.com/apiplayer?version=3")); } private function onLoaderInit(event:Event):void { addChild(loader); loader.content.addEventListener("onReady", onPlayerReady); loader.content.addEventListener("onError", onPlayerError); loader.content.addEventListener("onStateChange", onPlayerStateChange); loader.content.addEventListener("onPlaybackQualityChange", onVideoPlaybackQualityChange); } private function onPlayerReady(event:Event):void { // Event.data contains the event parameter, which is the Player API ID trace("player ready:", Object(event).data); // Once this event has been dispatched by the player, we can use // cueVideoById, loadVideoById, cueVideoByUrl and loadVideoByUrl // to load a particular YouTube video. player = loader.content; // Set appropriate player dimensions for your application player.setSize(0, 0); } private function onPlayerError(event:Event):void { // Event.data contains the event parameter, which is the error code trace("player error:", Object(event).data); } private function onPlayerStateChange(event:Event):void { // Event.data contains the event parameter, which is the new player state trace("player state:", Object(event).data); } private function onVideoPlaybackQualityChange(event:Event):void { // Event.data contains the event parameter, which is the new video quality trace("video quality:", Object(event).data); } [Bindable] public function get videoID():String { return _videoID; } public function set videoID(value:String):void { _videoID = value; } [Bindable] public function get stopTime():Number { return _stopTime; } public function set stopTime(value:Number):void { _stopTime = value; } [Bindable] public function get startTime():Number { return _startTime; } public function set startTime(value:Number):void { _startTime = value; } public function play():void { if(_videoID!="") { player.loadVideoById(_videoID, 0); // add the event listener, so that all 200 milliseconds is an event dispatched metadataTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, metadataTimeHandler); // if the timer is running, stop and reset it if(metadataTimer.running) metadataTimer.reset(); else metadataTimer.start(); } } private function metadataTimeHandler(e:TimerEvent):void { if(player.getDuration() > 0) { startTime = 0; stopTime = player.getDuration(); metadataTimer.reset(); metadataTimer.stop(); metadataTimer.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, metadataTimeHandler); player.playVideo(); playTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, playTimerHandler); dispatchEvent(new Event("ready")); } } private function playTimerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void { if(getCurrentTime() > _stopTime) { seekTo(startTime); } dispatchEvent(new Event(Event.CHANGE)); } public function getCurrentTime():Number { if(!player.getCurrentTime()) return 0; else return player.getCurrentTime(); } public function seekTo(time:uint):void { player.seekTo(time); } } } Hope someone can help. thx, tux

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How to add a new item in a sharepoint list using web services in C sharp

- by Frank

Hi, I'm trying to add a new item to a sharepoint list from a winform application in c# using web services. As only result, I'm getting the useless exception "Exception of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.SoapServerException' was thrown." I have a web reference named WebSrvRef to http://server/site/subsite/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx And this code: XmlDocument xmlDoc; XmlElement elBatch; XmlNode ndReturn; string[] sValues; string sListGUID; string sViewGUID; if (lstResults.Items.Count < 1) { MessageBox.Show("Unable to Add To SharePoint\n" + "No test file processed. The list is blank.", "Add To SharePoint", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation); return; } WebSrvRef.Lists listService = new WebSrvRef.Lists(); sViewGUID = "{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}"; // Test List View GUID sListGUID = "{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}"; // Test List GUID listService.Credentials= System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials; frmAddToSharePoint dlgAddSharePoint = new frmAddToSharePoint(); if (dlgAddSharePoint.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.Cancel) { dlgAddSharePoint.Dispose(); listService.Dispose(); return; } sValues = dlgAddSharePoint.Tag.ToString().Split('~'); dlgAddSharePoint.Dispose(); string strBatch = "<Method ID='1' Cmd='New'>" + "<Field Name='Client#'>" + sValues[0] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Company'>" + sValues[1] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Contact Name'>" + sValues[2] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Phone Number'>" + sValues[3] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Brand'>" + sValues[4] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Model'>" + sValues[5] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='DPI'>" + sValues[6] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Color'>" + sValues[7] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Compression'>" + sValues[8] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Value % 1'>" + (((float)lstResults.Groups["Value 1"].Tag)*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Value % 2'>" + (((float)lstResults.Groups["Value 2"].Tag)*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Value % 3'>" + (((float)lstResults.Groups["Value 3"].Tag)*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Value % 4'>" + (((float)lstResults.Groups["Value 4"].Tag)*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Value % 5'>" + (((float)lstResults.Groups["Value 5"].Tag)*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Comments'></Field>" + "<Field Name='Overall'>" + (fTotalScore*100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Average'>" + (fTotalAvg * 100).ToString("##0.00") + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Transfered'>" + sValues[9] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Notes'>" + sValues[10] + "</Field>" + "<Field Name='Resolved'>" + sValues[11] + "</Field>" + "</Method>"; try { xmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument(); elBatch = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Batch"); elBatch.SetAttribute("OnError", "Continue"); elBatch.SetAttribute("ListVersion", "1"); elBatch.SetAttribute("ViewName", sViewGUID); strBatch = strBatch.Replace("&", "&"); elBatch.InnerXml = strBatch; ndReturn = listService.UpdateListItems(sListGUID, elBatch); MessageBox.Show(ndReturn.OuterXml); listService.Dispose(); } catch(Exception Ex) { MessageBox.Show(Ex.Message + "\n\nSource\n" + Ex.Source + "\n\nTargetSite\n" + Ex.TargetSite + "\n\nStackTrace\n" + Ex.StackTrace, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error); listService.Dispose(); } What am I doing wrong? What am I missing? Please help!! Frank

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Content display problems when using Suckerfish menus with 960.gs and IE

