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• About Me

  - by Jeffrey West

  I’m new to blogging.  This is the second blog post that I have written, and before I go too much further I wanted the readers of my blog to know a bit more about me… Kid’s Stuff By trade, I am a programmer (or coder, developer, engineer, architect, etc).  I started programming when I was 12 years old.  When I was 7, we got our first ‘family’ computer – an Apple IIc.  It was great to play games on, and of course what else was a 7-year-old going to do with it.  I did have one problem with it, though.  When I put in my 5.25” floppy to play a game, sometimes, instead loading my game I would get a mysterious ‘]’ on the screen with a flashing cursor.  This, of course, was not my game.  Much like the standard ‘Microsoft fix’ is to reboot, back then you would take the floppy out, shake it, and restart the computer and pray for a different result. One day, I learned at school that I could topple my nemesis – the ‘]’ and flashing cursor – by typing ‘load’ and pressing enter.  Most of the time, this would load my game and then I would get to play.  Problem solved.  However, I began to wonder – what else can I make it do? When I was in 5th grade my dad got a bright idea to buy me a Tandy 1000HX.  He didn’t know what I was going to do with it, and neither did I.  Least of all, my mom wasn’t happy about buying a 5th grader a $1,000 computer.  Nonetheless, Over time, I learned how to write simple basic programs out of the back of my Math book: 10 x=5 20 y=6 30 PRINT x+y That was fun for all of about 5 minutes.  I needed more – more challenges, more things that I could make the computer do.  In order to quench this thirst my parents sent me to National Computer Camps in Connecticut.  It was one of the best experiences of my childhood, and I spent 3 weeks each summer after that learning BASIC, Pascal, Turbo C and some C++.  There weren’t many kids at the time who knew anything about computers, and lets just say my knowledge of and interest in computers didn’t score me many ‘cool’ points.  My experiences at NCC set me on the path that I find myself on now, and I am very thankful for the experience.  Real Life I have held various positions in the past at different levels within the IT layer cake.  I started out as a Software Developer for a startup in the Dallas, TX area building software for semiconductor testing statistical process control and sampling.  I was the second Java developer that was hired, and the ninth employee overall, so I got a great deal of experience developing software.  Since there weren’t that many people in the organization, I also got a lot of field experience which meant that if I screwed up the code, I got yelled at (figuratively) by both my boss AND the customer.  Fun Times!  What made it better was that I got to help run pilot programs in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Malta.  Getting yelled at in Taiwan is slightly less annoying that getting yelled at in Dallas… I spent the next 5 years at Accenture doing systems integration in the ‘SOA’ group.  I joined as a Consultant and left as a Senior Manager.  I started out writing code in WebLogic Integration and left after I wrapped up project where I led a team of 25 to develop the next generation of a digital media platform to deliver HD content in a digital format.  At Accenture, I had the pleasure of working with some truly amazing people – mentoring some and learning from many others – and on some incredible real-world IT projects.  Given my background with the BEA stack of products I was often called in to troubleshoot and tune WebLogic, ALBPM and ALSB installations and have logged many hours digging through thread dumps, running performance tests with SoapUI and decompiling Java classes we didn’t have the source for so I could see what was going on in the code. I am now a Senior Principal Product Manager at Oracle in the Application Grid practice.  The term ‘Application Grid’ refers to a collection of software and hardware products within Oracle that enables customers to build horizontally scalable systems.  This collection of products includes WebLogic, GlassFish, Coherence, Tuxedo and the JRockit/HotSpot JVMs (HotSprocket, maybe?).  Now, with the introduction of Exalogic it has grown to include hardware as well. Wrapping it up… I love technology and have a diverse background ranging from software development to HW and network architecture & tuning.  I have held certifications for being an Oracle Certified DBA, MSCE and Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), among others and I have put those to great use over my career.  I am excited about programming & technology and I enjoy helping people learn and be successful.  If you are having challenges with WebLogic, BPM or Service Bus feel free to reach out to me and I’ll be happy to help as I have time. Thanks for stopping by!   --Jeff

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• Slow queries in Rails- not sure if my indexes are being used.

