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• The 20 Most Important Keyboard Shortcuts For Windows PCs

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Keyboard shortcuts are practically essential for using any type of PC. They’ll speed up almost everything you do. But long lists of keyboard shortcuts can quickly become overwhelming if you’re just getting started. This list will cover the most useful keyboard shortcuts that every Windows user should know. If you haven’t used keyboard shortcuts much, these will show you just how useful keyboard shortcuts can be. Windows Key + Search The Windows key is particularly important on Windows 8 — especially before Windows 8.1 — because it allows you to quickly return to the Start screen. On Windows 7, it opens the Start menu. Either way, you can start typing immediately after you press the Windows key to search for programs, settings, and files. For example, if you want to launch Firefox, you can press the Windows key, start typing the word Firefox, and press Enter when the Firefox shortcut appears. It’s a quick way to launch programs, open files, and locate Control Panel options without even touching your mouse and without digging through a cluttered Start menu. You can also use the arrow keys to select the shortcut you want to launch before pressing Enter. Copy, Cut, Paste Copy, Cut, and Paste are extremely important keyboard shortcuts for text-editing. If you do any typing on your computer, you probably use them. These options can be accessed using the mouse, either by right-clicking on selected text or opening the application’s Edit menu, but this is the slowest way to do it. After selecting some text, press Ctrl+C to copy it or Ctrl+X to cut it. Position the cursor where you want the text and use Ctrl+V to paste it. These shortcuts can save you a huge amount of time over using the mouse. Search the Current Page or File To quickly perform a search in the current application — whether you’re in a web browser, PDF viewer, document editor, or almost any other type of application — press Ctrl+F. The application’s search (or “Find”) feature will pop up, and you can instantly start typing a phrase you want to search for. You can generally press Enter to  go to the next appearance of the word or phrase in the document, quickly searching through it for what you’re interested in. Switch Between Applications and Tabs Rather than clicking buttons on your taskbar, Alt+Tab is a very quick way to switch between running applications. Windows orders the list of open windows by the order you accessed them, so if you’re only using two different applications, you can just press Alt+Tab to quickly switch between them. If switching between more than two windows, you’ll have to hold the Alt key and press Tab repeatedly to toggle through the list of open windows. If you miss the window you want, you can always press Alt+Shift+Tab to move through the list in reverse. To move between tabs in an application — such as the browser tabs in your web browser — press Ctrl+Tab. Ctrl+Shift+Tab will move through tabs in reverse. Quickly Print If you’re the kind of person who still prints things, you can quickly open the print window by pressing Ctrl+P. This can be faster than hunting down the Print option in every program you want to print something from. Basic Browser Shortcuts Web browser shortcuts can save you tons of time, too. Ctrl+T is a very useful one, as it will open a new tab with the address bar focused, so you can quickly press Ctrl +T, type a search phrase or web address, and press Enter to go there. To go back or forward while browsing, hold the Ctrl key and press the left or right arrow keys. If you’d just like to focus your web browser’s address bar so you can type a new web address or search without opening a new tab, press Ctrl + L. You can then start typing something and press Enter. Close Tabs and Windows To quickly close the current application, press Alt+F4. This works on the desktop and even in new Windows 8-style applications. To quickly close the current browser tab or document, press Ctrl+W. This will often close the current window if there are no other tabs open. Lock Your Computer When you’re done using your computer and want to step away, you may want to lock it. People won’t be able to log in and access your desktop unless they know your password. You can do this from the Start menu or Start screen, but the fastest way to lock your screen is by quickly pressing Windows Key + L before you get up. Access the Task Manager Ctrl+Alt+Delete will take you to a screen that allows you to quickly launch the Task Manager or perform other operations, such as signing out. This is particularly useful because if can be used to recover from situations where your computer doesn’t appear responsive or isn’t accepting input. For example, if a full-screen game becomes unresponsive, Ctrl+Alt+Delete will often allow you to escape from it and end it via the Task Manager. Windows 8 Shortcuts On Windows 8 PCs, there are other very important keyboard shortcuts. Windows Key + C will open your Charms bar, while Windows Key + Tab will open the new App Switcher. These keyboard shortcuts will allow you to avoid the hot corners, which can be tedious to use with a mouse. On the desktop side, Windows Key + D will take you back to the desktop from anywhere. Windows Key + X will open a special “power user menu” that gives you quick access to options that are hidden in the new Windows 8 interface, including Shut Down, Restart, and Control Panel. If you’re interested in learning more keyboard shortcuts, be sure to check our longer lists of 47 keyboard shortcuts that work in all web browsers and 42+ keyboard shortcuts to speed up text-editing. Image Credit: Jeroen Bennink on Flickr     

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• Why you need to learn async in .NET

  - by PSteele

  I had an opportunity to teach a quick class yesterday about what’s new in .NET 4.0.  One of the topics was the TPL (Task Parallel Library) and how it can make async programming easier.  I also stressed that this is the direction Microsoft is going with for C# 5.0 and learning the TPL will greatly benefit their understanding of the new async stuff.  We had a little time left over and I was able to show some code that uses the Async CTP to accomplish some stuff, but it wasn’t a simple demo that you could jump in to and understand so I thought I’d thrown one together and put it in a blog post. The entire solution file with all of the sample projects is located here. A Simple Example Let’s start with a super-simple example (WindowsApplication01 in the solution). I’ve got a form that displays a label and a button.  When the user clicks the button, I want to start displaying the current time for 15 seconds and then stop. What I’d like to write is this: lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; for (var x = 0; x < 15; x++) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); Thread.Sleep(1000); } lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; (Note that I also changed the label’s color while counting – not quite an ILM-level effect, but it adds something to the demo!) As I’m sure most of my readers are aware, you can’t write WinForms code this way.  WinForms apps, by default, only have one thread running and it’s main job is to process messages from the windows message pump (for a more thorough explanation, see my Visual Studio Magazine article on multithreading in WinForms).  If you put a Thread.Sleep in the middle of that code, your UI will be locked up and unresponsive for those 15 seconds.  Not a good UX and something that needs to be fixed.  Sure, I could throw an “Application.DoEvents()” in there, but that’s hacky. The Windows Timer Then I think, “I can solve that.  I’ll use the Windows Timer to handle the timing in the background and simply notify me when the time has changed”.  Let’s see how I could accomplish this with a Windows timer (WindowsApplication02 in the solution): public partial class Form1 : Form { private readonly Timer clockTimer; private int counter;   public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); clockTimer = new Timer {Interval = 1000}; clockTimer.Tick += UpdateLabel; }   private void UpdateLabel(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); counter++; if (counter == 15) { clockTimer.Enabled = false; lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; } }   private void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; counter = 0; clockTimer.Start(); } } Holy cow – things got pretty complicated here.  I use the timer to fire off a Tick event every second.  Inside there, I can update the label.  Granted, I can’t use a simple for/loop and have to maintain a global counter for the number of iterations.  And my “end” code (when the loop is finished) is now buried inside the bottom of the Tick event (inside an “if” statement).  I do, however, get a responsive application that doesn’t hang or stop repainting while the 15 seconds are ticking away. But doesn’t .NET have something that makes background processing easier? The BackgroundWorker Next I try .NET’s BackgroundWorker component – it’s specifically designed to do processing in a background thread (leaving the UI thread free to process the windows message pump) and allows updates to be performed on the main UI thread (WindowsApplication03 in the solution): public partial class Form1 : Form { private readonly BackgroundWorker worker;   public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); worker = new BackgroundWorker {WorkerReportsProgress = true}; worker.DoWork += StartUpdating; worker.ProgressChanged += UpdateLabel; worker.RunWorkerCompleted += ResetLabelColor; }   private void StartUpdating(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) { var workerObject = (BackgroundWorker) sender; for (int x = 0; x < 15; x++) { workerObject.ReportProgress(0); Thread.Sleep(1000); } }   private void UpdateLabel(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); }   private void ResetLabelColor(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; }   private void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; worker.RunWorkerAsync(); } } Well, this got a little better (I think).  At least I now have my simple for/next loop back.  Unfortunately, I’m still dealing with event handlers spread throughout my code to co-ordinate all of this stuff in the right order. Time to look into the future. The async way Using the Async CTP, I can go back to much simpler code (WindowsApplication04 in the solution): private async void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; for (var x = 0; x < 15; x++) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); await TaskEx.Delay(1000); } lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; } This code will run just like the Timer or BackgroundWorker versions – fully responsive during the updates – yet is way easier to implement.  In fact, it’s almost a line-for-line copy of the original version of this code.  All of the async plumbing is handled by the compiler and the framework.  My code goes back to representing the “what” of what I want to do, not the “how”. I urge you to download the Async CTP.  All you need is .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 sp1 – no need to set up a virtual machine with the VS2011 beta (unless, of course, you want to dive right in to the C# 5.0 stuff!).  Starting playing around with this today and see how much easier it will be in the future to write async-enabled applications.

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• Linux networking crash: best steps to find out the cause?

  - by Aron Rotteveel

  One of our Linux (CentOS) servers was unreachable last night. The server was not reachable in any way except for the remote console. After logging in with the remote console, it turned out I could not ping any outside hosts either. A simple service network restart solved the issue, but I am still wondering what could have caused this. My log files seem to indicate no error at all (except for the various daemons that need a network connection and failed after the network failure). Are there any additional steps I can take to find out the cause of this problem? EDIT: this just happened again. The server was completely unresponsive until I issued a networking service restart. Any advise is welcome. Could this be caused by a faulty hardware component? As per Madhatters request, here are some excerpts from the log at the time (the network crashed at 20:13): /var/log/messages: Dec 2 20:01:05 graviton kernel: Firewall: *TCP_IN Blocked* IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=<stripped> SRC=<stripped> DST=<stripped> LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=101 ID=256 PROTO=TCP SPT=6000 DPT=3306 WINDOW=16384 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 Dec 2 20:01:05 graviton kernel: Firewall: *TCP_IN Blocked* IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=<stripped> SRC=<stripped> DST=<stripped> LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=100 ID=256 PROTO=TCP SPT=6000 DPT=3306 WINDOW=16384 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 Dec 2 20:01:05 graviton kernel: Firewall: *TCP_IN Blocked* IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=<stripped> SRC=<stripped> DST=<stripped> LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=101 ID=256 PROTO=TCP SPT=6000 DPT=3306 WINDOW=16384 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 Dec 2 20:13:34 graviton junglediskserver: Connection to gateway failed: xGatewayTransport - Connection to gateway failed. The first three messages are simple responses to iptables rules I have set up through the LFD firewall. The last message indicates that JungleDisk, which I use for backups can no longer connect to the gateway. Apart from this, there are no interesting messages around this time. EDIT 4 dec: as per Mattdm's request, here is the output of ethtool eth0: (Please not that these are the settings that currently work. If things go wrong again, I will be sure to post this again if necessary. Settings for eth0: Supported ports: [ TP ] Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Supports auto-negotiation: Yes Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Speed: 1000Mb/s Duplex: Full Port: Twisted Pair PHYAD: 1 Transceiver: internal Auto-negotiation: on Supports Wake-on: g Wake-on: d Link detected: yes As per Joris' request, here is also the output of route -n: aron@graviton [~]# route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface xx.xx.xx.58 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.42 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.43 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.41 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.46 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.47 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.44 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.45 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.50 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.51 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.48 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.49 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.54 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.52 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.53 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.192 U 0 0 0 eth0 xx.xx.xx.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 0.0.0.0 xx.xx.xx.62 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 The bottom xx.62 is my gateway. EDIT december 28th: the problem occurred again and I got the chance to compare some of the outputs of the above tests. What I found out is that arp -an returns an incomplete MAC address for my gateway (which is not under my control; the server is in a shared rack): During failure: ? (xx.xx.xx.62) at <incomplete> on eth0 After service network restart: ? (xx.xx.xx.62) at 00:00:0C:9F:F0:30 [ether] on eth0 Is this something I can fix or is it time for me to contact the data centre?

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• RAID1 rebuild fails due to disk errors

  - by overlord_tm

  Quick info: Dell R410 with 2x500GB drives in RAID1 on H700 Adapter Recently one of drives in RAID1 array on server failed, lets call it Drive 0. RAID controller marked it as fault and put it offline. I replaced faulty disk with new one (same series and manufacturer, just bigger) and configured new disk as hot spare. Rebuild from Drive1 started immediately and after 1.5 hour I got message that Drive 1 failed. Server was unresponsive (kernel panic) and required reboot. Given that half hour before this error rebuild was at about 40%, I estimated that new drive is not in sync yet and tried to reboot just with Drive 1. RAID controller complained a bit about missing RAID arrays, but it found foreign RAID array on Drive 1 and I imported it. Server booted and it runs (from degraded RAID). Here is SMART data for disks. Drive 0 (the one that failed first) ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAGS VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate POSR-K 200 200 051 - 1 3 Spin_Up_Time POS--K 142 142 021 - 3866 4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 12 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 200 200 140 - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate -OSR-K 200 200 000 - 0 9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 086 086 000 - 10432 10 Spin_Retry_Count -O--CK 100 253 000 - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count -O--CK 100 253 000 - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 11 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 10 193 Load_Cycle_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 1 194 Temperature_Celsius -O---K 112 106 000 - 31 196 Reallocated_Event_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--CK 200 200 000 - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable ----CK 200 200 000 - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate ---R-- 200 198 000 - 3 And Drive 1 (the drive which was reported healthy from controller until rebuild was attempted) ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAGS VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate POSR-K 200 200 051 - 35 3 Spin_Up_Time POS--K 143 143 021 - 3841 4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 12 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 200 200 140 - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate -OSR-K 200 200 000 - 0 9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 086 086 000 - 10455 10 Spin_Retry_Count -O--CK 100 253 000 - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count -O--CK 100 253 000 - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 11 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 10 193 Load_Cycle_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 1 194 Temperature_Celsius -O---K 114 105 000 - 29 196 Reallocated_Event_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--CK 200 200 000 - 3 198 Offline_Uncorrectable ----CK 100 253 000 - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate ---R-- 100 253 000 - 0 In extended error logs from SMART I found: Drive 0 has only one error Error 1 [0] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 10282 hours (428 days + 10 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER -- ST COUNT LBA_48 LH LM LL DV DC -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- -- 10 -- 51 00 18 00 00 00 6a 24 20 40 00 Error: IDNF at LBA = 0x006a2420 = 6956064 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FEATR COUNT LBA_48 LH LM LL DV DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- -- --------------- -------------------- 61 00 60 00 f8 00 00 00 6a 24 20 40 00 17d+20:25:18.105 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED 61 00 18 00 60 00 00 00 6a 24 00 40 00 17d+20:25:18.105 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED 61 00 80 00 58 00 00 00 6a 23 80 40 00 17d+20:25:18.105 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED 61 00 68 00 50 00 00 00 6a 23 18 40 00 17d+20:25:18.105 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED 61 00 10 00 10 00 00 00 6a 23 00 40 00 17d+20:25:18.104 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED But Drive 1 has 883 errors. I see only few last ones and all errors I can see look like this: Error 883 [18] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 10454 hours (435 days + 14 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER -- ST COUNT LBA_48 LH LM LL DV DC -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- -- 01 -- 51 00 80 00 00 39 97 19 c2 40 00 Error: AMNF at LBA = 0x399719c2 = 966203842 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FEATR COUNT LBA_48 LH LM LL DV DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- -- --------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 00 00 00 00 39 97 19 80 40 00 1d+00:25:57.802 READ FPDMA QUEUED 2f 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 10 40 00 1d+00:25:57.779 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 00 00 00 00 39 97 19 80 40 00 1d+00:25:55.704 READ FPDMA QUEUED 2f 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 10 40 00 1d+00:25:55.681 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 00 00 00 00 39 97 19 80 40 00 1d+00:25:53.606 READ FPDMA QUEUED Given those errors, is there any way I can rebuild RAID back, or should I make backup, shutdown server, replace disks with new ones and restore it? What about if I dd faulty disk to new one from linux running on USB/CD? Also, if anyone have more experiences, what could be causes for those errors? Crappy controller or disks? Disks are about 1 year old, but it is pretty unbelievable to me that both would die within so short timespan.