- by Cedar Jensen

I'm using 960.gs layout and when I add the suckerfish menu as part of the content to one of the grids, the contents of adjacent siblings bleed through the menu in all versions of IE. In the listed html below, the text from 'belowFoldSection' will appear through the menu when it is visible and has enough items to make it span over 2nd section. However, the contents of 'introSummary' will be underneath the menu, as expected. I've set the z-index for #nav and #nav ul in my css and this of course makes it work in FF, Chrome and Safari, but not in IE (because IE incorrectly assigns child elements its own z-index). If I change the .grid_nn class 'position' attribute (set by default in the 960 template) from 'relative' to absolute, this fixes it in IE. However, it is my understanding that I don't want the child elements of the 'container_12' to be taken out of the flow of the document and want them positioned relative to the .container_12's starting point. (Changing the attribute to absolute causes other general layout problems) Can anyone suggest a work-around? My html: <div class="container_12">  <div class="grid_12" id="mainSection"> <div class="grid_4 alpha" id="intro"> <p>Start of menu here</p> <div id="subMenu"> <ul id="nav"> <li><a href="#">Item 1</a> <ul> <li><a href="#">Burrowing gobies</a></li> <li><a href="#">Dartfishes</a></li> <li><a href="#">Eellike gobies</a></li>  </ul> </li> <li><a href="#">Item 2</a> <ul> <li><a href="#">Remoras</a></li> <li><a href="#">Tilefishes</a></li>  </ul> </li> <li><a href="#">Item 3</a> <ul> <li><a href="#">Climbing perches</a></li> <li><a href="#">Labyrinthfishes</a></li> <li><a href="#">Kissing gouramis</a></li>  </ul> </li> </ul> <div id="introSummary"> <h1>PERCIFORMES! (1)</h1> <p>Welcome to the world of Perciformes - perch-like fish including the world famous <strong>Suckerfish</strong></p> </div> </div>  </div> <div class="grid_8 omega" id="summary"> <p>Some stuff goes here</p </div> </div>  <div class="clear"> </div> <div class="grid_12 spacer"> </div> <div class="grid_4" id="belowFoldSection"> <p>Here is some stuff I want to appear below the menu when the pop-up is visible</p> </div> </div>  The suckerfish css file: #nav, #nav ul { /* all lists */ padding: 0; margin: 0; list-style: none; line-height: 1; z-index: 99; } #nav a { display: block; width: 10em; } #nav li { /* all list items */ float: left; width: 10em; } #nav li ul { /* second-level lists */ position: absolute; background: orange; width: 10em; left: -999em; } #nav li:hover ul, #nav li.sfhover ul { /* lists nested under hovered list items */ left: auto; } Default 960.gs css: .container_12, .container_16 { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 960px; } .grid_1, .grid_2, .grid_3, .grid_4, .grid_5, .grid_6, .grid_7, .grid_8, .grid_9, .grid_10, .grid_11, .grid_12, .grid_13, .grid_14, .grid_15, .grid_16 { display: inline; float: left; position: relative; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; }

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problem in concurrent web services

- by user548750

Hi All I have developed a web services. I am getting problem when two different user are trying to access web services concurrently. In web services two methods are there setInputParameter getUserService suppose Time User Operation 10:10 am user1 setInputParameter 10:15 am user2 setInputParameter 10:20 am user1 getUserService User1 is getting result according to the input parameter seted by user2 not by ( him own ) I am using axis2 1.4 ,eclipse ant build, My services are goes here User class service class service.xml build file testclass package com.jimmy.pojo; public class User { private String firstName; private String lastName; private String[] addressCity; public String getFirstName() { return firstName; } public void setFirstName(String firstName) { this.firstName = firstName; } public String getLastName() { return lastName; } public void setLastName(String lastName) { this.lastName = lastName; } public String[] getAddressCity() { return addressCity; } public void setAddressCity(String[] addressCity) { this.addressCity = addressCity; } } [/code] [code=java]package com.jimmy.service; import com.jimmy.pojo.User; public class UserService { private User user; public void setInputParameter(User userInput) { user = userInput; } public User getUserService() { user.setFirstName(user.getFirstName() + " changed "); if (user.getAddressCity() == null) { user.setAddressCity(new String[] { "New City Added" }); } else { user.getAddressCity()[0] = "==========="; } return user; } } [/code] [code=java]<service name="MyWebServices" scope="application"> <description> My Web Service </description> <messageReceivers> <messageReceiver mep="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/wsdl/in-only" class="org.apache.axis2.rpc.receivers.RPCInOnlyMessageReceiver" /> <messageReceiver mep="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/wsdl/in-out" class="org.apache.axis2.rpc.receivers.RPCMessageReceiver" /> </messageReceivers> <parameter name="ServiceClass">com.jimmy.service.UserService </parameter> </service>[/code] [code=java] <project name="MyWebServices" basedir="." default="generate.service"> <property name="service.name" value="UserService" /> <property name="dest.dir" value="build" /> <property name="dest.dir.classes" value="${dest.dir}/${service.name}" /> <property name="dest.dir.lib" value="${dest.dir}/lib" /> <property name="axis2.home" value="../../" /> <property name="repository.path" value="${axis2.home}/repository" /> <path id="build.class.path"> <fileset dir="${axis2.home}/lib"> <include name="*.jar" /> </fileset> </path> <path id="client.class.path"> <fileset dir="${axis2.home}/lib"> <include name="*.jar" /> </fileset> <fileset dir="${dest.dir.lib}"> <include name="*.jar" /> </fileset> </path> <target name="clean"> <delete dir="${dest.dir}" /> <delete dir="src" includes="com/jimmy/pojo/stub/**"/> </target> <target name="prepare"> <mkdir dir="${dest.dir}" /> <mkdir dir="${dest.dir}/lib" /> <mkdir dir="${dest.dir.classes}" /> <mkdir dir="${dest.dir.classes}/META-INF" /> </target> <target name="generate.service" depends="clean,prepare"> <copy file="src/META-INF/services.xml" tofile="${dest.dir.classes}/META-INF/services.xml" overwrite="true" /> <javac srcdir="src" destdir="${dest.dir.classes}" includes="com/jimmy/service/**,com/jimmy/pojo/**"> <classpath refid="build.class.path" /> </javac> <jar basedir="${dest.dir.classes}" destfile="${dest.dir}/${service.name}.aar" /> <copy file="${dest.dir}/${service.name}.aar" tofile="${repository.path}/services/${service.name}.aar" overwrite="true" /> </target> </project> [/code] [code=java]package com.jimmy.test; import javax.xml.namespace.QName; import org.apache.axis2.AxisFault; import org.apache.axis2.addressing.EndpointReference; import org.apache.axis2.client.Options; import org.apache.axis2.rpc.client.RPCServiceClient; import com.jimmy.pojo.User; public class MyWebServices { @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") public static void main(String[] args1) throws AxisFault { RPCServiceClient serviceClient = new RPCServiceClient(); Options options = serviceClient.getOptions(); EndpointReference targetEPR = new EndpointReference( "http://localhost:8080/axis2/services/MyWebServices"); options.setTo(targetEPR); // Setting the Input Parameter QName opSetQName = new QName("http://service.jimmy.com", "setInputParameter"); User user = new User(); String[] cityList = new String[] { "Bangalore", "Mumbai" }; /* We need to set this for user 2 as user 2 */ user.setFirstName("User 1 first name"); user.setLastName("User 1 Last name"); user.setAddressCity(cityList); Object[] opSetInptArgs = new Object[] { user }; serviceClient.invokeRobust(opSetQName, opSetInptArgs); // Getting the weather QName opGetWeather = new QName("http://service.jimmy.com", "getUserService"); Object[] opGetWeatherArgs = new Object[] {}; Class[] returnTypes = new Class[] { User.class }; Object[] response = serviceClient.invokeBlocking(opGetWeather, opGetWeatherArgs, returnTypes); System.out.println("Context :"+serviceClient.getServiceContext()); User result = (User) response[0]; if (result == null) { System.out.println("User is not initialized!"); return; } else { System.out.println("*********printing result********"); String[] list =result.getAddressCity(); System.out.println(result.getFirstName()); System.out.println(result.getLastName()); for (int indx = 0; indx < list.length ; indx++) { String string = result.getAddressCity()[indx]; System.out.println(string); } } } }

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Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

