simple talk - Page 169 - Developer IT

Guidance for a C# developer to become better UI developer

- by Pankaj Upadhyay

I am a C# developer and had developed simple websites in regular asp.net(with asp.net controls) and a wpf application. Nowadays, I am trying myself in Asp.net MVC3 and been exposed to the HTML with Razor view Engine. To be honest, I am not too good or I should awful at my knowledge of HTML and CSS. Therefore, I keep posting questions now and then on SO for very simple tasks. This has made me very tired of the this Q&A development process. So, now i am thinking of learning the basics of HTML, CSS and maybe some Javascript. Therefore i would request you to guide me to become an efficient enough developer for these technologies. Something that won't take much time and get me up and running fast.

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Polished DIY Projector Is Painted Right onto the Wall

- by Jason Fitzpatrick

If you’re contemplating building a projector screen but find yourself not entirely unhappy with just projecting right onto the wall, this simple paint-it-on-the-wall upgrade is for you. Check out the above video to see the steps required to patch, paint, and frame a space on your wall to serve as a projection screen. You’ll need spackle, sandpaper, white paint, and some very basic carpentry skills to complete the simple wood frame for your painted-on screen. If you’d like to create a screen using the same technique but make it removable (for adjustments or to take it with you when you move out) you can just as easily use the paint-it-on technique with a piece of hardboard instead of the drywall. [via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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Modelling photo-realistic grass in realtime

- by sebf

Hello, I see a number of tutorials on how to create good looking grasses when creating 3D renders but can't think how to model it for realtime/use in a game's scenery. Sure simple models with alpha cutouts can be used to create plants and trees in really awesome scenery but what about a lawn? Are there any good tricks to achieve this effect? I tried with a simple 4 sided box and a small texture and the number of objects needed for a decent appearance made Max crawl to a halt. (I am thinking it may be possible with a shader but that is a whole other area so thought I would just ask about anyones experience with modelling it here) Thanks!

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Refactor This (Ugly Code)!

- by Alois Kraus

Ayende has put on his blog some ugly code to refactor. First and foremost it is nearly impossible to reason about other peoples code without knowing the driving forces behind the current code. It is certainly possible to make it much cleaner when potential sources of errors cannot happen in the first place due to good design. I can see what the intention of the code is but I do not know about every brittle detail if I am allowed to reorder things here and there to simplify things. So I decided to make it much simpler by identifying the different responsibilities of the methods and encapsulate it in different classes. The code we need to refactor seems to deal with a handler after a message has been sent to a message queue. The handler does complete the current transaction if there is any and does handle any errors happening there. If during the the completion of the transaction errors occur the transaction is at least disposed. We can enter the handler already in a faulty state where we try to deliver the complete event in any case and signal a failure event and try to resend the message again to the queue if it was not inside a transaction. All is decorated with many try/catch blocks, duplicated code and some state variables to route the program flow. It is hard to understand and difficult to reason about. In other words: This code is a mess and could be written by me if I was under pressure. Here comes to code we want to refactor: private void HandleMessageCompletion( Message message, TransactionScope tx, OpenedQueue messageQueue, Exception exception, Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageCompleted, Action<CurrentMessageInformation> beforeTransactionCommit) { var txDisposed = false; if (exception == null) { try { if (tx != null) { if (beforeTransactionCommit != null) beforeTransactionCommit(currentMessageInformation); tx.Complete(); tx.Dispose(); txDisposed = true; } try { if (messageCompleted != null) messageCompleted(currentMessageInformation, exception); } catch (Exception e) { Trace.TraceError("An error occured when raising the MessageCompleted event, the error will NOT affect the message processing"+ e); } return; } catch (Exception e) { Trace.TraceWarning("Failed to complete transaction, moving to error mode"+ e); exception = e; } } try { if (txDisposed == false && tx != null) { Trace.TraceWarning("Disposing transaction in error mode"); tx.Dispose(); } } catch (Exception e) { Trace.TraceWarning("Failed to dispose of transaction in error mode."+ e); } if (message == null) return; try { if (messageCompleted != null) messageCompleted(currentMessageInformation, exception); } catch (Exception e) { Trace.TraceError("An error occured when raising the MessageCompleted event, the error will NOT affect the message processing"+ e); } try { var copy = MessageProcessingFailure; if (copy != null) copy(currentMessageInformation, exception); } catch (Exception moduleException) { Trace.TraceError("Module failed to process message failure: " + exception.Message+ moduleException); } if (messageQueue.IsTransactional == false)// put the item back in the queue { messageQueue.Send(message); } } You can see quite some processing and handling going on there. Yes this looks like real world code one did put together to make things work and he does not trust his callbacks. I guess these are event handlers which are optional and the delegates were extracted from an event to call them back later when necessary. Lets see what the author of this code did intend: private void HandleMessageCompletion( TransactionHandler transactionHandler, MessageCompletionHandler handler, CurrentMessageInformation messageInfo, ErrorCollector errors ) { // commit current pending transaction transactionHandler.CallHandlerAndCommit(messageInfo, errors); // We have an error for a null message do not send completion event if (messageInfo.CurrentMessage == null) return; // Send completion event in any case regardless of errors handler.OnMessageCompleted(messageInfo, errors); // put message back if queue is not transactional transactionHandler.ResendMessageOnError(messageInfo.CurrentMessage, errors); } I did not bother to write the intention here again since the code should be pretty self explaining by now. I have used comments to explain the still nontrivial procedure step by step revealing the real intention about all this complex program flow. The original complexity of the problem domain does not go away but by applying the techniques of SRP (Single Responsibility Principle) and some functional style but we can abstract the necessary complexity away in useful abstractions which make it much easier to reason about it. Since most of the method seems to deal with errors I thought it was a good idea to encapsulate the error state of our current message in an ErrorCollector object which stores all exceptions in a list along with a description what the error all was about in the exception itself. We can log it later or not depending on the log level or whatever. It is really just a simple list that encapsulates the current error state. class ErrorCollector { List<Exception> _Errors = new List<Exception>(); public void Add(Exception ex, string description) { ex.Data["Description"] = description; _Errors.Add(ex); } public Exception Last { get { return _Errors.LastOrDefault(); } } public bool HasError { get { return _Errors.Count > 0; } } } Since the error state is global we have two choices to store a reference in the other helper objects (TransactionHandler and MessageCompletionHandler)or pass it to the method calls when necessary. I did chose the latter one because a second argument does not hurt and makes it easier to reason about the overall state while the helper objects remain stateless and immutable which makes the helper objects much easier to understand and as a bonus thread safe as well. This does not mean that the stored member variables are stateless or thread safe as well but at least our helper classes are it. Most of the complexity is located the transaction handling I consider as a separate responsibility that I delegate to the TransactionHandler which does nothing if there is no transaction or Call the Before Commit Handler Commit Transaction Dispose Transaction if commit did throw In fact it has a second responsibility to resend the message if the transaction did fail. I did see a good fit there since it deals with transaction failures. class TransactionHandler { TransactionScope _Tx; Action<CurrentMessageInformation> _BeforeCommit; OpenedQueue _MessageQueue; public TransactionHandler(TransactionScope tx, Action<CurrentMessageInformation> beforeCommit, OpenedQueue messageQueue) { _Tx = tx; _BeforeCommit = beforeCommit; _MessageQueue = messageQueue; } public void CallHandlerAndCommit(CurrentMessageInformation currentMessageInfo, ErrorCollector errors) { if (_Tx != null && !errors.HasError) { try { if (_BeforeCommit != null) { _BeforeCommit(currentMessageInfo); } _Tx.Complete(); _Tx.Dispose(); } catch (Exception ex) { errors.Add(ex, "Failed to complete transaction, moving to error mode"); Trace.TraceWarning("Disposing transaction in error mode"); try { _Tx.Dispose(); } catch (Exception ex2) { errors.Add(ex2, "Failed to dispose of transaction in error mode."); } } } } public void ResendMessageOnError(Message message, ErrorCollector errors) { if (errors.HasError && !_MessageQueue.IsTransactional) { _MessageQueue.Send(message); } } } If we need to change the handling in the future we have a much easier time to reason about our application flow than before. After we did complete our transaction and called our callback we can call the completion handler which is the main purpose of the HandleMessageCompletion method after all. The responsiblity o the MessageCompletionHandler is to call the completion callback and the failure callback when some error has occurred. class MessageCompletionHandler { Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> _MessageCompletedHandler; Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> _MessageProcessingFailure; public MessageCompletionHandler(Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageCompletedHandler, Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageProcessingFailure) { _MessageCompletedHandler = messageCompletedHandler; _MessageProcessingFailure = messageProcessingFailure; } public void OnMessageCompleted(CurrentMessageInformation currentMessageInfo, ErrorCollector errors) { try { if (_MessageCompletedHandler != null) { _MessageCompletedHandler(currentMessageInfo, errors.Last); } } catch (Exception ex) { errors.Add(ex, "An error occured when raising the MessageCompleted event, the error will NOT affect the message processing"); } if (errors.HasError) { SignalFailedMessage(currentMessageInfo, errors); } } void SignalFailedMessage(CurrentMessageInformation currentMessageInfo, ErrorCollector errors) { try { if (_MessageProcessingFailure != null) _MessageProcessingFailure(currentMessageInfo, errors.Last); } catch (Exception moduleException) { errors.Add(moduleException, "Module failed to process message failure"); } } } If for some reason I did screw up the logic and we need to call the completion handler from our Transaction handler we can simple add to the CallHandlerAndCommit method a third argument to the MessageCompletionHandler and we are fine again. If the logic becomes even more complex and we need to ensure that the completed event is triggered only once we have now one place the completion handler to capture the state. During this refactoring I simple put things together that belong together and came up with useful abstractions. If you look at the original argument list of the HandleMessageCompletion method I have put many things together: Original Arguments New Arguments Encapsulate Message message CurrentMessageInformation messageInfo Message message TransactionScope tx Action<CurrentMessageInformation> beforeTransactionCommit OpenedQueue messageQueue TransactionHandler transactionHandler TransactionScope tx OpenedQueue messageQueue Action<CurrentMessageInformation> beforeTransactionCommit Exception exception, ErrorCollector errors Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageCompleted MessageCompletionHandler handler Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageCompleted Action<CurrentMessageInformation, Exception> messageProcessingFailure The reason is simple: Put the things that have relationships together and you will find nearly automatically useful abstractions. I hope this makes sense to you. If you see a way to make it even more simple you can show Ayende your improved version as well.

