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

- by Matt Klein

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

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Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: REST API Integration

- by Nino Guarnacci

This post aims to highlight one of the features found in Oracle Coherence which allows it to be easily added and integrated inside a wider variety of projects. The features in question are the REST API exposed by the Coherence nodes, with which you can interact in the wider mode in memory data grid.Oracle Coherence and Oracle Service Bus are natively integrated through a feature found in the Oracle Service Bus, which allows you to use the coherence grid cache during the configuration phase of a business service. This feature allows you to use an intermediate layer of cache to retrieve the answers from previous invocations of the same service, without necessarily having to invoke the real business service again. Directly from the web console of Oracle Service Bus, you can decide the policies of eviction of the objects / answers and define the discriminating parameters that identify their uniqueness.The coherence REST APIs, however, allow you to integrate both products for other necessities enabling realization of new architectures design. Consider coherence’s node as a simple service which interoperates through the stardard services and in particular REST (with JSON and XML). Thinking of coherence as a company’s shared service, able to have an implementation of a centralized “map and reduce” which you can access by a huge variety of protocols (transport and envelopes).An amazing step forward for those who still imagine connectors and code. This type of integration does not require writing custom code or complex implementation to be self-supported. The added value is made unique by the incredible value of both products independently, and still more out of their simple and robust integration.As already mentioned this scenario discovers a hidden new door behind the columns of these two products. The door leads to new ideas and perspectives for enterprise architectures that increasingly wink to next-generation applications: simple and dynamic, perhaps towards the mobile and web 2.0.Below, a small and simple demo useful to demonstrate how easily is to integrate these two products using the Coherence REST API. This demo is also intended to imagine new enterprise architectures using this approach.The idea is to create a centralized system of alerting, fed easily from any company’s application, regardless of the technology with which they were built . Then use a representation standard protocol: RSS, using a service exposed by the service bus; So you can browse and search only the alerts that you are interested on, by category, author, title, date, etc etc.. The steps needed to implement this system are very simple and very few. Here they are listed below and described to be easily replicated within your environment. I would remind you that the demo is only meant to demonstrate how easily is to integrate Oracle Coherence and the Oracle Service Bus, and stimulate your imagination to new technological approaches.1) Install the two products: In this demo used (if necessary, consult the installation guides of 2 products) - Oracle Service Bus ver. 11.1.1.5.0 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/service-bus/downloads/index.html - Oracle Coherence ver. 3.7.1 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/coherence/downloads/index.html 2) Because you choose to create a centralized alerting system, we need to define a structure type containing some alerting attributes useful to preserve and organize the information of the various alerts sent by the different applications. Here, then it was built a java class named Alert containing the canonical properties of an alarm information:- Title- Description- System- Time- Severity 3) Therefore, we need to create two configuration files for the coherence node, in order to save the Alert objects within the grid, through the rest/http protocol (more than the native API for Java, C + +, C,. Net). Here are the two minimal configuration files for Coherence:coherence-rest-config.xml resty-server-config.xml This minimum configuration allows me to use a distributed cache named "alerts" that can also be accessed via http - rest on the host "localhost" over port "8080", objects are of type “oracle.cohsb.Alert”. 4) Below a simple Java class that represents the type of alert messages: 5) At this point we just need to startup our coherence node, able to listen on http protocol to manage the “alerts” cache, which will receive incoming XML or JSON objects of type Alert. Remember to include in the classpath of the coherence node, the Alert java class and the following coherence libraries and configuration files: At this point, just run the coherence class node “com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer”advising you to set the following parameters:-Dtangosol.coherence.log.level=9 -Dtangosol.coherence.log=stdout -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=[PATH_TO_THE_FILE]\resty-server-config.xml 6) Let's create a procedure to test our configuration of Coherence and in order to insert some custom alerts in our cache. The technology with which you want to achieve this functionality is fully not considerable: Javascript, Python, Ruby, Scala, C + +, Java.... Because the protocol to communicate with Coherence is simply HTTP / JSON or XML. For this little demo i choose Java: A method to send/put the alert to the cache: A method to query and view the content of the cache: Finally the main method that execute our methods: No special library added in the classpath for our class (json struct static defined), when it will be executed, it asks some information such as title, description,... in order to compose and send an alert to the cache and then it will perform an inquiry, to the same cache. At this point, a good exercise at this point, may be to create the same procedure using other technologies, such as a simple html page containing some JavaScript code, and then using Python, Ruby, and so on.7) Now we are ready to start configuring the Oracle Service Bus in order to integrate the two products. First integrate the internal alerting system of Oracle Service Bus with our centralized alerting system based on coherence node. This ensures that by monitoring, or directly from within our Proxy Message Flow, we can throw alerts and save them directly into the Coherence node. To do this I choose to use the jms technology, natively present inside the Oracle Weblogic / Service Bus. Access to the Oracle WebLogic Administration console and create and configure a new JMS connection factory and a new jms destination (queue). Now we should create a new resource of type “alert destination” within our Oracle Service Bus project. The new “alert destination” resource should be configured using the newly created connection factory jms and jms destination. Finally, in order to withdraw the message alert enqueued in our JMS destination and send it to our coherence node, we just need to create a new business service and proxy service within our Oracle Service Bus project.Our business service is responsible for sending a message to our REST service Coherence using as a method action: PUT Finally our proxy service have to collect all messages enqueued on the destination, execute an xquery transformation on those messages in order to translate them into valid XML / alert objects useful to be sent to our coherence service, through the newly created business service. The message flow pipeline containing the xquery transformation: Incredibly, we just did a basic first integration between the native alerting system of Oracle Service Bus and our centralized alerting system by simply configuring our coherence node without developing anything.It's time to test it out. To do this I create a proxy service able to generate an alert using our "alert destination", whenever the proxy is invoked. After some invocation to our proxy that generates fake alerts, we could open an Internet browser and type the URL http://localhost: 8080/alerts/ so we could see what has been inserted within the coherence node. 8) We are ready for the final step. We would create a new message flow, that can be used to search and display the results in standard mode. To do this I choosen the standard representation of RSS, to display a formatted result on a huge variety of devices such as readers for the iPhone and Android. The inquiry may be defined already at the time of the request able to return only feed / items related to our needs. To do this we need to create a new business service, a new proxy service, and finally a new XQuery Transformation to take care of translating the collection of alerts that will be return from our coherence node in a nicely formatted RSS standard document.So we start right from this resource (xquery), which has the task of transforming a collection of alerts / xml returned from the node coherence in a type well-formatted feed RSS 2.0 our new business service that will search the alerts on our coherence node using the Rest API. And finally, our last resource, the proxy service that will be exposed as an RSS / feeds to various mobile devices and traditional web readers, in which we will intercept any search query, and transform the result returned by the business service in an RSS feed 2.0. The message flow with the transformation phase (Alert TO Feed Items): Finally some little tricks to follow during the routing to the business service, - check for any queries present in the url to require a subset of alerts - the http header "Accept" to help get an answer XML instead of JSON: In our little demo we also static added some coherence parameters to the request:sort=time:desc;start=0;count=100I would like to get from Coherence that the results will be sorted by date, and starting from 1 up to a maximum of 100.Done!!Just incredible, our centralized alerting system is ready. Inheriting all the qualities and capabilities of the two products involved Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: - RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, Performance)Now try to use your mobile device, or a normal Internet browser by accessing the RSS just published: Some urls you may test: Search for the last 100 alerts : http://localhost:7001/alarmsSearch for alerts that do not have time set to null (time is not null):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=time+is+not+nullSearch for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” (system = ‘Web Browser’):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27Search for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” and the severity property is “Fatal” and the title property contain the word “Javascript” (system = ‘Web Broser’ and severity = ‘Fatal’ and title like ‘%Javascript%’)http://localhost:8080/alerts?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27+AND+severity+%3D+%27Fatal%27+AND+title+LIKE+%27%25Javascript%25%27 To compose more complex queries about your need I would suggest you to read the chapter in the coherence documentation inherent the Cohl language (Coherence Query Language) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22837/api_cq.htm . Some useful links: - Oracle Coherence REST API Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22839/rest_intro.htm - Oracle Service Bus Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/soa.htm#osb - REST explanation from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer At this URL could be downloaded the whole materials of this demo http://blogs.oracle.com/slc/resource/cosb/coh-sb-demo.zip Author: Nino Guarnacci.

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

- by Pinal Dave

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

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010New ProjectsAStar.net: AStar.net is a project for compute the A* path finding algorithm. It expose classes and interface that can be used for all purpose with multi-threa...Auto Complete for MOSS 2007: Auto Complete for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for all user to fill list of nessesary string in the field. AutoPoco: AutoPoco is a framework with the purpose of fluently building test data from Plain Old CLR ObjectsBlueProject: BlueProjectColor Picker for MOSS 2007: Color picker for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to choose color in the field. ComBrowser2: ComBrowser2DCommunication: Communication Components and Software By Delphi On Windows.DirST: Allows one to replicate a DIRectory STructure without copying files. Written in C#.Discussion column for MOSS 2007: Discussion column for MOSS 2007/ (WSS 3.0) is a field column for different type lists such as Custom List, Document Library, Issue Tracking, not on...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Energon: Energon is a framework to create and run software energy consumption tests. Requires a couple of PC with a TCP connections, a phidgets ammeter and ...Fiansa: Proyecto FiansaFirstSpark: FirstSpark is a sample Spark View Engine projectISOM: Internetowy System Obsługi Magisterek La Carta Mas Alta: La Carta Mas Alta is an open source card game totally written in PHP and HTML. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Li...Near forums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Open source SEO friendly ASP.NET MVC forum engine. Features: Navigation in forums, topics and tags; login with Facebook Connect and Single sign-on;...PEC: Still editingPowershell Zip Export/Import Cmdlet Module: Powershellzip is a powershell module with a set of Cmdlets for zip file export, import and processingProgress bar for MOSS 2007: Progress bar for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to display progress in the field in percent (0-100%). SharePoint Accelerators: This project delivers a number of SharePoint accelerators that make your every-day SharePoint life easier.Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pex: Shweet is a simple SharePoint Foundation 2010 application that allows teams to do messaging and subscriptions in the style similar to twitter. De...SilverlightEncoder: Video and audio encoder for Silverlight 4 Out-of-BrowserStarMath: Static Array Math Library: While there are already countless math libraries for performing common matrix/array functions, StarMath is distinguished by its simplicity and flex...StringToNumber: StringToNumber is a .NET library for parsing numbers in their written form into their numeric equivalent. It's developed in C#. It was created to...SubstitutionITIS: <project name="Substitution" language="c-sharp" to="myschool" whatdo="manageSubstitutionTeachers" />TamTam.SharePoint2010.LinkedIn: SP2010 and LinkedIn working togetherThink And Explore: Think my own wayusenet-o-matic: small mobile optimised webscript to search various NZB sources like newzbin and NZBmatrix and send donwloads to your SABnzbd server. Valid HTML5 Templates for VisualStudio: This project will host valid HTML templates for Visual Studio. The primary focus however will be on the newer standard HTML5 and Visual Studio 2010XSS Attack: This tool will simulate an attack on your database and update up to 5000 rows in every table and replace your strings in your database with random ...Yazgelistir Beta: Yazgelistir'in beta sitesiNew ReleasesAStar.net: AStar.net 1.0 downloads: AStar.net 1.0 downloadsAvalaible downloads:Astar.net dll - Runtime library ready to be included in a project. Astar.net source project - The Visu...AutoPoco: 0.1 - Initial Release: This is the initial release, changes pending, lots left to do, check it out though!Bag of Tricks: Bag of Tricks - WPF - Libraries and Sample App: Here is a drop of the Bag of Tricks. It targets the 3.5 Client Profile.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher 1.0.1.4: Taskbar will now be hiddenDesignit Umbraco Newsletter Package: ver 1.0.0 beta1: Please remember this is a beta version. If you have any problems or issues, don't hesitate to use the issue tracker and/or forum on this site. Ple...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio 2008: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1 Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) Showcase Application Samples Foundation (Tabs, Groups, Contextual Tab...GsGrid: gsgrid 1.6.5: gsgrid 1.6.5Home Access Plus+: v3.2.5.2: v3.2.5.1 Release Change Log: Attempt to fix Domain Admin Lookup box File Changes: ~/bin/CHS Extranet.dll ~/bin/CHS Extranet.pdbHulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher 1.0.1.4: Will now hide taskbar.Icarus Scene Engine: Icarus Professional 2 Alpha 2a v 1.10.404.936: Alpha release 2 of Icarus Professional. This release includes: IcarusX: The ActiveX-based browser control for rendering IPX projects online. 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Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.RawrFacebook Developer ToolkitShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pexpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterAcadsys

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

- by Vincent Maverick Durano

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

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Move Files from a Failing PC with an Ubuntu Live CD

- by Trevor Bekolay

You’ve loaded the Ubuntu Live CD to salvage files from a failing system, but where do you store the recovered files? We’ll show you how to store them on external drives, drives on the same PC, a Windows home network, and other locations. We’ve shown you how to recover data like a forensics expert, but you can’t store recovered files back on your failed hard drive! There are lots of ways to transfer the files you access from an Ubuntu Live CD to a place that a stable Windows machine can access them. We’ll go through several methods, starting each section from the Ubuntu desktop – if you don’t yet have an Ubuntu Live CD, follow our guide to creating a bootable USB flash drive, and then our instructions for booting into Ubuntu. If your BIOS doesn’t let you boot using a USB flash drive, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Use a Healthy Hard Drive If your computer has more than one hard drive, or your hard drive is healthy and you’re in Ubuntu for non-recovery reasons, then accessing your hard drive is easy as pie, even if the hard drive is formatted for Windows. To access a hard drive, it must first be mounted. To mount a healthy hard drive, you just have to select it from the Places menu at the top-left of the screen. You will have to identify your hard drive by its size. Clicking on the appropriate hard drive mounts it, and opens it in a file browser. You can now move files to this hard drive by drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, both of which are done the same way they’re done in Windows. Once a hard drive, or other external storage device, is mounted, it will show up in the /media directory. To see a list of currently mounted storage devices, navigate to /media by clicking on File System in a File Browser window, and then double-clicking on the media folder. Right now, our media folder contains links to the hard drive, which Ubuntu has assigned a terribly uninformative label, and the PLoP Boot Manager CD that is currently in the CD-ROM drive. Connect a USB Hard Drive or Flash Drive An external USB hard drive gives you the advantage of portability, and is still large enough to store an entire hard disk dump, if need be. Flash drives are also very quick and easy to connect, though they are limited in how much they can store. When you plug a USB hard drive or flash drive in, Ubuntu should automatically detect it and mount it. It may even open it in a File Browser automatically. Since it’s been mounted, you will also see it show up on the desktop, and in the /media folder. Once it’s been mounted, you can access it and store files on it like you would any other folder in Ubuntu. If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t mount automatically, click on Places in the top-left of your screen and select your USB device. If it does not show up in the Places list, then you may need to format your USB drive. To properly remove the USB drive when you’re done moving files, right click on the desktop icon or the folder in /media and select Safely Remove Drive. If you’re not given that option, then Eject or Unmount will effectively do the same thing. Connect to a Windows PC on your Local Network If you have another PC or a laptop connected through the same router (wired or wireless) then you can transfer files over the network relatively quickly. To do this, we will share one or more folders from the machine booted up with the Ubuntu Live CD over the network, letting our Windows PC grab the files contained in that folder. As an example, we’re going to share a folder on the desktop called ToShare. Right-click on the folder you want to share, and click Sharing Options. A Folder Sharing window will pop up. Check the box labeled Share this folder. A window will pop up about the sharing service. Click the Install service button. Some files will be downloaded, and then installed. When they’re done installing, you’ll be appropriately notified. You will be prompted to restart your session. Don’t worry, this won’t actually log you out, so go ahead and press the Restart session button. The Folder Sharing window returns, with Share this folder now checked. Edit the Share name if you’d like, and add checkmarks in the two checkboxes below the text fields. Click Create Share. Nautilus will ask your permission to add some permissions to the folder you want to share. Allow it to Add the permissions automatically. The folder is now shared, as evidenced by the new arrows above the folder’s icon. At this point, you are done with the Ubuntu machine. Head to your Windows PC, and open up Windows Explorer. Click on Network in the list on the left, and you should see a machine called UBUNTU in the right pane. Note: This example is shown in Windows 7; the same steps should work for Windows XP and Vista, but we have not tested them. Double-click on UBUNTU, and you will see the folder you shared earlier! As well as any other folders you’ve shared from Ubuntu. Double click on the folder you want to access, and from there, you can move the files from the machine booted with Ubuntu to your Windows PC. Upload to an Online Service There are many services online that will allow you to upload files, either temporarily or permanently. As long as you aren’t transferring an entire hard drive, these services should allow you to transfer your important files from the Ubuntu environment to any other machine with Internet access. We recommend compressing the files that you want to move, both to save a little bit of bandwidth, and to save time clicking on files, as uploading a single file will be much less work than a ton of little files. To compress one or more files or folders, select them, and then right-click on one of the members of the group. Click Compress…. Give the compressed file a suitable name, and then select a compression format. We’re using .zip because we can open it anywhere, and the compression rate is acceptable. Click Create and the compressed file will show up in the location selected in the Compress window. Dropbox If you have a Dropbox account, then you can easily upload files from the Ubuntu environment to Dropbox. There is no explicit limit on the size of file that can be uploaded to Dropbox, though a free account begins with a total limit of 2 GB of files in total. Access your account through Firefox, which can be opened by clicking on the Firefox logo to the right of the System menu at the top of the screen. Once into your account, press the Upload button on top of the main file list. Because Flash is not installed in the Live CD environment, you will have to switch to the basic uploader. Click Browse…find your compressed file, and then click Upload file. Depending on the size of the file, this could take some time. However, once the file has been uploaded, it should show up on any computer connected through Dropbox in a matter of minutes. Google Docs Google Docs allows the upload of any type of file – making it an ideal place to upload files that we want to access from another computer. While your total allocation of space varies (mine is around 7.5 GB), there is a per-file maximum of 1 GB. Log into Google Docs, and click on the Upload button at the top left of the page. Click Select files to upload and select your compressed file. For safety’s sake, uncheck the checkbox concerning converting files to Google Docs format, and then click Start upload. Go Online – Through FTP If you have access to an FTP server – perhaps through your web hosting company, or you’ve set up an FTP server on a different machine – you can easily access the FTP server in Ubuntu and transfer files. Just make sure you don’t go over your quota if you have one. You will need to know the address of the FTP server, as well as the login information. Click on Places > Connect to Server… Choose the FTP (with login) Service type, and fill in your information. Adding a bookmark is optional, but recommended. You will be asked for your password. You can choose to remember it until you logout, or indefinitely. You can now browse your FTP server just like any other folder. Drop files into the FTP server and you can retrieve them from any computer with an Internet connection and an FTP client. Conclusion While at first the Ubuntu Live CD environment may seem claustrophobic, it has a wealth of options for connecting to peripheral devices, local computers, and machines on the Internet – and this article has only scratched the surface. Whatever the storage medium, Ubuntu’s got an interface for it! 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SQL Spatial: Getting “nearest” calculations working properly

