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  • Can SiteB Restrict Access Only to Users Authenticated on Site A? How?

    - by DaveDev
    I have recently been asked to estimate a piece of work which will provide functionality for authenticated users to access our site. The thing is, the user has to authenticate on a different site & domain to the one we are hosting. The user authenticates on SiteA.com and they are provided with a link to our site, SiteB. Only users who have authenticated on SiteA are allowed to access SiteB.com. I don't yet know what authentication system SiteA is using, but I thought I'd ask the community for some initial thoughts. Is this even possible? What do I need to consider? Thanks

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  • How to get a site screenshot quickly using PHP?

    - by yuli chika
    I want to create a web directory site, and I need to get these site screenshots. How to get a site screenshot quickly using PHP? I tried IECAPT,webscreencapture, khtml2png, but they are all slowly. And they all get screenshot one url by one url. Is IECAPT depends on a ie browser? if it is, why it can not open many ie tags so that work at the same time? Is there anyone can recommend me a PHP screenshots software using online? according to my above requirements? Thank you.

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  • PHP: How to begin testing large, existing codebase, and test for regression on production site?

    - by anonymous coward
    I'm in charge of at least one large body of existing PHP code, that desperately needs tests, and as well I need some method of checking the production site for errors. I've been working with PHP for many years, but am unfortunately new to testing. (Sorry!). While writing tests for code that has predictable outcomes seems easy enough, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around just how I can test the live site, to ensure proper output. I know that in a test environment, I could set up the database in a known state... but are there proper methods or techniques for testing a live site? Where should I begin? [I am aware of PHPUnit and SimpleTest, but haven't chosen one over the other yet]

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  • Is it practical to build a web site using strict XHTML and relying on CSS 100% for visual style?

    - by Micah
    I tend to take the academic approach all too often and adhere to strict principles in my development when the reality is that I could have finished the project sooner had I been a little less cautious. I'm looking to find the right amount of practicality. I want to take the "Zen" approach to designing a site which (in my words) says "Use HTML strictly for content structure, and let the CSS magic do the rest". How practical is this in reality? One of the issues I run into is that I want to develop (make functional) the site first, then come back in and design it later. I know structure-wise how I want the site to flow, but I haven't even begun playing with the CSS layout, graphics, or any of the other designy stuff. What is the right approach here?

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  • How come my Apache can't read my media folder, but it can load the site? (static files don't work)

    - by Alex
    Alias /media/ /home/matt/repos/hello/media <Directory /home/matt/repos/hello/media> Options -Indexes Order deny,allow Allow from all </Directory> WSGIScriptAlias / /home/matt/repos/hello/wsgi/django.wsgi /media is my directory. When I go to mydomain.com/media/, it says 403 Forbidden. And, the rest of my site doesn't work because all static files are 404s. Why? The page loads. Just not the media folder. Edit: hello is my project folder. I have tried 777 all my permissions of that folder.

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  • How to configure squid for retrieving (and caching) directly my static resources?

    - by fabien7474
    I have an Apache/Tomcat/Spring tc Server running on CentOS EC2 VM. I would like to install squid on the same machine as a proxy for retrieving (directly i.e. without forwarding the request to Apache/Tomcat) and caching static content ONLY identified by URIs : /images, /css or /js. Other URIs should be forwarded to the normal Web Server and not cached. Since I am a newbie, I didn't find from squid documentation how to configure squid for this desired behavior (and if it is even possible). Could you please help me and tell me how should I configure squid for this purpose? Thank you.

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  • How to stop Nginx sending static file requests to the CakePHP app controller when running Cake in a

    - by Throlkim
    I'm trying to run a CakePHP app from within a subfolder on Nginx, but the static files are not being found and are instead being passed to the app controller. Here's my current config: location /uniquetv { index index.php index.html; if (-f $request_filename) { break; } if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite ^/uniquetv(.+)$ /uniquetv/webroot/$1 last; break; } } location /uniquetv/webroot { index index.php; if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite ^/uniquetv/webroot/(.+)$ /uniquetv/webroot/index.php?url=$1 last; break; } } Any ideas? :)

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  • how to? 1 domain name, 1 ISP Static IP, 1 router, 3 physical web Servers

    - by buliwyf
    I have 1 Static IP from my ISP, 58.59.60.61 I have 3 local physical web servers: Win2008 IIS 7, local IP 192.168.10.11, mydomain.com Ubuntu Apache2, local IP 192.168.10.12, subdomain1.mydomain.com Win2003 IIS 6, local IP 192.168.10.13, subdomain2.mydomain.com I have 1 domain name, mydomain.com. It is configured this way: Host(A), @, 58.59.60.61 Host(A), subdomain1, 58.59.60.61 Host(A), subdomain2, 58.59.60.61 My router is a pfSense box. It forwards all port 80 traffic to a group alias called "WebServers," which is my 3 web server IP's. This setup should work right? I believe I need to set the "host header names" in my web servers. In IIS I know how to do this. How do I do this in Apache2?