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• Why does Process Explorer cause highly targeted failure of some applications / basic UI functions in a high-power EC2 Windows instance?

  - by Dan Nissenbaum

  Update: I have determined that Process Explorer itself - the program I am using to debug a performance issue - seems to be the cause of the issue. See note, with updated question, at end. I am running a high-power (cc2.8xlarge) Amazon AWS EC2 Windows instance off of a boot EBS volume, provisioned at 2500 PIOPS, which was created from a snapshot of a previous boot volume. My purpose with the instance is to use it as a development workstation with many developer tools installed, such as Visual Studio, a local XAMPP stack, etc. I have upwards of 40 programs installed on the machine. The usability of the instance as a development machine often works quite well. The RDP lag is adequately small. I have used it for hours on end without problems for some of my most intense development tasks. As a result, I have just purchased a reserved instance, and I opted to rebuild my development machine starting from scratch with a Windows Server 2012 AMI. After having installed all of my desired/required applications for development over this past week, again the machine seems to often work well and I have worked for up to an hour at a time without problems doing heavy development work. However, I continue to run into catastrophic OS usability issues that may prevent me from being able to rely on this machine as a development machine. I would like to track down the source of the problem, if there is an easily identifiable source. (Update: I have tracked down the source to be Process Explorer, the very program I was using to debug the problem. See update at end.) The issues are as follows. (These are some primary examples) Some applications, after a period of adequate responsiveness, suddenly begin to respond very, very slowly to basic user interface actions such as clicking on menus and pressing Ctrl-Tab to switch between open documents. Two examples are UltraEdit and PhpEd. It typically takes ~2 seconds for a menu to appear, and ~4 seconds to switch between open documents. Additionally, insertion point motion in the editor is lagged by upwards of ~2 seconds. Process Explorer, which I am using to help debug the problem, seems to run acceptably for a couple of minutes, but on multiple occasions Process Explorer itself hangs completely. It hangs at the same time as the problems noted above. When it hangs, it is 100% unresponsive. Clicking on its taskbar icon neither causes it to come to the top or go behind, and its viewable area is filled with nothing but a region partially containing pure white and partially containing incomplete windows widgets that are unreadable, and that never change. Waiting 10 minutes does not clear the problem. Attempting to force-quit Process Explorer by right-clicking on its taskbar icon and choosing "Close Window" takes about 5 full minutes to exit (Process Explorer itself can't be used to exit Process Explorer, and it is registered as a Task Manager substitute). Other programs work just fine during this time. For example, Chrome tabs flip very quickly back and forth, menus pop open instantly, web pages load quickly, and typing in forms/web applications inside the browser works promptly. Another example of an application that works crisply is Filemaker - its menus open instantly, and switching views in this application occurs promptly. Other applications also work without issue. Also, switching between applications occurs promptly as well. It is only a handful of applications that exhibit the problem, with some primary examples given above. At first I thought that EBS IOPS might be a problem. Therefore, I ran Performance Monitor, and watched the "Disk Transfers/sec" monitor in real time. At no point did this measure come anywhere close to hitting the 2500 PIOPS provisioned for the EBS volume. The RAM was also well under the limit (~10 GB used out of 60 GB). I did notice that one CPU core (out of 32 logical cores) was fully thrashing at 100% (i.e., ~3.1%) during the problematic periods. This seems to indicate that a single CPU core is handling the menus / flipping between open documents (for some applications only) / managing the Process Explorer user interface, and that this single core was hosed for some reason during the problematic periods. Also note that I have a desktop workstation (Windows 7) that I also use as a development machine, via a remote connection, with a nearly identical set of programs installed, and this desktop workstation does not exhibit any of the problems I've discussed above. I have been using it heavily for well over a year now. Any suggestions regarding either the source of the problem, or steps I might take to investigate the source of the problem, would be appreciated. Thanks. Note: After extensive testing & investigation, I have noticed that when I quit Process Explorer, the problem vanishes and the system performance returns to normal, and then reappears quickly when I run Process Explorer again (note: again, the performance problems only appear for a subset of applications - other applications work perfectly fine during the same period). My question is therefore (thankfully) more specific: Why does Process Explorer cause highly targeted failure of some applications (including itself) and basic UI functions, in a high-power EC2 Windows instance?

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• Frequent Kernel Panic on CentOS 6.5

  - by Manuel Sopena Ballesteros

  I have a webserver with the configuration below: VMWare ESXi environemt CPanel installed CentOS release 6.5 (Final) 4 CPUs 2G RAM 2x VM disks 100G each LVM system My issue is I am getting kernel panic quite frequently. These is a list of some processes blocked I could see from the console: mysqld queueprocd httpd suphp vmtoolsd loop0 auditd this is my sar logs Linux 2.6.32-431.3.1.el6.x86_64 (test01) 08/22/2014 _x86_64_ (4 CPU) 12:00:01 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 12:10:01 AM all 26.86 0.01 0.98 0.57 0.00 71.57 12:20:01 AM all 1.78 0.02 1.03 0.08 0.00 97.09 12:30:01 AM all 26.34 0.02 0.85 0.05 0.00 72.74 12:40:01 AM all 27.12 0.01 1.11 1.22 0.00 70.54 12:50:01 AM all 1.59 0.02 0.94 0.13 0.00 97.32 01:00:01 AM all 26.10 0.01 0.77 0.04 0.00 73.07 01:10:01 AM all 27.51 0.01 1.16 0.14 0.00 71.18 01:20:01 AM all 1.80 0.07 1.06 0.08 0.00 96.99 01:30:01 AM all 26.19 0.01 0.78 0.05 0.00 72.96 01:40:01 AM all 26.62 0.02 0.87 0.05 0.00 72.45 01:50:02 AM all 1.35 0.01 0.87 0.02 0.00 97.75 02:00:01 AM all 26.11 0.02 0.69 0.02 0.00 73.17 02:10:01 AM all 26.73 0.02 0.89 0.14 0.00 72.21 02:20:01 AM all 1.45 0.01 0.92 0.04 0.00 97.58 02:30:01 AM all 26.59 0.01 1.06 0.03 0.00 72.31 02:40:01 AM all 26.27 0.01 0.72 0.05 0.00 72.95 02:50:01 AM all 0.86 0.01 0.50 0.09 0.00 98.53 03:00:01 AM all 25.61 0.02 0.39 0.03 0.00 73.96 03:10:01 AM all 26.30 0.08 0.66 0.14 0.00 72.82 03:20:01 AM all 0.81 0.01 0.51 0.04 0.00 98.63 03:30:02 AM all 26.15 0.02 0.53 0.07 0.00 73.24 03:40:01 AM all 26.06 0.01 0.47 0.04 0.00 73.42 03:50:01 AM all 0.96 0.02 0.51 0.03 0.00 98.48 Average: all 17.69 0.02 0.79 0.14 0.00 81.36 06:58:14 AM LINUX RESTART 07:00:01 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 07:10:01 AM all 1.04 0.02 0.57 0.95 0.00 97.42 07:20:02 AM all 0.66 0.01 0.39 0.06 0.00 98.87 07:30:01 AM all 25.71 0.01 0.45 0.16 0.00 73.67 07:40:01 AM all 25.88 0.01 0.35 0.08 0.00 73.68 As you can see the server became unresponsive at 03.50 AM and I had to reset the VM at 06.58 AM to fix it. sar -d 03:00:01 PM dev8-16 0.16 0.01 3.37 20.78 0.00 12.40 9.29 0.15 03:00:01 PM dev8-0 4.08 5.72 77.50 20.38 0.06 15.15 3.13 1.28 03:00:01 PM dev253-0 10.37 5.74 80.87 8.35 0.13 12.52 1.24 1.29 03:00:01 PM dev253-1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 03:10:01 PM dev8-16 0.27 0.17 3.17 12.22 0.00 11.49 7.95 0.22 03:10:01 PM dev8-0 6.37 18.98 136.19 24.34 0.05 7.25 2.18 1.39 03:10:01 PM dev253-0 17.91 19.15 137.94 8.77 0.13 7.11 0.78 1.41 03:10:01 PM dev253-1 0.18 0.00 1.41 8.00 0.00 9.09 0.52 0.01 03:10:01 PM DEV tps rd_sec/s wr_sec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util 03:20:01 PM dev8-16 0.17 0.23 2.04 13.39 0.00 6.07 5.29 0.09 03:20:01 PM dev8-0 3.83 18.57 78.45 25.35 0.05 13.25 2.73 1.05 03:20:01 PM dev253-0 10.30 18.80 80.49 9.64 0.14 13.89 1.03 1.06 03:20:01 PM dev253-1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 03:30:01 PM dev8-16 0.26 0.16 4.59 18.56 0.00 6.44 5.54 0.14 03:30:01 PM dev8-0 5.97 24.07 117.83 23.77 0.05 8.53 2.13 1.27 03:30:01 PM dev253-0 15.90 24.23 122.42 9.22 0.12 7.71 0.81 1.29 03:30:01 PM dev253-1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 03:40:01 PM dev8-16 0.20 0.00 2.32 11.44 0.00 8.35 5.90 0.12 03:40:01 PM dev8-0 4.39 19.58 77.94 22.24 0.06 12.87 2.12 0.93 03:40:01 PM dev253-0 10.25 19.58 80.25 9.74 0.12 11.63 0.91 0.94 03:40:01 PM dev253-1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 03:50:01 PM dev8-16 0.23 0.50 2.32 12.44 0.00 6.27 5.13 0.12 03:50:01 PM dev8-0 5.09 9.00 95.04 20.45 0.04 7.36 2.10 1.07 03:50:01 PM dev253-0 12.47 9.50 96.82 8.53 0.08 6.76 0.87 1.08 03:50:01 PM dev253-1 0.07 0.00 0.54 8.00 0.00 14.10 0.40 0.00 04:00:01 PM dev8-16 0.21 0.00 2.04 9.89 0.00 7.00 5.87 0.12 04:00:01 PM dev8-0 4.68 1.64 94.70 20.57 0.05 10.71 2.41 1.13 04:00:01 PM dev253-0 12.27 1.64 96.74 8.02 0.12 9.95 0.93 1.14 sar -q 01:00:01 AM 6 205 2.02 1.32 0.81 01:10:01 AM 3 187 0.08 0.72 0.86 01:20:01 AM 2 187 0.04 0.18 0.49 01:30:01 AM 4 205 2.04 1.34 0.82 01:40:01 AM 2 185 0.02 0.68 0.83 01:50:02 AM 1 185 0.08 0.15 0.45 02:00:01 AM 5 202 2.02 1.30 0.78 02:10:01 AM 4 185 0.11 0.72 0.84 02:20:01 AM 1 183 0.17 0.15 0.45 02:30:01 AM 5 206 2.03 1.32 0.79 02:40:01 AM 2 184 0.08 0.70 0.83 02:50:01 AM 1 183 0.00 0.10 0.43 03:00:01 AM 7 205 2.03 1.32 0.78 03:10:01 AM 2 194 0.34 0.73 0.83 03:20:01 AM 1 184 0.00 0.13 0.44 03:30:02 AM 4 201 2.04 1.32 0.78 03:40:01 AM 2 193 0.06 0.67 0.81 03:50:01 AM 1 183 0.06 0.12 0.43 Average: 3 192 0.68 0.70 0.69 06:58:14 AM LINUX RESTART 07:00:01 AM runq-sz plist-sz ldavg-1 ldavg-5 ldavg-15 07:10:01 AM 2 181 0.00 0.09 0.11 07:20:02 AM 1 179 0.00 0.00 0.04 07:30:01 AM 4 197 2.12 1.33 0.58 sar -r Linux 2.6.32-431.3.1.el6.x86_64 (test01) 08/22/2014 _x86_64_ (4 CPU) 12:00:01 AM kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit 12:10:01 AM 227484 1694468 88.16 117444 917004 635308 10.50 12:20:01 AM 219692 1702260 88.57 119556 920540 630940 10.43 12:30:01 AM 196248 1725704 89.79 121376 923592 695048 11.49 12:40:01 AM 127524 1794428 93.36 125004 1016196 633048 10.46 12:50:01 AM 127156 1794796 93.38 128212 1014536 624992 10.33 01:00:01 AM 110764 1811188 94.24 129964 1001608 700016 11.57 01:10:01 AM 160560 1761392 91.65 132260 973472 628640 10.39 01:20:01 AM 133076 1788876 93.08 134144 982608 655524 10.83 01:30:01 AM 121512 1800440 93.68 135548 985676 700500 11.58 01:40:01 AM 140640 1781312 92.68 137220 988576 628280 10.38 01:50:02 AM 139160 1782792 92.76 138688 990672 625224 10.33 02:00:01 AM 106112 1815840 94.48 139940 993976 700360 11.57 02:10:01 AM 155400 1766552 91.91 142112 971864 625656 10.34 02:20:01 AM 154056 1767896 91.98 143732 975556 621352 10.27 02:30:01 AM 110856 1811096 94.23 145032 978288 709360 11.72 02:40:01 AM 140200 1781752 92.71 146568 980656 624872 10.33 02:50:01 AM 137600 1784352 92.84 148940 984484 621948 10.28 03:00:01 AM 105032 1816920 94.54 150208 985736 706060 11.67 03:10:01 AM 168996 1752956 91.21 154708 941500 656312 10.85 03:20:01 AM 169408 1752544 91.19 156096 944100 621780 10.28 03:30:02 AM 132360 1789592 93.11 157724 951612 701296 11.59 03:40:01 AM 159012 1762940 91.73 158940 942560 656292 10.85 03:50:01 AM 163192 1758760 91.51 160312 944576 624544 10.32 Average: 148089 1773863 92.29 140162 969973 653363 10.80 06:58:14 AM LINUX RESTART 07:00:01 AM kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit 07:10:01 AM 1016628 905324 47.10 85568 447556 600932 9.93 07:20:02 AM 1009996 911956 47.45 87616 451200 596156 9.85 07:30:01 AM 961128 960824 49.99 89164 464332 658912 10.89 07:40:01 AM 973376 948576 49.35 90880 473084 600176 9.92 dmesg does not show any relevant information. I don't see any bottleneck in sar, any idea what can I check next? thank you very much

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• Why would Linux VM in vSphere ESXi 5.5 show dramatically increased disk i/o latency?