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Ban HTML comments from your pages and views

Too many people dont realize that there are other options than  comments to annotate HTML. These comments are harmful because they are sent to the client and thus make your page heavier than it needs to be. When doing ASP.NET, a simple drop-in replacement is server comments, which are delimited by <%-- --%> instead of . Those server comments are visible in your source code, but will never be rendered to the client. Heres a simple way to sanitize a web site. From...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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Gain Quick Access to the Cache in Firefox

- by Asian Angel

Are you looking for a quick and simple way to view the contents of the cache in Firefox? Then you will definitely want to see how easy it can be using the CacheViewer extension. Note: CacheViewer is a front-end app for easily accessing and searching the memory cache. Before Viewing the cache in Firefox using “about:cache” provides some information about the contents but may not be the most efficient method available for some people. CacheViewer in Action Once you have installed the extension there are three easy ways to access your new cache viewer. The first is using the “CacheViewer Command” available in the “Tools Menu” and the second is using the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Shift + C”. The third way is by adding a “Toolbar Button” to your browser’s UI. All three work equally well…choose the method that best suits your personal needs. When you access the “CacheViewer Window” this is what it will look like. You may decide to resize it and move (or hide) some of the columns for the best viewing. You can easily scroll through the cache contents and preview images if desired as shown here. If you keep the “CacheViewer Window” open you can refresh it as you browse using the “Refresh Button” in the lower right corner. This is a nice, quick, and very simple way to access the cache on demand and save items to your hard-drive if desired. Note: The “CacheViewer” can also be set to open in a new tab instead (see “Options”). Options Choose whether “CacheViewer” opens in a separate window (default) or in a new tab. Conclusion If you want a quick and simple way to view the cache in Firefox then the CacheViewer extension is just what you have been looking for. Link Download the CacheViewer extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add a Cache Clearing Button to FirefoxSearch for Install Packages from the Ubuntu Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Internet Explorer Cache Files the Easy WayQuick Hits: 11 Firefox Tab How-Tos TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Out of band Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 Cool Looking Screensavers for Windows SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) If it were only this easy Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook

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SQLAuthority News – Ahmedabad Tech Ed On Road June 11, 2011 – An Event to Remember – A Grand Success of Community Tech Days

- by pinaldave

I am very excited to announce the huge success of the Microsoft Community TechDays at Ahmedabad, on 11 June 2011. The turn-out for this seminar was huge, and there was a great response from the audience. In fact, the AMA where the conference was held can seat 275 people – but there were over 50 people standing, the event coordinators had to find 150 more chairs, and we even had to turn away 30 people at the door because there was just no more room. This means that there were over 500 attendees! The event started right on time, at 10 am, with my introduction and welcome to the audience. My presentation on my favorite subject of “SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting Using Waits and Queues.” Because of the number of speakers, I had to cut my presentation short by 10 minutes, so I only had 50 minutes to explain how to use swaits and queues to fine tune performance. There was a good response to my talk from audience. I feel the best presentation, though, was “HTML5 – Future of the Web” by Harish Vaidyanathan. He explained how HTML5 is going to change the internet, and taught everyone a lot about how to best use Internet Explorer 9, and discussed CSS3, SVG and DOM specifications. Many people in the audience came specifically for this session – many had to take a half day leave off work just to travel there. At this point we all took a break for lunch, but there was no one taking a nap with a full stomach because we had a presentation of the new Windows Mango phone from Dhananjay Kumar. New technology like this always wakes everyone up! After this came “TSQL Worst Practices” by Jacob Sebastian. He too had to cut his talk short by 10 minutes in order to accommodate everyone, but his discussion of what SQL queries to avoid was still excellent. He is magnificent presenter and Ahmedabad loves him. The final presentation was “ASP.NET Tips and Tricks” by Tejas Shah. This was a good overview of asp.net fundamentals, and how to use them to improve application performance. However, the day was not over here! We kept the audience entertained with prizes and give-aways. Names were drawn for prizes and there was a quiz session with great gifts for the winners. Overall, the day was a huge success. There was a good mix of SQL and non-SQL subjects, and many audiences members commented on how much they learned. We had a much bigger turn-out than expected – all the chairs were filled 45 minutes before we even started! For our next conference we need to find a space that will hold everyone, especially since we are hoping to have 600-800 people attending. We definitely feel we can reach this goal. We are already looking forward to the next Ahmedabad Microsoft Community TechDays. Download presentations: HTML5 Beauty of Web -By Harish Vaidyanathan TSQL Worst Practices- By Jacob Sebastian SQL SERVER Performance troubleshooting using Waits and Queues -By Pinal Dave ASP.NET Tips and Tracks -By Tejas Shah Other reports: Tech-Ed on Road 2011- Ahmedabad–A great event- By Jalpesh Tech-Ed 2011 on the Road in Ahmedabad – by Ritesh Shah Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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Quick ways to boost performance and scalability of ASP.NET, WCF and Desktop Clients

- by oazabir

There are some simple configuration changes that you can make on machine.config and IIS to give your web applications significant performance boost. These are simple harmless changes but makes a lot of difference in terms of scalability. By tweaking system.net changes, you can increase the number of parallel calls that can be made from the services hosted on your servers as well as on desktop computers and thus increase scalability. By changing WCF throttling config you can increase number of simultaneous calls WCF can accept and thus make most use of your hardware power. By changing ASP.NET process model, you can increase number of concurrent requests that can be served by your website. And finally by turning on IIS caching and dynamic compression, you can dramatically increase the page download speed on browsers and and overall responsiveness of your applications. Read the CodeProject article for more details. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/webservices/quickwins.aspx Please vote for me if you find the article useful.