- by raul.goycoolea

@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA. Introduction A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders. Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc. Purpose of Reference Architecture In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness. Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level: · Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise · Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. · Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles · Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc · A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information · Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security · Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. · Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets · Has a shorter implementation time and cost Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO). Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider: · In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. · Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. · Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. · Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. · Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. · Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. · Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape. Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges. “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum. The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture: · Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements · Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. · Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) · Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services · Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem · (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks · Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products · Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products Drivers of Reference Architecture The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure. Telecom reference architectures are today expected to: · Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems · Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services · Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure · Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. · Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g. Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. · Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations · Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) · Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management · Lower operating costs to drive profitability Enterprise Reference Architecture The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA. • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture Telecom Reference Architecture Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements: · The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. · The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. · The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. · The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes. NGOSS Architecture Standards are: · Centralized data · Loosely coupled distributed systems · Application components/re-use · A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations · Interoperability to service provider data/processes · Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios · Workflow automation The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers, · Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. · Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. · Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. · Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility. Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows: 1. Customer Relationship Management CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty. CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise. The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are · Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. · Create and manage customer profiles. · Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. · Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. · Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. · Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). · Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions. CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing. 2. Billing and Revenue Management Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services. The key functionalities provided by these applications are · To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. · To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. · To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. · Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. · Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. · Support prepaid and post-paid rating. · Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. · Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. · Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. · Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. · Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc. Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements. 3. Mediation Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution. · Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. · Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. · Validate Usage Data Records from each source. · Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. · Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. · Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. · Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. · Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. · Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window. 4. Fulfillment This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category. The key functionalities provided by these applications are · Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; · Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; · Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; · Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; · Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; · Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; · Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and · Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer. These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders. 5. Enterprise Management This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that · Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.; · Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business; · Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc. (i) Enterprise Risk Management: Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are: · Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o Interconnect bill verification. o Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized. · Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator. The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows: o Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems (ii) Knowledge Management This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions. Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to · Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. · Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse · Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. · Run report generator. · Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc. (iii) Document Management It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system. (iv) Data Management It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management. Key responsibilities of Data Management are · Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. · Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) · Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. · Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use. (v) Business Intelligence It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level: · It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. · It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. · It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. · It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. · It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. · It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions. It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer · It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence. (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations. (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment. The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below: · It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. · It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. · It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. · It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. · It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges. 6. External Interfaces/Touch Points The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including: · Exchange of emails or faxes · Call Centers · Web Portals · Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points. Typical characteristics of these touch points are · Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine · Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment · Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses. 7. Middleware The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution. · As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces · Provide a web service framework with service registry. · Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. · Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. · Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. · Use standard XML for data exchange. · Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. · Provide a tracking until the response completion. · Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. · Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. · Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. · Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component. 8. Network Elements The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service. Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc. Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment. 9. 3rd Party Applications 3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government. Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done. 10. Service Delivery Platform A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction. SOA Reference Architecture SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques. In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables: · The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services · Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface · A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs · Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services · Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change · Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services · A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits. Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers. COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives. The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers. The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1. Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation. ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc. CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc. Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components: · Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges · Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured. MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data. 2. Enterprise Component Layer: This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing. Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are: · Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc. · Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query. · Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design. Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc. 3. Integration Layer: This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime. • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework. 4. Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains. 5. Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services. 6. Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications. 7. Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications. 8. Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance. 9. EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices: EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology). Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey. Conclusions Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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Node.js Adventure - When Node Flying in Wind