  - by mhucka

  I'm stumped and I hope someone else will recognize the symptoms of this problem. Hardware: new Dell T110 II, dual-core Pentium G860 2.9 GHz, onboard SATA controller, one new 500 GB 7200 RPM cabled hard drive inside the box, other drives inside but not mounted yet. No RAID. Software: fresh CentOS 6.5 virtual machine under VMware ESXi 5.5.0 (build 174 + vSphere Client). 2.5 GB RAM allocated. The disk is how CentOS offered to set it up, namely as a volume inside an LVM Volume Group, except that I skipped having a separate /home and simply have / and /boot. CentOS is patched up, ESXi patched up, latest VMware tools installed in the VM. No users on the system, no services running, no files on the disk but the OS installation. I'm interacting with the VM via the VM virtual console in vSphere Client. Before going further, I wanted to check that I configured things more or less reasonably. I ran the following command as root in a shell on the VM: for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10; do dd if=/dev/zero of=/test.img bs=8k count=256k conv=fdatasync done I.e., just repeat the dd command 10 times, which results in printing the transfer rate each time. The results are disturbing. It starts off well: 262144+0 records in 262144+0 records out 2147483648 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 20.451 s, 105 MB/s 262144+0 records in 262144+0 records out 2147483648 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 20.4202 s, 105 MB/s ... but after 7-8 of these, it then prints 262144+0 records in 262144+0 records out 2147483648 bytes (2.1 GG) copied, 82.9779 s, 25.9 MB/s 262144+0 records in 262144+0 records out 2147483648 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 84.0396 s, 25.6 MB/s 262144+0 records in 262144+0 records out 2147483648 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 103.42 s, 20.8 MB/s If I wait a significant amount of time, say 30-45 minutes, and run it again, it again goes back to 105 MB/s, and after several rounds (sometimes a few, sometimes 10+), it drops to ~20-25 MB/s again. Plotting the disk latency in vSphere's interface, it shows periods of high disk latency hitting 1.2-1.5 seconds during the times that dd reports the low throughput. (And yes, things get pretty unresponsive while that's happening.) What could be causing this? I'm comfortable that it is not due to the disk failing, because I also had configured two other disks as an additional volume in the same system. At first I thought I did something wrong with that volume, but after commenting the volume out from /etc/fstab and rebooting, and trying the tests on / as shown above, it became clear that the problem is elsewhere. It is probably an ESXi configuration problem, but I'm not very experienced with ESXi. It's probably something stupid, but after trying to figure this out for many hours over multiple days, I can't find the problem, so I hope someone can point me in the right direction. (P.S.: yes, I know this hardware combo won't win any speed awards as a server, and I have reasons for using this low-end hardware and running a single VM, but I think that's besides the point for this question [unless it's actually a hardware problem].) ADDENDUM #1: Reading other answers such as this one made me try adding oflag=direct to dd. However, it makes no difference in the pattern of results: initially the numbers are higher for many rounds, then they drop to 20-25 MB/s. (The initial absolute numbers are in the 50 MB/s range.) ADDENDUM #2: Adding sync ; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches into the loop does not make a difference at all. ADDENDUM #3: To take out further variables, I now run dd such that the file it creates is larger than the amount of RAM on the system. The new command is dd if=/dev/zero of=/test.img bs=16k count=256k conv=fdatasync oflag=direct. Initial throughput numbers with this version of the command are ~50 MB/s. They drop to 20-25 MB/s when things go south. ADDENDUM #4: Here is the output of iostat -d -m -x 1 running in another terminal window while performance is "good" and then again when it's "bad". (While this is going on, I'm running dd if=/dev/zero of=/test.img bs=16k count=256k conv=fdatasync oflag=direct.) First, when things are "good", it shows this: When things go "bad", iostat -d -m -x 1 shows this:

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• Why does my UIWebView not Allow User Interaction?

  - by thomasmcgee

  Hi, I'm new to these forums so I apologize for my noobieness. I did as thorough a search as I could, but I couldn't find anyone else with this issue, applogise if this has been covered elsewhere. I've created a very simple example of my problem. I'm sure I'm missing something but I can't for the life of me figure out what. I'm creating a UIWebView and adding it to a custom view controller that inherits from UIViewController. When the app loads in the iPad simulator, the uiwebview loads the desired page, but the UIWebView is entirely unresponsive. The webview does not pan or scroll and none of the in page links can be clicked. However, if you change the orientation of the webview suddleny everything works. Thanks in advance for your help!! AppDelegate header #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> #import "EditorViewController.h" @interface FixEditorTestAppDelegate : NSObject <UIApplicationDelegate> { UIWindow *window; EditorViewController *editorView; } @property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIWindow *window; @property (nonatomic, retain) EditorViewController *editorView; @end AppDelegate Implementation #import "FixEditorTestAppDelegate.h" #import "EditorViewController.h" @implementation FixEditorTestAppDelegate @synthesize window; @synthesize editorView; - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions { NSLog(@"application is loading"); editorView = [[EditorViewController alloc] init]; [window addSubview:[editorView view]]; [window makeKeyAndVisible]; return YES; } - (void)dealloc { [window release]; [editorView release]; [super dealloc]; } @end View Controller header #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> @interface EditorViewController : UIViewController <UIWebViewDelegate> { UIWebView *webView; } @property (nonatomic, retain) UIWebView *webView; @end View Controller Implementation #import "EditorViewController.h" @implementation EditorViewController @synthesize webView; /* // The designated initializer. Override if you create the controller programmatically and want to perform customization that is not appropriate for viewDidLoad. - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil { if ((self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil])) { // Custom initialization } return self; } */ // Implement loadView to create a view hierarchy programmatically, without using a nib. - (void)loadView { NSLog(@"loadView called"); UIView *curView = [[UIView alloc] init]; webView = [[UIWebView alloc] init]; webView.frame = CGRectMake(20, 40, 728, 964); webView.delegate = self; webView.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor]; [curView addSubview: webView]; self.view = curView; [curView release]; } //Implement viewDidLoad to do additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; NSLog(@"viewDidLoad called"); NSURL *url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:@"http://www.nytimes.com"]; NSURLRequest *request = [[NSURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:url]; [webView loadRequest:request]; [url autorelease]; [request release]; } - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { // Overriden to allow any orientation. return YES; } - (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning { // Releases the view if it doesn't have a superview. [super didReceiveMemoryWarning]; // Release any cached data, images, etc that aren't in use. } - (void)viewDidUnload { webView.delegate = nil; [webView release]; [super viewDidUnload]; // Release any retained subviews of the main view. // e.g. self.myOutlet = nil; } - (void)dealloc { [super dealloc]; } @end

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• Random Complete System Unresponsiveness Running Mathematical Functions

  - by Computer Guru

  I have a program that loads a file (anywhere from 10MB to 5GB) a chunk at a time (ReadFile), and for each chunk performs a set of mathematical operations (basically calculates the hash). After calculating the hash, it stores info about the chunk in an STL map (basically <chunkID, hash>) and then writes the chunk itself to another file (WriteFile). That's all it does. This program will cause certain PCs to choke and die. The mouse begins to stutter, the task manager takes 2 min to show, ctrl+alt+del is unresponsive, running programs are slow.... the works. I've done literally everything I can think of to optimize the program, and have triple-checked all objects. What I've done: Tried different (less intensive) hashing algorithms. Switched all allocations to nedmalloc instead of the default new operator Switched from stl::map to unordered_set, found the performance to still be abysmal, so I switched again to Google's dense_hash_map. Converted all objects to store pointers to objects instead of the objects themselves. Caching all Read and Write operations. Instead of reading a 16k chunk of the file and performing the math on it, I read 4MB into a buffer and read 16k chunks from there instead. Same for all write operations - they are coalesced into 4MB blocks before being written to disk. Run extensive profiling with Visual Studio 2010, AMD Code Analyst, and perfmon. Set the thread priority to THREAD_MODE_BACKGROUND_BEGIN Set the thread priority to THREAD_PRIORITY_IDLE Added a Sleep(100) call after every loop. Even after all this, the application still results in a system-wide hang on certain machines under certain circumstances. Perfmon and Process Explorer show minimal CPU usage (with the sleep), no constant reads/writes from disk, few hard pagefaults (and only ~30k pagefaults in the lifetime of the application on a 5GB input file), little virtual memory (never more than 150MB), no leaked handles, no memory leaks. The machines I've tested it on run Windows XP - Windows 7, x86 and x64 versions included. None have less than 2GB RAM, though the problem is always exacerbated under lower memory conditions. I'm at a loss as to what to do next. I don't know what's causing it - I'm torn between CPU or Memory as the culprit. CPU because without the sleep and under different thread priorities the system performances changes noticeably. Memory because there's a huge difference in how often the issue occurs when using unordered_set vs Google's dense_hash_map. What's really weird? Obviously, the NT kernel design is supposed to prevent this sort of behavior from ever occurring (a user-mode application driving the system to this sort of extreme poor performance!?)..... but when I compile the code and run it on OS X or Linux (it's fairly standard C++ throughout) it performs excellently even on poor machines with little RAM and weaker CPUs. What am I supposed to do next? How do I know what the hell it is that Windows is doing behind the scenes that's killing system performance, when all the indicators are that the application itself isn't doing anything extreme? Any advice would be most welcome.

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• Windows Form hangs when running threads

  - by Benjamin Ortuzar

  JI have written a .NET C# Windows Form app in Visual Studio 2008 that uses a Semaphore to run multiple jobs as threads when the Start button is pressed. It’s experiencing an issue where the Form goes into a comma after being run for 40 minutes or more. The log files indicate that the current jobs complete, it picks a new job from the list, and there it hangs. I have noticed that the Windows Form becomes unresponsive when this happens. The form is running in its own thread. This is a sample of the code I am using: protected void ProcessJobsWithStatus (Status status) { int maxJobThreads = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MaxJobThreads"]); Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(maxJobThreads, maxJobThreads); // Available=3; Capacity=3 int threadTimeOut = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ThreadSemaphoreWait"]);//in Seconds //gets a list of jobs from a DB Query. List<Job> jobList = jobQueue.GetJobsWithStatus(status); //we need to create a list of threads to check if they all have stopped. List<Thread> threadList = new List<Thread>(); if (jobList.Count > 0) { foreach (Job job in jobList) { logger.DebugFormat("Waiting green light for JobId: [{0}]", job.JobId.ToString()); if (!semaphore.WaitOne(threadTimeOut * 1000)) { logger.ErrorFormat("Semaphore Timeout. A thread did NOT complete in time[{0} seconds]. JobId: [{1}] will start", threadTimeOut, job.JobId.ToString()); } logger.DebugFormat("Acquired green light for JobId: [{0}]", job.JobId.ToString()); // Only N threads can get here at once job.semaphore = semaphore; ThreadStart threadStart = new ThreadStart(job.Process); Thread thread = new Thread(threadStart); thread.Name = job.JobId.ToString(); threadList.Add(thread); thread.Start(); } logger.Info("Waiting for all threads to complete"); //check that all threads have completed. foreach (Thread thread in threadList) { logger.DebugFormat("About to join thread(jobId): {0}", thread.Name); if (!thread.Join(threadTimeOut * 1000)) { logger.ErrorFormat("Thread did NOT complete in time[{0} seconds]. JobId: [{1}]", threadTimeOut, thread.Name); } else { logger.DebugFormat("Thread did complete in time. JobId: [{0}]", thread.Name); } } } logger.InfoFormat("Finished Processing Jobs in Queue with status [{0}]...", status); } //form methods private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { buttonStop.Enabled = true; buttonStart.Enabled = false; ThreadStart threadStart = new ThreadStart(DoWork); workerThread = new Thread(threadStart); serviceStarted = true; workerThread.Start(); } private void DoWork() { EmailAlert emailAlert = new EmailAlert (); // start an endless loop; loop will abort only when "serviceStarted" flag = false while (serviceStarted) { emailAlert.ProcessJobsWithStatus(0); // yield if (serviceStarted) { Thread.Sleep(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1)); } } // time to end the thread Thread.CurrentThread.Abort(); } //job.process() public void Process() { try { //sets the status, DateTimeStarted, and the processId this.UpdateStatus(Status.InProgress); //do something logger.Debug("Updating Status to [Completed]"); //hits, status,DateFinished this.UpdateStatus(Status.Completed); } catch (Exception e) { logger.Error("Exception: " + e.Message); this.UpdateStatus(Status.Error); } finally { logger.Debug("Relasing semaphore"); semaphore.Release(); } I have tried to log what I can into a file to detect where the problem is happening, but so far I haven't been able to identify where this happens. Losing control of the Windows Form makes me think that this has nothing to do with processing the jobs. Any ideas?

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• C#: Parallel forms, multithreading and "applications in application"

  - by Harry

  First, what I need is - n WebBrowser-s, each in its own window doing its own job. The user should be able to see them all, or just one of them (or none), and to execute commands on each one. There is a main form, without a browser, this one contains control panel for my application. The key feautre is, each browser logs on to secured web page and it needs to stay logged in as long as possible. Well, I've done it, but I'm afraid something is wrong with my approach. The question is: Is code below valid, or rather a nasty hack which can cause problems: internal class SessionList : List<Session> { public SessionList(Server main) { MyRecords.ForEach(record => { var st = new System.Threading.Thread((data) => { var s = new Session(main, data as MyRecord); this.Add(s); Application.Run(s); Application.ExitThread(); }); st.SetApartmentState(System.Threading.ApartmentState.STA); st.Start(record); }); } // some other uninteresting methods here... } What's going on here? Session inherits from Form, so it creates a form, puts WebBrowser into it, and has methods to operate on websites. WebBrowser requires to be run in STA thread, so we provide one for each browser. The most interesting part of it is Application.Run(s). It makes the newly created forms alive and interactive. The next Application.ExitThread() is called after browser window is closed and its controls disposed. Main application stays alive to perform the rest of the cleanup job. When user select "Exit" or "Shutdown" option - first the browser threads are ended, so Application.ExitThread() is called. It all works, but everywhere I can read about "main GUI thread" - and here - I've created many GUI threads. I handle communication between main form and my new forms (sessions) with thread-safe methods using Invoke(). It all works, so is it right or is it wrong? Is everything right with using Application.Run() more than once in one application? :) An ugly hack or a normal practice? This code dies if I start a WebBrowser from the session form thread. It beats me why. It works however if I start WebBrowser (by changing its Url property) from any other thread. I'd like to know more what is really happening in such application. But most of all - I'd like to know if my idea of "applications in application" is OK. I'm not sure what exactly does Application.Run() do. Without it forms created in new threads were dead unresponsive. How is it possible I can call Application.Run() many times? It seems to do exactly what it should, but it seems a little undocumented feature to me. I'm almost sure, that the crashes are caused by WebBrowser component itself (since it's not completely "managed" and "native"). But maybe it's something else.