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Microsoft Channel 9 Interviews Mei Liang to Introduce Sample Browser Extension for Visual Studio 2012 and 2010

- by Jialiang

This morning, Microsoft Channel 9 interviewed Mei Liang - Group Manager of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - to introduce the newest Sample Browser extension for Visual Studio 2012 &2010. This extension provides a way for developers to search and download more than 4500 code samples from within Visual Studio, including over 700 Windows 8 samples and more than 1000 All-In-One Code Framework customer-driven code samples. Mei shows us not only the extension, but also the standalone version of the Sample Browser. http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Visual-Studio-Toolbox/Sample-Browser-Visual-Studio-Extension Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, working in close partnership with the Visual Studio product team and MSDN Samples Gallery, developed the Sample Browser extension for both Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2010. As an effort to evolve the code sample use experience and improve developers' productivity, the Sample Browser allows programmers to search, download and open over 4500 code samples from within Visual Studio with just a few simple clicks. If no existing code sample can meet the needs, developers can even request a code sample easily from Microsoft thanks to the free “Sample Request Service” offered by Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework. Through innovations, the teams hope to put the power of tens of thousands of code samples at developers’ fingertips. In short 3 months, the Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension has been installed by 100K global users. It is also selected as one of the six most highly regarded and commonly used tools for Visual Studio that will make your programming experience feel like never before. Got to love the All-In-One Code Framework team! You guys know this is THE go to source for code samples. Get this extension and you'll never need to leave VS2012 (well except for bathroom trips, but that's TMI anyway... ;) Read More... From: Greg Duncan (Author of CoolThingOfTheDay) 9/6/2011 12:00 AM The one software design pattern that I have used in just about every application I’ve written is “cut-and-paste,” so the new “Sample Browser” – read sample as a noun not an adjective – is a great boon to my productivity. Read More... From: Jim O'Neil (Microsoft Developer Evangelist) 9/28/2011 12:00 AM Install: http://aka.ms/samplebrowservsx Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework also offers the standalone version of Sample Browser. The standalone version is particularly useful to Visual Studio Express edition or Visual Studio 2008 users, who cannot install the Sample Browser Visual Studio extension. From Grassroots’ Passion for Developers to the Innovation of Sample Browser This Sample Browser has come a very long way improving the code sample use experience. The history can be traced back to a grass-root innovation three years ago. In early 2009, a few MSDN forum support engineers observed that lots of developers were struggling to work in Visual Studio without adequate code samples. Programming tasks seem harder than they should be when you only read through the documentation. Just a couple of lines of sample code could answer a lot of questions. They had a brilliant idea: What if we produce code samples based on developers’ frequently asked programming tasks in forums, social networks and support incidents, and then aggregate all our sample code in a one-stop library to benefit developers? And what if developers can request code samples directly from Microsoft, free of charge? This small group of grassroots at Microsoft devoted their nights and weekends to prototyping such a customer-driven code sample library. This simple idea eventually turned into “Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework”, aka. OneCode. With the support from more and more passionate developers at Microsoft and the leaders in the Community and Online Support team and Microsoft Commercial Technical Services (CTS), the idea has become a continually growing library with over 1000 customer-driven code samples covering almost all Microsoft development technologies. These code samples originated from developers’ common pains and needs should be able to help many developers. However, if developers cannot easily discover the code samples, the effort would still be in vain. So in early 2010, the team started the idea of Sample Browser to ease the discovery and access of these samples. In just two months, the first version of Sample Browser was finished and released by a passionate developer. It was a very simple application, only supporting the basic sample offline search. Users had to download the whole 100MB sample package containing all samples first, and run the Sample Browser to search locally. Though developers could not search and download samples on-demand, this simple application laid a solid foundation for the team’s continuous innovations of Sample Browsing experience. In 2011, MSDN Samples Gallery had a big refresh. The online sample experience was brought to a new level thanks to its PM Steven Wilssens and the gallery team’s effort. Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework Team saw the opportunity to realize the “on-demand” sample search and download feature with the new gallery. The two teams formed a strong partnership to upload all the customer-driven code samples to MSDN Samples Gallery, and released the new version of Sample Browser to support “on-demand” sample downloading in April, 2011. Mei Liang, the Group Manager of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, was interviewed by Channel 9 to demo the Sample Browser. Customers love the effort and the innovation!! This can be clearly seen from the user comments in the publishing page. It was very encouraging to the team of All-In-One Code Framework. The team continues innovating and evolving the Sample Browser. They found the Visual Studio product team this time, and integrated the Sample Browsing experience into the latest Visual Studio 2012. The newly released Sample Browser Visual Studio extension makes good use of Visual Studio 2012 IDE such as the new Quick Launch bar, the code editor, the toolbar and menus to offer easy access to thousands of code samples from within the development environment. The Visual Studio Senior Program Manager Lead - Anthony Cangialosi, the Program Manager - Murali Krishna Hosabettu Kamalesha, the MSDN Samples Gallery PM – Steven Wilssens, and the Visual Studio Senior Escalation Engineer - Ed Dore shared lots of insightful suggestions with the team. Thanks to the brilliant cross-group collaboration inside Microsoft, tens of new features including “Local Language Support” and “Favorite Samples”, as well as a face-lifted user interface, were added to further enhance the user experience. Since the new Sample Browser Visual Studio extension was released, it has received over 100 thousand downloads and five-star ratings. A customer told the team that he officially falls in LOVE with Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework. The Sample Browser Innovation for Developers Never Stops! The teams would never stop improving the Sample Browser for developers’ easier lives. The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, Visual Studio and MSDN Samples Gallery teams are working closely to develop the next version of Sample Browser. Here are the key functions in development or in discussion. We hope to learn your feedback of the effort. You can submit your suggestions to the official Visual Studio UserVoice site. We look forward to hearing from you! 1) Offline Sample Search This is one of the top feature requests that we have received for Sample Browser. The Sample Browser will support the offline search mode so that developers can search downloaded code samples when they do not have internet access. This is particularly useful to developers in Enterprises with strict proxy settings. 2) Code Snippet Support and Visual Studio Editor Integration Today, the Sample Browser supports downloading and opening sample project. However, when developers are searching for code samples, a better user experience would be to see the code snippets in the search result first. Developers can quickly decide if the code snippet is relevant. They can also drag and drop the code snippet into the Visual Studio Editor to solve some simple programming tasks. If developers want to learn more about the sample, they can then choose to download the sample project and open it in Visual Studio. 3) Enterprise Sample Sharing and Searching Large enterprises have many code samples for their own internal tools and APIs that are not appropriate to be shared publicly in MSDN Samples Gallery. In that case, today’s Sample Browser and MSDN Samples Gallery cannot help these Enterprise developers. The idea is to create a Code Sample Repository in TFS, and provide an additional Visual Studio extension for Enterprise developers to quickly share code samples to TFS. The Sample Browser can be configured to connect to the TFS Code Sample Repository to search for and download code samples. This would potentially enable the Enterprise developers to be more productive. 4) Windows Store Sample Browser With the upcoming release of Windows RT and Microsoft Surface, developers are facing a completely new world of application platform. Not like laptop, people would often use Microsoft Surface in commute and in travel. Internet may not be available. Today’s Visual Studio cannot be installed and run on Windows RT, however, our enthusiastic developers would hope to spend every minute on code. They love code! The idea is to create a Windows Store version of Sample Browser. Search and download samples from the online Samples Gallery when the user has internet access. Browse the sample code files and learn the sample documentation of downloaded samples with or without internet access. In addition to the "browse” function, the Sample Browser could further support “bookmark”, “learning notes”, “code review”, and “quick social sharing". Make full use of the new touch and Windows Store App UI to give developers a new “relaxing” code browsing and learning experience, anytime, anywhere. With Windows Store Sample Browser, developers can enjoy A new relaxing and enjoyable experience for developers to learn code samples You do not have to sit in front of desk and formally open Visual Studio to read code samples. Many developers get sub-health due to staying in front of desk for a very long time. With Windows RT, Microsoft Surface and this Windows Store Sample Browser combining with the online MSDN Samples Gallery, developers can sit in a sofa, relaxingly hold the tablet and enjoy to learn their beloved sample code with detailed documentation. Anytime, anywhere Whether you have internet access or not, whether you are at home, in office, or in commute/airplane, developers can always easily access and browse the sample code. Lightweight and fast Particularly for learning a small sample project, the Windows Store Sample Browser would be more lightweight and faster to open and browse the sample code. Please submit your feedback and suggestion to Visual Studio UserVoice. We look forward to hearing from you and deliver a better and better sample use experience. Happy Coding! Special Thanks to People working behind the latest release of Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension and the great partnerships!

