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• ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor

  - by ScottGu

  This is another in a series of posts I’m doing that cover some of the new ASP.NET MVC 3 features: Introducing Razor (July 2nd) New @model keyword in Razor (Oct 19th) Layouts with Razor (Oct 22nd) Server-Side Comments with Razor (Nov 12th) Razor’s @: and <text> syntax (Dec 15th) Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor (Dec 16th) Layouts and Sections with Razor (Today) In today’s post I’m going to go into more details about how Layout pages work with Razor.  In particular, I’m going to cover how you can have multiple, non-contiguous, replaceable “sections” within a layout file – and enable views based on layouts to optionally “fill in” these different sections at runtime.  The Razor syntax for doing this is clean and concise. I’ll also show how you can dynamically check at runtime whether a particular layout section has been defined, and how you can provide alternate content (or even an alternate layout) in the event that a section isn’t specified within a view template.  This provides a powerful and easy way to customize the UI of your site and make it clean and DRY from an implementation perspective. What are Layouts? You typically want to maintain a consistent look and feel across all of the pages within your web-site/application.  ASP.NET 2.0 introduced the concept of “master pages” which helps enable this when using .aspx based pages or templates.  Razor also supports this concept with a feature called “layouts” – which allow you to define a common site template, and then inherit its look and feel across all the views/pages on your site. I previously discussed the basics of how layout files work with Razor in my ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts with Razor blog post.  Today’s post will go deeper and discuss how you can define multiple, non-contiguous, replaceable regions within a layout file that you can then optionally “fill in” at runtime. Site Layout Scenario Let’s look at how we can implement a common site layout scenario with ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor.  Specifically, we’ll implement some site UI where we have a common header and footer on all of our pages.  We’ll also add a “sidebar” section to the right of our common site layout.  On some pages we’ll customize the SideBar to contain content specific to the page it is included on: And on other pages (that do not have custom sidebar content) we will fall back and provide some “default content” to the sidebar: We’ll use ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor to enable this customization in a nice, clean way.  Below are some step-by-step tutorial instructions on how to build the above site with ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor. Part 1: Create a New Project with a Layout for the “Body” section We’ll begin by using the “File->New Project” menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 Project.  We’ll create the new project using the “Empty” template option: This will create a new project that has no default controllers in it: Creating a HomeController We will then right-click on the “Controllers” folder of our newly created project and choose the “Add->Controller” context menu command.  This will bring up the “Add Controller” dialog: We’ll name the new controller we create “HomeController”.  When we click the “Add” button Visual Studio will add a HomeController class to our project with a default “Index” action method that returns a view: We won’t need to write any Controller logic to implement this sample – so we’ll leave the default code as-is.  Creating a View Template Our next step will be to implement the view template associated with the HomeController’s Index action method.  To implement the view template, we will right-click within the “HomeController.Index()” method and select the “Add View” command to create a view template for our home page: This will bring up the “Add View” dialog within Visual Studio.  We do not need to change any of the default settings within the above dialog (the name of the template was auto-populated to Index because we invoked the “Add View” context menu command within the Index method).  When we click the “Add” Button within the dialog, a Razor-based “Index.cshtml” view template will be added to the \Views\Home\ folder within our project.  Let’s add some simple default static content to it: Notice above how we don’t have an <html> or <body> section defined within our view template.  This is because we are going to rely on a layout template to supply these elements and use it to define the common site layout and structure for our site (ensuring that it is consistent across all pages and URLs within the site).  Customizing our Layout File Let’s open and customize the default “_Layout.cshtml” file that was automatically added to the \Views\Shared folder when we created our new project: The default layout file (shown above) is pretty basic and simply outputs a title (if specified in either the Controller or the View template) and adds links to a stylesheet and jQuery.  The call to “RenderBody()” indicates where the main body content of our Index.cshtml file will merged into the output sent back to the browser. Let’s modify the Layout template to add a common header, footer and sidebar to the site: We’ll then edit the “Site.css” file within the \Content folder of our project and add 4 CSS rules to it: And now when we run the project and browse to the home “/” URL of our project we’ll see a page like below: Notice how the content of the HomeController’s Index view template and the site’s Shared Layout template have been merged together into a single HTML response.  Below is what the HTML sent back from the server looks like: Part 2: Adding a “SideBar” Section Our site so far has a layout template that has only one “section” in it – what we call the main “body” section of the response.  Razor also supports the ability to add additional "named sections” to layout templates as well.  These sections can be defined anywhere in the layout file (including within the <head> section of the HTML), and allow you to output dynamic content to multiple, non-contiguous, regions of the final response. Defining the “SideBar” section in our Layout Let’s update our Layout template to define an additional “SideBar” section of content that will be rendered within the <div id=”sidebar”> region of our HTML.  We can do this by calling the RenderSection(string sectionName, bool required) helper method within our Layout.cshtml file like below:   The first parameter to the “RenderSection()” helper method specifies the name of the section we want to render at that location in the layout template.  The second parameter is optional, and allows us to define whether the section we are rendering is required or not.  If a section is “required”, then Razor will throw an error at runtime if that section is not implemented within a view template that is based on the layout file (which can make it easier to track down content errors).  If a section is not required, then its presence within a view template is optional, and the above RenderSection() code will render nothing at runtime if it isn’t defined. Now that we’ve made the above change to our layout file, let’s hit refresh in our browser and see what our Home page now looks like: Notice how we currently have no content within our SideBar <div> – that is because the Index.cshtml view template doesn’t implement our new “SideBar” section yet. Implementing the “SideBar” Section in our View Template Let’s change our home-page so that it has a SideBar section that outputs some custom content.  We can do that by opening up the Index.cshtml view template, and by adding a new “SiderBar” section to it.  We’ll do this using Razor’s @section SectionName { } syntax: We could have put our SideBar @section declaration anywhere within the view template.  I think it looks cleaner when defined at the top or bottom of the file – but that is simply personal preference.  You can include any content or code you want within @section declarations.  Notice above how I have a C# code nugget that outputs the current time at the bottom of the SideBar section.  I could have also written code that used ASP.NET MVC’s HTML/AJAX helper methods and/or accessed any strongly-typed model objects passed to the Index.cshtml view template. Now that we’ve made the above template changes, when we hit refresh in our browser again we’ll see that our SideBar content – that is specific to the Home Page of our site – is now included in the page response sent back from the server: The SideBar section content has been merged into the proper location of the HTML response : Part 3: Conditionally Detecting if a Layout Section Has Been Implemented Razor provides the ability for you to conditionally check (from within a layout file) whether a section has been defined within a view template, and enables you to output an alternative response in the event that the section has not been defined.  This provides a convenient way to specify default UI for optional layout sections.  Let’s modify our Layout file to take advantage of this capability.  Below we are conditionally checking whether the “SideBar” section has been defined without the view template being rendered (using the IsSectionDefined() method), and if so we render the section.  If the section has not been defined, then we now instead render some default content for the SideBar:  Note: You want to make sure you prefix calls to the RenderSection() helper method with a @ character – which will tell Razor to execute the HelperResult it returns and merge in the section content in the appropriate place of the output.  Notice how we wrote @RenderSection(“SideBar”) above instead of just RenderSection(“SideBar”).  Otherwise you’ll get an error. Above we are simply rendering an inline static string (<p>Default SideBar Content</p>) if the section is not defined.  A real-world site would more likely refactor this default content to be stored within a separate partial template (which we’d render using the Html.RenderPartial() helper method within the else block) or alternatively use the Html.Action() helper method within the else block to encapsulate both the logic and rendering of the default sidebar. When we hit refresh on our home-page, we will still see the same custom SideBar content we had before.  This is because we implemented the SideBar section within our Index.cshtml view template (and so our Layout rendered it): Let’s now implement a “/Home/About” URL for our site by adding a new “About” action method to our HomeController: The About() action method above simply renders a view back to the client when invoked.  We can implement the corresponding view template for this action by right-clicking within the “About()” method and using the “Add View” menu command (like before) to create a new About.cshtml view template.  We’ll implement the About.cshtml view template like below. Notice that we are not defining a “SideBar” section within it: When we browse the /Home/About URL we’ll see the content we supplied above in the main body section of our response, and the default SideBar content will rendered: The layout file determined at runtime that a custom SideBar section wasn’t present in the About.cshtml view template, and instead rendered the default sidebar content. One Last Tweak… Let’s suppose that at a later point we decide that instead of rendering default side-bar content, we just want to hide the side-bar entirely from pages that don’t have any custom sidebar content defined.  We could implement this change simply by making a small modification to our layout so that the sidebar content (and its surrounding HTML chrome) is only rendered if the SideBar section is defined.  The code to do this is below: Razor is flexible enough so that we can make changes like this and not have to modify any of our view templates (nor make change any Controller logic changes) to accommodate this.  We can instead make just this one modification to our Layout file and the rest happens cleanly.  This type of flexibility makes Razor incredibly powerful and productive. Summary Razor’s layout capability enables you to define a common site template, and then inherit its look and feel across all the views/pages on your site. Razor enables you to define multiple, non-contiguous, “sections” within layout templates that can be “filled-in” by view templates.  The @section {} syntax for doing this is clean and concise.  Razor also supports the ability to dynamically check at runtime whether a particular section has been defined, and to provide alternate content (or even an alternate layout) in the event that it isn’t specified.  This provides a powerful and easy way to customize the UI of your site - and make it clean and DRY from an implementation perspective. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• The Art of Productivity

  - by dwahlin

  Getting things done has always been a challenge regardless of gender, age, race, skill, or job position. No matter how hard some people try, they end up procrastinating tasks until the last minute. Some people simply focus better when they know they’re out of time and can’t procrastinate any longer. How many times have you put off working on a term paper in school until the very last minute? With only a few hours left your mental energy and focus seem to kick in to high gear especially as you realize that you either get the paper done now or risk failing. It’s amazing how a little pressure can turn into a motivator and allow our minds to focus on a given task. Some people seem to specialize in procrastinating just about everything they do while others tend to be the “doers” who get a lot done and ultimately rise up the ladder at work. What’s the difference between these types of people? Is it pure laziness or are other factors at play? I think that some people are certainly more motivated than others, but I also think a lot of it is based on the process that “doers” tend to follow - whether knowingly or unknowingly. While I’ve certainly fought battles with procrastination, I’ve always had a knack for being able to get a lot done in a relatively short amount of time. I think a lot of my “get it done” attitude goes back to the the strong work ethic my parents instilled in me at a young age. I remember my dad saying, “You need to learn to work hard!” when I was around 5 years old. I remember that moment specifically because I was on a tractor with him the first time I heard it while he was trying to move some large rocks into a pile. The tractor was big but so were the rocks and my dad had to balance the tractor perfectly so that it didn’t tip forward too far. It was challenging work and somewhat tedious but my dad finished the task and taught me a few important lessons along the way including persistence, the importance of having a skill, and getting the job done right without skimping along the way. In this post I’m going to list a few of the techniques and processes I follow that I hope may be beneficial to others. I blogged about the general concept back in 2009 but thought I’d share some updated information and lessons learned since then. Most of the ideas that follow came from learning and refining my daily work process over the years. However, since most of the ideas are common sense (at least in my opinion), I suspect they can be found in other productivity processes that are out there. Let’s start off with one of the most important yet simple tips: Start Each Day with a List. Start Each Day with a List What are you planning to get done today? Do you keep track of everything in your head or rely on your calendar? While most of us think that we’re pretty good at managing “to do” lists strictly in our head you might be surprised at how affective writing out lists can be. By writing out tasks you’re forced to focus on the most important tasks to accomplish that day, commit yourself to those tasks, and have an easy way to track what was supposed to get done and what actually got done. Start every morning by making a list of specific tasks that you want to accomplish throughout the day. I’ll even go so far as to fill in times when I’d like to work on tasks if I have a lot of meetings or other events tying up my calendar on a given day. I’m not a big fan of using paper since I type a lot faster than I write (plus I write like a 3rd grader according to my wife), so I use the Sticky Notes feature available in Windows. Here’s an example of yesterday’s sticky note: What do you add to your list? That’s the subject of the next tip. Focus on Small Tasks It’s no secret that focusing on small, manageable tasks is more effective than trying to focus on large and more vague tasks. When you make your list each morning only add tasks that you can accomplish within a given time period. For example, if I only have 30 minutes blocked out to work on an article I don’t list “Write Article”. If I do that I’ll end up wasting 30 minutes stressing about how I’m going to get the article done in 30 minutes and ultimately get nothing done. Instead, I’ll list something like “Write Introductory Paragraphs for Article”. The next day I may add, “Write first section of article” or something that’s small and manageable – something I’m confident that I can get done. You’ll find that once you’ve knocked out several smaller tasks it’s easy to continue completing others since you want to keep the momentum going. In addition to keeping my tasks focused and small, I also make a conscious effort to limit my list to 4 or 5 tasks initially. I’ve found that if I list more than 5 tasks I feel a bit overwhelmed which hurts my productivity. It’s easy to add additional tasks as you complete others and you get the added benefit of that confidence boost of knowing that you’re being productive and getting things done as you remove tasks and add others. Getting Started is the Hardest (Yet Easiest) Part I’ve always found that getting started is the hardest part and one of the biggest contributors to procrastination. Getting started working on tasks is a lot like getting a large rock pushed to the bottom of a hill. It’s difficult to get the rock rolling at first, but once you manage to get it rocking some it’s really easy to get it rolling on its way to the bottom. As an example, I’ve written 100s of articles for technical magazines over the years and have really struggled with the initial introductory paragraphs. Keep in mind that these are the paragraphs that don’t really add that much value (in my opinion anyway). They introduce the reader to the subject matter and nothing more. What a waste of time for me to sit there stressing about how to start the article. On more than one occasion I’ve spent more than an hour trying to come up with 2-3 paragraphs of text.  Talk about a productivity killer! Whether you’re struggling with a writing task, some code for a project, an email, or other tasks, jumping in without thinking too much is the best way to get started I’ve found. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have an overall plan when jumping into a task, but on some occasions you’ll find that if you simply jump into the task and stop worrying about doing everything perfectly that things will flow more smoothly. For my introductory paragraph problem I give myself 5 minutes to write out some general concepts about what I know the article will cover and then spend another 10-15 minutes going back and refining that information. That way I actually have some ideas to work with rather than a blank sheet of paper. If I still find myself struggling I’ll write the rest of the article first and then circle back to the introductory paragraphs once I’m done. To sum this tip up: Jump into a task without thinking too hard about it. It’s better to to get the rock at the top of the hill rocking some than doing nothing at all. You can always go back and refine your work.   Learn a Productivity Technique and Stick to It There are a lot of different productivity programs and seminars out there being sold by companies. I’ve always laughed at how much money people spend on some of these motivational programs/seminars because I think that being productive isn’t that hard if you create a re-useable set of steps and processes to follow. That’s not to say that some of these programs/seminars aren’t worth the money of course because I know they’ve definitely benefited some people that have a hard time getting things done and staying focused. One of the best productivity techniques I’ve ever learned is called the “Pomodoro Technique” and it’s completely free. This technique is an extremely simple way to manage your time without having to remember a bunch of steps, color coding mechanisms, or other processes. The technique was originally developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 80s and can be implemented with a simple timer. In a nutshell here’s how the technique works: Pick a task to work on Set the timer to 25 minutes and work on the task Once the timer rings record your time Take a 5 minute break Repeat the process Here’s why the technique works well for me: It forces me to focus on a single task for 25 minutes. In the past I had no time goal in mind and just worked aimlessly on a task until I got interrupted or bored. 25 minutes is a small enough chunk of time for me to stay focused. Any distractions that may come up have to wait until after the timer goes off. If the distraction is really important then I stop the timer and record my time up to that point. When the timer is running I act as if I only have 25 minutes total for the task (like you’re down to the last 25 minutes before turning in your term paper….frantically working to get it done) which helps me stay focused and turns into a “beat the clock” type of game. It’s actually kind of fun if you treat it that way and really helps me focus on a the task at hand. I automatically know how much time I’m spending on a given task (more on this later) by using this technique. I know that I have 5 minutes after each pomodoro (the 25 minute sprint) to waste on anything I’d like including visiting a website, stepping away from the computer, etc. which also helps me stay focused when the 25 minute timer is counting down. I use this technique so much that I decided to build a program for Windows 8 called Pomodoro Focus (I plan to blog about how it was built in a later post). It’s a Windows Store application that allows people to track tasks, productive time spent on tasks, interruption time experienced while working on a given task, and the number of pomodoros completed. If a time estimate is given when the task is initially created, Pomodoro Focus will also show the task completion percentage. I like it because it allows me to track my tasks, time spent on tasks (very useful in the consulting world), and even how much time I wasted on tasks (pressing the pause button while working on a task starts the interruption timer). I recently added a new feature that charts productive and interruption time for tasks since I wanted to see how productive I was from week to week and month to month. A few screenshots from the Pomodoro Focus app are shown next, I had a lot of fun building it and use it myself to as I work on tasks.   There are certainly many other productivity techniques and processes out there (and a slew of books describing them), but the Pomodoro Technique has been the simplest and most effective technique I’ve ever come across for staying focused and getting things done.   Persistence is Key Getting things done is great but one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that persistence is key especially when you’re trying to get something done that at times seems insurmountable. Small tasks ultimately lead to larger tasks getting accomplished, however, it’s not all roses along the way as some of the smaller tasks may come with their own share of bumps and bruises that lead to discouragement about the end goal and whether or not it is worth achieving at all. I’ve been on several long-term projects over my career as a software developer (I have one personal project going right now that fits well here) and found that repeating, “Persistence is the key!” over and over to myself really helps. Not every project turns out to be successful, but if you don’t show persistence through the hard times you’ll never know if you succeeded or not. Likewise, if you don’t persistently stick to the process of creating a daily list, follow a productivity process, etc. then the odds of consistently staying productive aren’t good.   Track Your Time How much time do you actually spend working on various tasks? If you don’t currently track time spent answering emails, on phone calls, and working on various tasks then you might be surprised to find out that a task that you thought was going to take you 30 minutes ultimately ended up taking 2 hours. If you don’t track the time you spend working on tasks how can you expect to learn from your mistakes, optimize your time better, and become more productive? That’s another reason why I like the Pomodoro Technique – it makes it easy to stay focused on tasks while also tracking how much time I’m working on a given task.   Eliminate Distractions I blogged about this final tip several years ago but wanted to bring it up again. If you want to be productive (and ultimately successful at whatever you’re doing) then you can’t waste a lot of time playing games or on Twitter, Facebook, or other time sucking websites. If you see an article you’re interested in that has no relation at all to the tasks you’re trying to accomplish then bookmark it and read it when you have some spare time (such as during a pomodoro break). Fighting the temptation to check your friends’ status updates on Facebook? Resist the urge and realize how much those types of activities are hurting your productivity and taking away from your focus. I’ll admit that eliminating distractions is still tough for me personally and something I have to constantly battle. But, I’ve made a conscious decision to cut back on my visits and updates to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites. Sure, my Klout score has suffered as a result lately, but does anyone actually care about those types of scores aside from your online “friends” (few of whom you’ve actually met in person)? :-) Ultimately it comes down to self-discipline and how badly you want to be productive and successful in your career, life goals, hobbies, or whatever you’re working on. Rather than having your homepage take you to a time wasting news site, game site, social site, picture site, or others, how about adding something like the following as your homepage? Every time your browser opens you’ll see a personal message which helps keep you on the right track. You can download my ubber-sophisticated homepage here if interested. Summary Is there a single set of steps that if followed can ultimately lead to productivity? I don’t think so since one size has never fit all. Every person is different, works in their own unique way, and has their own set of motivators, distractions, and more. While I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on the subject of productivity, I do think that if you learn what steps work best for you and gradually refine them over time that you can come up with a personal productivity process that can serve you well. Productivity is definitely an “art” that anyone can learn with a little practice and persistence. You’ve seen some of the steps that I personally like to follow and I hope you find some of them useful in boosting your productivity. If you have others you use please leave a comment. I’m always looking for ways to improve.