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• Issuing Current Time Increments in StreamInsight (A Practical Example)

  The issuing of a Current Time Increment, Cti, in StreamInsight is very definitely one of the most important concepts to learn if you want your Streams to be responsive. A full discussion of how to issue Ctis is beyond the scope of this article but a very good explanation in addition to Books Online can be found in these three articles by a member of the StreamInsight team at Microsoft, Ciprian Gerea. Time in StreamInsight Series http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/23/time-in-streaminsight-i.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/30/time-in-streaminsight-ii.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/08/03/time-in-streaminsight-iii.aspx A lot of the problems I see with unresponsive or stuck streams on the MSDN Forums are to do with how Ctis are enqueued or in a lot of cases not enqueued. If you enqueue events and never enqueue a Cti then StreamInsight will be perfectly happy. You, on the other hand, will never see data on the output as you have not told StreamInsight to flush the stream. This article deals with a specific implementation problem I had recently whilst working on a StreamInsight project. I look at some possible options and discuss why they would not work before showing the way I solved the problem. The stream of data I was dealing with on this project was very bursty that is to say when events were flowing they came through very quickly and in large numbers (1000 events/sec), but when the stream calmed down it could be a few seconds between each event. When enqueuing events into the StreamInsight engne it is best practice to do so with a StartTime that is given to you by the system producing the event . StreamInsight processes events and it doesn't matter whether those events are being pushed into the engine by a source system or the events are being read from something like a flat file in a directory somewhere. You can apply the same logic and temporal algebra to both situations. Reading from a file is an excellent example of where the time of the event on the source itself is very important. We could be reading that file a long time after it was written. Being able to read the StartTime from the events allows us to define windows that will hold the correct sets of events. I was able to do this with my stream but this is where my problems started. Below is a very simple script to create a SQL Server table and populate it with sample data that will show exactly the problem I had. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[t] ( [c1] [int] PRIMARY KEY, [c2] [datetime] NULL ) INSERT t VALUES (1,'20100810'),(2,'20100810'),(3,'20100810') Column c2 defines the StartTime of the event on the source and as you can see the values in all 3 rows of data is the same. If we read Ciprian’s articles we know that we can define how Ctis get injected into the stream in 3 different places The Stream Definition The Input Factory The Input Adapter I personally have always been a fan of enqueing Ctis through the factory. Below is code typical of what I would use to do this On the class itself I do some inheriting public class SimpleInputFactory : ITypedInputAdapterFactory<SimpleInputConfig>, ITypedDeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<SimpleInputConfig> And then I implement the following function public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.FromTicks(-1)), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } The configInfo .CtiFrequency property is a value I pass through to define after how many events I want a Cti to be injected and this in turn will flush through the stream of data. I usually pass a value of 1 for this setting. The second parameter determines the CTI timestamp in terms of a delay relative to the events. -1 ticks in the past results in 1 tick in the future, i.e., ahead of the event. The problem with this method though is that if consecutive events have the same StartTime then only one of those events will be enqueued. In this example I use the following to define how I assign the StartTime of my events currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; If I go ahead and run my StreamInsight process with this configuration i can see on the output adapter that two events have been removed To see this in a little more depth I can use the StreamInsight Debugger and see what happens internally. What is happening here is that the first event arrives and a Cti is injected with a time of 1 tick after the StartTime of that event (Also the EndTime of the event). The second event arrives and it has a StartTime of before the Cti and even though we specified AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust on the factory we know that a point event can never be adjusted like this and the event is dropped. The same happens for the third event as well (The second and third events get trumped by the Cti). For a more detailed discussion of why this happens look here http://www.sqlis.com/sqlis/post/AdvanceTimePolicy-and-Point-Event-Streams-In-StreamInsight.aspx We end up with a single event being pushed into the output adapter and our result now makes sense. The next way I tried to solve this problem by changing the value of the second parameter to TimeSpan.Zero Here is how my factory code now looks public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.Zero), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } What I am doing here is declaring a policy that says inject a Cti together with every event and stamp it with a StartTime that is equal to the start time of the event itself (TimeSpan.Zero). This method has plus points as well as a downside. The upside is that no events will be lost by having the same StartTime as previous events. The Downside is that because the Cti is declared with the StartTime of the event itself then it does not actually flush that particular event because in the StreamInsight algebra, a Cti commits only those events that occurred strictly before them. To flush the events we need a Cti to be enqueued with a greater StartTime than the events themselves. Here is what happened when I ran this configuration As you can see all we got through was the Cti and none of the events. The debugger output shows the stamps on the Cti and the events themselves. Because the Cti issued has the same timestamp (StartTime) as the events then none of the events get flushed. I was nearly there but not quite. Because my stream was bursty it was possible that the next event would not come along for a few seconds and this was far too long for an event to be enqueued and not be flushed to the output adapter. I needed another solution. Two possible solutions crossed my mind although only one of them made sense when I explored it some more. Where multiple events have the same StartTime I could add 1 tick to the first event, two to the second, three to third etc thereby giving them unique StartTime values. Add a timer to manually inject Ctis The problem with the first implementation is that I would be giving the events a new StartTime. This would cause me the following problems If I want to define windows over the stream then some events may not be captured in the right windows and therefore any calculations on those windows I did would be wrong What would happen if we had 10,000 events with the same StartTime? I would enqueue them with StartTime + n ticks. Along comes a genuine event with a StartTime of the very first event + 1 tick. It is now too far in the past as far as my stream is concerned and it would be dropped. Not what I would want to do at all. I decided then to look at the Timer based solution I created a timer on my input adapter that elapsed every 200ms. private Timer tmr; public SimpleInputAdapter(SimpleInputConfig configInfo) { ctx = new SimpleTimeExtractDataContext(configInfo.ConnectionString); this.configInfo = configInfo; tmr = new Timer(200); tmr.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t_Elapsed); tmr.Enabled = true; } void t_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { ts = DateTime.Now - dtCtiIssued; if (ts.TotalMilliseconds >= 200 && TimerIssuedCti == false) { EnqueueCtiEvent(System.DateTime.Now.AddTicks(-100)); TimerIssuedCti = true; } }   In the t_Elapsed event handler I find out the difference in time between now and when the last event was processed (dtCtiIssued). I then check to see if that is greater than or equal to 200ms and if the last issuing of a Cti was done by the timer or by a genuine event (TimerIssuedCti). If I didn’t do this check then I would enqueue a Cti every time the timer elapsed which is not something I wanted. If the difference between the two times is greater than or equal to 500ms and the last event enqueued was by a real event then I issue a Cti through the timer to flush the event Queue, otherwise I do nothing. When I enqueue the Ctis into my stream in my ProduceEvents method I also set the values of dtCtiIssued and TimerIssuedCti   currEvent = CreateInsertEvent(); currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; TimerIssuedCti = false; dtCtiIssued = currEvent.StartTime; If I go ahead and run this configuration I see the following in my output. As we can see the first Cti gets enqueued as before but then another is enqueued by the timer and because this has a later timestamp it flushes the enqueued events through the engine. Conclusion Hopefully this has shown how the enqueuing of Ctis can have a dramatic effect on the responsiveness of your output in StreamInsight. Understanding the temporal nature of the product is for me one of the most important things you can learn. I have attached my solution for the demos. It is all in one project and testing each variation is a simple matter of commenting and un-commenting the parts in the code we have been dealing with here.

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• Not All “Viruses” Are Viruses: 10 Malware Terms Explained

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Most people seem to call every type of malware a “virus”, but that isn’t technically accurate. You’ve probably heard of many more terms beyond virus: malware, worm, Trojan, rootkit, keylogger, spyware, and more. But what do all these terms mean? These terms aren’t just used by geeks. They make their way into even mainstream news stories about the latest web security problems and tech scares. Understanding them will help you understand the dangers your\ hear about. Malware The word “malware” is short for “malicious software.” Many people use the word “virus” to indicate any type of harmful software, but a virus is actually just a specific type of malware. The word “malware” encompasses all harmful software, including all the ones listed below. Virus Let’s start with viruses. A virus is a type of malware that copies itself by infecting other files,  just as viruses in the real world infect biological cells and use those biological cells to reproduce copies of themselves. A virus can do many different things — watch in the background and steal your passwords, display advertisements, or just crash your computer — but the key thing that makes it a virus is how it spreads. When you run a virus, it will infect programs on your computer. When you run the program on another computer, the virus will infect programs on that computer, and so on. For example, a virus might infect program files on a USB stick. When the programs on that USB stick are run on another computer, the virus runs on the other computer and infects more program files. The virus will continue to spread in this way. Worm A worm is similar to a virus, but it spreads a different way. Rather than infecting files and relying on human activity to move those files around and run them on different systems, a worm spreads over computer networks on its own accord. For example, the Blaster and Sasser worms spread very quickly in the days of Windows XP because Windows XP did not come properly secured and exposed system services to the Internet. The worm accessed these system services over the Internet, exploited a vulnerability, and infected the computer. The worm then used the new infected computer to continue replicating itself. Such worms are less common now that Windows is properly firewalled by default, but worms can also spread in other ways — for example, by mass-emailing themselves to every email address in an effected user’s address book. Like a virus, a worm can do any number of other harmful things once it infects a computer. The key thing that makes it a worm is simply how it spreads copies of itself. Trojan (or Trojan Horse) A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a type of malware that disguises itself as a legitimate file. When you download and run the program, the Trojan horse will run in the background, allowing third-parties to access your computer. Trojans can do this for any number of reasons — to monitor activity on your computer, to join your computer to a botnet. Trojans may also be used to open the floodgates and download many other types of malware onto your computer. The key thing that makes this type of malware a Trojan is how it arrives. It pretends to be a useful program and, when run, it hides in the background and gives malicious people access to your computer. It isn’t obsessed with copying itself into other files or spreading over the network, as viruses and worms are. For example, a piece of pirated software on an unscrupulous website may actually contain a Trojan. Spyware Spyware is a type of malicious software that spies on you without your knowledge. It collects a variety of different types of data, depending on the piece of spyware. Different types of malware can function as spyware — there may be malicious spyware included in Trojans that spies on your keystrokes to steal financial data, for example. More “legitimate” spyware may be bundled along with free software and simply monitor your web browsing habits, uploading this data to advertising servers so the software’s creator can make money from selling their knowledge of your activities. Adware Adware often comes along with spyware. It’s any type of software that displays advertising on your computer. Programs that display advertisements inside the program itself aren’t generally classified as malware. The kind of “adware” that’s particularly malicious is the kind that abuses its access to your system to display ads when it shouldn’t. For example, a piece of harmful adware may cause pop-up advertisements to appear on your computer when you’re not doing anything else. Or, adware may inject additional advertising into other web pages as you browse the web. Adware is often combined with spyware — a piece of malware may monitor your browsing habits and use them to serve you more targeted ads. Adware is more “socially acceptable” than other types of malware on Windows and you may see adware bundled with legitimate programs. For example, some people consider the Ask Toolbar included with Oracle’s Java software adware. Keylogger A keylogger is a type of malware that runs in the background, recording every key stroke you make. These keystrokes can include usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive data. The keylogger then, most likely, uploads these keystrokes to a malicious server, where it can be analyzed and people can pick out the useful passwords and credit card numbers. Other types of malware can act as keyloggers. A virus, worm, or Trojan may function as a keylogger, for example. Keyloggers may also be installed for monitoring purposes by businesses or even jealous spouses. Botnet, Bot A botnet is a large network of computers that are under the botnet creator’s control. Each computer functions as a “bot” because it’s infected with a specific piece of malware. Once the bot software infects the computer, ir will connect to some sort of control server and wait for instructions from the botnet’s creator. For example, a botnet may be used to initiate a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. Every computer in the botnet will be told to bombard a specific website or server with requests at once, and such millions or requests can cause a server to become unresponsive or crash. Botnet creators may sell access to their botnets, allowing other malicious individuals to use large botnets to do their dirty work. Rootkit A rootkit is a type of malware designed to burrow deep into your computer, avoiding detection by security programs and users. For example, a rootkit might load before most of Windows, burying itself deep into the system and modifying system functions so that security programs can’t detect it. A rootkit might hide itself completely, preventing itself from showing up in the Windows task manager. The key thing that makes a type of malware a rootkit is that it’s stealthy and focused on hiding itself once it arrives. Ransomware Ransomware is a fairly new type of malware. It holds your computer or files hostage and demands a ransom payment. Some ransomware may simply pop up a box asking for money before you can continue using your computer. Such prompts are easily defeated with antivirus software. More harmful malware like CryptoLocker literally encrypts your files and demands a payment before you can access them. Such types of malware are dangerous, especially if you don’t have backups. Most malware these days is produced for profit, and ransomware is a good example of that. Ransomware doesn’t want to crash your computer and delete your files just to cause you trouble. It wants to take something hostage and get a quick payment from you. So why is it called “antivirus software,” anyway? Well, most people continue to consider the word “virus” synonymous with malware as a whole. Antivirus software doesn’t just protect against viruses, but against all types of malware. It may be more accurately referred to as “antimalware” or “security” software. Image Credit: Marcelo Alves on Flickr, Tama Leaver on Flickr, Szilard Mihaly on Flickr     

