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  • boolean in java: what am I doing wrong?

    - by Cheesegraterr
    Hello, I am trying to make my boolean value work. I am new at programming java so I must be missing something simple. I am trying to make it so that if one of the tire pressures is below 35 or over 45 the system outputs "bad inflation" For class me must use a boolean which is what I tried. I cant figure out why this isnt working. No matter what I do the boolean is always true. Any tips? public class tirePressure { private static double getDoubleSystem1 () //Private routine to simply read a double in from the command line { String myInput1 = null; //Store the string that is read form the command line double numInput1 = 0; //Used to store the converted string into an double BufferedReader mySystem; //Buffer to store input mySystem = new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (System.in)); // creates a connection to system files or cmd try { myInput1 = mySystem.readLine (); //reads in data from console myInput1 = myInput1.trim (); //trim command cuts off unneccesary inputs } catch (IOException e) //checks for errors { System.out.println ("IOException: " + e); return -1; } numInput1 = Double.parseDouble (myInput1); //converts the string to an double return numInput1; //return double value to main program } static public void main (String[] args) { double TireFR; //double to store input from console double TireFL; double TireBR; double TireBL; boolean goodPressure; goodPressure = false; System.out.println ("Tire Pressure Checker"); System.out.println (" "); System.out.print ("Enter pressure of front left tire:"); TireFL = getDoubleSystem1 (); //read in an double from the user if (TireFL < 35 || TireFL > 45) { System.out.println ("Pressure out of range"); goodPressure = false; } System.out.print ("Enter pressure of front right tire:"); TireFR = getDoubleSystem1 (); //read in an double from the user if (TireFR < 35 || TireFR > 45) { System.out.println ("Pressure out of range"); goodPressure = false; } if (TireFL == TireFR) System.out.print (" "); else System.out.println ("Front tire pressures do not match"); System.out.println (" "); System.out.print ("Enter pressure of back left tire:"); TireBL = getDoubleSystem1 (); //read in an double from the user if (TireBL < 35 || TireBL > 45) { System.out.println ("Pressure out of range"); goodPressure = false; } System.out.print ("Enter pressure of back right tire:"); TireBR = getDoubleSystem1 (); //read in an double from the user if (TireBR < 35 || TireBR > 45) { System.out.println ("Pressure out of range"); goodPressure = false; } if (TireBL == TireBR) System.out.print (" "); else System.out.println ("Back tire pressures do not match"); if (goodPressure = true) System.out.println ("Inflation is OK."); else System.out.println ("Inflation is BAD."); System.out.println (goodPressure); } //mainmethod } // tirePressure Class

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  • Database - Designing an "Events" Table

    - by Alix Axel
    After reading the tips from this great Nettuts+ article I've come up with a table schema that would separate highly volatile data from other tables subjected to heavy reads and at the same time lower the number of tables needed in the whole database schema, however I'm not sure if this is a good idea since it doesn't follow the rules of normalization and I would like to hear your advice, here is the general idea: I've four types of users modeled in a Class Table Inheritance structure, in the main "user" table I store data common to all the users (id, username, password, several flags, ...) along with some TIMESTAMP fields (date_created, date_updated, date_activated, date_lastLogin, ...). To quote the tip #16 from the Nettuts+ article mentioned above: Example 2: You have a “last_login” field in your table. It updates every time a user logs in to the website. But every update on a table causes the query cache for that table to be flushed. You can put that field into another table to keep updates to your users table to a minimum. Now it gets even trickier, I need to keep track of some user statistics like how many unique times a user profile was seen how many unique times a ad from a specific type of user was clicked how many unique times a post from a specific type of user was seen and so on... In my fully normalized database this adds up to about 8 to 10 additional tables, it's not a lot but I would like to keep things simple if I could, so I've come up with the following "events" table: |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | ID | TABLE | EVENT | DATE | IP | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 1 | user | login | 201004190030 | 127.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 1 | user | login | 201004190230 | 127.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | created | 201004190031 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | activated | 201004190234 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | approved | 201004190930 | 217.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | login | 201004191200 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | created | 201004191230 | 127.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | impressed | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | clicked | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | clicked | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | clicked | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | clicked | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 15 | user_ads | clicked | 201004191231 | 127.0.0.2 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | blocked | 201004200319 | 217.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| | 2 | user | deleted | 201004200320 | 217.0.0.1 | |------|----------------|----------------|--------------|-----------| Basically the ID refers to the primary key (id) field in the TABLE table, I believe the rest should be pretty straightforward. One thing that I've come to like in this design is that I can keep track of all the user logins instead of just the last one, and thus generate some interesting metrics with that data. Due to the nature of the events table I also thought of making some optimizations, such as: #9: Since there is only a finite number of tables and a finite (and predetermined) number of events, the TABLE and EVENTS columns could be setup as ENUMs instead of VARCHARs to save some space. #14: Store IPs as UNSIGNED INT with INET_ATON() instead of VARCHARs. Store DATEs as TIMESTAMPs instead of DATETIMEs. Use the ARCHIVE (or the CSV?) engine instead of InnoDB / MyISAM. Overall, each event would only consume 14 bytes which is okay for my traffic I guess. Pros: Ability to store more detailed data (such as logins). No need to design (and code for) almost a dozen additional tables (dates and statistics). Reduces a few columns per table and keeps volatile data separated. Cons: Non-relational (still not as bad as EAV): SELECT * FROM events WHERE id = 2 AND table = 'user' ORDER BY date DESC(); 6 bytes overhead per event (ID, TABLE and EVENT). I'm more inclined to go with this approach since the pros seem to far outweigh the cons, but I'm still a little bit reluctant.. Am I missing something? What are your thoughts on this? Thanks!

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  • A format for storing personal contacts in a database

    - by Gart
    I'm thinking of the best way to store personal contacts in a database for a business application. The traditional and straightforward approach would be to create a table with columns for each element, i.e. Name, Telephone Number, Job title, Address, etc... However, there are known industry standards for this kind of data, like for example vCard, or hCard, or vCard-RDF/XML or even Windows Contacts XML Schema. Utilizing an standard format would offer some benefits, like inter-operablilty with other systems. But how can I decide which method to use? The requirements are mainly to store the data. Search and ordering queries are highly unlikely but possible. The volume of the data is 100,000 records at maximum. My database engine supports native XML columns. I have been thinking to use some XML-based format to store the personal contacts. Then it will be possible to utilize XML indexes on this data, if searching and ordering is needed. Is this a good approach? Which contacts format and schema would you recommend for this? Edited after first answers Here is why I think the straightforward approach is bad. This is due to the nature of this kind of data - it is not that simple. The personal contacts it is not well-structured data, it may be called semi-structured. Each contact may have different data fields, maybe even such fields which I cannot anticipate. In my opinion, each piece of this data should be treated as important information, i.e. no piece of data could be discarded just because there was no relevant column in the database. If we took it further, assuming that no data may be lost, then we could create a big text column named Comment or Description or Other and put there everything which cannot be fitted well into table columns. But then again - the data would lose structure - this might be bad. If we wanted structured data then - according to the database design principles - the data should be decomposed into entities, and relations should be established between the entities. But this adds complexity - there are just too many entities, and lots of design desicions should be made, like "How do we store Address? Personal Name? Phone number? How do we encode home phone numbers and mobile phone numbers? How about other contact info?.." The relations between entities are complex and multiple, and each relation is a table in the database. Each relation needs to be documented in the design papers. That is a lot of work to do. But it is possible to avoid the complexity entirely - just document that the data is stored according to such and such standard schema, period. Then anybody who would be reading that document should easily understand what it was all about. Finally, this is all about using an industry standard. The standard is, hopefully, designed by some clever people who anticipated and described the structure of personal contacts information much better than I ever could. Why should we all reinvent the wheel?? It's much easier to use a standard schema. The problem is, there are just too many standards - it's not easy to decide which one to use!

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  • Calculating negative fractions in Objective C

    - by Mark Reid
    I've been coding my way through Steve Kochan's Programming in Objective-C 2.0 book. I'm up to an exercise in chapter 7, ex 4, in case anyone has the book. The question posed by the exercise it will the Fraction class written work with negative fractions such as -1/2 + -2/3? Here's the implementation code in question - @implementation Fraction @synthesize numerator, denominator; -(void) print { NSLog(@"%i/%i", numerator, denominator); } -(void) setTo: (int) n over: (int) d { numerator = n; denominator = d; } -(double) convertToNum { if (denominator != 0) return (double) numerator / denominator; else return 1.0; } -(Fraction *) add: (Fraction *) f { // To add two fractions: // a/b + c/d = ((a * d) + (b * c)) / (b * d) // result will store the result of the addition Fraction *result = [[Fraction alloc] init]; int resultNum, resultDenom; resultNum = (numerator * f.denominator) + (denominator * f.numerator); resultDenom = denominator * f.denominator; [result setTo: resultNum over: resultDenom]; [result reduce]; return result; } -(Fraction *) subtract: (Fraction *) f { // To subtract two fractions: // a/b - c/d = ((a * d) - (b * c)) / (b * d) // result will store the result of the addition Fraction *result = [[Fraction alloc] init]; int resultNum, resultDenom; resultNum = numerator * f.denominator - denominator * f.numerator; resultDenom = denominator * f.denominator; [result setTo: resultNum over: resultDenom]; [result reduce]; return result; } -(Fraction *) multiply: (Fraction *) f { // To multiply two fractions // a/b * c/d = (a*c) / (b*d) // result will store the result of the addition Fraction *result = [[Fraction alloc] init]; int resultNum, resultDenom; resultNum = numerator * f.numerator; resultDenom = denominator * f.denominator; [result setTo: resultNum over: resultDenom]; [result reduce]; return result; } -(Fraction *) divide: (Fraction *) f { // To divide two fractions // a/b / c/d = (a*d) / (b*c) // result will store the result of the addition Fraction *result = [[Fraction alloc] init]; int resultNum, resultDenom; resultNum = numerator * f.denominator; resultDenom = denominator * f.numerator; [result setTo: resultNum over: resultDenom]; [result reduce]; return result; } -(void) reduce { int u = numerator; int v = denominator; int temp; while (v != 0) { temp = u % v; u = v; v = temp; } numerator /= u; denominator /= u; } @end My question to you is will it work with negative fractions and can you explain how you know? Part of the issue is I don't know how to calculate negative fractions myself so I'm not too sure how to know. Many thanks.

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  • Need suggestions on how to extract data from .docx/.doc file then into mssql

    - by DarkPP
    I'm suppose to develop an automated application for my project, it will load past-year examination/exercises paper (word file), detect the sections accordingly, extract the questions and images in that section, and then store the questions and images into the database. (Preview of the question paper is at the bottom of this post) So I need some suggestions on how to extract data from a word file, then inserting them into a database. Currently I have a few methods to do so, however I have no idea how I could implement them when the file contains textboxes with background image. The question has to link with the image. Method One (Make use of ms office interop) Load the word file - Extract image, save into a folder - Extract text, save as .txt - Extract text from .txt then store in db Question: How i detect the section and question. How I link the image to the question. Extract text from word file (Working): private object missing = Type.Missing; private object sFilename = @"C:\temp\questionpaper.docx"; private object sFilename2 = @"C:\temp\temp.txt"; private object readOnly = true; object fileFormat = Word.WdSaveFormat.wdFormatText; private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { Word.Application wWordApp = new Word.Application(); wWordApp.DisplayAlerts = Word.WdAlertLevel.wdAlertsNone; Word.Document dFile = wWordApp.Documents.Open(ref sFilename, ref missing, ref readOnly, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing); dFile.SaveAs(ref sFilename2, ref fileFormat, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,ref missing, ref missing,ref missing,ref missing,ref missing,ref missing, ref missing,ref missing); dFile.Close(ref missing, ref missing, ref missing); } Extract image from word file (Doesn't work on image inside textbox): private Word.Application wWordApp; private int m_i; private object missing = Type.Missing; private object filename = @"C:\temp\questionpaper.docx"; private object readOnly = true; private void CopyFromClipbordInlineShape(String imageIndex) { Word.InlineShape inlineShape = wWordApp.ActiveDocument.InlineShapes[m_i]; inlineShape.Select(); wWordApp.Selection.Copy(); Computer computer = new Computer(); if (computer.Clipboard.GetDataObject() != null) { System.Windows.Forms.IDataObject data = computer.Clipboard.GetDataObject(); if (data.GetDataPresent(System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Bitmap)) { Image image = (Image)data.GetData(System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Bitmap, true); image.Save("C:\\temp\\DoCremoveImage" + imageIndex + ".png", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png); } } } private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { wWordApp = new Word.Application(); wWordApp.Documents.Open(ref filename, ref missing, ref readOnly, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing); try { for (int i = 1; i <= wWordApp.ActiveDocument.InlineShapes.Count; i++) { m_i = i; CopyFromClipbordInlineShape(Convert.ToString(i)); } } finally { object save = false; wWordApp.Quit(ref save, ref missing, ref missing); wWordApp = null; } } Method Two Unzip the word file (.docx) - Copy the media(image) folder, store somewhere - Parse the XML file - Store the text in db Any suggestion/help would be greatly appreciated :D Preview of the word file: (backup link: http://i.stack.imgur.com/YF1Ap.png)