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• Announcing the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 for .NET

  - by ScottGu

  Today we released the v2.1 update of the Windows Azure SDK for .NET.  This is a major refresh of the Windows Azure SDK and it includes some great new features and enhancements. These new capabilities include: Visual Studio 2013 Preview Support: The Windows Azure SDK now supports using the new VS 2013 Preview Visual Studio 2013 VM Image: Windows Azure now has a built-in VM image that you can use to host and develop with VS 2013 in the cloud Visual Studio Server Explorer Enhancements: Redesigned with improved filtering and auto-loading of subscription resources Virtual Machines: Start and Stop VM’s w/suspend billing directly from within Visual Studio Cloud Services: New Emulator Express option with reduced footprint and Run as Normal User support Service Bus: New high availability options, Notification Hub support, Improved VS tooling PowerShell Automation: Lots of new PowerShell commands for automating Web Sites, Cloud Services, VMs and more All of these SDK enhancements are now available to start using immediately and you can download the SDK from the Windows Azure .NET Developer Center.  Visual Studio’s Team Foundation Service (http://tfs.visualstudio.com/) has also been updated to support today’s SDK 2.1 release, and the SDK 2.1 features can now be used with it (including with automated builds + tests). Below are more details on the new features and capabilities released today: Visual Studio 2013 Preview Support Today’s Window Azure SDK 2.1 release adds support for the recent Visual Studio 2013 Preview. The 2.1 SDK also works with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012, and works side by side with the previous Windows Azure SDK 1.8 and 2.0 releases. To install the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 on your local computer, choose the “install the sdk” link from the Windows Azure .NET Developer Center. Then, chose which version of Visual Studio you want to use it with.  Clicking the third link will install the SDK with the latest VS 2013 Preview: If you don’t already have the Visual Studio 2013 Preview installed on your machine, this will also install Visual Studio Express 2013 Preview for Web. Visual Studio 2013 VM Image Hosted in the Cloud One of the requests we’ve heard from several customers has been to have the ability to host Visual Studio within the cloud (avoiding the need to install anything locally on your computer). With today’s SDK update we’ve added a new VM image to the Windows Azure VM Gallery that has Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Preview, SharePoint 2013, SQL Server 2012 Express and the Windows Azure 2.1 SDK already installed on it.  This provides a really easy way to create a development environment in the cloud with the latest tools. With the recent shutdown and suspend billing feature we shipped on Windows Azure last month, you can spin up the image only when you want to do active development, and then shut down the virtual machine and not have to worry about usage charges while the virtual machine is not in use. You can create your own VS image in the cloud by using the New->Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery menu within the Windows Azure Management Portal, and then by selecting the “Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Preview” template: Visual Studio Server Explorer: Improved Filtering/Management of Subscription Resources With the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 release you’ll notice significant improvements in the Visual Studio Server Explorer. The explorer has been redesigned so that all Windows Azure services are now contained under a single Windows Azure node.  From the top level node you can now manage your Windows Azure credentials, import a subscription file or filter Server Explorer to only show services from particular subscriptions or regions. Note: The Web Sites and Mobile Services nodes will appear outside the Windows Azure Node until the final release of VS 2013. If you have installed the ASP.NET and Web Tools Preview Refresh, though, the Web Sites node will appear inside the Windows Azure node even with the VS 2013 Preview. Once your subscription information is added, Windows Azure services from all your subscriptions are automatically enumerated in the Server Explorer. You no longer need to manually add services to Server Explorer individually. This provides a convenient way of viewing all of your cloud services, storage accounts, service bus namespaces, virtual machines, and web sites from one location: Subscription and Region Filtering Support Using the Windows Azure node in Server Explorer, you can also now filter your Windows Azure services in the Server Explorer by the subscription or region they are in.  If you have multiple subscriptions but need to focus your attention to just a few subscription for some period of time, this a handy way to hide the services from other subscriptions view until they become relevant. You can do the same sort of filtering by region. To enable this, just select “Filter Services” from the context menu on the Windows Azure node: Then choose the subscriptions and/or regions you want to filter by. In the below example, I’ve decided to show services from my pay-as-you-go subscription within the East US region: Visual Studio will then automatically filter the items that show up in the Server Explorer appropriately: With storage accounts and service bus namespaces, you sometimes need to work with services outside your subscription. To accommodate that scenario, those services allow you to attach an external account (from the context menu). You’ll notice that external accounts have a slightly different icon in server explorer to indicate they are from outside your subscription. Other Improvements We’ve also improved the Server Explorer by adding additional properties and actions to the service exposed. You now have access to most of the properties on a cloud service, deployment slot, role or role instance as well as the properties on storage accounts, virtual machines and web sites. Just select the object of interest in Server Explorer and view the properties in the property pane. We also now have full support for creating/deleting/update storage tables, blobs and queues from directly within Server Explorer.  Simply right-click on the appropriate storage account node and you can create them directly within Visual Studio: Virtual Machines: Start/Stop within Visual Studio Virtual Machines now have context menu actions that allow you start, shutdown, restart and delete a Virtual Machine directly within the Visual Studio Server Explorer. The shutdown action enables you to shut down the virtual machine and suspend billing when the VM is not is use, and easily restart it when you need it: This is especially useful in Dev/Test scenarios where you can start a VM – such as a SQL Server – during your development session and then shut it down / suspend billing when you are not developing (and no longer be billed for it). You can also now directly remote desktop into VMs using the “Connect using Remote Desktop” context menu command in VS Server Explorer.  Cloud Services: Emulator Express with Run as Normal User Support You can now launch Visual Studio and run your cloud services locally as a Normal User (without having to elevate to an administrator account) using a new Emulator Express option included as a preview feature with this SDK release.  Emulator Express is a version of the Windows Azure Compute Emulator that runs a restricted mode – one instance per role – and it doesn’t require administrative permissions and uses 40% less resources than the full Windows Azure Emulator. Emulator Express supports both web and worker roles. To run your application locally using the Emulator Express option, simply change the following settings in the Windows Azure project. On the shortcut menu for the Windows Azure project, choose Properties, and then choose the Web tab. Check the setting for IIS (Internet Information Services). Make sure that the option is set to IIS Express, not the full version of IIS. Emulator Express is not compatible with full IIS. On the Web tab, choose the option for Emulator Express. Service Bus: Notification Hubs With the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 release we are adding support for Windows Azure Notification Hubs as part of our official Windows Azure SDK, inside of Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll (previously the Notification Hub functionality was in a preview assembly). You are now able to create, update and delete Notification Hubs programmatically, manage your device registrations, and send push notifications to all your mobile clients across all platforms (Windows Store, Windows Phone 8, iOS, and Android). Learn more about Notification Hubs on MSDN here, or watch the Notification Hubs //BUILD/ presentation here. Service Bus: Paired Namespaces One of the new features included with today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.1 release is support for Service Bus “Paired Namespaces”.  Paired Namespaces enable you to better handle situations where a Service Bus service namespace becomes unavailable (for example: due to connectivity issues or an outage) and you are unable to send or receive messages to the namespace hosting the queue, topic, or subscription. Previously,to handle this scenario you had to manually setup separate namespaces that can act as a backup, then implement manual failover and retry logic which was sometimes tricky to get right. Service Bus now supports Paired Namespaces, which enables you to connect two namespaces together. When you activate the secondary namespace, messages are stored in the secondary queue for delivery to the primary queue at a later time. If the primary container (namespace) becomes unavailable for some reason, automatic failover enables the messages in the secondary queue. For detailed information about paired namespaces and high availability, see the new topic Asynchronous Messaging Patterns and High Availability. Service Bus: Tooling Improvements In this release, the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio contain several enhancements and changes to the management of Service Bus messaging entities using Visual Studio’s Server Explorer. The most noticeable change is that the Service Bus node is now integrated into the Windows Azure node, and supports integrated subscription management. Additionally, there has been a change to the code generated by the Windows Azure Worker Role with Service Bus Queue project template. This code now uses an event-driven “message pump” programming model using the QueueClient.OnMessage method. PowerShell: Tons of New Automation Commands Since my last blog post on the previous Windows Azure SDK 2.0 release, we’ve updated Windows Azure PowerShell (which is a separate download) five times. You can find the full change log here. We’ve added new cmdlets in the following areas: China instance and Windows Azure Pack support Environment Configuration VMs Cloud Services Web Sites Storage SQL Azure Service Bus China Instance and Windows Azure Pack We now support the following cmdlets for the China instance and Windows Azure Pack, respectively: China Instance: Web Sites, Service Bus, Storage, Cloud Service, VMs, Network Windows Azure Pack: Web Sites, Service Bus We will have full cmdlet support for these two Windows Azure environments in PowerShell in the near future. Virtual Machines: Stop/Start Virtual Machines Similar to the Start/Stop VM capability in VS Server Explorer, you can now stop your VM and suspend billing: If you want to keep the original behavior of keeping your stopped VM provisioned, you can pass in the -StayProvisioned switch parameter. Virtual Machines: VM endpoint ACLs We’ve added and updated a bunch of cmdlets for you to configure fine-grained network ACL on your VM endpoints. You can use the following cmdlets to create ACL config and apply them to a VM endpoint: New-AzureAclConfig Get-AzureAclConfig Set-AzureAclConfig Remove-AzureAclConfig Add-AzureEndpoint -ACL Set-AzureEndpoint –ACL The following example shows how to add an ACL rule to an existing endpoint of a VM. Other improvements for Virtual Machine management includes Added -NoWinRMEndpoint parameter to New-AzureQuickVM and Add-AzureProvisioningConfig to disable Windows Remote Management Added -DirectServerReturn parameter to Add-AzureEndpoint and Set-AzureEndpoint to enable/disable direct server return Added Set-AzureLoadBalancedEndpoint cmdlet to modify load balanced endpoints Cloud Services: Remote Desktop and Diagnostics Remote Desktop and Diagnostics are popular debugging options for Cloud Services. We’ve introduced cmdlets to help you configure these two Cloud Service extensions from Windows Azure PowerShell. Windows Azure Cloud Services Remote Desktop extension: New-AzureServiceRemoteDesktopExtensionConfig Get-AzureServiceRemoteDesktopExtension Set-AzureServiceRemoteDesktopExtension Remove-AzureServiceRemoteDesktopExtension Windows Azure Cloud Services Diagnostics extension New-AzureServiceDiagnosticsExtensionConfig Get-AzureServiceDiagnosticsExtension Set-AzureServiceDiagnosticsExtension Remove-AzureServiceDiagnosticsExtension The following example shows how to enable Remote Desktop for a Cloud Service. Web Sites: Diagnostics With our last SDK update, we introduced the Get-AzureWebsiteLog –Tail cmdlet to get the log streaming of your Web Sites. Recently, we’ve also added cmdlets to configure Web Site application diagnostics: Enable-AzureWebsiteApplicationDiagnostic Disable-AzureWebsiteApplicationDiagnostic The following 2 examples show how to enable application diagnostics to the file system and a Windows Azure Storage Table: SQL Database Previously, you had to know the SQL Database server admin username and password if you want to manage the database in that SQL Database server. Recently, we’ve made the experience much easier by not requiring the admin credential if the database server is in your subscription. So you can simply specify the -ServerName parameter to tell Windows Azure PowerShell which server you want to use for the following cmdlets. Get-AzureSqlDatabase New-AzureSqlDatabase Remove-AzureSqlDatabase Set-AzureSqlDatabase We’ve also added a -AllowAllAzureServices parameter to New-AzureSqlDatabaseServerFirewallRule so that you can easily add a firewall rule to whitelist all Windows Azure IP addresses. Besides the above experience improvements, we’ve also added cmdlets get the database server quota and set the database service objective. Check out the following cmdlets for details. Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServerQuota Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServiceObjective Set-AzureSqlDatabase –ServiceObjective Storage and Service Bus Other new cmdlets include Storage: CRUD cmdlets for Azure Tables and Queues Service Bus: Cmdlets for managing authorization rules on your Service Bus Namespace, Queue, Topic, Relay and NotificationHub Summary Today’s release includes a bunch of great features that enable you to build even better cloud solutions.  All the above features/enhancements are shipped and available to use immediately as part of the 2.1 release of the Windows Azure SDK for .NET. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• eBooks on iPad vs. Kindle: More Debate than Smackdown

  - by andrewbrust

  When the iPad was presented at its San Francisco launch event on January 28th, Steve Jobs spent a significant amount of time explaining how well the device would serve as an eBook reader. He showed the iBooks reader application and iBookstore and laid down the gauntlet before Amazon and its beloved Kindle device. Almost immediately afterwards, criticism came rushing forth that the iPad could never beat the Kindle for book reading. The curious part of that criticism is that virtually no one offering it had actually used the iPad yet. A few weeks later, on April 3rd, the iPad was released for sale in the United States. I bought one on that day and in the few additional weeks that have elapsed, I’ve given quite a workout to most of its capabilities, including its eBook features. I’ve also spent some time with the Kindle, albeit a first-generation model, to see how it actually compares to the iPad. I had some expectations going in, but I came away with conclusions about each device that were more scenario-based than absolute. I present my findings to you here.   Vital Statistics Let’s start with an inventory of each device’s underlying technology. The iPad has a color, backlit LCD screen and an on-screen keyboard. It has a battery which, on a full charge, lasts anywhere from 6-10 hours. The Kindle offers a monochrome, reflective E Ink display, a physical keyboard and a battery that on my first gen loaner unit can go up to a week between charges (Amazon claims the battery on the Kindle 2 can last up to 2 weeks on a single charge). The Kindle connects to Amazon’s Kindle Store using a 3G modem (the technology and network vary depending on the model) that incurs no airtime service charges whatsoever. The iPad units that are on-sale today work over WiFi only. 3G-equipped models will be on sale shortly and will command a $130 premium over their WiFi-only counterparts. 3G service on the iPad, in the U.S. from AT&T, will be fee-based, with a 250MB plan at $14.99 per month and an unlimited plan at $29.99. No contract is required for 3G service. All these tech specs aside, I think a more useful observation is that the iPad is a multi-purpose Internet-connected entertainment device, while the Kindle is a dedicated reading device. The question is whether those differences in design and intended use create a clear-cut winner for reading electronic publications. Let’s take a look at each device, in isolation, now.   Kindle To me, what’s most innovative about the Kindle is its E Ink display. E Ink really looks like ink on a sheet of paper. It requires no backlight, it’s fully visible in direct sunlight and it causes almost none of the eyestrain that LCD-based computer display technology (like that used on the iPad) does. It’s really versatile in an all-around way. Forgive me if this sounds precious, but reading on it is really a joy. In fact, it’s a genuinely relaxing experience. Through the Kindle Store, Amazon allows users to download books (including audio books), magazines, newspapers and blog feeds. Books and magazines can be purchased either on a single-issue basis or as an annual subscription. Books, of course, are purchased singly. Oddly, blogs are not free, but instead carry a monthly subscription fee, typically $1.99. To me this is ludicrous, but I suppose the free 3G service is partially to blame. Books and magazine issues download quickly. Magazine and blog subscriptions cause new issues or posts to be pushed to your device on an automated basis. Available blogs include 9000-odd feeds that Amazon offers on the Kindle Store; unless I missed something, arbitrary RSS feeds are not supported (though there are third party workarounds to this limitation). The shopping experience is integrated well, has an huge selection, and offers certain graphical perks. For example, magazine and newspaper logos are displayed in menus, and book cover thumbnails appear as well. A simple search mechanism is provided and text entry through the physical keyboard is relatively painless. It’s very easy and straightforward to enter the store, find something you like and start reading it quickly. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s even faster. Given Kindle’s high portability, very reliable battery, instant-on capability and highly integrated content acquisition, it makes reading on whim, and in random spurts of downtime, very attractive. The Kindle’s home screen lists all of your publications, and easily lets you select one, then start reading it. Once opened, publications display in crisp, attractive text that is adjustable in size. “Turning” pages is achieved through buttons dedicated to the task. Notes can be recorded, bookmarks can be saved and pages can be saved as clippings. I am not an avid book reader, and yet I found the Kindle made it really fun, convenient and soothing to read. There’s something about the easy access to the material and the simplicity of the display that makes the Kindle seduce you into chilling out and reading page after page. On the other hand, the Kindle has an awkward navigation interface. While menus are displayed clearly on the screen, the method of selecting menu items is tricky: alongside the right-hand edge of the main display is a thin column that acts as a second display. It has a white background, and a scrollable silver cursor that is moved up or down through the use of the device’s scrollwheel. Picking a menu item on the main display involves scrolling the silver cursor to a position parallel to that menu item and pushing the scrollwheel in. This navigation technique creates a disconnect, literally. You don’t really click on a selection so much as you gesture toward it. I got used to this technique quickly, but I didn’t love it. It definitely created a kind of anxiety in me, making me feel the need to speed through menus and get to my destination document quickly. Once there, I could calm down and relax. Books are great on the Kindle. Magazines and newspapers much less so. I found the rendering of photographs, and even illustrations, to be unacceptably crude. For this reason, I expect that reading textbooks on the Kindle may leave students wanting. I found that the original flow and layout of any publication was sacrificed on the Kindle. In effect, browsing a magazine or newspaper was almost impossible. Reading the text of individual articles was enjoyable, but having to read this way made the whole experience much more “a la carte” than cohesive and thematic between articles. I imagine that for academic journals this is ideal, but for consumer publications it imposes a stripped-down, low-fidelity experience that evokes a sense of deprivation. In general, the Kindle is great for reading text. For just about anything else, especially activity that involves exploratory browsing, meandering and short-attention-span reading, it presents a real barrier to entry and adoption. Avid book readers will enjoy the Kindle (if they’re not already). It’s a great device for losing oneself in a book over long sittings. Multitaskers who are more interested in periodicals, be they online or off, will like it much less, as they will find compromise, and even sacrifice, to be palpable.   iPad The iPad is a very different device from the Kindle. While the Kindle is oriented to pages of text, the iPad orbits around applications and their interfaces. Be it the pinch and zoom experience in the browser, the rich media features that augment content on news and weather sites, or the ability to interact with social networking services like Twitter, the iPad is versatile. While it shares a slate-like form factor with the Kindle, it’s effectively an elegant personal computer. One of its many features is the iBook application and integration of the iBookstore. But it’s a multi-purpose device. That turns out to be good and bad, depending on what you’re reading. The iBookstore is great for browsing. It’s color, rich animation-laden user interface make it possible to shop for books, rather than merely search and acquire them. Unfortunately, its selection is rather sparse at the moment. If you’re looking for a New York Times bestseller, or other popular titles, you should be OK. If you want to read something more specialized, it’s much harder. Unlike the awkward navigation interface of the Kindle, the iPad offers a nearly flawless touch-screen interface that seduces the user into tinkering and kibitzing every bit as much as the Kindle lulls you into a deep, concentrated read. It’s a dynamic and interactive device, whereas the Kindle is static and passive. The iBook reader is slick and fun. Use the iPad in landscape mode and you can read the book in 2-up (left/right 2-page) display; use it in portrait mode and you can read one page at a time. Rather than clicking a hardware button to turn pages, you simply drag and wipe from right-to-left to flip the single or right-hand page. The page actually travels through an animated path as it would in a physical book. The intuitiveness of the interface is uncanny. The reader also accommodates saving of bookmarks, searching of the text, and the ability to highlight a word and look it up in a dictionary. Pages display brightly and clearly. They’re easy to read. But the backlight and the glare made me less comfortable than I was with the Kindle. The knowledge that completely different applications (including the Web and email and Twitter) were just a few taps away made me antsy and very tempted to task-switch. The knowledge that battery life is an issue created subtle discomfort. If the Kindle makes you feel like you’re in a library reading room, then the iPad makes you feel, at best, like you’re under fluorescent lights at a Barnes and Noble or Borders store. If you’re lucky, you’d be on a couch or at a reading table in the store, but you might also be standing up, in the aisles. Clearly, I didn’t find this conducive to focused and sustained reading. But that may have more to do with my own tendency to read periodicals far more than books, and my neurotic . And, truth be known, the book reading experience, when not explicitly compared to Kindle’s, was still pleasant. It is also important to point out that Kindle Store-sourced books can be read on the iPad through a Kindle reader application, from Amazon, specific to the device. This offered a less rich experience than the iBooks reader, but it was completely adequate. Despite the Kindle brand of the reader, however, it offered little in terms of simulating the reading experience on its namesake device. When it comes to periodicals, the iPad wins hands down. Magazines, even if merely scanned images of their print editions, read on the iPad in a way that felt similar to reading hard copy. The full color display, touch navigation and even the ability to render advertisements in their full glory makes the iPad a great way to read through any piece of work that is measured in pages, rather than chapters. There are many ways to get magazines and newspapers onto the iPad, including the Zinio reader, and publication-specific applications like the Wall Street Journal’s and Popular Science’s. The New York Times’ free Editors’ Choice application offers a Times Reader-like interface to a subset of the Gray Lady’s daily content. The completely Web-based but iPad-optimized Times Skimmer site (at www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer) works well too. Even conventional Web sites themselves can be read much like magazines, given the iPad’s ability to zoom in on the text and crop out advertisements on the margins. While the Kindle does have an experimental Web browser, it reminded me a lot of early mobile phone browsers, only in a larger size. For text-heavy sites with simple layout, it works fine. For just about anything else, it becomes more trouble than it’s worth. And given the way magazine articles make me think of things I want to look up online, I think that’s a real liability for the Kindle.   Summing Up What I came to realize is that the Kindle isn’t so much a computer or even an Internet device as it is a printer. While it doesn’t use physical paper, it still renders its content a page at a time, just like a laser printer does, and its output appears strikingly similar. You can read the rendered text, but you can’t interact with it in any way. That’s why the navigation requires a separate cursor display area. And because of the page-oriented rendering behavior, turning pages causes a flash on the display and requires a sometimes long pause before the next page is rendered. The good side of this is that once the page is generated, no battery power is required to display it. That makes for great battery life, optimal viewing under most lighting conditions (as long as there is some light) and low-eyestrain text-centric display of content. The Kindle is highly portable, has an excellent selection in its store and is refreshingly distraction-free. All of this is ideal for reading books. And iPad doesn’t offer any of it. What iPad does offer is versatility, variety, richness and luxury. It’s flush with accoutrements even if it’s low on focused, sustained text display. That makes it inferior to the Kindle for book reading. But that also makes it better than the Kindle for almost everything else. As such, and given that its book reading experience is still decent (even if not superior), I think the iPad will give Kindle a run for its money. True book lovers, and people on a budget, will want the Kindle. People with a robust amount of discretionary income may want both devices. Everyone else who is interested in a slate form factor e-reading device, especially if they also wish to have leisure-friendly Internet access, will likely choose the iPad exclusively. One thing is for sure: iPad has reduced Kindle’s market, and may have shifted its mass market potential to a mere niche play. If Amazon is smart, it will improve its iPad-based Kindle reader app significantly. It can then leverage the iPad channel as a significant market for the Kindle Store. After all, selling the eBooks themselves is what Amazon should care most about.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 28, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 28, 2010New ProjectsBang: BangBox Office: Event Management for Community Theater Groups: Box Office is an event management web application to help theater groups manage & promote their shows. Manage performance schedules, sell tickets, ...CellsOnWeb: El espacio de las células del Programa Académico Microsoft en Argentina. CRM 4.0 Plugin Queue Item Counter: This is a crm 4.0 plugin to count queue items in each folder and display the number at the end of the name. For example, if the queue name is "Tes...Date Calculator: Date Calculator is a small desktop utility developed using Windows Forms .NET technology. This utility is analogous to the "Date calculation" modul...Enterprise Library Investigate: Enterprise Library Investigate ProjecteProject Management: Ứng dụng nền tảng web hỗ trợ quản lí và giám sát tiến độ dự án của tổ chức doanh nghiệp.Fiddler TreeView Panel Extension: Extension for Fiddler, to display the session information in a TreeView panel instead of the default ListBox, so it groups the information logicall...Git Source Control Provider: Git Source Control Provider is a Visual Studio Plug-in that integrates Git with Visual Studio.InspurProjects: Project on Inspur Co.Kryptonite: The Kryptonite project aims to improve development of websites based on the Kentico CMS. MLang .NET Wrapper: Detect the encoding of a text without BOM (Byte Order Mask) and choose the best Encoding for persistence or network transport of textMondaze: Proof of concept using Windows Azure.MultipointControls: A collection of controls that applied Windows Multipoint Mouse SDK. Windows Multipoint Mouse SDK enable app to have multiple mice interact simultan...Mundo De Bloques: "Mundo de bloques" makes it easier for analists to find the shortest way between two states in a problem using an heuristic function for Artificial...MyRPGtests: Just some tests :)OffInvoice Add-in for MS Office 2010: Project Description: The project it's based in the ability to extend funtionality in the Microsoft Office 2010 suite.OpenGraph .NET: A C# client for the Facebook Graph API. Supports desktop, web, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight connections and real-time updates. PLEASE NOTE: I dis...Portable Extensible Metadata (PEM) Data Annotation Generator: This project intends to help developers who uses PEM - Portable Extensible Metadata for Entity Framework generating Data Annotation information fro...Production and sale of plastic window systems: Automation company produces window design, production and sale of plastic window systems, management of sales contracts and their execution, print ...Renjian Storm (Renjian Image Viewer Uploader): Renjian Image Viewer UploaderShark Web Intelligence CMS: Shark Web Intelligence Inc. Content Management System.Shuffleboard Game for Windows Phone 7: This is a sample Shuffleboard game written in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7. It demonstrates physics, procedural animation, perspective transform...Silverlight Property Grid: Visual Studio Style PropertyGrid for Silverlight.SvnToTfs: Simple tool that migrates every Subversion revision toward Team Foundation Server 2010. It is developed in C# witn a WPF front-end.Tamias: Basic Cms Mvc Contrib Portable Area: The goal of this project is to have a easy-to-integrate basic cms for ASP.NET MVC applications based on MVC Contrib Portable Areas.TwitBy: TwitBy is a Twitter client for anyone who uses Twitter. It's easy to use and all of the major features are there. More features to come. H...Under Construction: A simple site that can be used as a splash for sites being upgraded or developed. UO Editor: The Owner & Organisation Editor makes it easy to view and edit the names of the registered owner and registered organization for your Windows OS. N...webform2010: this is the test projectWireless Network: ssWiX Toolset: The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line en...Xna.Extend: A collection of easy to use Xna components for aiding a game programmer in developing thee next big thing. I plan on using the components from this...New ReleasesA Guide to Parallel Programming: Drop 4 - Guide Preface, Chapters 1 - 5, and code: This is Drop 4 with Guide Preface, Chapters 1 - 5, and References, and the accompanying code samples. This drop requires Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 ...Ajax Toolkit for ASP.NET MVC: MAT 1.1: MAT 1.1Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V09: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release solves ...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V10: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V11: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...CSS 360 Planetary Calendar: Beta Release: =============================================================================== Beta Release Version: 0.2 Description: This is the beta release de...Date Calculator: DateCalculator v1.0: This is the first release and as far as I know this is a stable version.eComic: eComic 2010.0.0.4: Version 2010.0.0.4 Change LogFixed issues in the "Full Screen Control Panel" causing it to lack translucence Added loupe magnification control ...Expression Encoder Batch Processor: Runtime Application v0.2: New in this version: Added more error handling if files not exist. Added button/feature to quit after current encoding job. Added code to handl...Fiddler TreeView Panel Extension: FiddlerTreeViewPanel 0.7: Initial compiled version of the assembly, ready to use. Please refer to http://fiddlertreeviewpanel.codeplex.com/ for instructions and installation.Gardens Point LEX: Gardens Point LEX v1.1.4: The main distribution is a zip file. This contains the binary executable, documentation, source code and the examples. ChangesVersion 1.1.4 corre...Gardens Point Parser Generator: Gardens Point Parser Generator v1.4.1: Version 1.4.1 differs from version 1.4.0 only in containing a corrected version of a previously undocumented feature which allows the generation of...IsWiX: IsWiX 1.0.264.0: Build 1.0.264.0 - built against Fireworks 1.0.264.0. Adds support for autogenerating the SourceDir prepreprocessor variable and gives user choice t...Matrix: Matrix 0.5.2: Updated licenseMesopotamia Experiment: Mesopotamia 1.2.90: Release Notes - Ugraded to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 Bug Fixes - Fix to keep any sole organisms that penetrate to the next fitne...Microsoft Crm 4.0 Filtered Lookup: Microsoft Crm 4.0 Filtered Lookup: How to use: Allow passing custom querystring values: Create a DWORD registry key named [DisableParameterFilter] under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWAR...MSBuild Extension Pack: May 2010: The MSBuild Extension Pack May 2010 release provides a collection of over 340 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover...MultiPoint Vote: MultiPointVote v.1: This accepts user inputs: number of participants, poll/survey title and the list of options A text file containing the items listed line per line...Mundo De Bloques: Mundo de Bloques, Release 1: "Mundo de bloques" makes it easier for analists to find the shortest way between two states in a problem using an heuristic function for Artificial...OffInvoice Add-in for MS Office 2010: OffInvoice for Office 2010 V1.0 Installer: Add-in for MS Word 2010 or MS Excel 2010 to allow the management (issuing, visualization and reception) of electronic invoices, based in the XML fo...OpenGraph .NET: 0.9.1 Beta: This is the first public release of OpenGraph .NET.patterns & practices: Composite WPF and Silverlight: Prism v2.2 - May 2010 Release: Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight - May 2010 Release (Prism V2.2) The Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight ...Portable Extensible Metadata (PEM) Data Annotation Generator: Release 49376: First release.Production and sale of plastic window systems: Yanuary 2009: NOTEBefore loading program, make sure you have installed MySQL and created DataBase that store in Source Code (look at below) Where Is The Source?...PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT--3.2: The current version of the Programmable Software Development Environment has the capability of reading an optional text file in each source develop...Rapidshare Episode Downloader: RED 0.8.6: - Fixed Edit form to actually save the data - Added Bypass Validation to enable future episodes - Added Search parameter to Edit form - Added refr...Renjian Storm (Renjian Image Viewer Uploader): Renjian Storm 0.6: 人间风暴 v0.6 稳定版sELedit: sELedit v1.1b: + Fixed: when export and import items to text files, there was a bug with "NULL" bytes in the unicode stringShake - C# Make: Shake v0.1.21: Changes: FileTask CopyDir method modified, see documentationSharePoint Labs: SPLab7001A-ENU-Level100: SPLab7001A-ENU-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach how to analyze and audit WSP files. WSP files are somewhere in a no man's land between ITPro...SharePoint Rsync List: 1.0.0.3: Fix spcontext dispose bug in menu try and run jobs only on central admin server mark a single file failure if file not copied don't delete destinat...Shuffleboard Game for Windows Phone 7: Shuffleboard 1.0.0.1: Source code, solution files, and assets.Software Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+04: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+04SoulHackers Demon Unite(Chinese version): WPFClient pre alpha: can unite 2, 3 or more demons. can un-unite 1 demon to 2 demon (no triple un-unite yet).Team Deploy: Team Deploy 2010 R1: This is the initial release for Team Deploy 2010 for TFS Team Build 2010. All features from Team Build 2.x are functional in this version. Comple...Under Construction: Under Construction: All Files required to show under construction page. The Page will pull through the Domain name that the site is being run on this allows you to use...Unit Driven: Version 0.0.5: - Tests nested by namespace parts. - Run buttons properly disabled based on currently running tests. - Timeouts for async tests enabled.UO Editor: UO Editor v1.0: Initial ReleaseVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30527.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWeb Service Software Factory Contrib: Import WSDL 2010: Generate Service Contract models from existing WSDL documents for Web Service Software Factory 2010. Usage: Install the vsix and right click on a S...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active ProjectsAStar.netpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationSqlServerExtensionsBlogEngine.NETRawrpatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security GuidanceCodeReviewCustomer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRMIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• Is Social Media The Vital Skill You Aren’t Tracking?