- by Shaun

In the first post of this series I mentioned some popular modules in the community, such as underscore, async, etc.. I also listed a module named “Wind (zh-CN)”, which is created by one of my friend, Jeff Zhao (zh-CN). Now I would like to use a separated post to introduce this module since I feel it brings a new async programming style in not only Node.js but JavaScript world. If you know or heard about the new feature in C# 5.0 called “async and await”, or you learnt F#, you will find the “Wind” brings the similar async programming experience in JavaScript. By using “Wind”, we can write async code that looks like the sync code. The callbacks, async stats and exceptions will be handled by “Wind” automatically and transparently. What’s the Problem: Dense “Callback” Phobia Let’s firstly back to my second post in this series. As I mentioned in that post, when we wanted to read some records from SQL Server we need to open the database connection, and then execute the query. In Node.js all IO operation are designed as async callback pattern which means when the operation was done, it will invoke a function which was taken from the last parameter. For example the database connection opening code would be like this. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: } 8: }); And then if we need to query the database the code would be like this. It nested in the previous function. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: conn.queryRaw(command, function(error, results) { 8: if(error) { 9: // failed to execute this command 10: } 11: else { 12: // records retrieved successfully 13: } 14: }; 15: } 16: }); Assuming if we need to copy some data from this database to another then we need to open another connection and execute the command within the function under the query function. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: conn.queryRaw(command, function(error, results) { 8: if(error) { 9: // failed to execute this command 10: } 11: else { 12: // records retrieved successfully 13: target.open(targetConnectionString, function(error, t_conn) { 14: if(error) { 15: // connect failed 16: } 17: else { 18: t_conn.queryRaw(copy_command, function(error, results) { 19: if(error) { 20: // copy failed 21: } 22: else { 23: // and then, what do you want to do now... 24: } 25: }; 26: } 27: }; 28: } 29: }; 30: } 31: }); This is just an example. In the real project the logic would be more complicated. This means our application might be messed up and the business process will be fragged by many callback functions. I would like call this “Dense Callback Phobia”. This might be a challenge how to make code straightforward and easy to read, something like below. 1: try 2: { 3: // open source connection 4: var s_conn = sqlConnect(s_connectionString); 5: // retrieve data 6: var results = sqlExecuteCommand(s_conn, s_command); 7: 8: // open target connection 9: var t_conn = sqlConnect(t_connectionString); 10: // prepare the copy command 11: var t_command = getCopyCommand(results); 12: // execute the copy command 13: sqlExecuteCommand(s_conn, t_command); 14: } 15: catch (ex) 16: { 17: // error handling 18: } What’s the Problem: Sync-styled Async Programming Similar as the previous problem, the callback-styled async programming model makes the upcoming operation as a part of the current operation, and mixed with the error handling code. So it’s very hard to understand what on earth this code will do. And since Node.js utilizes non-blocking IO mode, we cannot invoke those operations one by one, as they will be executed concurrently. For example, in this post when I tried to copy the records from Windows Azure SQL Database (a.k.a. WASD) to Windows Azure Table Storage, if I just insert the data into table storage one by one and then print the “Finished” message, I will see the message shown before the data had been copied. This is because all operations were executed at the same time. In order to make the copy operation and print operation executed synchronously I introduced a module named “async” and the code was changed as below. 1: async.forEach(results.rows, 2: function (row, callback) { 3: var resource = { 4: "PartitionKey": row[1], 5: "RowKey": row[0], 6: "Value": row[2] 7: }; 8: client.insertEntity(tableName, resource, function (error) { 9: if (error) { 10: callback(error); 11: } 12: else { 13: console.log("entity inserted."); 14: callback(null); 15: } 16: }); 17: }, 18: function (error) { 19: if (error) { 20: error["target"] = "insertEntity"; 21: res.send(500, error); 22: } 23: else { 24: console.log("all done."); 25: res.send(200, "Done!"); 26: } 27: }); It ensured that the “Finished” message will be printed when all table entities had been inserted. But it cannot promise that the records will be inserted in sequence. It might be another challenge to make the code looks like in sync-style? 1: try 2: { 3: forEach(row in rows) { 4: var entity = { /* ... */ }; 5: tableClient.insert(tableName, entity); 6: } 7: 8: console.log("Finished"); 9: } 10: catch (ex) { 11: console.log(ex); 12: } How “Wind” Helps “Wind” is a JavaScript library which provides the control flow with plain JavaScript for asynchronous programming (and more) without additional pre-compiling steps. It’s available in NPM so that we can install it through “npm install wind”. Now let’s create a very simple Node.js application as the example. This application will take some website URLs from the command arguments and tried to retrieve the body length and print them in console. Then at the end print “Finish”. I’m going to use “request” module to make the HTTP call simple so I also need to install by the command “npm install request”. The code would be like this. 1: var request = require("request"); 2: 3: // get the urls from arguments, the first two arguments are `node.exe` and `fetch.js` 4: var args = process.argv.splice(2); 5: 6: // main function 7: var main = function() { 8: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 9: // get the url 10: var url = args[i]; 11: // send the http request and try to get the response and body 12: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 13: if(!error && response.statusCode == 200) { 14: // log the url and the body length 15: console.log( 16: "%s: %d.", 17: response.request.uri.href, 18: body.length); 19: } 20: else { 21: // log error 22: console.log(error); 23: } 24: }); 25: } 26: 27: // finished 28: console.log("Finished"); 29: }; 30: 31: // execute the main function 32: main(); Let’s execute this application. (I made them in multi-lines for better reading.) 1: node fetch.js 2: "http://www.igt.com/us-en.aspx" 3: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/games.aspx" 4: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/cabinets.aspx" 5: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/systems.aspx" 6: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/interactive.aspx" 7: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/social-gaming.aspx" 8: "http://www.igt.com/support.aspx" Below is the output. As you can see the finish message was printed at the beginning, and the pages’ length retrieved in a different order than we specified. This is because in this code the request command, console logging command are executed asynchronously and concurrently. Now let’s introduce “Wind” to make them executed in order, which means it will request the websites one by one, and print the message at the end. First of all we need to import the “Wind” package and make sure the there’s only one global variant named “Wind”, and ensure it’s “Wind” instead of “wind”. 1: var Wind = require("wind"); Next, we need to tell “Wind” which code will be executed asynchronously so that “Wind” can control the execution process. In this case the “request” operation executed asynchronously so we will create a “Task” by using a build-in helps function in “Wind” named Wind.Async.Task.create. 1: var requestBodyLengthAsync = function(url) { 2: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function(t) { 3: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 4: if(error || response.statusCode != 200) { 5: t.complete("failure", error); 6: } 7: else { 8: var data = 9: { 10: uri: response.request.uri.href, 11: length: body.length 12: }; 13: t.complete("success", data); 14: } 15: }); 16: }); 17: }; The code above created a “Task” from the original request calling code. In “Wind” a “Task” means an operation will be finished in some time in the future. A “Task” can be started by invoke its start() method, but no one knows when it actually will be finished. The Wind.Async.Task.create helped us to create a task. The only parameter is a function where we can put the actual operation in, and then notify the task object it’s finished successfully or failed by using the complete() method. In the code above I invoked the request method. If it retrieved the response successfully I set the status of this task as “success” with the URL and body length. If it failed I set this task as “failure” and pass the error out. Next, we will change the main() function. In “Wind” if we want a function can be controlled by Wind we need to mark it as “async”. This should be done by using the code below. 1: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 2: })); When the application is running, Wind will detect “eval(Wind.compile(“async”, function” and generate an anonymous code from the body of this original function. Then the application will run the anonymous code instead of the original one. In our example the main function will be like this. 1: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 2: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 3: try 4: { 5: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 6: console.log( 7: "%s: %d.", 8: result.uri, 9: result.length); 10: } 11: catch (ex) { 12: console.log(ex); 13: } 14: } 15: 16: console.log("Finished"); 17: })); As you can see, when I tried to request the URL I use a new command named “$await”. It tells Wind, the operation next to $await will be executed asynchronously, and the main thread should be paused until it finished (or failed). So in this case, my application will be pause when the first response was received, and then print its body length, then try the next one. At the end, print the finish message. Finally, execute the main function. The full code would be like this. 1: var request = require("request"); 2: var Wind = require("wind"); 3: 4: var args = process.argv.splice(2); 5: 6: var requestBodyLengthAsync = function(url) { 7: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function(t) { 8: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 9: if(error || response.statusCode != 200) { 10: t.complete("failure", error); 11: } 12: else { 13: var data = 14: { 15: uri: response.request.uri.href, 16: length: body.length 17: }; 18: t.complete("success", data); 19: } 20: }); 21: }); 22: }; 23: 24: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 25: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 26: try 27: { 28: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 29: console.log( 30: "%s: %d.", 31: result.uri, 32: result.length); 33: } 34: catch (ex) { 35: console.log(ex); 36: } 37: } 38: 39: console.log("Finished"); 40: })); 41: 42: main().start(); Run our new application. At the beginning we will see the compiled and generated code by Wind. Then we can see the pages were requested one by one, and at the end the finish message was printed. Below is the code Wind generated for us. As you can see the original code, the output code were shown. 