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  • Have suggestions for these assembly mnemonics?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    Greetings! Last semester in college, my teacher in the Computer Languages class taught us the esoteric language named Whitespace. In the interest of learning the language better with a very busy schedule (midterms), I wrote an interpreter and assembler in Python. An assembly language was designed to facilitate writing programs easily, and a sample program was written with the given assembly mnemonics. Now that it is summer, a new project has begun with the objective being to rewrite the interpreter and assembler for Whitespace 0.3, with further developments coming afterwards. Since there is so much extra time than before to work on its design, you are presented here with an outline that provides a revised set of mnemonics for the assembly language. This post is marked as a wiki for their discussion. Have you ever had any experience with assembly languages in the past? Were there some instructions that you thought should have been renamed to something different? Did you find yourself thinking outside the box and with a different paradigm than in which the mnemonics were named? If you can answer yes to any of those questions, you are most welcome here. Subjective answers are appreciated! Stack Manipulation (IMP: [Space]) Stack manipulation is one of the more common operations, hence the shortness of the IMP [Space]. There are four stack instructions. hold N Push the number onto the stack copy Duplicate the top item on the stack copy N Copy the nth item on the stack (given by the argument) onto the top of the stack swap Swap the top two items on the stack drop Discard the top item on the stack drop N Slide n items off the stack, keeping the top item Arithmetic (IMP: [Tab][Space]) Arithmetic commands operate on the top two items on the stack, and replace them with the result of the operation. The first item pushed is considered to be left of the operator. add Addition sub Subtraction mul Multiplication div Integer Division mod Modulo Heap Access (IMP: [Tab][Tab]) Heap access commands look at the stack to find the address of items to be stored or retrieved. To store an item, push the address then the value and run the store command. To retrieve an item, push the address and run the retrieve command, which will place the value stored in the location at the top of the stack. save Store load Retrieve Flow Control (IMP: [LF]) Flow control operations are also common. Subroutines are marked by labels, as well as the targets of conditional and unconditional jumps, by which loops can be implemented. Programs must be ended by means of [LF][LF][LF] so that the interpreter can exit cleanly. L: Mark a location in the program call L Call a subroutine goto L Jump unconditionally to a label if=0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is zero if<0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is negative return End a subroutine and transfer control back to the caller halt End the program I/O (IMP: [Tab][LF]) Finally, we need to be able to interact with the user. There are IO instructions for reading and writing numbers and individual characters. With these, string manipulation routines can be written. The read instructions take the heap address in which to store the result from the top of the stack. print chr Output the character at the top of the stack print int Output the number at the top of the stack input chr Read a character and place it in the location given by the top of the stack input int Read a number and place it in the location given by the top of the stack Question: How would you redesign, rewrite, or rename the previous mnemonics and for what reasons?

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  • Are their any suggestions for this new assembly language?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    Greetings! Last semester in college, my teacher in the Computer Languages class taught us the esoteric language named Whitespace. In the interest of learning the language better with a very busy schedule (midterms), I wrote an interpreter and assembler in Python. An assembly language was designed to facilitate writing programs easily, and a sample program was written with the given assembly mnemonics. Now that it is summer, a new project has begun with the objective being to rewrite the interpreter and assembler for Whitespace 0.3, with further developments coming afterwards. Since there is so much extra time than before to work on its design, you are presented here with an outline that provides a revised set of mnemonics for the assembly language. This post is marked as a wiki for their discussion. Have you ever had any experience with assembly languages in the past? Were there some instructions that you thought should have been renamed to something different? Did you find yourself thinking outside the box and with a different paradigm than in which the mnemonics were named? If you can answer yes to any of those questions, you are most welcome here. Subjective answers are appreciated! Stack Manipulation (IMP: [Space]) Stack manipulation is one of the more common operations, hence the shortness of the IMP [Space]. There are four stack instructions. hold N Push the number onto the stack copy Duplicate the top item on the stack copy N Copy the nth item on the stack (given by the argument) onto the top of the stack swap Swap the top two items on the stack drop Discard the top item on the stack drop N Slide n items off the stack, keeping the top item Arithmetic (IMP: [Tab][Space]) Arithmetic commands operate on the top two items on the stack, and replace them with the result of the operation. The first item pushed is considered to be left of the operator. add Addition sub Subtraction mul Multiplication div Integer Division mod Modulo Heap Access (IMP: [Tab][Tab]) Heap access commands look at the stack to find the address of items to be stored or retrieved. To store an item, push the address then the value and run the store command. To retrieve an item, push the address and run the retrieve command, which will place the value stored in the location at the top of the stack. save Store load Retrieve Flow Control (IMP: [LF]) Flow control operations are also common. Subroutines are marked by labels, as well as the targets of conditional and unconditional jumps, by which loops can be implemented. Programs must be ended by means of [LF][LF][LF] so that the interpreter can exit cleanly. L: Mark a location in the program call L Call a subroutine goto L Jump unconditionally to a label if=0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is zero if<0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is negative return End a subroutine and transfer control back to the caller exit End the program I/O (IMP: [Tab][LF]) Finally, we need to be able to interact with the user. There are IO instructions for reading and writing numbers and individual characters. With these, string manipulation routines can be written. The read instructions take the heap address in which to store the result from the top of the stack. print chr Output the character at the top of the stack print int Output the number at the top of the stack input chr Read a character and place it in the location given by the top of the stack input int Read a number and place it in the location given by the top of the stack Question: How would you redesign, rewrite, or rename the previous mnemonics and for what reasons?

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  • Are there any suggestions for these new assembly mnemonics?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    Greetings! Last semester in college, my teacher in the Computer Languages class taught us the esoteric language named Whitespace. In the interest of learning the language better with a very busy schedule (midterms), I wrote an interpreter and assembler in Python. An assembly language was designed to facilitate writing programs easily, and a sample program was written with the given assembly mnemonics. Now that it is summer, a new project has begun with the objective being to rewrite the interpreter and assembler for Whitespace 0.3, with further developments coming afterwards. Since there is so much extra time than before to work on its design, you are presented here with an outline that provides a revised set of mnemonics for the assembly language. This post is marked as a wiki for their discussion. Have you ever had any experience with assembly languages in the past? Were there some instructions that you thought should have been renamed to something different? Did you find yourself thinking outside the box and with a different paradigm than in which the mnemonics were named? If you can answer yes to any of those questions, you are most welcome here. Subjective answers are appreciated! Stack Manipulation (IMP: [Space]) Stack manipulation is one of the more common operations, hence the shortness of the IMP [Space]. There are four stack instructions. hold N Push the number onto the stack copy Duplicate the top item on the stack copy N Copy the nth item on the stack (given by the argument) onto the top of the stack swap Swap the top two items on the stack drop Discard the top item on the stack drop N Slide n items off the stack, keeping the top item Arithmetic (IMP: [Tab][Space]) Arithmetic commands operate on the top two items on the stack, and replace them with the result of the operation. The first item pushed is considered to be left of the operator. add Addition sub Subtraction mul Multiplication div Integer Division mod Modulo Heap Access (IMP: [Tab][Tab]) Heap access commands look at the stack to find the address of items to be stored or retrieved. To store an item, push the address then the value and run the store command. To retrieve an item, push the address and run the retrieve command, which will place the value stored in the location at the top of the stack. save Store load Retrieve Flow Control (IMP: [LF]) Flow control operations are also common. Subroutines are marked by labels, as well as the targets of conditional and unconditional jumps, by which loops can be implemented. Programs must be ended by means of [LF][LF][LF] so that the interpreter can exit cleanly. L: Mark a location in the program call L Call a subroutine goto L Jump unconditionally to a label if=0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is zero if<0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is negative return End a subroutine and transfer control back to the caller halt End the program I/O (IMP: [Tab][LF]) Finally, we need to be able to interact with the user. There are IO instructions for reading and writing numbers and individual characters. With these, string manipulation routines can be written. The read instructions take the heap address in which to store the result from the top of the stack. print chr Output the character at the top of the stack print int Output the number at the top of the stack input chr Read a character and place it in the location given by the top of the stack input int Read a number and place it in the location given by the top of the stack Question: How would you redesign, rewrite, or rename the previous mnemonics and for what reasons?

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  • black screen while retrieving result from webservices in android

    - by Aswan
    Hi Folks i am using following webservices for retrieving data from server server side:.net client side:ksoap2 whenever activity start, onCreate i am using spinner for displying data returned by the webservices when this activity start it showing black screen after lunching the activity .i found black screen is coming when activity connecting to webservices How to resolve this MyCode public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); try { //Display the online and busy people display in spinner //people are display in relative people only(Mygroup) /* get the online and busy people who are in user group from DB*/ users_names_ids=new ParseXMLString().convertusernames(new DataParsingComm().ILGetOnlinePeoples("<spGetOnlinePeoples><UserID>"+GetCurrentUserID.id+"</UserID></spGetOnlinePeoples>")); /* create an array with the size of number of peoples whose status is online or busy */ String[] array =new String[users_names_ids.size()]; int setselction=0;// initialize the selection to 0. /* if array length is greater than zero, that means getting at least one person whose status is online or busy */ if(array.length>0){ /* Returns an enumeration on the keys of this Hashtable instance. And assigns into Enumeration instance variable */ Enumeration e= users_names_ids.keys(); /* Iterate list Enumeration until it does't has any more elements */ for(int i=0;e.hasMoreElements();i++) try{ /* get all persons names into the array list */ array[i]=e.nextElement().toString(); /* Get the ChatUserName value from the ChatInPeopleDetails preferences. And If it is in this list set selection to the index 'i' */ if(getSharedPreferences("ChatInPeopleDetails", 0).getString("ChatUserName", "").equals(array[i])) setselction=i; /* * Get the String value of Relname, that previously added with putExtra() as extended data to the parent intent * If that value is not null and exists in the array list then * set the selection to the index 'i'. * */ else if(getIntent().getStringExtra("Relname")!=null && getIntent().getStringExtra("Relname").equals(array[i])) setselction=i; }catch(Exception ex){ ex.printStackTrace(); } finally { System.gc(); System.runFinalization(); } } /* create a new array adapter with the ChatForm context and array objects */ ArrayAdapter<String> adapter2 = new ArrayAdapter<String>(ChatForm.this,android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item, array); /* Set the layout resource to create the drop down views. */ adapter2.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item); /* The Adapter is used to provide the data which backs this Spinner SpinnerUsersToChat. */ ((Spinner)findViewById(R.id.SpinnerUsersToChat)).setAdapter(adapter2); /* Get the ChatUserName value from the ChatInPeopleDetails preferences. If this value is not null*/ if(getSharedPreferences("ChatInPeopleDetails", 0).getString("ChatUserName", "") !=null) { /* Set the currently selected item of spinner based on selection variable value */ ((Spinner)findViewById(R.id.SpinnerUsersToChat)).setSelection(setselction); } /* Register a callback to be invoked when an item in this AdapterView has been selected.*/ ((Spinner)findViewById(R.id.SpinnerUsersToChat)).setOnItemSelectedListener(new OnItemSelectedListener() { public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> parent,View v,int position,long id) { /* call getMsg() to get messages and display them*/ getMsg(); /* Causes the Runnable to be added to the message queue. The runnable will be run on the user interface thread.*/ ((ScrollView)findViewById(R.id.ScrollView06)).post(new Runnable() { public void run() { /* This fullScroll() method will scroll the view to the bottom .*/ ((ScrollView)findViewById(R.id.ScrollView06)).fullScroll(View.FOCUS_DOWN); } }); } /* on nothing selected to do somthing . this an overridden method */ public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0) { } }); } catch (Exception e1) { e1.printStackTrace(); } }