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Mark Bennett - Originally featured in Talent Management Excellence The ever-increasing presence of the workforce on social media presents opportunities as well as risks for organizations. While on the one hand, we read about social media embarrassments happening to organizations, on the other we see that social media activities by workers and candidates can enhance a company’s brand and provide insight into what individuals are, or can become, influencers in the social media sphere. HR can play a key role in helping organizations make the most value out of the activities and presence of workers and candidates, while at the same time also helping to manage the risks that come with the permanence and viral nature of social media. What is Missing from Understanding Our Workforce? “If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three-times more productive.”  Lew Platt, Former Chairman, President, CEO, Hewlett-Packard  What Lew Platt recognized was that organizations only have a partial understanding of what their workforce is capable of. This lack of understanding impacts the company in several negative ways: 1. A particular skill that the company needs to access in one part of the organization might exist somewhere else, but there is no record that the skill exists, so the need is unfulfilled. 2. As market conditions change rapidly, the company needs to know strategic options, but some options are missed entirely because the company doesn’t know that sufficient capability already exists to enable those options. 3. Employees may miss out on opportunities to demonstrate how their hidden skills could create new value to the company. Why don’t companies have that more complete picture of their workforce capabilities – that is, not know what they know? One very good explanation is that companies put most of their efforts into rating their workforce according to the jobs and roles they are filling today. This is the essence of two important talent management processes: recruiting and performance appraisals.  In recruiting, a set of requirements is put together for a job, either explicitly or indirectly through a job description. During the recruiting process, much of the attention is paid towards whether the candidate has the qualifications, the skills, the experience and the cultural fit to be successful in the role. This makes a lot of sense.  In the performance appraisal process, an employee is measured on how well they performed the functions of their role and in an effort to help the employee do even better next time, they are also measured on proficiency in the competencies that are deemed to be key in doing that job. Again, the logic is impeccable.  But in both these cases, two adages come to mind: 1. What gets measured is what gets managed. 2. You only see what you are looking for. In other words, the fact that the current roles the workforce are performing are the basis for measuring which capabilities the workforce has, makes them the only capabilities to be measured. What was initially meant to be a positive, i.e. identify what is needed to perform well and measure it, in order that it can be managed, comes with the unintended negative consequence of overshadowing the other capabilities the workforce has. This also comes with an employee engagement price, for the measurements and management of workforce capabilities is to typically focus on where the workforce comes up short. Again, it makes sense to do this, since improving a capability that appears to result in improved performance benefits, both the individual through improved performance ratings and the company through improved productivity. But this is based on the assumption that the capabilities identified and their required proficiencies are the only attributes of the individual that matter. Anything else the individual brings that results in high performance, while resulting in a desired performance outcome, often goes unrecognized or underappreciated at best. As social media begins to occupy a more important part in current and future roles in organizations, businesses must incorporate social media savvy and innovation into job descriptions and expectations. These new measures could provide insight into how well someone can use social media tools to influence communities and decision makers; keep abreast of trends in fast-moving industries; present a positive brand image for the organization around thought leadership, customer focus, social responsibility; and coordinate and collaborate with partners. These measures should demonstrate the “social capital” the individual has invested in and developed over time. Without this dimension, “short cut” methods may generate a narrow set of positive metrics that do not have real, long-lasting benefits to the organization. How Workforce Reputation Management Helps HR Harness Social Media With hundreds of petabytes of social media data flowing across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, businesses are tapping technology solutions to effectively leverage social for HR. Workforce reputation management technology helps organizations discover, mobilize and retain talent by providing insight into the social reputation and influence of the workforce while also helping organizations monitor employee social media policy compliance and mitigate social media risk.  There are three major ways that workforce reputation management technology can play a strategic role to support HR: 1. Improve Awareness and Decisions on Talent Many organizations measure the skills and competencies that they know they need today, but are unaware of what other skills and competencies their workforce has that could be essential tomorrow. How about whether your workforce has the reputation and influence to make their skills and competencies more effective? Many organizations don’t have insight into the social media “reach” their workforce has, which is becoming more critical to business performance. These features help organizations, managers, and employees improve many talent processes and decision making, including the following: Hiring and Assignments. People and teams with higher reputations are considered more valuable and effective workers. Someone with high reputation who refers a candidate also can have high credibility as a source for hires.   Training and Development. Reputation trend analysis can impact program decisions regarding training offerings by showing how reputation and influence across the workforce changes in concert with training. Worker reputation impacts development plans and goal choices by helping the individual see which development efforts result in improved reputation and influence.   Finding Hidden Talent. Managers can discover hidden talent and skills amongst employees based on a combination of social profile information and social media reputation. Employees can improve their personal brand and accelerate their career development.  2. Talent Search and Discovery The right technology helps organizations find information on people that might otherwise be hidden. By leveraging access to candidate and worker social profiles as well as their social relationships, workforce reputation management provides companies with a more complete picture of what their knowledge, skills, and attributes are and what they can in turn access. This more complete information helps to find the right talent both outside the organization as well as the right, perhaps previously hidden talent, within the organization to fill roles and staff projects, particularly those roles and projects that are required in reaction to fast-changing opportunities and circumstances. 3. Reputation Brings Credibility Workforce reputation management technology provides a clearer picture of how candidates and workers are viewed by their peers and communities across a wide range of social reputation and influence metrics. This information is less subject to individual bias and can impact critical decision-making. Knowing the individual’s reputation and influence enables the organization to predict how well their capabilities and behaviors will have a positive effect on desired business outcomes. Many roles that have the highest impact on overall business performance are dependent on the individual’s influence and reputation. In addition, reputation and influence measures offer a very tangible source of feedback for workers, providing them with insight that helps them develop themselves and their careers and see the effectiveness of those efforts by tracking changes over time in their reputation and influence. The following are some examples of the different reputation and influence measures of the workforce that Workforce Reputation Management could gather and analyze: Generosity – How often the user reposts other’s posts. Influence – How often the user’s material is reposted by others.  Engagement – The ratio of recent posts with references (e.g. links to other posts) to the total number of posts.  Activity – How frequently the user posts. (e.g. number per day)  Impact – The size of the users’ social networks, which indicates their ability to reach unique followers, friends, or users.   Clout – The number of references and citations of the user’s material in others’ posts.  The Vital Ingredient of Workforce Reputation Management: Employee Participation “Nothing about me, without me.” Valerie Billingham, “Through the Patient’s Eyes”, Salzburg Seminar Session 356, 1998 Since data resides primarily in social media, a question arises: what manner is used to collect that data? While much of social media activity is publicly accessible (as many who wished otherwise have learned to their chagrin), the social norms of social media have developed to put some restrictions on what is acceptable behavior and by whom. Disregarding these norms risks a repercussion firestorm. One of the more recognized norms is that while individuals can follow and engage with other individual’s public social activity (e.g. Twitter updates) fairly freely, the more an organization does this unprompted and without getting permission from the individual beforehand, the more likely the organization risks a totally opposite outcome from the one desired. Instead, the organization must look for permission from the individual, which can be met with resistance. That resistance comes from not knowing how the information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and not receiving enough benefit in return for granting permission. As the quote above about patient concerns and rights succinctly states, no one likes not feeling in control of the information about themselves, or the uncertainty about where it will be used. This is well understood in consumer social media (i.e. permission-based marketing) and is applicable to workforce reputation management. However, asking permission leaves open the very real possibility that no one, or so few, will grant permission, resulting in a small set of data with little usefulness for the company. Connecting Individual Motivation to Organization Needs So what is it that makes an individual decide to grant an organization access to the data it wants? It is when the individual’s own motivations are in alignment with the organization’s objectives. In the case of workforce reputation management, when the individual is motivated by a desire for increased visibility and career growth opportunities to advertise their skills and level of influence and reputation, they are aligned with the organizations’ objectives; to fill resource needs or strategically build better awareness of what skills are present in the workforce, as well as levels of influence and reputation. Individuals can see the benefit of granting access permission to the company through multiple means. One is through simple social awareness; they begin to discover that peers who are getting more career opportunities are those who are signed up for workforce reputation management. Another is where companies take the message directly to the individual; we think you would benefit from signing up with our workforce reputation management solution. Another, more strategic approach is to make reputation management part of a larger Career Development effort by the company; providing a wide set of tools to help the workforce find ways to plan and take action to achieve their career aspirations in the organization. An effective mechanism, that facilitates connecting the visibility and career growth motivations of the workforce with the larger context of the organization’s business objectives, is to use game mechanics to help individuals transform their career goals into concrete, actionable steps, such as signing up for reputation management. This works in favor of companies looking to use workforce reputation because the workforce is more apt to see how it fits into achieving their overall career goals, as well as seeing how other participation brings additional benefits.  Once an individual has signed up with reputation management, not only have they made themselves more visible within the organization and increased their career growth opportunities, they have also enabled a tool that they can use to better understand how their actions and behaviors impact their influence and reputation. Since they will be able to see their reputation and influence measurements change over time, they will gain better insight into how reputation and influence impacts their effectiveness in a role, as well as how their behaviors and skill levels in turn affect their influence and reputation. This insight can trigger much more directed, and effective, efforts by the individual to improve their ability to perform at a higher level and become more productive. The increased sense of autonomy the individual experiences, in linking the insight they gain to the actions and behavior changes they make, greatly enhances their engagement with their role as well as their career prospects within the company. Workforce reputation management takes the wide range of disparate data about the workforce being produced across various social media platforms and transforms it into accessible, relevant, and actionable information that helps the organization achieve its desired business objectives. Social media holds untapped insights about your talent, brand and business, and workforce reputation management can help unlock them. Imagine - if you could find the hidden secrets of your businesses, how much more productive and efficient would your organization be? Mark Bennett is a Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. Mark focuses on setting the strategic vision and direction for tools that help organizations understand, shape, and leverage the capabilities of their workforce to achieve business objectives, as well as help individuals work effectively to achieve their goals and navigate their own growth. His combination of a deep technical background in software design and development, coupled with a broad knowledge of business challenges and thinking in today’s globalized, rapidly changing, technology accelerated economy, has enabled him to identify and incorporate key innovations that are central to Oracle Fusion’s unique value proposition. Mark has over the course of his career been in charge of the design, development, and strategy of Talent Management products and the design and development of cutting edge software that is better equipped to handle the increasingly complex demands of users while also remaining easy to use. Follow him @mpbennett