1: // Original: 2: function () { 3: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 4: try 5: { 6: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 7: console.log( 8: "%s: %d.", 9: result.uri, 10: result.length); 11: } 12: catch (ex) { 13: console.log(ex); 14: } 15: } 16: 17: console.log("Finished"); 18: } 19: 20: // Compiled: 21: /* async << function () { */ (function () { 22: var _builder_$0 = Wind.builders["async"]; 23: return _builder_$0.Start(this, 24: _builder_$0.Combine( 25: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 26: /* var i = 0; */ var i = 0; 27: /* for ( */ return _builder_$0.For(function () { 28: /* ; i < args.length */ return i < args.length; 29: }, function () { 30: /* ; i ++) { */ i ++; 31: }, 32: /* try { */ _builder_$0.Try( 33: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 34: /* var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); */ return _builder_$0.Bind(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i]), function (result) { 35: /* console.log("%s: %d.", result.uri, result.length); */ console.log("%s: %d.", result.uri, result.length); 36: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 37: }); 38: }), 39: /* } catch (ex) { */ function (ex) { 40: /* console.log(ex); */ console.log(ex); 41: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 42: /* } */ }, 43: null 44: ) 45: /* } */ ); 46: }), 47: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 48: /* console.log("Finished"); */ console.log("Finished"); 49: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 50: }) 51: ) 52: ); 53: /* } */ }) How Wind Works Someone may raise a big concern when you find I utilized “eval” in my code. Someone may assume that Wind utilizes “eval” to execute some code dynamically while “eval” is very low performance. But I would say, Wind does NOT use “eval” to run the code. It only use “eval” as a flag to know which code should be compiled at runtime. When the code was firstly been executed, Wind will check and find “eval(Wind.compile(“async”, function”. So that it knows this function should be compiled. Then it utilized parse-js to analyze the inner JavaScript and generated the anonymous code in memory. Then it rewrite the original code so that when the application was running it will use the anonymous one instead of the original one. Since the code generation was done at the beginning of the application was started, in the future no matter how long our application runs and how many times the async function was invoked, it will use the generated code, no need to generate again. So there’s no significant performance hurt when using Wind. Wind in My Previous Demo Let’s adopt Wind into one of my previous demonstration and to see how it helps us to make our code simple, straightforward and easy to read and understand. In this post when I implemented the functionality that copied the records from my WASD to table storage, the logic would be like this. 1, Open database connection. 2, Execute a query to select all records from the table. 3, Recreate the table in Windows Azure table storage. 4, Create entities from each of the records retrieved previously, and then insert them into table storage. 5, Finally, show message as the HTTP response. But as the image below, since there are so many callbacks and async operations, it’s very hard to understand my logic from the code. Now let’s use Wind to rewrite our code. First of all, of course, we need the Wind package. Then we need to include the package files into project and mark them as “Copy always”. Add the Wind package into the source code. Pay attention to the variant name, you must use “Wind” instead of “wind”. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var async = require("async"); 3: var sql = require("node-sqlserver"); 4: var azure = require("azure"); 5: var Wind = require("wind"); Now we need to create some async functions by using Wind. All async functions should be wrapped so that it can be controlled by Wind which are open database, retrieve records, recreate table (delete and create) and insert entity in table. Below are these new functions. All of them are created by using Wind.Async.Task.create. 1: sql.openAsync = function (connectionString) { 2: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (error, conn) { 4: if (error) { 5: t.complete("failure", error); 6: } 7: else { 8: t.complete("success", conn); 9: } 10: }); 11: }); 12: }; 13: 14: sql.queryAsync = function (conn, query) { 15: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 16: conn.queryRaw(query, function (error, results) { 17: if (error) { 18: t.complete("failure", error); 19: } 20: else { 21: t.complete("success", results); 22: } 23: }); 24: }); 25: }; 26: 27: azure.recreateTableAsync = function (tableName) { 28: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 29: client.deleteTable(tableName, function (error, successful, response) { 30: console.log("delete table finished"); 31: client.createTableIfNotExists(tableName, function (error, successful, response) { 32: console.log("create table finished"); 33: if (error) { 34: t.complete("failure", error); 35: } 36: else { 37: t.complete("success", null); 38: } 39: }); 40: }); 41: }); 42: }; 43: 44: azure.insertEntityAsync = function (tableName, entity) { 45: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 46: client.insertEntity(tableName, entity, function (error, entity, response) { 47: if (error) { 48: t.complete("failure", error); 49: } 50: else { 51: t.complete("success", null); 52: } 53: }); 54: }); 55: }; Then in order to use these functions we will create a new function which contains all steps for data copying. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: } 4: catch (ex) { 5: console.log(ex); 6: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 7: } 8: })); Let’s execute steps one by one with the “$await” keyword introduced by Wind so that it will be invoked in sequence. First is to open the database connection. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: } 7: catch (ex) { 8: console.log(ex); 9: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 10: } 11: })); Then retrieve all records from the database connection. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: } 10: catch (ex) { 11: console.log(ex); 12: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 13: } 14: })); After recreated the table, we need to create the entities and insert them into table storage. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage one by one 14: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 15: var entity = { 16: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 17: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 18: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 19: }; 20: $await(azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity)); 21: console.log("entity inserted"); 22: } 23: } 24: } 25: catch (ex) { 26: console.log(ex); 27: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 28: } 29: })); Finally, send response back to the browser. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage one by one 14: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 15: var entity = { 16: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 17: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 18: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 19: }; 20: $await(azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity)); 21: console.log("entity inserted"); 22: } 23: // send response 24: console.log("all done"); 25: res.send(200, "All done!"); 26: } 27: } 28: catch (ex) { 29: console.log(ex); 30: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 31: } 32: })); If we compared with the previous code we will find now it became more readable and much easy to understand. It’s very easy to know what this function does even though without any comments. When user go to URL “/was/copyRecords” we will execute the function above. The code would be like this. 1: app.get("/was/copyRecords", function (req, res) { 2: copyRecords(req, res).start(); 3: }); And below is the logs printed in local compute emulator console. As we can see the functions executed one by one and then finally the response back to me browser. Scaffold Functions in Wind Wind provides not only the async flow control and compile functions, but many scaffold methods as well. We can build our async code more easily by using them. I’m going to introduce some basic scaffold functions here. In the code above I created some functions which wrapped from the original async function such as open database, create table, etc.. All of them are very similar, created a task by using Wind.Async.Task.create, return error or result object through Task.complete function. In fact, Wind provides some functions for us to create task object from the original async functions. If the original async function only has a callback parameter, we can use Wind.Async.Binding.fromCallback method to get the task object directly. For example the code below returned the task object which wrapped the file exist check function. 1: var Wind = require("wind"); 2: var fs = require("fs"); 3: 4: fs.existsAsync = Wind.Async.Binding.fromCallback(fs.exists); In Node.js a very popular async function pattern is that, the first parameter in the callback function represent the error object, and the other parameters is the return values. In this case we can use another build-in function in Wind named Wind.Async.Binding.fromStandard. For example, the open database function can be created from the code below. 1: sql.openAsync = Wind.Async.Binding.fromStandard(sql.open); 2: 3: /* 4: sql.openAsync = function (connectionString) { 5: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 6: sql.open(connectionString, function (error, conn) { 7: if (error) { 8: t.complete("failure", error); 9: } 10: else { 11: t.complete("success", conn); 12: } 13: }); 14: }); 15: }; 16: */ When I was testing the scaffold functions under Wind.Async.Binding I found for some functions, such as the Azure SDK insert entity function, cannot be processed correctly. So I personally suggest writing the wrapped method manually. Another scaffold method in Wind is the parallel tasks coordination. In this example, the steps of open database, retrieve records and recreated table should be invoked one by one, but it can be executed in parallel when copying data from database to table storage. In Wind there’s a scaffold function named Task.whenAll which can be used here. Task.whenAll accepts a list of tasks and creates a new task. It will be returned only when all tasks had been completed, or any errors occurred. For example in the code below I used the Task.whenAll to make all copy operation executed at the same time. 1: var copyRecordsInParallel = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage in parallal 14: var tasks = new Array(results.rows.length); 15: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 16: var entity = { 17: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 18: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 19: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 20: }; 21: tasks[i] = azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity); 22: } 23: $await(Wind.Async.Task.whenAll(tasks)); 24: // send response 25: console.log("all done"); 26: res.send(200, "All done!"); 27: } 28: } 29: catch (ex) { 30: console.log(ex); 31: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 32: } 33: })); 34: 35: app.get("/was/copyRecordsInParallel", function (req, res) { 36: copyRecordsInParallel(req, res).start(); 37: }); Besides the task creation and coordination, Wind supports the cancellation solution so that we can send the cancellation signal to the tasks. It also includes exception solution which means any exceptions will be reported to the caller function. Summary In this post I introduced a Node.js module named Wind, which created by my friend Jeff Zhao. As you can see, different from other async library and framework, adopted the idea from F# and C#, Wind utilizes runtime code generation technology to make it more easily to write async, callback-based functions in a sync-style way. By using Wind there will be almost no callback, and the code will be very easy to understand. Currently Wind is still under developed and improved. There might be some problems but the author, Jeff, should be very happy and enthusiastic to learn your problems, feedback, suggestion and comments. You can contact Jeff by - Email: [email protected] - Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/windjs - GitHub: https://github.com/JeffreyZhao/wind/issues Source code can be download here. 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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dual boot install--no GRUB