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  • Do you have suggestions for these assembly mnemonics?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    Greetings! Last semester in college, my teacher in the Computer Languages class taught us the esoteric language named Whitespace. In the interest of learning the language better with a very busy schedule (midterms), I wrote an interpreter and assembler in Python. An assembly language was designed to facilitate writing programs easily, and a sample program was written with the given assembly mnemonics. Now that it is summer, a new project has begun with the objective being to rewrite the interpreter and assembler for Whitespace 0.3, with further developments coming afterwards. Since there is so much extra time than before to work on its design, you are presented here with an outline that provides a revised set of mnemonics for the assembly language. This post is marked as a wiki for their discussion. Have you ever had any experience with assembly languages in the past? Were there some instructions that you thought should have been renamed to something different? Did you find yourself thinking outside the box and with a different paradigm than in which the mnemonics were named? If you can answer yes to any of those questions, you are most welcome here. Subjective answers are appreciated! Stack Manipulation (IMP: [Space]) Stack manipulation is one of the more common operations, hence the shortness of the IMP [Space]. There are four stack instructions. hold N Push the number onto the stack copy Duplicate the top item on the stack copy N Copy the nth item on the stack (given by the argument) onto the top of the stack swap Swap the top two items on the stack drop Discard the top item on the stack drop N Slide n items off the stack, keeping the top item Arithmetic (IMP: [Tab][Space]) Arithmetic commands operate on the top two items on the stack, and replace them with the result of the operation. The first item pushed is considered to be left of the operator. add Addition sub Subtraction mul Multiplication div Integer Division mod Modulo Heap Access (IMP: [Tab][Tab]) Heap access commands look at the stack to find the address of items to be stored or retrieved. To store an item, push the address then the value and run the store command. To retrieve an item, push the address and run the retrieve command, which will place the value stored in the location at the top of the stack. save Store load Retrieve Flow Control (IMP: [LF]) Flow control operations are also common. Subroutines are marked by labels, as well as the targets of conditional and unconditional jumps, by which loops can be implemented. Programs must be ended by means of [LF][LF][LF] so that the interpreter can exit cleanly. L: Mark a location in the program call L Call a subroutine goto L Jump unconditionally to a label if=0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is zero if<0 L Jump to a label if the top of the stack is negative return End a subroutine and transfer control back to the caller halt End the program I/O (IMP: [Tab][LF]) Finally, we need to be able to interact with the user. There are IO instructions for reading and writing numbers and individual characters. With these, string manipulation routines can be written. The read instructions take the heap address in which to store the result from the top of the stack. print chr Output the character at the top of the stack print int Output the number at the top of the stack input chr Read a character and place it in the location given by the top of the stack input int Read a number and place it in the location given by the top of the stack Question: How would you redesign, rewrite, or rename the previous mnemonics and for what reasons?

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  • Having trouble storing a CRTP based class in a vector

    - by user366834
    Hi, Im not sure if this can be done, im just delving into templates so perhaps my understanding is a bit wrong. I have a Platoon of soldiers, the platoon inherits from a formation to pick up the formations properties, but because i could have as many formations as i can think of I chose to use the CRTP to create the formations, hoping that i could make a vector or array of Platoon to store the platoons in. but, of course, when i make a Platoon, it wont store it in the vector, "types are unrelated" Is there any way around this ? i read about "Veneers" which are similar and that they work with arrays but i cant get it to work, perhaps im missing something. here's some code: (sorry about the formatting, the code is here in my post but its not showing up for some reason ) template < class TBase > class IFormation { public : ~IFormation(){} bool IsFull() { return m_uiMaxMembers == m_uiCurrentMemCount; } protected: unsigned int m_uiCurrentMemCount; unsigned int m_uiMaxMembers; IFormation( unsigned int _uiMaxMembers ): m_uiMaxMembers( _uiMaxMembers ), m_uiCurrentMemCount( 0 ){} // only allow use as a base class. void SetupFormation( std::vector<MySoldier*>& _soldierList ){}; // must be implemented in derived class }; ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // PHALANX FORMATION class Phalanx : public IFormation<Phalanx> { public: Phalanx( ): IFormation( 12 ), m_fDistance( 4.0f ) {} ~Phalanx(){} protected: float m_fDistance; // the distance between soldiers void SetupFormation( std::vector<MySoldier*>& _soldierList ); }; /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // COLUMN FORMATINO class Column : public IFormation< Column > { public : Column( int _numOfMembers ): IFormation( _numOfMembers ) {} ~Column(); protected: void SetupFormation( std::vector<MySoldier*>& _soldierList ); }; I then use these formations in the platoon class to derive, so that platoon gets the relevant SetupFormation() function: template < class Formation > class Platoon : public Formation { public: **** platoon code here }; everything works great and as expected up until this point. now, as my general can have multiple platoons, I need to store the platoons. typedef Platoon< IFormation<> > TPlatoon; // FAIL typedef std::vector<TPlatoon*> TPlatoons; TPlatoon m_pPlatoons m_pPlatoons.push_back( new Platoon<Phalanx> ); // FAIL, types unrelated. typedef Platoon< IFormation< TPlatoon; fails because i need to specify a template parameter, yet specifying this will only allow me to store platoons created with the same template parameter. so i then created FormationBase class FormationBase { public: virtual bool IsFull() = 0; virtual void SetupFormation( std::vector<MySoldier*>& _soldierList ) = 0; }; and made IFormation publicly inherit from that, and then changed the typedef to typedef Platoon< IFormation< FormationBase > > TPlatoon; but still no love. now in my searches i have not found info that says this is possible - or not possible.

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  • not able to show the file from the array...

    - by sjl
    Hi, i'm trying to do an image gallery. i was not able to display the thumbnails stored in the array. instead it keep showing the same thumbnails. anyone can help? very much appreciated.. // Arrays that store the filenames of the text, images and thumbnails var thumbnails:Array = [ "images/image1_thumb.jpg", "images/image2_thumb.jpg", "images/image3_thumb.jpg", "images/image4_thumb.jpg", "images/image5_thumb.jpg", "images/image6_thumb.jpg", "images/image7_thumb.jpg" ]; var images:Array = [ "images/image1.jpg", "images/image2.jpg", "images/image3.jpg", "images/image4.jpg", "images/image5.jpg", "images/image6.jpg", "images/image7.jpg" ]; var textFiles:Array = [ "text/picture1.txt", "text/picture2.txt", "text/picture3.txt", "text/picture4.txt", "text/picture5.txt", "text/picture6.txt", "text/picture7.txt" ]; // NOTE: thumbnail images are 60 x 43 pixels in size // loop through the array and create the thumbnails and position them vertically for (var i:int = 0; i <7; i++) { // create an instance of MyUIThumbnail var thumbs:MyUIThumbnail = new MyUIThumbnail(); // position the thumbnails on the left vertically thumbs.y = 43 * i;/*** FILL IN THE BLANK HERE ***/ // store the corresponding full size image name in the thumbnail // use the "images" array thumbs.image = "images/image1.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image2.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image3.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image4.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image5.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image6.jpg"; thumbs.image = "images/image7.jpg"; // store the corresponding text file name in the thumbnail // use the "textFiles" array thumbs.textFile = "text/picture1.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture2.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture3.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture4.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture5.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture6.txt"; thumbs.textFile = "text/picture7.txt"; thumbs.imageFullSize = full_image_mc ; // store the reference to the textfield in the thumbnail thumbs.infoText = info; // load and display the thumbnails // use the "thumbnails" array thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image1_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image2_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image3_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image4_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image5_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image6_thumb.jpg"); thumbs.loadThumbnail("images/image7_thumb.jpg"); addChild(thumbs); } below is my thumbanail. as package{ import fl.containers.; import flash.events.; import flash.text.; import flash.net.; import flash.display.*; public class MyUIThumbnail extends MovieClip { public var image:String = ""; public var textFile:String = ""; var loader:UILoader = new UILoader(); public var imageFullSize:MyFullSizeImage; // reference to loader to show the full size image public var infoText:TextField; // reference to textfield that displays image infoText var txtLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); // loader to load the text file public function MyUIThumbnail() { buttonMode = true; addChild(loader); this.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myClick); txtLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, displayText); loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, thumbnailLoaded); } public function loadThumbnail(filename:String):void { loader.source = filename; preloader.trackLoading(loader); } function myClick(e:MouseEvent):void { // load and display the full size image imageFullSize.loadImage("my_full_mc"); // load and display the text textLoad("info"); } function textLoad(file:String) { // load the text description from the text file loader.load(new URLRequest(textFile)); } function displayText(e:Event) { //display the text when loading is completed addChild(infoText); } function thumbnailLoaded(e:Event) { loader.width = 60; loader.height = 43; } } }

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  • How to get my list of rows from database to show while using Zend-Paginator

    - by Matto
    I'm fairly new to the world of Zend-Framework, and have taken over a site that is in zend-framework. There is a bug on one of the pages right now and I can not figure it out. I think it has something to do with Zend Paginator, but not sure. This is the code in the controller for the section I am having a problem with: $currentPage = $this->_getParam('page'); $numWebsitesFullOnline = $websites->getWebsitesFullOnline(); $select = $websites->select(); $select->setIntegrityCheck(false); $select->from(array('w' => 'websites'), array('id', 'online', 'kw_adjective', 'kw_name', 'kw_location', 'url', 'email', 'address', 'ftp_server', 'ftp_username', 'ftp_password', 'ftp_folder', 'phone_number', 'indexed', 'youtube_position', 'twitter_user', 'facebook_id', 'video_made', 'image1_id', 'image2_id', 'image3_id', 'bg_color', 'dark_color', 'light_color', 'links_color', 'text_color', 'google_account', 'ganalytics', 'gmaps_status', 'google_position', 'gmap_position', 'hp1', 'hp2', 'hp3', 'hp4', 'hp5', 'hp6', 'hp7', 'hp8', 'hp9', 'hp10', 'about1_id', 'about2_id', 'about3_id', 'tip1_id', 'tip2_id', 'tip3_id', 'contact_texts_id', 'quote_texts_id', 'demographics_id')) ->join(array('d' => 'demographics'), 'w.demographics_id = d.id', array('total_population')) ->order(array('total_population DESC', 'kw_location')); $paginator = new Zend_Paginator(new Zend_Paginator_Adapter_DbSelect($select)); $paginator->setItemCountPerPage(50); $paginator->setCurrentPageNumber($currentPage); $paginator->setPageRange(($paginator->getTotalItemCount() / 50) + 1); $this->view->paginator = $paginator; $numWebsitesOnline = $websites->getWebsitesOnline(); On the php page I have this code to call the websites that are in the database to a list: <p class="red"> Websites online: <?php echo $this->numOnline; ?> </p> <?php print_r(count($this->paginator)); ?> <?php if(count($this->paginator)): ?> <table class="table-list"> <?php foreach($this->paginator as $item): ?> <tr> <?php if($this->userIsAllowedAction('websites', 'reload')): ?> <td class="center noborder w30"> <img class="hidden" src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl() . '/images/loader.gif' ?>" alt="Loading..."/><a class="reload" title="refresh" href="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/utils/ui/refresh-website.php" rel="<?php echo urlencode('http://' . $item['url'] . '/install.php'); ?>,<?php echo urlencode($item['ftp_server']); ?>,<?php echo $item['ftp_username']; ?>,<?php echo $item['ftp_password']; ?>,<?php echo $item['ftp_folder']; ?>,<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>,<?php echo $item['id']; ?>"><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/icon-refresh.png" alt="Refresh"/></a> </td> <?php endif; ?> <td class="center noborder w30"> <?php if($this->userIsAllowedAction('websites', 'edit')): ?><a title="Edit" href="<?php echo $this->url(array('controller' => 'websites', 'action' => 'edit', 'id' => $item['id'])); ?>"><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/icon-edit.png" alt="Edit"/></a><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center noborder w30"> <?php if($this->userIsAllowedAction('websites', 'remove')): ?><a title="Remove" href="<?php echo $this->url(array('controller' => 'websites', 'action' => 'remove', 'id' => $item['id'])); ?>"><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/icon-delete.png" alt="Remove"/></a><?php endif; ?> </td> <td> <?php if($item['online']): ?> <span class="hidden"><?php echo trim($this->escape($item['kw_adjective'] . $item['kw_name'])); ?></span><a class="goto-website" href="http://<?php echo $item['url']; ?>" target="_blank"><?php echo $this->escape($item['kw_location']); ?></a> <?php else: ?> <?php echo $this->escape($item['kw_location']); ?> <?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center population"> <?php if($item['total_population'] >= 0) echo $item['total_population']; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['url'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['email'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['demographics_id']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['hp1'] && $item['hp2'] && $item['hp3'] && $item['hp4'] && $item['hp5'] && $item['hp6'] && $item['hp7'] && $item['hp8'] && $item['hp9'] && $item['hp10'] && $item['about1_id'] && $item['about2_id'] && $item['about3_id'] && $item['tip1_id'] && $item['tip2_id'] && $item['tip3_id'] && $item['contact_texts_id'] && $item['quote_texts_id']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(file_exists($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . $this->baseUrl() . Zend_Registry::get('assets_base_path') . '/' . $item['id'] . '/header.jpg')): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(($item['bg_color'] != '' && $item['bg_color'] != 'e6e6e6') || ($item['dark_color'] != '' && $item['dark_color'] != '003e75') || ($item['light_color'] != '' && $item['light_color'] != '3073ad') || ($item['links_color'] != '' && $item['links_color'] != '255593') || ($item['text_color'] != '' && $item['text_color'] != '4f4f4f')): ?> <img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/> <?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['image1_id'] && $item['image2_id'] && $item['image3_id']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['twitter_user'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['facebook_id'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['phone_number'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['google_account']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['video_made']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['youtube_position']) { echo $item['youtube_position']; }; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['address'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['gmaps_status'] == 1): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/icon-gmapspending.png" alt="Pending"/><?php elseif($item['gmaps_status'] == 2): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if(!empty($item['ganalytics'])): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark.png" alt="DONE"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['online']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark_red.png" alt="Online!"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['indexed']): ?><img src="<?php echo $this->baseUrl(); ?>/images/check_mark_red.png" alt="Online!"/><?php endif; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['gmap_position']) { echo $item['gmap_position']; }; ?> </td> <td class="center"> <?php if($item['google_position']) { echo $item['google_position']; }; ?> </td> </tr> <?php endforeach; ?> </table> <?php endif; ?> The print_r(count($this-paginator)); line is returning "0", and the $this-numOnline; line is returning 1. So it sees that there is one row in the websites table of the database, but it is not returning anything to page and listing out the rows in the websites table. Not sure if this is the paginator that is causing this cause it is returning 0 or something else I don't know about.