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  • Win 2003 STD network adapter always showing DHCP when in static IP configuration, + it loses the DNS

    - by Darragh
    Hi, I have a server that after the first configuration it was DHCP, now I have added it to our domain and in a static IP, however after a few moments it returns to DHCP but with only some of the IPv4 setting staying the same, It loses DNS for example. I'm not sure what is causing the problem but all I know is this started to happen after I added it to the domain, Would it be a domain policy? or the NIC drivers Spec; Dell M605 Blade server Windows 2003 STD SP1 Intel Xeon Quad core NIC: Dual embedded Broadcom NetXtreme IITM 5708 Gigabit Ethernet NIC w/ TOE

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  • Systemd-networkd: How can I prepend a static nameserver entry to DHCP-discovered nameservers?

    - by runiq
    I'm using systemd 213 on Arch Linux, and systemd-networkd with DHCP to connect to the internet. I'm also running a caching DNS server on 127.0.0.1. I'd like to make this server the first DNS server in the list, but I'd also like to use the nameservers discovered by systemd-networkd's DHCP facility. Using a static resolv.conf isn't really possible, because I connect to networks with different DNS settings. I know I can set fallback DNS servers in /etc/systemd/resolved.conf, but is there a way with systemd-networkd to prepend my local DNS server to those discovered by DHCP?

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  • Can I use static routing to allow me to use my public IP from my LAN?

    - by jnm2
    I would like to be able to use the same hostname to connect to my computer from my phone whether I'm at home or away. Currently I have to maintain duplicate entries for remote desktop, for instance. My router doesn't seem to have a NAT loopback option. I have two routers in fact, a cable modem which goes straight to my main router which does wireless. I can add to the static routing tables on each. Can I use this to loopback the public IP or do I need different routers?

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  • Is is better to combine Apache for file manipulation and upload and Nginx for static file serving, or to use one of the two alone

    - by user1032393
    Based on my research, I've read that nginx is best and ideal for serving up static files and images. My application depends heavily on uploading of images and rewriting them, then serving them up. Given that I only have one VPS currently, it has been suggested that I use nginx to serve up the images and website, and reverse proxy to Apache (on the same VPS) to rewrite files with image magick and handle the file uploads. Which would be the best solution, Apache, Nginx, or Apache + Nginx? In terms of best solution, I'm looking at minimal average RAM consumption, while maintaining decent load speed of maybe sub 2 seconds?

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  • How to stop Nginx sending static file requests to the CakePHP app controller when running Cake in a subdirectory?

    - by robotmay
    I'm trying to run a CakePHP app from within a subfolder on Nginx, but the static files are not being found and are instead being passed to the app controller. Here's my current config: location /uniquetv { index index.php index.html; if (-f $request_filename) { break; } if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite ^/uniquetv(.+)$ /uniquetv/webroot/$1 last; break; } } location /uniquetv/webroot { index index.php; if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite ^/uniquetv/webroot/(.+)$ /uniquetv/webroot/index.php?url=$1 last; break; } } Any ideas? :)

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  • Django + FastCGI - randomly raising OperationalError

    - by ibz
    I'm running a Django application. Had it under Apache + mod_python before, and it was all OK. Switched to Lighttpd + FastCGI. Now I randomly get the following exception (neither the place nor the time where it appears seem to be predictable). Since it's random, and it appears only after switching to FastCGI, I assume it has something to do with some settings. Found a few results when googleing, but they seem to be related to setting maxrequests=1. However, I use the default, which is 0. Any ideas where to look for? PS. I'm using PostgreSQL. Might be related to that as well, since the exception appears when making a database query. Thanks. File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 86, in get_response response = callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/sites.py", line 140, in root if not self.has_permission(request): File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/sites.py", line 99, in has_permission return request.user.is_authenticated() and request.user.is_staff File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/middleware.py", line 5, in __get__ request._cached_user = get_user(request) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/__init__.py", line 83, in get_user user_id = request.session[SESSION_KEY] File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/sessions/backends/base.py", line 46, in __getitem__ return self._session[key] File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/sessions/backends/base.py", line 172, in _get_session self._session_cache = self.load() File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/sessions/backends/db.py", line 16, in load expire_date__gt=datetime.datetime.now() File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/manager.py", line 93, in get return self.get_query_set().get(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 304, in get num = len(clone) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 160, in __len__ self._result_cache = list(self.iterator()) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 275, in iterator for row in self.query.results_iter(): File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py", line 206, in results_iter for rows in self.execute_sql(MULTI): File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py", line 1734, in execute_sql cursor.execute(sql, params) OperationalError: server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.