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, December 31, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, December 31, 2010Popular ReleasesFree Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.6 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.6 with the following new feature: * TextDecorations property is implemented in Title for Chart. * TitleTextDecorations property is implemented in Axis. * MinPointHeight property is now applicable for Column and Bar Charts. Also this release includes few bug fixes: * ToolTipText property of DataSeries was not getting applied from Style. * Chart threw exception if IndicatorEnabled property was set to true and Too...Windows Weibo all in one for Sina Sohu and QQ: WeiBee V0.1: WeiBee is an all in one Twitter tool, which can update Wei Bo at the same time for websites. It intends to support t.sohu.com, t.sina.com.cn and t.qq.com.cn. If you have WeiBo at SOHU, SINA and QQ, you can try this tool to help you save time to open all the webpages to update your status. For any business opportunity, such as put advertise on China Twitter market, and to build a custom WeiBo tool, please reach my email box qq1800@gmail.com My official WeiBo is http://mediaroom.t.sohu.comStyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets: Visual Studio Code Snippets - January 2011: StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets Visual Studio 2010 provides C# developers with 38 code snippets, enhancing developer productivty and increasing the consistency of the code. Within this project the original code snippets have been refactored to provide StyleCop compliant versions of the original code snippets while also adding many new code snippets. Within the January 2011 release you'll find 82 code snippets to make you more productive and the code you write more consistent!...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.2: Version: 2.0.0.2 (Milestone 2): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...eCompany: eCompany v0.2.0 Build 63: Version 0.2.0 Build 63: Added Splash screen & about box Added downloading of currencies when eCompany launched for the first time (must close any bug caused by no currency rate existing) Added corp creation when eCompany launched for the first time (for now, you didn't need to edit the company.xml file manually) You just need to decompress file "eCompany v0.2.0.63.zip" into your current eCompany install directory.SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQL Monitor 3.0 alpha 8: 1. added truncate table/defrag index/check db functions 2. improved alert 3. fixed problem with alert causing config file corrupted(hopefully)Analysis Services Stored Procedure Project: 1.3.5 Release: This release includes the following fixes and new functionality: Updates to GetCubeLastProcessedDate to work with perspectives Fixes to reports that call Discover functions improving drillthrough functions against perspectives improving ExecuteDrillthroughAndFixColumns logic fixing situation where MDX query calling certain ASSP sprocs which opened external connections caused deadlock to SSAS processing small fix to Partition code when DbColumnName property doesn't exist changes...DocX: DocX v1.0.0.11: Building Examples projectTo build the Examples project, download DocX.dll and add it as a reference to the project. OverviewThis version of DocX contains many bug fixes, it is a serious step towards a stable release. Added1) Unit testing project, 2) Examples project, 3) To many bug fixes to list here, see the source code change list history.Cosmos (C# Open Source Managed Operating System): 71406: This is the second release supporting the full line of Visual Studio 2010 editions. Changes since release 71246 include: Debug info is now stored in a single .cpdb file (which is a Firebird database) Keyboard input works now (using Console.ReadLine) Console colors work (using Console.ForegroundColor and .BackgroundColor)AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.0: Added the all new Masteries Browser which replaces the Quick Open combobox AutoLoL will now attemt to create file associations for mastery (*.lolm) files Each Mastery Build can now contain keywords that the Masteries Browser will use for filtering Changed the way AutoLoL detects if another instance is already running Changed the format of the mastery files to allow more information stored in* Dialogs will now focus the Ok or Cancel button which allows the user to press Return to clo...Paint.NET PSD Plugin: 1.6.0: Handling of layer masks has been greatly improved. Improved reliability. Many PSD files that previously loaded in as garbage will now load in correctly. Parallelized loading. PSD files containing layer masks will load in a bit quicker thanks to the removal of the sequential bottleneck. Hidden layers are no longer made visible on save. Many thanks to the users who helped expose the layer masks problem: Rob Horowitz, M_Lyons10. Please keep sending in those bug reports and PSD repro files!Facebook C# SDK: 4.1.1: From 4.1.1 Release: Authentication bug fix caused by facebook change (error with redirects in Safari) Authenticator fix, always returning true From 4.1.0 Release Lots of bug fixes Removed Dynamic Runtime Language dependencies from non-dynamic platforms. Samples included in release for ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, WinForms, and one Visual Basic Sample Changed internal serialization to use Json.net BREAKING CHANGE: Canvas Session is no longer supported. Use Signed...Catel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.0.0: And there it is, the final release of Catel, and it is no longer a beta version!EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.7 ALPHA: 2.2.7 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Mongoose has bee...Euro for Windows XP: ChangeRegionalSettings 1..0: *Rocket Framework (.Net 4.0): Rocket Framework for Windows V 1.0.0: Architecture is reviewed and adjusted in a way so that I can introduce the Web version and WPF version of this framework next. - Rocket.Core is introduced - Controller button functions revisited and updated - DB is renewed to suite the implemented features - Create New button functionality is changed - Add Question Handling featuresFlickr Wallpaper Rotator (for Windows desktop): Wallpaper Flickr 1.1: Some minor bugfixes (mostly covering when network connection is flakey, so I discovered them all while at my parents' house for Christmas).NoSimplerAccounting: NoSimplerAccounting 6.0: -Fixed a bug in expense category report.NHibernate Mapping Generator: NHibernate Mapping Generator 2.0: Added support for Postgres (Thanks to Angelo)NewLife XCode: XCode v6.5.2010.1223 ????（????v3.5??）: XCode v6.5.2010.1223 ????，??： NewLife.Core ??? NewLife.Net ??? XControl ??? XTemplate ????，??C#?????? XAgent ???? NewLife.CommonEnitty ??????（???，XCode??????） XCode?? ?????????，??????????????????，?????95% XCode v3.5.2009.0714 ??，?v3.5?v6.0???????????????，?????????。v3.5???????????，??????????????。 XCoder ??XTemplate?????????，????????XCode??? XCoder_Src ???????（????XTemplate????），??????????????????New Projects1i2m3i4s5e6r7p: 1i2m3i4s5e6r7pA3 Fashion Web: A complete e-commerce siteAfonsoft Blog - Blog de teste: Blog para teste de desenvolvimento em MySQL ou SQLServer com ASP.NET 3.5AnyGrid for ASP.NET MVC: Which grid component should you use for your ASP.NET MVC project? How about all of them? AnyGrid makes it easy to switch between grid implementations, allowing a single action to, e.g., use two different grids for desktop and mobile views. It also supports DataAnnnotations.BizTalk Map Test Framework: The Map Test Framework makes it easier for BizTalk developers to test their maps. You'll no longer have to maintain a whole bunch of XML files for your tests. The use of template files and xpath queries to perform tests will increase your productivity tremendously.BlogResult.NET: A simple Blogging starter kit using S#harp Architecture. This project was originally course material sample code for an MVC class, but we decided to open source it and make it available to the community.Caro: Code demo caro game.Ecozany Skin for DotNetNuke: This Ecozany package contains three sample skins and a collection of containers for use in your DotNetNuke web sites.Enhanced lookup field: Enhanced lookup field makes it easier for end users to create filters. You'll no longer have to use a custom field or javascript to have a parent child lookup for example. It's developed in C#. - Parent/multiple child lookups - Advanced filters options - Easy to usejobglance: This is job siteMaxLeafWeb_K3: MaxLeafWeb_K3Miage Kart: Projet java M1msystem: MVC. Net web systemNetController: Controle sem teclas de direção, usando acelerômentro e .NET micro Framework.Pencils - A Blog Site framework: Another Blog site frameworkPICTShell: PICT is an efficient way to design test cases and test configurations for software systems. PICT Shell is the GUI for PICT.Portal de Solicitação de Serviços: O Portal de Solicitação de Serviços é uma solução que atende diversas empresas prestadores de serviços. Inicialmente desenvolvido para atender empresa de informática, mas o objetivo é que com a publicação do fonte, ele seja extendido à diversos tipos de prestadoras.Runery: Runery RSPSsCut4s: sCut4sSumacê Jogava Caxangá?: sumace makes it easier for gamers to play. You'll no longer have to play. It's developed in XNA.Supply_Chain_FInance: Supply Chain Finance thrives these years all over the world. In exploring the inner working mechanism ,we can sought to have a way to embed an information system in it. We develop the system to suit the domesticated supply chain finace .TestAmir: ??? ????? ??? ???The Cosmos: School project on a SOA based system (Loan system)Time zone: A c# library for manage time changes for any time zone in the world. Based on olson database.Validate: Validate is a collection of extension methods that let you add validations to any object and display validations in a user/developer friendly format. Its an extremely light weight validation framework with a zero learning curve.Windows Phone 7 Silverlight ListBox with CheckBox Control: A Windows Phone 7 ListBox control, providing CheckBoxes for item selection when in "Choose State" and no CheckBoxes in "Normal State", like the built-in Email app, with nice transition. To switch between states, set the "IsInChooseState" property. The control inherits ListBox.XQSOFT.WF.Designer: this is workflow designerzhanghai: my test project

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• AngularJs ng-cloak Problems on large Pages

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’ve been working on a rather complex and large Angular page. Unlike a typical AngularJs SPA style ‘application’ this particular page is just that: a single page with a large amount of data on it that has to be visible all at once. The problem is that when this large page loads it flickers and displays template markup briefly before kicking into its actual content rendering. This is is what the Angular ng-cloak is supposed to address, but in this case I had no luck getting it to work properly. This application is a shop floor app where workers need to see all related information in one big screen view, so some of the benefits of Angular’s routing and view swapping features couldn’t be applied. Instead, we decided to have one very big view but lots of ng-controllers and directives to break out the logic for code separation. For code separation this works great – there are a number of small controllers that deal with their own individual and isolated application concerns. For HTML separation we used partial ASP.NET MVC Razor Views which made breaking out the HTML into manageable pieces super easy and made migration of this page from a previous server side Razor page much easier. We were also able to leverage most of our server side localization without a lot of  changes as a bonus. But as a result of this choice the initial HTML document that loads is rather large – even without any data loaded into it, resulting in a fairly large DOM tree that Angular must manage. Large Page and Angular Startup The problem on this particular page is that there’s quite a bit of markup – 35k’s worth of markup without any data loaded, in fact. It’s a large HTML page with a complex DOM tree. There are quite a lot of Angular {{ }} markup expressions in the document. Angular provides the ng-cloak directive to try and hide the element it cloaks so that you don’t see the flash of these markup expressions when the page initially loads before Angular has a chance to render the data into the markup expressions.<div id="mainContainer" class="mainContainer boxshadow" ng-app="app" ng-cloak> Note the ng-cloak attribute on this element, which here is an outer wrapper element of the most of this large page’s content. ng-cloak is supposed to prevent displaying the content below it, until Angular has taken control and is ready to render the data into the templates. Alas, with this large page the end result unfortunately is a brief flicker of un-rendered markup which looks like this: It’s brief, but plenty ugly – right?  And depending on the speed of the machine this flash gets more noticeable with slow machines that take longer to process the initial HTML DOM. ng-cloak Styles ng-cloak works by temporarily hiding the marked up element and it does this by essentially applying a style that does this:[ng\:cloak], [ng-cloak], [data-ng-cloak], [x-ng-cloak], .ng-cloak, .x-ng-cloak { display: none !important; } This style is inlined as part of AngularJs itself. If you looking at the angular.js source file you’ll find this at the very end of the file:!angular.$$csp() && angular.element(document) .find('head') .prepend('<style type="text/css">@charset "UTF-8";[ng\\:cloak],[ng-cloak],' + '[data-ng-cloak],[x-ng-cloak],.ng-cloak,.x-ng-cloak,' + '.ng-hide{display:none !important;}ng\\:form{display:block;}' '.ng-animate-block-transitions{transition:0s all!important;-webkit-transition:0s all!important;}' + '</style>'); This is is meant to initially hide any elements that contain the ng-cloak attribute or one of the other Angular directive permutation markup. Unfortunately on this particular web page ng-cloak had no effect – I still see the flicker. Why doesn’t ng-cloak work? The problem is of course – timing. The problem is that Angular actually needs to get control of the page before it ever starts doing anything like process even the ng-cloak attribute (or style etc). Because this page is rather large (about 35k of non-data HTML) it takes a while for the DOM to actually plow through the HTML. With the Angular <script> tag defined at the bottom of the page after the HTML DOM content there’s a slight delay which causes the flicker. For smaller pages the initial DOM load/parse cycle is so fast that the markup never shows, but with larger content pages it may show and become an annoying problem. Workarounds There a number of simple ways around this issue and some of them are hinted on in the Angular documentation. Load Angular Sooner One obvious thing that would help with this is to load Angular at the top of the page  BEFORE the DOM loads and that would give it much earlier control. The old ng-cloak documentation actually recommended putting the Angular.js script into the header of the page (apparently this was recently removed), but generally it’s not a good practice to load scripts in the header for page load performance. This is especially true if you load other libraries like jQuery which should be loaded prior to loading Angular so it can use jQuery rather than its own jqLite subset. This is not something I normally would like to do and also something that I’d likely forget in the future and end up right back here :-). Use ng-include for Child Content Angular supports nesting of child templates via the ng-include directive which essentially delay loads HTML content. This helps by removing a lot of the template content out of the main page and so getting control to Angular a lot sooner in order to hide the markup template content. In the application in question, I realize that in hindsight it might have been smarter to break this page out with client side ng-include directives instead of MVC Razor partial views we used to break up the page sections. Razor partial views give that nice separation as well, but in the end Razor puts humpty dumpty (ie. the HTML) back together into a whole single and rather large HTML document. Razor provides the logical separation, but still results in a large physical result document. But Razor also ended up being helpful to have a few security related blocks handled via server side template logic that simply excludes certain parts of the UI the user is not allowed to see – something that you can’t really do with client side exclusion like ng-hide/ng-show – client side content is always there whereas on the server side you can simply not send it to the client. Another reason I’m not a huge fan of ng-include is that it adds another HTTP hit to a request as templates are loaded from the server dynamically as needed. Given that this page was already heavy with resources adding another 10 separate ng-include directives wouldn’t be beneficial :-) ng-include is a valid option if you start from scratch and partition your logic. Of course if you don’t have complex pages, having completely separate views that are swapped in as they are accessed are even better, but we didn’t have this option due to the information having to be on screen all at once. Avoid using {{ }}  Expressions The biggest issue that ng-cloak attempts to address isn’t so much displaying the original content – it’s displaying empty {{ }} markup expression tags that get embedded into content. It gives you the dreaded “now you see it, now you don’t” effect where you sometimes see three separate rendering states: Markup junk, empty views, then views filled with data. If we can remove {{ }} expressions from the page you remove most of the perceived double draw effect as you would effectively start with a blank form and go straight to a filled form. To do this you can forego {{ }}  expressions and replace them with ng-bind directives on DOM elements. For example you can turn:<div class="list-item-name listViewOrderNo"> <a href='#'>{{lineItem.MpsOrderNo}}</a> </div>into:<div class="list-item-name listViewOrderNo"> <a href="#" ng-bind="lineItem.MpsOrderNo"></a> </div> to get identical results but because the {{ }}  expression has been removed there’s no double draw effect for this element. Again, not a great solution. The {{ }} syntax sure reads cleaner and is more fluent to type IMHO. In some cases you may also not have an outer element to attach ng-bind to which then requires you to artificially inject DOM elements into the page. This is especially painful if you have several consecutive values like {{Firstname}} {{Lastname}} for example. It’s an option though especially if you think of this issue up front and you don’t have a ton of expressions to deal with. Add the ng-cloak Styles manually You can also explicitly define the .css styles that Angular injects via code manually in your application’s style sheet. By doing so the styles become immediately available and so are applied right when the page loads – no flicker. I use the minimal:[ng-cloak] { display: none !important; } which works for:<div id="mainContainer" class="mainContainer dialog boxshadow" ng-app="app" ng-cloak> If you use one of the other combinations add the other CSS selectors as well or use the full style shown earlier. Angular will still load its version of the ng-cloak styling but it overrides those settings later, but this will do the trick of hiding the content before that CSS is injected into the page. Adding the CSS in your own style sheet works well, and is IMHO by far the best option. The nuclear option: Hiding the Content manually Using the explicit CSS is the best choice, so the following shouldn’t ever be necessary. But I’ll mention it here as it gives some insight how you can hide/show content manually on load for other frameworks or in your own markup based templates. Before I figured out that I could explicitly embed the CSS style into the page, I had tried to figure out why ng-cloak wasn’t doing its job. After wasting an hour getting nowhere I finally decided to just manually hide and show the container. The idea is simple – initially hide the container, then show it once Angular has done its initial processing and removal of the template markup from the page. You can manually hide the content and make it visible after Angular has gotten control. To do this I used:<div id="mainContainer" class="mainContainer boxshadow" ng-app="app" style="display:none"> Notice the display: none style that explicitly hides the element initially on the page. Then once Angular has run its initialization and effectively processed the template markup on the page you can show the content. For Angular this ‘ready’ event is the app.run() function:app.run( function ($rootScope, $location, cellService) { $("#mainContainer").show(); … }); This effectively removes the display:none style and the content displays. By the time app.run() fires the DOM is ready to displayed with filled data or at least empty data – Angular has gotten control. Edge Case Clearly this is an edge case. In general the initial HTML pages tend to be reasonably sized and the load time for the HTML and Angular are fast enough that there’s no flicker between the rendering times. This only becomes an issue as the initial pages get rather large. Regardless – if you have an Angular application it’s probably a good idea to add the CSS style into your application’s CSS (or a common shared one) just to make sure that content is always hidden. You never know how slow of a browser somebody might be running and while your super fast dev machine might not show any flicker, grandma’s old XP box very well might…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in Angular  JavaScript  CSS  HTML   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Throttling Postfix memory

  - by teddybeard

  I have a VPS on 1and1 similar to this configuration (512MB, burst up to 2GB). I run a web service where I crawl the web and notify my users through email and sms when a certain online data feed changes. When I send the emails out, I just have PHP loop through the recipients list and send the emails out using the mail() function. Whenever I try to send a large volume of these messages out, my server starts acting funny. I can't even run an 'ls' sometimes because the shell tells me it 'cannot allocate memory'. The shell is unusable and yet my website is being served up fine. Mail.err contains: Nov 14 17:30:09 s15351477 postfix/smtp[26000]: fatal: inet_addr_local[getifaddrs]: getifaddrs: Cannot allocate memory Nov 14 17:30:09 s15351477 postfix/sendmail[25999]: fatal: username(1000): unable to execute /usr/sbin/postdrop -r: Success Nov 14 18:29:14 s15351477 postfix/smtp[9911]: fatal: inet_addr_local[getifaddrs]: getifaddrs: Cannot allocate memory Nov 14 18:29:14 s15351477 postfix/sendmail[9910]: fatal: username(1000): unable to execute /usr/sbin/postdrop -r: Success Also, if relevant, my bean counters are: Version: 2.5 uid resource held maxheld barrier limit failcnt 53907331: kmemsize 20779422 21041560 31457280 34603008 2989403 lockedpages 0 0 512 512 0 privvmpages 81488 82498 524288 576716 94640 shmpages 2831 2831 32768 32768 0 dummy 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0 numproc 90 91 128 128 6603 physpages 32692 33531 2147483647 2147483647 0 vmguarpages 0 0 131072 2147483647 0 oomguarpages 32942 33781 9223372036854775807 2147483647 0 numtcpsock 22 23 720 720 0 numflock 27 28 376 413 0 numpty 1 1 32 32 0 numsiginfo 0 1 512 512 0 tcpsndbuf 425888 441064 3440640 5406720 0 tcprcvbuf 369200 376832 3440640 5406720 0 othersockbuf 268000 268464 2252160 4194304 0 dgramrcvbuf 0 8472 524288 576716 0 numothersock 180 182 720 720 0 dcachesize 952146 966231 5242880 5767168 0 numfile 3609 3683 8192 8192 0 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 numiptent 25 25 200 205 0 Is there some way I can throttle postfix to keep it from swamping the system like this? Also wondering: why does email use so many resources, these emails are just short text?

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• SOA Community Newsletter: nouvelle lettre !