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  • Upload File to Windows Azure Blob in Chunks through ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript and HTML5

    - by Shaun
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/07/01/upload-file-to-windows-azure-blob-in-chunks-through-asp.net.aspxMany people are using Windows Azure Blob Storage to store their data in the cloud. Blob storage provides 99.9% availability with easy-to-use API through .NET SDK and HTTP REST. For example, we can store JavaScript files, images, documents in blob storage when we are building an ASP.NET web application on a Web Role in Windows Azure. Or we can store our VHD files in blob and mount it as a hard drive in our cloud service. If you are familiar with Windows Azure, you should know that there are two kinds of blob: page blob and block blob. The page blob is optimized for random read and write, which is very useful when you need to store VHD files. The block blob is optimized for sequential/chunk read and write, which has more common usage. Since we can upload block blob in blocks through BlockBlob.PutBlock, and them commit them as a whole blob with invoking the BlockBlob.PutBlockList, it is very powerful to upload large files, as we can upload blocks in parallel, and provide pause-resume feature. There are many documents, articles and blog posts described on how to upload a block blob. Most of them are focus on the server side, which means when you had received a big file, stream or binaries, how to upload them into blob storage in blocks through .NET SDK.  But the problem is, how can we upload these large files from client side, for example, a browser. This questioned to me when I was working with a Chinese customer to help them build a network disk production on top of azure. The end users upload their files from the web portal, and then the files will be stored in blob storage from the Web Role. My goal is to find the best way to transform the file from client (end user’s machine) to the server (Web Role) through browser. In this post I will demonstrate and describe what I had done, to upload large file in chunks with high speed, and save them as blocks into Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Traditional Upload, Works with Limitation The simplest way to implement this requirement is to create a web page with a form that contains a file input element and a submit button. 1: @using (Html.BeginForm("About", "Index", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) 2: { 3: <input type="file" name="file" /> 4: <input type="submit" value="upload" /> 5: } And then in the backend controller, we retrieve the whole content of this file and upload it in to the blob storage through .NET SDK. We can split the file in blocks and upload them in parallel and commit. The code had been well blogged in the community. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult About(HttpPostedFileBase file) 3: { 4: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 5: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 6: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(file.FileName); 7: var blockDataList = new Dictionary<string, byte[]>(); 8: using (var stream = file.InputStream) 9: { 10: var blockSizeInKB = 1024; 11: var offset = 0; 12: var index = 0; 13: while (offset < stream.Length) 14: { 15: var readLength = Math.Min(1024 * blockSizeInKB, (int)stream.Length - offset); 16: var blockData = new byte[readLength]; 17: offset += stream.Read(blockData, 0, readLength); 18: blockDataList.Add(Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)), blockData); 19:  20: index++; 21: } 22: } 23:  24: Parallel.ForEach(blockDataList, (bi) => 25: { 26: blob.PutBlock(bi.Key, new MemoryStream(bi.Value), null); 27: }); 28: blob.PutBlockList(blockDataList.Select(b => b.Key).ToArray()); 29:  30: return RedirectToAction("About"); 31: } This works perfect if we selected an image, a music or a small video to upload. But if I selected a large file, let’s say a 6GB HD-movie, after upload for about few minutes the page will be shown as below and the upload will be terminated. In ASP.NET there is a limitation of request length and the maximized request length is defined in the web.config file. It’s a number which less than about 4GB. So if we want to upload a really big file, we cannot simply implement in this way. Also, in Windows Azure, a cloud service network load balancer will terminate the connection if exceed the timeout period. From my test the timeout looks like 2 - 3 minutes. Hence, when we need to upload a large file we cannot just use the basic HTML elements. Besides the limitation mentioned above, the simple HTML file upload cannot provide rich upload experience such as chunk upload, pause and pause-resume. So we need to find a better way to upload large file from the client to the server.   Upload in Chunks through HTML5 and JavaScript In order to break those limitation mentioned above we will try to upload the large file in chunks. This takes some benefit to us such as - No request size limitation: Since we upload in chunks, we can define the request size for each chunks regardless how big the entire file is. - No timeout problem: The size of chunks are controlled by us, which means we should be able to make sure request for each chunk upload will not exceed the timeout period of both ASP.NET and Windows Azure load balancer. It was a big challenge to upload big file in chunks until we have HTML5. There are some new features and improvements introduced in HTML5 and we will use them to implement our solution.   In HTML5, the File interface had been improved with a new method called “slice”. It can be used to read part of the file by specifying the start byte index and the end byte index. For example if the entire file was 1024 bytes, file.slice(512, 768) will read the part of this file from the 512nd byte to 768th byte, and return a new object of interface called "Blob”, which you can treat as an array of bytes. In fact,  a Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system. For more information about the Blob please refer here. File and Blob is very useful to implement the chunk upload. We will use File interface to represent the file the user selected from the browser and then use File.slice to read the file in chunks in the size we wanted. For example, if we wanted to upload a 10MB file with 512KB chunks, then we can read it in 512KB blobs by using File.slice in a loop.   Assuming we have a web page as below. User can select a file, an input box to specify the block size in KB and a button to start upload. 1: <div> 2: <input type="file" id="upload_files" name="files[]" /><br /> 3: Block Size: <input type="number" id="block_size" value="512" name="block_size" />KB<br /> 4: <input type="button" id="upload_button_blob" name="upload" value="upload (blob)" /> 5: </div> Then we can have the JavaScript function to upload the file in chunks when user clicked the button. 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1: 2: $(function () { 3: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 4: }); 5: });</script> Firstly we need to ensure the client browser supports the interfaces we are going to use. Just try to invoke the File, Blob and FormData from the “window” object. If any of them is “undefined” the condition result will be “false” which means your browser doesn’t support these premium feature and it’s time for you to get your browser updated. FormData is another new feature we are going to use in the future. It could generate a temporary form for us. We will use this interface to create a form with chunk and associated metadata when invoked the service through ajax. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 4: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 5: } 6: else { 7: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 8: return; 9: } 10: }); Each browser supports these interfaces by their own implementation and currently the Blob, File and File.slice are supported by Chrome 21, FireFox 13, IE 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5.1 or higher. After that we worked on the files the user selected one by one since in HTML5, user can select multiple files in one file input box. 1: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 2: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 3: var file = files[i]; 4: var fileSize = file.size; 5: var fileName = file.name; 6: } Next, we calculated the start index and end index for each chunks based on the size the user specified from the browser. We put them into an array with the file name and the index, which will be used when we upload chunks into Windows Azure Blob Storage as blocks since we need to specify the target blob name and the block index. At the same time we will store the list of all indexes into another variant which will be used to commit blocks into blob in Azure Storage once all chunks had been uploaded successfully. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10:  11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 14: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 15: var blocks = []; 16: var offset = 0; 17: var index = 0; 18: var list = ""; 19: while (offset < fileSize) { 20: var start = offset; 21: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 22:  23: blocks.push({ 24: name: fileName, 25: index: index, 26: start: start, 27: end: end 28: }); 29: list += index + ","; 30:  31: offset = end; 32: index++; 33: } 34: } 35: }); Now we have all chunks’ information ready. The next step should be upload them one by one to the server side, and at the server side when received a chunk it will upload as a block into Blob Storage, and finally commit them with the index list through BlockBlobClient.PutBlockList. But since all these invokes are ajax calling, which means not synchronized call. So we need to introduce a new JavaScript library to help us coordinate the asynchronize operation, which named “async.js”. You can download this JavaScript library here, and you can find the document here. I will not explain this library too much in this post. We will put all procedures we want to execute as a function array, and pass into the proper function defined in async.js to let it help us to control the execution sequence, in series or in parallel. Hence we will define an array and put the function for chunk upload into this array. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4:  5: // start to upload each files in chunks 6: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 7: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 8: var file = files[i]; 9: var fileSize = file.size; 10: var fileName = file.name; 11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: ... ... 14:  15: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 16: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 17: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 18: }); 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); As you can see, I used File.slice method to read each chunks based on the start and end byte index we calculated previously, and constructed a temporary HTML form with the file name, chunk index and chunk data through another new feature in HTML5 named FormData. Then post this form to the backend server through jQuery.ajax. This is the key part of our solution. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 15: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 16: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 17: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 18: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 19: var fd = new FormData(); 20: fd.append("name", block.name); 21: fd.append("index", block.index); 22: fd.append("file", blob); 23: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 24: $.ajax({ 25: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 26: data: fd, 27: processData: false, 28: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 29: type: "POST", 30: success: function (result) { 31: if (!result.success) { 32: alert(result.error); 33: } 34: callback(null, block.index); 35: } 36: }); 37: }); 38: }); 39: } 40: }); Then we will invoke these functions one by one by using the async.js. And once all functions had been executed successfully I invoked another ajax call to the backend service to commit all these chunks (blocks) as the blob in Windows Azure Storage. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); That’s all in the client side. The outline of our logic would be - Calculate the start and end byte index for each chunks based on the block size. - Defined the functions of reading the chunk form file and upload the content to the backend service through ajax. - Execute the functions defined in previous step with “async.js”. - Commit the chunks by invoking the backend service in Windows Azure Storage finally.   Save Chunks as Blocks into Blob Storage In above we finished the client size JavaScript code. It uploaded the file in chunks to the backend service which we are going to implement in this step. We will use ASP.NET MVC as our backend service, and it will receive the chunks, upload into Windows Azure Bob Storage in blocks, then finally commit as one blob. As in the client side we uploaded chunks by invoking the ajax call to the URL "/Home/UploadInFormData", I created a new action under the Index controller and it only accepts HTTP POST request. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: } 8: catch (Exception e) 9: { 10: error = e.ToString(); 11: } 12:  13: return new JsonResult() 14: { 15: Data = new 16: { 17: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 18: error = error 19: } 20: }; 21: } Then I retrieved the file name, index and the chunk content from the Request.Form object, which was passed from our client side. And then, used the Windows Azure SDK to create a blob container (in this case we will use the container named “test”.) and create a blob reference with the blob name (same as the file name). Then uploaded the chunk as a block of this blob with the index, since in Blob Storage each block must have an index (ID) associated with so that finally we can put all blocks as one blob by specifying their block ID list. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 9: var file = Request.Files[0]; 10: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 11:  12: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 13: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 14: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 15: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 16: } 17: catch (Exception e) 18: { 19: error = e.ToString(); 20: } 21:  22: return new JsonResult() 23: { 24: Data = new 25: { 26: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 27: error = error 28: } 29: }; 30: } Next, I created another action to commit the blocks into blob once all chunks had been uploaded. Similarly, I retrieved the blob name from the Request.Form. I also retrieved the chunks ID list, which is the block ID list from the Request.Form in a string format, split them as a list, then invoked the BlockBlob.PutBlockList method. After that our blob will be shown in the container and ready to be download. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult Commit() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 9: var ids = list 10: .Split(',') 11: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 12: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 13: .ToArray(); 14:  15: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 16: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 17: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 18: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 19: } 20: catch (Exception e) 21: { 22: error = e.ToString(); 23: } 24:  25: return new JsonResult() 26: { 27: Data = new 28: { 29: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 30: error = error 31: } 32: }; 33: } Now we finished all code we need. The whole process of uploading would be like this below. Below is the full client side JavaScript code. 1: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/async.js"></script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: $(function () { 4: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 5: // assert the browser support html5 6: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 7: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 8: } 9: else { 10: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 11: return; 12: } 13:  14: // start to upload each files in chunks 15: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 16: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 17: var file = files[i]; 18: var fileSize = file.size; 19: var fileName = file.name; 20:  21: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 22: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 23: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 24: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 25: var blocks = []; 26: var offset = 0; 27: var index = 0; 28: var list = ""; 29: while (offset < fileSize) { 30: var start = offset; 31: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 32:  33: blocks.push({ 34: name: fileName, 35: index: index, 36: start: start, 37: end: end 38: }); 39: list += index + ","; 40:  41: offset = end; 42: index++; 43: } 44:  45: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 46: var putBlocks = []; 47: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 48: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 49: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 50: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 51: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 52: var fd = new FormData(); 53: fd.append("name", block.name); 54: fd.append("index", block.index); 55: fd.append("file", blob); 56: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 57: $.ajax({ 58: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 59: data: fd, 60: processData: false, 61: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 62: type: "POST", 63: success: function (result) { 64: if (!result.success) { 65: alert(result.error); 66: } 67: callback(null, block.index); 68: } 69: }); 70: }); 71: }); 72:  73: // invoke the functions one by one 74: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 75: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 76: var data = { 77: name: fileName, 78: list: list 79: }; 80: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 81: if (!result.success) { 82: alert(result.error); 83: } 84: else { 85: alert("done!"); 86: } 87: }); 88: }); 89: } 90: }); 91: }); 92: </script> And below is the full ASP.NET MVC controller code. 1: public class HomeController : Controller 2: { 3: private CloudStorageAccount _account; 4: private CloudBlobClient _client; 5:  6: public HomeController() 7: : base() 8: { 9: _account = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting("DataConnectionString")); 10: _client = _account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 11: } 12:  13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application."; 16:  17: return View(); 18: } 19:  20: [HttpPost] 21: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 22: { 23: var error = string.Empty; 24: try 25: { 26: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 27: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 28: var file = Request.Files[0]; 29: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 30:  31: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 32: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 33: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 34: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 35: } 36: catch (Exception e) 37: { 38: error = e.ToString(); 39: } 40:  41: return new JsonResult() 42: { 43: Data = new 44: { 45: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 46: error = error 47: } 48: }; 49: } 50:  51: [HttpPost] 52: public JsonResult Commit() 53: { 54: var error = string.Empty; 55: try 56: { 57: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 58: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 59: var ids = list 60: .Split(',') 61: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 62: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 63: .ToArray(); 64:  65: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 66: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 67: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 68: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 69: } 70: catch (Exception e) 71: { 72: error = e.ToString(); 73: } 74:  75: return new JsonResult() 76: { 77: Data = new 78: { 79: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 80: error = error 81: } 82: }; 83: } 84: } And if we selected a file from the browser we will see our application will upload chunks in the size we specified to the server through ajax call in background, and then commit all chunks in one blob. Then we can find the blob in our Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Optimized by Parallel Upload In previous example we just uploaded our file in chunks. This solved the problem that ASP.NET MVC request content size limitation as well as the Windows Azure load balancer timeout. But it might introduce the performance problem since we uploaded chunks in sequence. In order to improve the upload performance we could modify our client side code a bit to make the upload operation invoked in parallel. The good news is that, “async.js” library provides the parallel execution function. If you remembered the code we invoke the service to upload chunks, it utilized “async.series” which means all functions will be executed in sequence. Now we will change this code to “async.parallel”. This will invoke all functions in parallel. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallel(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); In this way all chunks will be uploaded to the server side at the same time to maximize the bandwidth usage. This should work if the file was not very large and the chunk size was not very small. But for large file this might introduce another problem that too many ajax calls are sent to the server at the same time. So the best solution should be, upload the chunks in parallel with maximum concurrency limitation. The code below specified the concurrency limitation to 4, which means at the most only 4 ajax calls could be invoked at the same time. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallelLimit(putBlocks, 4, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: });   Summary In this post we discussed how to upload files in chunks to the backend service and then upload them into Windows Azure Blob Storage in blocks. We focused on the frontend side and leverage three new feature introduced in HTML 5 which are - File.slice: Read part of the file by specifying the start and end byte index. - Blob: File-like interface which contains the part of the file content. - FormData: Temporary form element that we can pass the chunk alone with some metadata to the backend service. Then we discussed the performance consideration of chunk uploading. Sequence upload cannot provide maximized upload speed, but the unlimited parallel upload might crash the browser and server if too many chunks. So we finally came up with the solution to upload chunks in parallel with the concurrency limitation. We also demonstrated how to utilize “async.js” JavaScript library to help us control the asynchronize call and the parallel limitation.   Regarding the chunk size and the parallel limitation value there is no “best” value. You need to test vary composition and find out the best one for your particular scenario. It depends on the local bandwidth, client machine cores and the server side (Windows Azure Cloud Service Virtual Machine) cores, memory and bandwidth. Below is one of my performance test result. The client machine was Windows 8 IE 10 with 4 cores. I was using Microsoft Cooperation Network. The web site was hosted on Windows Azure China North data center (in Beijing) with one small web role (1.7GB 1 core CPU, 1.75GB memory with 100Mbps bandwidth). The test cases were - Chunk size: 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB. - Upload Mode: Sequence, parallel (unlimited), parallel with limit (4 threads, 8 threads). - Chunk Format: base64 string, binaries. - Target file: 100MB. - Each case was tested 3 times. Below is the test result chart. Some thoughts, but not guidance or best practice: - Parallel gets better performance than series. - No significant performance improvement between parallel 4 threads and 8 threads. - Transform with binaries provides better performance than base64. - In all cases, chunk size in 1MB - 2MB gets better performance.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • Developer Training – Various Options for Maximum Benefit – Part 4