- by Rob Farley

If you’ve ever done spatial work with SQL Server, I hope you’ve come across the ‘nearest’ problem. You have five thousand stores around the world, and you want to identify the one that’s closest to a particular place. Maybe you want the store closest to the LobsterPot office in Adelaide, at -34.925806, 138.605073. Or our new US office, at 42.524929, -87.858244. Or maybe both! You know how to do this. You don’t want to use an aggregate MIN or MAX, because you want the whole row, telling you which store it is. You want to use TOP, and if you want to find the closest store for multiple locations, you use APPLY. Let’s do this (but I’m going to use addresses in AdventureWorks2012, as I don’t have a list of stores). Oh, and before I do, let’s make sure we have a spatial index in place. I’m going to use the default options. CREATE SPATIAL INDEX spin_Address ON Person.Address(SpatialLocation); And my actual query: WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)), ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326)) ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT l.Name, a.AddressLine1, a.City, s.Name AS [State], c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l CROSS APPLY ( SELECT TOP (1) * FROM Person.Address AS ad ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) ) AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s ON s.StateProvinceID = a.StateProvinceID JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; Great! This is definitely working. I know both those City locations, even if the AddressLine1s don’t quite ring a bell. I’m sure I’ll be able to find them next time I’m in the area. But of course what I’m concerned about from a querying perspective is what’s happened behind the scenes – the execution plan. This isn’t pretty. It’s not using my index. It’s sucking every row out of the Address table TWICE (which sucks), and then it’s sorting them by the distance to find the smallest one. It’s not pretty, and it takes a while. Mind you, I do like the fact that it saw an indexed view it could use for the State and Country details – that’s pretty neat. But yeah – users of my nifty website aren’t going to like how long that query takes. The frustrating thing is that I know that I can use the index to find locations that are within a particular distance of my locations quite easily, and Microsoft recommends this for solving the ‘nearest’ problem, as described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/ff929109.aspx. Now, in the first example on this page, it says that the query there will use the spatial index. But when I run it on my machine, it does nothing of the sort. I’m not particularly impressed. But what we see here is that parallelism has kicked in. In my scenario, it’s split the data up into 4 threads, but it’s still slow, and not using my index. It’s disappointing. But I can persuade it with hints! If I tell it to FORCESEEK, or use my index, or even turn off the parallelism with MAXDOP 1, then I get the index being used, and it’s a thing of beauty! Part of the plan is here: It’s massive, and it’s ugly, and it uses a TVF… but it’s quick. The way it works is to hook into the GeodeticTessellation function, which is essentially finds where the point is, and works out through the spatial index cells that surround it. This then provides a framework to be able to see into the spatial index for the items we want. You can read more about it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895265.aspx#tessellation – including a bunch of pretty diagrams. One of those times when we have a much more complex-looking plan, but just because of the good that’s going on. This tessellation stuff was introduced in SQL Server 2012. But my query isn’t using it. When I try to use the FORCESEEK hint on the Person.Address table, I get the friendly error: Msg 8622, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Query processor could not produce a query plan because of the hints defined in this query. Resubmit the query without specifying any hints and without using SET FORCEPLAN. And I’m almost tempted to just give up and move back to the old method of checking increasingly large circles around my location. After all, I can even leverage multiple OUTER APPLY clauses just like I did in my recent Lookup post. WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)), ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326)) ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT l.Name, COALESCE(a1.AddressLine1,a2.AddressLine1,a3.AddressLine1), COALESCE(a1.City,a2.City,a3.City), s.Name AS [State], c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l OUTER APPLY ( SELECT TOP (1) * FROM Person.Address AS ad WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 1000 ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) ) AS a1 OUTER APPLY ( SELECT TOP (1) * FROM Person.Address AS ad WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 5000 AND a1.AddressID IS NULL ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) ) AS a2 OUTER APPLY ( SELECT TOP (1) * FROM Person.Address AS ad WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 20000 AND a2.AddressID IS NULL ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) ) AS a3 JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s ON s.StateProvinceID = COALESCE(a1.StateProvinceID,a2.StateProvinceID,a3.StateProvinceID) JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; But this isn’t friendly-looking at all, and I’d use the method recommended by Isaac Kunen, who uses a table of numbers for the expanding circles. It feels old-school though, when I’m dealing with SQL 2012 (and later) versions. So why isn’t my query doing what it’s supposed to? Remember the query... WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)), ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326)) ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT l.Name, a.AddressLine1, a.City, s.Name AS [State], c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l CROSS APPLY ( SELECT TOP (1) * FROM Person.Address AS ad ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) ) AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s ON s.StateProvinceID = a.StateProvinceID JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; Well, I just wasn’t reading http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff929109.aspx properly. The following requirements must be met for a Nearest Neighbor query to use a spatial index: A spatial index must be present on one of the spatial columns and the STDistance() method must use that column in the WHERE and ORDER BY clauses. The TOP clause cannot contain a PERCENT statement. The WHERE clause must contain a STDistance() method. If there are multiple predicates in the WHERE clause then the predicate containing STDistance() method must be connected by an AND conjunction to the other predicates. The STDistance() method cannot be in an optional part of the WHERE clause. The first expression in the ORDER BY clause must use the STDistance() method. Sort order for the first STDistance() expression in the ORDER BY clause must be ASC. All the rows for which STDistance returns NULL must be filtered out. Let’s start from the top. 1. Needs a spatial index on one of the columns that’s in the STDistance call. Yup, got the index. 2. No ‘PERCENT’. Yeah, I don’t have that. 3. The WHERE clause needs to use STDistance(). Ok, but I’m not filtering, so that should be fine. 4. Yeah, I don’t have multiple predicates. 5. The first expression in the ORDER BY is my distance, that’s fine. 6. Sort order is ASC, because otherwise we’d be starting with the ones that are furthest away, and that’s tricky. 7. All the rows for which STDistance returns NULL must be filtered out. But I don’t have any NULL values, so that shouldn’t affect me either. ...but something’s wrong. I do actually need to satisfy #3. And I do need to make sure #7 is being handled properly, because there are some situations (eg, differing SRIDs) where STDistance can return NULL. It says so at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933808.aspx – “STDistance() always returns null if the spatial reference IDs (SRIDs) of the geography instances do not match.” So if I simply make sure that I’m filtering out the rows that return NULL… …then it’s blindingly fast, I get the right results, and I’ve got the complex-but-brilliant plan that I wanted. It just wasn’t overly intuitive, despite being documented. @rob_farley

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 26, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 26, 2010New Projects.NET settings class generator T4 templates: A couple of T4 templates to generate a Settings class for your .NET project. Allows you to define your application settings in an XML file and have...AlphaPagedList: AlphaPagedList makes it easier for .Net developers to write paging code. Based on PagedList it allows you to take any List<T> and split it based on...C# Projects: C# ProjectsChitme: Aenean feugiat pharetra enim rhoncus viverra. In at nunc nec sem varius bibendum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nullam fringilla facilisis massa et eleife...CloudCache - Distributed Cache Tier with Azure: Cloudcache makes it easier for you to manage and deploy a distributed caching tier to Windows Azure. Included is a web-dashboard in MVC 2.0, Memcac...Composer: Composer is an extensible Compositional Architecture framework, providing a set of functionality such as Inversion of Control container (IoC), Depe...Data Connection Suite: Data Connection Suite is a set of easy to use data connection string builder dialogs & controls ready to be integrated in any .NET application.DatabaseHandler: Database HandlerEPiServer Blog Page Provider: A example page provider implementation for EPiServer that supports external blog sources for pages, Blogger and WordPress supported out of the box ...Extended MessageBox: ExtendedMessageBox makes it easier to display messages from your Windows applications. Based on the built-in .NET MessageBox class functionality, i...FluentPath: FluentPath implements a modern wrapper around System.IO, using modern patterns such as fluent APIs and Lambdas. By using FluentPath instead of Syst...Halcyone : Silverlight without pain: Halcyone is application framework for Silverlight that should make live of developers easier =)IlluminaRT: Real-time renderingme2: Mista Engine 2MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: This is really simple lib project for use RTL in MessegeBox class. This just for short code and default option for RTL.MS Word Automation Service: A MS Word Automation service that comsumes a Word template and combines with XML to produce a word document. Currently in production. Must add some...SharePoint - Site Request InfoPath Form Template: This template allow portal user to enter initial information for requesting of creating a new SharePoint site. TextFlow - Text Editor: TextFlow is a fast and light text editor that simplifies day-to-day tasks. You can create letters and documents through TextFlow. It also includes ...TiledLib: A library for using Tiled (http://mapeditor.org) levels in XNA Game Studio projects. Includes a content pipeline extension and runtime library.wcf learning 2010: myWCFprojectsNew Releases.NET settings class generator T4 templates: Example 1: An example project containing the T4 templates and associated files. SingleSite - generate settings for a single site MultiSite - generate setting...AccessibilityChecker: Accessibility Checker V0.1: SharePoint Accessibility Checker V0.1AlphaPagedList: AlphaPagedList v0.9: Initial release of AlphaPagedListASP.Net RIA Controls: Version 1.1 Beta: New XHTML compliant version with alternative content support if no plugin installed.Business & System Analysis Templates and Best Practices: R 00: You may find out here the structured on my own materials from from Luxoft ReqLabs 2009 + short presentation about System Analysis and Modelling. Th...CloudCache - Distributed Cache Tier with Azure: v1.0.0.0: First release! More information at http://blog.shutupandcode.net/?p=935CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.39: implemented client side functions on remainder of account pagesDevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, DevTreks alpha 3d: Alpha 3d is a general bug fix -tweaking pagination, navigation, packaging, file system storage, page validation, security, locals, and linked views.Digital Media Processing Project 1: Image Processor: Image Processor 1.01: Supports opening files through Windows Explorer or by drag and drop.Extended MessageBox: ExtendedMessageBox Runtime Version 1.2: Initial releaseExtended MessageBox: SourceCode for Version 1.2: Initial SourceCodeFluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.0: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.0 Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml, debug and release version) Showcase Application Samples Foundation (T...FluentPath: FluentPath Beta: The Beta release of FluentPath.HaterAide ORM: HaterAide ORM 1.5: This version is a, more or less, rewrite of the code base. Also many new features have been added in this release: 1) Foreign keys are now added to...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3735 Beta: V1.2 allows you to synchronize one or more iTunes playlists to a USB MP3 player. This continues the evolution yet maintains the minimalistic appro...LogWin-Logging Your Computer Activities: LogWin-Logging your computer activities: This program is logging your computer activities and display them as table and pie chart. It is made by native C , HTML Dialog and Google Chart API.MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: MessegeBoxRTL-1.0.0.0_BIN: My First upload.. This is binary release only. Have fun.MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: MessegeBoxRTL-1.0.0.0_SRC: My first upload.. This is source code with binary. Have fun.MS Word Automation Service: Alpha: In production already, but who cares. It works.MultiMenu ASP.NET Cascading Menu WebControl: MultiMenu 2.6 ASP.NET Menu: Fixed problems that prevented the menu from working with the XHTML DocTypes Added support for IE 7-8 Added XmlLoading and XmlLoaded events Ad...netgod: LanyoWebBrowser: Lanyo ERP ClientnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.: nopCommerce 1.50: To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/ReleaseNotes.aspx).Open NFe: Open NFe v1.9.7: Fontes do DANFe 1.9.7 Trim na conversão TXT para XMLpatterns & practices - Smart Client Guidance: Smart Client Software Factory 2010 Beta Source: The Smart Client Software Factory 2010 provides an integrated set of guidance that assists architects and developers in creating composite smart cl...Physics Helper for Silverlight, WPF, Blend, and Farseer: PhysicsHelper 3.0.0.5 Alpha: This release supports Windows Phone 7 Series Development, along with the Silverlight 3 and WPF support. It requires Visual Studio 2010, plus the Wi...Protein Insight: ProteinInsight V2.0.1: Protein Insight is protein structure visualization system. Visualization rendering engine is based on native C and Direct3D, plug-in is based on CL...PSFGeneric: ERP / CRM business management and administration: PSFGeneric 1.4.0.9000 Manual and power-ups ASNIA: PSFGeneric 1.4.0.9000 Tareas 2.1.0 MySQL Persistente 1.0.3 TM-U220 40 col. Driver 1.0.0 Gestor Contable Básico 1.1.2.1 Cafetería 1.1.6 Catalogo 1....QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.2: Primary new feature: Import/Export Quest Log. Deleting anything will cause an automatic export prior to deletion, automatically backing up your log...Reusable Library: V1.0.5: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developer.Reusable Library Demo: Reusable Library Demo v1.0.3: A demonstration of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developerSharePoint - Site Request InfoPath Form Template: SharePoint - Site Request InfoPath Form Template: This template allow portal user to enter initial information for requesting of creating a new SharePoint site To install: 1. Run the SiteRequest.m...Silverlight Gantt Chart: Silverlight Gantt Chart 1.2: Updates include ability to add GanttNodeSections that allow for multiple GanttItems in a single row.Spiral Architecture Driven Development (SADD): SADD v.1.0: This is the First complete Release with the NEW materials now all in English ! The abstract from the main article named "SADD-MSAJ-The Spiral Arc...Spiral Architecture Driven Development (SADD) for Russian: SADD v.1.0: Это Первая Версия полного релиза SADD на русском языке. Отрывок из этой статьи опубликован в Microsoft Architecture Journal #23, вы можете найти в ...Sprite Sheet Packer: 2.3 Release: SpriteSheetPacker now supports saved user settings so the app will now remember your previous values for padding, image size, image options, whethe...Standalone XQuery Implementation in .NET: 1.4: This is version 1.4 of the QueryMachine.XQuery. It's includes bug fixes and performance optimization. Document load time is dramatically increased...TextFlow - Text Editor: Kernel: TextFlow core KernelTextFlow - Text Editor: TextFlow Beta 3 Technical Preview: This is a technical preview of TextFlow and is made to run for 40 days after which it will expire. Changes : 140 Bug fixes Supports Windows(R) 7...TiledLib: TiledLib 1.0: First release of TiledLib. This download is for prebuilt DLLs and a demo project. For the full source code, use the Source Code tab to download the...UnGrouper: Current build: This is a preview build. Hide and show the main window with winkey+a. IMPORTANT NOTE: You must close all applications before launching this build ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30325.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWCF Metal: WCFMetal 0.3.0.0: WCFMetal 0.3.0.0Copyright © 2010 John Leitch Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Summary By utilizing LINQ to SQL gene...Web Log Analyzer: Release Indihiang 1.0: For installation and how to use, please read Indihiang portal: http://wiki.indihiang.com What's New in Indihiang 1.0 ? check http://geeks.netindone...異世界の新着動画: Ver. 10-03-25: ニコ生仕様に対応Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETFarseer Physics EngineFacebook Developer ToolkitLINQ to TwitterFluent Ribbon Control SuiteTable2ClassNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModulePHPExcel

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Special thanks to everyone that helped me in 2010.