  - by Max Williams

  I'm doing a quite complicated find with lots of includes, which rails is splitting into a sequence of discrete queries rather than do a single big join. The queries are really slow - my dataset isn't massive, with none of the tables having more than a few thousand records. I have indexed all of the fields which are examined in the queries but i'm worried that the indexes aren't helping for some reason: i installed a plugin called "query_reviewer" which looks at the queries used to build a page, and lists problems with them. This states that indexes AREN'T being used, and it features the results of calling 'explain' on the query, which lists various problems. Here's an example find call: Question.paginate(:all, {:page=>1, :include=>[:answers, :quizzes, :subject, {:taggings=>:tag}, {:gradings=>[:age_group, :difficulty]}], :conditions=>["((questions.subject_id = ?) or (questions.subject_id = ? and tags.name = ?))", "1", 19, "English"], :order=>"subjects.name, (gradings.difficulty_id is null), gradings.age_group_id, gradings.difficulty_id", :per_page=>30}) And here are the generated sql queries: SELECT DISTINCT `questions`.id FROM `questions` LEFT OUTER JOIN `taggings` ON `taggings`.taggable_id = `questions`.id AND `taggings`.taggable_type = 'Question' LEFT OUTER JOIN `tags` ON `tags`.id = `taggings`.tag_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `subjects` ON `subjects`.id = `questions`.subject_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `gradings` ON gradings.question_id = questions.id WHERE (((questions.subject_id = '1') or (questions.subject_id = 19 and tags.name = 'English'))) ORDER BY subjects.name, (gradings.difficulty_id is null), gradings.age_group_id, gradings.difficulty_id LIMIT 0, 30 SELECT `questions`.`id` AS t0_r0 <..etc...> FROM `questions` LEFT OUTER JOIN `answers` ON answers.question_id = questions.id LEFT OUTER JOIN `quiz_questions` ON (`questions`.`id` = `quiz_questions`.`question_id`) LEFT OUTER JOIN `quizzes` ON (`quizzes`.`id` = `quiz_questions`.`quiz_id`) LEFT OUTER JOIN `subjects` ON `subjects`.id = `questions`.subject_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `taggings` ON `taggings`.taggable_id = `questions`.id AND `taggings`.taggable_type = 'Question' LEFT OUTER JOIN `tags` ON `tags`.id = `taggings`.tag_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `gradings` ON gradings.question_id = questions.id LEFT OUTER JOIN `age_groups` ON `age_groups`.id = `gradings`.age_group_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `difficulties` ON `difficulties`.id = `gradings`.difficulty_id WHERE (((questions.subject_id = '1') or (questions.subject_id = 19 and tags.name = 'English'))) AND `questions`.id IN (602, 634, 666, 698, 730, 762, 613, 645, 677, 709, 741, 592, 624, 656, 688, 720, 752, 603, 635, 667, 699, 731, 763, 614, 646, 678, 710, 742, 593, 625) ORDER BY subjects.name, (gradings.difficulty_id is null), gradings.age_group_id, gradings.difficulty_id SELECT count(DISTINCT `questions`.id) AS count_all FROM `questions` LEFT OUTER JOIN `answers` ON answers.question_id = questions.id LEFT OUTER JOIN `quiz_questions` ON (`questions`.`id` = `quiz_questions`.`question_id`) LEFT OUTER JOIN `quizzes` ON (`quizzes`.`id` = `quiz_questions`.`quiz_id`) LEFT OUTER JOIN `subjects` ON `subjects`.id = `questions`.subject_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `taggings` ON `taggings`.taggable_id = `questions`.id AND `taggings`.taggable_type = 'Question' LEFT OUTER JOIN `tags` ON `tags`.id = `taggings`.tag_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `gradings` ON gradings.question_id = questions.id LEFT OUTER JOIN `age_groups` ON `age_groups`.id = `gradings`.age_group_id LEFT OUTER JOIN `difficulties` ON `difficulties`.id = `gradings`.difficulty_id WHERE (((questions.subject_id = '1') or (questions.subject_id = 19 and tags.name = 'English'))) Actually, looking at these all nicely formatted here, there's a crazy amount of joining going on here. This can't be optimal surely. Anyway, it looks like i have two questions. 1) I have an index on each of the ids and foreign key fields referred to here. The second of the above queries is the slowest, and calling explain on it (doing it directly in mysql) gives me the following: +----+-------------+----------------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+------+----------------------------------------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+----------------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+------+----------------------------------------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | questions | range | PRIMARY,index_questions_on_subject_id | PRIMARY | 4 | NULL | 30 | Using where; Using temporary; Using filesort | | 1 | SIMPLE | answers | ref | index_answers_on_question_id | index_answers_on_question_id | 5 | millionaire_development.questions.id | 2 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | quiz_questions | ref | index_quiz_questions_on_question_id | index_quiz_questions_on_question_id | 5 | millionaire_development.questions.id | 1 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | quizzes | eq_ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | millionaire_development.quiz_questions.quiz_id | 1 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | subjects | eq_ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | millionaire_development.questions.subject_id | 1 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | taggings | ref | index_taggings_on_taggable_id_and_taggable_type,index_taggings_on_taggable_type | index_taggings_on_taggable_id_and_taggable_type | 263 | millionaire_development.questions.id,const | 1 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | tags | eq_ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | millionaire_development.taggings.tag_id | 1 | Using where | | 1 | SIMPLE | gradings | ref | index_gradings_on_question_id | index_gradings_on_question_id | 5 | millionaire_development.questions.id | 2 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | age_groups | eq_ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | millionaire_development.gradings.age_group_id | 1 | | | 1 | SIMPLE | difficulties | eq_ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | millionaire_development.gradings.difficulty_id | 1 | | +----+-------------+----------------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+------+----------------------------------------------+ The query_reviewer plugin has this to say about it - it lists several problems: Table questions: Using temporary table, Long key length (263), Using filesort MySQL must do an extra pass to find out how to retrieve the rows in sorted order. To resolve the query, MySQL needs to create a temporary table to hold the result. The key used for the index was rather long, potentially affecting indices in memory 2) It looks like rails isn't splitting this find up in a very optimal way. Is it, do you think? Am i better off doing several find queries manually rather than one big combined one? Grateful for any advice, max