    - by pinaldave
    Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 If you have been reading this series, by now you are aware of all the pros and cons that can come along with training.  We’ve asked and answered hard questions, and investigated them “whys” and “hows” of training.  Now it is time to talk about all the different kinds of training that are out there! On Job Training The most common type of training is on the job training.  Everyone receives this kind of education – even experts who come in to consult have to be taught where the printer, pens, and copy machines are.  If you are thinking about more concrete topics, though, on the job training can be some of the easiest to come across.  Picture this: someone in the company whom you really admire is hard at work on a project.  You come up to them and ask to help them out – if they are a busy developer, the odds are that they will say “yes, please!”   If you phrase your question as an offer of help, you can receive training without ever putting someone in the awkward position of acting as a mentor.  However, some people may want the task of being a mentor.  It can never hurt to ask.  Most people will be more than willing to pass their knowledge along. Extreme Programming If your company and coworkers are willing, you can even investigate Extreme Programming.  This is a type of programming that allows small teams to quickly develop code and products that are released with almost immediate user feedback.  You can find more information at http://www.extremeprogramming.org/.  If this is something your company could use, suggest it to your supervisor.  Even if they say no, it will make it clear that you are a go-getter who is interested in new and exciting projects.  If the answer is yes, then you have the opportunity to get some of the best on the job training around. In Person Training Click on Image to Enlarge When you say the word “training,” most people’s minds go back to the classroom, an image they are familiar with.  While training doesn’t always have to be in a traditional setting, because it is so familiar it can also be the most valuable type of training.  There are many ways to get training through a live instructor.  Some companies may be willing to send a representative to you, where employees will get training, sometimes food and coffee, and a live instructor who can answer questions immediately.  Sometimes these trainers are also able to do consultations at the same time, which can invaluable to a company.  If you are the one to asks your supervisor for a training session that can also be turned into a consultation, you may stick in their minds as an incredibly dedicated employee.  If you can’t find a representative, local colleges can also be a good resource for free or cheap classes – or they may have representatives coming who are willing to take on a few more students. Benefits of On Demand Developer Training Of course, you can often get the best of all these types of training with online or On Demand training.  You can get the benefit of a live instructor who is willing to answer questions (although in this case, usually through e-mail or other online venues), there are often real-world examples to follow along – like on the job training – and best of all you can learn whenever you have the time or need.  Did a problem with your server come up at midnight when all your supervisors are safe at home and probably in bed?  No problem!  On Demand training is especially useful if you need to slow down, pause, or rewind a training session.  Not even a real-life instructor can do that! When I was writing this blog post, I felt that each of the subject, which I have covered can be blog posts of itself. However, I wanted to keep the the blog post concise and so touch based on three major training aspects 1) On Job Training 2) In Person Training and 3) Online training. Here is the question for you – is there any other kind of training methods available, which are effective and one should consider it? If yes, what are those, I may write a follow up blog post on the same subject next week. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Add Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2010 using POP

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you excited about the latest version of Outlook, and want to get it setup with your Gmail accounts?  Here’s how you can easily add your Gmail account using POP to Outlook 2010. Getting Started Log into your Gmail account an go to your settings page. Under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab make sure POP is enabled.  You can choose to enable POP access for all new mail that arrives from now on, or for all mail in your Gmail account.  On the second option, we suggest you chose keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox so you can still access your emails on the Gmail server.   Add Your Account to Outlook 2010 If you haven’t run Outlook 2010 yet, click Next to start setup and add your email account. Select Yes to add an email account to Outlook.  Now you’re ready to start entering your settings to access your email. Or, if you’ve already been using Outlook and want to add a new POP account, click File and then select Add Account under Account Information.   Outlook 2010 can often automatically find and configure your account with just your email address and password, so enter these and click Next to let Outlook try to set it up automatically. Outlook will now scan for the settings for your email account. If Outlook was able to find settings and configure your account automatically, you’ll see this success screen.  Depending on your setup, Gmail is automatically setup, but sometimes it fails to find the settings.  If this is the case, we’ll go back and manually configure it. Manually Configure Outlook for Gmail Back at the account setup screen, select Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next. Select Internet E-mail and then click Next. Enter your username, email address, and log in information. Under Server information enter in the following: Account Type: POP3 Incoming mail server: pop.gmail.com Outgoing mail server: smtp.gmail.com Make sure to check Remember password so you don’t have to enter it every time. After that data is entered in, click on the More Settings button. Select the Outgoing Server tab, and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication.  Verify Use same settings as my incoming mail server is marked as well. Next select the Advanced tab and enter the following information: Incoming Server (POP3): 995 Outgoing server (SMTP): 587 Check This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL) Set Use the following type of encrypted connection to TLS You also might want to uncheck the box to Remove messages from the server after a number of days.  This way your messages will still be accessible from Gmail online. Click OK to close the window, and then click Next to finish setting up the account.  Outlook will test your account settings to make sure everything will work; click Close when this is finished. Provided everything was entered in correctly, you’ll be greeted with a successful setup message…click Finish.   Gmail will be all ready to sync with Outlook 2010.  Enjoy your Gmail account in Outlook, complete with fast indexed searching, conversation view, and more! Conclusion Adding Gmail using the POP setting to Outlook 2010 is usually easy and only takes a few steps.  Even if you have to enter your settings manually, it is still a fairly simple process. You can add multiple email accounts using POP3 if you wish, and if you’d like to sync IMAP accounts, check out our tutorial on setting up Gmail using IMAP in Outlook 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Your Gmail To Windows Live MailAdd Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2007Use Gmail IMAP in Microsoft Outlook 2007Figure out which Online accounts are selling your email to spammersAdd Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2010 Using IMAP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