- by mbcrump

2010 has been a very good year for me and I wanted to create a list and thank everyone for what they have done for me. I also wanted to thank everyone for reading and subscribing to my blog. It is hard to believe that people actually want to read what I write. I feel like I owe a huge thanks to everyone listed below. Looking back upon 2010, I feel that I’ve grown as a developer and you are part of that reason. Sometimes we get caught up in day to day work and forget to give thanks to those that helped us along the way. The list below is mine, it includes people and companies. This list is obviously not going to include everyone that has helped, just those that have stood out in my mind. When I think back upon 2010, their names keep popping up in my head. So here goes, in no particular order. People Dave Campbell – For everything he has done for the Silverlight Community with his Silverlight Cream blog. I can’t think of a better person to get recognition at the Silverlight FireStarter event. I also wanted to thank him for spending several hours of his time helping me track down a bug in my feedburner account. Victor Gaudioso – For his large collection of video tutorials on his blog and the passion and enthusiasm he has for Silverlight. We have talked on the phone and I’ve never met anyone so fired up for Silverlight. Kunal Chowdhury – Kunal has always been available for me to bounce ideas off of. Kunal has also answered a lot of questions that stumped me. His blog and CodeProject article have green a great help to me and the Silverlight Community. Glen Gordon – I was looking frantically for a Windows Phone 7 several months before release and Glen found one for me. This allowed me to start a blog series on the Windows Phone 7 hardware and developing an application from start to finish that Scott Guthrie retweeted. Jeff Blankenburg – For listening to my complaints in the early stages of Windows Phone 7. Jeff was always very polite and gave me his cell phone number to talk it over. He also walked me through several problems that I was having early on. Pete Brown – For writing Silverlight 4 in Action. This book is definitely a labor of love. I followed Pete on Twitter as he was writing it and he spent a lot of late nights and weekends working on it. I felt a lot smarter after reading it the first time. The second time was even better. John Papa – For all of his work on the Silverlight Firestarter and the Silverlight community in general. He has also helped me on a personal level with several things. Daniel Heisler – For putting up with me the past year while we worked on many .NET projects together in 2010. Alvin Ashcraft – For publishing a daily blog post on the best of .NET links. He has linked to my site many times and I really appreciate what he does for the community. Chris Alcock – For publishing the Morning Brew every weekday. I remember when I first appeared on his site, I started getting hundreds of hits on my site and wondered if I was getting a DOS attack or something. It was great to find out that Chris had linked to one of my articles. Joel Cochran – For spending a week teaching “Blend-O-Rama”. This was my one of my favorite sessions of this year. I learned a lot about Expression Blend from it and the best part was that it was free and during lunchtime. Jeremy Likness – Jeremy is smart – very smart. I have learned a lot from Jeremy over the past year. He is also involved in the Silverlight community in every way possible, from forums to blog post to screencast to open source. It goes on and on. The people that I met at VSLive Orlando 2010. I had a great time chatting with Walt Ritscher, Wallace McClure, Tim Huckabee and David Platt. Also a special thanks to all of my friends on Twitter like @wilhil, @DBVaughan, @DataArtist, @wbm, @DirkStrauss and @rsringeri and many many more. Software Companies / Events / May of gave me FREE stuff. =) Microsoft (3) – I was sent a free coupon code by Microsoft to take the Silverlight 4 Beta Exam. I jumped on the offer and took the exam. It was great being selected to try out the exam before it goes public even though Microsoft eventually published a universal coupon code for everyone. I am still waiting to find out if I passed the exam. My fingers are crossed. Microsoft reaching out to me with some questions regarding the .NET Community. I’ve never had a company contact me with such interest in the community. Having a contest where 75 people could win a $100 gift certificate and a T-Shirt for submitting a Windows Phone 7 app. I submitted my app and won. All of the free launch events this year (Windows Phone 7, Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET MVC). Wintellect – For providing an awesome day of free technical training called T.E.N. Where else can you get free training from some of the best programmers in the world? I also won a contest from them that included a NETAdvantage Ultimate License from Infragistics. VSLive – I attended the Orlando 2010 Conference and it was the best developer’s conference that I have ever attended. I got to know a lot of people at this conference and hang out with many wonderful speakers. I live tweeted the event and while it may have annoyed some, the organizers of VSLive loved it. I won the contest on Twitter and they invited me back to the 2011 session of my choice. This is a very nice gift and I really appreciate the generosity. BarcodeLib.com – For providing free barcode generating tools for a Non-Profit ASP.NET project that I was working on. Their third party controls really made this a breeze compared to my existing solution. NDepend – It is absolutely the best tool to improve code quality. The product is extremely large and I would recommend heading over to their site to check it out. Silverlight Spy – I was writing a blog post on Silverlight Spy and Koen Zwikstra provided a FREE license to me. If you ever wanted to peek inside of a Silverlight Application then this is the tool for you. He is also working on a version that will support OOB and Windows Phone 7. I would recommend checking out his site. Birmingham .NET Users Group / Silverlight Nights User Group – It takes a lot of time to put together a user group meeting every month yet it always seems to happen. I don’t want to name names for fear of leaving someone out but both of these User Groups are excellent if you live in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Publishing Companies Manning Publishing – For giving me early access to Silverlight 4 in Action by Pete Brown. It was really nice to be able to read this awesome book while Pete was writing it. I was also one of the first people to publish a review of the book. Sams Publishing and DZone – For providing a copy of Silverlight 4 Unleashed by Laurent Bugnion for me to review for their site. The review is coming in January 2011. Special Shoutout to the following 3rd Party Silverlight Controls It has been a great pleasure to work with the following companies on 3rd Party Control Giveaways every month. It always amazes me how every 3rd Party Control company is so eager to help out the community. I’ve never been turned down by any of these companies! These giveaways have sparked a lot of interest in Silverlight and hopefully I can continue giving away a new set every month. If you are a 3rd Party Control company and are interested in participating in these giveaways then please email me at mbcrump29[at]gmail[d0t].com. The companies below have already participated in my giveaways: Infragistics (December 2010) - Win a set of Infragistics Silverlight Controls with Data Visualization! Mindscape (November 2010) - Mindscape Silverlight Controls + Free Mega Pack Contest Telerik (October 2010) - Win Telerik RadControls for Silverlight! ($799 Value) Again, I just wanted to say Thanks to everyone for helping me grow as a developer. Subscribe to my feed

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Making Sense of ASP.NET Paths

- by Renso

Making Sense of ASP.NET Paths ASP.Net includes quite a plethora of properties to retrieve path information about the current request, control and application. There's a ton of information available about paths on the Request object, some of it appearing to overlap and some of it buried several levels down, and it can be confusing to find just the right path that you are looking for. To keep things straight I thought it a good idea to summarize the path options along with descriptions and example paths. I wrote a post about this a long time ago in 2004 and I find myself frequently going back to that page to quickly figure out which path I’m looking for in processing the current URL. Apparently a lot of people must be doing the same, because the original post is the second most visited even to this date on this blog to the tune of nearly 500 hits per day. So, I decided to update and expand a bit on the original post with a little more information and clarification based on the original comments. Request Object Paths Available Here's a list of the Path related properties on the Request object (and the Page object). Assume a path like http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx for the paths below where webstore is the name of the virtual. Request Property Description and Value ApplicationPath Returns the web root-relative logical path to the virtual root of this app. /webstore/ PhysicalApplicationPath Returns local file system path of the virtual root for this app. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore PhysicalPath Returns the local file system path to the current script or path. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore\admin\paths.aspx Path FilePath CurrentExecutionFilePath All of these return the full root relative logical path to the script page including path and scriptname. CurrentExcecutionFilePath will return the ‘current’ request path after a Transfer/Execute call while FilePath will always return the original request’s path. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath Returns an ASP.NET root relative virtual path to the script or path for the current request. If in a Transfer/Execute call the transferred Path is returned. ~/admin/paths.aspx PathInfo Returns any extra path following the script name. If no extra path is provided returns the root-relative path (returns text in red below). string.Empty if no PathInfo is available. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx/ExtraPathInfo RawUrl Returns the full root relative URL including querystring and extra path as a string. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 Url Returns a fully qualified URL including querystring and extra path. Note this is a Uri instance rather than string. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 UrlReferrer The fully qualified URL of the page that sent the request. This is also a Uri instance and this value is null if the page was directly accessed by typing into the address bar or using an HttpClient based Referrer client Http header. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/default.aspx?Info Control.TemplateSourceDirectory Returns the logical path to the folder of the page, master or user control on which it is called. This is useful if you need to know the path only to a Page or control from within the control. For non-file controls this returns the Page path. /webstore/admin/ As you can see there’s a ton of information available there for each of the three common path formats: Physical Path is an OS type path that points to a path or file on disk. Logical Path is a Web path that is relative to the Web server’s root. It includes the virtual plus the application relative path. ~/ (Root-relative) Path is an ASP.NET specific path that includes ~/ to indicate the virtual root Web path. ASP.NET can convert virtual paths into either logical paths using Control.ResolveUrl(), or physical paths using Server.MapPath(). Root relative paths are useful for specifying portable URLs that don’t rely on relative directory structures and very useful from within control or component code. You should be able to get any necessary format from ASP.NET from just about any path or script using these mechanisms. ~/ Root Relative Paths and ResolveUrl() and ResolveClientUrl() ASP.NET supports root-relative virtual path syntax in most of its URL properties in Web Forms. So you can easily specify a root relative path in a control rather than a location relative path: <asp:Image runat="server" ID="imgHelp" ImageUrl="~/images/help.gif" /> ASP.NET internally resolves this URL by using ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif") to arrive at the root-relative URL of /webstore/images/help.gif which uses the Request.ApplicationPath as the basepath to replace the ~. By convention any custom Web controls also should use ResolveUrl() on URL properties to provide the same functionality. In your own code you can use Page.ResolveUrl() or Control.ResolveUrl() to accomplish the same thing: string imgPath = this.ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif"); imgHelp.ImageUrl = imgPath; Unfortunately ResolveUrl() is limited to WebForm pages, so if you’re in an HttpHandler or Module it’s not available. ASP.NET Mvc also has it’s own more generic version of ResolveUrl in Url.Decode: <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/scripts/new.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> which is part of the UrlHelper class. In ASP.NET MVC the above sort of syntax is actually even more crucial than in WebForms due to the fact that views are not referencing specific pages but rather are often path based which can lead to various variations on how a particular view is referenced. In a Module or Handler code Control.ResolveUrl() unfortunately is not available which in retrospect seems like an odd design choice – URL resolution really should happen on a Request basis not as part of the Page framework. Luckily you can also rely on the static VirtualPathUtility class: string path = VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~/admin/paths.aspx"); VirtualPathUtility also many other quite useful methods for dealing with paths and converting between the various kinds of paths supported. One thing to watch out for is that ToAbsolute() will throw an exception if a query string is provided and doesn’t work on fully qualified URLs. I wrote about this topic with a custom solution that works fully qualified URLs and query strings here (check comments for some interesting discussions too). Similar to ResolveUrl() is ResolveClientUrl() which creates a fully qualified HTTP path that includes the protocol and domain name. It’s rare that this full resolution is needed but can be useful in some scenarios. Mapping Virtual Paths to Physical Paths with Server.MapPath() If you need to map root relative or current folder relative URLs to physical URLs or you can use HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(). Inside of a Page you can do the following: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("~/scripts/ww.jquery.js")); MapPath is pretty flexible and it understands both ASP.NET style virtual paths as well as plain relative paths, so the following also works. string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("scripts/silverlight.js"); as well as dot relative syntax: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("../scripts/jquery.js"); Once you have the physical path you can perform standard System.IO Path and File operations on the file. Remember with physical paths and IO or copy operations you need to make sure you have permissions to access files and folders based on the Web server user account that is active (NETWORK SERVICE, ASPNET typically). Note the Server.MapPath will not map up beyond the virtual root of the application for security reasons. Server and Host Information Between these settings you can get all the information you may need to figure out where you are at and to build new Url if necessary. If you need to build a URL completely from scratch you can get access to information about the server you are accessing: Server Variable Function and Example SERVER_NAME The of the domain or IP Address wwww.west-wind.com or 127.0.0.1 SERVER_PORT The port that the request runs under. 80 SERVER_PORT_SECURE Determines whether https: was used. 0 or 1 APPL_MD_PATH ADSI DirectoryServices path to the virtual root directory. Note that LM typically doesn’t work for ADSI access so you should replace that with LOCALHOST or the machine’s NetBios name. /LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/webstore Request.Url and Uri Parsing If you still need more control over the current request URL or you need to create new URLs from an existing one, the current Request.Url Uri property offers a lot of control. Using the Uri class and UriBuilder makes it easy to retrieve parts of a URL and create new URLs based on existing URL. The UriBuilder class is the preferred way to create URLs – much preferable over creating URIs via string concatenation. Uri Property Function Scheme The URL scheme or protocol prefix. http or https Port The port if specifically specified. DnsSafeHost The domain name or local host NetBios machine name www.west-wind.com or rasnote LocalPath The full path of the URL including script name and extra PathInfo. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx Query The query string if any ?id=1 The Uri class itself is great for retrieving Uri parts, but most of the properties are read only if you need to modify a URL in order to change it you can use the UriBuilder class to load up an existing URL and modify it to create a new one. Here are a few common operations I’ve needed to do to get specific URLs: Convert the Request URL to an SSL/HTTPS link For example to take the current request URL and converted it to a secure URL can be done like this: UriBuilder build = new UriBuilder(Request.Url); build.Scheme = "https"; build.Port = -1; // don't inject portUri newUri = build.Uri; string newUrl = build.ToString(); Retrieve the fully qualified URL without a QueryString AFAIK, there’s no native routine to retrieve the current request URL without the query string. It’s easy to do with UriBuilder however: UriBuilder builder = newUriBuilder(Request.Url); builder.Query = ""; stringlogicalPathWithoutQuery = builder.ToString();

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In Which We Demystify A Few Docupresentment Settings And Learn the Ethos of the Author

- by Andy Little

It's no secret that Docupresentment (part of the Oracle Documaker suite) is powerful tool for integrating on-demand and interactive applications for publishing with the Oracle Documaker framework. It's also no secret there are are many details with respect to the configuration of Docupresentment that can elude even the most erudite of of techies. To be sure, Docupresentment will work for you right out of the box, and in most cases will suit your needs without toying with a configuration file. But, where's the adventure in that? With this inaugural post to That's The Way, I'm going to introduce myself, and what my aim is with this blog. If you didn't figure it out already by checking out my profile, my name is Andy and I've been with Oracle (nee Skywire Software nee Docucorp nee Formmaker) since the formative years of 1998. Strangely, it doesn't seem that long ago, but it's certainly a lifetime in the age of technology. I recall running a BBS from my parent's basement on a 1200 baud modem, and the trepidation and sweaty-palmed excitement of upgrading to the power and speed of 2400 baud! Fine, I'll admit that perhaps I'm inflating the experience a bit, but I was kid! This is the stuff of War Games and King's Quest I and the demise of TI-99 4/A. Exciting times. So fast-forward a bit and I'm 12 years into a career in the world of document automation and publishing working for the best (IMHO) software company on the planet. With That's The Way I hope to shed a little light and peek under the covers of some of the more interesting aspects of implementations involving the tech space within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit (IGBU), which includes Oracle Documaker, Rating & Underwriting, and Policy Administration to name a few. I may delve off course a bit, and you'll likely get a dose of humor (at least in my mind) but I hope you'll glean at least a tidbit of usefulness with each post. Feel free to comment as I'm a fairly conversant guy and happy to talk -- it's stopping the talking that's the hard part... So, back to our regularly-scheduled post, already in progress. By this time you've visited Oracle's E-Delivery site and acquired your properly-licensed version of Oracle Documaker. Wait -- you didn't find it? Understandable -- navigating the voluminous download library within Oracle can be a daunting task. It's pretty simple once you’ve done it a few times. Login to the e-delivery site, and accept the license terms and restrictions. Then, you’ll be able to select the Oracle Insurance Applications product pack and your appropriate platform. Click Go and you’ll see a list of applicable products, and you’ll click on Oracle Documaker Media Pack (as I went to press with this article the version is 11.4): Finally, click the Download button next to Docupresentment (again, version at press time is 2.2 p5). This should give you a ZIP file that contains the installation packages for the Docupresentment Server and Client, cryptically named IDSServer22P05W32.exe and IDSClient22P05W32.exe. At this time, I’d like to take a little detour and explain that the world of Oracle, like most technical companies, is rife with acronyms. One of the reasons Skywire Software was a appealing to Oracle was our use of many acronyms, including the occasional use of multiple acronyms with the same meaning. I apologize in advance and will try to point these out along the way. Here’s your first sticky note to go along with that: IDS = Internet Document Server = Docupresentment Once you’ve completed the installation, you’ll have a shiny new Docupresentment server and client, and if you installed the default location it will be living in c:\docserv. Unix users, I’m one of you! You’ll find it by default in ~/docupresentment/docserv. Forging onward with the meat of this post is learning about some special configuration options. By now you’ve read the documentation included with the download (specifically ids_book.pdf) which goes into some detail of the rubric of the configuration file and in fact there’s even a handy utility that provides an interface to the configuration file (see Running IDSConfig in the documentation). But who wants to deal with a configuration utility when we have the tools and technology to edit the file <gasp> by hand! I shall now proceed with the standard Information Technology Under the Hood Disclaimer: Please remember to back up any files before you make changes. I am not responsible for any havoc you may wreak! Go to your installation directory, and locate your docserv.xml file. Open it in your favorite XML editor. I happen to be fond of Notepad++ with the XML Tools plugin. Almost immediately you will behold the splendor of the configuration file. Just take a moment and let that sink in. Ok – moving on. If you reviewed the documentation you know that inside the root <configuration> node there are multiple <section> nodes, each containing a specific group of settings. Let’s take a look at <section name=”DocumentServer”>: There are a few entries I’d like to discuss. First, <entry name=”StartCommand”>. This should be pretty self-explanatory; it’s the name of the executable that’s run when you fire up Docupresentment. Immediately following that is <entry name=”StartArguments”> and as you might imagine these are the arguments passed to the executable. A few things to point out: The –Dids.configuration=docserv.xml parameter specifies the name of your configuration file. The –Dlogging.configuration=logconf.xml parameter specifies the name of your logging configuration file (this uses log4j so bone up on that before you delve here). The -Djava.endorsed.dirs=lib/endorsed parameter specifies the path where 3rd party Java libraries can be located for use with Docupresentment. More on that in another post. The <entry name=”Instances”> allows you to specify the number of instances of Docupresentment that will be started. By default this is two, and generally two instances per CPU is adequate, however you will always need to perform load testing to determine the sweet spot based on your hardware and types of transactions. You may have many, many more instances than 2. Time for a sidebar on instances. An instance is nothing more than a separate process of Docupresentment. The Docupresentment service that you fire up with docserver.bat or docserver.sh actually starts a watchdog process, which is then responsible for starting up the actual Docupresentment processes. Each of these act independently from one another, so if one crashes, it does not affect any others. In the case of a crashed process, the watchdog will start up another instance so the number of configured instances are always running. Bottom line: instance = Docupresentment process. And now, finally, to the settings which gave me pause on an not-too-long-ago implementation! Docupresentment includes a feature that watches configuration files (such as docserv.xml and logconf.xml) and will automatically restart its instances to load the changes. You can configure the time that Docupresentment waits to check these files using the setting <entry name=”FileWatchTimeMillis”>. By default the number is 12000ms, or 12 seconds. You can save yourself a few CPU cycles by extending this time, or by disabling the check altogether by setting the value to 0. This may or may not be appropriate for your environment; if you have 100% uptime requirements then you probably don’t want to bring down an entire set of processes just to accept a new configuration value, so it’s best to leave this somewhere between 12 seconds to a few minutes. Another point to keep in mind: if you are using Documaker real-time processing under Docupresentment the Master Resource Library (MRL) files and INI options are cached, and if you need to affect a change, you’ll have to “restart” Docupresentment. Touching the docserv.xml file is an easy way to do this (other methods including using the RSS request, but that’s another post). The next item up: <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”>. You may already know that the Docupresentment system can generate many temporary files based on certain request types that are processed through the system. What you may not know is how those files are cleaned up. There are many rules in Docupresentment that cause the creation of temporary files. When these files are created, Docupresentment writes an entry into a properties file called the file cache. This file contains the name, creation date, and expiration time of each temporary file created by each instance of Docupresentment. Periodically Docupresentment will check the file cache to determine if there are files that are past the expiration time, not unlike that block of cheese festering away in the back of my refrigerator. However, unlike my ‘fridge cleaning tendencies, Docupresentment is quick to remove files that are past their expiration time. You, my friend, have the power to control how often Docupresentment inspects the file cache. Simply set the value for <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”> to the number of seconds appropriate for your requirements and you’re set. Note that file purging happens on a separate thread from normal request processing, so this shouldn’t interfere with response times unless the CPU happens to be really taxed at the point of cache processing. Finally, after all of this, we get to the final setting I’m going to address in this post: <entry name=”FilePurgeList”>. The default is “filecache.properties”. This establishes the root name for the Docupresentment file cache that I mentioned previously. Docupresentment creates a separate cache file for each instance based on this setting. If you have two instances, you’ll see two files created: filecache.properties.1 and filecache.properties.2. Feel free to open these up and check them out. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first foray into the configuration file of Docupresentment. If you did enjoy it, feel free to drop a comment, I welcome feedback. If you have ideas for other posts you’d like to see, please do let me know. You can reach me at [email protected]. ‘Til next time! ###