- by Jim Syyap

My computer recently had a hardware upgrade and now runs on Windows 7. I decided to install Ubuntu 11.04 as dual boot using the ISO I got from ubuntu.com downloaded onto my USB stick. Restarting with the USB stick, I was able to install Ubuntu 11.04 choosing the option: Install Ubuntu 11.04 side by side with Windows 7 (or something like that). No errors were encountered on installation. However on restarting, there was no GRUB; the system went straight into Windows 7. Looking for answers, I found these: http://essayboard.com/2011/07/12/how-to-dual-boot-ubuntu-11-04-and-windows-7-the-traditional-way-through-grub-2/ http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1774523 Following their instructions, I got: Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011 ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. => Syslinux MBR (3.61-4.03) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb. => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for (,msdos7)/boot/grub on this drive. sda1: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: /grldr /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /grldr sda2: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /Windows/System32/winload.exe sdb1: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: vfat Boot sector type: SYSLINUX 4.02 debian-20101016 ...........>...r>....... ......0...~.k...~...f...M.f.f....f..8~....>2} Boot sector info: Syslinux looks at sector 1437504 of /dev/sdb1 for its second stage. SYSLINUX is installed in the directory. The integrity check of the ADV area failed. According to the info in the boot sector, sdb1 starts at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk, sdb1 starts at sector 62. Operating System: Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /syslinux/syslinux.cfg /ldlinux.sys sdc1: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows XP Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: sdc2: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: Extended Partition Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sdc5: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sdc6: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sdc7: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu 11.04 Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img sdc8: __________________________________________________ ________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Going back into Ubuntu and running sudo fdisk -l , I got these: ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x0002f393 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda2 13 19458 156185600 7 HPFS/NTFS Disk /dev/sdb: 2011 MB, 2011168768 bytes 62 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders Units = cylinders of 3844 * 512 = 1968128 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000f2ab9 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 1021 1962331 c W95 FAT32 (LBA) Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000202043392 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121600 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00261ddd Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 * 1 60657 487222656+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sdc2 60657 121600 489527681 5 Extended /dev/sdc5 120563 121600 8337703+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdc6 120073 120562 3930112 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdc7 60657 119584 473328640 83 Linux /dev/sdc8 119584 120072 3923968 82 Linux swap / Solaris Should I proceed and do the following? Assuming Ubuntu 11.04 was installed on device sdb1, do this: sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt Then do this: sudo grub-install--root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb Notice there are two dashes in front of the root directory, and I'm not using sdb1 but sdb. Since the command in step 15 had reinstalled Grub 2, now we need to unmount the /mnt (i.e. sdb1) to clean up. Do this: sudo umount /mnt Reboot and remove Ubuntu 11.04 CD/DVD from disk tray. Log into Ubuntu 11.04 (you have no choice but it will make you log into Ubuntu 11.04 at this point). Open up a terminal in Ubuntu 11.04 (using real installation, not live CD/DVD). Execute this command: sudo update-grub Reboot the machine.

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UpdatePanel, JavaScript postback and changing querystring at same time in SharePoint Search Page

- by Lee Dale

Hi Guys, Been tearing my hear out with this one. Let me see if I can explain: I have a SharePoint results page on which I have a Search Results Core WebPart. Now I want to change the parameter in the querystring when I postback the page so that the WebPart returns different results for each parameter e.g. the querystring will be interactivemap.aspx?k=Country:Romania this will filter the results for Romania. First issue is I want to do this with javascript so I call: document.getElementById('aspnetForm').action = "interactivemap.aspx?k=Country:" + country; Nothing special here but the reason I need to call from Javascript is there is also a flash applet on this page from which the Javascript calls originate. When the javascript calls are made the page needs to PostBack but not reload the flash applet. I turned to ASP.Net AJAX for this so I wrapped the search results webpart in an update panel. Now if I use a button within the UpdatePanel to postback the UpdatePanel behaves as expected and does a partial render of the search results webpart not reloading the flash applet. Problem comes because I need postback the page from javscript. I called __doPostBack() as I have used this successully in the past. It works on it's own but fails when I first call the above Javascript before the __doPostBack() (I also tried calling click() on a hidden button) the code for the page is at the bottom. I think the problem comes with the scriptmanager not allowing a partial render when the form post action has changed. My questions are. A) Is there some other way to change the search results webpart parameter without using the querystring. or B) Is there a way around changing the querystring when doing an AJAX postback and getting a partial render. <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderFullContent" runat="server"> function update(country) { //__doPostBack('ContentUpdatePanel', ''); //document.getElementById('aspnetForm').action = "interactivemap.aspx?k=ArticleCountry:" + country; document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderFullContent_UpdateButton').click(); } Romania <div class="firstDataTitle"> <div class="datatabletitleOuterWrapper"> <div class="datatabletitle"> <span>Content</span></div> </div> <div class="datatableWrapper"> <div class="dataHolderWrapper"> <div class="datatable"> <div> <div class="searchMain"> <div class="searchZoneMain"> <asp:UpdatePanel runat="server" id="ContentUpdatePanel" UpdateMode="Conditional"> <ContentTemplate> <WebPartPages:webpartzone runat="server" AllowPersonalization="false" title="<%$Resources:sps,LayoutPageZone_BottomZone%>" id="BottomZone" orientation="Vertical" QuickAdd-GroupNames="Search" QuickAdd-ShowListsAndLibraries="false"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:webpartzone> <asp:Button id="UpdateButton" name="UpdateButton" runat="server" Text="Update"/> </ContentTemplate> </asp:UpdatePanel> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

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SubSonic Stored Procedure Issue - Data Generated at Stored Procedure is different from Data Received