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  • How to configure a zone cluster on Solaris Cluster 4.0

    - by JuergenS
    This is a short overview on how to configure a zone cluster on Solaris Cluster 4.0. This is a little bit different as in Solaris Cluster 3.2/3.3 because Solaris Cluster 4.0 is only running on Solaris 11. The name of the zone cluster must be unique throughout the global Solaris Cluster and must be configured on a global Solaris Cluster. Please read all the requirements for zone cluster in Solaris Cluster Software Installation Guide for SC4.0. For Solaris Cluster 3.2/3.3 please refer to my previous blog Configuration steps to create a zone cluster in Solaris Cluster 3.2/3.3. A. Configure the zone cluster into the already running global clusterCheck if zone cluster can be created # cluster show-netprops to change number of zone clusters use # cluster set-netprops -p num_zoneclusters=12 Note: 12 zone clusters is the default, values can be customized! Create config file (zc1config) for zone cluster setup e.g: Configure zone cluster # clzc configure -f zc1config zc1 Note: If not using the config file the configuration can also be done manually # clzc configure zc1 Check zone configuration # clzc export zc1 Verify zone cluster # clzc verify zc1 Note: The following message is a notice and comes up on several clzc commands Waiting for zone verify commands to complete on all the nodes of the zone cluster "zc1"... Install the zone cluster # clzc install zc1 Note: Monitor the consoles of the global zone to see how the install proceed! (The output is different on the nodes) It's very important that all global cluster nodes have installed the same set of ha-cluster packages! Boot the zone cluster # clzc boot zc1 Login into non-global-zones of zone cluster zc1 on all nodes and finish Solaris installation. # zlogin -C zc1 Check status of zone cluster # clzc status zc1 Login into non-global-zones of zone cluster zc1 and configure the shell environment for root (for PATH: /usr/cluster/bin, for MANPATH: /usr/cluster/man) # zlogin -C zc1 If using additional name service configure /etc/nsswitch.conf of zone cluster non-global zones. hosts: cluster files netmasks: cluster files Configure /etc/inet/hosts of the zone cluster zones Enter all the logical hosts of non-global zones B. Add resource groups and resources to zone cluster Create a resource group in zone cluster # clrg create -n <zone-hostname-node1>,<zone-hostname-node2> app-rg Note1: Use command # cluster status for zone cluster resource group overview. Note2: You can also run all commands for zone cluster in global cluster by adding the option -Z to the command. e.g: # clrg create -Z zc1 -n <zone-hostname-node1>,<zone-hostname-node2> app-rg Set up the logical host resource for zone cluster In the global zone do: # clzc configure zc1 clzc:zc1 add net clzc:zc1:net set address=<zone-logicalhost-ip> clzc:zc1:net end clzc:zc1 commit clzc:zc1 exit Note: Check that logical host is in /etc/hosts file In zone cluster do: # clrslh create -g app-rg -h <zone-logicalhost> <zone-logicalhost>-rs Set up storage resource for zone cluster Register HAStoragePlus # clrt register SUNW.HAStoragePlus Example1) ZFS storage pool In the global zone do: Configure zpool eg: # zpool create <zdata> mirror cXtXdX cXtXdX and # clzc configure zc1 clzc:zc1 add dataset clzc:zc1:dataset set name=zdata clzc:zc1:dataset end clzc:zc1 verify clzc:zc1 commit clzc:zc1 exit Check setup with # clzc show -v zc1 In the zone cluster do: # clrs create -g app-rg -t SUNW.HAStoragePlus -p zpools=zdata app-hasp-rs Example2) HA filesystem In the global zone do: Configure SVM diskset and SVM devices. and # clzc configure zc1 clzc:zc1 add fs clzc:zc1:fs set dir=/data clzc:zc1:fs set special=/dev/md/datads/dsk/d0 clzc:zc1:fs set raw=/dev/md/datads/rdsk/d0 clzc:zc1:fs set type=ufs clzc:zc1:fs add options [logging] clzc:zc1:fs end clzc:zc1 verify clzc:zc1 commit clzc:zc1 exit Check setup with # clzc show -v zc1 In the zone cluster do: # clrs create -g app-rg -t SUNW.HAStoragePlus -p FilesystemMountPoints=/data app-hasp-rs Example3) Global filesystem as loopback file system In the global zone configure global filesystem and it to /etc/vfstab on all global nodes e.g.: /dev/md/datads/dsk/d0 /dev/md/datads/dsk/d0 /global/fs ufs 2 yes global,logging and # clzc configure zc1 clzc:zc1 add fs clzc:zc1:fs set dir=/zone/fs (zc-lofs-mountpoint) clzc:zc1:fs set special=/global/fs (globalcluster-mountpoint) clzc:zc1:fs set type=lofs clzc:zc1:fs end clzc:zc1 verify clzc:zc1 commit clzc:zc1 exit Check setup with # clzc show -v zc1 In the zone cluster do: (Create scalable rg if not already done) # clrg create -p desired_primaries=2 -p maximum_primaries=2 app-scal-rg # clrs create -g app-scal-rg -t SUNW.HAStoragePlus -p FilesystemMountPoints=/zone/fs hasp-rs More details of adding storage available in the Installation Guide for zone cluster Switch resource group and resources online in the zone cluster # clrg online -eM app-rg # clrg online -eM app-scal-rg Test: Switch of the resource group in the zone cluster # clrg switch -n zonehost2 app-rg # clrg switch -n zonehost2 app-scal-rg Add supported dataservice to zone cluster Documentation for SC4.0 is available here Example output: Appendix: To delete a zone cluster do: # clrg delete -Z zc1 -F + Note: Zone cluster uninstall can only be done if all resource groups are removed in the zone cluster. The command 'clrg delete -F +' can be used in zone cluster to delete the resource groups recursively. # clzc halt zc1 # clzc uninstall zc1 Note: If clzc command is not successful to uninstall the zone, then run 'zoneadm -z zc1 uninstall -F' on the nodes where zc1 is configured # clzc delete zc1

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  • Initial Review - Mastering Unreal Technology I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3

    - by Matt Christian
    Recently I purchased 3 large volumes on using the Unreal 3 Engine to create levels and custom games.  This past weekend I cracked the spine of the first and started reading.  Here are my early impressions (I'm ~250 pages into it, with appendices it's about 900). Pros Interestingly, the book starts with an overview of the Unreal engines leading up to Unreal 3 (including Gears of War) and follows with some discussion on planning a mod and what goes into the game development process.  This is nice for an intro to the book and is much preferred rather than a simple chapter detailing what is on the included CD, how to install and setup UnrealEd, etc...  While the chapter on Unreal history and planning can be considered 'fluff', it's much less 'fluffy' than most books provide. I need to mention one thing here that is pretty crucial in the way I'm going to continue reviewing this book.  Most technical books like this are used as a shelf reference; as a thick volume you use for looking up techniques every now and again.  Even so, I prefer reading from cover to cover, including chapters I may already be knowledgable on (I'm sure this is typical for most people).  If there was a chapter on installing UnrealEd (the previously mentioned 'fluff'), I would probably force myself to read it, even though I've installed the game and engine multiple times on different systems. Chapter 3 is where we really get to the introduction piece of UnrealEd, creating your first basic level.  This large chapter details creating two small rooms, adding static meshes, adding lighting, creating and adding particle emitters, creating a door that animates with Unreal Matinee and Kismet, static meshes with physics, and other little additions to make your level look less beginner.  This really is a chapter that overviews the entire rest of the book, as each chapter following details the creation and intermediate usages of Static Meshes, Materials, Lighting, etc... One other very nice part to this book is the way the tutorials are setup.  Each tutorial builds off the previous and all are step-by-step.  If you haven't completed one yet, you can find all the starting files on the CD that comes with the book. Cons While the description of the overview chapter (Chapter 3) is fresh in your mind, let me start the cons by saying this chapter is setup extremely confusing for the noob.  At one point, you end up creating a door mesh and setting it up as a InteropMesh so that it is ready to be animated, only to switch to particles and spend a good portion of time working on a different piece of the level.  Yes, this is actually how I develop my levels (jumping back and forth), though it's very odd for a book to jump out of sequence. The next item might be a positive or a negative depending on your skill level with UnrealEd.  Most of the introduction to the editor layout is found in one of the Appendices instead of before Chapter 3.  For new readers, this might lead to confusion as Appendix A would typically be read between Chapter 2 and 3.  However, this is a positive for those with some experience in UnrealEd as they don't have to force themselves through a 'learn every editor button' chapter.  I'm listing this in the Cons section as the book is 'Introduction to...' and is probably going to be directed toward a lot of very beginner developers. Finally, there's a lack of general description to a lot of the underlying engine and what each piece in UnrealEd is or does.  Sometimes you'll be performing Tutorial after Tutorial with barely a paragraph in between describing ANY of what you've just done.  Tutorial 1.1 Step 6 says to press Button X, so you do.  But why?  This is in part a problem with the structure of the tutorials rather than the content of the book.  Since the tutorials are so focused on a step-by-step (or procedural) description of a process, you learn the process and not why you're doing that.  For example, you might learn how to size a material to a surface, but will only learn what buttons to press and not what each one does. This becomes extremely apparent in the chapter on Static Meshes as most of the chapter is spent in 3D Studio Max.  Since there are books on 3DSM and modelling, the book really only tells you the steps and says to go grab a book on modelling if you're really interested in 3DSM.  Again, I've learned the process to develop my own meshes in 3DSM, but I don't know the why behind the steps. Conclusion So far the book is very good though I would have a hard time recommending it to a complete beginner.  I would suggest anyone looking at this book (obviously including the other 2, more advanced volumes) to pick up a copy of UDK or Unreal 3 (available online or via download services such as Steam) and watch some online tutorials and play with it first.  You'll find plenty of online videos available that were created by the authors and may suit as a better introduction to the editor.

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  • Unit testing is… well, flawed.