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Hello Operator, My Switch Is Bored

- by Paul White

This is a post for T-SQL Tuesday #43 hosted by my good friend Rob Farley. The topic this month is Plan Operators. I haven’t taken part in T-SQL Tuesday before, but I do like to write about execution plans, so this seemed like a good time to start. This post is in two parts. The first part is primarily an excuse to use a pretty bad play on words in the title of this blog post (if you’re too young to know what a telephone operator or a switchboard is, I hate you). The second part of the post looks at an invisible query plan operator (so to speak). 1. My Switch Is Bored Allow me to present the rare and interesting execution plan operator, Switch: Books Online has this to say about Switch: Following that description, I had a go at producing a Fast Forward Cursor plan that used the TOP operator, but had no luck. That may be due to my lack of skill with cursors, I’m not too sure. The only application of Switch in SQL Server 2012 that I am familiar with requires a local partitioned view: CREATE TABLE dbo.T1 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 00 AND 24)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T2 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 25 AND 49)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T3 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 50 AND 74)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T4 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 75 AND 99)); GO CREATE VIEW V1 AS SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T1 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T2 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T3 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T4; Not only that, but it needs an updatable local partitioned view. We’ll need some primary keys to meet that requirement: ALTER TABLE dbo.T1 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T1 PRIMARY KEY (c1); ALTER TABLE dbo.T2 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T2 PRIMARY KEY (c1); ALTER TABLE dbo.T3 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T3 PRIMARY KEY (c1); ALTER TABLE dbo.T4 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T4 PRIMARY KEY (c1); We also need an INSERT statement that references the view. Even more specifically, to see a Switch operator, we need to perform a single-row insert (multi-row inserts use a different plan shape): INSERT dbo.V1 (c1) VALUES (1); And now…the execution plan: The Constant Scan manufactures a single row with no columns. The Compute Scalar works out which partition of the view the new value should go in. The Assert checks that the computed partition number is not null (if it is, an error is returned). The Nested Loops Join executes exactly once, with the partition id as an outer reference (correlated parameter). The Switch operator checks the value of the parameter and executes the corresponding input only. If the partition id is 0, the uppermost Clustered Index Insert is executed, adding a row to table T1. If the partition id is 1, the next lower Clustered Index Insert is executed, adding a row to table T2…and so on. In case you were wondering, here’s a query and execution plan for a multi-row insert to the view: INSERT dbo.V1 (c1) VALUES (1), (2); Yuck! An Eager Table Spool and four Filters! I prefer the Switch plan. My guess is that almost all the old strategies that used a Switch operator have been replaced over time, using things like a regular Concatenation Union All combined with Start-Up Filters on its inputs. Other new (relative to the Switch operator) features like table partitioning have specific execution plan support that doesn’t need the Switch operator either. This feels like a bit of a shame, but perhaps it is just nostalgia on my part, it’s hard to know. Please do let me know if you encounter a query that can still use the Switch operator in 2012 – it must be very bored if this is the only possible modern usage! 2. Invisible Plan Operators The second part of this post uses an example based on a question Dave Ballantyne asked using the SQL Sentry Plan Explorer plan upload facility. If you haven’t tried that yet, make sure you’re on the latest version of the (free) Plan Explorer software, and then click the Post to SQLPerformance.com button. That will create a site question with the query plan attached (which can be anonymized if the plan contains sensitive information). Aaron Bertrand and I keep a close eye on questions there, so if you have ever wanted to ask a query plan question of either of us, that’s a good way to do it. The problem The issue I want to talk about revolves around a query issued against a calendar table. The script below creates a simplified version and adds 100 years of per-day information to it: USE tempdb; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.Calendar ( dt date NOT NULL, isWeekday bit NOT NULL, theYear smallint NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT PK__dbo_Calendar_dt PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (dt) ); GO -- Monday is the first day of the week for me SET DATEFIRST 1; -- Add 100 years of data INSERT dbo.Calendar WITH (TABLOCKX) (dt, isWeekday, theYear) SELECT CA.dt, isWeekday = CASE WHEN DATEPART(WEEKDAY, CA.dt) IN (6, 7) THEN 0 ELSE 1 END, theYear = YEAR(CA.dt) FROM Sandpit.dbo.Numbers AS N CROSS APPLY ( VALUES (DATEADD(DAY, N.n - 1, CONVERT(date, '01 Jan 2000', 113))) ) AS CA (dt) WHERE N.n BETWEEN 1 AND 36525; The following query counts the number of weekend days in 2013: SELECT Days = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.Calendar AS C WHERE theYear = 2013 AND isWeekday = 0; It returns the correct result (104) using the following execution plan: The query optimizer has managed to estimate the number of rows returned from the table exactly, based purely on the default statistics created separately on the two columns referenced in the query’s WHERE clause. (Well, almost exactly, the unrounded estimate is 104.289 rows.) There is already an invisible operator in this query plan – a Filter operator used to apply the WHERE clause predicates. We can see it by re-running the query with the enormously useful (but undocumented) trace flag 9130 enabled: Now we can see the full picture. The whole table is scanned, returning all 36,525 rows, before the Filter narrows that down to just the 104 we want. Without the trace flag, the Filter is incorporated in the Clustered Index Scan as a residual predicate. It is a little bit more efficient than using a separate operator, but residual predicates are still something you will want to avoid where possible. The estimates are still spot on though: Anyway, looking to improve the performance of this query, Dave added the following filtered index to the Calendar table: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Weekends ON dbo.Calendar(theYear) WHERE isWeekday = 0; The original query now produces a much more efficient plan: Unfortunately, the estimated number of rows produced by the seek is now wrong (365 instead of 104): What’s going on? The estimate was spot on before we added the index! Explanation You might want to grab a coffee for this bit. Using another trace flag or two (8606 and 8612) we can see that the cardinality estimates were exactly right initially: The highlighted information shows the initial cardinality estimates for the base table (36,525 rows), the result of applying the two relational selects in our WHERE clause (104 rows), and after performing the COUNT_BIG(*) group by aggregate (1 row). All of these are correct, but that was before cost-based optimization got involved :) Cost-based optimization When cost-based optimization starts up, the logical tree above is copied into a structure (the ‘memo’) that has one group per logical operation (roughly speaking). The logical read of the base table (LogOp_Get) ends up in group 7; the two predicates (LogOp_Select) end up in group 8 (with the details of the selections in subgroups 0-6). These two groups still have the correct cardinalities as trace flag 8608 output (initial memo contents) shows: During cost-based optimization, a rule called SelToIdxStrategy runs on group 8. It’s job is to match logical selections to indexable expressions (SARGs). It successfully matches the selections (theYear = 2013, is Weekday = 0) to the filtered index, and writes a new alternative into the memo structure. The new alternative is entered into group 8 as option 1 (option 0 was the original LogOp_Select): The new alternative is to do nothing (PhyOp_NOP = no operation), but to instead follow the new logical instructions listed below the NOP. The LogOp_GetIdx (full read of an index) goes into group 21, and the LogOp_SelectIdx (selection on an index) is placed in group 22, operating on the result of group 21. The definition of the comparison ‘the Year = 2013’ (ScaOp_Comp downwards) was already present in the memo starting at group 2, so no new memo groups are created for that. New Cardinality Estimates The new memo groups require two new cardinality estimates to be derived. First, LogOp_Idx (full read of the index) gets a predicted cardinality of 10,436. This number comes from the filtered index statistics: DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, Weekends) WITH STAT_HEADER; The second new cardinality derivation is for the LogOp_SelectIdx applying the predicate (theYear = 2013). To get a number for this, the cardinality estimator uses statistics for the column ‘theYear’, producing an estimate of 365 rows (there are 365 days in 2013!): DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, theYear) WITH HISTOGRAM; This is where the mistake happens. Cardinality estimation should have used the filtered index statistics here, to get an estimate of 104 rows: DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, Weekends) WITH HISTOGRAM; Unfortunately, the logic has lost sight of the link between the read of the filtered index (LogOp_GetIdx) in group 22, and the selection on that index (LogOp_SelectIdx) that it is deriving a cardinality estimate for, in group 21. The correct cardinality estimate (104 rows) is still present in the memo, attached to group 8, but that group now has a PhyOp_NOP implementation. Skipping over the rest of cost-based optimization (in a belated attempt at brevity) we can see the optimizer’s final output using trace flag 8607: This output shows the (incorrect, but understandable) 365 row estimate for the index range operation, and the correct 104 estimate still attached to its PhyOp_NOP. This tree still has to go through a few post-optimizer rewrites and ‘copy out’ from the memo structure into a tree suitable for the execution engine. One step in this process removes PhyOp_NOP, discarding its 104-row cardinality estimate as it does so. To finish this section on a more positive note, consider what happens if we add an OVER clause to the query aggregate. This isn’t intended to be a ‘fix’ of any sort, I just want to show you that the 104 estimate can survive and be used if later cardinality estimation needs it: SELECT Days = COUNT_BIG(*) OVER () FROM dbo.Calendar AS C WHERE theYear = 2013 AND isWeekday = 0; The estimated execution plan is: Note the 365 estimate at the Index Seek, but the 104 lives again at the Segment! We can imagine the lost predicate ‘isWeekday = 0’ as sitting between the seek and the segment in an invisible Filter operator that drops the estimate from 365 to 104. Even though the NOP group is removed after optimization (so we don’t see it in the execution plan) bear in mind that all cost-based choices were made with the 104-row memo group present, so although things look a bit odd, it shouldn’t affect the optimizer’s plan selection. I should also mention that we can work around the estimation issue by including the index’s filtering columns in the index key: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Weekends ON dbo.Calendar(theYear, isWeekday) WHERE isWeekday = 0 WITH (DROP_EXISTING = ON); There are some downsides to doing this, including that changes to the isWeekday column may now require Halloween Protection, but that is unlikely to be a big problem for a static calendar table ;) With the updated index in place, the original query produces an execution plan with the correct cardinality estimation showing at the Index Seek: That’s all for today, remember to let me know about any Switch plans you come across on a modern instance of SQL Server! Finally, here are some other posts of mine that cover other plan operators: Segment and Sequence Project Common Subexpression Spools Why Plan Operators Run Backwards Row Goals and the Top Operator Hash Match Flow Distinct Top N Sort Index Spools and Page Splits Singleton and Range Seeks Bitmaps Hash Join Performance Compute Scalar © 2013 Paul White – All Rights Reserved Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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Windows Azure Evolution – Preview Developer Portal

- by Shaun

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

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The Internet of Things & Commerce: Part 2 -- Interview with Brian Celenza, Commerce Innovation Strategist

- by Katrina Gosek, Director | Commerce Product Strategy-Oracle

Internet of Things & Commerce Series: Part 2 (of 3) Welcome back to the second installation of my three part series on the Internet of Things & Commerce. A few weeks ago, I wrote “The Next 7,000 Days” about how we’ve become embedded in a digital architecture in the last 7,000 days since the birth of the internet – an architecture that everyday ties the massive expanse of the internet evermore closely with our physical lives. This blog series explores how this new blend of virtual and material will change how we shop and how businesses sell. Now enjoy reading my interview with Brian Celenza, one of the chief strategists in our Oracle Commerce innovation group. He comments on the past, present, and future of the how the growing Internet of Things relates and will relate to the buying and selling of goods on and offline. -------------------------------------------- QUESTION: You probably have one of the coolest jobs on our team, Brian – and frankly, one of the coolest jobs in our industry. As part of the innovation team for Oracle Commerce, you’re regularly working on bold features and groundbreaking commerce-focused experiences for our vision demos. As you look back over the past couple of years, what is the biggest trend (or trends) you’ve seen in digital commerce that started to bring us closer to this idea of what people are calling an “Internet of Things”? Brian: Well as you look back over the last couple of years, the speed at which change in our industry has moved looks like one of those blurred movement photos – you know the ones where the landscape blurs because the observer is moving so quickly your eye focus can’t keep up. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the biggest catalyst for that speed of change – especially over the last three years – has been mobile. Mobile technology changed everything. Over the last three years the entire thought process of how to sell on (and offline) has shifted because of mobile technology advances. Particularly for eCommerce professionals who have started to move past the notion of “channels” for selling goods to this notion of “Mobile First”… then the Web site. Or more accurately, that everything – smartphones, web, store, tablet – is just one channel or has to act like one singular access point to the same product catalog, information and content. The most innovative eCommerce professionals realized some time ago that it’s not ideal to build an eCommerce Web site and then build everything on top of or off of it. Rather, they want to build an eCommerce API and then integrate it will all other systems. To accomplish this, they are leveraging all the latest mobile technologies or possibilities mobile technology has opened up: 4G and LTE, GPS, bluetooth, touch screens, apps, html5… How has this all started to come together for shopping experiences on and offline? Well to give you a personal example, I remember visiting an Apple store a few years ago and being amazed that I didn’t have to wait in line because a store associate knew everything about me from my ID – right there on the sales floor – and could check me out anywhere. Then just a few months later (when like any good addict) I went back to get the latest and greatest new gadget, I felt like I was stealing it because I could check myself out with my smartphone. I didn’t even need to see a sales associate OR go to a cash register. Amazing. And since then, all sort sorts of companies across all different types of industries – from food service to apparel – are starting to see mobile payments in the billions of dollars now thanks not only to the convenience factor but to smart loyalty rewards programs as well. These are just some really simple current examples that come to mind. So many different things have happened in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really absorb all of the quickly – because as soon as you do, everything changes again! Just like that blurry speed photo image. For eCommerce, however, this type of new environment underscores the importance of building an eCommerce API – a platform that has services you can tap in to and build on as the landscape changes at a fever pitch. It’s a mobile first perspective. A web service perspective – particularly if you are thinking of how to engage customers across digital and physical spaces. —— QUESTION: Thanks for bringing us into the present – some really great examples you gave there to put things into perspective. So what do you see as the biggest trend right now around the “Internet of Things” – and what’s coming next few years? Brian: Honestly, even sitting where I am in the innovation group – it’s hard to look out even 12 months because, well, I don’t even think we’ve fully caught up with what is possible now. But I can definitely say that in the last 12 months and in the coming 12 months, in the technology and eCommerce world it’s all about iBeacons. iBeacons are awesome tools we have right now to tie together physical and digital shopping experiences. They know exactly where you are as a shopper and can communicate that to businesses. Currently there seem to be two camps of thought around iBeacons. First, many people are thinking of them like an “indoor GPS”, which to be fair they literally are. The use case this first camp envisions for iBeacons is primarily for advertising and marketing. So they use iBeacons to push location-based promotions to customers if they are close to a store or in a store. You may have seen these types of mobile promotions start to pop up occasionally on your smart phone as you pass by a store you’ve bought from in the past. That’s the work of iBeacons. But in my humble opinion, these promotions probably come too early in the customer journey and although they may be well timed and work to “convert” in some cases, I imagine in most they are just eroding customer trust because they are kind of a “one-size-fits-all” solution rather than one that is taking into account what exactly the customer might be looking for in that particular moment. Maybe they just want more information and a promotion is way too soon for that type of customer. The second camp is more in line with where my thinking falls. In this case, businesses take a more sensitive approach with iBeacons to customers’ needs. Instead of throwing out a “one-size-fits-all” to any passer by with iBeacons, the use case is more around looking at the physical proximity of a customer as an opportunity to provide a service: show expert reviews on a product they may be looking at in a particular aisle of a store, offer the opportunity to compare prices (and then offer a promotion), signal an in-store associate if a customer has been in the store for more than 10 minutes in one place. These are all less intrusive more value-driven uses of iBeacons. And they are more about building customer trust through service. To take this example a bit further into the future realm of “Big Data” and “Internet of Things” businesses could actually use the Oracle Commerce Platform and iBeacons to “silently” track customer movement w/in the store to provide higher quality service. And this doesn’t have to be creepy or intrusive. Simply if a customer has been in a particular department or aisle for more than a 5 or 10 minutes, an in-store associate could come over an offer some assistance already knowing customer preferences from their online profile and maybe even seeing the items in a shopping cart they started at home. None of this has to be revealed to the customer, but it certainly could boost the level of service an in-store sales associate could provide. Or, in another futuristic example, stores could use the digital footprint of the physical store transmitted by iBeacons to generate heat maps of the store that could be tracked over time. Imagine how much you could find out about which parts of the store are more busy during certain parts of the day or seasons. This could completely revolutionize how physical merchandising is deployed or where certain high value / new items are placed. And / or this use of iBeacons could also help businesses figure out if customers are getting held up in certain parts of the store during busy days like Black Friday. If long lines are causing customers to bounce from a physical store and leave those holiday gifts behind, maybe having employees with mobile check as an option could remove the cash register bottleneck. But going to back to my original statement, it’s all still very early in the story for iBeacons. The hardware manufacturers are still very new and there is still not one clear standard. Honestly, it all goes back to building and maintaining an extensible and flexible platform for anywhere engagement. What you’re building today should allow you to rapidly take advantage of whatever unimaginable use cases wait around the corner. ------------------------------------------------------ I hope you enjoyed the brief interview with Brian. It’s really awesome to have such smart and innovation-minded individuals on our Oracle Commerce innovation team. Please join me again in a few weeks for Part 3 of this series where I interview one of the product managers on our team about how the blending of digital and in-store selling in influencing our product development and vision.