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  • Java: repetition, overuse -- problem?

    - by HH
    I try to be as minimalist as possible. Repetition is a problem. I hate it. When is it really a problem? what is static-overuse? what is field-method overuse? what is class-overuse? are there more types of overuse? Problem A: when it is too much to use of static? private static class Data { private static String fileContent; private static SizeSequence lineMap; private static File fileThing; private static char type; private static boolean binary; private static String name; private static String path; } private static class Print { //<1st LINE, LEFT_SIDE, 2nd LINE, RIGHT_SIDE> private Integer[] printPositions=new Integer[4]; private static String fingerPrint; private static String formatPrint; } Problem B: when it is too much to get field data with private methods? public Stack<Integer> getPositions(){return positions;} public Integer[] getPrintPositions(){return printPositions;} private Stack<String> getPrintViews(){return printViews;} private Stack<String> getPrintViewsPerFile(){return printViewsPerFile;} public String getPrintView(){return printView;} public String getFingerPrint(){return fingerPrint;} public String getFormatPrint(){return formatPrint;} public String getFileContent(){return fileContent;} public SizeSequence getLineMap(){return lineMap;} public File getFile(){return fileThing;} public boolean getBinary(){return binary;} public char getType(){return type;} public String getPath(){return path;} public FileObject getData(){return fObj;} public String getSearchTerm(){return searchTerm;} Related interface overuse overuse of static in a Game

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  • Mobile Friendly Websites with CSS Media Queries