    - by Dewald Galjaard
    Hey someone had to say it. I clearly recall my first IT job. I was appointed Systems Co-coordinator for a leading South African retailer at store level. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an honest day’s labor and in fact I highly recommend it, however I’m obliged to refer to the designation cautiously; in reality all I had to do was monitor in-store prices and two UNIX front line controllers. If anything went wrong – I only had to phone it in… Luckily that wasn’t all I did. My duties extended to some other interesting annual occurrence – stock take. Despite a bit more curious affair, it was still a tedious process that took weeks of preparation and several nights to complete.  Then also I remember that no matter how elaborate our planning was, the entire exercise would be rendered useless if we couldn’t get the basics right – that being the act of counting. Sounds simple right? We’ll with a store which could potentially carry over tens of thousands of different items… we’ll let’s just say I believe that’s when I first became a coffee addict. In those days the act of counting stock was a very humble process. Nothing like we have today. A staff member would be assigned a bin or shelve filled with items he or she had to sort then count. Thereafter they had to record their findings on a complementary piece of paper. Every night I would manage several teams. Each team was divided into two groups - counters and auditors. Both groups had the same task, only auditors followed shortly on the heels of the counters, recounting stock levels, making sure the original count correspond to their findings. It was a simple yet hugely responsible orchestration of people and thankfully there was one fundamental and golden rule I could always abide by to ensure things run smoothly – No-one was allowed to audit their own work. Nope, not even on nights when I didn’t have enough staff available. This meant I too at times had to get up there and get counting, or have the audit stand over until the next evening. The reason for this was obvious - late at night and with so much to do we were prone to make some mistakes, then on the recount, without a fresh set of eyes, you were likely to repeat the offence. Now years later this rule or guideline still holds true as we develop software (as far removed as software development from counting stock may be). For some reason it is a fundamental guideline we’re simply ignorant of. We write our code, we write our tests and thus commit the same horrendous offence. Yes, the procedure of writing unit tests as practiced in most development houses today – is flawed. Most if not all of the tests we write today exercise application logic – our logic. They are based on the way we believe an application or method should/may/will behave or function. As we write our tests, our unit tests mirror our best understanding of the inner workings of our application code. Unfortunately these tests will therefore also include (or be unaware of) any imperfections and errors on our part. If your logic is flawed as you write your initial code, chances are, without a fresh set of eyes, you will commit the same error second time around too. Not even experience seems to be a suitable solution. It certainly helps to have deeper insight, but is that really the answer we should be looking for? Is that really failsafe? What about code review? Code review is certainly an answer. You could have one developer coding away and another (or team) making sure the logic is sound. The practice however has its obvious drawbacks. Firstly and mainly it is resource intensive and from what I’ve seen in most development houses, given heavy deadlines, this guideline is seldom adhered to. Hardly ever do we have the resources, money or time readily available. So what other options are out there? A quest to find some solution revealed a project by Microsoft Research called PEX. PEX is a framework which creates several test scenarios for each method or class you write, automatically. Think of it as your own personal auditor. Within a few clicks the framework will auto generate several unit tests for a given class or method and save them to a single project. PEX help to audit your work. It lends a fresh set of eyes to any project you’re working on and best of all; it is cost effective and fast. Check them out at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ In upcoming posts we’ll dive deeper into how it works and how it can help you.   Certainly there are more similar frameworks out there and I would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences and insights.

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  • Improve the Quality of ePub eBooks with Sigil

    - by Matthew Guay
    Would you like to correct errors in your ePub formatted eBooks, or even split them into chapters and create a Table of Contents?  Here’s how you can with the free program Sigil. eBooks are increasingly popular with the rise of eBook readers and reading apps on mobile devices.  We recently showed you how to convert a PDF eBook to ePub format, but as you may have noticed, sometimes the converted file had some glitches or odd formatting.  Additionally, many of the many free ePub books available online from sources like the Project Guttenberg do not include a table of contents.  Sigil is a free application for Windows, OS X, and Linux that lets you edit ePub files, so let’s look at how you can use it to improve your eBooks. Note: Sigil took several moments to open files in our tests, and froze momentarily when we maximized the window.  Sigil is currently pre-release software in active development, so we would expect the bugs to be worked out in future versions.  As usual, only install if you’re comfortable testing pre-release software. Getting Started Download Sigil (link below), making sure to select the correct version for your computer.  Run the installer, and select your preferred setup language when prompted. After a moment the installer will appear; setup as normal. Launch Sigil when it’s finished installing.  It opens with a default blank ePub file, so you could actually start writing an eBook from scratch right here. Edit Your ePub eBooks Now you’re ready to edit your ePub books.  Click Open and browse to the file you want to edit. Now you can double-click any of the HTML or XHTML files on the left sidebar and edit them just like you would in Word. Or you can choose to view it in Code View and edit the actual HTML directly. The sidebar also gives you access to the other parts of the ePub file, such as Images and CSS styles. If your ePub file has a Table of Contents, you can edit it with Sigil as well.  Click Tools in the menu bar, and then select TOC Editor.  Strangely there is no way to create a new table of contents, but you can remove entries from existing one.   Convert TXT Files to ePub Many free eBooks online, especially older, out of copyright titles, are available in plain text format.  One problem with these files is that they usually use hard returns at the end of lines, so they don’t reflow to fill your screen efficiently. Sigil can easily convert these files to the more useful ePub format.  Open the text file in Sigil, and it will automatically reflow the text and convert it ePub.  As you can see in the screenshot below, the text in the eBook does not have hard line-breaks at the end of each line, and will be much more readable on mobile devices. Note that Sigil may take several moments opening the book, and may even become unresponsive while analyzing it.   Now you can edit your eBook, split it into chapters, or just save it as is.  Either way, make sure to select Save as to save your book as ePub format. Conclusion As mentioned before, Sigil seems to run slow at times, especially when editing large eBooks.  But it’s still a nice solution to edit and extend your ePub eBooks, and even convert plain text eBooks to the nicer ePub format.  Now you can make your eBooks work just like you want, and read them on your favorite device! If you feel comfortable editing HTML files, check out our article on how to edit ePub eBooks with your favorite HTML editor. Link Download Sigil from Google Code Download free ePub eBooks from Project Guttenberg Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Edit ePub eBooks with Your Favorite HTML EditorConvert a PDF eBook to ePub Format for Your iPad, iPhone, or eReaderRead Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PCFriday Fun: Watch HD Video Content with MeevidPreview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PC TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account

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  • SQLAuthority News – Technical Review of Learning at Koenig Solutions

    - by pinaldave
    Yesterday I finished my 3 days fast track in person learning of course End to End SQL Server Business Intelligence at Koenig Solutions. You can read my previous article over here regarding why am I learning SQL Server. Yesterday I blogged about my experience of arriving to Training Center and my induction with the center. The Training Days I had enrolled for three days training so my routine each of the three days was very much same. However, the content every day was different as I was learning something new every day. Let me describe a few of the interesting details of my daily routine. A Single Student Batch The best part of my training was that in my training batch, I am single student. Koenig is known to smaller batches and often they have single student batches as well. I was very much delighted to know that I will have dedicated access and attention from my trainer in my batch as I will be single student in my batch. In most of the labs I have observed there are no more than 4 students at any time. Prakash and Pinal 7:30 AM Breakfast Talk We all students gather at 7:30 in breakfast area. The best time of the day. I was the only Indian student in the group. The other students were from USA, Canada, Nigeria, Bhutan, Tanzania, and a few others from other countries. I immediately become the source of information and reference manual. Though the distance between Delhi and Bangalore is 2000+ KM I was considered as a local guy. 8:30 AMHeading to Training Center Every day without fail at 8:30 the van started from our accommodation to the training center. As mentioned in an earlier blog post the distance is about 5 minutes and we were able to reach at the location before 8:45. This gave us some time settle in before our class starts at 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM Order Lunch Food Well it may sound funny that we just had breakfast 30 minutes but the first thing everybody has to do is to order lunch as soon as the class starts. There is an online training portal to order food for the day. Everybody has to place their order early during the day so the food arrives on time during lunch time. Everybody can order whatever they want to order using an online ordering system. The options are plenty and everybody can order what they like. 9:05 AM Learning Starts After deciding the lunch we started the learning. I was very fortunate to have a very experienced trainer - Prakash Chheatry. Though I have never met him before I have heard a lot about Prakash. He is known as the top most SQL Server Trainer in India. His student list contains some of the very well known SQL Server Experts of the world and few of SQL Server “best seller” book authors. Learning continues till 1:00 PM with one tea-coffee break in between. 1:00 PM Lunch The lunch time is again the fun time. We all students get together in the afternoon and tell the stories of the world. Indeed the best part of the day beside learning new stuff. 4:55 PM Ready to Return We stop at 4:55 as at precisely 5:00 PM the van stops by the institute which takes us back to our accommodation. Trust me seriously long long day always but the amount of the learning is the win of the day. 7:30 PM Dinner Time After coming back to the accommodation I study till 7:30 and then rush for dinner. Dinner is world cuisine and deserts are really delicious. After dinner every day I have written a blog and retired early as the next day is always going to be busier than the present day. What did I learn As I mentioned earlier I know SQL Server fairly well. I had expressed the same in my conversation as well. This is the reason I was assigned a fairly senior trainer and we learned everything quite quickly. As I know quite a few things we went pretty fast in many topics. There were a few things, I wanted to learn in detail as well practice on the labs. We slowed down where we wanted and rush through the concepts where I was very comfortable. Here is the list of the things which we covered in action pack three days. Introduction to Business Intelligence (Intro) SQL Server Analysis Service (Theory and Lab) SQL Server Integration Service  (Theory and Lab) SQL Server Reporting Service  (Theory and Lab) SQL Server PowerPivot (Lab) UDM (Theory) SharePoint Concepts (Theory) Power View (Demo) Business Intelligence and Security (Discussion) Well, I was delighted that I was able to refresh lots of concepts during these three days. Thanks to my trainer and my friend who helped me to have a good learning experience. I believe all the learning  will help me in my growth and future career. With this I end my this experience. I am planning to have another online learning experience later this month. I will blog about my experience as I begin it. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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  • XNA Notes 005

    - by George Clingerman
    Another week and another crazy amount of activity going on in the XNA community. I’m fairly certain I missed over half of it. In fact, if I am missing things, make sure to email me and I’ll try and make sure I catch it next week! ([email protected]). Also, if you’ve got any advice, things you like/don’t like about the way these XNA Notes are going let me know. I always appreciate feedback (currently spammers are leaving me the nicest comments so you guys have work to do!) Without further ado, here’s this week’s notes! Time Critical XNA News The XNA Team Blob reminds us that February 7th is the last day to submit XNA 3.1 games to peer review! http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/01/31/7-days-left-to-submit-xna-gs-3-1-games-on-app-hub.aspx XNA MVPS Chris Williams kicks off the marketing campaign for our book http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/01/28/143680.aspx Catalin Zima posts the comparison cheat sheet for why Angry Birds is different than Chickens Can’t Fly http://www.amusedsloth.com/2011/02/comparison-cheat-sheet-for-chickens-cant-fly-and-angry-birds/ Jim Perry congratulates the developers selected by Game Developer Magazine for Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of 2010 http://machxgames.com/blog/?p=24 @NemoKrad posts his XNAKUUG talks for all to enjoy http://twitter.com/NemoKrad/statuses/33142362502864896 http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos/archive/2011/02/03/xblig-uk-2011-january-amp-february-talk.aspx George  (that’s me!) preps for his XNA talk coming up on the 8th http://twitter.com/clingermangw/statuses/32669550554124288 http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 XNA Developers FireFly posts the last tutorial in his XNA Tower Defense tutorial series http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/26442/451460.aspx#451460 http://xnatd.blogspot.com/2011/01/tutorial-14-polishing-game.html @fredericmy posts the main difference when porting a game from Windows Phone 7 to Xbox 360 http://fairyengine.blogspot.com/2011/01/main-differences-when-porting-game-from.html @ElementCy creates a pretty rad video of a MineCraft type terrain created using XNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw1f7wnl9I Andrew Russel gets the first XNA badge on gamedev.stackexchange http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/32322877004972032 http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/badges?tab=tags And his funding for ExEn has passed $7000 only $3000 to go http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/33042412804771840 Subodh Pushpak blogs about his Windows Phone 7 XNA talk http://geekswithblogs.net/subodhnpushpak/archive/2011/02/01/windows-phone-7-silverlight--xna-development-talk.aspx Slyprid releases the latest version of Transmute and needs more people to test http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/32452488418299904 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/ SpynDoctorGames celebrates the 1 year anniversary of Your Doodles Are Bugged! Congrats! http://twitter.com/SpynDoctorGames/statuses/32511689068908544 Noogy (creator of Dust the Elysian Tail) prepares his conversion to XNA 4.0 http://twitter.com/NoogyTweet/statuses/32522008449253376 @philippedasilva posts about the Indiefreaks Game Framework v0.2.0.0 Input management system http://twitter.com/philippedasilva/statuses/32763393957957632 http://indiefreaks.com/2011/02/02/behind-smart-input-system-feature/ Mommy’s Best Games debates what to do about High Scores with their new update http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/02/high-score-shake-up.html @BinaryTweedDeej want to know if there’s anything the community needs to make XNA games for the PC. Give him some feedback! http://twitter.com/BinaryTweedDeej/status/32895453863354368 @mikebmcl promises to write us all a book (I can’t wait to read it!) http://twitter.com/mikebmcl/statuses/33206499102687233 @werezompire is going to live, LIVE, thanks to all the generosity and support from the community! http://twitter.com/werezompire/statuses/32840147644977153 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG) Making money in Xbox 360 indie game development. Is it possible? http://www.bitmob.com/articles/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible @AlejandroDaJ posts some thoughts abut the bitmob article http://twitter.com/AlejandroDaJ/statuses/31068552165330944 http://www.apathyworks.com/blog/view.php?id=00215 Kobun gets my respect as an XBLIG champion. I’m not sure who Kobun is, but if you’ve every read through the comment sections any time Kotaku writes about XBLIGs you’ll see a lot of confusion, disinformation in there. Kobun has been waging a secret war battling that lack of knowledge and he does it well. Also he’s running a pretty kick ass site for Xbox LIVE Indie Game reviews http://xboxindies.teamkobun.com/ @radiangames releases his last Xbox LIVE Indie Game...for now http://bit.ly/gMK6lE Playing Avaglide with the Kinect controller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqAYbHww53o http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/30/kinect-hacks-take-to-the-skies-with-avaglide/ Luke Schneider of Radiangames interviewed in Edge magazine http://www.next-gen.biz/features/radiangames-venture Digital Quarters posts thoughts on why XBLIG’s online requirement kills certain genres http://digitalquarters.blogspot.com/2011/02/thoughts-why-xbligs-online-requirement.html Mommy’s Best Games shares the news that several XBLIGs were featured in the March 2011 issue of Famitsu 360 http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/33455/451487.aspx#451487 NaviFairy continues with his Indie-Game-A-Day http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_epic_dungeon.html http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_break_limit_r.html and more every day...that’s kind of the point! Keep your eye on this series! VVGTV continues with it’s awesome reviews/promotions for XBLIGs http://vvgtv.com/ http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/03/iredia-atrams-secret-xblig-review-2/ http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/02/poopocalypse-coming-soon-to-xblig/ ….and even more, you get the point. Magicka is an Indie Game doing really well on Steam AND it’s made using XNA http://www.magickagame.com/ http://twitter.com/Magickagame/statuses/32712762580799488 GameMarx reviews Antipole http://www.gamemarx.com/reviews/73/antipole-is-vvvvvvery-good.aspx Armless Octopus review Alpha Squad http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/01/28/xbox-indie-review-alpha-squad/ An interesting article about Kodu that Jim Perry found http://twitter.com/MachXGames/statuses/32848044105924608 http://www.develop-online.net/news/36915/10-year-old-Jordan-makes-games-The-UK-needs-more-like-her XNA Game Development Sgt. Conker posts about the Natur beta, a new book and whether you can make money with XBLIG http://www.sgtconker.com/ http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/a-new-book-on-the-block-and-a-new-natur-beta/ http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible/ Tips for setting up SVN http://bit.ly/fKxgFh @bsimser found tons of royalty free music and soundfx for your XNA Games http://twitter.com/bsimser/statuses/31426632933711872 Post on the new features in the next Sunburn Editor http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/01/28/new-editor-features-prefabs-components-and-more.aspx @jasons_novaleaf posts source code for light pre-pass optimizations for #xna http://twitter.com/jasons_novaleaf/statuses/33348855403642880 http://jcoluna.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/xna-4-0-light-pre-pass-optimization-round-one/ I’ve been learning about doing an A.I. for turn based games and this article was a great resource. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1535/designing_ai_algorithms_for_.php?print=1