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Silverlight Cream for May 06, 2010 -- #857

- by Dave Campbell

In this Issue: Alan Beasley, Josh Twist, Mike Snow(-2-, -3-), John Papa(-2-), David Kelley, and David Anson(-2-). Shoutout: John Papa posted a question: Do You Want be on Silverlight TV? From SilverlightCream.com: ListBox Styling (Part 3 - Additional Templates) in Expression Blend & Silverlight Alan Beasley has part 3 of his ListBox styling tutorial in Expression Blend up... another great tutorial and all the code. Securing Your Silverlight Applications Josh Twist has a nice long post up on Securing your Silverlight apps... definitions, services, various forms of authentication. Silverlight Tip of the Day #13 – Silverlight Mobile Development Mike Snow has Tip of the Day #13 up and is discussing creating Silverlight apps for WP7. Silverlight Tip of the Day #14 – Dynamically Loading a Control from a DLL on a Server Mike Snow's Tip #14 is step-by-step instructions for loading a UserControl from a DLL. Silverlight Tip of the Day #15 – Setting Default Browse in Visual Studio Mike Snow's Tip #15 is actually a Visual Studio tip -- how to set what browser your Silverlight app will launch in. Silverlight TV 24: eBay’s Silverlight 4 Simple Lister Application Here we are with Silverlight TV Thursday again! ... John Papa is interviewing Dave Wolf talking about the eBay Simple Lister app. Digitally Signing a XAP Silverlight John Papa has a post up about Digitally signing a Silverlight XAP. He actually is posting an excerpt from the Silverlight 4 Whitepaper he posted... and he has a link to the Whitepaper so we can all read the whole thing too! Hacking Silverlight Code Browser David Kelley has a very cool code browser up to keep track of all the snippets he uses... and we can too... this is a tremendous resource... thanks David! Simple workarounds for a visual problem when toggling a ContextMenu MenuItem's IsEnabled property directly David Anson dug into a ContextMenu problem reported by a couple readers and found a way to duplicate the problem plus a workaround while you're waiting for the next Toolkit drop. Upgraded my Windows Phone 7 Charting example to go with the April Developer Tools Refresh David Anson also has a post up describing his path from the previous WP7 code to the current upgrading his charting code. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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Save Links for Later Reading in Firefox

- by Asian Angel

Do you want a simple way to save and manage links for reading later? The Save-To-Read extension for Firefox makes it easy to do without an account. Using Save-To-Read As soon as you install the extension you will notice two new additions to your UI. You will see a small plus sign in the address bar and a new toolbar button (opens and closes the sidebar shown here). Your bookmarks menu will also have a new folder entry. For our example we chose to save three pages for later reading. Each time you want to save a website click on the small plus sign, and it is automatically added to your read later list. Our second article… And finally the third article. Notice that the small plus sign has become a minus sign after adding the article to our list. Opening the sidebar shows our three entries waiting to be read. Checking the bookmarks menu shows the same articles available there. When you are ready to read your articles simply click on the link in the sidebar, bookmarks menu, etc. Notice that the entry is still available at the moment…there are no automatic deletions until you are finished with an article. This is great if you accidentally click the wrong link before you are ready for it. Removing an article from the list is as simple as clicking on the address bar minus sign. It will revert to a plus sign and the entry is no longer visible in your list. For those who want to avoid using a sidebar there is a different toolbar button available too. The alternate toolbar button provides access to a drop-down article list. Choose the access style that best suits your needs. Preferences The preferences are simple to work with and focus on appearance/ease-of-use. Conclusion If you have been looking for a simpler alternative to other “read later” extensions, then Save-To-Read could be just what you have been waiting for. Another cool option for reading posts later, even on eReaders, then check out our article on saving articles to read later with Instapaper. Links Download the Save-To-Read extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Save Pages for Later With Reading List Extension for FirefoxInstall Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgyQuick Hits: 11 Firefox Tab How-TosSave Webpage Links & URLs as Files in FirefoxQuick Tip: Save Windows and Tabs When Restarting Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries

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Make the Firefox Awesome Bar Semi-Transparent Like Google Chrome

- by Matthew Guay

Would you like to make the Firefox Awesome Bar drop-down menu semi-transparent like in Google Chrome? Here’s a quick trick that can make your Firefox Awesome Bar a bit more awesome. When you type an address or search query into the address bar in Google Chrome, the drop-down list of history and search suggestions that appears is slightly transparent. Nothing extreme, but it adds a nice touch. Firefox’s Awesome bar, on the other hand, is fully opaque by default. We can change that with a simple change. Exit Firefox, then open your Firefox profile folder by entering the following in the address bar in Explorer or in the Run command: %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ Open the default folder, and then open the Chrome folder in it. Now, open the userChrome.css file in an editor such as Notepad. If you do not have a userChrome.css file, open the userChrome-example.css file instead. Now, add the following to the end of the file: #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult[type="autocomplete-richlistbox"]{ opacity: 0.9 !important;} You can change the opacity value, but 0.9 seemed the closest to Chrome’s transparency while keeping the text readable. Save the file as userChrome.css in that same folder. If you’re editing with Notepad, make sure to select to save as All Files so the file won’t be saved with a .txt extension. Open Firefox, and now your Awesome Bar’s drop-down list will be transparent. Actually, it may look even more awesome than Google Chrome’s address bar! Conclusion With this simple trick, you can make your Firefox Awesome bar a bit more awesome. With tweaks like this, it’s no wonder Firefox is still so popular. Special thanks to Daniel Spiewak for the tip! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserEnable Vista Black Style Theme for Google Chrome in XPMake your Gnome Terminal Background (mostly)Transparent on UbuntuStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule

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KISS and Tell - MVVM and the ViewModelLocator

- by Bobby Diaz

A popular topic that comes up when talking about MVVM is the use of a ViewModelLocator and the many different ways one can be implemented. Rather than getting into the pros and cons on when or why you should use it, I decided I would just post my version of a simple ViewModelLocator and let those who like it use it, and those who don’t, well you know… :) First, a disclaimer. I have not used this code in a production application, it is just something I was tossing around while reading others’ posts on the subject. 1. MainView.xaml 2. MainViewModel.cs 3. ViewModelLocator.cs I have a codepaste of the ViewModelLocator.cs file if you are interested but don’t feel like re-typing the 50 lines of code! Enjoy! Additional Resources Simple ViewModel Locator for MVVM: The Patients Have Left the Asylum - by John Papa ViewModel binding with the Managed Extensibility Framework - by Jeremy Likness MVVM Light Toolkit - by Laurent Bugnion

