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CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, August 15, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, August 15, 2012Popular ReleasesTFS Workbench: TFS Workbench v2.2.0.10: Compiled installers for TFS Workbench 2.2.0.10 Bug Fix Fixed bug that stopped the change workspace action from working.MoltenMercury: MoltenMercury 1.0 beta 1: This is initial implementation of the MoltenMercury with everything running but not throughoutly tested. Release contains a zip file with program binaries and a zip file containing resources. Before using please create a new directory named data in the same directory with program executables and extract DefaultCharacter zip file in there. If you have ???????????, you can simply place executables into the same directory with the program mentioned above. MoltenMercury supports character resour...SharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.0: Version 1.0 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerSPListViewFilter: Version 1.6: Layout selection: http://blog.vitalyzhukov.ru/imagelibrary/120815/Settings_Layouts.pngConsoleHoster: ConsoleHoster Version 1.2: Cleanup some logging UI impreovements: Fixed the bug with _ character in project-name Fixed the bug with tab close button to be X style Fixed the style of search content bar Fixed the bug with disappearing Edit project window Moved the Clear History button to the taskbar and added also a menu item Changed the QC button to CH Applied project colors to tab headersMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.60: Allow for CSS3 grid-column and grid-row repeat syntax. Provide option for -analyze scope-report output to be in XML for easier programmatic processing; also allow for report to be saved to a separate output file.Diablo III Drop Statistics Service: 1.0: Client OnlyClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.67.2: v0.67.2 Fix when copying conditional formats with relative formulas v0.67.1 Misc fixes to the conditional formats v0.67.0 Conditional formats now accept formulas. Major performance improvement when opening files with merged ranges. Misc fixes.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.8.1: Whats newBug fixes: Fixed: When upgrading to 4.8.0, the database upgrade didn't run Update: unfortunately, upgrading with SQLCE is problematic, there's a workaround here: http://bit.ly/TEmMJN The changes to the <imaging> section in umbracoSettings.config caused errors when you didn't apply them during the upgrade. Defaults will now be used if any keys are missing Scheduled unpublishes now only unpublishes nodes set to published rather than newest Work item: 30937 - Fixed problem with Fi...MySqlBackup.NET - MySQL Backup Solution for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET: MySqlBackup.NET 1.4.4 Beta: MySqlBackup.NET 1.4.4 beta Fix bug: If the target database's default character set is not UTF8, UTF8 character will be encoded wrongly during Import. Now, database default character set will be recorded into Dump File at line of "SET NAMES". During import(restore), MySqlBackup will again detect and use the target database default character char set. MySqlBackup.NET 1.4.2 beta Fix bug: MySqlConnection is not closed when AutoCloseConnection set to true after Export or Import completed/halted. M...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 3.0 for .NET 4.5 and WinRT - Preview: The Unity 3.0.1208.0 Preview enables Unity to work on .NET 4.5 with both the WinRT and desktop profiles. This is an updated version of the port after the .NET Framework 4.5 and Windows 8 have RTM'ed. Please see the Release Notes Providing feedback Post your feedback on the Unity forum Submit and vote on new features for Unity on our Uservoice site.LiteBlog (MVC): LiteBlog 1.31: Features of this release Windows8 styled UI Namespace and code refactoring Resolved the deployment issues in the previous release Added documentation Help file Help file is HTML based built using SandCastle Help file works in all browsers except IE10Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 2.0.0 for VS11: Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight v 2.0.0 for Entity Framework 5.0 and Visual Studio 2012Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.6.0: New Stuff ImageTile Control - think People Tile MicrophoneRecorder - Coding4Fun.Phone.Audio GzipWebClient - Coding4Fun.Phone.Net Serialize - Coding4Fun.Phone.Storage this is code I've written countless times. JSON.net is another alternative ChatBubbleTextBox - Added in Hint TimeSpan languages added: Pl Bug Fixes RoundToggleButton - Enable Visual State not being respected OpacityToggleButton - Enable Visual State not being respected Prompts VS Crash fix for IsPrompt=true More...AssaultCube Reloaded: 2.5.2 Unnamed: Linux has Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit precompiled binaries and Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit precompiled binaries, but you can compile your own as it also contains the source. If you are using Mac or other operating systems, please wait while we try to pack it. Try to compile it. If it fails, download a virtual machine. The server pack is ready for both Windows and Linux, but you might need to compile your own for Linux (source included) Added 3rd person Added mario jumps Fixed nextprimary code exploit ...NPOI: NPOI 2.0: New features a. Implement OpenXml4Net (same as System.Packaging from Microsoft). It supports both .NET 2.0 and .NET 4.0 b. Excel 2007 read/write library (NPOI.XSSF) c. Word 2007 read/write library(NPOI.XWPF) d. NPOI.SS namespace becomes the interface shared between XSSF and HSSF e. Load xlsx template and save as new xlsx file (partially supported) f. Diagonal line in cell both in xls and xlsx g. Support isRightToLeft and setRightToLeft on the common spreadsheet Sheet interface, as per existin...BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 1.1: This release includes bug fixes from the 1.0 release for email notifications, RSS feeds, and several other issues. Please see the change log for a full list of changes. http://support.bugnetproject.com/Projects/ReleaseNotes.aspx?pid=1&m=76 Upgrade Notes The following changes to the web.config in the profile section have occurred: Removed <add name="NotificationTypes" type="String" defaultValue="Email" customProviderData="NotificationTypes;nvarchar;255" />Added <add name="ReceiveEmailNotifi...????: ????2.0.5: 1、?????????????。RiP-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.01: changes NEW: Added Support for Clipboard Function in Mono Version NEW: Added Support for "ImgBox.com" links FIXED: "PixHub.eu" links FIXED: "ImgChili.com" links FIXED: Kitty-Kats Forum loginPlayer Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (Preview 5): Support for Smooth Streaming SDK beta 2 Support for live playback New bitrate meter and SD/HD indicators Auto smooth streaming track restriction for snapped mode to conserve bandwidth New "Go Live" button and SeekToLive API Support for offset start times Support for Live position unique from end time Support for multiple audio streams (smooth and progressive content) Improved intellisense in JS version Support for Windows 8 RTM ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SD...New ProjectsA Java Open Platform: A Java Open PlatformAutomation Tools: noneAzManPermissions: Allows AzMan (Authorization Manager) operation permission checks declaratively and imperatively. It can connect to AzMan stores directly or through a service.Configuration Manager 2012 Automation: Configuration Manager 2012 Automation is a powershell project to help perform the basic implementation of a CM12 infrastructure...Dynamicweb Blog Engine 2012: A simple blog engine built on Dynamicweb.E Lixo: Projeto E_LIXOEasy Windows Service Manager: Easy Windows Service Manager (ewsm) is a desktop utility that enables the easily management of Windows services. flexwork: A Flex Pluggable Extension FrameworkGit On Codeplex: Just trying git on CodePlexGT.BlogBox: Blogsite-Webtemplate for SharePoint 2010gvPoco: gvPoco is a .NET class library for the Google Visualization Charts API. IAllenSoft: IAllenSoft is a silverlight control library, which originates from some idea. Its target is to improve development productivity for silverlight projects. ListNetRanker: ListNetRanker is a listwise ranker based on machine learning. Given documents and query's feature set, ListNetRanker will rank these documents by ranking score.lvyao: stillMetro Tic-Tac-Toe: Tic-Tac-Toe is a Windows 8 developed using MonoGame for Windows 8. The intent of this code is to help XNA developers with porting their XNA apps to Windows 8myProject: my private code Nintemulator: Nintemulator is a work in progress multi-system emulator. Plans for emulated systems are NES, SNES, GB/GBC, GBA.Picnic Game: Picnic Game is a 2D game written in Small Basic. The objective is to get the pizza to the basket before you get stung or time runs out.Picnic Level Editor: Picnic Game is a 2D 3rd person game where you are an ant, and you have to gather the pizza and bring it to the basket before you get stung by a bee.ResCom: ResCom is a community response system for Windows Phone 8Scalable Object Persistence (SOP) Framework: Scalable object persistence (SOP) framework. RDBMS "index" like performance and scale on data Stores but without the unnecessary baggage, fine grained control.self-balancing-avl-tree: Self balancing AVL tree with Concat and Split operations.SEMS(synthetical evaluation management system): that's itsergionadal-mvc: Mvc para sistemas AndroidTFS Test Plan Builder: TFS Test plan builder is a tool to assis users of Microst Test Manager to build new test plans then moving from sprint to sprint or release to release The Excel Library: DExcelLibrary is a project that allows you to load and display "any" excel file given a specificaction of with areas/grids to loadTimePunch Metro Wpf Library: This library contains WPF controls and MVVM Implementation to create touch optimized applications in the new Windows 8 UI style formerly known as "Metro". UniPie: UniPie is a system wide pie menu system for sending key-mouse button combinations to certain applications. It can also convert one combo to another.xref: This is an extension of the classic FizzBuzz problem.ZombieRPG: Basic Zombie RPG game made using Game Maker??????: ZHJP

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I'm looking for an online ASP.NET tutor.

- by pkiyan

$15/hr. I know it's not much but... Hi. I'm looking for an ASP.NET tutor. I want to use a remote desktop application so we can see each others screens and use Skype or phone to communicate with. You won't need to come up with any lessons or anything like that. I was thinking we could spend an hour or two each time we logged in to build a decent sized website from scratch. That's basically it. I'm a beginner with about 2 months experience with ASP.NET so we won't have to start from the very beginning, but pretty close. I wanted this site to have a little complexity to it and not just a website for beginners, but something I could study for a while. I'll pay you through PayPal or some other method if you prefer. By the way, it doesn't have to be a website that we work on together. I'll listen to other suggestions too. Maybe we could use an open source site/app to walk-through and study and modify. I've looked at 'My Web Pages Starter Kit 1.30', 'SubText 2.1.2', 'nopCommerce 1.5', and some others. They were all beyond me, and I couldn't make sense of any of the source code. But if you use and are really familiar with an open source app/site that I can download, we could study that. Here are some technical specs about the site I'd like to build/study: ASP.NET 2.0+ (preferably 3.5+, but I don't really care) C# / VB.NET ( don't really care, I suck at both. This is more about ASP.NET and helping me understand the structure of an ASP.NET website and the .NET framework in general. ) SQL Server ( I have SQL Server 2008 express and would someday like to learn how to use this thing. ) JavaScript / AJAX ( at least some use of this ) XML ( basically, I'd like to spend some time in the web.config file, and have some sense of what's going on in there. ) ASP.NET Folders ( I'd like to work with all of the ASP.NET folders if possible: App_Code, App_GlobalResources, etc.. and understand what does/doesn't go in them. Hopefully we can build more than one theme too. ) Assemblies ( how do you create a .dll and use it across different websites? maybe you could suggest a third party .dll that we could use ) Web Service ( I read about this once but didn't really get it ) I can't think of anything else but the above will definitely keep me busy. Hopefully we could make use of a lot of the server controls too (the nav controls gave me a headache when I tried customizing them). Is someone willing to help? I'll pay through PayPal 15 bucks an hour. I live in the Dallas, Texas (US) area so we'd have to synchronize time zones and agree on a day(s)/time of the week. I prefer working at night and on the weekends because I work during the week but whatever your schedule allows too. If you'd like to help me, can you post: years of experience with ASP.NET, your Time zone and time you're available and any ideas you might have about how you'd like to tutor? THANK YOU.

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Need help with a possible memory management problem(leak) regarding NSMutableArray

- by user309030

Hi, I'm a beginner level programmer trying to make a game app for the iphone and I've encountered a possible issue with the memory management (exc_bad_access) of my program so far. I've searched and read dozens of articles regarding memory management (including apple's docs) but I still can't figure out what exactly is wrong with my codes. So I would really appreciate it if someone can help clear up the mess I made for myself. - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.gameState = gameStatePaused; fencePoleArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; fencePoleImageArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; fenceImageArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; mainField = CGRectMake(10, 35, 310, 340); .......... [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.05 target:self selector:@selector(gameLoop) userInfo:nil repeats:YES]; } So basically, the player touches the screen to set up the fences/poles -(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { if(.......) { ....... } else { UITouch *touch = [[event allTouches] anyObject]; currentTapLoc = [touch locationInView:touch.view]; NSLog(@"%i, %i", (int)currentTapLoc.x, (int)currentTapLoc.y); if(CGRectContainsPoint(mainField, currentTapLoc)) { if([self checkFence]) { onFencePole++; //this 3 set functions adds their respective objects into the 3 NSMutableArrays using addObject: [self setFencePole]; [self setFenceImage]; [self setFencePoleImage]; ....... } } else { ....... } } } } The setFence function (setFenceImage and setFencePoleImage is similar to this) -(void)setFencePole { Fence *fencePole; if (!elecFence) { fencePole = [[Fence alloc] initFence:onFencePole fenceType:1 fencePos:currentTapLoc]; } else { fencePole = [[Fence alloc] initFence:onFencePole fenceType:2 fencePos:currentTapLoc]; } [fencePoleArray addObject:fencePole]; [fencePole release]; and whenever I press a button in the game, endOpenState is called to clear away all the extra images(fence/poles) on the screen and also to remove all existing objects in the 3 NSMutableArray -(void)endOpenState { ........ int xMax = [fencePoleArray count]; int yMax = [fenceImageArray count]; for (int x = 0; x < xMax; x++) { [[fencePoleImageArray objectAtIndex:x] removeFromSuperview]; } for (int y = 0; y < yMax; y++) { [[fenceImageArray objectAtIndex:y] removeFromSuperview]; } [fencePoleArray removeAllObjects]; [fencePoleImageArray removeAllObjects]; [fenceImageArray removeAllObjects]; ........ } The crash happens here at the checkFence function. -(BOOL)checkFence { if (onFencePole == 0) { return YES; } else if (onFencePole >= 1 && onFencePole < currentMaxFencePole - 1) { CGPoint tempPoint1 = currentTapLoc; CGPoint tempPoint2 = [[fencePoleArray objectAtIndex:onFencePole-1] returnPos]; // the crash happens at this line if ([self checkDistance:tempPoint1 point2:tempPoint2]) { return YES; } else { return NO; } } else if (onFencePole == currentMaxFencePole - 1) { ...... } else { return NO; } } What I'm thinking of is that fencePoleArray got messed up when I used [fencePoleArray removeAllObjects] because it doesn't crash when I comment it out. It would really be great if someone can explain to me what went wrong. And thanks in advance.