    - by dwahlin
    In a previous post the concept of CSS media queries was introduced and I discussed the fundamentals of how they can be used to target different screen sizes. I showed how they could be used to convert a 3-column wide page into a more vertical view of data that displays better on devices such as an iPhone:     In this post I'll provide an additional look at how CSS media queries can be used to mobile-enable a sample site called "Widget Masters" without having to change any server-side code or HTML code. The site that will be discussed is shown next:     This site has some of the standard items shown in most websites today including a title area, menu bar, and sections where data is displayed. Without including CSS media queries the site is readable but has to be zoomed out to see everything on a mobile device, cuts-off some of the menu items, and requires horizontal scrolling to get to additional content. The following image shows what the site looks like on an iPhone. While the site works on mobile devices it's definitely not optimized for mobile.     Let's take a look at how CSS media queries can be used to override existing styles in the site based on different screen widths. Adding CSS Media Queries into a Site The Widget Masters Website relies on standard CSS combined with HTML5 elements to provide the layout shown earlier. For example, to layout the menu bar shown at the top of the page the nav element is used as shown next. A standard div element could certainly be used as well if desired.   <nav> <ul class="clearfix"> <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li> <li><a href="#products">Products</a></li> <li><a href="#aboutus">About Us</a></li> <li><a href="#contactus">Contact Us</a></li> <li><a href="#store">Store</a></li> </ul> </nav>   This HTML is combined with the CSS shown next to add a CSS3 gradient, handle the horizontal orientation, and add some general hover effects.   nav { width: 100%; } nav ul { border-radius: 6px; height: 40px; width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; background: rgb(125,126,125); /* Old browsers */ background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(125,126,125,1) 0%, rgba(14,14,14,1) 100%); /* FF3.6+ */ background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,rgba(125,126,125,1)), color-stop(100%,rgba(14,14,14,1))); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */ background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(125,126,125,1) 0%, rgba(14,14,14,1) 100%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */ background: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(125,126,125,1) 0%, rgba(14,14,14,1) 100%); /* Opera 11.10+ */ background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgba(125,126,125,1) 0%, rgba(14,14,14,1) 100%); /* IE10+ */ background: linear-gradient(top, rgba(125,126,125,1) 0%, rgba(14,14,14,1) 100%); /* W3C */ filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#7d7e7d', endColorstr='#0e0e0e',GradientType=0 ); /* IE6-9 */ } nav ul > li { list-style: none; float: left; margin: 0; padding: 0; } nav ul > li:first-child { margin-left: 8px; } nav ul > li > a { color: #ccc; text-decoration: none; line-height: 2.8em; font-size: 0.95em; font-weight: bold; padding: 8px 25px 7px 25px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } nav ul > li a:hover { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); color: #fff; }   When mobile devices hit the site the layout of the menu items needs to be adjusted so that they're all visible without having to swipe left or right to get to them. This type of modification can be accomplished using CSS media queries by targeting specific screen sizes. To start, a media query can be added into the site's CSS file as shown next: @media screen and (max-width:320px) { /* CSS style overrides for this screen width go here */ } This media query targets screens that have a maximum width of 320 pixels. Additional types of queries can also be added – refer to my previous post for more details as well as resources that can be used to test media queries in different devices. In that post I emphasize (and I'll emphasize again) that CSS media queries only modify the overall layout and look and feel of a site. They don't optimize the site as far as the size of the images or content sent to the device which is important to keep in mind. To make the navigation menu more accessible on devices such as an iPhone or Android the CSS shown next can be used. This code changes the height of the menu from 40 pixels to 100%, takes off the li element floats, changes the line-height, and changes the margins.   @media screen and (max-width:320px) { nav ul { height: 100%; } nav ul > li { float: none; } nav ul > li a { line-height: 1.5em; } nav ul > li:first-child { margin-left: 0px; } /* Additional CSS overrides go here */ }   The following image shows an example of what the menu look like when run on a device with a width of 320 pixels:   Mobile devices with a maximum width of 480 pixels need different CSS styles applied since they have 160 additional pixels of width. This can be done by adding a new CSS media query into the stylesheet as shown next. Looking through the CSS you'll see that only a minimal override is added to adjust the padding of anchor tags since the menu fits by default in this screen width.   @media screen and (max-width: 480px) { nav ul > li > a { padding: 8px 10px 7px 10px; } }   Running the site on a device with 480 pixels results in the menu shown next being rendered. Notice that the space between the menu items is much smaller compared to what was shown when the main site loads in a standard browser.     In addition to modifying the menu, the 3 horizontal content sections shown earlier can be changed from a horizontal layout to a vertical layout so that they look good on a variety of smaller mobile devices and are easier to navigate by end users. The HTML5 article and section elements are used as containers for the 3 sections in the site as shown next:   <article class="clearfix"> <section id="info"> <header>Why Choose Us?</header> <br /> <img id="mainImage" src="Images/ArticleImage.png" title="Article Image" /> <p> Post emensos insuperabilis expeditionis eventus languentibus partium animis, quas periculorum varietas fregerat et laborum, nondum tubarum cessante clangore vel milite locato per stationes hibernas. </p> </section> <section id="products"> <header>Products</header> <br /> <img id="gearsImage" src="Images/Gears.png" title="Article Image" /> <p> <ul> <li>Widget 1</li> <li>Widget 2</li> <li>Widget 3</li> <li>Widget 4</li> <li>Widget 5</li> </ul> </p> </section> <section id="FAQ"> <header>FAQ</header> <br /> <img id="faqImage" src="Images/faq.png" title="Article Image" /> <p> <ul> <li>FAQ 1</li> <li>FAQ 2</li> <li>FAQ 3</li> <li>FAQ 4</li> <li>FAQ 5</li> </ul> </p> </section> </article>   To force the sections into a vertical layout for smaller mobile devices the CSS styles shown next can be added into the media queries targeting 320 pixel and 480 pixel widths. Styles to target the display size of the images in each section are also included. It's important to note that the original image is still being downloaded from the server and isn't being optimized in any way for the mobile device. It's certainly possible for the CSS to include URL information for a mobile-optimized image if desired. @media screen and (max-width:320px) { section { float: none; width: 97%; margin: 0px; padding: 5px; } #wrapper { padding: 5px; width: 96%; } #mainImage, #gearsImage, #faqImage { width: 100%; height: 100px; } } @media screen and (max-width: 480px) { section { float: none; width: 98%; margin: 0px 0px 10px 0px; padding: 5px; } article > section:last-child { margin-right: 0px; float: none; } #bottomSection { width: 99%; } #wrapper { padding: 5px; width: 96%; } #mainImage, #gearsImage, #faqImage { width: 100%; height: 100px; } }   The following images show the site rendered on an iPhone with the CSS media queries in place. Each of the sections now displays vertically making it much easier for the user to access them. Images inside of each section also scale appropriately to fit properly.     CSS media queries provide a great way to override default styles in a website and target devices with different resolutions. In this post you've seen how CSS media queries can be used to convert a standard browser-based site into a site that is more accessible to mobile users. Although much more can be done to optimize sites for mobile, CSS media queries provide a nice starting point if you don't have the time or resources to create mobile-specific versions of sites.

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  • Tip #104: Did you know … How to view text for the ‘hint’ buttons on the Publish Web Dialog?