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International Radio Operators Alphabet in F# & Silverlight – Part 1

- by MarkPearl

So I have been delving into F# more and more and thought the best way to learn the language is to write something useful. I have been meaning to get some more Silverlight knowledge (up to now I have mainly been doing WPF) so I came up with a really simple project that I can actually use at work. Simply put – I often get support calls from clients wanting new activation codes. One of our main app’s was written in VB6 and had its own “security” where it would require about a 45 character sequence for it to be activated. The catch being that each time you reopen the program it would require a different character sequence, which meant that when we activate clients systems we have to do it live! This involves us either referring them to a website, or reading the characters to them over the phone and since nobody in the office knows the IROA off by heart we would come up with some interesting words to represent characters… 9 times out of 10 the client would type in the wrong character and we would have to start all over again… with this app I am hoping to reduce the errors of reading characters over the phone by treating it like a ham radio. My “Silverlight” application will allow for the user to input a series of characters and the system will then generate the equivalent IROA words… very basic stuff e.g. Character Input – abc Words Generated – Alpha Bravo Charlie After listening to Anders Hejlsberg on Dot Net Rocks Show 541 he mentioned that he felt many applications could make use of F# but in an almost silo basis – meaning that you would write modules that leant themselves to Functional Programming in F# and then incorporate it into a solution where the front end may be in C# or where you would have some other sort of glue. I buy into this kind of approach, so in this project I will use F# to do my very intensive “Business Logic” and will use Silverlight/C# to do the front end. F# Business Layer I am no expert at this, so I am sure to get some feedback on way I could improve my algorithm. My approach was really simple. I would need a function that would convert a single character to a string – i.e. ‘A’ –> “Alpha” and then I would need a function that would take a string of characters, convert them into a sequence of characters, and then apply my converter to return a sequence of words… make sense? Lets start with the CharToString function let CharToString (element:char) = match element.ToString().ToLower() with | "1" -> "1" | "5" -> "5" | "9" -> "9" | "2" -> "2" | "6" -> "6" | "0" -> "0" | "3" -> "3" | "7" -> "7" | "4" -> "4" | "8" -> "8" | "a" -> "Alpha" | "b" -> "Bravo" | "c" -> "Charlie" | "d" -> "Delta" | "e" -> "Echo" | "f" -> "Foxtrot" | "g" -> "Golf" | "h" -> "Hotel" | "i" -> "India" | "j" -> "Juliet" | "k" -> "Kilo" | "l" -> "Lima" | "m" -> "Mike" | "n" -> "November" | "o" -> "Oscar" | "p" -> "Papa" | "q" -> "Quebec" | "r" -> "Romeo" | "s" -> "Sierra" | "t" -> "Tango" | "u" -> "Uniform" | "v" -> "Victor" | "w" -> "Whiskey" | "x" -> "XRay" | "y" -> "Yankee" | "z" -> "Zulu" | element -> "Unknown" Quite simple, an element is passed in, this element is them converted to a lowercase single character string and then matched up with the equivalent word. If by some chance a character is not recognized, “Unknown” will be returned… I know need a function that can take a string and can parse each character of the string and generate a new sequence with the converted words… let ConvertCharsToStrings (s:string) = s |> Seq.toArray |> Seq.map(fun elem -> CharToString(elem)) Here… the Seq.toArray converts the string to a sequence of characters. I then searched for some way to parse through every element in the sequence. Originally I tried Seq.iter, but I think my understanding of what iter does was incorrect. Eventually I found Seq.map, which applies a function to every element in a sequence and then creates a new collection with the adjusted processed element. It turned out to be exactly what I needed… To test that everything worked I created one more function that parsed through every element in a sequence and printed it. AT this point I realized the the Seq.iter would be ideal for this… So my testing code is below… let PrintStrings items = items |> Seq.iter(fun x -> Console.Write(x.ToString() + " ")) let newSeq = ConvertCharsToStrings("acdefg123") PrintStrings newSeq Console.ReadLine() Pretty basic stuff I guess… I hope my approach was right? In Part 2 I will look into doing a simple Silverlight Frontend, referencing the projects together and deploying….

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Editor's Notebook - Social Aura: Insights from the Oracle Social Media Summit

- by user462779

Panelists talk social marketing at the Oracle Social Media Summit On November 14, I traveled to Las Vegas for the first-ever Oracle Social Media Summit. The two day event featured an impressive collection of social media luminaries including: David Kirkpatrick (founder and CEO of Techonomy Media and author of The Facebook Effect), John Yi (Head of Marketing Partnerships, Facebook), Matt Dickman (EVP of Social Business Innovation, Weber Shandwick), and Lyndsay Iorio (Social Media & Communications Manager, NBC Sports Group) among others. It was also a great opportunity to talk shop with some of our new Vitrue and Involver colleagues who have been returning great social media results even before their companies were acquired by Oracle. I was live tweeting the event from @OracleProfit which was great for those who wanted to follow along with the proceedings from the comfort of their office or blackjack table. But I've also found over the years that live tweeting an event is a handy way to take notes: I can sift back through my record of what people said or thoughts I had at the time and organize the Twitter messages into some kind of summary account of the proceedings. I've had nearly a month to reflect on the presentations and conversations at the event and a few key topics have emerged: David Kirkpatrick's comment during the opening presentation really set the stage for the conversations that followed. Especially if you are a marketer or publisher, the idea that you are in a one-way broadcast relationship with your audience is a thing of the past. "Rising above the noise" does not mean reaching for a megaphone, ALL CAPS, or exclamation marks. Hype will not motivate social media denizens to do anything but unfollow and tune you out. But knowing your audience, creating quality content and/or offers for them, treating them with respect, and making an authentic effort to please them: that's what I believe is now necessary. And Kirkpatrick's comment early in the day really made the point. Later in the day, our friends @Vitrue demonstrated this point by elaborating on a comment by Facebook's John Yi. If a social strategy is comprised of nothing more than cutting/pasting the same message into different social media properties, you're missing the opportunity to have an actual conversation. That's not shouting at your audience, but it does feel like an empty gesture. Walter Benjamin, perplexed by auraless Twitter messages Not to get too far afield, but 20th century cultural critic Walter Benjamin has a concept that is useful for understanding the dynamics of the empty social media gesture: Aura. In his work The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin struggled to understand the difference he percieved between the value of a hand-made art object (a painting, wood cutting, sculpture, etc.) and a photograph. For Benjamin, aura is similar to the "soul" of an artwork--the intangible essence that is created when an artist picks up a tool and puts creative energy and effort into a work. I'll defer to Wikipedia: "He argues that the "sphere of authenticity is outside the technical" so that the original artwork is independent of the copy, yet through the act of reproduction something is taken from the original by changing its context. He also introduces the idea of the "aura" of a work and its absence in a reproduction." So make sure you put aura into your social interactions. Don't just mechanically reproduce them. Keeping aura in your interactions requires the intervention of an actual human being. That's why @NoahHorton's comment about content curation struck me as incredibly important. Maybe it's just my own prejudice, being in the content curation business myself. And it's not to totally discount machine-aided content management systems, content recommendation engines, and other tech-driven tools for building an exceptional content experience. It's just that without that human interaction--that editor who reviews the analytics and responds to user feedback--interactions over social media feel a bit empty. It is SOCIAL media, right? (We'll leave the conversation about social machines for another day). At the end of the day, experimentation is key. Just like trying to find that right joke to tell at the beginning of your presentation or that good opening like at a cocktail party, social media messages and interactions can take some trial and error. Don't be afraid to try things, tinker with incomplete ideas, abandon things that don't work, and engage in the conversation. And make sure your heart is in it, otherwise your audience can tell. And finally:

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Patching and PCI Compliance

- by Joel Weise

One of my friends and master of the security universe, Darren Moffat, pointed me to Dan Anderson's blog the other day. Dan went to Toorcon which is a security conference where he went to a talk on security patching titled, "Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance". I realize that often times speakers will use a headline grabbing title to create interest in their talk and this one certainly got my attention. I did not go to the conference and did not see the presentation, so I can only go by what is in the Toorcon agenda summary and on Dan's blog, but the general statement to stop patching for stronger PCI compliance seems a bit misleading to me. Clearly patching is important to all systems management and should be a part of any organization's security hygiene. Further, PCI does require the patching of systems to maintain compliance. So it's important to mention that organizations should not simply stop patching their systems; and I want to believe that was not the speakers intent. So let's look at PCI requirement 6: "Unscrupulous individuals use security vulnerabilities to gain privileged access to systems. Many of these vulnerabilities are fixed by vendor- provided security patches, which must be installed by the entities that manage the systems. All critical systems must have the most recently released, appropriate software patches to protect against exploitation and compromise of cardholder data by malicious individuals and malicious software." Notice the word "appropriate" in the requirement. This is stated to give organizations some latitude and apply patches that make sense in their environment and that target the vulnerabilities in question. Haven't we all seen a vulnerability scanner throw a false positive and flag some module and point to a recommended patch, only to realize that the module doesn't exist on our system? Applying such a patch would obviously not be appropriate. This does not mean an organization can ignore the fact they need to apply security patches. It's pretty clear they must. Of course, organizations have other options in terms of compliance when it comes to patching. For example, they could remove a system from scope and make sure that system does not process or contain cardholder data. [This may or may not be a significant undertaking. I just wanted to point out that there are always options available.] PCI DSS requirement 6.1 also includes the following note: "Note: An organization may consider applying a risk-based approach to prioritize their patch installations. For example, by prioritizing critical infrastructure (for example, public-facing devices and systems, databases) higher than less-critical internal devices, to ensure high-priority systems and devices are addressed within one month, and addressing less critical devices and systems within three months." Notice there is no mention to stop patching one's systems. And the note also states organization may apply a risk based approach. [A smart approach but also not mandated]. Such a risk based approach is not intended to remove the requirement to patch one's systems. It is meant, as stated, to allow one to prioritize their patch installations. So what does this mean to an organization that must comply with PCI DSS and maintain some sanity around their patch management and overall operational readiness? I for one like to think that most organizations take a common sense and balanced approach to their business and security posture. If patching is becoming an unbearable task, review why that is the case and possibly look for means to improve operational efficiencies; but also recognize that security is important to maintaining the availability and integrity of one's systems. Likewise, whether we like it or not, the cyber-world we live in is getting more complex and threatening - and I dont think it's going to get better any time soon.

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How to Back Up Ubuntu the Easy Way with Déjà Dup

- by Chris Hoffman

Déjà Dup is a simple — yet powerful — backup tool included with Ubuntu. It offers the power of rsync with incremental backups, encryption, scheduling, and support for remote services. With Déjà Dup, you can quickly revert files to previous versions or restore missing files from a file manager window. It’s a graphical frontend to Duplicity, which itself uses rsync. It offers the power of rsync with a simple interface. Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos HTG Explains: What Can You Find in an Email Header?

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Having fun with Reflection

- by Nick Harrison

I was once asked in a technical interview what I could tell them about Reflection. My response, while a little tongue in cheek was that "I can tell you it is one of my favorite topics to talk about" I did get a laugh out of that and it was a great ice breaker. Reflection may not be the answer for everything, but it often can be, or maybe even should be. I have posted in the past about my favorite CopyTo method. It can come in several forms and is often very useful. I explain it further and expand on the basic idea here The basic idea is to allow reflection to loop through the properties of two objects and synchronize the ones that are in common. I love this approach for data binding and passing data across the layers in an application. Recently I have been working on a project leveraging Data Transfer Objects to pass data through WCF calls. We won't go into how the architecture got this way, but in essence there is a partial duplicate inheritance hierarchy where there is a related Domain Object for each Data Transfer Object. The matching objects do not share a common ancestor or common interface but they will have the same properties in common. By passing the problems with this approach, let's talk about how Reflection and our friendly CopyTo could make the most of this bad situation without having to change too much. One of the problems is keeping the two sets of objects in synch. For this particular project, the DO has all of the functionality and the DTO is used to simply transfer data back and forth. Both sets of object have parallel hierarchies with the same properties being defined at the corresponding levels. So we end with BaseDO, BaseDTO, GenericDO, GenericDTO, ProcessAreaDO, ProcessAreaDTO, SpecializedProcessAreaDO, SpecializedProcessAreaDTO, TableDo, TableDto. and so on. Without using Reflection and a CopyTo function, tremendous care and effort must be made to keep the corresponding objects in synch. New properties can be added at any level in the inheritance and must be kept in synch at all subsequent layers. For this project we have come up with a clever approach of calling a base GetDo or UpdateDto making sure that the same method at each level of inheritance is called. Each level is responsible for updating the properties at that level. This is a lot of work and not keeping it in synch can create all manner of problems some of which are very difficult to track down. The other problem is the type of code that this methods tend to wind up with. You end up with code like this: Transferable dto = new Transferable(); base.GetDto(dto); dto.OfficeCode = GetDtoNullSafe(officeCode); dto.AccessIndicator = GetDtoNullSafe(accessIndicator); dto.CaseStatus = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatus); dto.CaseStatusReason = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatusReason); dto.LevelOfService = GetDtoNullSafe(levelOfService); dto.ReferralComments = referralComments; dto.Designation = GetDtoNullSafe(designation); dto.IsGoodCauseClaimed = GetDtoNullSafe(isGoodCauseClaimed); dto.GoodCauseClaimDate = goodCauseClaimDate; One obvious problem is that this is tedious code. It is error prone code. Adding helper functions like GetDtoNullSafe help out immensely, but there is still an easier way. We can bypass the tedious code, by pass the complex inheritance tricks, and reduce all of this to a single method in the base class. TransferObject dto = new TransferObject(); CopyTo (this, dto); return dto; In the case of this one project, such a change eliminated the need for 20% of the total code base and a whole class of unit test cases that made sure that all of the properties were in synch. The impact of such a change also needs to include the on going time savings and the improvements in quality that can arise from them. Developers who are not worried about keeping the properties in synch across mirrored object hierarchies are freed to worry about more important things like implementing business requirements.

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Drawing territories border in 2d map

- by Gabriel A. Zorrilla

I'm programming a little web strategy game. In the country map I pretend to display each country with a national color. The issue is how to render the borders in a simple and efficient way. Right now I'm planning to set a field to each tile called "border" with values from 0 to 8. The algorithm would check for EVERY tile is its adjacent has a different "owner". If the tile is inside the territory, the border value would be 0, because would not have adjacent any tile with different owner, if not, would vary between 1 (north) clockwise to 9 (north-west) and then draw the border. I find this simple but too processor-intensive. Are there any other "pro" choices to render territories borders?