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That Escalated Quickly

- by Jesse Taber

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2014/05/17/that-escalated-quickly.aspxI have been working remotely out of my home for over 4 years now. All of my coworkers during that time have also worked remotely. Lots of folks have written about the challenges inherent in facilitating communication on remote teams and strategies for overcoming them. A popular theme around this topic is the notion of “escalating communication”. In this context “escalating” means taking a conversation from one mode of communication to a different, higher fidelity mode of communication. Here are the five modes of communication I use at work in order of increasing fidelity: Email – This is the “lowest fidelity” mode of communication that I use. I usually only check it a few times a day (and I’m trying to check it even less frequently than that) and I only keep items in my inbox if they represent an item I need to take action on that I haven’t tracked anywhere else. Forums / Message boards – Being a developer, I’ve gotten into the habit of having other people look over my code before it becomes part of the product I’m working on. These code reviews often happen in “real time” via screen sharing, but I also always have someone else give all of the changes another look using pull requests. A pull request takes my code and lets someone else see the changes I’ve made side-by-side with the existing code so they can see if I did anything dumb. Pull requests can facilitate a conversation about the code changes in an online-forum like style. Some teams I’ve worked on also liked using tools like Trello or Google Groups to have on-going conversations about a topic or task that was being worked on. Chat & Instant Messaging - Chat and instant messaging are the real workhorses for communication on the remote teams I’ve been a part of. I know some teams that are co-located that also use it pretty extensively for quick messages that don’t warrant walking across the office to talk with someone but reqire more immediacy than an e-mail. For the purposes of this post I think it’s important to note that the terms “chat” and “instant messaging” might insinuate that the conversation is happening in real time, but that’s not always true. Modern chat and IM applications maintain a searchable history so people can easily see what might have been discussed while they were away from their computers. Voice, Video and Screen sharing – Everyone’s got a camera and microphone on their computers now, and there are an abundance of services that will let you use them to talk to other people who have cameras and microphones on their computers. I’m including screen sharing here as well because, in my experience, these discussions typically involve one or more people showing the other participants something that’s happening on their screen. Obviously, this mode of communication is much higher-fidelity than any of the ones listed above. Scheduled meetings are typically conducted using this mode of communication. In Person – No matter how great communication tools become, there’s no substitute for meeting with someone face-to-face. However, opportunities for this kind of communcation are few and far between when you work on a remote team. When a conversation gets escalated that usually means it moves up one or more positions on this list. A lot of people advocate jumping to #4 sooner than later. Like them, I used to believe that, if it was possible, organizing a call with voice and video was automatically better than any kind of text-based communication could be. Lately, however, I’m becoming less convinced that escalating is always the right move. Working Asynchronously Last year I attended a talk at our local code camp given by Drew Miller. Drew works at GitHub and was talking about how they use GitHub internally. Many of the folks at GitHub work remotely, so communication was one of the main themes in Drew’s talk. During the talk Drew used the phrase, “asynchronous communication” to describe their use of chat and pull request comments. That phrase stuck in my head because I hadn’t heard it before but I think it perfectly describes the way in which remote teams often need to communicate. You don’t always know when your co-workers are at their computers or what hours (if any) they are working that day. In order to work this way you need to assume that the person you’re talking to might not respond right away. You can’t always afford to wait until everyone required is online and available to join a voice call, so you need to use text-based, persistent forms of communication so that people can receive and respond to messages when they are available. Going back to my list from the beginning of this post for a second, I characterize items #1-3 as being “asynchronous” modes of communication while we could call items #4 and #5 “synchronous”. When communication gets escalated it’s almost always moving from an asynchronous mode of communication to a synchronous one. Now, to the point of this post: I’ve become increasingly reluctant to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication for two primary reasons: 1 – You can often find a higher fidelity way to convey your message without holding a synchronous conversation 2 - Asynchronous modes of communication are (usually) persistent and searchable. You Don’t Have to Broadcast Live Let’s start with the first reason I’ve listed. A lot of times you feel like you need to escalate to synchronous communication because you’re having difficulty describing something that you’re seeing in words. You want to provide the people you’re conversing with some audio-visual aids to help them understand the point that you’re trying to make and you think that getting on Skype and sharing your screen with them is the best way to do that. Firing up a screen sharing session does work well, but you can usually accomplish the same thing in an asynchronous manner. For example, you could take a screenshot and annotate it with some text and drawings to illustrate what it is you’re seeing. If a screenshot won’t work, taking a short screen recording while your narrate over it and posting the video to your forum or chat system along with a text-based description of what’s in the recording that can be searched for later can be a great way to effectively communicate with your team asynchronously. I Said What?!? Now for the second reason I listed: most asynchronous modes of communication provide a transcript of what was said and what decisions might have been made during the conversation. There have been many occasions where I’ve used the search feature of my team’s chat application to find a conversation that happened several weeks or months ago to remember what was decided. Unfortunately, I think the benefits associated with the persistence of communicating asynchronously often get overlooked when people decide to escalate to a in-person meeting or voice/video call. I’m becoming much more reluctant to suggest a voice or video call if I suspect that it might lead to codifying some kind of design decision because everyone involved is going to hang up the call and immediately forget what was decided. I recognize that you can record and archive these types of interactions, but without being able to search them the recordings aren’t terribly useful. When and How To Escalate I don’t mean to imply that communicating via voice/video or in person is never a good idea. I probably jump on a Skype call with a co-worker at least once a day to quickly hash something out or show them a bit of code that I’m working on. Also, meeting in person periodically is really important for remote teams. There’s no way around the fact that sometimes it’s easier to jump on a call and show someone my screen so they can see what I’m seeing. So when is it right to escalate? I think the simplest way to answer that is when the communication starts to feel painful. Everyone’s tolerance for that pain is different, but I think you need to let it hurt a little bit before jumping to synchronous communication. When you do escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the effectiveness of the communication: Takes notes – This is huge and yet I’ve found that a lot of teams don’t do this. If you’re holding a meeting with > 2 people you should have someone taking notes. Taking notes while participating in a meeting can be difficult but there are a few strategies to deal with this challenge that probably deserve a short post of their own. After the meeting, make sure the notes are posted to a place where all concerned parties (including those that might not have attended the meeting) can review and search them. Persist decisions made ASAP – If any decisions were made during the meeting, persist those decisions to a searchable medium as soon as possible following the conversation. All the teams I’ve worked on used a web-based system for tracking the on-going work and a backlog of work to be done in the future. I always try to make sure that all of the cards/stories/tasks/whatever in these systems always reflect the latest decisions that were made as the work was being planned and executed. If held a quick call with your team lead and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to build real-time validation into that new UI you were working on, go and codify that decision in the story associated with that work immediately after you hang up. Even better, write it up in the story while you are both still on the phone. That way when the folks from your QA team pick up the story to test a few days later they’ll know why the real-time validation isn’t there without having to invoke yet another conversation about the work. Communicating Well is Hard At this point you might be thinking that communicating asynchronously is more difficult than having a live conversation. You’re right: it is more difficult. In order to communicate effectively this way you need to very carefully think about the message that you’re trying to convey and craft it in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand. This is almost always harder than just talking through a problem in real time with someone; this is why escalating communication is such a popular idea. Why wouldn’t we want to do the thing that’s easier? Easier isn’t always better. If you and your team can get in the habit of communicating effectively in an asynchronous manner you’ll find that, over time, all of your communications get less painful because you don’t need to re-iterate previously made points over and over again. If you communicate right the first time, you often don’t need to rehash old conversations because you can go back and find the decisions that were made laid out in plain language. You’ll also find that you get better at doing things like writing useful comments in your code, creating written documentation about how the feature that you just built works, or persuading your team to do things in a certain way.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 04, 2013

CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 04, 2013Popular ReleasesMoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): Version 1.11: Release Notes Release 1.11 =========== =Bug Fixes= =========== Now works with Terraria 1.2 wld files. =============== =Known Issues= =============== Not all tiles and items are accounted for. Missing tiles just show up as pink. This is actively being worked on but wanted to get a build out that works with 1.2VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.19: NEW: Added Option to login as Guest NEW: Added Support for "ImageTeam.org linksStyleMVVM: 3.1.4: This release has virtually no code change but adds multiple new Item templates for the Windows Phone 8 platformSystem Center Orchestrator Community Project: Orchestrator Visio and Word Generator 1.5: This tool lets you export Orchestrator runbooks as a Visio diagram, and you can also generate an optional Word file as well. Components exported as of v1.5 are : - Title of the runbook - Activities and their names/thumbnails/description (description is displayed as a callout in the Visio diagram, attached to the shape of the activity) - Links and their names/colors - Looping and their interval Thumbnails and activities are grouped in the Visio diagram, for easy manipulation of the diagra...State of Decay Save Manager: Version 1.0.4: Add version at bottom of formDNN® Form and List: DNN Form and List 06.00.07: DotNetNuke Form and List 06.00.06 Changes to 6.0.7•Fixed an error in datatypes.config that caused calculated fields to be missing in 6.0.6 Changes to 6.0.6•Add in Sql to remove 'text on row' setting for UserDefinedTable to make SQL Azure compatible. •Add new azureCompatible element to manifest. •Added a fix for importing templates. Changes to 6.0.2•Fix: MakeThumbnail was broken if the application pool was configured to .Net 4 •Change: Data is now stored in nvarchar(max) instead of ntext C...SimpleExcelReportMaker: Serm 0.03: SourceCode and Sample .Net Framework 3.5 AnyCPU compile.RDFSharp - Start playing with RDF!: RDFSharp-0.6.6: GENERAL (NEW) Introduction of INT64 hashing engine (codenamed "Greta"); QUERY (FIX) Incorrect query evaluation due to faulty detection of optional patterns (v0.6.5 regression); (FIX) Missing update of PatternGroupID information after adding patterns and filters to a pattern group; (FIX) Ensure Context information of a pattern is not null before trying to collect it as variable; (MISC) Changed semantics of Context information of a pattern: if not provided, it will be ignored; (MISC...Application Architecture Guidelines: App Architecture Guidelines 3.0.8: This document is an overview of software qualities, principles, patterns, practices, tools and libraries.C# Intellisense for Notepad++: Release v1.0.7.2: - smart indentation - document formatting To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.BlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.6: 2013.09.30 Ver5.9.6 (1)SMTP???????、???????????????? (2)WinAPI??????? (3)Web???????CGI???????????????????????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 5.2: Mostly internal code tweaks. added -nosize switch to turn off the size- and gzip-calculations done after minification. removed the comments in the build targets script for the old AjaxMin build task (discussion #458831). Fixed an issue with extended Unicode characters encoded inside a string literal with adjacent \uHHHH\uHHHH sequences. Fixed an IndexOutOfRange exception when encountering a CSS identifier that's a single underscore character (_). In previous builds, the net35 and net20...AJAX Control Toolkit: September 2013 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - September 2013 Release (Updated) Version 7.1002September 2013 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Important UpdateThis release has been updated to fix two issues: Upda...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha is for testers to figure out if we got the NEW api plugged in ok. thanksVisual Log Parser: VisualLogParser: Portable Visual Log Parser for Dotnet 4.0AudioWordsDownloader: AudioWordsDownloader 1.1 build 88: New features list of words (mp3 files) is available upon typing when a download path is defined list of download paths is added paths history settings added Bug fixed case mismatch in word search field fixed path not exist bug fixed when history has been used path, when filled from dialog, not stored refresh autocomplete list after path change word sought is deleted when path is changed at the end sought word list is deleted word list not refreshed download ends. word lis...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1309.28: Fix a bug, where WPP crash when running on a computer where Windows was installed in another language than Fr, En or De, and launching the Update Creation Wizard. Fix a bug, where WPP crash if some Multi-Thread job are launch with more than 64 items. Add a button to abort "Install This Update" wizard. Allow WPP to remember which columns are shown last time. Make URL clickable on the Update Information Tab. Add a new feature, when Double-Clicking on an update, the default action exec...Tweetinvi a friendly Twitter C# API: Alpha 0.8.3.0: Version 0.8.3.0 emphasis on the FIlteredStream and ease how to manage Exceptions that can occur due to the network or any other issue you might encounter. Will be available through nuget the 29/09/2013. FilteredStream Features provided by the Twitter Stream API - Ability to track specific keywords - Ability to track specific users - Ability to track specific locations Additional features - Detect the reasons the tweet has been retrieved from the Filtered API. You have access to both the ma...WPF Extended DataGrid: WPF Extended DataGrid 2.0.0.4 binaries: Improved performance of GroupByAcDown?????: AcDown????? v4.5: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ??v4.5 ???? AcPlay????????v3.5 ????????，???????????30% ?? ???????GoodManga.net???? ?? ?????????? ?? ??Acfun?????????? ??Bilibili??????????? ?????????flvcd???????? ??SfAcg????????????? ???????????? ???????????????? ????32...New ProjectsAnalysis Services Activity Viewer 2012: This project was created from a blog post I wrote back in February 2013 http://redphoenix.me/2013/08/22/upgrade-activity-viewer-2008-to-sql-server-2012/ARYSTA SYSTEM: Notebook System A/R Sales * Sales Order * Delivery * Sales Invoice * Sales Return * A/R Credit Memo * A/R Debit Memo A/P Purchasing * Purchase Order BEWELL SYSTEM: This system is design for Bewell-C Incorporated. Project Manager: Ben Penafiel System Engineer: Jhay Camba Report Designer: William Damasco Caching IOC: Caching IOC Container This will cache any Interface return results making it really easy to introduce caching to your solution.Grupo Anclita: Trabajo Final Laboratorio 4Halcyonic Skin by HTML5-UP - for DNN: This skin was converted for use in DNN by Michael Doxsey. Original HTML template designed and built by HTML5-UP: http://html5up.net/halcyonic/ ProPro: project about other projectsS3Unlock: Unlocks S3 agents that are stuck installing.sdfsdlfsdlkj01: dsfdffsdSerendipity - Responsive Skin for DNN: This is an HTML Template by Elemis, converted for use in DNN. Elemis URL: http://elemisfreebies.com/premium-themes/ Free for personal use and ed. purposes only.SmartSystemMenu: Smart system menu for you.SP 2013 Custom MultiTenant Adminstration: This Project creates a custom SP 2013 Tenant Admin site template covering limitations of existing tenant admin site.Telephasic Skin by HTML5-UP - for DNN: This skin was converted for use in DNN by Michael Doxsey. Original HTML template designed and built by HTML5-UP: http://html5up.net/telephasic/TelerikedIn: Social web app trying to look and feel like the famous LinkedInTerra 2: Generador de personajes para el juego de rol Terra2tsydev01: TextLineUpdateVds2465 Parser: This Project is about implementing a Parser for the Vds2465 protocol. It includes parsing and generating Vds2465 telegram bytes.Your Appliances: Empresa De ElectrodomesticosZeroFour by HTML5-UP - for DNN: This skin was converted for use in DNN by Michael Doxsey. Original HTML template designed and built by HTML5-UP: http://html5up.net/zerofour.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010New ProjectsAdaptCMS: AdaptCMS is an open source CMS that is made for complete control of your website, easiness of use and easily adaptable to any type of website. It's...Aura: Aura is a application that calculates average color of desktop background image or whole screen and sets it as Aero Glass color.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Boxee and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.ClothingSMS: ClothingSMSEasySL3ColorPicker: Silverlight 3 color picker user control.Fluent Moq Builder: Gives a fluent interface to help with building complex mock objects with Moq, such as mocks of HttpContextBase for help in unit testing ASP.NET MVC.Folder Bookmarks: A simple folder/file bookmark manager. Simple and easy to use. No need to navigate large folder directories, just double-click the bookmark to open...GeocodeThe.Net: GeoCodeThe.Net seeks to promote geographic tagging for all content on the web. It is our belief that anything on the web can and should be geocoded...GNF: GNF is a open source WPF based GPS library controlsHKGolden Express: HKGolden Express is a web application to generate simplified layout of HKGolden forum. HKGolden Express is written in Java EE, it can be deployed o...Informant: Informant provides people with the desire to send mass SMS to specific groups with the ability to do so using Google Voice. Included with Informant...JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: JSON serializer is used to created javascript object notation strings. It was written in the .NET 1.1 framework, and has capabilities of serializ...LightWeight Application Server: LWAS aims to provide the means for non-technical developers using just a web browser to create data-centered applications from user interface desig...MicroHedge: Quant FiNerd Clock: NerdClock is my windows phone 7 test app. A clock for nerds, time reads in binary.PhotoHelper: PhotoHelper makes it easier to organize the photoes, if your photoes are put into different locations, but you think they are the same category, yo...Pylor: An ASP.NET MVC custom attribute that allows the configuration of role based security access rules with similar functionality to the System.Web.Mvc....radiogaga: Access an online data source of internet streaming media and present it using a mixed paradigm of embedded web browser and rich client functionalit...Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: If you would like to use MSBuild to register a WCF LOB Adapter in a given server, the custom tasks: RegisterWCFLOBAdapter and UnregisterWCFLOBAdapt...Restart Explorer: Utility to start, stop and restart Windows Explorer.Silverlight 4 Netflix Browser: Demonstrates using a WCF Data Client in Silverlight 4 to browse movie titles with the Netflix OData API announced at MIX 10.trayTwittr: With trayTwittr you can easily update your Twitterstatus right from the Systray. The GUI is designed like the Notificationpanels in Windows 7 (e.g....Warensoft Socket Server: Warensoft Socket Server is a solo server, which never cares about the real logical business. While you could process your socket message with IronP...Weka - Message Serialization: Message serialization framework for .net, including Compact Framework.New Releases[Tool] Vczh Visual Studio UnitTest Coverage Analyzer: Coverage Analyzer (beta): Done features: Load Visual Studio Code Coverage XML File (get this file by clicking "Export Results" in "Test->Windows->Code Coverage Results" in V...Aura: Aura Beta 1: Initial releaseBoxee Launcher: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.2: System Requirements Outlook 2007 / 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running instances in the b...CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.33: removed ASP.NET Menu from admin module applied security role filtering to Dashboard panels/tabsDDDSample.Net: 0.7: This is the next major release of DDDSample. This time I give you 4 different versions of the application: Classic (vanilla) with synchronous inter...DirectoryInfoEx: DirectoryInfoEx 0.16: 03-14-10 Version 0.13 o Fixed FileSystemWaterEx ignore remove directory event. o Fixed Removed IDisposable ...Employee Scheduler: Employee Scheduler [2.6]: Fixed clear data methods to handle holiday modification Added buttons to allow holiday and add time exceptions Updated drag/drop and resize of holi...Enovatics Foundation Library: Enovatics Foundation Library V1.4: This version provides the following components : Strongly Typed cache management, CSV management Base classes for SQL Server data access laye...Fluent Moq Builder: Version 0.1: Intial release. Contains (incomplete) builders for HttpRequestBase, HttpContextBase and ControllerContext. Mock methods so far focus around request...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. Once you have ex...Folder Bookmarks: Source Code: This has the all the code for Folder Bookmarks in a Text file.Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis Smart Client Framework v1.60.1024.1: This release features the first installer for the Genesis Smart Client Framework. The installer creates the database and set's up the Internet Info...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003201725): New features: (None) Bug fix: (None) Improvements: Added <meta> tag to optimize screen layout for different screen size. Added drop-down li...Home Access Plus+: v3.1.5.0: Version 3.1.5.0 Release Change Log: Fixed CSS for My Computer in List View Ability to remember which view mode you have selected Added HA+ home...IT Tycoon: IT Tycoon 0.2.0: Started refactoring toward more formatted and documented code and XAML.JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: jsonSerializer: Basic jsonSerializer binary. Now only handles an object model using reflection. There's no optimization added to the codebase handling .Net Refle...LightWeight Application Server: 0.4.0: 2010-03-20 lwas 0.4.0 This release is intended for c# developers audience only. Developed with MS vWD 2008 Express with .NET 3.5 and writen in c#....Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Marketing List Member Importer: Nocelab ExcelAddin - Release 2.0: Release note: - new installation procedure - fix some bugs related with the import procedure - errors during the import are displayed in red bold ...MSBuild Mercurial Tasks: 0.2.1 Stable: This release realises the Scenario 2 and provides two MSBuild tasks: HgCommit and HgPush. This task allows to create a new changeset in the current...NetSockets: NetBox (Example): Example application using the NetSockets library.NetSockets: NetSockets: The NetSockets library (DLL)Open Dotnet CMS: Open Dotnet CMS 1.6.2: This release update Open Dotnet CMS Console which now uses the modulare client application framework provided by Viking.Windows.Form library. The ...Open Portal Foundation: Open Portal Foundation V1.4: This release updates templates and theming library, and templates are now thematizable. 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Additionally type to persistence store naming has been enhanced.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30320.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Screen Capture Program (Visual C++ 2008): This screen capture program can capture the whole screen of your computer and save it in any picture format you want including gif, bmp, jpg and pn...WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.3 for .Net 3.5: This is a special version of the "Version 0.1.3" for the .Net-framework 3.5. You can use these library like the .Net 4.0 version. The changes are o...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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How did I get here? My route to Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, and interest in Mobile Devices