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 30, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 30, 2012Popular ReleasesDotChess: DotChess v0.5.0: v0.5.0 Rearchitected the domain. Updated solution to Framework 4. Initiated test project. Implemented exceptions for errors. Improved coding style. Fixed minor bugs. Fixed setup shortcuts to use executable's icon. v0.4.0 Converted to Visual Studio 2010. Improved architecture.Magelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.0: User Right Licensing ContentType version 2.0.267.1EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 3.1 Beta: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2010 spreadsheets This version contain version contains two new major features - VBA and conditional formatting New featuresVBACreate,read and write a VBA project from scratch or in a template. Add and modify modules and classes. Read and write code to documents(workbook and worksheets), modules and classes. VBA protection Code signing And more... Conditional FormattingApply conditional formatting on any range of cells. Choose between more than 40 diff...Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1 - Supporting Media: Welcome to the Release Candidate (RC) release of the ALM Rangers Readiness supporting edia As this is a RC release and the quality bar for the final Release has not been achieved, we value your candid feedback and recommend that you do not use or deploy these RC artifacts in a production environment. Quality-Bar Details All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issues / Bugs Practical Ruck training workshop not yet includedDesigning Windows 8 Applications with C# and XAML: Chapters 1 - 7 Release Preview: Source code for all examples from Chapters 1 - 7 for the Release PreviewHyperStat.NET: Public Alpha Release: Ubuntu Installation Instructionssudo add-apt-repository ppa:xexenon/hyperstat.net sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install hyperstatMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.57: Fix for issue #18284: evaluating literal expressions in the pattern c1 * (x / c2) where c1/c2 is an integer value (as opposed to c2/c1 being the integer) caused the expression to be destroyed.Visual Studio ALM Quick Reference Guidance: v2 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Masashi Fujiwara (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Quick Reference Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarquickguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/52402. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide: v1 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Hirokazu Higashino (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Branching Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/38849. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...SQL Server FineBuild: Version 3.1.0: Top SQL Server FineBuild Version 3.1.0This is the stable version of FineBuild for SQL Server 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005 Documentation FineBuild Wiki containing details of the FineBuild process Known Issues Limitations with this release FineBuild V3.1.0 Release Contents List of changes included in this release Please DonateFineBuild is free, but please donate what you think FineBuild is worth as everything goes to charity. Tearfund is one of the UK's leading relief and de...EasySL: RapidSL V2: Rewrite RapidSL UI Framework, Using Silverlight 5.0 EF4.1 Code First Ria Service SP2 + Lastest Silverlight Toolkit.SOLID by example: All examples: All solid examplesSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.1726.406): Use of new version of connection controls for a full support of OSDP authentication mechanism for CRM Online.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.2: Development on Umbraco v5 discontinued After much discussion and consultation with leaders from the Umbraco community it was decided that work on the v5 branch would be discontinued with efforts being refocused on the stable and feature rich v4 branch. For full details as to why this decision was made please watch the CodeGarden 12 Keynote. What about all that hard work?!?? We are not binning everything and it does not mean that all work done on 5 is lost! we are taking all of the best and m...CodeGenerate: CodeGenerate Alpha: The Project can auto generate C# code. Include BLL Layer、Domain Layer、IDAL Layer、DAL Layer. Support SqlServer And Oracle This is a alpha program,but which can run and generate code. Generate database table info into MS WordXDA ROM HUB: XDA ROM HUB v0.9: Kernel listing added -- Thanks to iONEx Added scripts installer button. Added "Nandroid On The Go" -- Perform a Nandroid backup without a PC! Added official Android app!ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.8.2: +2012-06-24 v3.1.8 +????Grid???????（???????ExpandUnusedSpace????????）（??）。 -????MinColumnWidth（??????）。 -????AutoExpandColumn，???????????????（ColumnID）（?????ForceFitFirstTime??ForceFitAllTime，??????）。 -????AutoExpandColumnMax?AutoExpandColumnMin。 -????ForceFitFirstTime，????????????，??????????（????????????）。 -????ForceFitAllTime，????????????，??????????（??????????????????）。 -????VerticalScrollWidth，????????（??????????，0?????????????）。 -????grid/grid_forcefit.aspx。 -???????????En...AJAX Control Toolkit: June 2012 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - June 2012 Release Version 60623June 2012 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. 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). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found here: 11121. - Pages using ...Cloud Media SharePoint Extension: Cloud Media SharePoint Extension: Version 0.1 Enables adding YouTube and Vimeo Video to a asset libraryComputation Visualizer: V 1.1d: ????????? ??????????, ??????????? ?? ??????New ProjectsCEP: CEP With Esper on Android Colorific: Colorific is a Visual Studio extension which enhances the syntax coloring support for C#.Dan's Utility Libraries: Dan's Utility Library is a collection of reusable code that I've written or found throughout my programming career.Delete Inactive TS Ports: The presence of Inactive TS Ports causes systems to hang or become sluggish and unresponsive. Printer redirection also suffers when there are a lot of Inactive TS Ports presents in the machine.FastNet: Extremely efficient WCF client and server for exchanging binary messages.FoodBank: Track what you eat with FoodBankGUIMalort: Malort is a raytracer developed in C++ and using Qt for the user interface. For now, it implements basic primitives, lights sources, global ambient light. Future improvements are about textures and procedural textures, bump mapping and animations.ImapClient for .NET: This ImapClient was created to incorporate Imap Mailbox Syncing with following features. This client is not full featured client, but it provides sufficient features to sync remote mail box easily and it is only free library which supports BODYSTRUCTURE correctly.iTunesContorol: iTunes??????????????、iTunes????????????????????????。JavascriptHelper - Managing JS files for ASP.NET MVC: JavascriptHelper is a MVC component to manage Javascript usage handling dependencies, CSS files and file placement.Jeanfish.com: JeanFish.comjFadeList: JQuery List Fade Plugin v1.0 betaLogwiz - Automate the collection of Performance monitor logs using logman.exe: This tool is used to automate the process of collecting Performance monitoring data using the logman.exe on Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2MtelAnalyzer: Mtel Analyzator analyze the transactions that your emplyees were made and find the best plan for lower pricing.patterns practices - HiloJS: Dev a Windows Metro style app using JavaScript: Hilo guides you though the development of a Windows Metro style app. The Hilo sample is a photo viewing app using HTML 5, CSS3 and JavaScript.PHP Database Management: A PHP library to facilitate MySql database managementpintos: pintosPlay N Hunt: Scanner for the website eternal-apocalypse.frPokemon Text Tools: Pokemon Stars SP ??ProjectEulerIssues: Collection of solved/processing tasks from ProkectEuler.netScheme.Net: A R5RS Scheme interpreter/compiler for the .NET runtime.Speed up Printer migration using PrintBrm and it's configuration files: This tool is used to create the BrmConfig.XML file that can be used for quickly restoring all the print queues using the Generic / Text Only driver when migrating from a 32bit to a 64bit server.SvnLightClient: ???? svn server url, username, password ??，???????svn??????。 ??????project checkout??????。（??）WikiQuizz: It's the first real game on Wikipedia!xlsdiff: Show changes between Excel filesXNATetris: Il gioco è un clone in XNA del classico Tetris. Permette la modalità single player con aumento della velocità di gioco in relazione al livello raggiunto.Xperf123 - Xperf perf data collection made as easy as 1-2-3: This tool is used to automate the process of collecting xperf traces easy without the user worring about the various settings and configuration options. Just select the kind of trace you want and this tool does the rest for you.

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• Combined Likelihood Models

  - by Lukas Vermeer

  In a series of posts on this blog we have already described a flexible approach to recording events, a technique to create analytical models for reporting, a method that uses the same principles to generate extremely powerful facet based predictions and a waterfall strategy that can be used to blend multiple (possibly facet based) models for increased accuracy. This latest, and also last, addition to this sequence of increasing modeling complexity will illustrate an advanced approach to amalgamate models, taking us to a whole new level of predictive modeling and analytical insights; combination models predicting likelihoods using multiple child models. The method described here is far from trivial. We therefore would not recommend you apply these techniques in an initial implementation of Oracle Real-Time Decisions. In most cases, basic RTD models or the approaches described before will provide more than enough predictive accuracy and analytical insight. The following is intended as an example of how more advanced models could be constructed if implementation results warrant the increased implementation and design effort. Keep implemented statistics simple! Combining likelihoods Because facet based predictions are based on metadata attributes of the choices selected, it is possible to generate such predictions for more than one attribute of a choice. We can predict the likelihood of acceptance for a particular product based on the product category (e.g. ‘toys’), as well as based on the color of the product (e.g. ‘pink’). Of course, these two predictions may be completely different (the customer may well prefer toys, but dislike pink products) and we will have to somehow combine these two separate predictions to determine an overall likelihood of acceptance for the choice. Perhaps the simplest way to combine multiple predicted likelihoods into one is to calculate the average (or perhaps maximum or minimum) likelihood. However, this would completely forgo the fact that some facets may have a far more pronounced effect on the overall likelihood than others (e.g. customers may consider the product category more important than its color). We could opt for calculating some sort of weighted average, but this would require us to specify up front the relative importance of the different facets involved. This approach would also be unresponsive to changing consumer behavior in these preferences (e.g. product price bracket may become more important to consumers as a result of economic shifts). Preferably, we would want Oracle Real-Time Decisions to learn, act upon and tell us about, the correlations between the different facet models and the overall likelihood of acceptance. This additional level of predictive modeling, where a single supermodel (no pun intended) combines the output of several (facet based) models into a single prediction, is what we call a combined likelihood model. Facet Based Scores As an example, we have implemented three different facet based models (as described earlier) in a simple RTD inline service. These models will allow us to generate predictions for likelihood of acceptance for each product based on three different metadata fields: Category, Price Bracket and Product Color. We will use an Analytical Scores entity to store these different scores so we can easily pass them between different functions. A simple function, creatively named Compute Analytical Scores, will compute for each choice the different facet scores and return an Analytical Scores entity that is stored on the choice itself. For each score, a choice attribute referring to this entity is also added to be returned to the client to facilitate testing. One Offer To Predict Them All In order to combine the different facet based predictions into one single likelihood for each product, we will need a supermodel which can predict the likelihood of acceptance, based on the outcomes of the facet models. This model will not need to consider any of the attributes of the session, because they are already represented in the outcomes of the underlying facet models. For the same reason, the supermodel will not need to learn separately for each product, because the specific combination of facets for this product are also already represented in the output of the underlying models. In other words, instead of learning how session attributes influence acceptance of a particular product, we will learn how the outcomes of facet based models for a particular product influence acceptance at a higher level. We will therefore be using a single All Offers choice to represent all offers in our combined likelihood predictions. This choice has no attribute values configured, no scores and not a single eligibility rule; nor is it ever intended to be returned to a client. The All Offers choice is to be used exclusively by the Combined Likelihood Acceptance model to predict the likelihood of acceptance for all choices; based solely on the output of the facet based models defined earlier. The Switcheroo In Oracle Real-Time Decisions, models can only learn based on attributes stored on the session. Therefore, just before generating a combined prediction for a given choice, we will temporarily copy the facet based scores—stored on the choice earlier as an Analytical Scores entity—to the session. The code for the Predict Combined Likelihood Event function is outlined below. // set session attribute to contain facet based scores. // (this is the only input for the combined model) session().setAnalyticalScores(choice.getAnalyticalScores); // predict likelihood of acceptance for All Offers choice. CombinedLikelihoodChoice c = CombinedLikelihood.getChoice("AllOffers"); Double la = CombinedLikelihoodAcceptance.getChoiceEventLikelihoods(c, "Accepted"); // clear session attribute of facet based scores. session().setAnalyticalScores(null); // return likelihood. return la; This sleight of hand will allow the Combined Likelihood Acceptance model to predict the likelihood of acceptance for the All Offers choice using these choice specific scores. After the prediction is made, we will clear the Analytical Scores session attribute to ensure it does not pollute any of the other (facet) models. To guarantee our combined likelihood model will learn based on the facet based scores—and is not distracted by the other session attributes—we will configure the model to exclude any other inputs, save for the instance of the Analytical Scores session attribute, on the model attributes tab. Recording Events In order for the combined likelihood model to learn correctly, we must ensure that the Analytical Scores session attribute is set correctly at the moment RTD records any events related to a particular choice. We apply essentially the same switching technique as before in a Record Combined Likelihood Event function. // set session attribute to contain facet based scores // (this is the only input for the combined model). session().setAnalyticalScores(choice.getAnalyticalScores); // record input event against All Offers choice. CombinedLikelihood.getChoice("AllOffers").recordEvent(event); // force learn at this moment using the Internal Dock entry point. Application.getPredictor().learn(InternalLearn.modelArray, session(), session(), Application.currentTimeMillis()); // clear session attribute of facet based scores. session().setAnalyticalScores(null); In this example, Internal Learn is a special informant configured as the learn location for the combined likelihood model. The informant itself has no particular configuration and does nothing in itself; it is used only to force the model to learn at the exact instant we have set the Analytical Scores session attribute to the correct values. Reporting Results After running a few thousand (artificially skewed) simulated sessions on our ILS, the Decision Center reporting shows some interesting results. In this case, these results reflect perfectly the bias we ourselves had introduced in our tests. In practice, we would obviously use a wider range of customer attributes and expect to see some more unexpected outcomes. The facetted model for categories has clearly picked up on the that fact our simulated youngsters have little interest in purchasing the one red-hot vehicle our ILS had on offer. Also, it would seem that customer age is an excellent predictor for the acceptance of pink products. Looking at the key drivers for the All Offers choice we can see the relative importance of the different facets to the prediction of overall likelihood. The comparative importance of the category facet for overall prediction might, in part, be explained by the clear preference of younger customers for toys over other product types; as evident from the report on the predictiveness of customer age for offer category acceptance. Conclusion Oracle Real-Time Decisions' flexible decisioning framework allows for the construction of exceptionally elaborate prediction models that facilitate powerful targeting, but nonetheless provide insightful reporting. Although few customers will have a direct need for such a sophisticated solution architecture, it is encouraging to see that this lies within the realm of the possible with RTD; and this with limited configuration and customization required. There are obviously numerous other ways in which the predictive and reporting capabilities of Oracle Real-Time Decisions can be expanded upon to tailor to individual customers needs. We will not be able to elaborate on them all on this blog; and finding the right approach for any given problem is often more difficult than implementing the solution. Nevertheless, we hope that these last few posts have given you enough of an understanding of the power of the RTD framework and its models; so that you can take some of these ideas and improve upon your own strategy. As always, if you have any questions about the above—or any Oracle Real-Time Decisions design challenges you might face—please do not hesitate to contact us; via the comments below, social media or directly at Oracle. We are completely multi-channel and would be more than glad to help. :-)