- by ShaShaIn

Hi All, I am facing a unknown problem while using stored procedure with SubSonic. I have written a stored procedure & application code that takes first name & last name as input parameter and return last login id as ouput parameter. It creates login id as first character of first name & complete last name for no-existing login id otherwise it adds 1 in the last login id e.g. First Name - Mark, Last Name - Waugh, First Login Id - MWaugh, Second Login Id - MWaugh1, Third Login Id - MWaugh2 etc. Stored Procedure SET ANSI_NULLS OFF GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Users_FetchLoginId] ( @FirstName nvarchar(64), @LastName nvarchar(64), @LoginId nvarchar(256) OUTPUT ) AS DECLARE @UserId nvarchar(256); SET @UserId = NULL; SET @LoginId = NULL; SELECT @UserId = LoweredUserName FROM aspnet_Users WHERE LoweredUserName LIKE (LOWER(SUBSTRING(@FirstName,1,1) + @LastName)) IF @@rowcount = 0 OR @UserId IS NULL BEGIN SET @LoginId = (SUBSTRING(@FirstName, 1, 1) + @LastName); print @LoginId RETURN 1; END ELSE BEGIN SELECT TOP 1 LoweredUserName FROM aspnet_Users WHERE LoweredUserName LIKE (LOWER(SUBSTRING(@FirstName,1,1) + @LastName + '%')) ORDER BY LoweredUserName DESC RETURN 2; END Application Code public string FetchLoginId(string firstName, string lastName) { SubSonic.StoredProcedure sp = SPs.UsersFetchLoginId( firstName, lastName, null ); sp.Command.AddReturnParameter(); sp.Execute(); if (sp.Command.Parameters.Find(delegate(QueryParameter queryParameter) { return queryParameter.Mode == ParameterDirection.ReturnValue; }).ParameterValue != System.DBNull.Value) { int returnCode = Convert.ToInt32(sp.Command.Parameters.Find(delegate(QueryParameter queryParameter) { return queryParameter.Mode == ParameterDirection.ReturnValue; }).ParameterValue, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); if (returnCode == 1) { // UserName as First Character of First Name & Full Last Name return sp.Command.Parameters[2].ParameterValue.ToString(); } if (returnCode == 2) { DataSet ds = sp.GetDataSet(); if (null == ds || null == ds.Tables[0] || 0 == ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count) return ""; string maxLoginId = ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["LoweredUserName"].ToString(); string initialLoginId = firstName.Substring(0, 1) + lastName; int maxLoginIdIndex = 0; int initialLoginIdLength = initialLoginId.Length; if (maxLoginId.Substring(initialLoginIdLength).Length == 0) { maxLoginIdIndex++; // UserName as Max Lowered User Name Found & Incrementer as Suffix (Here, First Incrementer i.e. 1) return (initialLoginId + maxLoginIdIndex); } if (int.TryParse(maxLoginId.Substring(initialLoginIdLength), out maxLoginIdIndex)) { if (maxLoginIdIndex > 0) { maxLoginIdIndex++; // UserName as Max Lowered User Name Found & Incrementer as Suffix return (initialLoginId + maxLoginIdIndex); } } } } Now the problem is for some input (see test data below), the login id created at sql server end correctly but at application subsonic dal side, it truncates some characters. First Name - Jenelia and Last Name - Kanupatikenalaalayampentyalavelugoplansubhramanayam [dbo].[Users_FetchLoginId] - Execute Stored Procedure Separately - Login Id Is Correct JKanupatikenalaalayampentyalavelugoplansubhramanayam public string FetchLoginId(string firstName, string lastName) - Application Code DAL Side - LginId Is Wrongly Received From Stored Procedure JKanupatikenalaalayampentyalavelugoplansubhramanay You can easily see that 2 charactes are removed. If the data is correctly generated by stored procedure then why the characters are removed when data is received in output parameter of stored procedure? Is it due to any internal known or unknown bug of SubSonic? Your help is significant. Thanks in advance...

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Treeview - Hierarchical Data Template - Binding does not update on source change?

- by ClearsTheScreen

Greetings! I ran into this problem in my project (Silverlight 3 with C#): I have a TreeView which is data bound to, well, a tree. This TreeView has a HierarchicalDataTamplate in a resource dictionary, that defines various controls. Now I want to hide (Visibility.Collapse) some items depending on wether a node has children or not. Other items shall be visible under the same condition. It works like charm when I first bind the source tree to the TreeView, but when I change the source tree, the visibility in the treeview does not change. XAML - page: <controls:TreeView x:Name="SankeyTreeView" ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource expandedTreeViewItemStyle}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource SankeyTreeTemplate}"> <controls:TreeViewItem IsExpanded="True"> <controls:TreeViewItem.HeaderTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock Text="This is just for loading and will be replaced directly after the data becomes available..."/> </DataTemplate> </controls:TreeViewItem.HeaderTemplate> </controls:TreeViewItem> </controls:TreeView> XAML - ResourceDictionary  <Data:HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="SankeyTreeTemplate" ItemsSource="{Binding Children}"> <Grid Height="24"> <TextBlock x:Name="TextBlockName" Text="{Binding Path=Value.name, Mode=TwoWay}" VerticalAlignment="Center" Foreground="Black"/> <TextBox x:Name="TextBoxFlow" Text="{Binding Path=Value.flow, Mode=TwoWay}" Grid.Column="1" Visibility="{Binding Children, Converter={StaticResource BoxConverter}, ConverterParameter=\{box\}}"/> <TextBlock x:Name="TextBlockThroughput" Text="{Binding Path=Value.throughput, Mode=TwoWay}" Grid.Column="1" Visibility="{Binding Children, Converter={StaticResource BoxConverter}, ConverterParameter=\{block\}}"/> <Button x:Name="ButtonAddNode"/> <Button x:Name="ButtonDeleteNode"/> <Button x:Name="ButtonEditNode"/> </Grid> </Data:HierarchicalDataTemplate> Now, as you can see, the TextBoxFlow and the TextBlockThroughput share the same space. What I aim at: The "Throughput" value of a node is how much of something 'flows' through this node from its children. It can't be changed directly, so I want to display a text block. Only leaf nodes have a TextBox to let someone enter the 'flow' that is generated in this leaf node. (I.E.: Node.Throughput = Node.Flow + Sum(Children.Throughput), where Node.Flow = 0 for each non-leaf.) What the BoxConverter (silly name -.-) does: public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { if ((value as NodeList<TreeItem>).Count > 1) // Node has Children? { if ((parameter as String) == "{box}") { return Visibility.Collapsed; } else ((parameter as String) == "{block}") { return Visibility.Visible; } } else { /* * As above, just with Collapsed and Visible switched */ } } The structure of the tree that is bound to the TreeView is essentially stolen from Dan Vanderboom (a bit too much to dump the whole code here), except that I here of course use an ObservableCollection for the children and the value items implement INotifyPropertyChanged. I would be very grateful if someone could explain to me, why inserting items into the underlying tree does not update the visibility for box and block. Thank you in advance!