- by Wallym

I get asked all the time how/why I got interested in mobile and jumped on this fairly early. I tend to give half answers because it wasn't just one thing that took me to mobile, but a whole host of separate ivents culminating in a specific event where I wasdoing market research in May/June 2008. Let me throw out the events and the facts about me: I tend to like new, different, cool stuff. I jumped on .NET early on. I jumped on Ajax early on. I don't jump on every new technology that comes down the road, I'm probably the only person on the planet that doesn't "get" MVC, though I acknowledge that a lot of people do and it solves a number of problems in the default settings of ASP.NET WebForms. I remember buying an early Windows CE device. It was interesting, but dang, this stylus thing sucks. After I lost my third stylus, i just gave up. I got my first mobile phone in early 1999. Reception was crappy, but I could see the value in being mobile. In 1999, I worked on a manufacturing systems project. One piece of the projects was a set of handheld devices on the shop floor. While the UI was a crappy DOS based, yes I said DOS as in Disk Operating System Version 6.22, I could see that the wireless world was a direction I wanted to be in. In 2000, Microsoft released the first public alpha of .NET. Very cool stuff indeed. One piece of the puzzle was a set of mobile controls for ASP.NET. I build numerous test apps as well as mobile version using these mobile controls. Now, the mobile UIs of the time were based on WML, which was crap. I could real all the analysis of mobile and read all about growth rates. Now, you have to realize that growth rates can be impressive when dealing with small numbers, but I knew it was a comer. In our first book, I got talked out of mobile because of the line from the publisher "Wally, mobile doesn't sell." Blackberry was the dominant device of the mid 2000s. Its users were referred to as "Crackberry addicts." Unfortunately, the mobile development experience for native apps was crap and the web experience was fairly rough as well, but if they could get the ecosystem started, other phones and better blackberryies would come out. I finally jumped into using a blackberry. Sometime around 2006, I heard "Wally, mobile doesn't sell" again. Now, anyone that knows me knows that someone saying something like this to me means I'll keep trying it. The phones of the mid 2000s were moving to be more graphical, but there were too many that had this idea that they had to use a stylus. Stylus suck. They get lost too easily. I worked on a project in 2007 and 2008 for a startup trying to answer the question of "What is there to do where I am at?" For some reason, they wanted to be tied to PCs. As it became obvious that they were having problems, their investor asked us to do some market research and to figure out what the marketplace did want. One of the important things that I figured out was the we lived in a mobile world and if you had a mobile app, it need to be on a mobile device, not tied to a desktop/laptop/netbook device. If there was any single event, this was it - I was doing some market research and sat and talked to people in a bar/restaurant in Atlanta called "The Grove" on Lavista. The consensus of the people that I talked to was that they wanted their data where ever they were at, laptop, pc, mobile, whereever. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone. Wow, what an impressive device, even with all the problems of a 1st generation device. I bought an iPod Touch 1st generation to understand touch better, one of the best decisions I ever made. I decided in late 2008, to make a move into cloud, for a number of reasons. I was working on an example app. In April, 2009, one of my friends at Microsoft said "don't mention my name with this, but you need an iPhone front end for this app." How do you get on the iPhone. Well, there are a number of ways including: ObjectiveC. Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and this dog knows .NET, not ObjectiveC. HTML, web, javascript optimized interface. yeah, this is possible. PhoneGap. Now, this is interesting, take an html interface and get it to run on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other platforms. I thought that this way made the most sense for me until......... MonoTouch. In May/June 2009, Novell announced a way for .NET/c# developers to write apps for the iPhone. This is the way that made the most sense to me. Titanium by Appcelerator. This is similar in concept to PhoneGap. I haven't played with this much but do want to learn more about it. In July, 2009, I emailed one of my contacts at Wrox to see if they would be interested in a short MonoTouch ebook in their Wrox Blox format. I fully expected another response along the lines of "Wally, mobile doesn't sell." The response I got was "Wally, iPhone is H O T, get started immediately, can you have this to me before Labor Day." Not quite the response I expected. Thankfully, we didn't make the Labor Day, first draft date. I kept pushing back because I had a feeling that things were not going to be quite as polished and feature rich as necessary. After all, Novell doesn't have the resouces of Microsoft's developer division. The ebook shipped on November 30, 2009. On about December, 15, 2009, my editor emailed and said "Your ebook is selling really well, lets do a full book and it by March 1 so get started." Thankfully, guys like Craig Dunn and Chris Hardy were interested along with Martin and Ror joinged us later on. I bought my wife an iPhone 3Gs in early 2010 to go along with all my iPod Touch devices. I tried to pretend in 2010 that I wasn't that interested in mobile and still had interest in the desktop technologies. I love the technologies and continue to use them today, but that isn't where my interest is right now. I'm just about all mobile all the time with my energies. Our book shipped in the beginning of July, 2010 right in the middle of the Apple FUD.I've been looking at Mobile Web as a way around the AppStores and Apple FUD problems of 2010. With all the Apple self FUD, we became interested in Android.I went up to Dino Esposito at DevConnections in Las Vegas at introduced myself. I've always tried to keep up with what Dino has been doing. I was shocked, he wanted to meet me. We must have talked for 1.5 hours. It was way more time than I deserved. If you get a chance, go and introduce yourself to Dino. He's a great guy. Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the Fall of 2010. I'm not doing development on that platform at this time. I think they have a very interesting user interface. The devices are being positively reviewed. For my purposes, the devices are limited at this point in time. We'll see what 2011 brings as far as updates to the operating system. I need multitasking/background processing and html5 in the browser. Add that as well as acceptance in the marketplace and I'll be more interested in the device. Obviosuly, I'm now working on a MonoDroid book . I own Android and iPhone/iOS devices. I am currently working on some startup ideas and am exploring as much in that area as I can. For 2011, I'm planning on speaking at Android Developer's Conference (AnDevCon) and Mobile Connections. I'm really excited about this. I have a couple of magazine articles coming out in 2011 on Android and iPhone development with the Mono technologies.is Mono "The Answer"? What's "The Question?" I think it will work for me. It might work for you, it might not. it depends on your situation. Its the current horse that I am riding. I might find a better horse tomorrow. So, that's how I got here. I'm in love with mobile. Mobile native apps on the device as well as mobile web. I'm into all this cool stuff. Where are you at?

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Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate 2010-Part 2

- by Tarun Arora

Welcome back, in part 1 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I talked about why Performance Testing the application is important, the test tools available in Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 and various test rig topologies. In this blog post I’ll get into the details of web performance & load tests as well as why it’s important to follow a goal based pattern while performance testing your application. Tools => Options => Test Tools Have you visited the treasures of Visual Studio Menu bar tools => Options => Test Tools lately? The options to enable disable prompts on creating, editing, deleting or running manual/automated tests can be controller from here. The default test project language and default test types created on a new test project creation could be selected/unselected from here. Ever wondered how you can change the default limit of 25 test results, this can again be changed from here. If you record a lot of Web Tests and wish for the web test recorder to start with “that” URL populated, well this again can be specified from here. If you haven’t so far, I would urge you to spend 2 minutes in the test tools options. Test Menu => Ready Steady Test Action! The Test tools are under the Test Menu in Visual Studio, apart from being able to create a new Test and Test List you can also load an existing vsmdi file. You can also manage your test controllers from here. A solution can have one or more test setting files, but there can only be one active test settings file at any time. Again, this selection can be done from here. You can open the various test windows from under the windows option from the test menu. If you open the Test view window you will see that you have the option to group the tests by work items, project, test type, etc. You can set these properties by right clicking a test in the test list and choosing properties from the context menu. So, what is a vsmdi file? vsmdi stands for Visual Studio Test Metadata File. Placed under the Solution Items this file keeps track of the list of unit tests in your solution. If you open the vsmdi file as an xml file you will see a series of Test Links nested with in the list Test List tags along with the Run Configuration tag. When in visual studio you run tests, the IDE looks at the vsmdi file to see what tests need to be run. You also have the option of using the vsmdi file in your team builds to specify which tests need to run as part of the build. Refer here for a walkthrough from a fellow blogger on how to use the vsmdi file in the team builds. Web Performance Test – The Truth! In Visual Studio 2010 “Web Tests” have been renamed to “Web Performance Tests”. Apart from renaming this test type there have been several improvements to this test type in visual studio 2010. I am very active on the MSDN Visual Studio And Load Testing forum and a frequent question from many users is “Do Web Tests support Pages that run JavaScript?” I will start with a little bit of background before answering this question. Web Performance Tests operate at the HTTP Layer, but why? To enable you to generate high loads with a relatively low amount of hardware, Web performance tests are driven at the protocol layer rather than instantiating a browser.The most common source of confusion is that users do not realize Web Performance Tests work at the HTTP layer. The tool adds to that misconception. After all, you record in IE, and when running a Web test you can select which browser to use, and then the result viewer shows the results in a browser window. So that means the tests run through the browser, right? NO! The Web test engine works at the HTTP layer, and does not instantiate a browser. What does that mean? In the diagram below, you can see there are no browsers running when the engine is sending and receiving requests. Does that mean I can’t test pages that use Java script? The best example for java script generating HTTP traffic is AJAX calls. The most common example of browser plugins are Silverlight or Flash. The Web test recorder will record HTTP traffic from AJAX calls and from most (but not all) browser plugins. This means you will still be able to web performance test pages that use java script or plugin and play back the results but the playback engine will not show the java script or plug in results in the ‘browser control’. If you want to test the page behaviour as a result of the java script or plug in consider using Coded UI Tests. This page looks like it failed, when in fact it succeeded! Looking closely at the response, and subsequent requests, it is clear the operation succeeded. As stated above, the reason why the browser control is pasting this message is because java script has been disabled in this control. So, to reiterate, the web performance test recorder: - Sends and receives data at the HTTP layer. - Does NOT run a browser. - Does NOT run java script. - Does NOT host ActiveX controls or plugins. There is a great series of blog posts from Ed Glas, i would highly recommend his blog to any one performing Load/Performance testing through Visual Studio. Demo – Web Performance Test [Demo] - Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Test Settings and Configuration [Demo]–Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Web Performance Test In this short video I try and answer the following questions, Why is performance Testing important? How does Visual Studio Help you performance Test your applications? How do i record a web performance test? How do make a web performance test data driven, transaction driven, loop driven, convert to code, add validations? Best practices for recording Web Performance Tests. I have a web performance test, what next? Creating the Web Performance Test was the first step towards load testing your application. Now that we have the base test we can test the page behaviour when N-users access the page. Have you ever had the head of business call you and mention that the marketing team has done a fantastic job and are expecting increased traffic on the web site, can the website survive the weekend with that additional load? This is the perfect opportunity to capacity test your application to see how your website holds up under various levels of load, you can work the results backwards to see how much hardware you may need to scale up your application to survive the weekend. Apart from that it is always a good idea to have some benchmarks around how the application performs under light loads for short duration, under heavy load for long duration and soak test the application run a constant load for a very week or two to record the effects of constant load for really long durations, this is a great way of identifying how your application handles the default IIS application pool reset which by default is configured to once every 25 hours. These bench marks will act as the perfect yard stick to measure performance gains when you start making improvements. BUT there are some best practices! => Goal Based Load Testing Approach Since the subject is vast and there are a lot of things to measure and analyse, … it is very easy to get distracted from the real goal! You can optimize your application once you know where the pain points are. There is no point performing a load test of 5000 users if your intranet application will only have a 100 simultaneous users, it is important to keep focussed on the real goals of the project. So the idea is to have a user story around your load testing scenarios and test realistically. So it is recommended that you follow the below outline, It is an Iterative process, refine your objectives, identify the key scenarios, what is the expected workload, key metrics you want to report, record the web performance tests, simulate load and analyse results. Is your application already deployed in Production? This is great! You can analyse the IIS Logs to understand the user behaviour… But what are IIS LOGS? The IIS logs allow you to record events for each application and Web site on the Web server. You can create separate logs for each of your applications and Web sites. Logging information in IIS goes beyond the scope of the event logging or performance monitoring features provided by Windows. The IIS logs can include information, such as who has visited your site, what the visitor viewed, and when the information was last viewed. You can use the IIS logs to identify any attempts to gain unauthorized access to your Web server. How to configure IIS LOGS? For those Ninjas who already have IIS Logs configured (by the way its on by default) and need a way to analyse the IIS Logs, can use the Windows IIS Utility – Log Parser. Log Parser is a very powerful tool that provides a generic SQL-like language on top of many types of data like IIS Logs, Event Viewer entries, XML files, CSV files, File System and others; and it allows you to export the result of the queries to many output formats such as CSV, XML, SQL Server, Charts and others; and it works well with IIS 5, 6, 7 and 7.5. Frequently used Log Parser queries. Demo – Load Test [Demo]–Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Load Testing In this short video I try and answer the following questions, - Types of Performance Testing? - Perform Goal driven Load Testing, analyse Test Run Result and Generate a report? Recap A quick recap of what we have covered so far, Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post, in part III of this blog series I’ll be getting into the details of Test Result Analysis, Test Result Drill through, Test Report Generation, Test Run Comparison, and the Asp.net Profiler. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Questions/Feedback/Suggestions, etc please leave a comment. See you on in Part III Share this post : CodeProject