  - by mseika

  SOA PARTNER COMMUNITY NEWSLETTERAUGUST 2012 Dear SOA partner community member Have you submitted your feedback on SOA Partner Community Survey 2012? This is the last chance to participate in the survey. We recommend you to complete the survey and help us to improve our SOA Community. Thanks to all attendees and trainers for their participation in the excellent Fusion Middleware Summer Camps held in Lisbon and Munich. I would also like to thank you for the great feedback and the nice reports provided by AMIS Technology Blog & Middleware by Link Consulting. Most of our courses have been overbooked, if you did not get a chance or missed it, we offer a wide range of online training and the course material. Key take-away from the advanced BPM course is to become an expert in ADF. Here is the course from Grant Ronald Learn Advanced ADF online available. The Link Consulting Team became experts in SOA Governance with EAMS and Oracle Enterprise Repository! We always encourage our community members to share their best practices and are very keen to publish it. Please let us know if you want to share your best practices through this medium.We encourage you to make use of the Specialization benefits - this month we are giving an opportunity to Promote Your SOA & BPM Events. Jürgen KressOracle SOA & BPM Partner Adoption EMEA NEW CONTENT Presentations & Training material OFM Summer CampsPromote Your SOA & BPM Events Advanced ADF Online, For Free By Grant BPM 11g Customer Stories & Solution Catalog & Process Accelerators Delivering SOA Governance with EAMS by Link Consulting Team WebLogic Server Provisioning and Patching News from our Partners & CommunityUpdated material by Oracle Connect and Network SOA Blogs SOA on Facebook SOA on LinkedIn SOA on Twitter Mix SOA Forum SOA Workspace PRESENTATIONS & TRAINING MATERIAL OFM SUMMER CAMPS Thanks to all attendees who invested their time and utilized the opportunity to attend the Summer Camps! Due to high demand of our most of the trainings, we had a long waiting list with more numbers of partners who are keen to attend it. We would like to give our special thanks to all trainers, who delivered excellent workshops! Most of the presentations and course material have been posted on our SOA Community Workspaceand WebLogic Community Workspace. You can access the content only if you are a registered community member. To register for the SOA Community please click here. You can register for the WebLogic Community here. To find out the first impressions of the event please visit our Facebook pages:www.facebook.com/WebLogicCommunity &www.facebook.com/soacommunity or Picasa AlbumThanks for the excellent blog posts from AMIS Technology Blog & Middleware by Link Consulting. Let us know if you published a twitter blog on@soacommunity & @wlscommunity. We will be pleased to publish it in our Newsletters. BPM Course Quotes “Its always easy, if you know, what you are doing” - Torsten Winterberg, Opitz“ The best ideas are the ideas from the best” - Filipe Sequeria, Primesoft “Best invest in the education in the last 12 months” - Richard Schaller, IPT “Practice best practice with the best instructor” - Graham Lamond Capgemini “If you have basic BPM knowledge, this is the course to really mater it” - Diogo Henriques Link Consulting “Very good trainers lot of work. Lot of fun as well” - Matthias Gris Workflow Factory “If you like to accelerate in Oracle come to the training to bring it all together” - Marcel van der Glind, Amis ADF Course Quotes "Excellent training, great opportunity to network!" - Frank Houweling, Amis "Lots of fun and good ideas" - Ana Santiago, GFI "Learn ADF, worth it Fusion Apps is the future" - Miguel Delgadillo, STO Consulting "The best way to learn Fusion Middleware from the #1" Alexandro Montantes, STO Consulting "Be advanced to to be the first” - Dimitar Petrov Fadata "Great opportunity to suck all the knowledge out of some very experienced product managers” - Wilfred von der Deijl, The Future Group WebLogic Course Quotes “Oracle trainings are the best” - Pedro Neto Novobas“ "Excellent training, well organized” - Pedro Antunh, Capgemini “This course dives you into Oracle WebLogic giving you a quick start on benefiting from Fusion Apps” - Leonardo Fernandes, Outsystems Additional Quotes “Thanks a lot again for organizing such a great and informative Summer Camp. Both training and networking were organized very professionally. I have gained tons of very useful Info, which will definitely help to increase quality of our future projects.” - Daniel Fasko fss-group.com I didn’t get the chance yesterday to thank you for a most enjoyable and thoroughly educational time I had in Munich over the last few days.” - Jeroen Bakker Ordina “Just to congratulate you on a great event, not only today but also in the previous days of training. As we know, a very good organization and, as a native Portuguese that knows Lisbon very good, a nice choice of places to visit. Looking forward to come again next year.” Pedro Miguel Neto, Novobase PROMOTE YOUR SOA & BPM EVENTS The Partner Event Publisher has just been made available to all SOA & BPM specialized partners in EMEA. Partners now have the opportunity to publish their events to theOracle.com/events site and spread the word on their upcoming live in-person and/or live webcast events. See the demo below and click here to read more information. ADVANCED ADF ONLINE, FOR FREE BY GRANT The second part of the advanced ADF online eCourse is Live now! This covers the advanced topics of region and region interaction as well as getting down and dirty with some of the layout features of ADF Faces, skinning and DVT components. The aim of this course is to give you a self-paced learning aid which covers the more advanced topics of ADF development. The content is developed by Product Management and our Curriculum development teams and is based on advanced training material we have been running internally for about 18 months. We will get started on the next chapter, but in the meantime, please have a look at chapters one and two. Back to top BPM 11G CUSTOMER STORIES & SOLUTION CATALOG & PROCESS ACCELERATORS Stories Everyone loves a good story on planning or implementing a BPM strategy. Everyone wants to hear how it was done before?, what worked?, what was achieved? If you have achieved success with BPM, we are very keen to hear your stories and examples of how your customers use it. We receive lots of requests from people who are thinking of using BPM to solve a specific problem or in combination with a specific technology to talk to someone who has done it before. These stories are invaluable. Drop down the details of anything you think is relevant with a bit of detail and we will follow up on it. As one good deed deserves another, we will do our best to give you stories if you need them to show that where you are going, others have treaded before. Send your stories to us using this e-mail link and we will share them among other like minded people. Solution Catalogue This summer, Oracle is launching a solution catalogue specifically intended for partners. If you have delivered a successful implementation in BPM and think it could be reused and applied again in a similar scenario in the same industry or in a similar environment, then we ware keen to know about it and will add it to the solution catalogue. The solution catalogue will showcase successful BPM solutions both inside and outside Oracle. Be in touch with us on this e-mail link and we will make sure to add your solution. Process AcceleratorsFinally if you have specific processes that you are expert on, you have implemented at a customer and you want to work with us on getting these productised, then we would love to know about it. The process accelerator programme is explained in the most recent SOA/BPM Community Newsletter but again feel free to contact us if you want to get involved. Good luck with BPM and let us know how we can help. Barry O'Reilly Director BPM [email protected] DELIVERING SOA GOVERNANCE WITH EAMS BY LINK CONSULTING TEAM In the last 12 years Link Consulting has been making its presence in specific areas such as Governance and Architecture, both in terms of practices and methodologies, products, know-how and technological expertise. The Enterprise Architecture Management System - Oracle Enterprise Edition (EAMS - OER Edition) is the result of this experience and combines the architecture management solution with OER in order to deliver a product specialized for SOA Governance that gathers the better of two worlds in solution that enables SOA Governance projects, initiatives and programs. Enterprise Architecture Management System Enterprise Architecture Management System (EAMS), is an automation based solution that enables the efficient management of Enterprise Architectures. The solution uses configured enterprise repositories and takes advantages of its features to provide automation capabilities to the users. EAMS provides capabilities to create/customize/analyze repository data, architectural blueprints, reports and analytic charts. Oracle Enterprise Repository Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) is one of the major and central elements of the Oracle SOA Governance solution. Oracle Enterprise Repository provides the tools to manage and govern the metadata for any type of software asset, from business processes and services to patterns, frameworks, applications, components, and models. OER maps the relationships and inter-dependencies that connect those assets to improve impact analysis, promote and optimize their reuse, and measure their impact on the bottom line. It provides the visibility, feedback, controls, and analytics to keep your SOA on track to deliver business value. The intense focus on automation helps to overcome barriers to SOA adoption and streamline governance throughout the lifecycle. Core capabilities of the OER include: Asset Management Asset Lifecycle Management Usage Tracking Service Discovery Version Management Dependency Analysis Portfolio Management EAMS - OER Edition The solution takes the advantages and features from both products and combines them in a symbiotic tool that enhances the quality of SOA Governance Initiatives and Programs. EAMS is able to produce a vast number of outputs by combining its analytical engine, SOA-specific configurations and the assets in OER and other related tools, catalogs and repositories. The configurations encompass not only the extendable parametrization of the metadata but also fully configurable blueprints, PowerPoint reports, charts and queries. The SOA blueprints The solution comes with a set of predefined architectural representations that help the organization better perceive their SOA landscape. More blueprints can be easily created in order to accommodate the organizations needs in terms of detail, audience and metadata. Charts & Dashboards The solution encompasses a set of predefined charts and dashboards that promote a more agile way to control and explore the assets. Time Based Visualization All representations are time bound, and with EAMS - OER you can truly govern SOA with a complete view of the Past, Present and Future; The solution delivers Gap Analysis, a project oriented approach while taking into consideration the As-Was, As-Is an To-Be. Time based visualization differentiating factors: Extensive automation and maintenance of architectural representations Organization wide solution. Easy access and navigation to and between all architectural artifacts and representations. Flexible meta-model, customization and extensibility capabilities. Lifecycle management and enforcement of the time dimension over all the repository content. Profile based customization. Comprehensive visibility Architectural alignment Friendly and striking user interfaces For more information on EAMS visit us here. For more information on SOA visit us here. WEBLOGIC SERVER PROVISIONING AND PATCHING For access to the Oracle demo systems please visit OPN and talk to your Partner Expert.SOA Suite and BPM Suite runs on WebLogic! We are pleased to announce the availability of a WebLogic Server Management demo that showcases some of the key provisioning and patching capabilities of WebLogic Server Management Pack Enterprise Edition (EE). To learn more about these features - as well as other features of the pack - please visit the pack's saleskit page.Demo Highlights The demo showcases the following capabilities: Patching Oracle WebLogic Servers Standardizing WebLogic Server Patch Rollouts Creating a WebLogic Domain Provisioning Profile Cloning a WebLogic Domain from a Provisioning Profile Deploying a Java EE Application Scaling Out an Oracle WebLogic Cluster Demo Instructions Go to the DSS website for Oracle Partners. On the Standard Demo Launchpad page, under the “Software Lifecycle Automation” section, click on the link “EM Cloud Control 12c WLS Provisioning and Patching” (tagged as “NEW”). Specific demo launchpad page contains a link to the detailed demo script with instructions on how to show the demo.

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• Can one config LDAP to accept auth from ssh-agent instead of from Kerberos?

  - by Alex North-Keys

  [This question is not about getting your LDAP password to authenticate you for SSH logins. We have that working just fine, thank you :-) ] Let's suppose you're on a Linux network (Ubuntu 11.10, slapd 2.4.23), and you need to write a set of utilities that will use ldapmodify, ldapadd, ldapdelete, and so on. You don't have Kerberos, and don't want to deal with its timeouts (most users don't know how to get around this), quirks, etc. This resolves the question to one of where else to get credentials to feed to LDAP, probably through GSSAPI - which technically doesn't require Kerberos despite its dominance there - or something like it. However, nearly everyone seems to have an SSH agent program, complete with its key cache. I'd really like an ssh-add to be sufficient to allow passwordless LDAP command use. Does anyone know of a project working on using the SSH agent as the source of authentication to LDAP? It might be through an ssh-aware GSSAPI layer, or some other trick I haven't thought of. But it would be wonderful for making LDAP effortless. Assuming I haven't just utterly missed a way to use ldapmodify and kin without having to type my LDAP passwords - using -x is NOT acceptable. At my site, the LDAP server only accepts ldaps connections, and requires authentication for modifying operations. Those are requirements, of course. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. :-)

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• DIY NAS - links for Instructions

  - by Kaushik Gopal

  Good folk of SU, I'm planning to build a NAS (Network Access Storage). I'm planning to do it cheap (:read Old PC Config + Open source software). I was looking for good DIY links . Before you shoot this down as a Repost, I'm only looking for good links containing detailed instructions for setting up a NAS. I did a fair bit of searching and found these links (so please suggest others. While these links are great they delve more on the hardware side, i'm looking for more instructions in the software side). For the sake of the interwebs: Ubuntu: http://snarfquest.com/wiki/index.php/Setting_up_a_Home_NAS http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/27962/77/ http://jonpeck.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-to-configure-80-fileserver-in-45.html FreeNAS http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/article.php/3719706 http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/homemade_nas.aspxhttp://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/homemade_nas.aspx There was one at rubbervir.us that everyone points to, but apparently the site has gone down. A couple of other queries: Is Printer/Scanner sharing a possibility with NAS devices? Many talk of torrent support with NAS Devices, a little more light on this? Does this mean, an auto download of torrent through a feed into NAS, or just support for storing Torrent download files onto the NAS(don't see the difference between the latter and a normal file tranfer)

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• Windows Azure: Announcing release of Windows Azure SDK 2.2 (with lots of goodies)

  - by ScottGu

  Earlier today I blogged about a big update we made today to Windows Azure, and some of the great new features it provides. Today I’m also excited to also announce the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.2. Today’s SDK release adds even more great features including: Visual Studio 2013 Support Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio Remote Debugging Cloud Services with Visual Studio Firewall Management support within Visual Studio for SQL Databases Visual Studio 2013 RTM VM Images for MSDN Subscribers Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET Updated Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets and ScriptCenter The below post has more details on what’s available in today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release.  Also head over to Channel 9 to see the new episode of the Visual Studio Toolbox show that will be available shortly, and which highlights these features in a video demonstration. Visual Studio 2013 Support Version 2.2 of the Window Azure SDK is the first official version of the SDK to support the final RTM release of Visual Studio 2013. If you installed the 2.1 SDK with the Preview of Visual Studio 2013 we recommend that you upgrade your projects to SDK 2.2.  SDK 2.2 also works side by side with the SDK 2.0 and SDK 2.1 releases on Visual Studio 2012: Integrated Windows Azure Sign In within Visual Studio Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio is one of the big improvements added with this Windows Azure SDK release.  Integrated sign-in support enables developers to develop/test/manage Windows Azure resources within Visual Studio without having to download or use management certificates.  You can now just right-click on the “Windows Azure” icon within the Server Explorer inside Visual Studio and choose the “Connect to Windows Azure” context menu option to connect to Windows Azure: Doing this will prompt you to enter the email address of the account you wish to sign-in with: You can use either a Microsoft Account (e.g. Windows Live ID) or an Organizational account (e.g. Active Directory) as the email.  The dialog will update with an appropriate login prompt depending on which type of email address you enter: Once you sign-in you’ll see the Windows Azure resources that you have permissions to manage show up automatically within the Visual Studio Server Explorer (and you can start using them): With this new integrated sign in experience you are now able to publish web apps, deploy VMs and cloud services, use Windows Azure diagnostics, and fully interact with your Windows Azure services within Visual Studio without the need for a management certificate.  All of the authentication is handled using the Windows Azure Active Directory associated with your Windows Azure account (details on this can be found in my earlier blog post). Integrating authentication this way end-to-end across the Service Management APIs + Dev Tools + Management Portal + PowerShell automation scripts enables a much more secure and flexible security model within Windows Azure, and makes it much more convenient to securely manage multiple developers + administrators working on a project.  It also allows organizations and enterprises to use the same authentication model that they use for their developers on-premises in the cloud.  It also ensures that employees who leave an organization immediately lose access to their company’s cloud based resources once their Active Directory account is suspended. Filtering/Subscription Management Once you login within Visual Studio, you can filter which Windows Azure subscriptions/regions are visible within the Server Explorer by right-clicking the “Filter Services” context menu within the Server Explorer.  You can also use the “Manage Subscriptions” context menu to mange your Windows Azure Subscriptions: Bringing up the “Manage Subscriptions” dialog allows you to see which accounts you are currently using, as well as which subscriptions are within them: The “Certificates” tab allows you to continue to import and use management certificates to manage Windows Azure resources as well.  We have not removed any functionality with today’s update – all of the existing scenarios that previously supported management certificates within Visual Studio continue to work just fine.  The new integrated sign-in support provided with today’s release is purely additive. Note: the SQL Database node and the Mobile Service node in Server Explorer do not support integrated sign-in at this time. Therefore, you will only see databases and mobile services under those nodes if you have a management certificate to authorize access to them.  We will enable them with integrated sign-in in a future update. Remote Debugging Cloud Resources within Visual Studio Today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release adds support for remote debugging many types of Windows Azure resources. With live, remote debugging support from within Visual Studio, you are now able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure.  Let’s walkthrough how to enable remote debugging for a Cloud Service: Remote Debugging of Cloud Services To enable remote debugging for your cloud service, select Debug as the Build Configuration on the Common Settings tab of your Cloud Service’s publish dialog wizard: Then click the Advanced Settings tab and check the Enable Remote Debugging for all roles checkbox: Once your cloud service is published and running live in the cloud, simply set a breakpoint in your local source code: Then use Visual Studio’s Server Explorer to select the Cloud Service instance deployed in the cloud, and then use the Attach Debugger context menu on the role or to a specific VM instance of it: Once the debugger attaches to the Cloud Service, and a breakpoint is hit, you’ll be able to use the rich debugging capabilities of Visual Studio to debug the cloud instance remotely, in real-time, and see exactly how your app is running in the cloud. Today’s remote debugging support is super powerful, and makes it much easier to develop and test applications for the cloud.  Support for remote debugging Cloud Services is available as of today, and we’ll also enable support for remote debugging Web Sites shortly. Firewall Management Support with SQL Databases By default we enable a security firewall around SQL Databases hosted within Windows Azure.  This ensures that only your application (or IP addresses you approve) can connect to them and helps make your infrastructure secure by default.  This is great for protection at runtime, but can sometimes be a pain at development time (since by default you can’t connect/manage the database remotely within Visual Studio if the security firewall blocks your instance of VS from connecting to it). One of the cool features we’ve added with today’s release is support that makes it easy to enable and configure the security firewall directly within Visual Studio.  Now with the SDK 2.2 release, when you try and connect to a SQL Database using the Visual Studio Server Explorer, and a firewall rule prevents access to the database from your machine, you will be prompted to add a firewall rule to enable access from your local IP address: You can simply click Add Firewall Rule and a new rule will be automatically added for you. In some cases, the logic to detect your local IP may not be sufficient (for example: you are behind a corporate firewall that uses a range of IP addresses) and you may need to set up a firewall rule for a range of IP addresses in order to gain access. The new Add Firewall Rule dialog also makes this easy to do.  Once connected you’ll be able to manage your SQL Database directly within the Visual Studio Server Explorer: This makes it much easier to work with databases in the cloud. Visual Studio 2013 RTM Virtual Machine Images Available for MSDN Subscribers Last week we released the General Availability Release of Visual Studio 2013 to the web.  This is an awesome release with a ton of new features. With today’s Windows Azure update we now have a set of pre-configured VM images of VS 2013 available within the Windows Azure Management Portal for use by MSDN customers.  This enables you to create a VM in the cloud with VS 2013 pre-installed on it in with only a few clicks: Windows Azure now provides the fastest and easiest way to get started doing development with Visual Studio 2013. Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Preview) Having the ability to automate the creation, deployment, and tear down of resources is a key requirement for applications running in the cloud.  It also helps immensely when running dev/test scenarios and coded UI tests against pre-production environments. Today we are releasing a preview of a new set of Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET.  These new libraries make it easy to automate tasks using any .NET language (e.g. C#, VB, F#, etc).  Previously this automation capability was only available through the Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets or to developers who were willing to write their own wrappers for the Windows Azure Service Management REST API. Modern .NET Developer Experience We’ve worked to design easy-to-understand .NET APIs that still map well to the underlying REST endpoints, making sure to use and expose the modern .NET functionality that developers expect today: Portable Class Library (PCL) support targeting applications built for any .NET Platform (no platform restriction) Shipped as a set of focused NuGet packages with minimal dependencies to simplify versioning Support async/await task based asynchrony (with easy sync overloads) Shared infrastructure for common error handling, tracing, configuration, HTTP pipeline manipulation, etc. Factored for easy testability and mocking Built on top of popular libraries like HttpClient and Json.NET Below is a list of a few of the management client classes that are shipping with today’s initial preview release: .NET Class Name Supports Operations for these Assets (and potentially more) ManagementClient Locations Credentials Subscriptions Certificates ComputeManagementClient Hosted Services Deployments Virtual Machines Virtual Machine Images & Disks StorageManagementClient Storage Accounts WebSiteManagementClient Web Sites Web Site Publish Profiles Usage Metrics Repositories VirtualNetworkManagementClient Networks Gateways Automating Creating a Virtual Machine using .NET Let’s walkthrough an example of how we can use the new Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET to fully automate creating a Virtual Machine. I’m deliberately showing a scenario with a lot of custom options configured – including VHD image gallery enumeration, attaching data drives, network endpoints + firewall rules setup - to show off the full power and richness of what the new library provides. We’ll begin with some code that demonstrates how to enumerate through the built-in Windows images within the standard Windows Azure VM Gallery.  We’ll search for the first VM image that has the word “Windows” in it and use that as our base image to build the VM from.  We’ll then create a cloud service container in the West US region to host it within: We can then customize some options on it such as setting up a computer name, admin username/password, and hostname.  We’ll also open up a remote desktop (RDP) endpoint through its security firewall: We’ll then specify the VHD host and data drives that we want to mount on the Virtual Machine, and specify the size of the VM we want to run it in: Once everything has been set up the call to create the virtual machine is executed asynchronously In a few minutes we’ll then have a completely deployed VM running on Windows Azure with all of the settings (hard drives, VM size, machine name, username/password, network endpoints + firewall settings) fully configured and ready for us to use: Preview Availability via NuGet The Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET are now available via NuGet. Because they are still in preview form, you’ll need to add the –IncludePrerelease switch when you go to retrieve the packages. The Package Manager Console screen shot below demonstrates how to get the entire set of libraries to manage your Windows Azure assets: You can also install them within your .NET projects by right clicking on the VS Solution Explorer and using the Manage NuGet Packages context menu command.  Make sure to select the “Include Prerelease” drop-down for them to show up, and then you can install the specific management libraries you need for your particular scenarios: Open Source License The new Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET make it super easy to automate management operations within Windows Azure – whether they are for Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, Storage Accounts, Web Sites, and more.  Like the rest of the Windows Azure SDK, we are releasing the source code under an open source (Apache 2) license and it is hosted at https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-net/tree/master/libraries if you wish to contribute. PowerShell Enhancements and our New Script Center Today, we are also shipping Windows Azure PowerShell 0.7.0 (which is a separate download). You can find the full change log here. Here are some of the improvements provided with it: Windows Azure Active Directory authentication support Script Center providing many sample scripts to automate common tasks on Windows Azure New cmdlets for Media Services and SQL Database Script Center Windows Azure enables you to script and automate a lot of tasks using PowerShell.  People often ask for more pre-built samples of common scenarios so that they can use them to learn and tweak/customize. With this in mind, we are excited to introduce a new Script Center that we are launching for Windows Azure. You can learn about how to scripting with Windows Azure with a get started article. You can then find many sample scripts across different solutions, including infrastructure, data management, web, and more: All of the sample scripts are hosted on TechNet with links from the Windows Azure Script Center. Each script is complete with good code comments, detailed descriptions, and examples of usage. Summary Visual Studio 2013 and the Windows Azure SDK 2.2 make it easier than ever to get started developing rich cloud applications. Along with the Windows Azure Developer Center’s growing set of .NET developer resources to guide your development efforts, today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release should make your development experience more enjoyable and efficient. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• PHP/Linux File Permissions

  - by user1733435

  May I ask a question about file permission. I set up Ubuntu server where Apache got running. I have simple php upload form and able to upload file to /var/www/site/uploads as follows. sandbox@sandbox-virtual-machine:/var/www/site/uploads$ ll total 1736 drwxrwxrwx 2 www-data www-data 4096 Oct 18 02:53 ./ drwxrwxrwx 3 sandbox sandbox 4096 Oct 18 00:42 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 145998 Oct 18 02:53 3d wallpaper pic.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 166947 Oct 18 02:53 3D Wallpapers 9.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 1451489 Oct 18 02:53 6453_3d_landscape_hd_wallpapers_green.jpg Is there anyway to upload files and they show up as -rw-r--r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 145998 Oct 18 02:53 3d wallpaper pic.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 166947 Oct 18 02:53 3D Wallpapers 9.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 1451489 Oct 18 02:53 6453_3d_landscape_hd_wallpapers_green.jpg so that I could straight away feed them to waiting/running shell script. Right now waiting script(move,checksums,rename,resize,etc) unable to do anything to uploaded files with attributes of www-data. If I just do as local account, such as sandbox@sandbox-virtual-machine:/var/www/site/uploads$touch testfile then the script is able to run as I would like to. Any suggestion would be grateful,thanks in advance as well. Thanks for everyone giving help to me,that I was able to progress. Now I am close to getting solved and append the output sandbox@sandbox-virtual-machine:/var/www/site/uploads$ ll total 388 drwxrwxrwx 2 www-data www-data 4096 Oct 18 04:22 ./ drwxrwxrwx 3 sandbox sandbox 4096 Oct 18 04:17 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 166947 Oct 18 04:21 3D Wallpapers 9.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 219808 Oct 18 04:20 adafruit_pi.png -rw-rw-r-- 1 sandbox sandbox 0 Oct 18 04:22 test How may I set permission to uploaded files like 'test' only w difference in middle group. Such as adafruit_pi.png Vs test. Which statement shall I insert to php code,please?