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• Why Are Minimized Programs Often Slow to Open Again?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  It seems particularly counterintuitive: you minimize an application because you plan on returning to it later and wish to skip shutting the application down and restarting it later, but sometimes maximizing it takes even longer than launching it fresh. What gives? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Bart wants to know why he’s not saving any time with application minimization: I’m working in Photoshop CS6 and multiple browsers a lot. I’m not using them all at once, so sometimes some applications are minimized to taskbar for hours or days. The problem is, when I try to maximize them from the taskbar – it sometimes takes longer than starting them! Especially Photoshop feels really weird for many seconds after finally showing up, it’s slow, unresponsive and even sometimes totally freezes for minute or two. It’s not a hardware problem as it’s been like that since always on all on my PCs. Would I also notice it after upgrading my HDD to SDD and adding RAM (my main PC holds 4 GB currently)? Could guys with powerful pcs / macs tell me – does it also happen to you? I guess OSes somehow “focus” on active software and move all the resources away from the ones that run, but are not used. Is it possible to somehow set RAM / CPU / HDD priorities or something, for let’s say, Photoshop, so it won’t slow down after long period of inactivity? So what is the deal? Why does he find himself waiting to maximize a minimized app? The Answer SuperUser contributor Allquixotic explains why: Summary The immediate problem is that the programs that you have minimized are being paged out to the “page file” on your hard disk. This symptom can be improved by installing a Solid State Disk (SSD), adding more RAM to your system, reducing the number of programs you have open, or upgrading to a newer system architecture (for instance, Ivy Bridge or Haswell). Out of these options, adding more RAM is generally the most effective solution. Explanation The default behavior of Windows is to give active applications priority over inactive applications for having a spot in RAM. When there’s significant memory pressure (meaning the system doesn’t have a lot of free RAM if it were to let every program have all the RAM it wants), it starts putting minimized programs into the page file, which means it writes out their contents from RAM to disk, and then makes that area of RAM free. That free RAM helps programs you’re actively using — say, your web browser — run faster, because if they need to claim a new segment of RAM (like when you open a new tab), they can do so. This “free” RAM is also used as page cache, which means that when active programs attempt to read data on your hard disk, that data might be cached in RAM, which prevents your hard disk from being accessed to get that data. By using the majority of your RAM for page cache, and swapping out unused programs to disk, Windows is trying to improve responsiveness of the program(s) you are actively using, by making RAM available to them, and caching the files they access in RAM instead of the hard disk. The downside of this behavior is that minimized programs can take a while to have their contents copied from the page file, on disk, back into RAM. The time increases the larger the program’s footprint in memory. This is why you experience that delay when maximizing Photoshop. RAM is many times faster than a hard disk (depending on the specific hardware, it can be up to several orders of magnitude). An SSD is considerably faster than a hard disk, but it is still slower than RAM by orders of magnitude. Having your page file on an SSD will help, but it will also wear out the SSD more quickly than usual if your page file is heavily utilized due to RAM pressure. Remedies Here is an explanation of the available remedies, and their general effectiveness: Installing more RAM: This is the recommended path. If your system does not support more RAM than you already have installed, you will need to upgrade more of your system: possibly your motherboard, CPU, chassis, power supply, etc. depending on how old it is. If it’s a laptop, chances are you’ll have to buy an entire new laptop that supports more installed RAM. When you install more RAM, you reduce memory pressure, which reduces use of the page file, which is a good thing all around. You also make available more RAM for page cache, which will make all programs that access the hard disk run faster. As of Q4 2013, my personal recommendation is that you have at least 8 GB of RAM for a desktop or laptop whose purpose is anything more complex than web browsing and email. That means photo editing, video editing/viewing, playing computer games, audio editing or recording, programming / development, etc. all should have at least 8 GB of RAM, if not more. Run fewer programs at a time: This will only work if the programs you are running do not use a lot of memory on their own. Unfortunately, Adobe Creative Suite products such as Photoshop CS6 are known for using an enormous amount of memory. This also limits your multitasking ability. It’s a temporary, free remedy, but it can be an inconvenience to close down your web browser or Word every time you start Photoshop, for instance. This also wouldn’t stop Photoshop from being swapped when minimizing it, so it really isn’t a very effective solution. It only helps in some specific situations. Install an SSD: If your page file is on an SSD, the SSD’s improved speed compared to a hard disk will result in generally improved performance when the page file has to be read from or written to. Be aware that SSDs are not designed to withstand a very frequent and constant random stream of writes; they can only be written over a limited number of times before they start to break down. Heavy use of a page file is not a particularly good workload for an SSD. You should install an SSD in combination with a large amount of RAM if you want maximum performance while preserving the longevity of the SSD. Use a newer system architecture: Depending on the age of your system, you may be using an out of date system architecture. The “system architecture” is generally defined as the “generation” (think generations like children, parents, grandparents, etc.) of the motherboard and CPU. Newer generations generally support faster I/O (input/output), better memory bandwidth, lower latency, and less contention over shared resources, instead providing dedicated links between components. For example, starting with the “Nehalem” generation (around 2009), the Front-Side Bus (FSB) was eliminated, which removed a common bottleneck, because almost all system components had to share the same FSB for transmitting data. This was replaced with a “point to point” architecture, meaning that each component gets its own dedicated “lane” to the CPU, which continues to be improved every few years with new generations. You will generally see a more significant improvement in overall system performance depending on the “gap” between your computer’s architecture and the latest one available. For example, a Pentium 4 architecture from 2004 is going to see a much more significant improvement upgrading to “Haswell” (the latest as of Q4 2013) than a “Sandy Bridge” architecture from ~2010. Links Related questions: How to reduce disk thrashing (paging)? Windows Swap (Page File): Enable or Disable? Also, just in case you’re considering it, you really shouldn’t disable the page file, as this will only make matters worse; see here. And, in case you needed extra convincing to leave the Windows Page File alone, see here and here. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 09, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 09, 2011Popular ReleasesMapWindow 4: MapWindow GIS v4.8.6 - Final release - 64Bit: What’s New in 4.8.6 (Final release)A few minor issues have been fixed What’s New in 4.8.5 (Beta release)Assign projection tool. (Sergei Leschinsky) Projection dialects. (Sergei Leschinsky) Projections database converted to SQLite format. (Sergei Leschinsky) Basic code for database support - will be developed further (ShapefileDataClient class, IDataProvider interface). (Sergei Leschinsky) 'Export shapefile to database' tool. (Sergei Leschinsky) Made the GEOS library static. geos.dl...NewLife XCode ??????: XCode v8.2.2011.1107、XCoder v4.5.2011.1108: v8.2.2011.1107 ?IEntityOperate.Create?Entity.CreateInstance??????forEdit，????????(FindByKeyForEdit)???，???false ??????Entity.CreateInstance，????forEdit，???????????????????? v8.2.2011.1103 ??MS????，??MaxMin??（????????）、NotIn??（????）、?Top??（??NotIn）、RowNumber??（?????） v8.2.2011.1101 SqlServer?????????DataPath，?????????????????????? Oracle?????????DllPath，????OCI??，???????????ORACLE_HOME?? Oracle?????XCode.Oracle.IsUseOwner，???????????Ow...Facebook C# SDK: v5.3.2: This is a RTW release which adds new features and bug fixes to v5.2.1. Query/QueryAsync methods uses graph api instead of legacy rest api. removed dependency from Code Contracts enabled Task Parallel Support in .NET 4.0+ (experimental) added support for early preview for .NET 4.5 (binaries not distributed in codeplex nor nuget.org, will need to manually build from Facebook-Net45.sln) added additional method overloads for .NET 4.5 to support IProgress<T> for upload progress added ne...Delete Inactive TS Ports: List and delete the Inactive TS Ports: List and delete the Inactive TS Ports - The InactiveTSPortList.EXE accepts command line arguments The InactiveTSPortList.Standalone.WithoutPrompt.exe runs as a standalone exe without the need for any command line arguments.ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.60.0: Added almost full support for auto filters (missing custom date filters). See examples Filter Values, Custom Filters Fixed issues 7016, 7391, 7388, 7389, 7198, 7196, 7194, 7186, 7067, 7115, 7144Microsoft Research Boogie: Nightly builds: This download category contains automatically released nightly builds, reflecting the current state of Boogie's development. We try to make sure each nightly build passes the test suite. If you suspect that was not the case, please try the previous nightly build to see if that really is the problem. Also, please see the installation instructions.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.0: Major design changes to the control in order to achieve better scalability and extensibility for the new features comming with GoogleMaps API. GoogleMap control switched to GoogleMaps API v3 and .NET 4.0. GoogleMap control is 100% ScriptControl now, it requires ScriptManager to be registered on the pages where and before it is used. Markers, polylines, polygons and directions were implemented as ExtenderControl, instead of being inner properties of GoogleMap control. Better perfomance. Better...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: V2.1: Version 2.1 (click on the right) this uses V4.0 of .net Version 2.1 adds the following features: (apologize if I forget some, added a lot of little things) Manual Lookup with TV or Movie (finally huh!), you can look up a movie or TV episode directly, you can right click on anythign, and choose manual lookup, then will allow you to type anything you want to look up and it will assign it to the file you right clicked. No Rename: a very popular request, this is an option you can set so that t...SubExtractor: Release 1020: Feature: added "baseline double quotes" character to selector box Feature: added option to save SRT files as ANSI (instead of previous UTF-8 only) Feature: made "Save Sup files to Source directory" apply to both Sup and Idx source files. Fix: removed SDH text (...) or [...] that is split over 2 lines Fix: better decision-making in when to prefix a line with a '-' because SDH was removedAcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.6.1: ?? ● AcDown??????????、??????，??????????????????????，???????Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、???、Tucao.cc、SF???、?????80????，???????????、?????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ?? v3.6.1?? ??.hlv...Track Folder Changes: Track Folder Changes 1.1: Fixed exception when right-clicking the root nodeKinect Paint: Kinect Paint 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Async Executor: 1.0: Source code of the AsyncExecutorMedia Companion: MC 3.421b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) TV Show Resolutions... Fix to show the season-specials.tbn when selecting an episode from season 00. Before, MC would try & load season00.tbn Fix for issue #197 - new show added by 'Manually Add Path' not being picked up. Also made non-visible the same thing in Root Folders...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v7.0: Version 7.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: UI: Flexible layout to handle both list and table-like template layouts. Theming - Visual choice of themes: Deliver some templates on installation, export/import functionality, preview. Allow site owners to choose default list sort order for the forums. Forum latest activity. Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy packages sha1 checksum: e6bb913e591543ab292a753d1a16cdb779488c10?????????? - ????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-11-02: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??????，11??，?????20????Microsoft OneCode Sample，????6?Program Language Sample，2?Windows Base Sample，2?GDI+ Sample，4?Internet Explorer Sample?6?ASP.NET Sample。?????????????。 ????，?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 Program Language CSImageFullScreenSlideShow VBImageFullScreenSlideShow CSDynamicallyBuildLambdaExpressionWithFie...Microsoft Media Platform: Player Framework: MMP Player Framework 2.6 (Silverlight and WP7): Additional DownloadsSMFv2.6 Full Installer (MSI) - This will install everything you need in order to develop your own SMF player application, including the IIS Smooth Streaming Client. It only includes the assemblies. If you want the source code please follow the link above. Smooth Streaming Sample Player - This is a pre-built player that includes support for IIS Smooth Streaming. You can configure the player to playback your content by simplying editing a configuration file - no need to co...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.1 Alpha: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.1 Alpha. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python programming language. This release includes new core IDE features, a couple of new sample libraries for interacting with Kinect and Excel, and many bug fixes for issues reported since the release of 1.0. For the core IDE features we’ve added many new features which improve the basic edit...New ProjectsBBCode Orchard module: Makes the usage of various BBCodes available by adding a new text flavor (bbcode)Binary to Bytes: Covert a binary file to a .byte declaration for assembler systems.BrainfuckOS: -- English -- An operating system developed with Cosmos in C# and runnning special brainfuck-code. -- Deutsch -- Ein mit Cosmos in C# entwickeltes Betriebssystem, welches spezialisierten Brainfuck-Code ausführt.Cardiff WPUG: This is a Windows Phone 7 app, written using C# and using the MVVMLight framework. This app is intended as a training app for anyone interested in programming for Windows Phone and looking for a place to start. The app is used to show upcoming user group meetings, showcase members apps and show the latest news from the Windows Phone User Group in the UK. I'll be keeping this app up to date with the latest framework and will also be submitting versions to the marketplace (the current ve...Chapters2Markers: A simple utility to convert from the chapters format used by mkvextract to the marker format used by Expression Encoder.Confirm Leave Orchard Module: Add a content part that when attached to types, displays a confirm message when the user wants to leave the page despite having modified content in the editor.cp2011project: cp2011 projectCP3046 Sample Project in Beijing: This is a sample for CP3046 ICT Project in Beijing.Current Cost plug-in for HouseBot: This plug-in will interface with cc128 current cost module and display in HouseBot automation software. Please note that it requires the c# wrapper to work found here: http://www.housebot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=856395Delete Inactive TS Ports: The presence of Inactive TS Ports causes systems to hang or become sluggish and unresponsive. Printer redirection also suffers when there are a lot of Inactive TS Ports presents in the machine.Demo Team Exploer: demoDNN Quick Form: DNN Quick Form is a module that makes creating simple contact forms extremely easy. This is designed for those that extra flexibility when creating a simple contact form. Build your own form in the environment of your choice. Use all the standard ASP.NET Form controls to build the perfect form. The initial release only supports emailing the form to designated users. REQUIRES DotNetNuke 6.1Duet Enterprise: Create external list item workflow activity for SPD: This workflow activity for SharePoint designer creates item in exteral list and set list item property values from activity properties. Initially I develop this workflow activity to use it with Duet Enterprise. It creates new SAP entity. This activity utilize BCS object model.EntGP: Este es proyecto es para gestionar proyectosFly2Cloud: fly2cloud use for upload all file in folder to cloud blob storage with '/' delimiters. Usage 1. open _Fly2Cloud.exe.config_ for edit _ACCOUNTNAME_ & _ACCESSKEY_ 2. excute -> fly2cloud x:\xxx containerFolders size WPF: Simple WPF application to graphical show the occupied space by files and folders.Jogo: Jogo das coresLast Light: Last LightmEdit: simple text editor with notes organized with help of tree-view control.M-Files Autotask Connector: Connector project to read data from Autotask to M-Files using the connections to external databases. Using the connector you can e.g. replicate accounts, contacts and projects from Autotask to M-Files.My KB: Just my KBmysoccerdata: Allow owner to collect soccer schedule as matches going on around the worldNGS: Sistema ERP para agronegócio.NTerm: An open source .NET based terminal emulator.PC Trabalho 1 .Net: PC Trabalho 1 .NetPega Topeira: Jogo desenvolvido como projeto final do curso de C# da UFSCar Sorocaba (2011).Sequence Quality Control Studio (SeQCoS): Sequence Quality Control Studio (SeQCoS) is an open source .NET software suite designed to perform quality control (QC) of massively parallel sequencing reads. It includes tools for evaluating sequence and base quality of reads, as well as a set of basic post-QC sequence manipulation tools. SeQCoS was written in C# and integrates functionality provided by .NET Bio and Sho libraries.series operation system: series operation system. contact:694643393 ??SharePoint MUI Resource File Helper: This simple Windows Application allows you to easily compare SharePoint Resource files, allowing you to easily replicate keys across various files.SSIS Business Rules Component: A SSIS Custom Component that allows for the development and application of complex and hierarchical business rules within the SSIS data flow.TestBox: testbox

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• The impossible inline Javascript delay/sleep

  - by trex005

  There is a JavaScript function, of which I have zero control of the code, which calls a function that I wrote. My function uses DOM to generate an iFrame, defines it's src and then appends it to another DOM element. However, before my function returns, and thus allows continued execution of the containing function, it is imperative that the iFrame be fully loaded. Here are the things that I have tried and why they do not work : 1. The SetTimeout option : 99.999% of the time, this is THE answer. As a matter of fact, in the past decade that I have been mentoring in JavaScript, I have always insisted that code could always be refactored to use this option, and never believed a scenario existed where that was not the case. Well, I finally found one! The problem is that because my function is being called inline, if the very next line is executed before my iFrame finishes loading, it totally neuters my script, and since the moment my script completes, the external script continues. A callback of sorts will not work 2. The "Do nothing" loop :This option you use while(//iFrame is not loaded){//do nothing}. In theory this would not return until the frame is loaded. The problem is that since this hogs all the resources, the iFrame never loads. This trick, although horribly unprofessional, dirty etc. will work when you just need an inline delay, but since I require an external thread to complete, it will not.In FF, after a few seconds, it pauses the script and an alert pops up stating that there is an unresponsive script. While that alert is up, the iFrame is able to load, and then my function is able to return, but having the browser frozen for 10 seconds, and then requiring the user to correctly dismiss an error is a no go. 3. The model dialogue : I was inspired by the fact that the FF popup allowed the iFrame to load while halting the execution of the function, and thinking about it, I realized that it is because the modal dialogue, is a way of halting execution yet allowing other threads to continue! Brilliant, so I decided to try other modal options. Things like alert() work beautifully! When it pops up, even if only up for 1/10th of a second, the iFrame is able to complete, and all works great. And just in case the 1/10 of a second is not sufficient, I can put the model dialogue in the while loop from solution 2, and it would ensure that the iFrame is loaded in time. Sweet right? Except for the fact that I now have to pop up a very unprofessional dialogue for the user to dismiss in order to run my script. I fought with myself about this cost/benefit of this action, but then I encountered a scenario where my code was called 10 times on a single page! Having to dismiss 10 alerts before acessing a page?! That reminds me of the late 90s script kiddie pages, and is NOT an option. 4. A gazillion other delay script out there:There are about 10 jQuery delay or sleep functions, some of them actually quite cleverly developed, but none worked. A few prototype options, and again, none I found could do it! A dozen or so other libraries and frameworks claimed they had what I needed, but alas they all conspired to give me false hope. I am convinced that since a built in model dialogue can halt execution, while allowing other threads to continue, there must be some code accessible way to do the same thing with out user input. The Code is literally thousands upon thousands of lines and is proprietary, so I wrote this little example of the problem for you to work with. It is important to note the ONLY code you are able to change is in the onlyThingYouCanChange function Test File : <html> <head> </head> </html> <body> <div id='iFrameHolder'></div> <script type='text/javascript'> function unChangeableFunction() { new_iFrame = onlyThingYouCanChange(document.getElementById('iFrameHolder')); new_iFrame_doc = (new_iFrame.contentWindow || new_iFrame.contentDocument); if(new_iFrame_doc.document)new_iFrame_doc=new_iFrame_doc.document; new_iFrame_body = new_iFrame_doc.body; if(new_iFrame_body.innerHTML != 'Loaded?') { //The world explodes!!! alert('you just blew up the world! Way to go!'); } else { alert('wow, you did it! Way to go!'); } } var iFrameLoaded = false; function onlyThingYouCanChange(objectToAppendIFrameTo) { iFrameLoaded = false; iframe=document.createElement('iframe'); iframe.onload = new Function('iFrameLoaded = true'); iframe.src = 'blank_frame.html'; //Must use an HTML doc on the server because there is a very specific DOM structure that must be maintained. objectToAppendIFrameTo.appendChild(iframe); var it = 0; while(!iFrameLoaded) //I put the limit on here so you don't { //If I was able to put some sort of delay here that paused the exicution of the script, but did not halt all other browser threads, and did not require user interaction we'd be golden! //alert('test'); //This would work if it did not require user interaction! } return iframe; } unChangeableFunction(); </script> </body> blank_frame.html : <html> <head> </head> <body style='margin:0px'>Loaded?</body> </html>

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• How to detect crashing tabed webbrowser and handle it?