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SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

- by pinaldave

Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck! A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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NHibernate Conventions

- by Ricardo Peres

Introduction It seems that nowadays everyone loves conventions! Not the ones that you go to, but the ones that you use, that is! It just happens that NHibernate also supports conventions, and we’ll see exactly how. Conventions in NHibernate are supported in two ways: Naming of tables and columns when not explicitly indicated in the mappings; Full domain mapping. Naming of Tables and Columns Since always NHibernate has supported the concept of a naming strategy. A naming strategy in NHibernate converts class and property names to table and column names and vice-versa, when a name is not explicitly supplied. In concrete, it must be a realization of the NHibernate.Cfg.INamingStrategy interface, of which NHibernate includes two implementations: DefaultNamingStrategy: the default implementation, where each column and table are mapped to identically named properties and classes, for example, “MyEntity” will translate to “MyEntity”; ImprovedNamingStrategy: underscores (_) are used to separate Pascal-cased fragments, for example, entity “MyEntity” will be mapped to a “my_entity” table. The naming strategy can be defined at configuration level (the Configuration instance) by calling the SetNamingStrategy method: 1: cfg.SetNamingStrategy(ImprovedNamingStrategy.Instance); Both the DefaultNamingStrategy and the ImprovedNamingStrategy classes offer singleton instances in the form of Instance static fields. DefaultNamingStrategy is the one NHibernate uses, if you don’t specify one. Domain Mapping In mapping by code, we have the choice of relying on conventions to do the mapping automatically. This means a class will inspect our classes and decide how they will relate to the database objects. The class that handles conventions is NHibernate.Mapping.ByCode.ConventionModelMapper, a specialization of the base by code mapper, NHibernate.Mapping.ByCode.ModelMapper. The ModelMapper relies on an internal SimpleModelInspector to help it decide what and how to map, but the mapper lets you override its decisions. You apply code conventions like this: 1: //pick the types that you want to map 2: IEnumerable<Type> types = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetExportedTypes(); 3: 4: //conventions based mapper 5: ConventionModelMapper mapper = new ConventionModelMapper(); 6: 7: HbmMapping mapping = mapper.CompileMappingFor(types); 8: 9: //the one and only configuration instance 10: Configuration cfg = ...; 11: cfg.AddMapping(mapping); This is a very simple example, it lacks, at least, the id generation strategy, which you can add by adding an event handler like this: 1: mapper.BeforeMapClass += (IModelInspector modelInspector, Type type, IClassAttributesMapper classCustomizer) => 2: { 3: classCustomizer.Id(x => 4: { 5: //set the hilo generator 6: x.Generator(Generators.HighLow); 7: }); 8: }; The mapper will fire events like this whenever it needs to get information about what to do. And basically this is all it takes to automatically map your domain! It will correctly configure many-to-one and one-to-many relations, choosing bags or sets depending on your collections, will get the table and column names from the naming strategy we saw earlier and will apply the usual defaults to all properties, such as laziness and fetch mode. However, there is at least one thing missing: many-to-many relations. The conventional mapper doesn’t know how to find and configure them, which is a pity, but, alas, not difficult to overcome. To start, for my projects, I have this rule: each entity exposes a public property of type ISet<T> where T is, of course, the type of the other endpoint entity. Extensible as it is, NHibernate lets me implement this very easily: 1: mapper.IsOneToMany((MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) => 2: { 3: Type sourceType = member.DeclaringType; 4: Type destinationType = member.GetMemberFromDeclaringType().GetPropertyOrFieldType(); 5: 6: //check if the property is of a generic collection type 7: if ((destinationType.IsGenericCollection() == true) && (destinationType.GetGenericArguments().Length == 1)) 8: { 9: Type destinationEntityType = destinationType.GetGenericArguments().Single(); 10: 11: //check if the type of the generic collection property is an entity 12: if (mapper.ModelInspector.IsEntity(destinationEntityType) == true) 13: { 14: //check if there is an equivalent property on the target type that is also a generic collection and points to this entity 15: PropertyInfo collectionInDestinationType = destinationEntityType.GetProperties().Where(x => (x.PropertyType.IsGenericCollection() == true) && (x.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().Length == 1) && (x.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().Single() == sourceType)).SingleOrDefault(); 16: 17: if (collectionInDestinationType != null) 18: { 19: return (false); 20: } 21: } 22: } 23: 24: return (true); 25: }); 26: 27: mapper.IsManyToMany((MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) => 28: { 29: //a relation is many to many if it isn't one to many 30: Boolean isOneToMany = mapper.ModelInspector.IsOneToMany(member); 31: return (!isOneToMany); 32: }); 33: 34: mapper.BeforeMapManyToMany += (IModelInspector modelInspector, PropertyPath member, IManyToManyMapper collectionRelationManyToManyCustomizer) => 35: { 36: Type destinationEntityType = member.LocalMember.GetPropertyOrFieldType().GetGenericArguments().First(); 37: //set the mapping table column names from each source entity name plus the _Id sufix 38: collectionRelationManyToManyCustomizer.Column(destinationEntityType.Name + "_Id"); 39: }; 40: 41: mapper.BeforeMapSet += (IModelInspector modelInspector, PropertyPath member, ISetPropertiesMapper propertyCustomizer) => 42: { 43: if (modelInspector.IsManyToMany(member.LocalMember) == true) 44: { 45: propertyCustomizer.Key(x => x.Column(member.LocalMember.DeclaringType.Name + "_Id")); 46: 47: Type sourceType = member.LocalMember.DeclaringType; 48: Type destinationType = member.LocalMember.GetPropertyOrFieldType().GetGenericArguments().First(); 49: IEnumerable<String> names = new Type[] { sourceType, destinationType }.Select(x => x.Name).OrderBy(x => x); 50: 51: //set inverse on the relation of the alphabetically first entity name 52: propertyCustomizer.Inverse(sourceType.Name == names.First()); 53: //set mapping table name from the entity names in alphabetical order 54: propertyCustomizer.Table(String.Join("_", names)); 55: } 56: }; We have to understand how the conventions mapper thinks: For each collection of entities found, it will ask the mapper if it is a one-to-many; in our case, if the collection is a generic one that has an entity as its generic parameter, and the generic parameter type has a similar collection, then it is not a one-to-many; Next, the mapper will ask if the collection that it now knows is not a one-to-many is a many-to-many; Before a set is mapped, if it corresponds to a many-to-many, we set its mapping table. Now, this is tricky: because we have no way to maintain state, we sort the names of the two endpoint entities and we combine them with a “_”; for the first alphabetical entity, we set its relation to inverse – remember, on a many-to-many relation, only one endpoint must be marked as inverse; finally, we set the column name as the name of the entity with an “_Id” suffix; Before the many-to-many relation is processed, we set the column name as the name of the other endpoint entity with the “_Id” suffix, as we did for the set. And that’s it. With these rules, NHibernate will now happily find and configure many-to-many relations, as well as all the others. You can wrap this in a new conventions mapper class, so that it is more easily reusable: 1: public class ManyToManyConventionModelMapper : ConventionModelMapper 2: { 3: public ManyToManyConventionModelMapper() 4: { 5: base.IsOneToMany((MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) => 6: { 7: return (this.IsOneToMany(member, isLikely)); 8: }); 9: 10: base.IsManyToMany((MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) => 11: { 12: return (this.IsManyToMany(member, isLikely)); 13: }); 14: 15: base.BeforeMapManyToMany += this.BeforeMapManyToMany; 16: base.BeforeMapSet += this.BeforeMapSet; 17: } 18: 19: protected virtual Boolean IsManyToMany(MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) 20: { 21: //a relation is many to many if it isn't one to many 22: Boolean isOneToMany = this.ModelInspector.IsOneToMany(member); 23: return (!isOneToMany); 24: } 25: 26: protected virtual Boolean IsOneToMany(MemberInfo member, Boolean isLikely) 27: { 28: Type sourceType = member.DeclaringType; 29: Type destinationType = member.GetMemberFromDeclaringType().GetPropertyOrFieldType(); 30: 31: //check if the property is of a generic collection type 32: if ((destinationType.IsGenericCollection() == true) && (destinationType.GetGenericArguments().Length == 1)) 33: { 34: Type destinationEntityType = destinationType.GetGenericArguments().Single(); 35: 36: //check if the type of the generic collection property is an entity 37: if (this.ModelInspector.IsEntity(destinationEntityType) == true) 38: { 39: //check if there is an equivalent property on the target type that is also a generic collection and points to this entity 40: PropertyInfo collectionInDestinationType = destinationEntityType.GetProperties().Where(x => (x.PropertyType.IsGenericCollection() == true) && (x.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().Length == 1) && (x.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().Single() == sourceType)).SingleOrDefault(); 41: 42: if (collectionInDestinationType != null) 43: { 44: return (false); 45: } 46: } 47: } 48: 49: return (true); 50: } 51: 52: protected virtual new void BeforeMapManyToMany(IModelInspector modelInspector, PropertyPath member, IManyToManyMapper collectionRelationManyToManyCustomizer) 53: { 54: Type destinationEntityType = member.LocalMember.GetPropertyOrFieldType().GetGenericArguments().First(); 55: //set the mapping table column names from each source entity name plus the _Id sufix 56: collectionRelationManyToManyCustomizer.Column(destinationEntityType.Name + "_Id"); 57: } 58: 59: protected virtual new void BeforeMapSet(IModelInspector modelInspector, PropertyPath member, ISetPropertiesMapper propertyCustomizer) 60: { 61: if (modelInspector.IsManyToMany(member.LocalMember) == true) 62: { 63: propertyCustomizer.Key(x => x.Column(member.LocalMember.DeclaringType.Name + "_Id")); 64: 65: Type sourceType = member.LocalMember.DeclaringType; 66: Type destinationType = member.LocalMember.GetPropertyOrFieldType().GetGenericArguments().First(); 67: IEnumerable<String> names = new Type[] { sourceType, destinationType }.Select(x => x.Name).OrderBy(x => x); 68: 69: //set inverse on the relation of the alphabetically first entity name 70: propertyCustomizer.Inverse(sourceType.Name == names.First()); 71: //set mapping table name from the entity names in alphabetical order 72: propertyCustomizer.Table(String.Join("_", names)); 73: } 74: } 75: } Conclusion Of course, there is much more to mapping than this, I suggest you look at all the events and functions offered by the ModelMapper to see where you can hook for making it behave the way you want. If you need any help, just let me know!

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SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #038

- by Pinal Dave

Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 CASE Statement in ORDER BY Clause – ORDER BY using Variable This article is as per request from the Application Development Team Leader of my company. His team encountered code where the application was preparing string for ORDER BY clause of the SELECT statement. Application was passing this string as variable to Stored Procedure (SP) and SP was using EXEC to execute the SQL string. This is not good for performance as Stored Procedure has to recompile every time due to EXEC. sp_executesql can do the same task but still not the best performance. SSMS – View/Send Query Results to Text/Grid/Files Results to Text – CTRL + T Results to Grid – CTRL + D Results to File – CTRL + SHIFT + F 2008 Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 2 I wrote about Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 1. Let us understand the concept of the SPARSE column in more detail. I suggest you read the first part before continuing reading this article. All SPARSE columns are stored as one XML column in the database. Let us see some of the advantage and disadvantage of SPARSE column. Deferred Name Resolution How come when table name is incorrect SP can be created successfully but when an incorrect column is used SP cannot be created? 2009 Backup Timeline and Understanding of Database Restore Process in Full Recovery Model In general, databases backup in full recovery mode is taken in three different kinds of database files. Full Database Backup Differential Database Backup Log Backup Restore Sequence and Understanding NORECOVERY and RECOVERY While doing RESTORE Operation if you restoring database files, always use NORECOVER option as that will keep the database in a state where more backup file are restored. This will also keep database offline also to prevent any changes, which can create itegrity issues. Once all backup file is restored run RESTORE command with a RECOVERY option to get database online and operational. Four Different Ways to Find Recovery Model for Database Perhaps, the best thing about technical domain is that most of the things can be executed in more than one ways. It is always useful to know about the various methods of performing a single task. Two Methods to Retrieve List of Primary Keys and Foreign Keys of Database When Information Schema is used, we will not be able to discern between primary key and foreign key; we will have both the keys together. In the case of sys schema, we can query the data in our preferred way and can join this table to another table, which can retrieve additional data from the same. Get Last Running Query Based on SPID PID is returns sessions ID of the current user process. The acronym SPID comes from the name of its earlier version, Server Process ID. 2010 SELECT * FROM dual – Dual Equivalent Dual is a table that is created by Oracle together with data dictionary. It consists of exactly one column named “dummy”, and one record. The value of that record is X. You can check the content of the DUAL table using the following syntax. SELECT * FROM dual Identifying Statistics Used by Query Someone asked this question in my training class of query optimization and performance tuning. “Can I know which statistics were used by my query?” 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 14 of 31 What are the basic functions for master, msdb, model, tempdb and resource databases? What is the Maximum Number of Index per Table? Explain Few of the New Features of SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Explain IntelliSense for Query Editing Explain MultiServer Query Explain Query Editor Regions Explain Object Explorer Enhancements Explain Activity Monitors SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 15 of 31 What is Service Broker? Where are SQL server Usernames and Passwords Stored in the SQL server? What is Policy Management? What is Database Mirroring? What are Sparse Columns? What does TOP Operator Do? What is CTE? What is MERGE Statement? What is Filtered Index? Which are the New Data Types Introduced in SQL SERVER 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 16 of 31 What are the Advantages of Using CTE? How can we Rewrite Sub-Queries into Simple Select Statements or with Joins? What is CLR? What are Synonyms? What is LINQ? What are Isolation Levels? What is Use of EXCEPT Clause? What is XPath? What is NOLOCK? What is the Difference between Update Lock and Exclusive Lock? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 17 of 31 How will you Handle Error in SQL SERVER 2008? What is RAISEERROR? What is RAISEERROR? How to Rebuild the Master Database? What is the XML Datatype? What is Data Compression? What is Use of DBCC Commands? How to Copy the Tables, Schema and Views from one SQL Server to Another? How to Find Tables without Indexes? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 18 of 31 How to Copy Data from One Table to Another Table? What is Catalog Views? What is PIVOT and UNPIVOT? What is a Filestream? What is SQLCMD? What do you mean by TABLESAMPLE? What is ROW_NUMBER()? What are Ranking Functions? What is Change Data Capture (CDC) in SQL Server 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 19 of 31 How can I Track the Changes or Identify the Latest Insert-Update-Delete from a Table? What is the CPU Pressure? How can I Get Data from a Database on Another Server? What is the Bookmark Lookup and RID Lookup? What is Difference between ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE and WITH NO_WAIT during ALTER DATABASE? What is Difference between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME in SQL Server 2008? How can I Check that whether Automatic Statistic Update is Enabled or not? How to Find Index Size for Each Index on Table? What is the Difference between Seek Predicate and Predicate? What are Basics of Policy Management? What are the Advantages of Policy Management? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 20 of 31 What are Policy Management Terms? What is the ‘FILLFACTOR’? Where in MS SQL Server is ’100’ equal to ‘0’? What are Points to Remember while Using the FILLFACTOR Argument? What is a ROLLUP Clause? What are Various Limitations of the Views? What is a Covered index? When I Delete any Data from a Table, does the SQL Server reduce the size of that table? What are Wait Types? How to Stop Log File Growing too Big? If any Stored Procedure is Encrypted, then can we see its definition in Activity Monitor? 2012 Example of Width Sensitive and Width Insensitive Collation Width Sensitive Collation: A single-byte character (half-width) represented as single-byte and the same character represented as a double-byte character (full-width) are when compared are not equal the collation is width sensitive. In this example we have one table with two columns. One column has a collation of width sensitive and the second column has a collation of width insensitive. Find Column Used in Stored Procedure – Search Stored Procedure for Column Name Very interesting conversation about how to find column used in a stored procedure. There are two different characters in the story and both are having a conversation about how to find column in the stored procedure. Here are two part story Part 1 | Part 2 SQL SERVER – 2012 Functions – FORMAT() and CONCAT() – An Interesting Usage Generate Script for Schema and Data – SQL in Sixty Seconds #021 – Video In simple words, in many cases the database move from one place to another place. It is not always possible to back up and restore databases. There are possibilities when only part of the database (with schema and data) has to be moved. In this video we learn that we can easily generate script for schema for data and move from one server to another one. INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS and Value Character Maximum Length -1 I often see the value -1 in the CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH column of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS table. I understand that the length of any column can be between 0 to large number but I do not get it when I see value in negative (i.e. -1). Any insight on this subject? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 25, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 25, 2010New Projects281slides: 281slides is a project to demonstrate how one could go about implementing something similar to http://280slides.com in Silverlight3.Alex.XP's ARMA2 Chinese Language Pack Tools: Alex.XP's ARMA2 Chinese Language ToolsAuto Version Web Assets: The AVWA project is an HTTP Module written in C# that is designed to allow for versioning of various web assets such as .CSS and .JS files. This a...CAECE Twitter Clon: Proyecto para hacer un clon de twitter alumnos CAECE 2010DNSExchanger: Provides users to switch their PC's DNSs with pre-defined DNS with one click. Fluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): Fluent MVVM Configuration for WPF. A powerful yet simple interface for configuring view models for WPF. Eliminates INotifyPropertyChanged duplic...Genetic Algorithm N-Queens Solver: Genetic Algorithm N-Queens Solver with Multithreaded GUI.Hangmanondotnet: Just a starterHelium Frog Animator: Here is the Source code for the Helium Frog Animator. It is released under the GNU General Public Licence. The software enables stop motion animati...LISCH Collision Resolution, AVL Trees: LISCH Collision Resolution, AVL Trees Last Insertion Standart Colesced HashingNetPE: NetPE is a Portable Executable(PE) editor with full Metadata support. It is developed in pure C#.Proyecto Nilo: nada por ahoraSQL Schema Source Control: Track database schema changes automatically C# application that you can run against your SQL Databases (supports SQL 2008 right now, but you cou...uTorrent-Net-Client: A network client for uTorrent over the uTorrent-WebAPI. 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Add Windows Bluetooth...CSharp Intellisense: V1.7: major improvements: - Select best suggestion - on going changes filters (the filters will changed according to the current typing) - remember last ...DNSExchanger: DNSExchanger Beta v0.1: First release of the project, DNSExchanger. It requires, 32-bit Operating System (XP, Vista, 7) and need to be runned with administration credent...DotNetNuke® Form and List (formerly User Defined Table): 05.01.03: Form and List 05.01.03What's New: This release, Form and List 05.01.03, will be a stabilization release. It requires at least DotNetNuke 5.1.3 for...Enki Char 2 BIN: Enki Char 2 Bin: This program converts Characters to Binary and vice versaFluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): FluentViewModel Alpha1: This is a debug build of the FluentViewModel library. This has been provided to get feed back on the API and to look for bugs. 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It contains binary files and required runtime libraries.Helium Frog Animator: Motion Jpeg Handling 10: Source code , module and debugging application in C# a) Module concatenates .jpg files to motion jpeg .avi file. b) Module retrieves any required ...Helium Frog Animator: Sample Grabber 03: Source code and debug program in C# a) Module lists all the available DirextX source devices b) Sets up video streaming to a picturebox by creating...Henge3D Physics Library for XNA: Henge3D Source (2010-04): The biggest change in this release was the addition of the OnCollision and OnSeparation "events" in the RigidBody class. An attached handler will r...HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.4.1: HouseFly controls release 0.9.4.1 alphaHTML Ruby: 6.22.0: Added new options for adjusting ruby line height and text line height Live preview for options Adjusted applied styles Added option to report...HTML Ruby: 6.22.1: space by word if ASCII character improved handling of unclosed ruby tagMultiwfn: Multiwfn1.3_binary: Multiwfn1.3_binaryMultiwfn: multiwfn1.3_source: multiwfn1.3_sourceRapid Dictionary: Rapid Dictionary Alpha 1.0: Try auto updatable version: http://install.rapiddict.com/index.html Rapid Dictionary Alpha 1.0 includes such functionality:you can run translation...Silverlight Input Keyboard: Version 1.5 for Silverlight 4: Dependency System.Windows.Interactivity.dll from Blend 4 RC http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=88484825-1b3c-4e8c-8b14-b05d02...SQL Schema Source Control: 1.0: Initial ReleaseUDC indexes parser: UDC indexex parser Beta: LALR(1): 1) Невозможно использовать знак распространения на общие и специальные определители, за исключением определителей в скобках (), (0), (=), ...uTorrent-Net-Client: uTorrent-Net-Client: This download contains the uTorrentNetClient and the 7Zip Windows-Service. Before you can use both, you must configuration some points in the App.C...VidCoder: 0.3.0: Changes: Added customizable columns on the Queue. Right click->Customize columns, then drag and drop to choose and reorder. Column sizes will also...Visual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: v2.0: New version of VLD. This adds support for x64 applications and VS 2010.Visual Studio 2010 AutoScroller Extension: AutoScroller v0.1: Initial release of Visual studio 2010 auto-scroller extension. Simply middle click and drag the mouse in the direction you wish to scroll, further...Yasbg: It's Static GUI: Many changes have been made from the previous release. Read the README! This release adds a GUI and RSS support. 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Why version of chrome does not matter much more then firefox and firefox does not matter much as IE