    - by The Official Microsoft IIS Site
    After the Beta 2 release of Visual Studio 2010, the Publish Web Dialog was modified to include two information buttons associated with the Service URL and Site/application text boxes. (See Figure 1) Figure 1 – New information (‘hint’) buttons (see circled question marks) There are two keys to remember when trying to view the ‘help’ text associated with these buttons: Patience Hover – don’t click In order to reveal the valuable information that these help icons can unlock, simply move your mouse to...(read more)

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  • Configuring Expert Search in Communicator 14 and SharePoint 2010

    Communicator 14 provides functionality to be able to search for contacts not just by name, but by skill.  For example a customer service agent at an airline can search for other agents with Travel Advisory experience by typing the search criteria into the Communicator search box and performing a search by keyword.  The search results will return users who have specified that skill in their profile on their SharePoint My Site.  This is actually pretty easy to configure, Ill show you how. Create Search and People Search Results Pages in SharePoint Communicator 14 Expert Search works by using the SharePoint 2010 Search Service to search SharePoint for user profiles with matching keywords.  This requires that you have an Enterprise Search site in your site collection which includes the search service and also the People Results pages.  The easiest way to do this is to create a Search Center site in your site collection. Note: I get an error when trying to create an Enterprise Search site in a Team Site in the SharePoint 2010 RTM bits, so I created it as a site collection that is evident in the URLs you see below. In the screenshots below, you can see that the URL of the SharePoint search service in the Search site collection is http://sps2010/sites/search/_vti_bin/search.asmx, and the URL of the People Search Results page is http://sps2010/sites/Search/Pages/peopleresults.aspx. Point Communications Server 14 to Search and People Search Results Pages For Communicator 14 to be able to perform an Expert Search, you need to configure Communications Server 14 to point to the Search Service and People Search Results page URLs. From a server with the OCS Core bits installed, fire up the Communications Server Management Shell and type Get-CsClientPolicy. Scroll down to the bottom of the output, were interested in setting the values of: SPSearchInternalURL SPSearchExternalURL SPSearchCenterInternalURL SPSearchCenterExternalURL SPSearchInternalURL and SPSearchExternalURL correspond to the internal and external URLs of the SharePoint search service in the Search site collection, while SPSearchCenterInternalURL and SPSearchCenterExternalURL correspond to the internal and external URLs of the people search results pages. Well use the Communications Server Management Shell to set the values of these CS policy properties. For simplicity, Im only going to set the internal URLs here. Set-CsClientPolicy SPSearchInternalURL http://sps2010/sites/search/_vti_bin/search.asmx     -SPSearchCenterInternalURL http://sps2010/sites/Search/Pages/peopleresults.aspx Log out and back into Communicator.  You can verify that these settings were applied by running the Get-CsClientPolicy cmdlet again from the Communications Server Management Shell. However, theres another super-secret ninja trick to verify that the settings were applied: Find the Communicator icon in the Windows System Tray Hold down the Ctrl button Click (left) the Communicator icon in the Windows System Tray do not depress the Ctrl button You should now see an extra menu item called Configuration Information, click it. Scroll down and locate the Expert Search URL and SharePoint Search Center URL keys and verify that their values correspond to those you set using the Set-CsClientPolicy PowerShell cmdlet. Configure a Sharepoint User Profile Import Im not going to provide detailed steps here except to say that you need to configure the SharePoint 2010 User Profile  Service Application to import user account details from Active Directory on a scheduled basis. This is a critical step because there are several user profile properties e.g. SipAddress that are only populated by a user profile import.  When performing an Expert Search, Communicator can only render results for users who have a SipAddress specified. Add Skills to User Profiles Navigate to your My Site and click on My Profile.  This page allows you to set many contact details that are searchable in SharePoint.  Were particularly interested in the Ask Me About property of a users profile.  Expert Search searches against this property to find users with matching skills. Configure a SharePoint Search Crawl Ensure that you have a scheduled job to crawl your Local SharePoint Sites content source.  Depending on how you have this configured, it will also crawl the My Site site collection and add user properties such as Ask Me About to the search index. Thats It! SharePoint 2010 provides new social and collaboration features to help users find other users with similar skills or interests. Expert Search extends this functionality directly into Microsoft Communicator 14, allowing you to interact with the users directly from the search results. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • IIS 7 Url Rewrite Rules for SEO and Security

    - by The Official Microsoft IIS Site
    Before IIS 7, if you wanted to do url rewriting with IIS 6 you had to use a 3rd party program such as ISAPI Rewrite by helicontech.com. This was a good program but it wasn’t native to IIS and there were limitations such as a site hosting more than 1 domain with different applications running. With IIS 7 url rewriting and redirecting has never been easier thanks to Microsoft’s Url Rewrite module. The rewriting is done by rules which are specified in the web.config under <system.webserver>...(read more)