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Input string was not in the correct format using int.Parse

- by JDWebs

I have recently been making a login 'representation' which is not secure. So before answering, please note I am aware of security risks etc., and this will not be on a live site. Also note I am a beginner :P. For my login representation, I am using LINQ to compare values of a DDL to select a username and a Textbox to enter a password, when a login button is clicked. However, an error is thrown 'Input string was not in the correct format', when using int.Parse. Front End: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Login_Test.aspx.cs" Inherits="Login_Login_Test" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head runat="server"> <title>Login Test</title> </head> <body> <form id="LoginTest" runat="server"> <div> <asp:DropDownList ID="DDL_Username" runat="server" Height="20px" DataTextField="txt"> </asp:DropDownList> <br /> <asp:TextBox ID="TB_Password" runat="server" TextMode="Password"></asp:TextBox> <br /> <asp:Button ID="B_Login" runat="server" onclick="B_Login_Click" Text="Login" /> <br /> <asp:Literal ID="LI_Result" runat="server"></asp:Literal> </div> </form> </body> </html> Back End: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; public partial class Login_Login_Test : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!Page.IsPostBack) { Binder(); } } private void Binder() { using (DataClassesDataContext db = new DataClassesDataContext()) { DDL_Username.DataSource = from x in db.DT_Honeys select new { id = x.UsernameID, txt = x.Username }; DDL_Username.DataValueField = "id"; DDL_Username.DataTextField = "txt"; DDL_Username.DataBind(); } } protected void B_Login_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (TB_Password.Text != "") { using (DataClassesDataContext db = new DataClassesDataContext()) { DT_Honey blah = new DT_Honey(); blah = db.DT_Honeys.SingleOrDefault(x => x.UsernameID == int.Parse(DDL_Username.SelectedValue.ToString())); if (blah == null) { LI_Result.Text = "Something went wrong :/"; } if (blah.Password == TB_Password.Text) { LI_Result.Text = "Credentials recognised :-)"; } else { LI_Result.Text = "Error with credentials :-("; } } } } } I am aware this problem is very common, but none of the help I have found online is useful/relevant. Any help/suggestions appreciated; thank you for your time :-).

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Clean Code Development & Flexible work environment - MSCC 26.10.2013

Finally, some spare time to summarize my impressions and experiences of the recent meetup of Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community. I already posted my comment on the event and on our social media networks: Professional - It's getting better with our meetups and I really appreciated that 'seniors' and 'juniors' were present today. Despite running a little bit out of time it was really great to see more students coming to the gathering. This time we changed location for our Saturday meetup and it worked out very well. A big thank you to Ebene Accelerator, namely Mrs Poonum, for the ability to use their meeting rooms for our community get-together. Already some weeks ago I had a very pleasant conversation with her about the MSCC aims, 'mission' and how we organise things. Additionally, I think that an environment like the Ebene Accelerator is a good choice as it acts as an incubator for young developers and start-ups. Reactions from other craftsmen Before I put my thoughts about our recent meeting down, I'd like to mention and cross-link to some of the other craftsmen that were present: "MSCC meet up is a massive knowledge gaining strategies for students, future entrepreneurs, or for geeks all around. Knowledge sharing becomes a fun. For those who have not been able to made it do subscribe on our MSCC meet up group at meetup.com." -- Nitin on Learning is fun with #MSCC #Ebene Accelerator "We then talked about the IT industry in Mauritius, salary issues in various field like system administration, software development etc. We analysed the reasons why people tend to hop from one company to another. That was a fun debate." -- Ish on MSCC meetup - Gang of Geeks "Flexible Learning Environment was quite interesting since these lines struck cords : "You're not a secretary....9 to 5 shouldn't suit you"....This allowed reflection...deep reflection....especially regarding the local mindset...which should be changed in a way which would promote creativity rather than choking it till death..." -- Yannick on 2nd MSCC Monthly Meet-up And others on Facebook... ;-) Visual impressions are available on our Meetup event page. More first time attendees We great pleasure I noticed that we have once again more first time visitors. A quick overlook showed that we had a majority of UoM students in first, second or last year. Some of them are already participating in the UoM Computer Club or are nominated as members of the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) programme. Personally, I really appreciate the fact that the MSCC is able to gather such a broad audience. And as I wrote initially, the MSCC is technology-agnostic; we want IT people from any segment of this business. Of course, students which are about to delve into the 'real world' of working are highly welcome, and I hope that they might get one or other glimpse of experience or advice from employees. Sticking to the schedule? No, not really... And honestly, it was a good choice to go a little bit of the beaten tracks. I mean, yes we have a 'rough' agenda of topics that we would like to talk about or having a presentation about. But we keep it 'agile'. Due to the high number of new faces, we initiated another quick round of introductions and I gave a really brief overview of the MSCC. Next, we started to reflect on the Clean Code Developer (CCD) - Red Grade which we introduced on the last meetup. Nirvan was the lucky one and he did a good job on summarizing the various abbreviations of the first level of being a CCD. Actually, more interesting, we exchanged experience about the principles and practices of Red Grade, and it was very informative to get to know that Yann actually 'interviewed' a couple of friends, other students, local guys working in IT companies as well as some IT friends from India in order to counter-check on what he learned first-hand about Clean Code. Currently, he is reading the book of Robert C. Martin on that topic and I'm looking forward to his review soon. More output generates more input What seems to be like a personal mantra is working out pretty well for me since the beginning of this year. Being more active on social media networks, writing more article on my blog, starting the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community, and contributing more to other online communities has helped me to receive more project requests, job offers and possibilities to expand my business at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. Actually, it is not a coincidence that one of the questions new craftsmen should answer during registration asks about having a personal blog. Whether you are just curious about IT, right in the middle of your Computer Studies, or already working in software development or system administration since a while you should consider to advertise and market yourself online. Easiest way to resolve this are to have online profiles on professional social media networks like LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter, and Google+ (no Facebook should be considered for private only), and considering to have a personal blog. Why? -- Be yourself, be proud of your work, and let other people know that you're passionate about your profession. Trust me, this is going to open up opportunities you might not have dreamt about... Exchanging ideas about having a professional online presence - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 Furthermore, consider to put your Curriculum Vitae online, too. There are quite a number of service providers like 1ClickCV, Stack Overflow Careers 2.0, etc. which give you the ability to have an up to date CV online. At least put it on your site, next to your personal blog. Similar to what you would be able to see on my site here. Cyber Island Mauritius - are we there? A couple of weeks ago I got a 'cold' message on LinkedIn from someone living in the U.S. asking about the circumstances and conditions of the IT world of Mauritius. He has a great business idea, venture capital and is currently looking for a team of software developers (mainly mobile - iOS) for a new startup here in Mauritius. Since then we exchanged quite some details through private messages and Skype conversations, and I suggested that it might be a good chance to join our meetup through a conference call and see for yourself about potential candidates. During approximately 30 to 40 minutes the brief idea of the new startup was presented - very promising state-of-the-art technology aspects and integration of various public APIs -, and we had a good Q&A session about it. Also thanks to the excellent bandwidth provided by the Ebene Accelerator the video conference between three parties went absolutely well. Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade Hahaha - nice one... Being at the Orange Tower at Ebene and then talking about an Orange Grade as CCD. Well, once again I provided an overview of the principles and practices in that rank of Clean Code, and similar to our last meetup we discussed on the various aspect of each principle, whether someone already got in touch with it during studies or work, and how it could affect their future view on their source code. Following are the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade: CCD Orange Grade - Principles Single Level of Abstraction (SLA) Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) Separation of Concerns (SoC) Source Code conventions CCD Orange Grade - Practices Issue Tracking Automated Integration Tests Reading, Reading, Reading Reviews Especially the part on reading technical books got some extra attention. We quickly gathered our views on that and came up with a result that ranges between Zero (0) and up to Fifteen (15) book titles per year. Personally, I'm keeping my progress between Six (6) and Eight (8) titles per year, but at least One (1) per quarter of a year. Which is also connected to the fact that I'm participating in the O'Reilly Reader Review Program and have a another benefit to get access to free books only by writing and publishing a review afterwards. We also had a good exchange on the extended topic of 'Reviews' - which to my opinion is abnormal difficult here in Mauritius for various reasons. As far as I can tell from my experience working with Mauritian software developers, either as colleagues, employees or during consulting services there are unfortunately two dominant pattern on that topic: Keeping quiet Running away Honestly, I have no evidence about why these are the two 'solutions' on reviews but that's the situation that I had to face over the last couple of years. Sitting together and talking about problematic issues, tackling down root causes of de-motivational activities and working on general improvements doesn't seem to have a ground within the IT world of Mauritius. Are you a typist or a creative software craftsman? - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 One very good example that we talked about was the fact of 'job hoppers' as you can easily observe it on someone's CV - those people change job every single year; for no obvious reason! Frankly speaking, I wouldn't even consider an IT person like to for an interview. As a company you're investing money and effort into the abilities of your employees. Hiring someone that won't stay for a longer period is out of question. And sorry to say, these kind of IT guys smell fishy about their capabilities and more likely to cause problems than actually produce productive results. One of the reasons why there is a probation period on an employment contract is to give you the liberty to leave as early as possible in case that you don't like your new position. Don't fool yourself or waste other people's time and money by hanging around a full year only to snatch off the bonus payment... Future outlook: Developer's Conference Even though it is not official yet I already mentioned it several times during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions. The MSCC is looking forward to be able to organise or to contribute to an upcoming IT event. Currently, the rough schedule is set for April 2014 but this mainly depends on availability of location(s), a decent time frame for preparations, and the underlying procedures with public bodies to have it approved and so on. As soon as the information about date and location has been fixed there will be a 'Call for Papers' period in order to attract local IT enthusiasts to apply for a session slot and talk about their field of work and their passion in IT. More to come for sure... My resume of the day It was a great gathering and I am very pleased about the fact that we had another 15 craftsmen (plus 2 businessmen on conference call plus 2 young apprentices) in the same room, talking about IT related topics and sharing their experience as employees and students. Personally, I really appreciated the feedback from the students about their current view on their future career, and I really hope that some of them are going to pursue their dreams. Start promoting yourself and it will happen... Looking forward to your blogs! And last but not least our numbers on Meetup and Facebook have been increased as a direct consequence of this meetup. Please, spread the word about the MSCC and get your friends and colleagues to join our official site. The higher the number of craftsmen we have the better chances we have t achieve something great! Thanks!

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Proxy Issues with Javascript Cross Domain RSS Feed Parsing

- by Amir

This is my Javascript function which grabs an rss feed via the proxy script and then spits out the 5 latest rss items from the feed along with a link to my stylesheet: function getWidget (feed,limit) { if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { xhttp=new XMLHttpRequest() } else { xhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP") } xhttp.open("GET","http://MYSITE/proxy.php?url="+feed,false); xhttp.send(""); xmlDoc=xhttp.responseXML; var x = 1; var div = document.getElementById("div"); srdiv.innerHTML = '<link type="text/css" href="http://MYSITE/css/widget.css" rel="stylesheet" /><div id="rss-title"></div></h3><div id="items"></div><br /><br /><a href="http://MYSITE">Powered by MYSITE</a>'; document.body.appendChild(div); content=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("title"); thelink=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("link"); document.getElementByTagName("rss-title").innerHTML += content[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue; for (x=1;x<=limit;srx++) { y=x; y--; var shout = '<div class="item"><a href="'+thelink[y].childNodes[0].nodeValue+'">'+content[x].childNodes[0].nodeValue+'</a></div>'; document.getElementById("items").innerHTML += shout; } } Here is the the code from proxy.php: $session = curl_init($_GET['url']); // Open the Curl session curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_HEADER, false); // Don't return HTTP headers curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); // Do return the contents of the call $xml = curl_exec($session); // Make the call header("Content-Type: text/xml"); // Set the content type appropriately echo $xml; // Spit out the xml curl_close($session); // And close the session Now when I try to load this on any domain that's not my site nothing loads. I get no JS errors, but I in the Console tab in firebug I get "407 Proxy Authentication Required" So I'm not really sure how to make this work. The goal is to be able to grab the RSS feed, parse it to grab the titles and links and spit it out into some HTML on any website on the web. I"m basically making a simple RSS widget for my site's various RSS feeds. My Javascript is wack Also, I'm really a beginner with Javascript. I know jQuery pretty well, but I wasn't able to use it in this case, because this script will be embeded on any site and I can't really rely on the jQuery library. So I was decided to write some basic Javascript relying on the default XML parsing options available. Any suggestions here would be cool. Thanks! What's with the x and y They way my site creates RSS feeds is that the first title is actually the RSS feed title. The second title is the title of the first item. The first link is the link to the first item. So when using the javascript to get the title, I had to first grab the first title (which is the RSS title) and then start with the second title that being the first title of the item. Sorry for the confusion, but I don't think this is related to my issue. Just wanted to clarify my code.