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Persisting settings without using Options dialog in Visual Studio

- by Utkarsh Shigihalli

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2013/11/02/persisting-settings-without-using-options-dialog-in-visual-studio.aspxIn one of my previous blog post we have seen persisting settings using Visual Studio's options dialog. Visual Studio options has many advantages in automatically persisting user options for you. However, during our latest Team Rooms extension development, we decided to provide our users; ability to use our preferences directly from Team Explorer. The main reason was that we had only one simple option for user and we thought it is cumbersome for user to go to Tools –> Options dialog to change this. Another reason was, we wanted to highlight this setting to user as soon as he is using our extension. So if you are in such a scenario where you do not want to use VS options window, but still would like to persist the settings, this post will guide you through. Visual Studio SDK provides two ways to persist settings in your extensions. One is using DialogPage as shown in my previous post. Another way is to use by implementing IProfileManager interface which I will explain in this post. Please note that the class implementing IProfileManager should be independent class. This is because, VS instantiates this class during Tools –> Import and Export Settings. IProfileManager provides 2 different sets of methods (total 4 methods) to persist the settings. They are LoadSettingsFromXml and SaveSettingsToXml – Implement these methods to persist settings to disk from VS settings storage. The VS will persist your settings along with other options to disk. LoadSettingsFromStorage and SaveSettingsToStorage – Implement these methods to persist settings to local storage, usually it be registry. VS calls LoadSettingsFromStorage method when it is initializing the package too. We are going to use the 2nd set of methods for this example. First, we are creating a separate class file called UserOptions.cs. Please note that, we also need to implement IComponent, which can be done by inheriting Component along with IProfileManager. [ComVisible(true)] [Guid("XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX")] public class UserOptions : Component, IProfileManager { private const string SUBKEY_NAME = "TForVS2013"; private const string TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING = "TrayNotifications"; ... } Define the property so that it can be used to set and get from other classes. public bool TrayNotifications { get; set; } Implement the members of IProfileManager. public void LoadSettingsFromStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. TrayNotifications = Convert.ToBoolean(reg.GetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, true)); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { TrayNotifications = true; ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void LoadSettingsFromXml(IVsSettingsReader reader) { reader.ReadSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, out _isTrayNotificationsEnabled); TrayNotifications = (_isTrayNotificationsEnabled == 1); } public void ResetSettings() { } public void SaveSettingsToStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME, true)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } else { reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.CreateSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME); reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void SaveSettingsToXml(IVsSettingsWriter writer) { writer.WriteSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications ? 1 : 0); } Let me elaborate on the method implementation. The Package class provides UserRegistryRoot (which is HKCU\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 for VS2013) property which can be used to create and read the registry keys. So basically, in the methods above, I am checking if the registry key exists already and if not, I simply create it. Also, in case there is an exception I return the default values. If the key already exists, I update the value. Also, note that you need to make sure that you close the key while exiting from the method. Very simple right? Accessing and settings is simple too. We just need to use the exposed property. UserOptions.TrayNotifications = true; UserOptions.SaveSettingsToStorage(); Reading settings is as simple as reading a property. UserOptions.LoadSettingsFromStorage(); var trayNotifications = UserOptions.TrayNotifications; Lastly, the most important step. We need to tell Visual Studio shell that our package exposes options using the UserOptions class. For this we need to decorate our package class with ProvideProfile attribute as below. [ProvideProfile(typeof(UserOptions), "TForVS2013", "TeamRooms", 110, 110, false, DescriptionResourceID = 401)] public sealed class TeamRooms : Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package { ... } That's it. If everything is alright, once you run the package you will also see your options appearing in "Import Export settings" window, which allows you to export your options.

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SQLAuthority News – New Book Released – SQL Server Interview Questions And Answers

- by pinaldave

Two days ago, on birthday of my blog – I asked simple question – Guess! What is in this box? I have received lots of interesting comments on the blog about what is in it. Many of you got it absolutely incorrect and many got it close to the right answer but no one got it 100% correct. Well, no issue at all, I am going to give away the price to whoever has the closest answer first in personal email. Here is the answer to the question about what is in the box? Here it is – the box has my new book. In fact, I should say our new book as I co-authored this book with my very good friend Vinod Kumar. We had real blast writing this book together and had lots of interesting conversation when we were writing this book. This book has one simple goal – “master the basics.” This book is not only for people who are preparing for interview. This book is for every one who wants to revisit the basics and wants to prepare themselves to the technology. One always needs to have practical knowledge to do their duty efficiently. This book talks about more than basics. There are multiple ways to present learning – either we can create simple book or make it interesting. We have decided the learning should be interactive and have opted for Interview Questions and Answer format. Here is quick interview which we have done together. Details of the books are here The core concept of this book will continue to evolve over time. I am sure many of you will come along with us on this journey and submit your suggestions to us to make this book a key reference for anybody who wants to start with SQL server. Today we want to acknowledge the fact that you will help us keep this book alive forever with the latest updates. We want to thank everyone who participates in this journey with us. You can get the books from [Amazon] | [Flipkart]. Read Vinod‘s blog post. Do not forget to wish him happy birthday as today is his birthday and also book release day – two reason to wish him congratulations. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, Data Warehousing, Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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Making meetings much more efficient

- by John Paul Cook

Water. Yes, it’s that simple. There needs to be a rule that whoever convenes a meeting be required to drink water. Half a liter of water when the meeting begins and another half a liter every half hour thereafter. That simple rule will motivate the meeting organizer to find closure quickly – and the exit. What day did I post this? Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 07, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 07, 2010New ProjectsAgile Personal Development Methodology: 本项目并不是软件开发项目，它是一个关注个人能力发展的项目，希望通过大家的积极参与和实践，在价值观、原则和最佳实践的基础上不断丰富和完善这些内容。我将主要从生活、工作和个人三个主要方面来指导个人如何快速地提高自己的能力。在工作方面，首先关注的是IT技术人员。希望本方法论的不断完善，能够对不同阶...Altairis Mail Toolkit: Altairis Mail Toolkit is a component for .NET developers making easy to send templated and localized e-mail messages. Uses standard resource mechan...AmazonPriceTicker: AmazonPriceTicker ist ein kleines ASP.NET-Projekt für unser Studium.CC.Hearts Screen Saver: A complete screensaver that draws pretty hearts. Supports all standard screensaver functionality (preview window, options, multi-monitor). Written...Controle Financeiro com DDD: Projeto para fins de estudo das tencologias: - DDD - TDD - Asp Net MVCDebugWriterTextBox: This is modified TextBox which can catch up Debug.Write() and display log. Also it can write log data to file - all you need is to set up file name!DEIConsultingDev: DEI Consulting DEVEasy Augmented Reality Suite for Silverlight: Easy Augmented Reality Suite for SilverlightEvent Broker: Simple event broker with an hierarchical implementation.fleet It: A WPF Client for Team Space. Developed using WPF and C#. Various URL Shortening services integrated.Gest-Bus: Gest-BusHNV Project: Projects created by Hoàng, Ngọc, VũHotel Management System: Hotel Management System : concerned in making a complete website for a hotel every thing in hotel in just one web application : Finance , managemen...ISEN découverte majeure application mobile: ISEN découverte majeure application mobile contrôle d'un pc par un téléphone portable avec plateforme windows 7 LiveSequence: Based in the sequence diagramming control of Nauman Leghari.NHash: This is a simple project that integrates with Explorer and Computes MD5 and SHA1.NHibernate Sidekick Library: NHibernate Sidekick is a library intended to assist in the development of multi-tiered applications using the NHibernate ORM framework.ScrewTurn ASP.NET Proxy Membership Provider: Plugin for the ScrewTurn Wiki System to use Standard ASP.NET Membership and Role providers.Silverlight SNS: We are going to develop a SNS web application based on Silver lightSilverPoiMap: SilverPoiMap provides interactive searching and management of Points of Interest. It is a Facebook client application which allow you to connect to...Simple Resource Localization Editor: Simple editor that simplifies localization and synchronization of .NET resource files (.resx).SimpleBlog.NET MVC: A very simple blog engine developed in ASP.NET 3.5 MVC2 and C#.Siverlight Project: Hope that everybody continue to develop it.SpaceConquest: Incorporated standard design patterns to build a peer to peer game in Java. 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Adde...NHibernate Sidekick Library: 0.6.0: v0.6.0 - Initial Release TODONLog - Advanced .NET Logging: Nightly Build 2010.06.06.001: Changes since the last build:2010-06-05 21:50:21 Jarek Kowalski fixed doc for ${document-uri} 2010-06-05 20:21:53 Jarek Kowalski removed Layout re...NQ - Component-oriented Framework: NQ Core 0.90: Main changes in 0.90 release: Introduction of an additional built-in component loader to load component and service information from XML files ins...PhluffyFotos: v4 Windows Azure: This release has been updated to Visual Studio 2010 as well as the latest StorageClient library. Make sure you run the Provision.cmd in order to b...RIA Services Essentials: Book Club Application (June 6, 2010): The initial release of the BookClub application based on the MIX presentation with a few changes: 1. Some bug fixes 2. Added the ability to Like a ...Samurai.Workflow: 1.1 Stable Release: Removed reference to WPF assemblies so non-WPF applications can use the workflow. 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Improvements: -More tolerant towards schema changes -Bug fixed regarding array normalization ...UrzaGatherer: UrzaGatherer v2.0.1: This release integrate the support of the Full Database Backup.Web/Cloud Applications Development Framework | Visual WebGui: 6.4 beta 3: This is the last beta version before the official release of Visual WebGui, including support for Visual Studio 2010 and it is fully featured with ...WinGet: Alpha 2: This is the second release of WinGet (0.5.0.2). Is is alpha quality not suitable for use in a production environment and it has bugs (see Known Iss...WoW Character Viewer: WoW Viewer: Newly redesigned layout of the original WoW Character Viewer. Faster access, cleaner layout.Most Popular ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeASP.NET MVC Time PlannerMoonyDesk (windows desktop widgets)NeatUploadOutSyncFileupload AJAXViperWorks IgnitionAgUnit - Silverlight unit testing with ReSharperSQL Nexus ToolSmith Async .NET Memcached ClientMost Active ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationStyleCopN2 CMSsmark C# LibraryFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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Making meetings much more efficient