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• MSCC: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp

  Mauritius participated and contributed to the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 (GWAB). Again! And this time stronger than ever, and together with 137 other locations in 56 countries world-wide. We had 62 named registrations, 7 guest additions and approximately 10 offline participants prior to the event day. Most interestingly the organisation of the GWAB through the MSCC helped to increased the number of craftsmen. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community has currently 138 registered members - in less than one year! Only with those numbers we can proudly say that all the preparations and hard work towards this event already paid off. Personally, I'm really grateful that we had this kind of response and the feedback from some attendees confirmed that the MSCC is on the right track here on Cyber Island Mauritius. Inspired and motivated by the success of this event, rest assured that there will be more public events like the GWAB. This time it took some time to reflect on our meetup, following my first impression right on spot: "Wow, what an experience to organise and participate in this global event. Overall, I've been very pleased with the preparations and the event itself. Surely, there have been some nicks that we have to address and to improve for future activities like this. Quite frankly, we are not professional event organisers (not yet) but we learned a lot over the past couple of days. A big Thank You to our event sponsors, namely Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific, Ceridian Mauritius and Emtel. Without them this event wouldn't have happened - Thank You! And to the cool team members of Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs). You geeks did a great job! Thanks!" So, how many attendees did we actually have? 61! - Awesome - 61 cloud computing instances to help on the research of diabetes. During Saturday afternoon there was even an online publication on L'Express: Les développeurs mauriciens se joignent au combat contre le diabète Reactions of other attendees Don't take my word for granted... Here are some impressions and feedback from our participants: "Awesome event, really appreciated the presentations :-)" -- Kevin on event comments "very interesting and enriching." -- Diana on event comments "#gwab #gwabmru 2014 great success. Looking forward for gwab 2015" -- Wasiim on Twitter "Was there till the end. Awesome Event. I'll surely join upcoming meetup sessions :)" -- Luchmun on event comments "#gwabmru was not that cool. left early" -- Mohammad on Twitter The overall feedback is positive but we are absolutely aware that there quite a number of problems we had to face. We are already looking into that and ideas / action plans on how we will be able to improve it for future events. The sessions We started the day with welcoming speeches by Thierry Coret, Sr. Marketing Manager of Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific and Vidia Mooneegan, Managing Director and Sr. Vice President of Ceridian Mauritius. The clear emphasis was on the endless possibilities of cloud computing and how it can enable any kind of sectors here in the country. Then it was about time to set up the cloud computing services in order to contribute each attendees cloud computing resources to the global research of diabetes, a step by step guide presented by Arnaud Meslier, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft. Given a rendering package and a configuration file it was very interesting to follow the single steps in Windows Azure. Also, during the day we were not sure whether the set up had been correctly, as Mauritius didn't show up on the results board - which should have been the case after approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Anyways, let the minions work... Next, Arnaud gave a brief overview of the variety of services Windows Azure has to offer. Whether you need a development environment for your websites or mobiles app, running a virtual machine with your existing applications or simply putting a SQL database online. No worries, Windows Azure has the right packages available and the online management portal is really easy t handle. After this, we got a little bit more business oriented while Wasiim Hosenbocus, employee at Ceridian, took the attendees through the inerts of a real-life application, and demoed a couple of the existing features. He did a great job by showing how the different services of Windows Azure can be created and pulled together. After the lunch break it is always tough to keep the audience awake... And it was my turn. I gave a brief overview on operating and managing a SQL database on Windows Azure. Well, there are actually two options available and depending on your individual requirements you should be aware of both. The simpler version is called SQL Database and while provisioning only takes a couple of seconds, you should take into consideration that SQL Database has a number of constraints, like limitations on the actual database size - up to 5 GB as web edition and up to 150 GB maximum as business edition -, among others. Next, it was Chervine Bhiwoo's session on Windows Azure Mobile Services. It was absolutely amazing to see that the mobiles services directly offers you various project templates, like Windows 8 Store App, Android app, iOS app, and even Xamarin cross-platform app development. So, within a couple of minutes you can have your first mobile app active and running on Windows Azure. Furthermore, Chervine showed the attendees that adding another user interface, like Web Sites running on ASP.NET MVC 4 only takes a couple of minutes, too. And last but not least, we rounded up the day with Windows Azure Websites and hosting of Virtual Machines presented by some members of the local Microsoft Students Partners programme. Surely, one of the big advantages using Windows Azure is the availability of pre-defined installation packages of known web applications, like WordPress, Joomla!, or Ghost. Compared to running your own web site with a traditional web hoster it is surely en par, and depending on your personal level of expertise, Windows Azure provides you more liberty in terms of configuration than maybe a shared hosting environment. Running a pre-defined web application is one thing but in case that you would like to have more control over your hosting environment it is highly advised to opt for a virtual machine. Provisioning of an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS system was very simple to do but it takes some more minutes than you might expect. So, please be patient and take your time while Windows Azure gets everything in place for you. Afterwards, you can use a SecureShell (ssh) client like Putty in case of a Linux-based machine, or Remote Desktop Services when operating a Windows Server system to log in into your virtual machine. At the end of the day we had a great Q&A session and we finalised the event with our raffle of goodies. Participation in the raffle was bound to submission of the session survey and most gratefully we had a give-away for everyone. What a nice coincidence to finish of the day. Note: All session slides (and demo codes) will be made available on the MSCC event page. Please, check the Files section over there. (Some) Visual impressions from the event Just to give you an idea about what has happened during the GWAB 2014 at Ebene... Speakers and Microsoft Student Partners are getting ready for the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 GWAB 2014 attendees are fully integrated into the hands-on-labs and setting up their individuals cloud computing services 60 attendees at the GWAB 2014. Despite some technical difficulties we had a great time running the event GWAB 2014: Using the lunch break for networking and exchange of ideas - Great conversations and topics amongst attendees There are more pictures on the original event page: Questions & Answers Following are a couple of questions which have been asked and didn't get an answer during the event: Q: Is it possible to upload static pages via FTP? A: Yes, you can. Have a look at the right side column on the dashboard of your website. There you'll find information about the FTP and SFTP host names. You can use any FTP client, like ie. FileZilla to log in. FTP also gives you access to your log files. Q: What are the size limitations on SQL Database? A: 5 GB on the Web Edition, and 150 GB on the business edition. A maximum 150 databases (inclusing 'master') per SQL Database server. More details here: General Guidelines and Limitations (Azure SQL Database) Q: What's the maximum size of a SQL Server running in a Virtual Machine? A: The maximum Windows Azure VM has currently 8 CPU cores, 14 or 56 GB of RAM and 16x 1 TB hard drives. More details here: Virtual Machine and Cloud Service Sizes for Azure Q: How can we register for Windows Azure? A: Mauritius is currently not listed for phone verification. Please get in touch with Arnaud Meslier at Microsoft IOI & FP Q: Can I use my own domain name for Windows Azure websites? A: Yes, you can. But this might require to upscale your account to Standard. In case that I missed a question and answer, please use the comment section at the end of the article. Thanks! Final results Every participant was instructed during the hands-on-lab session on how to set up a cloud computing service in their account. Of course, I won't keep the results from you... Global Azure Lab GWAB 2014: Our cloud computing contribution to the research of diabetes And I would say Mauritius did a good job! Upcoming Events What are the upcoming events here in Mauritius? So far, we have the following ones (incomplete list as usual) in chronological order: Launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (15.4.2014) Corsair Hackers Reboot (19.4.2014) WebCup (TBA ~ June 2014) Developers Conference (TBA ~ July 2014) Linuxfest 2014 (TBA ~ November 2014) Hopefully, there will be more announcements during the next couple of weeks and months. If you know about any other event, like a bootcamp, a code challenge or hackathon here in Mauritius, please drop me a note in the comment section below this article. Thanks! Networking and job/project opportunities Despite having technical presentations on Windows Azure an event like this always offers a great bunch of possibilities and opportunities to get in touch with new people in IT, have an exchange of experience with other like-minded people. As I already wrote about Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion - I had a great conversation with representatives of the University des Mascareignes which are currently embracing cloud infrastructure and cloud computing for their various campuses in the Indian Ocean. As for the MSCC it would be a great experience to stay in touch with them, and to work on upcoming, common activities. Furthermore, I had a very good conversation with Thierry and Ludovic of Microsoft IOI & FP on the necessity of user groups and IT communities here on the island. It's great to see that the MSCC is currently on a run and that local companies are sharing our thoughts on promoting IT careers and exchange of IT knowledge in such an open way. I'm also looking forward to be able to participate and to contribute on more events in the near future. My resume of the day We learned a lot today and there is always room for improvement! It was an awesome event and quite frankly it was a pleasure to spend the day with so many enthuastic IT people in the same room. It was a great experience to organise such event locally and participate on a global scale to support the GlyQ-IQ Technology in their research on diabetes. I was so pleased to see the involvement of new MSCC members in taking the opportunity to share and learn about the power of cloud computing. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is on the right way and this year's bootcamp on Windows Azure only marked the beginning of our journey. Thank you to our sponsors and my kudos to the MSPs! Update: Media coverage The event has been reported in local media, too. Following are some resources: Orange - Local - Business: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Maurice Info.mu: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Le Quotidien Pg 2: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 - Le cloud pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète The Observer Pg 12: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète

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• Can't find disk usage in one directory

  - by Xster

  Similar questions are asked frequently but no suggested answers solved my issue. I have some disk space usage that I can't find as well. In df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 144183992 136857180 2652 100% / udev 2013316 4 2013312 1% /dev tmpfs 808848 876 807972 1% /run none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock none 2022116 76 2022040 1% /run/shm overflow 1024 0 1024 0% /tmp I checked the inodes, I checked lsof for +L1 or deleted files, I rebooted, I checked for files hidden behind mounts but none of them were the issue. It grows periodically and I'm running out of things to delete to feed the beast. It's all in the home directory of the only user I have. In du in ~ du -h --max-depth=1 192K ./.nv 2.1M ./.gconf 12K ./Pictures 1.6M ./.launchpadlib 12K ./Public 24K ./.TemporaryItems 8.9M ./.cache 12K ./Network Trash Folder 28K ./.vnc 11M ./.AppleDB 48K ./.subversion 1.9G ./.xbmc 8.0K ./.AppleDesktop 12K ./.dbus 81M ./.mozilla 12K ./Music 160K ./.gnome2 44K ./Downloads 692K ./.zsh 236K ./.AppleDouble 64K ./.pulse 4.0K ./.gvfs 1.4M ./.adobe 44K ./.pki 44K ./.compiz-1 168K ./.config 1.4M ./.thumbnails 12K ./Templates 912K ./.gstreamer-0.10 8.0K ./.emacs.d 92K ./Desktop 1.3M ./.local 12K ./Ubuntu One 12K ./Documents 296K ./.fontconfig 12K ./.qt 12K ./.gnome2_private 20K ./.ssh 20K ./.mission-control 12K ./Videos 12K ./Temporary Items 640K ./.macromedia 124G . I can't find a way to figure out how it got to that 124G in that directory. There are no mount points in home.

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• Prepping a conference

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  I have had the chance to talk at many conferences these past few years, and came up with a way to prepare them which works really well for me. Most importantly, it would make it quite easy to overcome an emergency (for example if my laptop would suddenly lose data). The whole code as well as the slides and other documents are in the cloud. I also use source control for my demos, so that I always have the latest and the greatest, but also a history of changes I made to my demos. Finally I have a system of code snippets which works great, and I often had very positive remarks from the audience regarding that. Putting everything in the cloud The one thing I used to be the most scared of was a sudden crash of my laptop, and being unable to restore in time for a conference. Most conferences ask speakers to send slides a few days (or weeks…) in advance, but let's face it, we all have last minute changes to our talks and I always come in the conference with updated slides that I pass to the management team. The answer to that dilemma used to be working off memory sticks, and that worked not bad. However last year I started putting all the documents relating to a conference in a DropBox folder, and that works great too. Obviously DropBox works only if you have connectivity, so if I for instance update slides while on an international flight, I cannot save to the cloud. The obvious answer to that is to backup everything on a memory stick… but I have to admit, I have been trusting my luck and working off my laptop HD and then synching everything to the cloud after landing. Of course on some US national flights you get WiFi on board, so in that case it is even simpler :) Usually after the conference is done, I remove the files from DropBox and copy them to their "final destination". They are backed up from there to BackBlaze, the great online backup service I am using routinely (I currently have about 90GB of data in BackBlaze). Outlining the presentations I like to have a written outline of my presentations written somewhere. I keep it simple, just write the various sections of the presentation with timing. I guess it is a remnant of the time when I was a private pilot, and using checklists for flight preparation. For example: Demo about designability 15' (0:37) Switch to Blend Open MainPage.xaml Create a DataTemplate ... Here I can immediately see during the presentation if I am taking too much time for my demo (0:37 is where I need to be when I am done with this section of the presentation, and 15' is the time that this particular section takes). I keep these sections reasonable, I don't detail every step of the preparation. Typically I have one such section for every 10-15 minutes of my talks. Yes, I am timing my presentations. I keep adjusting these numbers when I rehearse, and this really helps to feel more confident during the presentations. This is especially important for presentations that are long, like my MIX11 demo which clocked at 57 minutes (I had a lot of stuff to show…). Such presentations are risky, because if anything goes wrong, you will have to cut stuff, so the answer to that is: Rehearse, rehearse and when you're done rehearsing, rehearse a little more. I also have a "Preparation" section where I outline what I need to do before a presentation. For instance: Preparation Reboot in VHD Make sure MSN and Twitter are not running. Open VS10 and load demo Open Blend and load demo Run the WP7 emulator ... I typically start preparing my laptop an hour before the talk, starting everything I need to start and then putting my laptop to sleep. Saving and printing the outline, Timing Printing is a real problem because it is really hard to find a printer at most conference venues, and also quite hard in hotels. To solve that, I simply write everything in OneNote (synched to the cloud, now you start to know what I like ;) and then I print it to a PDF (I use CutePDFWriter) that I save to my Kindle. During the presentation, I read the outline off the Kindle (I mostly just need a quick check to see how I am timing). For timing during the presentation, I use the free tool ChronoGPS on my Windows Phone 7, but of course any phone these days has a clock/chrono application. In some conferences, they even have timers that the presenters can see, but they tend to count down and I prefer to count up… so I just use my own :) Source control for demos For demos, I create a separate folder and use Mercurial as source control. Mercurial has the huge advantage (over SVN or TFS) to work offline too, so I can commit while on a plane, and all the history is saved. Then when I have connectivity I push everything to the cloud (I am using the fantastic Trunksapp.com for my private repositories). Here too the obvious downside is the risk of losing my last changes if my laptop crashes before I can push to the cloud, and here too the obvious answer would be to work from a memory stick… though I have to admit I didn't do that lately (except when I was writing Silverlight 4 Unleashed, where I was really paranoid…) And code snippets? I am one of these presenters who hates to type in front of an audience. I can type really fast (writing two books has this advantage, it really teaches you to touch type and be fast at it) but in the context of an audience, on a stage where it is often damn cold (an issue I had a lot in past conferences, air conditioning can freeze your fingers and make it really hard to type), it doesn't work as well. I don't know for you, but I really dislike seeing a presentation where the speaker uses the backspace key more often than others ;) To solve that, I like to have my code ready in snippets, and drag them to the screen. Then I can spend time explaining each code snippet, while highlighting portions of the code (always highlight what you talk about, the audience often doesn't even see the cursor and doesn't know where you are on the screen!) Over the years I have used various solutions for code snippets, and now I have one which works really well… if you take a few precautions! I use the Visual Studio Toolbox. Preparing the code snippets You can store code snippets in the Toolbox for anything, XAML, C# etc. I arrange the snippets in the order in which I need them, which is a great way to remember what comes next in the presentation. I also separate them by topic, to make it easier to find them, for example when I switch to the slides and then back to the code. Remember that no matter how experienced you are, you will feel more nervous on stage than while you are preparing, so any way to make it easier for you is going to be beneficial to the audience. To store a code snippet, I do the following: Open the final demo that you want to show to the audience in Visual Studio. In your code, select a snippet of code that you want to explain in particular. Make sure that the Visual Studio Toolbox is open (menu View, Toolbox or Ctrl-Alt-X). Drag the selected snippet from the code window to the toolbox. (if needed) drag the snippet to the correct location (for example between two other code snippets so that you can access it as you speak through the demo). Right click on the snippet and select Rename Item from the context menu. Select a meaningful name. For me I use the following conventions: If it is a method, I use the method's name. If it is not a whole method, I use a descriptive name. If it is the content of a method (i.e. the body only, without the method's signature), I use "-> MethodName". This reminds me during the presentation that this is only the body, and that I need to insert that into an existing signature. This is the case, for instance, when I use Visual Studio to automatically generate the members of an interface’s implementation; then I only need to insert my snippet inside the generated method body. Saving the snippets This is the most important!! It happened to me a few times that VS10 lost its settings. When that happens, the snippets are lost too! Yeah that really sucks, especially (as it happened once) when this is the case about an hour before a talk… Stress and sweat follows, not good conditions to start a talk in front of an audience believe me. Thankfully, saving snippets is really easy with the following steps: Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Export selected environment settings and press Next. Uncheck All Settings. Then expand General Settings and select Toolbox (only!). Press Next. Select your source control folder and save under a meaningful name (for instance Snippets.vssettings). Commit to source control and push to the cloud. By the way, this also has the advantage of applying source control to the snippets file (which is an XML file), so you get history for free on that file! Reimporting the snippets If VS loses its settings and you need to reimport the snippets, this can be done super easily and very fast. Make sure that the Toolbox is empty. When you import snippets, they are merged with existing ones, they do not replace the content of the Toolbox. Unless merging is really what you want, make sure that your Toolbox is clean before you import, it is really easier. Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Import selected environment settings and press Next. Select No, just import new settings and press Next. Press Browse and select the Snippets.vssettings file. Press Finish. Et voila, all your snippets appear again in the Toolbox. Whew, the worst was averted and you can start your demo without sweating! (I had to do that once literally 5 minutes before the start of a demo, while my laptop was already hooked to the projector, and it went just fine). What about special tools? When using special tools (for example beta versions of tools you have an early access to), or a special configuration of your laptop, things can get tricky because you cannot really be sure that you will get a laptop with the same tools and the same configuration at the conference. To solve that, I use the following precautions: I make my demos from a Virtual Hard Disk. The great John Papa made a very easy-to-follow web page where he explains how to create a VHD and install Win7 to it. This gives you the full power of your laptop (as fast as booting from the metal). For me, I have a basic configuration that I saved on a USB harddrive (Win7 plus drivers, basic settings for desktop, folder options, taskbar etc) and Visual Studio 2010 SP1 on it. When preparing, I start by copying this "basis VHD" to my laptop. I install additional tools and configurations. I save the VHD back to the USB harddrive in a different folder. This would allow me to reinstall my demo environment quite fast, for example in case of harddrive failure. Replace the harddrive, copy the VHD to it, configure the BCD and you can start. Unfortunately this only works if the laptop itself still works. In the worst case of total failure, my security is to back all the installers up: The installers I use are synched on all my laptops and backed up to BackBlaze. If the worst happens and my laptop is absolutely broken, I can download the installer from BackBlaze and install on another laptop. This of course takes some time, and if that happens 5 minutes before a presentation, well… I don't have an answer to that, except of course crossing my fingers. Still, all that gives me additional security. Conclusion Remember folks, talking to an audience, large or small, will make you nervous. Just ask Scott Hanselman :) The goal here is to create the best possible conditions for you, and to create an environment where everything is saved and easy to restore, where everything is well known and provides you with additional confidence. The cooler you feel before the presentation (and during ;)), the better your presentation will be. Here too, the goal is to provide the best user experience you can have, which in turn will make it more enjoyable for your audience! Happy presenting :) Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Proxy to either Rails app or Node.js app depending on HTTP path w/ Nginx