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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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  • More SharePoint 2010 Expression Builders

    - by Ricardo Peres
    Introduction Following my last post, I decided to publish the whole set of expression builders that I use with SharePoint. For all who don’t know about expression builders, they allow us to employ a declarative approach, so that we don’t have to write code for “gluing” things together, like getting a value from the query string, the page’s underlying SPListItem or the current SPContext and assigning it to a control’s property. These expression builders are for some quite common scenarios, I use them quite often, and I hope you find them useful as well. SPContextExpression This expression builder allows us to specify an expression to be processed on the SPContext.Current property object. For example: 1: <asp:Literal runat="server" Text=“<%$ SPContextExpression:Site.RootWeb.Lists[0].Author.LoginName %>”/> It is identical to having the following code: 1: String authorName = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb.Lists[0].Author.LoginName; SPFarmProperty Returns a property stored on the farm level: 1: <asp:Literal runat="server" Text="<%$ SPFarmProperty:SomeProperty %>"/> Identical to: 1: Object someProperty = SPFarm.Local.Properties["SomeProperty"]; SPField Returns the value of a selected page’s list item field: 1: <asp:Literal runat="server" Text="<%$ SPField:Title %>"/> Does the same as: 1: String title = SPContext.Current.ListItem["Title"] as String; SPIsInAudience Checks if the current user belongs to an audience: 1: <asp:CheckBox runat="server" Checked="<%$ SPIsInAudience:SomeAudience %>"/> Equivalent to: 1: AudienceManager audienceManager = new AudienceManager(SPServiceContext.Current); 2: Audience audience = audienceManager.Audiences["SomeAudience"]; 3: Boolean isMember = audience.IsMember(SPContext.Current.Web.User.LoginName); SPIsInGroup Checks if the current user belongs to a group: 1: <asp:CheckBox runat="server" Checked="<%$ SPIsInGroup:SomeGroup %>"/> The equivalent C# code is: 1: SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Groups.OfType<SPGroup>().Any(x => String.Equals(x.Name, “SomeGroup”, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)); SPProperty Returns the value of a user profile property for the current user: 1: <asp:Literal runat="server" Text="<%$ SPProperty:LastName %>"/> Where the same code in C# would be: 1: UserProfileManager upm = new UserProfileManager(SPServiceContext.Current); 2: UserProfile u = upm.GetUserProfile(false); 3: Object property = u["LastName"].Value; SPQueryString Returns a value passed on the query string: 1: <asp:GridView runat="server" PageIndex="<%$ SPQueryString:PageIndex %>" /> Is equivalent to (no SharePoint code this time): 1: Int32 pageIndex = Convert.ChangeType(typeof(Int32), HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["PageIndex"]); SPWebProperty Returns the value of a property stored at the site level: 1: <asp:Literal runat="server" Text="<%$ SPWebProperty:__ImagesListId %>"/> You can get the same result as: 1: String imagesListId = SPContext.Current.Web.AllProperties["__ImagesListId"] as String; Code OK, let’s move to the code. First, a common abstract base class, mainly for inheriting the conversion method: 1: public abstract class SPBaseExpressionBuilder : ExpressionBuilder 2: { 3: #region Protected static methods 4: protected static Object Convert(Object value, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 5: { 6: if (value != null) 7: { 8: if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(value.GetType()) == false) 9: { 10: if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.IsEnum == true) 11: { 12: value = Enum.Parse(propertyInfo.PropertyType, value.ToString(), true); 13: } 14: else if (propertyInfo.PropertyType == typeof(String)) 15: { 16: value = value.ToString(); 17: } 18: else if ((typeof(IConvertible).IsAssignableFrom(propertyInfo.PropertyType) == true) && (typeof(IConvertible).IsAssignableFrom(value.GetType()) == true)) 19: { 20: value = System.Convert.ChangeType(value, propertyInfo.PropertyType); 21: } 22: } 23: } 24:  25: return (value); 26: } 27: #endregion 28:  29: #region Public override methods 30: public override CodeExpression GetCodeExpression(BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 31: { 32: if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(entry.Expression) == true) 33: { 34: return (new CodePrimitiveExpression(String.Empty)); 35: } 36: else 37: { 38: return (new CodeMethodInvokeExpression(new CodeMethodReferenceExpression(new CodeTypeReferenceExpression(this.GetType()), "GetValue"), new CodePrimitiveExpression(entry.Expression.Trim()), new CodePropertyReferenceExpression(new CodeArgumentReferenceExpression("entry"), "PropertyInfo"))); 39: } 40: } 41: #endregion 42:  43: #region Public override properties 44: public override Boolean SupportsEvaluate 45: { 46: get 47: { 48: return (true); 49: } 50: } 51: #endregion 52: } Next, the code for each expression builder: 1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPContext")] 2: public class SPContextExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String expression, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: SPContext context = SPContext.Current; 8: Object expressionValue = DataBinder.Eval(context, expression.Trim().Replace('\'', '"')); 9:  10: expressionValue = Convert(expressionValue, propertyInfo); 11:  12: return (expressionValue); 13: } 14:  15: #endregion 16:  17: #region Public override methods 18: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 19: { 20: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 21: } 22: #endregion 23: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPFarmProperty")] 2: public class SPFarmPropertyExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String propertyName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object propertyValue = SPFarm.Local.Properties[propertyName]; 8:  9: propertyValue = Convert(propertyValue, propertyInfo); 