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  • Solaris 11 pkg fix is my new friend

    - by user12611829
    While putting together some examples of the Solaris 11 Automated Installer (AI), I managed to really mess up my system, to the point where AI was completely unusable. This was my fault as a combination of unfortunate incidents left some remnants that were causing problems, so I tried to clean things up. Unsuccessfully. Perhaps that was a bad idea (OK, it was a terrible idea), but this is Solaris 11 and there are a few more tricks in the sysadmin toolbox. Here's what I did. # rm -rf /install/* # rm -rf /var/ai # installadm create-service -n solaris11-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 130/130 264.4/264.4 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 284/284 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11-x86 So far so good. Then comes an oops..... setup-service[168]: cd: /var/ai//service/.conf-templ: [No such file or directory] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is where you generally say a few things to yourself, and then promise to quit deleting configuration files and directories when you don't know what you are doing. Then you recall that the new Solaris 11 packaging system has some ability to correct common mistakes (like the one I just made). Let's give it a try. # pkg fix installadm Verifying: pkg://solaris/install/installadm ERROR dir: var/ai Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/ai-webserver Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/ai-webserver/compatibility-configuration Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/ai-webserver/conf.d Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/image-server Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/image-server/cgi-bin Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/image-server/images Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/image-server/logs Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/profile Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI_data Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI_files Missing: directory does not exist file: var/ai/ai-webserver/ai-httpd-templ.conf Missing: regular file does not exist file: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI.db Missing: regular file does not exist file: var/ai/image-server/cgi-bin/cgi_get_manifest.py Missing: regular file does not exist Created ZFS snapshot: 2012-12-11-21:09:53 Repairing: pkg://solaris/install/installadm Creating Plan (Evaluating mediators): | DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 3/3 0.0/0.0 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Updating modified actions 16/16 Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done In just a few moments, IPS found the missing files and incorrect ownerships/permissions. Instead of reinstalling the system, or falling back to an earlier Live Upgrade boot environment, I was able to create my AI services and now all is well. # installadm create-service -n solaris11-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 130/130 264.4/264.4 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 284/284 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11-x86 Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service solaris11-x86 could not be verified. Creating default-i386 alias Setting the default PXE bootfile(s) in the local DHCP configuration to: bios clients (arch 00:00): default-i386/boot/grub/pxegrub Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service default-i386 could not be verified. # installadm create-service -n solaris11u1-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11u1-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 514/514 292.3/292.3 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 661/661 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11u1-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11u1-x86 Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service solaris11u1-x86 could not be verified. # installadm list Service Name Alias Of Status Arch Image Path ------------ -------- ------ ---- ---------- default-i386 solaris11-x86 on i386 /install/solaris11-x86 solaris11-x86 - on i386 /install/solaris11-x86 solaris11u1-x86 - on i386 /install/solaris11u1-x86 This is way way better than pkgchk -f in Solaris 10. I'm really beginning to like this new IPS packaging system.

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  • Use Drive Mirroring for Instant Backup in Windows 7

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    Even with the best backup solution, a hard drive crash means you’ll lose a few hours of work. By enabling drive mirroring in Windows 7, you’ll always have an up-to-date copy of your data. Windows 7’s mirroring – which is only available in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions – is a software implementation of RAID 1, which means that two or more disks are holding the exact same data. The files are constantly kept in sync, so that if one of the disks fails, you won’t lose any data. Note that mirroring is not technically a backup solution, because if you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone from both hard disks (though you may be able to recover the file). As an additional caveat, having mirrored disks requires changing them to “dynamic disks,” which can only be read within modern versions of Windows (you may have problems working with a dynamic disk in other operating systems or in older versions of Windows). See this Wikipedia page for more information. You will need at least one empty disk to set up disk mirroring. We’ll show you how to mirror an existing disk (of equal or lesser size) without losing any data on the mirrored drive, and how to set up two empty disks as mirrored copies from the get-go. Mirroring an Existing Drive Click on the start button and type partitions in the search box. Click on the Create and format hard disk partitions entry that shows up. Alternatively, if you’ve disabled the search box, press Win+R to open the Run window and type in: diskmgmt.msc The Disk Management window will appear. We’ve got a small disk, labeled OldData, that we want to mirror in a second disk of the same size. Note: The disk that you will use to mirror the existing disk must be unallocated. If it is not, then right-click on it and select Delete Volume… to mark it as unallocated. This will destroy any data on that drive. Right-click on the existing disk that you want to mirror. Select Add Mirror…. Select the disk that you want to use to mirror the existing disk’s data and press Add Mirror. You will be warned that this process will change the existing disk from basic to dynamic. Note that this process will not delete any data on the disk! The new disk will be marked as a mirror, and it will starting copying data from the existing drive to the new one. Eventually the drives will be synced up (it can take a while), and any data added to the E: drive will exist on both physical hard drives. Setting Up Two New Drives as Mirrored If you have two new equal-sized drives, you can format them to be mirrored copies of each other from the get-go. Open the Disk Management window as described above. Make sure that the drives are unallocated. If they’re not, and you don’t need the data on either of them, right-click and select Delete volume…. Right-click on one of the unallocated drives and select New Mirrored Volume…. A wizard will pop up. Click Next. Click on the drives you want to hold the mirrored data and click Add. Note that you can add any number of drives. Click Next. Assign it a drive letter that makes sense, and then click Next. You’re limited to using the NTFS file system for mirrored drives, so enter a volume label, enable compression if you want, and then click Next. Click Finish to start formatting the drives. You will be warned that the new drives will be converted to dynamic disks. And that’s it! You now have two mirrored drives. Any files added to E: will reside on both physical disks, in case something happens to one of them. Conclusion While the switch from basic to dynamic disks can be a problem for people who dual-boot into another operating system, setting up drive mirroring is an easy way to make sure that your data can be recovered in case of a hard drive crash. Of course, even with drive mirroring, we advocate regular backups to external drives or online backup services. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Rebit Backup Software [Review]Disabling Instant Search in Outlook 2007Restore Files from Backups on Windows Home ServerSecond Copy 7 [Review]Backup Windows Home Server Folders to an External Hard Drive TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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  • Cloud Computing Architecture Patterns: Don’t Focus on the Client

    - by BuckWoody
    Normally I try to put topics in the positive in other words "Do this" not "Don't do that". Sometimes its clearer to focus on what *not* to do. Popular development processes often start with screen mockups, or user input descriptions. In a scale-out pattern like Cloud Computing on Windows Azure, that's the wrong place to start. Start with the Data    Instead, I recommend that you start with the data that a process requires. That data might be temporary or persisted, but starting with the data and its requirements helps to define not only the storage engine you need but also drives everything from security to the integrity of the application. For instance, assume the requirements show that the user must enter their phone number, and that this datum is used in a contact management system further down the application chain. For that datum, you can determine what data type you need (U.S. only or International?) the security requirements, whether it needs ACID compliance, how it will be searched, indexed and so on. From one small data point you can extrapolate out your options for storing and processing the data. Here's the interesting part, which begins to break the patterns that we've used for decades: all of the data doesn't have the same requirements. The phone number might be best suited for a list, or an element, or a string, with either BASE or ACID requirements, based on how it is used. That means we don't have to dump everything into XML, an RDBMS, a NoSQL engine, or a flat file exclusively. In fact, one record might use all of those depending on the use-case requirements. Next Is Data Management  With the data defined, we can move on to how to store the data. Again, the requirements now dictate whether we need a full relational calculus or set-based operations, or we can choose another method based on the requirements for the data. And breaking another pattern its OK to store in more than once, in more than one location. We do this all the time for reporting systems and Business Intelligence systems, so this is a pattern we need to think about even for OLTP data. Move to Data Transport How does the data get around? We can use a connection-based method, sending the data along a transport to the storage engine, but in some cases we may want to use a cache, a queue, the Service Bus, or Complex Event Processing. Finally, Data Processing Most RDBMS engines, NoSQL, and certainly Big Data engines not only store data, but can process and manipulate it as well. Its doubtful that you'll calculate that phone number right? Well, if you're the phone company, you most certainly will. And so we see that even once we've chosen the data type, storage and engine, the same element can have different computing requirements based on how it is used. Sure, We Need A Front-End At Some Point Not all data is entered by human hands in fact most data isn't. We don't really need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) we need some way for a GUI to get data into and out of the systems listed earlier.   But when we do need to allow users to enter or examine data, that should be left to the GUI that best fits the device the user has. Ever tried to use an application designed for a web browser on a phone? Or one designed for a tablet on a phone? Its usually quite painful. The siren song of "We'll just write one interface for all devices" is strong, and has beguiled many an unsuspecting architect. But they just don't work out.   Instead, focus on the data, its transport and processing. Create API calls or a message system that allows for resilient transport to the device or interface, and let it do what it does best. References Microsoft Architecture Journal:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx Patterns and Practices:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx Windows Azure iOS, Android, Windows 8 Mobile Devices SDK: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/ Windows Azure Facebook SDK: http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/

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