- by anirudha

Everything not perfect. in software the software make and growth by user feedback like what user expected from the software and want in next version of software. In a chrome Event i hear about the Chromium. you can find some interesting things here Video 1 Video 2 come to the point. when i hear about some good website of india. many of them talking a little thing in common that. We are #1 because we not thing that we make a great application and deploy them and think that we finished own works preharps in a small days we make a small website deploy them and improve them always latter. what the point they all talking about:- the conclusion is that software make by user feedback. they tell that he not spent much time and wait for a long time when their project was finish and they launch their website. preharps they tell that they make a small website in a small time and launched them. make a research on them later and make them better later and website growth as they thing. if they are late then someone else can win even their project was much good them other. not more but a little story:- before few month i hear about a great website who sold many of books daily i myself purchase some from them to track how they work and how they provided service. i not found any problem with their service. the service they provided is good but when i see their website i found that the mockup code was very badly designed. i am not know the matter how they growth because they used very other stuff who make their website slow. when i research something more i found that their is very hard to implement the website look like them. on their blog they writing about a mail they have. the clone of them make by many other but not goes good as well as they make. after few month later website is looking great. many thing they improved and make them better as other thing. a another conclusion that same as another story that user feedback. well now come to the point. we talking about Chrome,firefox and IE. what thing is goes common that they all are browser. but something goes different that Chrome is a one of the best browser. from a month many of issue submitted to chrome that user found when they use them. so what is make this different the different is that when feedback goes to someone they take a action and think to make them better so improvement of chrome based on feedback user put using many things. secondly because it's goes open-source many of developer contribute them and make them real browser not real [tape] browser as like IE [a good example]. as you see in video they talking about silent update in chrome and futurecoming chromium. the thing they implement is too good. because by this thing user not worry about a new version. i myself never find a problem that you need to user new version as we found same problem in other application. Well think are great in chrome and now talking about Firefox. Firefox is a best option for development as well as chrome best for surfing the internet. in firefox many thing are great like plugin [ex: Firebug] , addons personas themes and many other thing and customization in firefox make them really a browser not like a joker [IE a good example]. well now come to IE. are IE really great no. someone from Microsoft can say that ha ha hi hi because they can't see the power of open-source. they thing that they make a software and they never need user feedback because they produced windows who really great for user because they used them. example :- before few month Microsoft shipped Windows live. when i use them that i found that their is no sense make for using this one software. suppose you need to write a post through Live writer. the old version are great i myself have no problem but in 2011 i found that they changed everything in user interface. so learn a new thing and spent sometime more to learn a new version whenever need are same and feature are same so why user spent a little time more to learn a lesson who they want to teach even their is no sense to learn them. the problem in 2011 Live not only of mine their are many other have same problem as mine and forget live 2011 after the see a badly design user interface. even they tell we maked in WPF yeah yeah WPF we make in .net. are you can say that what is the matter .net for user. the user have no problem to use WPF based application even you make them fool as we make them in WPF 2020 they are future technologies and we launch it 10 year before only for you yeah you dear customer of mine. yeah they thing WPF is best and thing to implement every software they make even they forget to make better user interface but they also remember to make them next version in WPF. the IE 9 Rc release on 10 febuary. but are they really cool. how much feedback they take and take action of them. their is no answer because they thing to launch a software they never thing what user want and off-course not care of user feedback. as we mention in Firefox and in chrome user feedback have a big matter because sound come from a public and user who use the software not only who make them software as IE 9 have. so feedback take a opportunities to make their software better and less hassel to use them in user hands not only in developer hands. so IE9 is not a good guys who still need of user if they really want a experience. well what Microsoft implemented in IE. i am not talking about that furthure more but i found in article last days[why not say reading a google blog] yeah see them in http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html Well their is nothing good for developer in IE9. the blah blah blah they can always said on MSDN and many other site they have. many from public talking about them because they never can see a good software outside Microsoft. they never talking about Firebug even in books they never show you that. well i know competitor never show you a stuff of competitor i have same issue from Yahoo. on a days i hear from newsletter from them they write a subline on the bottom that USE IE or Firefox to exerience better Web. i am agree with Firefox and i am not know they really talking about IE or joking but i never believe they forget to put chrome. well i know their is corporate rule everyone should follow first. so no problem yahoo i know the matter. well IE:- so what is IE and Why We should use IE. well their is no sense to use IE. the thing we expect from IE but never found that:- first thing is that as a developer we thing the customization as well as other browser have like in chrome have it's own customization and firefox is also great in this matter. but IE really for Web development. are you joking:- the thing they mention in their blog is that IE9 have a new developer tool who have three new panel or tabs. are this joke whenever Firefox and chrome have everyday a new plugin or great upgrade of old plugin they tell we add three new panel first is network second is blah third is blah. well nice joke you make all MSDN blogger i like the way you talking about IE. even we know what matter the browser have. i thing whenever they make IE 6 they talking about IE as same as they talking today. Secondly their is no other tool to use with IE deveoper tool like Firebug is avilable in IE but not make by IE. firebug team themselves make them for IE. because many of developer thing to use firebug but can't use because they still goes mad about IE because day and night they only hear about tools maked by Microsoft. so no plugin [even very small developer tool] no customized no personas on themse. no update yeah why forget these topic come with us and share a little thing more. IE launch IE 6 after 7 after 8 and now 9 [even in future] but what they do. they do nothing on user feedback they still thing WPF is great because colors make user cool and they forget to implement other things as other already provide. Chrome and Firefox are come after IE. Mozilla firefox come in 2004 and chrome is late in 2008. even they are late they still focus on Developer and thing they feel first is that customization like developer tool , themese and perfsonas and many other great things. are they can find in IE even next i means 10 yeah IE10 never because they thing only making a software or force user to use new version of OS. i am confused that why not wait and force user to purchase windows 8 instead of 7. so IE have no customization even small developer tool i thing that they make a customizable interface like in firefox who configure by about:config. so thing is discussed about really not a point we thing to goes but now it's clear what is making no matter for version in Firefox and chrome. because chrome and firefox not wait for a long time and explode a bomb to make publicity. they still work and make upgrade possible to user as soon as possible. [chrome never tell about they goes old they himself update them].so update comes soon in Firefox and in chrome but in IE their is a long time to wait and they make them without feedback. so IE really not for human and not really for us. whenver you found a bug in chrome and in firefox you report them and found that they are work in progressed and can be see in next version of firefox. but what you see whenever you see IE. you found that what the bug can found in IE whenver they not implemented same feature in IE. well IE 9 is next IE6 for developer. conclusion:- after reading a whole post you find that i hate all thing about IE. why are i write a big post on a small pity software IE. why i open the poll of IE. are their anything in IE break my heart. are their is something goes wrong with me and with my IE9. are their is anything i got with IE9. why i write a big post. well as a developer play a trick that give sometime to chrome to make them better and some other to make firefox better and feel something you contribute really have a matter as a contribute you find some other and their thought on same software. some are great maybe some of them blah blah. but are their is true that outside Microsoft their is no good sollution can make because it's outside Microsoft. their is not true. the thing developer make not have matter even using Microsoft technologies or outside technologies of MS. so stop this i not want to talking some other things just stop it. i means their is no more blah i want to talking with you for IE.i still hate them and believe it is next IE6 for Web. Answers: if you still need a answer in lines that the answer is that IE late update as long as they can and also make force user to upgrade IE9 because they want to promote windows first then thing about IE and chrome and firefox not do that as same as IE. so IE is late and user forced software. in firefox and chrome upgrade come soon as soon as they possible. Thanks to give me a great time and red my blah on Blah i means IE9 Thanks again Anirudha

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HTML5 Form Validation

- by Stephen.Walther

The latest versions of Google Chrome (16+), Mozilla Firefox (8+), and Internet Explorer (10+) all support HTML5 client-side validation. It is time to take HTML5 validation seriously. The purpose of the blog post is to describe how you can take advantage of HTML5 client-side validation regardless of the type of application that you are building. You learn how to use the HTML5 validation attributes, how to perform custom validation using the JavaScript validation constraint API, and how to simulate HTML5 validation on older browsers by taking advantage of a jQuery plugin. Finally, we discuss the security issues related to using client-side validation. Using Client-Side Validation Attributes The HTML5 specification discusses several attributes which you can use with INPUT elements to perform client-side validation including the required, pattern, min, max, step, and maxlength attributes. For example, you use the required attribute to require a user to enter a value for an INPUT element. The following form demonstrates how you can make the firstName and lastName form fields required: <!DOCTYPE html> <html > <head> <title>Required Demo</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> First Name: <input required title="First Name is Required!" /> </label> <label> Last Name: <input required title="Last Name is Required!" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> If you attempt to submit this form without entering a value for firstName or lastName then you get the validation error message: Notice that the value of the title attribute is used to display the validation error message “First Name is Required!”. The title attribute does not work this way with the current version of Firefox. If you want to display a custom validation error message with Firefox then you need to include an x-moz-errormessage attribute like this: <input required title="First Name is Required!" x-moz-errormessage="First Name is Required!" /> The pattern attribute enables you to validate the value of an INPUT element against a regular expression. For example, the following form includes a social security number field which includes a pattern attribute: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Pattern</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Social Security Number: <input required pattern="^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$" title="###-##-####" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> The regular expression in the form above requires the social security number to match the pattern ###-##-####: Notice that the input field includes both a pattern and a required validation attribute. If you don’t enter a value then the regular expression is never triggered. You need to include the required attribute to force a user to enter a value and cause the value to be validated against the regular expression. Custom Validation You can take advantage of the HTML5 constraint validation API to perform custom validation. You can perform any custom validation that you need. The only requirement is that you write a JavaScript function. For example, when booking a hotel room, you might want to validate that the Arrival Date is in the future instead of the past: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Constraint Validation API</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Arrival Date: <input id="arrivalDate" type="date" required /> </label> <button>Submit Reservation</button> </form> <script type="text/javascript"> var arrivalDate = document.getElementById("arrivalDate"); arrivalDate.addEventListener("input", function() { var value = new Date(arrivalDate.value); if (value < new Date()) { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity("Arrival date must be after now!"); } else { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity(""); } }); </script> </body> </html> The form above contains an input field named arrivalDate. Entering a value into the arrivalDate field triggers the input event. The JavaScript code adds an event listener for the input event and checks whether the date entered is greater than the current date. If validation fails then the validation error message “Arrival date must be after now!” is assigned to the arrivalDate input field by calling the setCustomValidity() method of the validation constraint API. Otherwise, the validation error message is cleared by calling setCustomValidity() with an empty string. HTML5 Validation and Older Browsers But what about older browsers? For example, what about Apple Safari and versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer older than Internet Explorer 10? What the world really needs is a jQuery plugin which provides backwards compatibility for the HTML5 validation attributes. If a browser supports the HTML5 validation attributes then the plugin would do nothing. Otherwise, the plugin would add support for the attributes. Unfortunately, as far as I know, this plugin does not exist. I have not been able to find any plugin which supports both the required and pattern attributes for older browsers, but does not get in the way of these attributes in the case of newer browsers. There are several jQuery plugins which provide partial support for the HTML5 validation attributes including: · jQuery Validation — http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation · html5Form — http://www.matiasmancini.com.ar/jquery-plugin-ajax-form-validation-html5.html · h5Validate — http://ericleads.com/h5validate/ The jQuery Validation plugin – the most popular JavaScript validation library – supports the HTML5 required attribute, but it does not support the HTML5 pattern attribute. Likewise, the html5Form plugin does not support the pattern attribute. The h5Validate plugin provides the best support for the HTML5 validation attributes. The following page illustrates how this plugin supports both the required and pattern attributes: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>h5Validate</title> <style type="text/css"> .validationError { border: solid 2px red; } .validationValid { border: solid 2px green; } </style> </head> <body> <form id="customerForm"> <label> First Name: <input id="firstName" required /> </label> <label> Social Security Number: <input id="ssn" required pattern="^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$" title="Expected pattern is ###-##-####" /> </label> <input type="submit" /> </form> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery.h5validate.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Enable h5Validate plugin $("#customerForm").h5Validate({ errorClass: "validationError", validClass: "validationValid" }); // Prevent form submission when errors $("#customerForm").submit(function (evt) { if ($("#customerForm").h5Validate("allValid") === false) { evt.preventDefault(); } }); </script> </body> </html> When an input field fails validation, the validationError CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a red border. When an input field passes validation, the validationValid CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a green border. From the perspective of HTML5 validation, the h5Validate plugin is the best of the plugins. It adds support for the required and pattern attributes to browsers which do not natively support these attributes such as IE9. However, this plugin does not include everything in my wish list for a perfect HTML5 validation plugin. Here’s my wish list for the perfect back compat HTML5 validation plugin: 1. The plugin would disable itself when used with a browser which natively supports HTML5 validation attributes. The plugin should not be too greedy – it should not handle validation when a browser could do the work itself. 2. The plugin should simulate the same user interface for displaying validation error messages as the user interface displayed by browsers which natively support HTML5 validation. Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer all display validation errors in a popup. The perfect plugin would also display a popup. 3. Finally, the plugin would add support for the setCustomValidity() method and the other methods of the HTML5 validation constraint API. That way, you could implement custom validation in a standards compatible way and you would know that it worked across all browsers both old and new. Security It would be irresponsible of me to end this blog post without mentioning the issue of security. It is important to remember that any client-side validation — including HTML5 validation — can be bypassed. You should use client-side validation with the intention to create a better user experience. Client validation is great for providing a user with immediate feedback when the user is in the process of completing a form. However, client-side validation cannot prevent an evil hacker from submitting unexpected form data to your web server. You should always enforce your validation rules on the server. The only way to ensure that a required field has a value is to verify that the required field has a value on the server. The HTML5 required attribute does not guarantee anything. Summary The goal of this blog post was to describe the support for validation contained in the HTML5 standard. You learned how to use both the required and the pattern attributes in an HTML5 form. We also discussed how you can implement custom validation by taking advantage of the setCustomValidity() method. Finally, I discussed the available jQuery plugins for adding support for the HTM5 validation attributes to older browsers. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any jQuery plugin which provides a perfect solution to the problem of backwards compatibility.

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