10:  11: return (propertyValue); 12: } 13:  14: #endregion 15:  16: #region Public override methods 17: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 18: { 19: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 20: } 21: #endregion 22: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPField")] 2: public class SPFieldExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String fieldName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object fieldValue = SPContext.Current.ListItem[fieldName]; 8:  9: fieldValue = Convert(fieldValue, propertyInfo); 10:  11: return (fieldValue); 12: } 13:  14: #endregion 15:  16: #region Public override methods 17: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 18: { 19: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 20: } 21: #endregion 22: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPIsInAudience")] 2: public class SPIsInAudienceExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String audienceName, PropertyInfo info) 6: { 7: Debugger.Break(); 8: audienceName = audienceName.Trim(); 9:  10: if ((audienceName.StartsWith("'") == true) && (audienceName.EndsWith("'") == true)) 11: { 12: audienceName = audienceName.Substring(1, audienceName.Length - 2); 13: } 14:  15: AudienceManager manager = new AudienceManager(); 16: Object value = manager.IsMemberOfAudience(SPControl.GetContextWeb(HttpContext.Current).CurrentUser.LoginName, audienceName); 17:  18: if (info.PropertyType == typeof(String)) 19: { 20: value = value.ToString(); 21: } 22:  23: return(value); 24: } 25:  26: #endregion 27:  28: #region Public override methods 29: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 30: { 31: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 32: } 33: #endregion 34: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPIsInGroup")] 2: public class SPIsInGroupExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String groupName, PropertyInfo info) 6: { 7: groupName = groupName.Trim(); 8:  9: if ((groupName.StartsWith("'") == true) && (groupName.EndsWith("'") == true)) 10: { 11: groupName = groupName.Substring(1, groupName.Length - 2); 12: } 13:  14: Object value = SPControl.GetContextWeb(HttpContext.Current).CurrentUser.Groups.OfType<SPGroup>().Any(x => String.Equals(x.Name, groupName, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)); 15:  16: if (info.PropertyType == typeof(String)) 17: { 18: value = value.ToString(); 19: } 20:  21: return(value); 22: } 23:  24: #endregion 25:  26: #region Public override methods 27: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 28: { 29: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 30: } 31: #endregion 32: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPProperty")] 2: public class SPPropertyExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String propertyName, System.Reflection.PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: SPServiceContext serviceContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(HttpContext.Current); 8: UserProfileManager upm = new UserProfileManager(serviceContext); 9: UserProfile up = upm.GetUserProfile(false); 10: Object propertyValue = (up[propertyName] != null) ? up[propertyName].Value : null; 11:  12: propertyValue = Convert(propertyValue, propertyInfo); 13:  14: return (propertyValue); 15: } 16:  17: #endregion 18:  19: #region Public override methods 20: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 21: { 22: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 23: } 24: #endregion 25: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPQueryString")] 2: public class SPQueryStringExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String parameterName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object parameterValue = HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString[parameterName]; 8:  9: parameterValue = Convert(parameterValue, propertyInfo); 10:  11: return (parameterValue); 12: } 13:  14: #endregion 15:  16: #region Public override methods 17: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 18: { 19: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 20: } 21: #endregion 22: }   1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPWebProperty")] 2: public class SPWebPropertyExpressionBuilder : SPBaseExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetValue(String propertyName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object propertyValue = SPContext.Current.Web.AllProperties[propertyName]; 8:  9: propertyValue = Convert(propertyValue, propertyInfo); 10:  11: return (propertyValue); 12: } 13:  14: #endregion 15:  16: #region Public override methods 17: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 18: { 19: return (GetValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 20: } 21: #endregion 22: } Registration You probably know how to register them, but here it goes again: add this following snippet to your Web.config file, inside the configuration/system.web/compilation/expressionBuilders section: 1: <add expressionPrefix="SPContext" type="MyNamespace.SPContextExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 2: <add expressionPrefix="SPFarmProperty" type="MyNamespace.SPFarmPropertyExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 3: <add expressionPrefix="SPField" type="MyNamespace.SPFieldExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 4: <add expressionPrefix="SPIsInAudience" type="MyNamespace.SPIsInAudienceExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 5: <add expressionPrefix="SPIsInGroup" type="MyNamespace.SPIsInGroupExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 6: <add expressionPrefix="SPProperty" type="MyNamespace.SPPropertyExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 7: <add expressionPrefix="SPQueryString" type="MyNamespace.SPQueryStringExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> 8: <add expressionPrefix="SPWebProperty" type="MyNamespace.SPWebPropertyExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=xxx" /> I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the best way to deploy this to your server!