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JSON Paring - How to show second Level ListView

- by Sophie

I am parsing JSON data into ListView, and successfully parsed first level of JSON in MainActivity.java, where i am showing list of Main Locations, like: Inner Locations Outer Locations Now i want whenever i do tap on Inner Locations then in SecondActivity it should show Delhi and NCR in a List, same goes for Outer Locations as well, in this case whenever user do tap need to show USA JSON look like: { "all": [ { "title": "Inner Locations", "maps": [ { "title": "Delhi", "markers": [ { "name": "Connaught Place", "latitude": 28.632777800000000000, "longitude": 77.219722199999980000 }, { "name": "Lajpat Nagar", "latitude": 28.565617900000000000, "longitude": 77.243389100000060000 } ] }, { "title": "NCR", "markers": [ { "name": "Gurgaon", "latitude": 28.440658300000000000, "longitude": 76.987347699999990000 }, { "name": "Noida", "latitude": 28.570000000000000000, "longitude": 77.319999999999940000 } ] } ] }, { "title": "Outer Locations", "maps": [ { "title": "United States", "markers": [ { "name": "Virgin Islands", "latitude": 18.335765000000000000, "longitude": -64.896335000000020000 }, { "name": "Vegas", "latitude": 36.114646000000000000, "longitude": -115.172816000000010000 } ] } ] } ] } Note: But whenever i do tap on any of the ListItem in first activity, not getting any list in SecondActivity, why ? MainActivity.java:- @Override protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) { // Create an array arraylist = new ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>>(); // Retrieve JSON Objects from the given URL address jsonobject = JSONfunctions .getJSONfromURL("http://10.0.2.2/locations.json"); try { // Locate the array name in JSON jsonarray = jsonobject.getJSONArray("all"); for (int i = 0; i < jsonarray.length(); i++) { HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(); jsonobject = jsonarray.getJSONObject(i); // Retrieve JSON Objects map.put("title", jsonobject.getString("title")); arraylist.add(map); } } catch (JSONException e) { Log.e("Error", e.getMessage()); e.printStackTrace(); } return null; } @Override protected void onPostExecute(Void args) { // Locate the listview in listview_main.xml listview = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listview); // Pass the results into ListViewAdapter.java adapter = new ListViewAdapter(MainActivity.this, arraylist); // Set the adapter to the ListView listview.setAdapter(adapter); // Close the progressdialog mProgressDialog.dismiss(); listview.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() { @Override public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) { Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, String.valueOf(position), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show(); // TODO Auto-generated method stub Intent sendtosecond = new Intent(MainActivity.this, SecondActivity.class); // Pass all data rank sendtosecond.putExtra("title", arraylist.get(position).get(MainActivity.TITLE)); Log.d("Tapped Item::", arraylist.get(position).get(MainActivity.TITLE)); startActivity(sendtosecond); } }); } } } SecondActivity.java: @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Get the view from listview_main.xml setContentView(R.layout.listview_main); Intent in = getIntent(); strReceived = in.getStringExtra("title"); Log.d("Received Data::", strReceived); // Execute DownloadJSON AsyncTask new DownloadJSON().execute(); } // DownloadJSON AsyncTask private class DownloadJSON extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> { @Override protected void onPreExecute() { super.onPreExecute(); } @Override protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) { // Create an array arraylist = new ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>>(); // Retrieve JSON Objects from the given URL address jsonobject = JSONfunctions .getJSONfromURL("http://10.0.2.2/locations.json"); try { // Locate the array name in JSON jsonarray = jsonobject.getJSONArray("maps"); for (int i = 0; i < jsonarray.length(); i++) { HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(); jsonobject = jsonarray.getJSONObject(i); // Retrieve JSON Objects map.put("title", jsonobject.getString("title")); arraylist.add(map); } } catch (JSONException e) { Log.e("Error", e.getMessage()); e.printStackTrace(); } return null; }

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MVC design in Cocoa - are all 3 always necessary? Also: naming conventions, where to put Controller

- by Nektarios

I'm new to MVC although I've read a lot of papers and information on the web. I know it's somewhat ambiguous and there are many different interpretations of MVC patterns.. but the differences seem somewhat minimal My main question is - are M, V, and C always going to be necessary to be doing this right? I haven't seen anyone address this in anything I've read. Examples (I'm working in Cocoa/Obj-c although that shouldn't much matter).. 1) If I have a simple image on my GUI, or a text entry field that is just for a user's convenience and isn't saved or modified, these both would be V (view) but there's no M (no data and no domain processing going on), and no C to bridge them. So I just have some aspects that are "V" - seems fine 2) I have 2 different and visible windows that each have a button on them labeled as "ACTIVATE FOO" - when a user clicks the button on either, both buttons press in and change to say "DEACTIVATE FOO" and a third window appears with label "FOO". Clicking the button again will change the button on both windows to "ACTIVATE FOO" and will remove the third "FOO" window. In this case, my V consists of the buttons on both windows, and I guess also the third window (maybe all 3 windows). I definitely have a C, my Controller object will know about these buttons and windows and will get their clicks and hold generic states regarding windows and buttons. However, whether I have 1 button or 10 button, my window is called "FOO" or my window is called "BAR", this doesn't matter. There's no domain knowledge or data here - just control of views. So in this example, I really have "V" and "C" but no "M" - is that ok? 3) Final example, which I am running in to the most. I have a text entry field as my View. When I enter text in this, say a number representing gravity, I keep it in a Model that may do things like compute physics of a ball while taking in to account my gravity parameter. Here I have a V and an M, but I don't understand why I would need to add a C - a controller would just accept the signals from the View and pass it along to the Model, and vice versa. Being as the C is just a pure passthrough, it's really "junk" code and isn't making things any more reusable in my opinion. In most situations, when something changes I will need to change the C and M both in nearly identical ways. I realize it's probably an MVC beginner's mistake to think most situations call for only V and M.. leads me in to next subject 4) In Cocoa / Xcode / IB, I guess my Controllers should always be an instantiated object in IB? That is, I lay all of my "V" components in IB, and for each collection of View objects (things that are related) I should have an instantiated Controller? And then perhaps my Models should NOT be found in IB, and instead only found as classes in Xcode that tie in with Controller code found there. Is this accurate? This could explain why you'd have a Controller that is not really adding value - because you are keeping consistent.. 5) What about naming these things - for my above example about FOO / BAR maybe something that ends in Controller would be the C, like FancyWindowOpeningController, etc? And for models - should I suffix them with like GravityBallPhysicsModel etc, or should I just name those whatever I like? I haven't seen enough code to know what's out there in the wild and I want to get on the right track early on Thank you in advance for setting me straight or letting me know I'm on the right track. I feel like I'm starting to get it and most of what I say here makes sense, but validation of my guessing would help me feel confident..

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Android Alert Dialog Extract User Choice Radio Button?

- by kel196

Apologies for any coding ignorance, I am a beginner and am still learning! I am creating a quiz app which reads questions off a SQL database and plots them as points on a google map. As the user clicks each point, an alert dialog appears with radio buttons to answer some question. My radiobuttons are in CustomItemizedOverlay file and when I click submit, I want to be able to send the user choice back to the database, save it and return to the user if their answer is correct. My question is this, how do I pass the user choice out once the submit button has been clicked? I tried making a global variable to read what was selected to no avail. Any suggestions would be appreciated! If I need to post any other code, please ask and I will do so ASAP! package uk.ac.ucl.cege.cegeg077.uceskkw; import java.util.ArrayList; import android.app.AlertDialog; import android.content.Context; import android.content.DialogInterface; import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable; import android.widget.Toast; import com.google.android.maps.ItemizedOverlay; import com.google.android.maps.OverlayItem; public class CustomItemizedOverlay2 extends ItemizedOverlay<OverlayItem> { private ArrayList<OverlayItem> mapOverlays = new ArrayList<OverlayItem>(); private Context context; public CustomItemizedOverlay2(Drawable defaultMarker) { super(boundCenterBottom(defaultMarker)); } public CustomItemizedOverlay2(Drawable defaultMarker, Context context) { this(defaultMarker); this.context = context; } @Override protected OverlayItem createItem(int i) { return mapOverlays.get(i); } @Override public int size() { return mapOverlays.size(); } @Override protected boolean onTap(int index) { OverlayItem item = mapOverlays.get(index); // gets the snippet from ParseKMLAndDisplayOnMap and splits it back into // a string. final CharSequence allanswers[] = item.getSnippet().split("::"); AlertDialog.Builder dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(context); dialog.setIcon(R.drawable.easterbunnyegg); dialog.setTitle(item.getTitle()); dialog.setSingleChoiceItems(allanswers, -1, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { Toast.makeText(context, "You have selected " + allanswers[whichButton], Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } }); dialog.setPositiveButton(R.string.button_submit, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { dialog.dismiss(); // int selectedPosition = ((AlertDialog) // dialog).getListView().getCheckedItemPosition(); Toast.makeText(context, "hi!", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT) .show(); } }); dialog.setNegativeButton(R.string.button_close, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { dialog.dismiss(); // on cancel button action } }); AlertDialog question = dialog.create(); question.show(); return true; } public void addOverlay(OverlayItem overlay) { mapOverlays.add(overlay); this.populate(); } }

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Please recommend me intermediate-to-advanced Python books to buy.

- by anonnoir

I'm in the final year, final semester of my law degree, and will be graduating very soon. (April, to be specific.) But before I begin practice, I plan to take 2 two months off, purely for serious programming study. So I'm currently looking for some Python-related books, gauged intermediate to advanced, which are interesting (because of the subject matter itself) and possibly useful to my future line of work. I've identified 2 possible purchases at the moment: Natural Language Processing with Python. The law deals mostly with words, and I've quite a number of ideas as to where I might go with NLP. Data extraction, summaries, client management systems linked with document templates, etc. Programming Collective Intelligence. This book fascinates me, because I've always liked the idea of machine learning (and I'm currently studying it by the side too, for fun). I'd like to build/play around with Web 2.0 applications; and who knows if I can apply some of the things I learn to my legal work. (E.g. Playground experiments to determine how and under what circumstances judges might be biased, by forcing algorithms to pore through judgments and calculate similarities, etc.) Please feel free to criticize my current choices, but do at least offer or recommend other books that I should read in their place. My budget can deal with 4 books, max. These books will be used heavily throughout the 2 months; I will be reading them back to back, absorbing the explanations given, and hacking away at their code. Also, the books themselves should satisfy 2 main criteria: Application. The book must teach how to solve problems. I like reading theory, but I want to build things and solve problems first. Even playful applications are fine, because games and experiments always have real-world applications sooner or later. Readability. I like reading technical books, no matter how difficult they are. I enjoy the effort and the feeling that you're learning something. But the book shouldn't contain code or explanations that are too cryptic or erratic. Even if it's difficult, the book's content should be accessible with focused reading. Note: I realize that I am somewhat of a beginner to the whole programming thing, so please don't put me down. But from experience, I think it's better to aim up and leave my comfort zone when learning new things, rather than to just remain stagnant the way I am. (At least the difficulty gives me focus: i.e. if a programmer can be that good, perhaps if I sustain my own efforts I too can be as good as him someday.) If anything, I'm also a very determined person, so two months of day-to-night intensive programming study with nothing else on my mind should, I think, give me a bit of a fighting chance to push my programming skills to a much higher level.