  - by David Eaton

  I have a desktop application (forms) with a tab control, I assign a tab and a new custom webrowser control. I open up about 10 of these tabs. Each one visits about 100 - 500 different pages. The trouble is that if 1 webbrowser control has a problem it shuts down the entire program. I want to be able to close the offending webbrowser control and open a new one in it's place. Is there any event that I need to subscribe to catch a crashing or unresponsive webbrowser control ? I am using C# on windows 7 (Forms), .NET framework v4 =============================================================== UPDATE: 1 - The Tabbed WebBrowser Example Here is the code I have and How I use the webbrowser control in the most basic way. Create a new forms project and name it SimpleWeb Add a new class and name it myWeb.cs, here is the code to use. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Security.Policy; namespace SimpleWeb { //inhert all of webbrowser class myWeb : WebBrowser { public myWeb() { //no javascript errors this.ScriptErrorsSuppressed = true; //Something we want set? AssignEvents(); } //keep near the top private void AssignEvents() { //assign WebBrowser events to our custom methods Navigated += myWeb_Navigated; DocumentCompleted += myWeb_DocumentCompleted; Navigating += myWeb_Navigating; NewWindow += myWeb_NewWindow; } #region Events //List of events:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.webbrowser_events%28v=vs.100%29.aspx //Fired when a new windows opens private void myWeb_NewWindow(object sender, System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e) { //cancel all popup windows e.Cancel = true; //beep to let you know canceled new window Console.Beep(9000, 200); } //Fired before page is navigated (not sure if its before or during?) private void myWeb_Navigating(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserNavigatingEventArgs args) { } //Fired after page is navigated (but not loaded) private void myWeb_Navigated(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserNavigatedEventArgs args) { } //Fired after page is loaded (Catch 22 - Iframes could be considered a page, can fire more than once. Ads are good examples) private void myWeb_DocumentCompleted(System.Object sender, System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs args) { } #endregion //Answer supplied by mo. (modified)? public void OpenUrl(string url) { try { //this.OpenUrl(url); this.Navigate(url); } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("Your App Crashed! Because = " + ex.ToString()); //MyApplication.HandleException(ex); } } //Keep near the bottom private void RemoveEvents() { //Remove Events Navigated -= myWeb_Navigated; DocumentCompleted -= myWeb_DocumentCompleted; Navigating -= myWeb_Navigating; NewWindow -= myWeb_NewWindow; } } } On Form1 drag a standard tabControl and set the dock to fill, you can go into the tab collection and delete the pre-populated tabs if you like. Right Click on Form1 and Select "View Code" and replace it with this code. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using mshtml; namespace SimpleWeb { public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); //Load Up 10 Tabs for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++) { newTab("Test_" + i, "http://wwww.yahoo.com"); } } private void newTab(string Title, String Url) { //Create a new Tab TabPage newTab = new TabPage(); newTab.Name = Title; newTab.Text = Title; //create webbrowser Instance myWeb newWeb = new myWeb(); //Add webbrowser to new tab newTab.Controls.Add(newWeb); newWeb.Dock = DockStyle.Fill; //Add New Tab to Tab Pages tabControl1.TabPages.Add(newTab); newWeb.OpenUrl(Url); } } } Save and Run the project. Using the answer below by mo. , you can surf the first url with no problem, but what about all the urls the user clicks on? How do we check those? I prefer not to add events to every single html element on a page, there has to be a way to run the new urls thru the function OpenUrl before it navigates without having an endless loop. Thanks.

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• Shrinking TCP Window Size to 0 on Cisco ASA

  - by Brent

  Having an issue with any large file transfer that crosses our Cisco ASA unit come to an eventual pause. Setup Test1: Server A, FileZilla Client <- 1GBPS - Cisco ASA <- 1 GBPS - Server B, FileZilla Server TCP Window size on large transfers will drop to 0 after around 30 seconds of a large file transfer. RDP session then becomes unresponsive for a minute or two and then is sporadic. After a minute or two, the FTP transfer resumes, but at 1-2 MB/s. When the FTP transfer is over, the responsiveness of the RDP session returns to normal. Test2: Server C in same network as Server B, FileZilla Client <- local network - Server B, FileZilla Server File will transfer at 30+ MB/s. Details ASA: 5520 running 8.3(1) with ASDM 6.3(1) Windows: Server 2003 R2 SP2 with latest patches Server: VMs running on HP C3000 blade chasis FileZilla: 3.3.5.1, latest stable build Transfer: 20 GB SQL .BAK file Protocol: Active FTP over tcp/20, tcp/21 Switches: Cisco Small Business 2048 Gigabit running latest 2.0.0.8 VMware: 4.1 HP: Flex-10 3.15, latest version Notes All servers are VMs. Thoughts Pretty sure the ASA is at fault since a transfer between VMs on the same network will not show a shrinking Window size. Our ASA is pretty vanilla. No major changes made to any of the settings. It has a bunch of NAT and ACLs. Wireshark Sample No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info 234905 73.916986 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131981791 Win=65535 Len=0 234906 73.917220 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234907 73.917224 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234908 73.917231 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131984551 Win=64155 Len=0 234909 73.917463 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234910 73.917467 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234911 73.917469 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234912 73.917476 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131988691 Win=60015 Len=0 234913 73.917706 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234914 73.917710 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234915 73.917715 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131991451 Win=57255 Len=0 234916 73.917949 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234917 73.917953 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234918 73.917958 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131994211 Win=54495 Len=0 234919 73.918193 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234920 73.918197 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234921 73.918202 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131996971 Win=51735 Len=0 234922 73.918435 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234923 73.918440 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234924 73.918445 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131999731 Win=48975 Len=0 234925 73.918679 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234926 73.918684 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234927 73.918689 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132002491 Win=46215 Len=0 234928 73.918922 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234929 73.918927 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234930 73.918932 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132005251 Win=43455 Len=0 234931 73.919165 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234932 73.919169 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234933 73.919174 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132008011 Win=40695 Len=0 234934 73.919408 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234935 73.919413 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234936 73.919418 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132010771 Win=37935 Len=0 234937 73.919652 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234938 73.919656 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234939 73.919661 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132013531 Win=35175 Len=0 234940 73.919895 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234941 73.919899 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234942 73.919904 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132016291 Win=32415 Len=0 234943 73.920138 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234944 73.920142 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234945 73.920147 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132019051 Win=29655 Len=0 234946 73.920381 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234947 73.920386 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234948 73.920391 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132021811 Win=26895 Len=0 234949 73.920625 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234950 73.920629 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234951 73.920632 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234952 73.920638 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132025951 Win=22755 Len=0 234953 73.920868 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234954 73.920871 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234955 73.920876 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132028711 Win=19995 Len=0 234956 73.921111 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234957 73.921115 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234958 73.921120 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132031471 Win=17235 Len=0 234959 73.921356 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234960 73.921362 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234961 73.921370 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132034231 Win=14475 Len=0 234962 73.921598 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234963 73.921606 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234964 73.921613 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132036991 Win=11715 Len=0 234965 73.921841 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234966 73.921848 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234967 73.921855 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132039751 Win=8955 Len=0 234968 73.922085 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234969 73.922092 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234970 73.922099 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132042511 Win=6195 Len=0 234971 73.922328 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234972 73.922335 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234973 73.922342 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132045271 Win=3435 Len=0 234974 73.922571 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234975 73.922579 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234976 73.922586 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048031 Win=675 Len=0 234981 75.866453 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 675 bytes 234985 76.020168 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234989 76.771633 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234990 76.771648 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234997 78.279701 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234998 78.279714 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0

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• Shrinking Windows Size to 0 on Cisco ASA

  - by Brent

  Having an issue with any large file transfer that crosses our Cisco ASA unit come to an eventual pause. Setup Test1: Server A, FileZilla Client <- 1GBPS - Cisco ASA <- 1 GBPS - Server B, FileZilla Server TCP Window size on large transfers will drop to 0 after around 30 seconds of a large file transfer. RDP session then becomes unresponsive for a minute or two and then is sporadic. After a minute or two, the FTP transfer resumes, but at 1-2 MB/s. When the FTP transfer is over, the responsiveness of the RDP session returns to normal. Test2: Server C in same network as Server B, FileZilla Client <- local network - Server B, FileZilla Server File will transfer at 30+ MB/s. Details ASA: 5520 running 8.3(1) with ASDM 6.3(1) Windows: Server 2003 R2 SP2 with latest patches Server: VMs running on HP C3000 blade chasis FileZilla: 3.3.5.1, latest stable build Transfer: 20 GB SQL .BAK file Protocol: Active FTP over tcp/20, tcp/21 Switches: Cisco Small Business 2048 Gigabit running latest 2.0.0.8 VMware: 4.1 HP: Flex-10 3.15, latest version Notes All servers are VMs. Thoughts Pretty sure the ASA is at fault since a transfer between VMs on the same network will not show a shrinking Window size. Our ASA is pretty vanilla. No major changes made to any of the settings. It has a bunch of NAT and ACLs. Wireshark Sample No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info 234905 73.916986 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131981791 Win=65535 Len=0 234906 73.917220 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234907 73.917224 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234908 73.917231 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131984551 Win=64155 Len=0 234909 73.917463 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234910 73.917467 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234911 73.917469 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234912 73.917476 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131988691 Win=60015 Len=0 234913 73.917706 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234914 73.917710 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234915 73.917715 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131991451 Win=57255 Len=0 234916 73.917949 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234917 73.917953 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234918 73.917958 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131994211 Win=54495 Len=0 234919 73.918193 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234920 73.918197 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234921 73.918202 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131996971 Win=51735 Len=0 234922 73.918435 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234923 73.918440 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234924 73.918445 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131999731 Win=48975 Len=0 234925 73.918679 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234926 73.918684 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234927 73.918689 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132002491 Win=46215 Len=0 234928 73.918922 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234929 73.918927 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234930 73.918932 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132005251 Win=43455 Len=0 234931 73.919165 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234932 73.919169 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234933 73.919174 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132008011 Win=40695 Len=0 234934 73.919408 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234935 73.919413 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234936 73.919418 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132010771 Win=37935 Len=0 234937 73.919652 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234938 73.919656 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234939 73.919661 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132013531 Win=35175 Len=0 234940 73.919895 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234941 73.919899 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234942 73.919904 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132016291 Win=32415 Len=0 234943 73.920138 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234944 73.920142 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234945 73.920147 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132019051 Win=29655 Len=0 234946 73.920381 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234947 73.920386 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234948 73.920391 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132021811 Win=26895 Len=0 234949 73.920625 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234950 73.920629 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234951 73.920632 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234952 73.920638 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132025951 Win=22755 Len=0 234953 73.920868 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234954 73.920871 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234955 73.920876 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132028711 Win=19995 Len=0 234956 73.921111 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234957 73.921115 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234958 73.921120 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132031471 Win=17235 Len=0 234959 73.921356 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234960 73.921362 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234961 73.921370 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132034231 Win=14475 Len=0 234962 73.921598 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234963 73.921606 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234964 73.921613 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132036991 Win=11715 Len=0 234965 73.921841 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234966 73.921848 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234967 73.921855 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132039751 Win=8955 Len=0 234968 73.922085 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234969 73.922092 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234970 73.922099 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132042511 Win=6195 Len=0 234971 73.922328 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234972 73.922335 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234973 73.922342 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132045271 Win=3435 Len=0 234974 73.922571 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234975 73.922579 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234976 73.922586 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048031 Win=675 Len=0 234981 75.866453 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 675 bytes 234985 76.020168 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234989 76.771633 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234990 76.771648 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234997 78.279701 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234998 78.279714 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0

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• Backing up my data causes my server to crash using Symantec Backup Exec 12, or How I Came to Loathe

  - by Kyle Noland

  I have a Dell PowerEdge 2850 running Windows Server 2003. It is the primary file server for one of my clients. I have another server also running Windows Server 2003 that acts as the core media server for Symantec Backup Exec 12. I recently upgraded from Backup Exec 11d to 12. This upgrade was necessary because we also just upgraded from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007. After the upgrade I had to push-install the new version 12 Backup Exec Remote Agents to each of the servers I am backing up (about 6 total). 5 of my servers are doing just fine, faithfully completing backups every night. My file server routinely crashes. Observations: When the server crashes, it does not blue screen, it just locks up completely. Even the mouse is unresponsive. If you leave the server locked up long enough, it will eventually reboot itself and hang on the Windows splash screen. There is absolutely zero useful Event Viewer evidence of a problem. The logs go from routine logging to an Unexplained Shutdown Event the next morning when I have to hard reset the server to get it to boot. 90% of the time the server does not boot cleanly, it hangs on the Windows splash screen. I don't have any light to shed here. When the server hangs all I can do is hard reset it and try again. Even after a successful boot and chkdsk /r operation, if you reboot the machine, you have a 90% chance it won't back up again cleanly. The back story: This server started crashing during nightly backups about a month ago. I tried everything I could think of to troubleshoot the problem and eventually had to give up because I could not keep coming to the office at 4 AM to try to get the server back online. One Friday I got lucky and the server stayed up for its entire full backup. I took this opportunity to restore the full backup to a temporary server I set up and switched all my users to the temporary. Then I reloaded the ailing file server. I kept all my users on the temporary file server for about 3 weeks. I installed the same Backup Exec Remote Agent and Trend Micro A/V client on the temporary server that I was using on the regular file server. During this time, I had absolutely no problems backing up the temporary server. I tested the reloaded file server extensively. I rebooted the server once an hour every day for 3 weeks trying to make it fail. It never did. I felt confident that the reload was the answer to my problems. I moved all of the data from the temporary server back to the regular server. I got 3 nightly backups out of it before it locked up again and started the familiar failure to boot cleanly behavior. This weekend I decided to monitor the file server through the entire backup job. I RDPd into the file server and also into the server running Backup Exec. On the file server I opened the Task Manager so I could view the processes and watch CPU and memory usage. Everything was running smoothly for about 60GB worth of backup. Then I noticed that the byte count of the backup job in Backup Exec had stopped progressing. I looked back over at my RDP session into the file server, and I was getting real time updates about CPU and memory usage still - both nearly 0%, which is unusual. Backups usually hover around 40% usage for the duration of the backup job. Let me reiterate this point: The screen was refreshing and I was getting real time Task Manager updates - until I clicked on the Start menu. The screen went black and the server locked up. In truth, I think the server had already locked up, the video card just hadn't figured it out yet. I went back into my bag of trick: driving to the office and hard reseting the server over and over again when it hangs up at the Windows splash screen. I did this for 2 hours without getting a successful boot. I started panicking because I did not have a decent backup to use to get everything back onto the working temporary file server. Once I exhausted everything I knew to do, I took a deep breath, booted to the Windows Server 2003 CD and performed a repair installation of Windows. The server came back up fine, with all of my data intact. I can now reboot the server at will and it will come back up cleanly. The problem is that I'm afraid as soon as I try to back that data up again I will back at square one. So let me sum things up: Here is what I've done so far to troubleshoot this server: Deleted and recreated the RAID 5 sets. Initialized the drives. Reloaded the server with a fresh Server 2003 install. Confirmed with Dell that I have installed the latest, Dell approved BIOS and NIC drivers. Uninstalled / reinstalled the Backup Exec Remote Agent. Uninstalled the Trend Micro A/V client. Configured the server not to reboot itself after a blue screen so I can see any stop error. I used to think the server was blue screening, but since I enabled this setting I now know that the server just completely locks up. Run chkdsk /r from the Windows Recovery Console. Several errors were found and corrected, but did not help my problem. Help confirm or deny the following assumptions: There are two problems at work here. Why the server is locking up in the first place, and why the server won't boot cleanly after a lockup. This is ultimately a software problem. The server works fine and can be rebooted cleanly all day long - until the first lockup - following a fresh OS load or even a Repair installation. This is not a problem with Backup Exec in general. All of my other servers back up just fine. For the record, all of the other servers run Server 2003, and some of them house more data than the file server in question here. Any help is appreciated. The irony is almost too much to bear. Backing up my data is what is jeopardizing it.