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Maven doesn't see my <repository> in <dependencyManagement>

- by Ondra Žižka

To make Maven "deploy" to a directory, I use this: <distributionManagement> <downloadUrl>http://code.google.com/p/junitdiff/downloads/list</downloadUrl> <repository> <id>local-hack-repo</id> <name>LocalDir</name> <url>file://${project.basedir}/dist-maven</url> </repository> <snapshotRepository> <id>jboss-snapshots-repository</id> <name>JBoss Snapshots Repository</name>  <url>file://${project.basedir}/dist-maven</url> </snapshotRepository> </distributionManagement> This appears in the efffective pom. ... <distributionManagement> <repository> <id>local-hack-repo</id> <name>LocalDir</name> <url>file:///home/ondra/work/TOOLS/JUnitDiff/github/dist-maven</url> </repository> <snapshotRepository> <id>jboss-snapshots-repository</id> <name>JBoss Snapshots Repository</name> <url>file:///home/ondra/work/TOOLS/JUnitDiff/github/dist-maven</url> </snapshotRepository> <downloadUrl>http://code.google.com/p/junitdiff/downloads/list</downloadUrl> </distributionManagement> But still, Maven insists that it's not there: [INFO] [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.7:deploy (default-deploy) on project JUnitDiff: Deployment failed: repository element was not specified in the POM inside distributionManagement element or in -DaltDeploymentRepository=id::layout::url parameter -> [Help 1] [INFO] org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.7:deploy (default-deploy) on project JUnitDiff: Deployment failed: repository element was not specified in the POM inside distributionManagement element or in -DaltDeploymentRepository=id::layout::url parameter [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:217) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:153) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:145) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:84) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:59) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.singleThreadedBuild(LifecycleStarter.java:183) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.execute(LifecycleStarter.java:161) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:320) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:156) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.execute(MavenCli.java:537) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.doMain(MavenCli.java:196) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:141) [INFO] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) [INFO] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57) [INFO] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) [INFO] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601) [INFO] at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:290) [INFO] at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:230) [INFO] at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:409) [INFO] at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:352) [INFO] Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException: Deployment failed: repository element was not specified in the POM inside distributionManagement element or in -DaltDeploymentRepository=id::layout::url parameter [INFO] at org.apache.maven.plugin.deploy.DeployMojo.getDeploymentRepository(DeployMojo.java:235) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.plugin.deploy.DeployMojo.execute(DeployMojo.java:118) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultBuildPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultBuildPluginManager.java:101) [INFO] at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:209) [INFO] ... 19 more I am using it through the maven-release-plugin. What's wrong?

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Vista/7: How to get glass color?

- by Ian Boyd

How do you use DwmGetColorizationColor? The documentation says it returns two values: a 32-bit 0xAARRGGBB containing the color used for glass composition a boolean parameter that is true "if the color is an opaque blend" (whatever that means) Here's a color that i like, a nice puke green: You can notice the color is greeny, and the translucent title bar (against a white background) shows the snot color very clearly: i try to get the color from Windows: DwmGetColorizationColor(dwCcolorization, bIsOpaqueBlend); And i get dwColorization: 0x0D0A0F04 bIsOpaqueBlend: false According to the documentation this value is of the format AARRGGBB, and so contains: AA: 0x0D (13) RR: 0x0A (10) GG: 0x0F (15) BB: 0x04 (4) This supposedly means that the color is (10, 15, 4), with an opacity of ~5.1%. But if you actually look at this RGB value, it's nowhere near my desired snot green. Here is (10, 15, 4) with zero opacity (the original color), and (10,15,4) with 5% opacity against a white/checkerboard background: So the question is: How to get glass color in Windows Vista/7? i tried using DwmGetColorizationColor, but that doesn't work very well. A person with same problem, but a nicer shiny picture to attract you squirrels: So, it boils down to – DwmGetColorizationColor is completely unusable for applications attempting to apply the current color onto an opaque surface. i love this guy's screenshots much better than mine. Using his screenshots as a template, i made up a few more sparklies: For the last two screenshots, the alpha blended chip is a true partially transparent PNG, blending to your browser's background. Cool! (i'm such a geek) Edit 2: Had to arrange them in rainbow color. (i'm such a geek) Edit 3: Well now i of course have to add Yellow. Undocumented/Unsupported/Fragile Workarounds There is an undocumented export from DwmApi.dll at entry point 137, which we'll call DwmGetColorizationParameters: HRESULT GetColorizationParameters_Undocumented(out DWMCOLORIZATIONPARAMS params); struct DWMCOLORIZATIONPARAMS { public UInt32 ColorizationColor; public UInt32 ColorizationAfterglow; public UInt32 ColorizationColorBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationAfterglowBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationBlurBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity; public UInt32 ColorizationOpaqueBlend; } We're interested in the first parameter: ColorizationColor. We can also read the value out of the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM ColorizationColor: REG_DWORD = 0x6614A600 So you pick your poison of creating appcompat issues. You can rely on an undocumented API (which is bad, bad, bad, and can go away at any time) use an undocumented registry key (which is also bad, and can go away at any time) See also Is there a list of valid parameter combinations for GetThemeColor / Visual Styles API How does Windows change Aero Glass color? DWM - Colorization Color Handling Using DWMGetColorizationColor Retrieving Aero Glass base color for opaque surface rendering i've been wanting to ask this question for over a year now. i always knew that it's impossible to answer, and that the only way to get anyone to actually pay attention is to have colorful screenshots; developers are attracted to shiny things. But on the downside it means i had to put all kinds of work into making the lures.

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RackSpace Cloud Strips $_SESSION if URL Has Certain File Extensions

- by macinjosh

The Situation I am creating a video training site for a client on the RackSpace Cloud using the traditional LAMP stack (RackSpace's cloud has both Windows and LAMP stacks). The videos and other media files I'm serving on this site need to be protected as my client charges money for access to them. There is no DRM or funny business like that, essentially we store the files outside of the web root and use PHP to authenticate user's before they are able to access the files by using mod_rewrite to run the request through PHP. So let's say the user requests a file at this URL: http://www.example.com/uploads/preview_image/29.jpg I am using mod_rewrite to rewrite that url to: http://www.example.com/files.php?path=%2Fuploads%2Fpreview_image%2F29.jpg Here is a simplified version of the files.php script: <?php // Setups the environment and sets $logged_in // This part requires $_SESSION require_once('../../includes/user_config.php'); if (!$logged_in) { // Redirect non-authenticated users header('Location: login.php'); } // This user is authenticated, continue $content_type = "image/jpeg"; // getAbsolutePathForRequestedResource() takes // a Query Parameter called path and uses DB // lookups and some string manipulation to get // an absolute path. This part doesn't have // any bearing on the problem at hand $file_path = getAbsolutePathForRequestedResource($_GET['path']); // At this point $file_path looks something like // this: "/path/to/a/place/outside/the/webroot" if (file_exists($file_path) && !is_dir($file_path)) { header("Content-Type: $content_type"); header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file_path)); echo file_get_contents($file_path); } else { header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found'); header('Status: 404 Not Found'); echo '404 Not Found'; } exit(); ?> The Problem Let me start by saying this works perfectly for me. On local test machines it works like a charm. However once deployed to the cloud it stops working. After some debugging it turns out that if a request to the cloud has certain file extensions like .JPG, .PNG, or .SWF (i.e. extensions of typically static media files.) the request is routed to a cache system called Varnish. The end result of this routing is that by the time this whole process makes it to my PHP script the session is not present. If I change the extension in the URL to .PHP or if I even add a query parameter Varnish is bypassed and the PHP script can get the session. No problem right? I'll just add a meaningless query parameter to my requests! Here is the rub: The media files I am serving through this system are being requested through compiled SWF files that I have zero control over. They are generated by third-party software and I have no hope of adding or changing the URLs that they request. Are there any other options I have on this? Update: I should note that I have verified this behavior with RackSpace support and they have said there is nothing they can do about it.

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