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NSMutableArray memory leak when reloading objects

- by Davin

I am using Three20/TTThumbsviewcontroller to load photos. I am struggling since quite a some time now to fix memory leak in setting photosource. I am beginner in Object C & iOS memory management. Please have a look at following code and suggest any obvious mistakes or any errors in declaring and releasing variables. -- PhotoViewController.h @interface PhotoViewController : TTThumbsViewController <UIPopoverControllerDelegate,CategoryPickerDelegate,FilterPickerDelegate,UISearchBarDelegate>{ ...... NSMutableArray *_photoList; ...... @property(nonatomic,retain) NSMutableArray *photoList; -- PhotoViewController.m @implementation PhotoViewController .... @synthesize photoList; ..... - (void)LoadPhotoSource:(NSString *)query:(NSString *)title:(NSString* )stoneName{ NSLog(@"log- in loadPhotosource method"); if (photoList == nil) photoList = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init ]; [photoList removeAllObjects]; @try { sqlite3 *db; NSFileManager *fileMgr = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; NSString* documentsPath = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *dbPath = [documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent: @"DB.s3db"]; BOOL success = [fileMgr fileExistsAtPath:dbPath]; if(!success) { NSLog(@"Cannot locate database file '%@'.", dbPath); } if(!(sqlite3_open([dbPath UTF8String], &db) == SQLITE_OK)) { NSLog(@"An error has occured."); } NSString *_sql = query;//[NSString stringWithFormat:@"SELECT * FROM Products where CategoryId = %i",[categoryId integerValue]]; const char *sql = [_sql UTF8String]; sqlite3_stmt *sqlStatement; if(sqlite3_prepare(db, sql, -1, &sqlStatement, NULL) != SQLITE_OK) { NSLog(@"Problem with prepare statement"); } if ([stoneName length] != 0) { NSString *wildcardSearch = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%%",[stoneName stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]]; sqlite3_bind_text(sqlStatement, 1, [wildcardSearch UTF8String], -1, SQLITE_STATIC); } while (sqlite3_step(sqlStatement)==SQLITE_ROW) { NSString* urlSmallImage = @"Mahallati_NoImage.png"; NSString* urlThumbImage = @"Mahallati_NoImage.png"; NSString *designNo = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *) sqlite3_column_text(sqlStatement,2)]; designNo = [designNo stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]; NSString *desc = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *) sqlite3_column_text(sqlStatement,7)]; desc = [desc stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]; NSString *caption = designNo;//[designNo stringByAppendingString:desc]; caption = [caption stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]; NSString *smallFilePath = [documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Small%@.JPG",designNo] ]; smallFilePath = [smallFilePath stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]; if ([fileMgr fileExistsAtPath:smallFilePath]){ urlSmallImage = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Small%@.JPG",designNo]; } NSString *thumbFilePath = [documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Thumb%@.JPG",designNo] ]; thumbFilePath = [thumbFilePath stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]; if ([fileMgr fileExistsAtPath:thumbFilePath]){ urlThumbImage = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Thumb%@.JPG",designNo]; } NSNumber *photoProductId = [NSNumber numberWithInt:(int)sqlite3_column_int(sqlStatement, 0)]; NSNumber *photoPrice = [NSNumber numberWithInt:(int)sqlite3_column_int(sqlStatement, 6)]; char *productNo1 = sqlite3_column_text(sqlStatement, 3); NSString* productNo; if (productNo1 == NULL) productNo = nil; else productNo = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:productNo1]; Photo *jphoto = [[[Photo alloc] initWithCaption:caption urlLarge:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"documents://%@",urlSmallImage] urlSmall:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"documents://%@",urlSmallImage] urlThumb:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"documents://%@",urlThumbImage] size:CGSizeMake(123, 123) productId:photoProductId price:photoPrice description:desc designNo:designNo productNo:productNo ] autorelease]; [photoList addObject:jphoto]; [jphoto release]; } } @catch (NSException *exception) { NSLog(@"An exception occured: %@", [exception reason]); } self.photoSource = [[[MockPhotoSource alloc] initWithType:MockPhotoSourceNormal title:[NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@",title] photos: photoList photos2:nil] autorelease]; } Memory leaks happen when calling above LoadPhotosource method again with different query... I feel its something wrong in declaring NSMutableArray (photoList), but can't figure out how to fix memory leak. Any suggestion is really appreciated.

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Simple Modal Window + jQuery Cookie

- by w00t

I use this plugin jQuery Simple Modal Window to display a modal window. I also use jQuery Cookie Plugin (jquery.cookie.js) to set cookies. How can I mix jQuery Simple Modal Window and jQuery Cookie? It`s necessary that after clicking on the "Continue" button, the cookies were set and the modal window in the future doesnt appear to users. I'm sorry, I'm just the beginner. This is my code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title></title> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.cookie.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { //Put in the DIV id you want to display launchWindow('#alert'); //if close button is clicked $('.window .close').click(function (e) { $('#mask').hide(); $('.window').hide(); }); }); //if close button is clicked $('.window .close').click(function (e) { //Cancel the link behavior e.preventDefault(); $('#mask').hide(); $('.window').hide(); }); //if mask is clicked $('#mask').click(function () { $(this).hide(); $('.window').hide(); }); function launchWindow(id) { //Get the screen height and width var maskHeight = $(document).height(); var maskWidth = $(window).width(); //Set heigth and width to mask to fill up the whole screen $('#mask').css({'width':maskWidth,'height':maskHeight}); //transition effect $('#mask').fadeIn(1000); $('#mask').fadeTo("slow",0.95); //Get the window height and width var winH = $(window).height(); var winW = $(window).width(); //Set the popup window to center $(id).css('top', winH/2-$(id).height()/2); $(id).css('left', winW/2-$(id).width()/2); //transition effect $(id).fadeIn(2000); } </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $('#button').click(function(e) { $.cookie('the_cookie', '1', { expires: 999 }); }); }); </script> </head> <body>  <div id='boxes'> <div id='alert' class='window'> some text... <input type="button" id="button" value="" class='close warn_buttons'/> </div>  <div id='mask'></div> </div>  </body> </html>

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Rails ActiveRecord friendly code from a Complex Join, Sum, and Group query

- by Chad M

PROBLEM Hello, I am having no luck trying to break down this SQL statement into ActiveRecord/Rails friendly code and I'd like to learn how I can avoid a find_by_sql statement in this situation. Scenario I have users that create audits when they perform an action. Each audit is of a specific audit_activity. Each audit_activity is worth a certain number of points, based on score_weight. I need to find the total scores of each user, based on their total accumulated audit_activity score_weights. Eventually I'll need to rank them which means adding a sort to this as well. My Code Here is my sql and simplified versions of the tables in question. Any thoughts? SQL with full column names (for clarity) SELECT users.id, u.email, SUM(audit_activity.score_weight) FROM users JOIN audits ON users.id = audits.user_id JOIN audit_activities ON audit_activities.id = audits.audit_activity_id GROUP BY users.id; Models: User, Audit, AuditActivity User fields: id, email class User < ActiveRecord::Base include Clearance::User has_many :audits end Audit fields: id, user_id, audit_activity_id class Audit < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :audit_activity end AuditActivity fields: id, score_weight class AuditActivity < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :audits end Example Data Here is a set of SQL statements so you can play with similar data I'm working with and see what comes up when the concerned query is run. You should just be able to copy/paste the whole thing into a database query browser. CREATE TABLE users( id INTEGER NOT NULL, email TEXT (25), PRIMARY KEY (id) ); CREATE TABLE audits( id INTEGER NOT NULL, user_id INTEGER, audit_activity_id INTEGER, PRIMARY KEY (id) ); CREATE TABLE audit_activities( id INTEGER NOT NULL, score_weight INTEGER, PRIMARY KEY (id) ); INSERT INTO users(id, email) VALUES(1, "[email protected]"); INSERT INTO users(id, email) VALUES(2, "[email protected]"); INSERT INTO users(id, email) VALUES(3, "[email protected]"); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(1, 1, 1); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(2, 1, 2); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(3, 1, 1); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(4, 1, 3); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(5, 1, 1); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(6, 1, 4); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(7, 2, 4); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(8, 2, 4); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(9, 2, 4); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(10, 3, 3); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(11, 3, 2); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(12, 3, 2); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(13, 3, 2); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(14, 3, 3); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(15, 3, 1); INSERT INTO audits(id, user_id, audit_activity_id) VALUES(16, 3, 1); INSERT INTO audit_activities(id, score_weight) VALUES(1, 1); INSERT INTO audit_activities(id, score_weight) VALUES(2, 2); INSERT INTO audit_activities(id, score_weight) VALUES(3, 7); INSERT INTO audit_activities(id, score_weight) VALUES(4, 11); The Query Again, here is the query. SELECT u.id, u.email, SUM(aa.score_weight) FROM users u JOIN audits a ON u.id = a.user_id JOIN audit_activities aa ON aa.id = a.audit_activity_id GROUP BY u.id; Many Thanks, Chad

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How to make a character jump, both on objects and just normal jump.

- by haxerflaxer

Hi, I'm kind of a beginner when it comes to java programming, and I have a project in school where I'm going to create a game much like Icy Tower. And my question is, how am I going to write to make the character stand on the ground and be able to jump up on objects? Here's my code so far: Part one package Sprites; import java.awt.Image; import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; import javax.swing.ImageIcon; public class jumper { private String jump = "oka.png"; private int dx; private int dy; private int x; private int y; private Image image; public jumper() { ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource(jump)); image = ii.getImage(); x = 50; y = 100; } public void move() { x += dx; y += dy; } public int getX() { return x; } public int getY() { return y; } public Image getImage() { return image; } public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { int key = e.getKeyCode(); if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { dx = -5; ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("oki.png")); image = ii.getImage(); } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT){ dx = 5; ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("oka.png")); image = ii.getImage(); } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_SPACE) { dy = -5; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { dy = 5; } } public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) { int key = e.getKeyCode(); if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { dx = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT){ dx = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_SPACE) { dy = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { dy = 0; } } } Part two package Sprites; import java.awt.Color; import java.awt.Graphics; import java.awt.Graphics2D; import java.awt.Toolkit; import java.awt.event.ActionEvent; import java.awt.event.ActionListener; import java.awt.event.KeyAdapter; import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; import javax.swing.JPanel; import javax.swing.Timer; public class board extends JPanel implements ActionListener { private Timer klocka; private jumper jumper; public board() { addKeyListener(new TAdapter()); setFocusable(true); setBackground(Color.WHITE); setDoubleBuffered(true); jumper = new jumper(); klocka = new Timer(5, this); klocka.start(); } public void paint(Graphics g) { super.paint(g); Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g; g2d.drawImage(jumper.getImage(), jumper.getX(), jumper.getY(), this); Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync(); g.dispose(); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { jumper.move(); repaint(); } private class TAdapter extends KeyAdapter { public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) { jumper.keyReleased(e); } public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { jumper.keyPressed(e); } } } Part three package Sprites; import javax.swing.JFrame; public class RType extends JFrame { public RType() { add(new board()); setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); setSize(800, 600); setLocationRelativeTo(null); setTitle("R - type"); setResizable(false); setVisible(true); } public static void main(String[] args) { new RType(); } } I really appreciate all the help I can get!

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How do you make a character jump, both on objects and just normal jump?

- by haxerflaxer

Hi, I'm kind of a beginner when it comes to java programming, and I have a project in school where I'm going to create a game much like Icy Tower. And my question is, how am I going to write to make the character stand on the ground and be able to jump up on objects? Here's my code so far: Part one package Sprites; import java.awt.Image; import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; import javax.swing.ImageIcon; public class jumper { private String jump = "oka.png"; private int dx; private int dy; private int x; private int y; private Image image; public jumper() { ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource(jump)); image = ii.getImage(); x = 50; y = 100; } public void move() { x += dx; y += dy; } public int getX() { return x; } public int getY() { return y; } public Image getImage() { return image; } public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { int key = e.getKeyCode(); if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { dx = -5; ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("oki.png")); image = ii.getImage(); } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT){ dx = 5; ImageIcon ii = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("oka.png")); image = ii.getImage(); } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_SPACE) { dy = -5; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { dy = 5; } } public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) { int key = e.getKeyCode(); if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { dx = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT){ dx = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_SPACE) { dy = 0; } if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { dy = 0; } } } Part two package Sprites; import java.awt.Color; import java.awt.Graphics; import java.awt.Graphics2D; import java.awt.Toolkit; import java.awt.event.ActionEvent; import java.awt.event.ActionListener; import java.awt.event.KeyAdapter; import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; import javax.swing.JPanel; import javax.swing.Timer; public class board extends JPanel implements ActionListener { private Timer klocka; private jumper jumper; public board() { addKeyListener(new TAdapter()); setFocusable(true); setBackground(Color.WHITE); setDoubleBuffered(true); jumper = new jumper(); klocka = new Timer(5, this); klocka.start(); } public void paint(Graphics g) { super.paint(g); Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g; g2d.drawImage(jumper.getImage(), jumper.getX(), jumper.getY(), this); Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync(); g.dispose(); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { jumper.move(); repaint(); } private class TAdapter extends KeyAdapter { public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) { jumper.keyReleased(e); } public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { jumper.keyPressed(e); } } } Part three package Sprites; import javax.swing.JFrame; public class RType extends JFrame { public RType() { add(new board()); setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); setSize(800, 600); setLocationRelativeTo(null); setTitle("R - type"); setResizable(false); setVisible(true); } public static void main(String[] args) { new RType(); } } I really appreciate all the help I can get!