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  • Need your feedback on our new SQL Server Connectivity portal

    - by The Official Microsoft IIS Site
    SQL Server, as a database product, has grown over the years and there are multiple ways to connect to it. Often, the different ways to connect to the database get documented and discussed in the various technology sections, and the technology choice determines which connectivity method one is going to use. For example, if one is writing a C++ application then one has to go with ODBC whereas a PHP web site developer will choose the PHP driver of course. Until now, this information was scattered all...(read more)

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  • The sign of a true manager is delegation (C# style)

    - by MarkPearl
    Today I thought I would write a bit about delegates in C#. Up till recently I have managed to side step any real understanding of what delegates do and why they are useful – I mean, I know roughly what they do and have used them a lot, but I have never really got down dirty with them and mucked about. Recently however with my renewed interest in Silverlight delegates came up again as a possible solution to a particular problem, and suddenly I found myself opening a bland little console application to just see exactly how far I could take delegates with my limited knowledge. So, let’s first look at the MSDN definition of delegates… A delegate declaration defines a reference type that can be used to encapsulate a method with a specific signature. A delegate instance encapsulates a static or an instance method. Delegates are roughly similar to function pointers in C++; however, delegates are type-safe and secure. Well, don’t you love MSDN for such a useful definition. I must give it credit though… later on it really explains it a bit better by saying “A delegate lets you pass a function as a parameter. The type safety of delegates requires the function you pass as a delegate to have the same signature as the delegate declaration.” A little more reading up on delegates mentions that delegates are similar to interfaces in that they enable the separation of specification and implementation. A delegate declares a single method, while an interface declares a group of methods. So enough reading - lets look at some code and see a basic example of a delegate… Let’s assume we have a console application with a simple delegate declared called AdjustValue like below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); static void Main(string[] args) { } } In a sense, all we have said is that we will be creating one or more methods that follow the same pattern as AdjustValue – i.e. they will take one input value of type int and return an integer. We could then expand our code to have various methods that match the structure of our delegate AdjustValue (remember the structure is int xxx (int xxx)) class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { } }  Above I have expanded my project to have two methods, one called Dbl and the other AlwaysOne. Dbl always returns double the input val and AlwaysOne always returns 1. I could now declare a variable and assign it to be one of those functions, like the following… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } } In this instance I have declared an instance of the AdjustValue delegate called myDelegate; I have then told myDelegate to point to the method Dbl, and then called myDelegate(1). What would the result be? Yes, in this instance it would be exactly the same as me calling the following code… static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(Dbl(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); }   So why all the extra work for delegates when we could just do what we did above and call the method directly? Well… that separation of specification to implementation comes to mind. So, this all seems pretty simple. Let’s take a slightly more complicated variation to the console application. Assume that my project is the same as the one previously except that my main method is adjusted as follows… static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; myDelegate = AlwaysOne; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } What would happen in this scenario? Quite simply “1” would be written to the console, the reason being that myDelegate was last pointing to the AlwaysOne method before it was called. Make sense? In a way, the myDelegate is a variable method that can be swapped and changed when needed. Let’s make the code a little more confusing by using a delegate in the declaration of another delegate as shown below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(InputValue val); private delegate int InputValue(); private static int Dbl(InputValue val) { return val()*2; } private static int GetInputVal() { Console.WriteLine("Enter a whole number : "); return Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine()); } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } }   Now it gets really interesting because it looks like we have passed a method into a function in the main method by declaring… Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); So, what it the output? Well, try take a guess on what will happen – then copy the code and see if you got it right. Well that brings me to the end of this short explanation of Delegates. Hopefully it made sense!

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