  - by Cirrostratus

  On Ubuntu 11, I have Nginx correctly serving either CouchDB or Node.js depending on the path, but am unable to get Nginx to access a Rails app via it's port. server { rewrite ^/api(.*)$ $1 last; listen 80; server_name example.com; location / { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3005/; } location /ruby { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9051/; } location /_utils { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:5984; proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_buffering off; # buffering would break CouchDB's _changes feed } gzip on; gzip_comp_level 9; gzip_min_length 1400; gzip_types text/plain text/css image/png image/gif image/jpeg application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/x ml+rss text/javascript; gzip_vary on; gzip_http_version 1.1; gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.(?!.*SV1)"; } / and /_utils are working bu /ruby gives me a 403 Forbidden

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• Forward all traffic through an ssh tunnel

  - by Eamorr

  I hope someone can follow this and I'll explain as best I can. I'm trying to forward all traffic from port 6999 on x.x.x.224, through an ssh tunnel, and onto port 7000 on x.x.x.218. Here is some ASCII art: |browser|-----|Squid on x.x.x.224|------|ssh tunnel|------<satellite link>-----|Squid on x.x.x.218|-----|www| 3128 6999 7000 80 When I remove the ssh tunnel, everything works fine. The idea is to turn off encryption on the ssh tunnel (to save bandwidth) and turn on maximum compression (to save more bandwidth). This is because it's a satellite link. Here's the ssh tunnel I've been using: ssh -C -f -C -o CompressionLevel=9 -o Cipher=none [email protected] -L 7000:172.16.1.224:6999 -N The trouble is, I don't know how to get data from Squid on x.x.x.224 into the ssh tunnel? Am I going about this the wrong way? Should I create an ssh tunnel on x.x.x.218? I use iptables to stop squid on x.x.x.224 from reading port 80, but to feed from port 6999 instead (i.e. via the ssh tunnel). Do I need another iptables rule? Any comments greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance,

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 04, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 04, 2012Popular ReleasesExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.2: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-04-04 v3.1.2 -??IE?????????????BUG（??"about:blank"?...totalem: version 2012.04.04.1: devel releaseNShape - .Net Diagramming Framework for Industrial Applications: NShape 2.0.0: Changes in 2.0.0:New / Changed / Extended Interfaces: public interface ISecurityManager public interface ISecurityDomainObject public interface IModelObject : ISecurityDomainObject public interface ILayerCollection : ICollection<Layer> public interface IRepository public interface ICommand public interface IModelMapping For details on interface changes, see documentation. For more changes on namespaces and base classes, see ReadMe.txt (installation folder) or Changes.txt in the s...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.65.1: Aside from many bug fixes we now have Conditional Formatting The conditional formatting was sponsored by http://www.bewing.nl (big thanks) New on v0.65.1 Fixed issue when loading conditional formatting with default values for icon setsnopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.50: Highlight features & improvements: • Significant performance optimization. • Allow store owners to create several shipments per order. Added a new shipping status: “Partially shipped”. • Pre-order support added. Enables your customers to place a Pre-Order and pay for the item in advance. Displays “Pre-order” button instead of “Buy Now” on the appropriate pages. Makes it possible for customer to buy available goods and Pre-Order items during one session. It can be managed on a product variant ...SkyDrive Connector for SharePoint: SkyDriveConnector for SharePoint: SkyDriveConnector for SharePointWiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 RC0: WiX v3.6 RC0 (3.6.2803.0) provides support for VS11 and a more stable Burn engine. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/4/3/WiX-v3.6-Release-Candidate-Zero-availableSageFrame: SageFrame 2.0: Sageframe is an open source ASP.NET web development framework developed using ASP.NET 3.5 with service pack 1 (sp1) technology. It is designed specifically to help developers build dynamic website by providing core functionality common to most web applications.Lightbox Gallery Module for DotNetNuke: 01.11.00: This version of the Lightbox Gallery Module adds the following features/bug fixes: Feature: Read image EXIF information Bug Fix: URL parsing bug for any folder provider Minimum System Requirements Please ensure that your environment meets or exceeds the following system requirements: DotNetNuke® Version 06.00.00 or higher SQL Server 2005 or later .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or lateriTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.5.4475: Fix to parse empty playlists in iTunes LibraryGoogleMap Control: Google Geocoder 1.3: Geo types changes to string type and GeoAddressType enum changes to static class with some known types as constants in order to resolve the problems with new and not defined geo types.Document.Editor: 2012.2: Whats New for Document.Editor 2012.2: New Save Copy support New Page Setup support Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsVidCoder: 1.3.2: Added option for the minimum title length to scan. Added support to enable or disable LibDVDNav. Added option to prompt to delete source files after clearing successful completed items. Added option to disable remembering recent files and folders. Tweaked number box to only select all on a quick click.MJP's DirectX 11 Samples: Light Indexed Deferred Rendering: Implements light indexed deferred using per-tile light lists calculated in a compute shader, as well as a traditional deferred renderer that uses a compute shader for per-tile light culling and per-pixel shading.Pcap.Net: Pcap.Net 0.9.0 (66492): Pcap.Net - March 2012 Release Pcap.Net is a .NET wrapper for WinPcap written in C++/CLI and C#. It Features almost all WinPcap features and includes a packet interpretation framework. Version 0.9.0 (Change Set 66492)March 31, 2012 release of the Pcap.Net framework. Follow Pcap.Net on Google+Follow Pcap.Net on Google+ Files Pcap.Net.DevelopersPack.0.9.0.66492.zip - Includes all the tutorial example projects source files, the binaries in a 3rdParty directory and the documentation. It include...Extended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.6.0: Want an easier way to install the Extended WPF Toolkit?The Extended WPF Toolkit is available on Nuget. What's in the 1.6.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner Calculator CalculatorUpDown CheckListBox - Breaking Changes CheckComboBox - New Control ChildWindow CollectionEditor CollectionEditorDialog ColorCanvas ColorPicker DateTimePicker DateTimeUpDown DecimalUpDown DoubleUpDown DropDownButton IntegerUpDown Magnifier MaskedTextBox MessageBox MultiLineTex...Media Companion: MC 3.434b Release: General This release should be the last beta for 3.4xx. If there are no major problems, by the end of the week it will upgraded to 3.500 Stable! The latest mc_com.exe should be included too! TV Bug fix - crash when using XBMC scraper for TV episodes. Bug fix - episode count update when adding new episodes. Bug fix - crash when actors name was missing. Enhanced TV scrape progress text. Enhancements made to missing episodes display. Movies Bug fix - hide "Play Trailer" when multisaev...Better Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.831 Alpha: - A new release with: - many bugfixes - changed icon - added code for more failsafe registry usage on x64 systems - not needed regfix anymore - added ribbon shortcut keys - Other fixes Note: If you have problems opening system libraries, a suggestion was given to copy all of these libraries and then delete the originals. Thanks to Gaugamela for that! (see discussion here: 349015 ) Note2: I was upload again the setup due to missing file!MonoGame - Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 2.5: The MonoGame team are pleased to announce that MonoGame v2.5 has been released. This release contains important bug fixes, implements optimisations and adds key features. MonoGame now has the capability to use OpenGLES 2.0 on Android and iOS devices, meaning it now supports custom shaders across mobile and desktop platforms. Also included in this release are native orientation animations on iOS devices and better Orientation support for Android. There have also been a lot of bug fixes since t...Circuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Alpha 3: New in this release: Added components: Microcontroller Demultiplexer Flip & rotate components Open XML files from older versions of Circuit Diagram Text formatting for components New CDDX syntax Other fixesNew ProjectsASP.Net MVC Composite Application Framework: ASP.NET MVC Composite Application FrameworkaTimer : Take a break timer: This timer will help programmers and other people who work on computer for long periods, users will be able to set their time period for work and break, whether you want to enforce the break by hibernating or making your computer sleep. Will be good for eyes, a lot! Still under development and will be monthly revised.Avilander Maven: Projeto Disciplina Branquinho.Banner from Databases: make a banner from database informationCrmXpress OptionSet Manager For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CrmXpress OptionSet Manager For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011CSharpCodeLineCounter: Count code lines as Code Metrics do.Decatec Sharepoint code: Various Decatec Sharepoint codeDevWebServer: DevWebServer is a simple, lightweight web server which can be used for unit testing HTTP client applications. It is developed in C#, has minimal dependencies and is provided as a single assembly.Effect Architect: A real-time effect editor (currently) aimed at Direct3D9. The idea is to bring features that popular IDEs provide to HLSL coding, as well as features that are specific to graphical coding.Gpu Hough: Demo project performing Hough transformation on GPUHappyHourWin8: This project contains several Metro-App development approaches. There will be an RSS-Reader, a task list and a game. Home Media Center: Home Media Center is a server application for UPnP / DLNA compatible devices. It supports streaming and transcoding media files, Windows desktop and video from webcams. This project is developed in C#, C++ and uses DirectShow, Media Foundation.INSTEON Mayhem Module: INSTEON module for Mayhem application.ISService: ISServiceKEITH: Kinect for hospitalsKnowledge Exchange: KnowledgeExchangeLightweight Test Automation Framework: The Lightweight Test Automation Framework for ASP.NET was developed and is currently used by the ASP.NET QA Team to automate regression tests for the product. It is designed to run within an ASP.NET application. Tests can be written in any .NET Framework language. They use an APlinewatchdk: linewatchdkLuaForMono: c#?lua?????,??LuaInterface??luaSharp???,?????????(luaInterface)??lua??c#?????????(luasharp),??mono?linux????????lua??.Metro App Toolkit: The Metro App Toolkit provides the developer community with key components and functionality that are commonly used in Metro Apps for WindowsPhone, Windows8 and the web, including Networking! Toolkit releases include samples & docs. From the community, for the community. My IE Accelerators: 1. dict.cn ie accelaratorofm: ofmOrchard Clippy module: Orchard Clippy moduleOrchard Twitter module: Orchard Twitter modulePersian Subtitle For Programming Courses: This project is created for collecting all programming course's PERSIAN SUBTITLE and help Persian language student to learn programming and every thing related to their major, by Meysam Hooshmandpicking: pickingPomodoro Timer for Visual Studio: Keep track of your Pomodoro Technique (from the Pomodoro Technique® official website – www.pomodorotechnique.com) sessions in Visual Studio.ScriptSafe: A simple powershell wrapper around source control aimed at admins to enable simple source control for their scripts.SkyDrive Connector for SharePoint: SkyDrive Connector for SharePoint is a sandbox web part that can help manage documents stored on skydrive on sharepoint by adding additional metadata. This helps the document to be discoverable on SharePoint. Also SkyDrive provides 25GB for free space for live users.SkypeTranslator: Help users to translate incoming message from Skype and Outlook applications to specified language. In core was use Elysium , log4net , and WPF frameworks, WPF Toolkit Extended,TPL,WCFTalking Heads: The TalkingHeads is a simple social network written in ASP .NET 4.0. It is intended for demonstrating and exploring application monitoring features of AVIcode technology. It works great with AVIcode 5.7, as well as with APM feature in System Center 2012. Unik Project: Unik is a Unified Framework makes easier to create enterprise .NET applications based on architecture best practice.WV-CU950 System Controller .NET Library.: WV-CU950 System Controller .NET library for Panasonic WV-CU950 System Controller. This library contains data processing method.YO JACK!: <Project name>Yo Jack!</Project name> Gather evidence to track down a physical theft of your computer, and turn over to the police. Free to the public.???????: ???????？

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• What LTO 4 drive to buy

  - by pplrppl

  Evan Anderson mentioned in another solution you could buy a LTO-4 (autoloader, 1 tape / day) - $4,566.00 (the discussion included total cost of tapes for a specific rotation.) but I don't know specifics on what he or you would recommend for the actual drive and if necessary controller. Show me a newegg URL or CDW, Dell, or HP, or whatever your favorite vendor would be for your solution if you don't mind looking it up or just give me a brand and a model number and I'll be glad to do the leg work myself. I currently have on have on hand an external LTO 3 drive that uses LVD SCSI interface (and thus have a controller card that has an external LVD SCSI connector). If that card isn't sufficient to interface to a LTO 4 drive let me know. http://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/LTO_Overview.pdf shows minimum tape speeds for LTO4 and other LTO formats. It looks like the IBM LTO4 actually has a lower minimum speed than the IBM LTO3. Either way my average server is too slow to feed LTO3/4 without shoeshining so I'm looking for a drive with a low minimum write speed. If you trust the PDF from 2008 that makes my choices IBM LTO 4 full height IBM LTO 4 half height HP LTO 4 half height but presumably there are other options out there that weren't mentioned in the fuji PDF. Again I'm looking for a specific recommendation on a drive to buy (and the controller if needed).

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 06, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 06, 2011Popular ReleasesSharepoint 2010 Diagnostic Log Compression: Sharepoint 2010 Diagnostic Log Compression v1.0: ====================== Requirements: Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Foundation or Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Server Release Version : 1.0PowerShell SQL Developer Tools: SQLDevTools_Module (folder) Version 0.1.0: SQLDevTools Module version 0.1.0(alpha release) Just unzip the file and move the folder "SQLDevTools" into your User "WindowsPowerShell\Modules" folder. "C:\Users\UserName...\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\SQLDevTools" Then, to load *module at either the PowerShell Console or ISE, use: Import-Module SQLDevTools To remove module use: Remove-Module SQLDevTools Again, you need have SQL Server 2008 (or above). or the standalone version of "SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 " installed ...ShowUI: Write-UI -in PowerShell: ShowUI: ShowUI is a PowerShell module to help you write rich user interfaces in script.SQL Compact Query Analyzer: Build 0.2.0.0: Beta build of SQL Compact Query Analyzer Features: - Execute SQL Queries against a SQL Server Compact Edition database - Easily edit the contents of the database - Supports SQLCE 3.5 and 4.0 Prerequisites: - .NET Framework 4.0Media Companion: MC 3.405b weekly: Extract the entire archive to a folder which has user access rights, eg desktop, documents etc. Refer to the documentation on this site for the Installation & Setup Guide Important! If you are upgrading from a version of MC before 3.404 then..... Due to an issue where the date added & the full genre information was not being read into the Movie cache, it is highly recommended that you perform a Rebuild Movies when first running this latest version. This will read in the information from the ...Babylon Toolkit: Babylon.Toolkit v1.0.4: Note about samples: In order to run samples, you need to configure visual studio to run them as an "Out-of-browser application". in order to do that, go to the property page of a sample project, go to the Debug tab, and check the "Out-of-browser application" radio. New features : New Effects BasicEffect3Lights (3 dir lights instead of 1 position light) CartoonEffect (work in progress) SkinnedEffect (with normal and specular map support) SplattingEffect (for multi-texturing with smooth ...SizeOnDisk: 1.0.8.2: With installerTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v2.5: Added new items associated with Terraria v1.0.3 to the character editor. Fixed multiple bugs with Piggy Bank EditorySterling NoSQL OODB for .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4 and 5, and Windows Phone 7: Sterling OODB v1.5: Welcome to the Sterling 1.5 RTM. This version is backwards compatible without modification to the 1.4 beta. For the 1.0, you will need to upgrade your database. Please see this discussion for details. You must modify your 1.0 code for persistence. The 1.5 version defaults to an in-memory driver. To save to isolated storage or use one of the new mechanisms, see the available drivers and pass an instance of the appropriate one to your database (different databases may use different drivers). ...patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 10 - June 3, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Many code changes: please see the readme.mht for details. New "Application Notifications" chapter. Updated "Server-Side Implementation" chapter. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separate download for your convenience. Installation Overview To install and run the reference implementation, you must perform the fol...Claims Based Identity & Access Control Guide: Release Candidate: Highlights of this release This is the release candidate drop of the new "Claims Identity Guide" edition. In this release you will find: All code samples, including all ACS v2: ACS as a Federation Provider - Showing authentication with LiveID, Google, etc. ACS as a FP with Multiple Business Partners. ACS and REST endpoints. Using a WP7 client with REST endpoints. All ACS specific chapters. Two new chapters on SharePoint (SSO and Federation) All revised v1 chapters We are now ...Terraria Map Generator: TerrariaMapTool 1.0.0.4 Beta: 1) Fixed the generated map.html file so that the file:/// is included in the base path. 2) Added the ability to use parallelization during generation. This will cause the program to use as many threads as there are physical cores. 3) Fixed some background overdraw.Caliburn Micro: WPF, Silverlight and WP7 made easy.: Caliburn.Micro v1.1 RTW: Download ContentsDebug and Release Assemblies Samples Changes.txt License.txt Release Highlights For WP7A new Tombstoning API based on ideas from Fluent NHibernate A new Launcher/Chooser API Strongly typed Navigation SimpleContainer included The full phone lifecycle is made easy to work with ie. we figure out whether your app is actually Resurrecting or just Continuing for you For WPFSupport for the Client Profile Better support for WinForms integration All PlatformsA power...VidCoder: 0.9.1: Added color coding to the Log window. Errors are highlighted in red, HandBrake logs are in black and VidCoder logs are in dark blue. Moved enqueue button to the right with the other control buttons. Added logic to report failures when errors are logged during the encode or when the encode finishes prematurely. Added Copy button to Log window. Adjusted audio track selection box to always show the full track name. Changed encode job progress bar to also be colored yellow when the enco...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v2.0.1: - Fixed a small bug in Auto Login - Fixed the updaterEPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 2.9.0.1: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server This version has been updated to .Net Framework 3.5 New Features Data Validation. PivotTables (Basic functionalliy...) Support for worksheet data sources. Column, Row, Page and Data fields. Date and Numeric grouping Build in styles. ...and more And some minor new features... Ranges Text-Property|Get the formated value AutofitColumns-method to set the column width from the content of the range LoadFromCollection-metho...jQuery ASP.Net MVC Controls: Version 1.4.0.0: Version 1.4.0.0 contains the following additions: Upgraded to MVC 3.0 Upgraded to jQuery 1.6.1 (Though the project supports all jQuery version from 1.4.x onwards) Upgraded to jqGrid 3.8 Better Razor View-Engine support Better Pager support, includes support for custom pagers Added jqGrid toolbar buttons support Search module refactored, with full suport for multiple filters and ordering And Code cleanup, bug-fixes and better controller configuration support.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.8b: Changes: - fix critical issue 15922(AccessViolationException) once and for all ...update is strongly recommended Known Issues: - some addin ribbon examples has a COM Register function with missing codebase entry(win32 registry) ...the problem is only affected to c# examples. fixed in latest source code. NetOffice\ReleaseTags\NetOffice Release 0.8.rar Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:...................Serviio for Windows Home Server: Beta Release 0.5.2.0: Ready for widespread beta. Synchronized build number to Serviio version to avoid confusion.AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta4: ??AcDown?????????????，??????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta4 2011-5-31?? ???Bilibili.us????? ???? ?? ???"????" ???Bilibili.us??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ???????? ?? ?? ???Bilibili.us?????(??????????????????) ??????(6.cn)?????(????) ?? ?????Acfun?????????? ?????????????? ???QQ???????? ????????????Discussion...New Projects.NET library for Audiogalaxy: AgNet is a .NET Client library for the Audiogalaxy APIAsuro scanner: A asuro programm which can recognize light values and perform predefined actions for them. This was realised for school project.AutoComplete.Net (for Asp.Net and Asp.Net MVC): AutoComplete.Net is a wrapper around the JQuery UI Autocomplete widget. It makes it easier to add autocomplete functionalities without having to bother with tons of javascript. Includes a WebControl for your Asp.Net web applications and a bunch of extension methods for your Asp.Net MVC web applications. Their purpose is to provide developers with an easy interface to the cool JQuery UI autocomplete Widget. It's developed in C#.AveSoft Advance Keylogger: Free and completely open source keystroke logging application, allows you to capture and record all keyboard input to file. Program is extremely small and lightweight, can run in a hidden mode, upload log file to specified web server. Due to open source nature, software is secure and transparent. Main Features Captures all keyboard input Caching and low level hooks uses minimal amount of CPU cycles Highly customizable Hidden mode Windows integration Log file...DDDProjector: DDDPrjector ?、DDD (Domain Driven Design: ????????) ?????????????????????????????????????、C# ???????????????????。 ???????????????????? C# ????????????????、??????????????????????????。 O/R ?????? NHibernate ??????。DogTouch: DogTouchEVMDOCS Reports: This project contain diploma of student VSTU. The project is devoted to automating the learning process at the university. Contains reports in OpenOfficeFidely - Search Query Compilation Framework: Fidely is a framework to implement a search query compiler that parses a search query string and builds up an expression tree (Expression<Func<T, bool>>) to filter a collection object. Fidely allows you to customize processes of parsing a query string and building up an expression tree, so you can create various search query compilers. The goal of this project is to make it easy to implement collection filtering features into your application.Frets: Frets is a library for creating and printing guitar chord diagrams. FuncLib: C# automatic differentiation library, transparent use with operator overloading, unlimited order of differentiation and unlimited number of variables, on-the-fly function compilation to IL code for very fast evaluation.ITAP: a management system for HCM IU's IELTS simulation examjQXB/M Expression Binder: JQ Expression Binder is a lightweigth framework (10 kbytes) for the association between javascript objects and HTML elements. Based on jQuery provides a natural and flexible way to process the data exchanged between client and server in a real WEB 2.0 paradigm. Using a few custom attributes to decorate yout HTML tags now you are enabled to take complete control over the managing of your business data directly inside yours web pages. Easy integration with ASP.NET WEBForm web applications, ...Log Processor: This software helps you to automatically analyze and process data in files (such as plain text logs, binary dumps...) based on : - plugins (for multiple input/output file types support) - plain text rules files (for a complete customization of the analysis needed) You'll then be able to easily produce stats reports from you application logs.MiniIndexer: A web application the demonstrates how to make a simple indexing search engine backed by a relational database. Monads: Monads helpers for .NET, Silverlight and Windows Phone 7.Movie Browser: Movie Browser helps collecting information from imdb and manage personal movie folders.Opc Configurable Xml Server/Service (OCXS): A Microsoft .NET 4.0 C# OPC XML Data Access 1.0 Server/ServiceSQL DAL: Data access layerTankMate: A simple Visual Basic application that lists and manages all your fish tanks. software initially designed to list fish tanks and enter their width/height/depth in inches and it display their volume in litres tank calculator was then expanded to alert if water needs changing after set interval of days number of days between changes is settable for each tank any sound file can be used for alert sounds has online update feature to keep it up to date Twoosh!: Simply, a fully-functional Twitter client for Windows... Twoosh makes it easier for Tweeple to Tweet. You'll no longer have to wait for the Twitter page to load or see the fail whale error page. It's developed in Visual Basic .NET 2008.WCF RIA Services for Azure Tables and SQL/Azure: Th project demos RIA services with POCO objects using two different back end data storage technologies, SQL/Azure and Azure Table Storage. The example shows a simple association between two tables - department and employee for read, insert and update operationsWindows Azure Storage Console Client: Windows Azure Storage Console ClientXNA 4.0 VirtualCompass: VirtualCompass is an incredibly simple and easy to use library for path finding in Microsoft's XNA 4.0 . It implements A* (A-star) path finding techniques to find the shortest path. This is an alpha status project. Limited testing and optimization thus far. Developed in C#.