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Need help with a memory management problem in my game model

- by user309030

Hi, I'm a beginner level programmer trying to make a game app for the iphone and I've encountered a possible issue with the memory management (exc_bad_access) of my program so far. I've searched and read dozens of articles regarding memory management (including apple's docs) but I still can't figure out what exactly is wrong with my codes. So I would really appreciate it if someone can help clear up the mess I made for myself. //in the .h file @property(nonatomic,retain) NSMutableArray *fencePoleArray; @property(nonatomic,retain) NSMutableArray *fencePoleImageArray; @property(nonatomic,retain) NSMutableArray *fenceImageArray; //in the .m file - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.gameState = gameStatePaused; fencePoleArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; fencePoleImageArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; fenceImageArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; mainField = CGRectMake(10, 35, 310, 340); .......... [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.05 target:self selector:@selector(gameLoop) userInfo:nil repeats:YES]; } So basically, the player touches the screen to set up the fences/poles -(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { if(.......) { ....... } else { UITouch *touch = [[event allTouches] anyObject]; currentTapLoc = [touch locationInView:touch.view]; NSLog(@"%i, %i", (int)currentTapLoc.x, (int)currentTapLoc.y); if(CGRectContainsPoint(mainField, currentTapLoc)) { if([self checkFence]) { onFencePole++; //this 3 set functions adds their respective objects into the 3 NSMutableArrays using addObject: [self setFencePole]; [self setFenceImage]; [self setFencePoleImage]; ....... } } else { ....... } } } } The setFence function (setFenceImage and setFencePoleImage is similar to this) -(void)setFencePole { Fence *fencePole; if (!elecFence) { fencePole = [[Fence alloc] initFence:onFencePole fenceType:1 fencePos:currentTapLoc]; } else { fencePole = [[Fence alloc] initFence:onFencePole fenceType:2 fencePos:currentTapLoc]; } [fencePoleArray addObject:fencePole]; [fencePole release]; and whenever I press a button in the game, endOpenState is called to clear away all the extra images(fence/poles) on the screen and also to remove all existing objects in the 3 NSMutableArray. Point is to remove all the objects in the NSMutableArrays but keep the array itself so it can be reused later. -(void)endOpenState { ........ int xMax = [fencePoleArray count]; int yMax = [fenceImageArray count]; for (int x = 0; x < xMax; x++) { [[fencePoleImageArray objectAtIndex:x] removeFromSuperview]; } for (int y = 0; y < yMax; y++) { [[fenceImageArray objectAtIndex:y] removeFromSuperview]; } [fencePoleArray removeAllObjects]; [fencePoleImageArray removeAllObjects]; [fenceImageArray removeAllObjects]; ........ } The crash happens here at the checkFence function. -(BOOL)checkFence { if (onFencePole == 0) { return YES; } else if (onFencePole >= 1 && onFencePole < currentMaxFencePole - 1) { CGPoint tempPoint1 = currentTapLoc; CGPoint tempPoint2 = [[fencePoleArray objectAtIndex:onFencePole-1] returnPos]; // the crash happens at this line if ([self checkDistance:tempPoint1 point2:tempPoint2]) { return YES; } else { return NO; } } else if (onFencePole == currentMaxFencePole - 1) { ...... } else { return NO; } } So the problem here is, everything works fine until checkFence is called the 2nd time after endOpenState is called. So its like tap_screen - tap_screen - press_button_to_call_endOpenState - tap screen - tap_screen - crash What I'm thinking of is that fencePoleArray got messed up when I used [fencePoleArray removeAllObjects] because it doesn't crash when I comment it out. It would really be great if someone can explain to me what went wrong. And thanks in advance.

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Image change on mouseover with jQuery..

- by playahabana

Hi, I am a comlete beginner to pretty much all things web design and am trying to construct my first website. I am attempting to hand code it without the ue of a CMS in order to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. I am trying to make an imge change on mouseover for my top nav menu, and have the following jQuery functions: $(document).ready(function(){ $(".navlist img").each(function) { rollsrc = $(this).attr("src"); rollON = rollsrc.replace(/.jpg$/ig,"_link.png"); $("<img>").attr("src",rollON); $(".navlist a").mouseover(function(){ }); imgsrc= $(this).children("img").attr("src"); matches = imgsrc.match(/_link.png); if (!matches) { imgsrcON = imgsrc.replace(/.jpg$/ig,"_link.png"); $(this).children("img").attr("src", imagesrcON); } $(".navlist a").mouseout(function(){ $(this).children("img").attr("src", imgsrc); }); }); my html is as follows: <div id="nav"> <ul class="navmenu"> <li><a href="index.html"><img class="swap" src="images/links/home.jpg" alt="Home" border="none"></a></li> <li><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/ourbar.jpg" alt="Our Bar" border="none"></a> <ul class="navdrop"> <li ><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/cockteles.jpg" alt="Our Cocktails" border="none"></a></li> <li ><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/celebrate.jpg" alt="Celebrate in Style" border="none"></a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/ourcigars.jpg" alt="Our Cigars" border="none"></a> <ul class="navdrop"> <li><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/edicionlimitadas.jpg" alt="Edition Limitadas" border="none"></a></li> <li><a href="our_cigars.html"><img class="swap" src="images/links/cigartasting.jpg" alt="Cigar Tastings" border="none"></a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/personalcigar.jpg" alt="Personal Cigar Roller" border="none"></a></li> <li><a href="our_cigars.html"><img class="swap" src="images/links/photogallery.jpg" alt="Photo Gallery" border="none"></a></li> <li><a href="#"><img class="swap" src="images/links/contactus.jpg" alt="Contact Us" border="none"></a></li> </ul></div></div> the image src for the alt image is in the form eg."images/links/home_link.png" and is the same for every image. I have checked this and checked this, could some body please give me a pointer as to where I am going wrong? Or a pointer to a tutorial for this effect? I have looked at a few and this seems to be the best for what I am attempting, but as I said I don't really know what I'm doing so any advice gratefully received.....

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C++ Compound Interest Exercise

- by Lameste

I'm a beginner trying to learn C++ using "C++ Primer Plus Sixth Edition". I'm on Chapter 5, going over loops. Anyways I was doing this programming exercise from the book, the problem is: Daphne invests $100 at 10% simple interest.That is, every year, the investment earns 10% of the original investment, or $10 each and every year: interest = 0.10 × original balance At the same time, Cleo invests $100 at 5% compound interest.That is, interest is 5% of the current balance, including previous additions of interest: interest = 0.05 × current balance Cleo earns 5% of $100 the first year, giving her $105.The next year she earns 5% of $105, or $5.25, and so on.Write a program that finds how many years it takes for the value of Cleo’s investment to exceed the value of Daphne’s investment and then displays the value of both investments at that time. Here is the code I have written for this exercise, I'm not getting good results though. #include <iostream> #include <array> double Daphne(int, double, double); double Chleo(double, double); int main() { using namespace std; int p = 100; //Principle double i1 = 0.1; // 10% interest rate double i2 = 0.05; // 5% interest rate double dInv = 0; //Daphnes investment double cInv = 0; // Chleos investment int t=1; //Starting at year 1 double s1 = 0; //Sum 1 for Daphne double s2 = 0; // Sum 2 for Chleo s1 = p + 10; //Initial interest (base case after year 1) for Daphne s2 = p + (i2*p); //Initial interest (base case after year 1) for Chleo /*cout << s1 << endl; cout << s2 << endl;*/ while (cInv < dInv) { dInv = Daphne(p, i1, s1); cInv = Chleo(i2, s2); t++; } cout << "The time taken for Chleos investment to exceed Daphnes was: " << t << endl; cout << "Daphnes investment at " << t << " years is: " << dInv << endl; cout << "Chleos invesment at " << t << " years is: " << cInv << endl; system("pause"); return 0; } double Daphne(int p, double i, double s1) { s1 = s1 + (p*i); return s1; } double Chleo(double i, double s2){ s2 = s2 + (s2*i); return s2; } Output from console: The time taken for Chleos investment to exceed Daphnes was: 1 Daphnes investment at 1 years is: 0 Chleos invesment at 1 years is: 0 Press any key to continue . . . Can anyone explain why I'm getting this current result? The while loop is supposed to continue executing statements until Chleo's investment exceeds Daphnes.

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Java JNI leak in c++ process.

- by user662056

Hi all.. I am beginner in Java. My problem is: I am calling a Java class's method from c++. For this i am using JNI. Everythings works correct, but i have some memory LEAKS in the process of c++ program... So.. i did simple example.. 1) I create a java machine (jint res = JNI_CreateJavaVM(&jvm, (void**)&env, &vm_args);) 2) then i take a pointer on java class (jclass cls = env-FindClass("test_jni")); 3) after that i create a java class object object, by calling the constructor (testJavaObject = env-NewObject(cls, testConstruct);) AT THIS very moment in the process of c++ program is allocated 10 MB of memory 4) Next i delete the class , the object, and the Java Machine .. AT THIS very moment the 10 MB of memory are not free ................. So below i have a few lines of code c++ program void main() { { //Env JNIEnv *env; // java virtual machine JavaVM *jvm; JavaVMOption* options = new JavaVMOption[1]; //class paths options[0].optionString = "-Djava.class.path=C:/Sun/SDK/jdk/lib;D:/jms_test/java_jni_leak;"; // other options JavaVMInitArgs vm_args; vm_args.version = JNI_VERSION_1_6; vm_args.options = options; vm_args.nOptions = 1; vm_args.ignoreUnrecognized = false; // alloc part of memory (for test) before CreateJavaVM char* testMem0 = new char[1000]; for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i) testMem0[i] = 'a'; // create java VM jint res = JNI_CreateJavaVM(&jvm, (void**)&env, &vm_args); // alloc part of memory (for test) after CreateJavaVM char* testMem1 = new char[1000]; for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i) testMem1[i] = 'b'; //Creating java virtual machine jclass cls = env->FindClass("test_jni"); // Id of a class constructor jmethodID testConstruct = env->GetMethodID(cls, "<init>", "()V"); // The Java Object // Calling the constructor, is allocated 10 MB of memory in c++ process jobject testJavaObject = env->NewObject(cls, testConstruct); // function DeleteLocalRef, // In this very moment memory not free env->DeleteLocalRef(testJavaObject); env->DeleteLocalRef(cls); // 1!!!!!!!!!!!!! res = jvm->DestroyJavaVM(); delete[] testMem0; delete[] testMem1; // In this very moment memory not free. TO /// } int gg = 0; } java class (it just allocs some memory) import java.util.*; public class test_jni { ArrayList<String> testStringList; test_jni() { System.out.println("start constructor"); testStringList = new ArrayList<String>(); for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; ++i) { // ??????? ?????? testStringList.add("TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEST"); } } } process memory view, after crating javaVM and java object: testMem0 and testMem1 - test memory, that's allocated by c++. ************** testMem0 ************** JNI_CreateJavaVM ************** testMem1 ************** // create java object jobject testJavaObject = env->NewObject(cls, testConstruct); ************** process memory view, after destroy javaVM and delete ref on java object: testMem0 and testMem1 are deleted to; ************** JNI_CreateJavaVM ************** // create java object jobject testJavaObject = env->NewObject(cls, testConstruct); ************** So testMem0 and testMem1 is deleted, But JavaVM and Java object not.... Sow what i do wrong... and how i can free memory in the c++ process program.

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posting array of text fields using jquery and ajax

- by tabia

i dont want to use serialize() function please help me with this. I am a beginner html <input type='button' value='Add Tier Flavor' id='Add'> <input type='button' value='Remove Tier Flavor' id='Remove'> <div id='batch'> <div id="BatchDiv1"> <h4>Batch #1 :</h4> <label>Flavor<input class="textbox" type='text' id="fl1" name="fl[]" value=""/></label></br> <label>Filling<input class="textbox" type='text' id="fi1" name="fi[]" value="" /></label></br> <label>Frosting<input class="textbox" type='text' id="fr1" name="fr[]" value=""/></label></br> </div> </div> <br> </div> this is a dynamically added fields using javascript the code is: javascript <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.1.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ var counter = 2; $("#Add").click(function () { if(counter>5){ alert("Only 5 Tiers allow"); return false; } var newBatchBoxDiv = $(document.createElement('div')).attr("id", 'BatchDiv' + counter); newBatchBoxDiv.html('<h4>Batch #'+ counter + ' : </h4>' + '<label> Flavor<input type="text" name="fl[]" id="fl' + counter + '" value=""></label><br>'+ '<label> Filling<input type="text" name="fi[]" id="fi' + counter + '" value=""></label><br>'+ '<label> Frosting<input type="text" name="fr[]" id="fr' + counter + '" value=""></label><br>' ); newBatchBoxDiv.appendTo("#batch"); counter++; }); $("#Remove").click(function () { if(counter==1){ alert("No more tier to remove"); return false; } counter--; $("#BatchDiv" + counter).remove(); }); }); </script> i am trying to post the values in an array to post it onto next .php page i am using this var user_cupfl = $('input[name^="fl"]').serialize(); var user_cupfi = $('input[name^="fi"]').serialize(); var user_cupfr = $('input[name^="fr"]').serialize(); serialize is not passing the values. :( on second page i am trying to mail it using $message .= "<tr><td><strong>Cake Flavors(according to batches):</strong> </td><td><pre>" .implode("\n", $user_cupfl). "</pre></td></tr>"; $message .= "<tr><td><strong>Filling type (Inside the cake):</strong> </td><td><pre>" .implode("\n", $user_cupfi). "</pre></td></tr>"; $message .= "<tr><td><strong>Frosting type (top of the cake):</strong> </td><td><pre>" .implode("\n", $user_cupfr). "</pre></td></tr>"; i m posting array like this $user_cupfl=filter_var($_POST["userCupfl"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); $user_cupfi=filter_var($_POST["userCupfi"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); $user_cupfr=filter_var($_POST["userCupfr"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); your replies will be highly appreciated

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10 Essential Tools for building ASP.NET Websites