- by John Paul Cook

Water. Yes, that’s simple. There needs to be a rule that whoever convenes a meeting be required to drink water. Half a liter of water when the meeting begins and another half a liter every half hour thereafter. That simple rule will motivate the meeting organizer to find closure quickly – and the exit. What day did I post this? Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

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Evil DRY

- by StefanSteinegger

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) is a basic software design and coding principle. But there is just no silver bullet. While DRY should increase maintainability by avoiding common design mistakes, it could lead to huge maintenance problems when misunderstood. The root of the problem is most probably that many developers believe that DRY means that any piece of code that is written more then once should be made reusable. But the principle is stated as "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system." So the important thing here is "knowledge". Nobody ever said "every piece of code". I try to give some examples of misusing the DRY principle. Code Repetitions by Coincidence There is code that is repeated by pure coincidence. It is not the same code because it is based on the same piece of knowledge, it is just the same by coincidence. It's hard to give an example of such a case. Just think about some lines of code the developer thinks "I already wrote something similar". Then he takes the original code, puts it into a public method, even worse into a base class where none had been there before, puts some weird arguments and some if or switch statements into it to support all special cases and calls this "increasing maintainability based on the DRY principle". The resulting "reusable method" is usually something the developer not even can give a meaningful name, because its contents isn't anything specific, it is just a bunch of code. For the same reason, nobody will really understand this piece of code. Typically this method only makes sense to call after some other method had been called. All the symptoms of really bad design is evident. Fact is, writing this kind of "reusable methods" is worse then copy pasting! Believe me. What will happen when you change this weird piece of code? You can't say what'll happen, because you can't understand what the code is actually doing. So better don't touch it anymore. Maintainability just died. Of course this problem is with any badly designed code. But because the developer tried to make this method as reusable as possible, large parts of the system get dependent on it. Completely independent parts get tightly coupled by this common piece of code. Changing on the single common place will have effects anywhere in the system, a typical symptom of too tight coupling. Without trying to dogmatically (and wrongly) apply the DRY principle, you just had a system with a weak design. Now you get a system which just can't be maintained anymore. So what can you do against it? When making code reusable, always identify the generally reusable parts of it. Find the reason why the code is repeated, find the common "piece of knowledge". If you have to search too far, it's probably not really there. Explain it to a colleague, if you can't explain or the explanation is to complicated, it's probably not worth to reuse. If you identify the piece of knowledge, don't forget to carefully find the place where it should be implemented. Reusing code is never worth giving up a clean design. Methods always need to do something specific. If you can't give it a simple and explanatory name, you did probably something weird. If you can't find the common piece of knowledge, try to make the code simpler. For instance, if you have some complicated string or collection operations within this code, write some general-purpose operations into a helper class. If your code gets simple enough, its not so bad if it can't be reused. If you are not able to find anything simple and reasonable, copy paste it. Put a comment into the code to reference the other copies. You may find a solution later. Requirements Repetitions by Coincidence Let's assume that you need to implement complex tax calculations for many countries. It's possible that some countries have very similar tax rules. These rules are still completely independent from each other, since every country can change it of its own. (Assumed that this similarity is actually by coincidence and not by political membership. There might be basic rules applying to all European countries. etc.) Let's assume that there are similarities between an Asian country and an African country. Moving the common part to a central place will cause problems. What happens if one of the countries changes its rules? Or - more likely - what happens if users of one country complain about an error in the calculation? If there is shared code, it is very risky to change it, even for a bugfix. It is hard to find requirements to be repeated by coincidence. Then there is not much you can do against the repetition of the code. What you really should consider is to make coding of the rules as simple as possible. So this independent knowledge "Tax Rules in Timbuktu" or wherever should be as pure as possible, without much overhead and stuff that does not belong to it. So you can write every independent requirement short and clean. DRYing try-catch and using Blocks This is a technical issue. Blocks like try-catch or using (e.g. in C#) are very hard to DRY. Imagine a complex exception handling, including several catch blocks. When the contents of the try block as well as the contents of the individual catch block are trivial, but the whole structure is repeated on many places in the code, there is almost no reasonable way to DRY it. try { // trivial code here using (Thingy thing = new thingy) { //trivial, but always different line of code } } catch(FooException foo) { // trivial foo handling } catch (BarException bar) { // trivial bar handling } catch { // trivial common handling } finally { // trivial finally block } The key here is that every block is trivial, so there is nothing to just move into a separate method. The only part that differs from case to case is the line of code in the body of the using block (or any other block). The situation is especially interesting if the many occurrences of this structure are completely independent: they appear in classes with no common base class, they don't aggregate each other and so on. Let's assume that this is a common pattern in service methods within the whole system. Examples of Evil DRYing in this situation: Put a if or switch statement into the method to choose the line of code to execute. There are several reasons why this is not a good idea: The close coupling of the formerly independent implementation is the strongest. Also the readability of the code and the use of a parameter to control the logic. Put everything into a method which takes a delegate as argument to call. The caller just passes his "specific line of code" to this method. The code will be very unreadable. The same maintainability problems apply as for any "Code Repetition by Coincidence" situations. Enforce a base class to all the classes where this pattern appears and use the template method pattern. It's the same readability and maintainability problem as above, but additionally complex and tightly coupled because of the base class. I would call this "Inheritance by Coincidence" which will not lead to great software design. What can you do against it: Ideally, the individual line of code is a call to a class or interface, which could be made individual by inheritance. If this would be the case, it wouldn't be a problem at all. I assume that it is no such a trivial case. Consider to refactor the error concept to make error handling easier. The last but not worst option is to keep the replications. Some pattern of code must be maintained in consistency, there is nothing we can do against it. And no reason to make it unreadable. Conclusion The DRY-principle is an important and basic principle every software developer should master. The key is to identify the "pieces of knowledge". There is code which can't be reused easily because of technical reasons. This requires quite a bit flexibility and creativity to make code simple and maintainable. It's not the problem of the principle, it is the problem of blindly applying a principle without understanding the problem it should solve. The result is mostly much worse then ignoring the principle.

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