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• DevConnections Session Slides, Samples and Links

  - by Rick Strahl

  Finally coming up for air this week, after catching up with being on the road for the better part of three weeks. Here are my slides, samples and links for my four DevConnections Session two weeks ago in Vegas. I ended up doing one extra un-prepared for session on WebAPI and AJAX, as some of the speakers were either delayed or unable to make it at all to Vegas due to Sandy's mayhem. It was pretty hectic in the speaker room as Erik (our event coordinator extrodinaire) was scrambling to fill session slots with speakers :-). Surprisingly it didn't feel like the storm affected attendance drastically though, but I guess it's hard to tell without actual numbers. The conference was a lot of fun - it's been a while since I've been speaking at one of these larger conferences. I'd been taking a hiatus, and I forgot how much I enjoy actually giving talks. Preparing - well not  quite so much, especially since I ended up essentially preparing or completely rewriting for all three of these talks and I was stressing out a bit as I was sick the week before the conference and didn't get as much time to prepare as I wanted to. But - as always seems to be the case - it all worked out, but I guess those that attended have to be the judge of that… It was great to catch up with my speaker friends as well - man I feel out of touch. I got to spend a bunch of time with Dan Wahlin, Ward Bell, Julie Lerman and for about 10 minutes even got to catch up with the ever so busy Michele Bustamante. Lots of great technical discussions including a fun and heated REST controversy with Ward and Howard Dierking. There were also a number of great discussions with attendees, describing how they're using the technologies touched in my talks in live applications. I got some great ideas from some of these and I wish there would have been more opportunities for these kinds of discussions. One thing I miss at these Vegas events though is some sort of coherent event where attendees and speakers get to mingle. These Vegas conferences are just like "go to sessions, then go out and PARTY on the town" - it's Vegas after all! But I think that it's always nice to have at least one evening event where everybody gets to hang out together and trade stories and geek talk. Overall there didn't seem to be much opportunity for that beyond lunch or the small and short exhibit hall events which it seemed not many people actually went to. Anyways, a good time was had. I hope those of you that came to my sessions learned something useful. There were lots of great questions and discussions after the sessions - always appreciate hearing the real life scenarios that people deal with in relation to the abstracted scenarios in sessions. Here are the Session abstracts, a few comments and the links for downloading slides and  samples. It's not quite like being there, but I hope this stuff turns out to be useful to some of you. I'll be following up a couple of these sessions with white papers in the following weeks. Enjoy. ASP.NET Architecture: How ASP.NET Works at the Low Level Abstract:Interested in how ASP.NET works at a low level? ASP.NET is extremely powerful and flexible technology, but it's easy to forget about the core framework that underlies the higher level technologies like ASP.NET MVC, WebForms, WebPages, Web Services that we deal with on a day to day basis. The ASP.NET core drives all the higher level handlers and frameworks layered on top of it and with the core power comes some complexity in the form of a very rich object model that controls the flow of a request through the ASP.NET pipeline from Windows HTTP services down to the application level. To take full advantage of it, it helps to understand the underlying architecture and model. This session discusses the architecture of ASP.NET along with a number of useful tidbits that you can use for building and debugging your ASP.NET applications more efficiently. We look at overall architecture, how requests flow from the IIS (7 and later) Web Server to the ASP.NET runtime into HTTP handlers, modules and filters and finally into high-level handlers like MVC, Web Forms or Web API. Focus of this session is on the low-level aspects on the ASP.NET runtime, with examples that demonstrate the bootstrapping of ASP.NET, threading models, how Application Domains are used, startup bootstrapping, how configuration files are applied and how all of this relates to the applications you write either using low-level tools like HTTP handlers and modules or high-level pages or services sitting at the top of the ASP.NET runtime processing chain. Comments:I was surprised to see so many people show up for this session - especially since it was the last session on the last day and a short 1 hour session to boot. The room was packed and it was to see so many people interested the abstracts of architecture of ASP.NET beyond the immediate high level application needs. Lots of great questions in this talk as well - I only wish this session would have been the full hour 15 minutes as we just a little short of getting through the main material (didn't make it to Filters and Error handling). I haven't done this session in a long time and I had to pretty much re-figure all the system internals having to do with the ASP.NET bootstrapping in light for the changes that came with IIS 7 and later. The last time I did this talk was with IIS6, I guess it's been a while. I love doing this session, mainly because in my mind the core of ASP.NET overall is so cleanly designed to provide maximum flexibility without compromising performance that has clearly stood the test of time in the 10 years or so that .NET has been around. While there are a lot of moving parts, the technology is easy to manage once you understand the core components and the core model hasn't changed much even while the underlying architecture that drives has been almost completely revamped especially with the introduction of IIS 7 and later. Download Samples and Slides   Introduction to using jQuery with ASP.NET Abstract:In this session you'll learn how to take advantage of jQuery in your ASP.NET applications. Starting with an overview of jQuery client features via many short and fun examples, you'll find out about core features like the power of selectors for document element selection, manipulating these elements with jQuery's wrapped set methods in a browser independent way, how to hook up and handle events easily and generally apply concepts of unobtrusive JavaScript principles to client scripting. The second half of the session then delves into jQuery's AJAX features and several different ways how you can interact with ASP.NET on the server. You'll see examples of using ASP.NET MVC for serving HTML and JSON AJAX content, as well as using the new ASP.NET Web API to serve JSON and hypermedia content. You'll also see examples of client side templating/databinding with Handlebars and Knockout. Comments:This session was in a monster of a room and to my surprise it was nearly packed, given that this was a 100 level session. I can see that it's a good idea to continue to do intro sessions to jQuery as there appeared to be quite a number of folks who had not worked much with jQuery yet and who most likely could greatly benefit from using it. Seemed seemed to me the session got more than a few people excited to going if they hadn't yet :-).  Anyway I just love doing this session because it's mostly live coding and highly interactive - not many sessions that I can build things up from scratch and iterate on in an hour. jQuery makes that easy though. Resources: Slides and Code Samples Introduction to jQuery White Paper Introduction to ASP.NET Web API   Hosting the Razor Scripting Engine in Your Own Applications Abstract:The Razor Engine used in ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web Pages is a free-standing scripting engine that can be disassociated from these Web-specific implementations and can be used in your own applications. Razor allows for a powerful mix of code and text rendering that makes it a wonderful tool for any sort of text generation, from creating HTML output in non-Web applications, to rendering mail merge-like functionality, to code generation for developer tools and even as a plug-in scripting engine. In this session, we'll look at the components that make up the Razor engine and how you can bootstrap it in your own applications to hook up templating. You'll find out how to create custom templates and manage Razor requests that can be pre-compiled, detecting page changes and act in ways similar to a full runtime. We look at ways that you can pass data into the engine and retrieve both the rendered output as well as result values in a package that makes it easy to plug Razor into your own applications. Comments:That this session was picked was a bit of a surprise to me, since it's a bit of a niche topic. Even more of a surprise was that during the session quite a few people who attended had actually used Razor externally and were there to find out more about how the process works and how to extend it. In the session I talk a bit about a custom Razor hosting implementation (Westwind.RazorHosting) and drilled into the various components required to build a custom Razor Hosting engine and a runtime around it. This sessions was a bit of a chore to prepare for as there are lots of technical implementation details that needed to be dealt with and squeezing that into an hour 15 is a bit tight (and that aren't addressed even by some of the wrapper libraries that exist). Found out though that there's quite a bit of interest in using a templating engine outside of web applications, or often side by side with the HTML output generated by frameworks like MVC or WebForms. An extra fun part of this session was that this was my first session and when I went to set up I realized I forgot my mini-DVI to VGA adapter cable to plug into the projector in my room - 6 minutes before the session was about to start. So I ended up sprinting the half a mile + back to my room - and back at a full sprint. I managed to be back only a couple of minutes late, but when I started I was out of breath for the first 10 minutes or so, while trying to talk. Musta sounded a bit funny as I was trying to not gasp too much :-) Resources: Slides and Code Samples Westwind.RazorHosting GitHub Project Original RazorHosting Blog Post   Introduction to ASP.NET Web API for AJAX Applications Abstract:WebAPI provides a new framework for creating REST based APIs, but it can also act as a backend to typical AJAX operations. This session covers the core features of Web API as it relates to typical AJAX application development. We’ll cover content-negotiation, routing and a variety of output generation options as well as managing data updates from the client in the context of a small Single Page Application style Web app. Finally we’ll look at some of the extensibility features in WebAPI to customize and extend Web API in a number and useful useful ways. Comments:This session was a fill in for session slots not filled due MIA speakers stranded by Sandy. I had samples from my previous Web API article so decided to go ahead and put together a session from it. Given that I spent only a couple of hours preparing and putting slides together I was glad it turned out as it did - kind of just ran itself by way of the examples I guess as well as nice audience interactions and questions. Lots of interest - and also some confusion about when Web API makes sense. Both this session and the jQuery session ended up getting a ton of questions about when to use Web API vs. MVC, whether it would make sense to switch to Web API for all AJAX backend work etc. In my opinion there's no need to jump to Web API for existing applications that already have a good AJAX foundation. Web API is awesome for real externally consumed APIs and clearly defined application AJAX APIs. For typical application level AJAX calls, it's still a good idea, but ASP.NET MVC can serve most if not all of that functionality just as well. There's no need to abandon MVC (or even ASP.NET AJAX or third party AJAX backends) just to move to Web API. For new projects Web API probably makes good sense for isolation of AJAX calls, but it really depends on how the application is set up. In some cases sharing business logic between the HTML and AJAX interfaces with a single MVC API can be cleaner than creating two completely separate code paths to serve essentially the same business logic. Resources: Slides and Code Samples Sample Code on GitHub Introduction to ASP.NET Web API White Paper© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Conferences  ASP.NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, August 17, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, August 17, 2012Popular ReleasesXDA ROM HUB: Release v0.9.1: Fixed issue: "Can't recognize device, please try again" IMPORTENT! You MUST install this software in a path WITHOUT spaces, Good example: "C:\Users\Max\Documents" Please note that I lost the source code, so I can't update this softwareDotNetNuke® Feedback: 06.02.01: Official Release - 17th August 2012 Please look at the Release Notes file included in the module packages or available on this page as a separate download for a listing of the bug fixes and enhancements found in this version. NOTE: Feedback v 06.02.00 REQUIRES a minimum DotNetNuke framework version of 06.02.00 as well as ASP.Net 3.5 SP1 and MS SQL Server 2005 or 2008 (Express or standard versions). This release brings some enhancements to the module as well as fixing all known bugs. Bug Fi...fastJSON: v2.0.2: - bug fix $types and arraysDatabase View-plug-ins Programming Helper: Database View-plug-ins 1.2 (for Oracle): The download package consists of deployment SQL scripts. Run every scripts of all subdirectories in order (sort by name). "VPI" is the default schema name in the manifest, it can be changed to other name according to your enterprise database policy. Current release is for Oracle version (SQL Server version will be released later).Everybody Edits Account Manager: EEAccMan 1.1: Fixed: Incompatibility with the newest chrome version (v21)WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.7: Version: 2.5.0.7 (Milestone 7): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete WAF: Add CollectionHelper.GetNextElementOrDefault method. InfoMan: Support creating a new email and saving it in the Send b...Diablo III Drop Statistics Service: D3DSS 1.0.1: ??????IP??。 ??????????，??????????。myCollections: Version 2.2.3.0: New in this version : Added setup package. Added Amazon Spain for Apps, Books, Games, Movie, Music, Nds and Tvshow. Added TVDB Spain for Tvshow. Added TMDB Spain for Movies. Added Auto rename files from title. Added more filters when adding files (vob,mpls,ifo...) Improve Books author and Music Artist Credits. Rewrite find duplicates for better performance. You can now add Custom link to items. You can now add type directly from the type list using right mouse button. Bug ...mydnn: DNN Garden - DDR Menu for DotNetNuke: ?? ??? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ?? DDR Menu ?? ?? ????? ??? DNN ?? ??????. ??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ???? ??????? ???? ?? ????. ?? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ?????? SolPart ?? DNN Nav ??? ???? ????? ????? ?? ??????? ???? ?? ???? ??? CSS ????? ????. ?? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ??? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ?? jQuery ? CSS ????? ???? ????. ??? ???? ?? ???? Treeview ? Superfish? Accordion ? Dropdown ?Artisteer ? Mega-menu ?? ????.Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 Preview 5 (Refresh): Support for Windows 8 and Visual Studio RTM Support for Smooth Streaming SDK beta 2 Support for live playback New bitrate meter and SD/HD indicators Auto smooth streaming track restriction for snapped mode to conserve bandwidth New "Go Live" button and SeekToLive API Support for offset start times Support for Live position unique from end time Support for multiple audio streams (smooth and progressive content) Improved intellisense in JS version NEW TO PREVIEW 5 REFRESH:Req...TFS Workbench: TFS Workbench v2.2.0.10: Compiled installers for TFS Workbench 2.2.0.10 Bug Fix Fixed bug that stopped the change workspace action from working.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.60: Allow for CSS3 grid-column and grid-row repeat syntax. Provide option for -analyze scope-report output to be in XML for easier programmatic processing; also allow for report to be saved to a separate output file.ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.67.2: v0.67.2 Fix when copying conditional formats with relative formulas v0.67.1 Misc fixes to the conditional formats v0.67.0 Conditional formats now accept formulas. Major performance improvement when opening files with merged ranges. Misc fixes.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.8.1: Whats newBug fixes: Fixed: When upgrading to 4.8.0, the database upgrade didn't run Update: unfortunately, upgrading with SQLCE is problematic, there's a workaround here: http://bit.ly/TEmMJN The changes to the <imaging> section in umbracoSettings.config caused errors when you didn't apply them during the upgrade. Defaults will now be used if any keys are missing Scheduled unpublishes now only unpublishes nodes set to published rather than newest Work item: 30937 - Fixed problem with Fi...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 3.0 for .NET 4.5 and WinRT - Preview: The Unity 3.0.1208.0 Preview enables Unity to work on .NET 4.5 with both the WinRT and desktop profiles. This is an updated version of the port after the .NET Framework 4.5 and Windows 8 have RTM'ed. Please see the Release Notes Providing feedback Post your feedback on the Unity forum Submit and vote on new features for Unity on our Uservoice site.Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 2.0.0 for VS11: Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight v 2.0.0 for Entity Framework 5.0 and Visual Studio 2012NPOI: NPOI 2.0: New features a. Implement OpenXml4Net (same as System.Packaging from Microsoft). It supports both .NET 2.0 and .NET 4.0 b. Excel 2007 read/write library (NPOI.XSSF) c. Word 2007 read/write library(NPOI.XWPF) d. NPOI.SS namespace becomes the interface shared between XSSF and HSSF e. Load xlsx template and save as new xlsx file (partially supported) f. Diagonal line in cell both in xls and xlsx g. Support isRightToLeft and setRightToLeft on the common spreadsheet Sheet interface, as per existin...BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 1.1: This release includes bug fixes from the 1.0 release for email notifications, RSS feeds, and several other issues. Please see the change log for a full list of changes. http://support.bugnetproject.com/Projects/ReleaseNotes.aspx?pid=1&m=76 Upgrade Notes The following changes to the web.config in the profile section have occurred: Removed <add name="NotificationTypes" type="String" defaultValue="Email" customProviderData="NotificationTypes;nvarchar;255" />Added <add name="ReceiveEmailNotifi...????: ????2.0.5: 1、?????????????。RiP-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.01: changes NEW: Added Support for Clipboard Function in Mono Version NEW: Added Support for "ImgBox.com" links FIXED: "PixHub.eu" links FIXED: "ImgChili.com" links FIXED: Kitty-Kats Forum loginNew ProjectsAdvanced Task Manager: The Advanced Task Manager is a beautified and easy-to-use Task Manager for Windows, with even a few added features!CashBook: CashBook public beta release. Collect basic information on cashflow in and out of your organisation for your bookkeeper.Digital Image: Projeto academico de código aberto com o propósito de auxiliar na aprendizagem da Computação Gráfica. Desenvolvimento utilizando: C#, ASP .NET MVC e NHibernateFgPop: FgPop is a JQuery script generator starting from FgPop class properties you set. HDI Charts: A Charting Library for ASP.NET with Gantt, Line and Bar Charts. Possibility to draw Calculated Graphs, eg: x² or Interview Test: Interview Testing ProjectMeotom.Net: Meotom.Net is free upload image ...MetroCloud: Sync your cloudMissing Poster: Missing Poster is a tool to assist SAR and police to create and distribute missing person posters in a standardized format. OMAOL Sealer: Der OMAOL Stealer ist ein open source Stealer in C#. Zur Ausführung wird das .Net Framework 2.0 benötigt.Planar Mechanism Kinematic Simulator (PMKS): PMKS returns quick and accurate results for the position, velocity, and acceleration of rigid bodies connected as planar mechanisms.Real Life Library: Using this library, you will be able to make your own simulation of the real life! Just for fun.Smart String Resources: Creates a class to access resx strings with named parameters and provides access to the resource keys to use with attribute-based validations.testdd08162012hg: dfvtestdd08162012tfs01: dsftestddgit08152012: ,.,.testddgit0816201201: vbtesthg08192012hg01: dsTQ Sharepoint 2010 Twitter Feeds webpart: TQ Sharepoint 2010 Twitter Feeds webpart No credential required this webpart searches public tweets based on keyword/topic/trend.Vortex: Vortex is a simple asynchronous network library written in C#, for ease of use and rapid application development.WakeUp SharePoint 2010/2013 with powershell: It also works with ADFS and claims.Windows Azure + SQL Azure Monitoring: Simple Azuer app demonstrating how to add basic monitoring for troubleshooting.WPFP - XPS Document Layouting and Generation: XPS Document Layouting and GenerationXBDesign: a test project onlyYacht Transport Lines: Yacht Transport Lines

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• No digital audio output with Asus Xonar DG

  - by Lunatik

  I've purchased an Asus Xonar DG as replacement for faulty onboard audio in a Medion 8822 as it has an optical output which is all I really need to feed my HTPC. I uninstalled the previous drivers/devices, switched the PC off, inserted the Asus card, powered up, disabled the onboard audio in the BIOS, then installed the driver that came on the CD (same version as on Asus' website as of today) and everything went perfectly - no errors. I set the audio devices up in Windows and in the Asus utility (SPDIF enabled, 6-ch audio) as I would expect to see them work, but the only thing is I have no digital audio from test tones within Windows/the Asus utility, PCM audio or Dolby Digital from DVD. Analogue audio is fine. I've uninstalled things and reinstalled a couple of times now, as well as trying almost all combinations of analogue/digital outputs but can't get it sorted. Does anyone have any tips on how to get this working? This card has just been released so there isn't much out there to go on. Notes: The light on the toslink port is lit. OS is Vista 32-bit SP2 and all up to date, pretty much a fresh install with almost no 3rd party applications installed This page seems to suggest that a digital output device in Windows is not needed with Xonar cards as it was with the previous Realtek so I have it set to Analog. The only other output device is S/PDIF pass-thru

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