- by Stephen Walther

I recently put together a simple public website created with ASP.NET for my company at Superexpert.com. I was surprised by the number of free tools that I ended up using to put together the website. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to create a list of essential tools for building ASP.NET websites. These tools work equally well with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Performance Tools After reading Steve Souders two (very excellent) books on front-end website performance High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites, I have been super sensitive to front-end website performance. According to Souders’ Performance Golden Rule: “Optimize front-end performance first, that's where 80% or more of the end-user response time is spent” You can use the tools below to reduce the size of the images, JavaScript files, and CSS files used by an ASP.NET application. 1. Sprite and Image Optimization Framework CSS sprites were first described in an article written for A List Apart entitled CSS sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. When you use sprites, you combine multiple images used by a website into a single image. Next, you use CSS trickery to display particular sub-images from the combined image in a webpage. The primary advantage of sprites is that they reduce the number of requests required to display a webpage. Requesting a single large image is faster than requesting multiple small images. In general, the more resources – images, JavaScript files, CSS files – that must be moved across the wire, the slower your website. However, most people avoid using sprites because they require a lot of work. You need to combine all of the images and write just the right CSS rules to display the sub-images. The Microsoft Sprite and Image Optimization Framework enables you to avoid all of this work. The framework combines the images for you automatically. Furthermore, the framework includes an ASP.NET Web Forms control and an ASP.NET MVC helper that makes it easy to display the sub-images. You can download the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework from CodePlex at http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/50869. The Sprite and Image Optimization Framework was written by Morgan McClean who worked in the office next to mine at Microsoft. Morgan was a scary smart Intern from Canada and we discussed the Framework while he was building it (I was really excited to learn that he was working on it). Morgan added some great advanced features to this framework. For example, the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework supports something called image inlining. When you use image inlining, the actual image is stored in the CSS file. Here’s an example of what image inlining looks like: .Home_StephenWalther_small-jpg { width:75px; height:100px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEsAAABkCAIAAABB1lpeAAAAB GdBTUEAALGOfPtRkwAAACBjSFJNAACHDwAAjA8AAP1SAACBQAAAfXkAAOmLAAA85QAAGcxzPIV3AAAKL s+zNfREAAAAASUVORK5CYII=) no-repeat 0% 0%; } The actual image (in this case a picture of me that is displayed on the home page of the Superexpert.com website) is stored in the CSS file. If you visit the Superexpert.com website then very few separate images are downloaded. For example, all of the images with a red border in the screenshot below take advantage of CSS sprites: Unfortunately, there are some significant Gotchas that you need to be aware of when using the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework. There are workarounds for these Gotchas. I plan to write about these Gotchas and workarounds in a future blog entry. 2. Microsoft Ajax Minifier Whenever possible you should combine, minify, compress, and cache with a far future header all of your JavaScript and CSS files. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier makes it easy to minify JavaScript and CSS files. Don’t confuse minification and compression. You need to do both. According to Souders, you can reduce the size of a JavaScript file by an additional 20% (on average) by minifying a JavaScript file after you compress the file. When you minify a JavaScript or CSS file, you use various tricks to reduce the size of the file before you compress the file. For example, you can minify a JavaScript file by replacing long JavaScript variables names with short variables names and removing unnecessary white space and comments. You can minify a CSS file by doing such things as replacing long color names such as #ffffff with shorter equivalents such as #fff. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier was created by Microsoft employee Ron Logan. Internally, this tool was being used by several large Microsoft websites. We also used the tool heavily on the ASP.NET team. I convinced Ron to publish the tool on CodePlex so that everyone in the world could take advantage of it. You can download the tool from the ASP.NET Ajax website and read documentation for the tool here. I created the installer for the Microsoft Ajax Minifier. When creating the installer, I also created a Visual Studio build task to make it easy to minify all of your JavaScript and CSS files whenever you do a build within Visual Studio automatically. Read the Ajax Minifier Quick Start to learn how to configure the build task. 3. ySlow The ySlow tool is a free add-on for Firefox created by Yahoo that enables you to test the front-end of your website. For example, here are the current test results for the Superexpert.com website: The Superexpert.com website has an overall score of B (not perfect but not bad). The ySlow tool is not perfect. For example, the Superexpert.com website received a failing grade of F for not using a Content Delivery Network even though the website using the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network for JavaScript files such as jQuery. Uptime After publishing a website live to the world, you want to ensure that the website does not encounter any issues and that it stays live. I use the following tools to monitor the Superexpert.com website now that it is live. 4. ELMAH ELMAH stands for Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET. ELMAH enables you to record any errors that happen at your website so you can review them in the future. You can download ELMAH for free from the ELMAH project website. ELMAH works great with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. You can configure ELMAH to store errors in a number of different stores including XML files, the Event Log, an Access database, a SQL database, an Oracle database, or in computer RAM. You also can configure ELMAH to email error messages to you when they happen. By default, you can access ELMAH by requesting the elmah.axd page from a website with ELMAH installed. Here’s what the elmah page looks like from the Superexpert.com website (this page is password-protected because secret information can be revealed in an error message): If you click on a particular error message, you can view the original Yellow Screen ASP.NET error message (even when the error message was never displayed to the actual user). I installed ELMAH by taking advantage of the new package manager for ASP.NET named NuGet (originally named NuPack). You can read the details about NuGet in the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie. You can download NuGet from CodePlex. 5. Pingdom I use Pingdom to verify that the Superexpert.com website is always up. You can sign up for Pingdom by visiting Pingdom.com. You can use Pingdom to monitor a single website for free. At the Pingdom website, you configure the frequency that your website gets pinged. I verify that the Superexpert.com website is up every 5 minutes. I have the Pingdom service verify that it can retrieve the string “Contact Us” from the website homepage. If your website goes down, you can configure Pingdom so that it sends an email, Twitter, SMS, or iPhone alert. I use the Pingdom iPhone app which looks like this: 6. Host Tracker If your website does go down then you need some way of determining whether it is a problem with your local network or if your website is down for everyone. I use a website named Host-Tracker.com to check how badly a website is down. Here’s what the Host-Tracker website displays for the Superexpert.com website when the website can be successfully pinged from everywhere in the world: Notice that Host-Tracker pinged the Superexpert.com website from 68 locations including Roubaix, France and Scranton, PA. Debugging I mean debugging in the broadest possible sense. I use the following tools when building a website to verify that I have not made a mistake. 7. HTML Spell Checker Why doesn’t Visual Studio have a built-in spell checker? Don’t know – I’ve always found this mysterious. Fortunately, however, a former member of the ASP.NET team wrote a free spell checker that you can use with your ASP.NET pages. I find a spell checker indispensible. It is easy to delude yourself that you are capable of perfect spelling. I’m always super embarrassed when I actually run the spell checking tool and discover all of my spelling mistakes. The fastest way to add the HTML Spell Checker extension to Visual Studio is to select the menu option Tools, Extension Manager within Visual Studio. Click on Online Gallery and search for HTML Spell Checker: 8. IIS SEO Toolkit If people cannot find your website through Google then you should not even bother to create it. Microsoft has a great extension for IIS named the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit that you can use to identify issue with your website that would hurt its page rank. You also can use this tool to quickly create a sitemap for your website that you can submit to Google or Bing. You can even generate the sitemap for an ASP.NET MVC website. Here’s what the report overview for the Superexpert.com website looks like: Notice that the Sueprexpert.com website had plenty of violations. For example, there are 65 cases in which a page has a broken hyperlink. You can drill into these violations to identity the exact page and location where these violations occur. 9. LinqPad If your ASP.NET website accesses a database then you should be using LINQ to Entities with the Entity Framework. Using LINQ involves some magic. LINQ queries written in C# get converted into SQL queries for you. If you are not careful about how you write your LINQ queries, you could unintentionally build a really badly performing website. LinqPad is a free tool that enables you to experiment with your LINQ queries. It even works with Microsoft SQL CE 4 and Azure. You can use LinqPad to execute a LINQ to Entities query and see the results. You also can use it to see the resulting SQL that gets executed against the database: 10. .NET Reflector I use .NET Reflector daily. The .NET Reflector tool enables you to take any assembly and disassemble the assembly into C# or VB.NET code. You can use .NET Reflector to see the “Source Code” of an assembly even when you do not have the actual source code. You can download a free version of .NET Reflector from the Redgate website. I use .NET Reflector primarily to help me understand what code is doing internally. For example, I used .NET Reflector with the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework to better understand how the MVC Image helper works. Here’s part of the disassembled code from the Image helper class: Summary In this blog entry, I’ve discussed several of the tools that I used to create the Superexpert.com website. These are tools that I use to improve the performance, improve the SEO, verify the uptime, or debug the Superexpert.com website. All of the tools discussed in this blog entry are free. Furthermore, all of these tools work with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Let me know if there are any tools that you use daily when building ASP.NET websites.

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Windows Phone 7: Building a simple dictionary web client

- by TechTwaddle

Like I mentioned in this post a while back, I came across a dictionary web service called Aonaware that serves up word definitions from various dictionaries and is really easy to use. The services page on their website, http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx, lists all the operations that are supported by the dictionary service. Here they are, Word Dictionary Web Service The following operations are supported. For a formal definition, please review the Service Description. Define Define given word, returning definitions from all dictionaries DefineInDict Define given word, returning definitions from specified dictionary DictionaryInfo Show information about the specified dictionary DictionaryList Returns a list of available dictionaries DictionaryListExtended Returns a list of advanced dictionaries (e.g. translating dictionaries) Match Look for matching words in all dictionaries using the given strategy MatchInDict Look for matching words in the specified dictionary using the given strategy ServerInfo Show remote server information StrategyList Return list of all available strategies on the server Follow the links above to get more information on each API. In this post we will be building a simple windows phone 7 client which uses this service to get word definitions for words entered by the user. The application will also allow the user to select a dictionary from all the available ones and look up the word definition in that dictionary. So of all the apis above we will be using only two, DictionaryList() to get a list of all supported dictionaries and DefineInDict() to get the word definition from a particular dictionary. Before we get started, a note to you all; I would have liked to implement this application using concepts from data binding, item templates, data templates etc. I have a basic understanding of what they are but, being a beginner, I am not very comfortable with those topics yet so I didn’t use them. I thought I’ll get this version out of the way and maybe in the next version I could give those a try. A somewhat scary mock-up of the what the final application will look like, Select Dictionary is a list picker control from the silverlight toolkit (you need to download and install the toolkit if you haven’t already). Below it is a textbox where the user can enter words to look up and a button beside it to fetch the word definition when clicked. Finally we have a textblock which occupies the remaining area and displays the word definition from the selected dictionary. Create a silverlight application for windows phone 7, AonawareDictionaryClient, and add references to the silverlight toolkit and the web service. From the solution explorer right on References and select Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit from under the .NET tab, Next, add a reference to the web service. Again right click on References and this time select Add Service Reference In the resulting dialog paste the service url in the Address field and press go, (url –> http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx) once the service is discovered, provide a name for the NameSpace, in this case I’ve called it AonawareDictionaryService. Press OK. You can now use the classes and functions that are generated in the AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService namespace. Let’s get the UI done now. In MainPage.xaml add a namespace declaration to use the toolkit controls, xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit" the content of LayoutRoot is changed as follows, (sorry, no syntax highlighting in this post) <StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,5,0,5"> <TextBlock x:Name="ApplicationTitle" Text="AONAWARE DICTIONARY CLIENT" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>  </StackPanel>  <Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <toolkit:ListPicker Grid.Column="1" x:Name="listPickerDictionaryList" Header="Select Dictionary :"> </toolkit:ListPicker> <Grid Grid.Row="1" Margin="0,5,0,0"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/> <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <TextBox x:Name="txtboxInputWord" Grid.Column="0" GotFocus="OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus" /> <Button x:Name="btnGo" Grid.Column="1" Click="OnButtonGoClick" > <Button.Content> <Image Source="/images/button-go.png"/> </Button.Content> </Button> </Grid> <ScrollViewer Grid.Row="2" x:Name="scrollViewer"> <TextBlock Margin="12,5,12,5" x:Name="txtBlockWordMeaning" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="26" /> </ScrollViewer> </Grid> I have commented out the PageTitle as it occupies too much valuable space, and the ContentPanel is changed to contain three rows. First row contains the list picker control, second row contains the textbox and the button, and the third row contains a textblock within a scroll viewer. The designer will now be showing the final ui, Now go to MainPage.xaml.cs, and add the following namespace declarations, using Microsoft.Phone.Controls; using AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService; using System.IO.IsolatedStorage; A class called DictServiceSoapClient would have been created for you in the background when you added a reference to the web service. This class functions as a wrapper to the services exported by the web service. All the web service functions that we saw at the start can be access through this class, or more precisely through an object of this class. Create a data member of type DictServiceSoapClient in the Mainpage class, and a function which initializes it, DictServiceSoapClient DictSvcClient = null; private DictServiceSoapClient GetDictServiceSoapClient() { if (null == DictSvcClient) { DictSvcClient = new DictServiceSoapClient(); } return DictSvcClient; } We have two major tasks remaining. First, when the application loads we need to populate the list picker with all the supported dictionaries and second, when the user enters a word and clicks on the arrow button we need to fetch the word’s meaning. Populating the List Picker In the OnNavigatingTo event of the MainPage, we call the DictionaryList() api. This can also be done in the OnLoading event handler of the MainPage; not sure if one has an advantage over the other. Here’s the code for OnNavigatedTo, protected override void OnNavigatedTo(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e) { DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient(); client.DictionaryListCompleted += new EventHandler<DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs>(OnGetDictionaryListCompleted); client.DictionaryListAsync(); base.OnNavigatedTo(e); } Windows Phone 7 supports only async calls to web services. When we added a reference to the dictionary service, asynchronous versions of all the functions were generated automatically. So in the above function we register a handler to the DictionaryListCompleted event which will occur when the call to DictionaryList() gets a response from the server. Then we call the DictionaryListAsynch() function which is the async version of the DictionaryList() api. The result of this api will be sent to the handler OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(), void OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(object sender, DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs e) { IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings; Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries; if (e.Error == null) { listOfDictionaries = e.Result; PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings); } else if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionaryList")) { listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[]; PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings); } else { MessageBoxResult res = MessageBox.Show("An error occured while retrieving dictionary list, do you want to try again?", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OKCancel); if (MessageBoxResult.OK == res) { GetDictServiceSoapClient().DictionaryListAsync(); } } settings.Save(); } I have used IsolatedStorageSettings to store a few things; the entire dictionary list and the dictionary that is selected when the user exits the application, so that the next time when the user starts the application the current dictionary is set to the last selected value. First we check if the api returned any error, if the error object is null e.Result will contain the list (actually array) of Dictionary type objects. If there was an error, we check the isolated storage settings to see if there is a dictionary list stored from a previous instance of the application and if so, we populate the list picker based on this saved list. Note that in this case there are chances that the dictionary list might be out of date if there have been changes on the server. Finally, if none of these cases are true, we display an error message to the user and try to fetch the list again. PopulateListPicker() is passed the array of Dictionary objects and the settings object as well, void PopulateListPicker(Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries, IsolatedStorageSettings settings) { listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Clear(); foreach (Dictionary dictionary in listOfDictionaries) { listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Add(dictionary.Name); } settings["SavedDictionaryList"] = listOfDictionaries; string savedDictionaryName; if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionary")) { savedDictionaryName = settings["SavedDictionary"] as string; } else { savedDictionaryName = "WordNet (r) 2.0"; //default dictionary, wordnet } foreach (string dictName in listPickerDictionaryList.Items) { if (dictName == savedDictionaryName) { listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem = dictName; break; } } settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string; } We first clear all the items from the list picker, add the dictionary names from the array and then create a key in the settings called SavedDictionaryList and store the dictionary list in it. We then check if there is saved dictionary available from a previous instance, if there is, we set it as the selected item in the list picker. And if not, we set “WordNet ® 2.0” as the default dictionary. Before returning, we save the selected dictionary in the “SavedDictionary” key of the isolated storage settings. Fetching word definitions Getting this part done is very similar to the above code. We get the input word from the textbox, call into DefineInDictAsync() to fetch the definition and when DefineInDictAsync completes, we get the result and display it in the textblock. Here is the handler for the button click, private void OnButtonGoClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = "Please wait.."; IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings; if (txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim().Length <= 0) { MessageBox.Show("Please enter a word in the textbox and press 'Go'"); } else { Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[]; string selectedDictionary = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString(); string dictId = "wn"; //default dictionary is wordnet (wn is the dict id) foreach (Dictionary dict in listOfDictionaries) { if (dict.Name == selectedDictionary) { dictId = dict.Id; break; } } DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient(); client.DefineInDictCompleted += new EventHandler<DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs>(OnDefineInDictCompleted); client.DefineInDictAsync(dictId, txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim()); } } We validate the input and then select the dictionary id based on the currently selected dictionary. We need the dictionary id because the api DefineInDict() expects the dictionary identifier and not the dictionary name. We could very well have stored the dictionary id in isolated storage settings too. Again, same as before, we register a event handler for the DefineInDictCompleted event and call the DefineInDictAsync() method passing in the dictionary id and the input word. void OnDefineInDictCompleted(object sender, DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs e) { WordDefinition wd = e.Result; scrollViewer.ScrollToVerticalOffset(0.0f); if (wd.Definitions.Length == 0) { txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = String.Format("No definitions were found for '{0}' in '{1}'", txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim(), listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString().Trim()); } else { foreach (Definition def in wd.Definitions) { string str = def.WordDefinition; str = str.Replace(" ", " "); //some formatting txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = str; } } } When the api completes, e.Result will contain a WordDefnition object. This class is also generated in the background while adding the service reference. We check the word definitions within this class to see if any results were returned, if not, we display a message to the user in the textblock. If a definition was found the text on the textblock is set to display the definition of the word. Adding final touches, we now need to save the current dictionary when the application exits. A small but useful thing is selecting the entire word in the input textbox when the user selects it. This makes sure that if the user has looked up a definition for a really long word, he doesn’t have to press ‘clear’ too many times to enter the next word, protected override void OnNavigatingFrom(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigatingCancelEventArgs e) { IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings; settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string; settings.Save(); base.OnNavigatingFrom(e); } private void OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { TextBox txtbox = sender as TextBox; if (txtbox.Text.Trim().Length > 0) { txtbox.SelectionStart = 0; txtbox.SelectionLength = txtbox.Text.Length; } } OnNavigatingFrom() is called whenever you navigate away from the MainPage, since our application contains only one page that would mean that it is exiting. I leave you with a short video of the application in action, but before that if you have any suggestions on how to make the code better and improve it please do leave a comment. Until next time…