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• Backing up my data causes my server to crash using Symantec Backup Exec 12, or How I Came to Loathe Irony

  - by Kyle Noland

  I have a Dell PowerEdge 2850 running Windows Server 2003. It is the primary file server for one of my clients. I have another server also running Windows Server 2003 that acts as the core media server for Symantec Backup Exec 12. I recently upgraded from Backup Exec 11d to 12. This upgrade was necessary because we also just upgraded from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007. After the upgrade I had to push-install the new version 12 Backup Exec Remote Agents to each of the servers I am backing up (about 6 total). 5 of my servers are doing just fine, faithfully completing backups every night. My file server routinely crashes. Observations: When the server crashes, it does not blue screen, it just locks up completely. Even the mouse is unresponsive. If you leave the server locked up long enough, it will eventually reboot itself and hang on the Windows splash screen. There is absolutely zero useful Event Viewer evidence of a problem. The logs go from routine logging to an Unexplained Shutdown Event the next morning when I have to hard reset the server to get it to boot. 90% of the time the server does not boot cleanly, it hangs on the Windows splash screen. I don't have any light to shed here. When the server hangs all I can do is hard reset it and try again. Even after a successful boot and chkdsk /r operation, if you reboot the machine, you have a 90% chance it won't back up again cleanly. The back story: This server started crashing during nightly backups about a month ago. I tried everything I could think of to troubleshoot the problem and eventually had to give up because I could not keep coming to the office at 4 AM to try to get the server back online. One Friday I got lucky and the server stayed up for its entire full backup. I took this opportunity to restore the full backup to a temporary server I set up and switched all my users to the temporary. Then I reloaded the ailing file server. I kept all my users on the temporary file server for about 3 weeks. I installed the same Backup Exec Remote Agent and Trend Micro A/V client on the temporary server that I was using on the regular file server. During this time, I had absolutely no problems backing up the temporary server. I tested the reloaded file server extensively. I rebooted the server once an hour every day for 3 weeks trying to make it fail. It never did. I felt confident that the reload was the answer to my problems. I moved all of the data from the temporary server back to the regular server. I got 3 nightly backups out of it before it locked up again and started the familiar failure to boot cleanly behavior. This weekend I decided to monitor the file server through the entire backup job. I RDPd into the file server and also into the server running Backup Exec. On the file server I opened the Task Manager so I could view the processes and watch CPU and memory usage. Everything was running smoothly for about 60GB worth of backup. Then I noticed that the byte count of the backup job in Backup Exec had stopped progressing. I looked back over at my RDP session into the file server, and I was getting real time updates about CPU and memory usage still - both nearly 0%, which is unusual. Backups usually hover around 40% usage for the duration of the backup job. Let me reiterate this point: The screen was refreshing and I was getting real time Task Manager updates - until I clicked on the Start menu. The screen went black and the server locked up. In truth, I think the server had already locked up, the video card just hadn't figured it out yet. I went back into my bag of trick: driving to the office and hard reseting the server over and over again when it hangs up at the Windows splash screen. I did this for 2 hours without getting a successful boot. I started panicking because I did not have a decent backup to use to get everything back onto the working temporary file server. Once I exhausted everything I knew to do, I took a deep breath, booted to the Windows Server 2003 CD and performed a repair installation of Windows. The server came back up fine, with all of my data intact. I can now reboot the server at will and it will come back up cleanly. The problem is that I'm afraid as soon as I try to back that data up again I will back at square one. So let me sum things up: Here is what I've done so far to troubleshoot this server: Deleted and recreated the RAID 5 sets. Initialized the drives. Reloaded the server with a fresh Server 2003 install. Confirmed with Dell that I have installed the latest, Dell approved BIOS and NIC drivers. Uninstalled / reinstalled the Backup Exec Remote Agent. Uninstalled the Trend Micro A/V client. Configured the server not to reboot itself after a blue screen so I can see any stop error. I used to think the server was blue screening, but since I enabled this setting I now know that the server just completely locks up. Run chkdsk /r from the Windows Recovery Console. Several errors were found and corrected, but did not help my problem. Help confirm or deny the following assumptions: There are two problems at work here. Why the server is locking up in the first place, and why the server won't boot cleanly after a lockup. This is ultimately a software problem. The server works fine and can be rebooted cleanly all day long - until the first lockup - following a fresh OS load or even a Repair installation. This is not a problem with Backup Exec in general. All of my other servers back up just fine. For the record, all of the other servers run Server 2003, and some of them house more data than the file server in question here. Any help is appreciated. The irony is almost too much to bear. Backing up my data is what is jeopardizing it.

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• Metro apps crash on startup, driver or permissions issue?

  - by Vee

  After installing Win8 x64 RC, Metro apps worked correctly, but desktop OpenGL apps were slow and unresponsive. I installed the latest Win8 nVidia drivers, and the OpenGL apps started working correctly. At the same time, because of annoying permission messages, I changed the C:\ drive and all its files ownerships to my user, and gave it full permission. I restarted my pc after installing the drivers, and now Metro apps only show the splash screen, then crash. I tried installing other versions of the nVidia drivers, with the same result. My GPU is a GeForce GTX275. Is this a known problem with nVidia drivers? Or maybe changing the ownership of C:\ is the real problem? Thank you. More information (after looking in the event viewer) I've managed to find the problem and the error in the Event Viewer. I still cannot solve it. Here's the information I found by opening the Mail app and letting it crash: Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell Date: 07/06/2012 15.54.17 Event ID: 5961 Task Category: (5961) Level: Error Keywords: User: VEE-PC\Vittorio Computer: vee-pc Description: Activation of the app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail for the Windows.Launch contract failed with error: The app didn't start.. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" /> <EventID>5961</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>2</Level> <Task>5961</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T13:54:17.472416600Z" /> <EventRecordID>6524</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="6756" /> <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational</Channel> <Computer>vee-pc</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="AppId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data> <Data Name="ContractId">Windows.Launch</Data> <Data Name="ErrorCode">-2144927141</Data> </EventData> </Event> Found other stuff, this is another error that appears when opening a Metro app: Log Name: Application Source: ESENT Date: 07/06/2012 16.01.00 Event ID: 490 Task Category: General Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: vee-pc Description: svchost (1376) SRUJet: An attempt to open the file "C:\Windows\system32\SRU\SRU.log" for read / write access failed with system error 5 (0x00000005): "Access is denied. ". The open file operation will fail with error -1032 (0xfffffbf8). Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="ESENT" /> <EventID Qualifiers="0">490</EventID> <Level>2</Level> <Task>1</Task> <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:01:00.000000000Z" /> <EventRecordID>11854</EventRecordID> <Channel>Application</Channel> <Computer>vee-pc</Computer> <Security /> </System> <EventData> <Data>svchost</Data> <Data>1376</Data> <Data>SRUJet: </Data> <Data>C:\Windows\system32\SRU\SRU.log</Data> <Data>-1032 (0xfffffbf8)</Data> <Data>5 (0x00000005)</Data> <Data>Access is denied. </Data> </EventData> </Event> After changing permissions again (adding Everyone and Creator Owner to System32), the "access denied to sru.log" error disappears, but this one appears in its place: Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell Date: 07/06/2012 16.16.34 Event ID: 2486 Task Category: (2414) Level: Error Keywords: (64),Process Lifetime Manager User: VEE-PC\Vittorio Computer: vee-pc Description: App microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail did not launch within its allotted time. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" /> <EventID>2486</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>2</Level> <Task>2414</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x2000000000000042</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:16:34.616499600Z" /> <EventRecordID>11916</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="6996" /> <Channel>Application</Channel> <Computer>vee-pc</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="ApplicationId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data> </EventData> </Event> Now I'm stuck. It tells me "Activation of app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail failed with error: The app didn't start. See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information." but I can't find the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log. I'm starting a bounty. I found the TWinUI/Operational log. It only tells me: Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell Date: 07/06/2012 16.28.57 Event ID: 5961 Task Category: (5961) Level: Error Keywords: User: VEE-PC\Vittorio Computer: vee-pc Description: Activation of the app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail for the Windows.BackgroundTasks contract failed with error: The app didn't start.. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" /> <EventID>5961</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>2</Level> <Task>5961</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:28:57.238140800Z" /> <EventRecordID>6536</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="2624" /> <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational</Channel> <Computer>vee-pc</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="AppId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data> <Data Name="ContractId">Windows.BackgroundTasks</Data> <Data Name="ErrorCode">-2144927141</Data> </EventData> </Event> I need to go deeper. I found a forum thread that told me to look for "DCOM" errors. I found this one related to the app crash "The server Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM Date: 07/06/2012 16.46.45 Event ID: 10010 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: VEE-PC\Vittorio Computer: vee-pc Description: The server Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa did not register with DCOM within the required timeout. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM" Guid="{1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E}" EventSourceName="DCOM" /> <EventID Qualifiers="0">10010</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>2</Level> <Task>0</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:46:45.586943800Z" /> <EventRecordID>2763</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="804" ThreadID="2364" /> <Channel>System</Channel> <Computer>vee-pc</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="param1">Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa</Data> </EventData> </Event>

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• Dealing with external processes

  - by Jesse Aldridge

  I've been working on a gui app that needs to manage external processes. Working with external processes leads to a lot of issues that can make a programmer's life difficult. I feel like maintenence on this app is taking an unacceptably long time. I've been trying to list the things that make working with external processes difficult so that I can come up with ways of mitigating the pain. This kind of turned into a rant which I thought I'd post here in order to get some feedback and to provide some guidance to anybody thinking about sailing into these very murky waters. Here's what I've got so far: Output from the child can get mixed up with output from the parent. This can make both outputs misleading and hard to read. It can be hard to tell what came from where. It becomes harder to figure out what's going on when things are asynchronous. Here's a contrived example: import textwrap, os, time from subprocess import Popen test_path = 'test_file.py' with open(test_path, 'w') as file: file.write(textwrap.dedent(''' import time for i in range(3): print 'Hello %i' % i time.sleep(1)''')) proc = Popen('python -B "%s"' % test_path) for i in range(3): print 'Hello %i' % i time.sleep(1) os.remove(test_path) I guess I could have the child process write its output to a file. But it can be annoying to have to open up a file every time I want to see the result of a print statement. If I have code for the child process I could add a label, something like print 'child: Hello %i', but it can be annoying to do that for every print. And it adds some noise to the output. And of course I can't do it if I don't have access to the code. I could manually manage the process output. But then you open up a huge can of worms with threads and polling and stuff like that. A simple solution is to treat processes like synchronous functions, that is, no further code executes until the process completes. In other words, make the process block. But that doesn't work if you're building a gui app. Which brings me to the next problem... Blocking processes cause the gui to become unresponsive. import textwrap, sys, os from subprocess import Popen from PyQt4.QtGui import * from PyQt4.QtCore import * test_path = 'test_file.py' with open(test_path, 'w') as file: file.write(textwrap.dedent(''' import time for i in range(3): print 'Hello %i' % i time.sleep(1)''')) app = QApplication(sys.argv) button = QPushButton('Launch process') def launch_proc(): # Can't move the window until process completes proc = Popen('python -B "%s"' % test_path) proc.communicate() button.connect(button, SIGNAL('clicked()'), launch_proc) button.show() app.exec_() os.remove(test_path) Qt provides a process wrapper of its own called QProcess which can help with this. You can connect functions to signals to capture output relatively easily. This is what I'm currently using. But I'm finding that all these signals behave suspiciously like goto statements and can lead to spaghetti code. I think I want to get sort-of blocking behavior by having the 'finished' signal from QProcess call a function containing all the code that comes after the process call. I think that should work but I'm still a bit fuzzy on the details... Stack traces get interrupted when you go from the child process back to the parent process. If a normal function screws up, you get a nice complete stack trace with filenames and line numbers. If a subprocess screws up, you'll be lucky if you get any output at all. You end up having to do a lot more detective work everytime something goes wrong. Speaking of which, output has a way of disappearing when dealing external processes. Like if you run something via the windows 'cmd' command, the console will pop up, execute the code, and then disappear before you have a chance to see the output. You have to pass the /k flag to make it stick around. Similar issues seem to crop up all the time. I suppose both problems 3 and 4 have the same root cause: no exception handling. Exception handling is meant to be used with functions, it doesn't work with processes. Maybe there's some way to get something like exception handling for processes? I guess that's what stderr is for? But dealing with two different streams can be annoying in itself. Maybe I should look into this more... Processes can hang and stick around in the background without you realizing it. So you end up yelling at your computer cuz it's going so slow until you finally bring up your task manager and see 30 instances of the same process hanging out in the background. Also, hanging background processes can interefere with other instances of the process in various fun ways, such as causing permissions errors by holding a handle to a file or someting like that. It seems like an easy solution to this would be to have the parent process kill the child process on exit if the child process didn't close itself. But if the parent process crashes, cleanup code might not get called and the child can be left hanging. Also, if the parent waits for the child to complete, and the child is in an infinite loop or something, you can end up with two hanging processes. This problem can tie in to problem 2 for extra fun, causing your gui to stop responding entirely and force you to kill everything with the task manager. F***ing quotes Parameters often need to be passed to processes. This is a headache in itself. Especially if you're dealing with file paths. Say... 'C:/My Documents/whatever/'. If you don't have quotes, the string will often be split at the space and interpreted as two arguments. If you need nested quotes you can use ' and ". But if you need to use more than two layers of quotes, you have to do some nasty escaping, for example: "cmd /k 'python \'path 1\' \'path 2\''". A good solution to this problem is passing parameters as a list rather than as a single string. Subprocess allows you to do this. Can't easily return data from a subprocess. You can use stdout of course. But what if you want to throw a print in there for debugging purposes? That's gonna screw up the parent if it's expecting output formatted a certain way. In functions you can print one string and return another and everything works just fine. Obscure command-line flags and a crappy terminal based help system. These are problems I often run into when using os level apps. Like the /k flag I mentioned, for holding a cmd window open, who's idea was that? Unix apps don't tend to be much friendlier in this regard. Hopefully you can use google or StackOverflow to find the answer you need. But if not, you've got a lot of boring reading and frusterating trial and error to do. External factors. This one's kind of fuzzy. But when you leave the relatively sheltered harbor of your own scripts to deal with external processes you find yourself having to deal with the "outside world" to a much greater extent. And that's a scary place. All sorts of things can go wrong. Just to give a random example: the cwd in which a process is run can modify it's behavior. There are probably other issues, but those are the ones I've written down so far. Any other snags you'd like to add? Any suggestions for dealing with these problems?

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