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 13, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 13, 2010Popular ReleasesRequest Tracker Data Access: 1.0.0.0: First releaseMicrosoft All-In-One Code Framework: All-In-One Code Framework 2010-12-13: Improved and Newly Added Examples:For an up-to-date code sample index, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Sample Catalog. NEW Samples for ASP.NET Name Description Owner CSASPNETCMD Run batch/cmd from ASP.NET (C#) YiXiang VBASPNETCMD Run batch/cmd from ASP.NET (VB) YiXiang VBASPNETAJAXWebChat Ajax web chat application (VB) JerryWeng CSASPNETAJAXWebChat Ajax web chat application (C#) JerryWeng CSASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList Get current online u...Wii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.9 Beta: - Aqua or brushed metal style for Mac OS X - Shows selection count beside ID - Game list selection mode via settings - Compare Files <-> WBFS game lists - Verify game images/DVD/WBFS - WIT command line for log (via settings) - Cancel possibility for loading games process - Progress infos while loading games - Localization for dates - UTF-8 support - Shortcuts added - View game infos in browser - Transfer infos for log - All transfer routines rewritten - Extract image from image/WBFS - Support....NETTER Code Starter Pack: v1.0.beta: '.NETTER Code Starter Pack ' contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies and frameworks based on Microsoft .NET Framework. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database (for database driven scenarios). The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic...WPF Multiple Document Interface (MDI): Beta Release v1.1: WPF.MDI is a library to imitate the traditional Windows Forms Multiple Document Interface (MDI) features in WPF. This is Beta release, means there's still work to do. Please provide feedback, so next release will be better. Features: Position dependency property MdiLayout dependency property Menu dependency property Ctrl + F4, Ctrl + Tab shortcuts should work Behavior: don’t allow negative values for MdiChild position minimized windows: remember position, tile multiple windows, ...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.3.1 Production: Release 2.3.1 implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 12 modules with 155 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scripts for working with ADO.NET, SMO, Agent, RMO, SSIS, SQL script files, PBM, Performance Counters, SQLProfiler and using Powershell ISE as a SQL and Oracle query tool. In addition optional backend databases and SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 reports are provided with SQLServer and PBM modules. See readme file for details.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.1 ALPHA: 2.2.1 ALPHAThis release adds in the changes for 4.03a. at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Updated th...NuGet (formerly NuPack): NuGet 1.0 Release Candidate: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. This new build targets the newer feed (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669) and package format. See http://nupack.codeplex.com/documentation?title=Nuspe...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire Silverlight, WPF Charts v3.6.5 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.5 with the following new feature: * New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. You can visit Visifire documentation to know more. http://www.visifire.com/visifirechartsdocumentation.php Also this release includes few bug fixes: * Chart threw exception while adding new Axis in Chart using Vi...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.5 Production: DonationsDonate via PayPal via PayPal. If you want to, we can also add your name / company on our Donation Acknowledgements page. PEAR channelWe now also have a full PEAR channel! Here's how to use it: New installation: pear channel-discover pear.pearplex.net pear install pearplex/PHPExcel Or if you've already installed PHPExcel before: pear upgrade pearplex/PHPExcel The official page can be found at http://pearplex.net. Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page.??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2010-12-10: ?????All-In-One Code Framework（??） 2010?12??????！！http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ?????release?，???????ASP.NET, WinForm, Silverlight????12?Sample Code。???，??????????sample code。 ?????：http://blog.csdn.net/sjb5201/archive/2010/12/13/6072675.aspx ??，??????MSDN????????????。 http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/zh-CN/codezhchs/threads ?????????????????，??Email ????DNN Simple Article: DNNSimpleArticle Module V00.00.03: The initial release of the DNNSimpleArticle module (labelled V00.00.03) There are C# and VB versions of this module for this initial release. No promises that going forward there will be packages for both languages provided for future releases. This module provides the following functionality Create and display articles Display a paged list of articles Articles get created as DNN ContentItems Categorization provided through DNN Taxonomy SEO functionality for article display providi...UOB & ME: UOB_ME 2.5: latest versionAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.4.3: AutoLoL now supports importing the build pages from Mobafire.com as well! Just insert the url to the build and voila. (For example: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/unforgivens-guide-how-to-build-a-successful-mordekaiser-24061) Stable release of AutoChat (It is still recommended to use with caution and to read the documentation) It is now possible to associate *.lolm files with AutoLoL to quickly open them The selected spells are now displayed in the masteries tab for qu...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7: This is a final stable release of PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7. This is a minor incremental release that contains all the functionality available in 53121 plus additional features listed below: Improved detection logic for existing PHP installations. Now PHP Manager detects the location to php.ini file in accordance to the PHP specifications Configuring date.timezone. PHP Manager can automatically set the date.timezone directive which is required to be set starting from PHP 5.3 Ability to ...Algorithmia: Algorithmia 1.1: Algorithmia v1.1, released on December 8th, 2010.My Web Pages Starter Kit: 1.3.1 Production Release (Security HOTFIX): Due to a critical security issue, it's strongly advised to update the My Web Pages Starter Kit to this version. Possible attackers could misuse the image upload to transmit any type of file to the website. If you already have a running version of My Web Pages Starter Kit 1.3.0, you can just replace the ftb.imagegallery.aspx file in the root directory with the one attached to this release.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.4: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager new stuff: popup WhiteSpaceFilterAttribute tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6nopCommerce. ASP.NET open source shopping cart: nopCommerce 1.90: To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 4: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numerous fixes reported by preview users Preview 3 ChangesNumerous fixes and improvements to core engine Twitter API coverage: a...New Projects.NET Tips Repository: This project is the source code repository for all the projects, samples, and tutorials posted at vahidnasiri.blogspot.com. Its main focus is on .NET programming.a hash implement by basic array and link list: a hash implement by basic array and link listApplication Essentials for WPF, Silverlight, and Windows Phone 7: Application essentials is a simplified, small footprint redux of the Structured MVVM and Color Blending projects and is used to build WPF, Silverlight, and Windows Phone 7 applications with an MVVM architecture.Bit.ly Button: Bit.ly Button lets you use the power of Bit.ly bookmarklet to shorten any webpage (especially on sites like Facebook and Twitter). It's like a sharing button, except it will shorten the link before you share on Facebook or Twitter.Check Dependency: Check Dependency is designed to identify the dependency problems in assemblies. It is a valuable assistant to a project hat has complex dependency in many assemblies.Circo: A product oriented towards the need of having a powerful tool improving the construction process of applications. User interface for creating Entity Dictionary, generating .Net classes and also SQL model. It provides a strong productivity oriented.CoralCubeDB: This is the db for coralcube.Dotnet.Samples: Microsoft® .NET™ sample projects Created by Nano Taboada under a MIT License All projects have been coded using Microsoft(R) Visual Studio(R) 2010 mostly targeting framework version 4.0 Get a free copy of Visual C# 2010 Express at http://tinyurl.com/visualstudio2010expressElasticity: An library implementation of the Scheduler-Agent-Supervisor pattern. http://vasters.com/clemensv/2010/09/28/Cloud+Architecture+The+SchedulerAgentSupervisor+Pattern.aspxFacebook Graph Toolkit: get Graph API in ASP.NET.Grabbers: An object relational library and code generator designed to assist agile development teams generate data aware objects. InSimSniffer: InSimSniffer is a InSim packet sniffer for the racing simulator Live for Speed. It allows programmers to view and debug packets sent by the game.Irrlicht Wrapper for D: A D wrapper for the Irrlicht game engine generated by SWIG.Linq to LDAP: Linq provider built on top of System.DirectoryServices.Protocols for querying LDAP servers.ME Video Player: ME Video Player makes it easier for web developers to present medis on web pages. It's developed in C# and Silverlight by Mahyar Esteki.Mladi.com.hr: CMS system for croatian youth portalMouse Practise: A small project that creates a game to train a beginner to use mouse. Developer's Blog : http://shekhar-pro.blogspot.com Follow on Twitter : http://twitter.com/samajshekharMVVMKit: MVVMKit makes it easier to create WPF applications using the MVVM pattern.mygully-searcher: MyGully-Searcher makes it easier for Mygully-Forum-Users to search the forums for downloads. You'll no longer have to click to all forums. It's developed in VB.Net.NBooks Accounting: A simple clone to Quickbooks.Projeto Teste do curso de Pós graduação em Engenharia de Software.: Projeto teste do curso de pós graduação em Engenharia de Software. Códigos exemplos em Javascript e outros. Nayanne Araújo Bonifácio.Razor Reports - a Visualizer for the DotNetNuke Reports Module: Razor Reports is a Visualizer for the DotNetNuke Reports ModuleSiteGrabber: Groepsopdracht 2Supermarket: Hat: tTheSharePage: Project contains the core library for use in my website that i am developing for my NIIT project work. (The website will integrate facebook and twitter in a single website) The library features full custom developed facebook and twitter sdk library that can even be reused.Tip Of Day SharePoint WebPart: Tip Of Day webpartTranslit Hebrew to Russian: Application, which can translit Hebrew text into Russian.WP7 Thai Text Input: WP7 Thai text input makes it possible to enter Thai characters in WP7. It's developed in C# and were used in some of the CoreSharp's WP7 apps.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 07, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 07, 2012Popular ReleasesHarness - Internet Explorer Automation: Harness 2.0.3: support the operation fo frameset, frame and iframe Add commands SwitchFrame GetUrl GoBack GoForward Refresh SetTimeout GetTimeout Rename commands GetActiveWindow to GetActiveBrowser SetActiveWindow to SetActiveBrowser FindWindowAll to FindBrowser NewWindow to NewBrowser GetMajorVersion to GetVersionBetter Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.861 Alpha: - fixed new folder button operation not work well in some situations - removed some unnecessary code like subclassing that is not needed anymore - Added option to make Better Exlorer default (at least for WIN+E operations) - Added option to enable file operation replacements (like Terracopy) to work with Better Explorer - Added some basic usability to "Share" button - Other fixesLightFarsiDictionary - ??????? ??? ?????/???????: LightFarsiDictionary - v1: LightFarsiDictionary - v1WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.3: Version: 2.5.0.3 (Milestone 3): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete [O] WAF: Mark the StringBuilderExtensions class as obsolete because the AppendInNewLine method can be replaced with string.Jo...RiP-Ripper & PG-Ripper: RiP-Ripper 2.9.30: changes NEW: Added Support for "DirectUpload.net" links NEW: Added Support for "PixRoute.com" links NEW: Added Support for "ImagePicasa.com" links FIXED: "PixHub.eu" linksCommunity TFS Build Extensions: April 2012: Release notes to follow...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.65.2: Aside from many bug fixes we now have Conditional Formatting The conditional formatting was sponsored by http://www.bewing.nl (big thanks) New on v0.65.1 Fixed issue when loading conditional formatting with default values for icon sets New on v0.65.2 Fixed issue loading conditional formatting Improved inserts performanceLiberty: v3.2.0.0 Release 4th April 2012: Change Log-Added -Halo 3 support (invincibility, ammo editing) -Halo 3: ODST support (invincibility, ammo editing) -The file transfer page now shows its progress in the Windows 7 taskbar -"About this build" settings page -Reach Change what an object is carrying -Reach Change which node a carried object is attached to -Reach Object node viewer and exporter -Reach Change which weapons you are carrying from the object editor -Reach Edit the weapon controller of vehicles and turrets -An error dia...MSBuild Extension Pack: April 2012: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack April 2012 release provides a collection of over 435 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GUID’...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.01.05: Major Highlights Fixed issue that stopped users from creating vocabularies when the portal ID was not zero Fixed issue that caused modules configured to be displayed on all pages to be added to the wrong container in new pages Fixed page quota restriction issue in the Ribbon Bar Removed restriction that would not allow users to use a dash in page names. Now users can create pages with names like "site-map" Fixed issue that was causing the wrong container to be loaded in modules wh...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.3.1: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.3.11. [assembly: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers] has been added back into the AssemblyInfo.cs file to prevent failures with other assemblies in Medium trust environments. 2. The Lite data embedded into the assembly has been updated to include devices from December 2011. The 42 new RingMark properties will return Unknown if RingMark data is not available. Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 2.0.0: Added Support for Mvc4 beta and WebApi The SafeqQuery and HttpSafeQuery IQueryable implementations that works as wrappers aroung any IQueryable to protect it from unwished queries. "Client Side" pager specialized in paging javascript data coming either from a remote data source, or from local data. LinQ like fluent javascript api to build queries either against remote data sources, or against local javascript data, with exactly the same interface. There are 3 different query objects exp...ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.2: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-04-04 v3.1.2 -??IE?????????????BUG（??"about:blank"?...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.50: Highlight features & improvements: • Significant performance optimization. • Allow store owners to create several shipments per order. Added a new shipping status: “Partially shipped”. • Pre-order support added. Enables your customers to place a Pre-Order and pay for the item in advance. Displays “Pre-order” button instead of “Buy Now” on the appropriate pages. Makes it possible for customer to buy available goods and Pre-Order items during one session. It can be managed on a product variant ...WiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 RC0: WiX v3.6 RC0 (3.6.2803.0) provides support for VS11 and a more stable Burn engine. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/4/3/WiX-v3.6-Release-Candidate-Zero-availableSageFrame: SageFrame 2.0: Sageframe is an open source ASP.NET web development framework developed using ASP.NET 3.5 with service pack 1 (sp1) technology. 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From Bluehost to WP Engine, My WordPress Story

- by thatjeffsmith

This is probably the longest blog post I’ve written in a LONG time. And if you’re used to coming here for the Oracle stuff, this post is not about that. It’s about my blog, and the stuff under the hood that makes it run, AKA WordPress. If you want to skip to the juicy stuff, then use these shortcuts: My Site Slowed Down How I Moved to WP Engine How WP Engine ‘Hooked’ Me Why WP Engine? I started thatJeffSmith.com on May 28th, 2010. I had been already been blogging for several years, but a couple of really smart people I respected (Andy, Brent – thanks again!) suggested that I take ownership of my content and begin building my personal brand. I thought that was a good idea, and so I signed up for service with bluehost. Bluehost makes setting up a WordPress site very, very easy. And, they continued to be easy to work with for the past 2 years. I would even recommend them to anyone looking to host their own WordPress install/site. For $83.40, I purchased a year’s worth of service and my domain name registration – a very good value. And then last year I paid $107.40 for another year’s services. And when that year expired I paid another $190.80 for an additional two year’s service in advance. I had been up to that point, getting my money’s worth. And then, just a few weeks ago… My Site Slowed to a Crawl That spike was from an April Fool's Day Post, I think Why? Well, when I first started blogging, I had the same problem that most beginner bloggers have – not many readers. In my first year of blogging, I think the highest number of readers on a single day was about 125. I remember that day as I was very excited to break 100! Bluehost was very reliable, serving up my content with maybe a total of 3-4 outages in the past 2 years. Support was usually very prompt with answers and solutions, and I love their ‘Chat now’ technology – much nicer than message boards only or pay-to-talk phone support. In the past 6 months however, I noticed a couple of things: daily traffic was increasing – woohoo! my service was experiencing severe CPU throttling – doh! To be honest, I wasn’t aware the throttling was occuring, but I did know that the response time of my blog was starting to lag. Average load times were approaching 20-30 seconds. Not good when good sites are loading in 5 seconds or less. And just this past week, in getting ready to launch a new website for work that sucked in an RSS feed from my blog, the new page was left waiting for more than a minute. Not good! In fact my boss asked, why aren’t you blogging on Blogger? Ugh. I tried a few things to fix the problem: I paid for a premium WordPress theme – Themify’s Grido (thanks to @SQLRockstar for the heads-up) I installed a couple of WP caching plugins I read every WP optimization blog post I could get my greedy little eyes on However, at the same time I was also getting addicted to WordPress bloggers talking about all the cool things you could do with your blog. As a result I had at one point about 30 different plugins installed. WordPress runs on MySQL, and certain queries running via these plugins were starving for CPU. Plugins that would be called every page load meant that as more people clicked on my site, the more CPU I needed. I’m not stupid, so I eventually figured out that maybe less plugins was better, and was able to go down to just 20. But still, the site was running like a dog. CPU Throttling, makes MySQL wait to run a query Bluehost runs shared servers. Your site runs on the same box that several hundred (or thousand?) other services are running on. If you take more CPU than they think you should have, they will limit your service by making you stand in line for CPU, AKA ‘throttling.’ This is not bad. This business model allows them to serve many, many users for a very fair price. It works great until, well, until it doesn’t. I noticed in the last week that for every minute of service, I was being throttled between 60 and 300 seconds. If there were 5 MySQL processes running, then every single one of them were being held in check. The blog visitor notice this as their page requests would take a minute or more to be answered. Bluehost unfortunately doesn’t offer dedicated server hosting, so there was no real upgrade path for me follow and remain one of their customers. So what was I to do? Uninstall every plugin and hope the site sped up? Ask for people to take turns on my blog? I decided to spend my way out of the problem. I signed up for service with WP Engine and moved ThatJeffSmith.com The first 2 months are free, and after that it’s about $29/month to run my site on their system. My math tells me that’s a good bit more expensive than what Bluehost was charging me – to the tune of about 300% more a month. Oh, and I should just say that my blog is a personal blog even though I talk about work stuff here. I don’t get paid for blogging, I don’t sell ads, and I don’t expense the service fees – this is my personal passion. So is it worth it? In the first 4 days, it seems to be totally worth it. Load times have gone from 20-30 seconds to less than 5 seconds. A few folks have told me via Twitter that they notice faster page loads. I anticipate this will indirectly lead to more traffic as Google penalizes you in search results if your site is too slow, and of course some folks won’t even bother waiting more than 5-10 seconds. I noticed right away that writing posts, uploading pictures, and just using the WordPress dashboard in general was much more responsive. So writing is less of a chore now, which means I won’t have a good reason not to write How I Moved to WP Engine I signed up for the service and registered my domain. I then took a full export of my ‘old’ site by doing a FTP GET of all my files, then did a MySQL database backup, exported my WordPress Theme settings to a .zip file, and then finally used the WordPress ‘Export’ feature. I then used the WordPress ‘Import’ on the new site to load up my posts. Then I uploaded the theme .zip package from Themify. Then I FTP’d the ‘wp-content’ directory up to my new server using SFTP (WP Engine only supports secure FTP – good on them!) Using a temporary URL to see my new site, I was able to confirm that everything looked mostly OK – I’ll detail the challenges and issues of fixing the content next – but then it was time to ‘flip the switch.’ I updated the IP address that the DNS lookup tables use to route traffic to my new server. In a matter of minutes the DNS servers around the world were updated and it was time to see the new site! But It Was ‘Broken’ I had never moved a website before, and in my rush to update the DNS, I had changed the records without really finding out what I was supposed to do first. After re-reading the directions provided by WP Engine and following the guidance of their support engineer, I realized I had needed to set the CNAME (Alias) ‘www’ record to point to a different URL than the ‘www.thatjeffsmith.com’ entry I had set. Once corrected the site was up and running in less than a minute. Then It Was Only Mostly Broken Many of my plugins weren’t working. Apparently just ftp’ing the wp-content directory up wasn’t the proper way to re-install the plugin. I suspect file permissions or file ownership wasn’t proper. Some plug-ins were working, many had their settings wiped to the defaults, and a few just didn’t work again. I had to delete the directory of the plug-in manually via SFTP, and then use the WP Dashboard to install it from scratch. And here was my first ‘lesson’ – don’t switch the DNS records until you’ve completely tested your new site. I wasn’t able to navigate the old WP console to review my plug-in settings. Thankfully I was able to use the Wayback Machine to reverse engineer some things, and of course most plug-ins aren’t that complicated to setup to begin with. An example of one that I had to redo from scratch is the ‘Twitter @Anywhere Plus’ plugin that I use to create the form that allows folks to tweet a post they enjoyed at the end of each story. How WP Engine ‘Hooked’ Me I actually signed up with another provider first. They ranked highly in Google searches and a few Tweeps recommended them to me. But hours after signing up and I still didn’t have sever reyady, I was ready to give up on them. They offered no chat or phone support – only mail and message boards. And the message boards were rife with posts about how the service had gone downhill in the past 6 months. To their credit, they did make it easy to cancel, although I did have to do so via email as their website ‘cancel’ button was non-existent. Within minutes of activating my WP Engine account I had received my welcome message and directions on how to get started. I was able to see my staged website right away. They also did something very cool before I even got started – they looked at my existing site and told me by how much they could improve its performance. The proof is in the web pudding. I like this for a few reasons, but primarily I liked their business model. It told me they knew what they were doing, and that they were willing to put their money where their mouth was. This was further evident by their 60-day money back guarantee. And if I understand it correctly, they don’t even take your money until after that 60 day period is over. After a day, I was welcomed by the WP Engine social media team, and was given the opportunity to subscribe to their newsletter and follow their account on Twitter. I noticed their Twitter team is sure to post regular WordPress tips several times a day. It’s not just an account that’s setup for the sake of having a Twitter presence. These little things add up and give me confidence in my decision to choose them as my hosting partner. ‘Partner’ – that’s a lot nicer word than just ‘service provider,’ isn’t it? Oh, and they offered me a t-shirt. Don’t ever doubt the power of a ‘free’ t-shirt! How awesome is this e-mail, from a customer perspective? I wasn’t really expecting any of this. Exceeding expectations before I have even handed over a single dollar seems like a pretty good business plan. This is how you treat customers. Love them to death, and they reward you with loyalty. But Jeff, You Skipped a Piece Here, Why WP Engine? I found them on one of those ‘Top 10′ list posts, and pulled up their webpage. I noticed they offered a specialized service – they host WordPress installs, and that’s it. Their servers are tuned specifically for running WordPress. They had in bolded text, things like ‘INSANELY FAST. INFINITELY SCALABLE.’ and ‘LIGHTNING SPEED.’ And then they offered insurance against hackers and they took care of automatic backups and restores. The only drawbacks I have noticed so far relate to plugins I used that have been ‘blacklisted.’ In order to guarantee that ‘lightning’ speed, they have banned the use of the CPU-suckiest plugins. One of those is the ‘Related Posts’ plugin. So if you are a subscriber and are reading this in your email, you’ll notice there’s no links back to my blog to continue reading other related stories. Since that referral traffic is very small single-digit for my site, I decided that I’m OK with that. I’d rather have the warp-speed page loads. Again, I think that will lead to higher traffic down the road. In 50+ days I will need to decide if WP Engine is a permanent solution. I’ll be sure to update this post when that time comes and let y’all know how it turns out.

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