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Software as a Service (SaaS)

  - by Clint Edmonson

  The cloud was tailor built for aspiring companies to create innovative internet based applications and solutions. Whether you’re a garage startup with very little capital or a Fortune 1000 company, the ability to quickly setup, deliver, and iterate on new products is key to capturing market and mind share. And if you can capture that share and go viral, having resiliency and infinite scale at your finger tips is great peace of mind. Drivers Cost avoidance Time to market Scalability Solution Here’s a sketch of how a basic Software as a Service solution might be built out: Ingredients Web Role – this hosts the core web application. Each web role will host an instance of the software and as the user base grows, additional roles can be spun up to meet demand. Access Control – this service is essential to managing user identity. It’s backed by a full blown implementation of Active Directory and allows the definition and management of users, groups, and roles. A pre-built ASP.NET membership provider is included in the training kit to leverage this capability but it’s also flexible enough to be combined with external Identity providers including Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. The provider model provides extensibility to hook into other industry specific identity providers as well. Databases – nearly every modern SaaS application is backed by a relational database for its core operational data. If the solution is sold to organizations, there’s a good chance multi-tenancy will be needed. An emerging best practice for SaaS applications is to stand up separate SQL Azure database instances for each tenant’s proprietary data to ensure isolation from other tenants. Worker Role – this is the best place to handle autonomous background processing such as data aggregation, billing through external services, and other specialized tasks that can be performed asynchronously. Placing these tasks in a worker role frees the web roles to focus completely on user interaction and data input and provides finer grained control over the system’s scalability and throughput. Caching (optional) – as a web site traffic grows caching can be leveraged to keep frequently used read-only, user specific, and application resource data in a high-speed distributed in-memory for faster response times and ultimately higher scalability without spinning up more web and worker roles. It includes a token based security model that works alongside the Access Control service. Blobs (optional) – depending on the nature of the software, users may be creating or uploading large volumes of heterogeneous data such as documents or rich media. Blob storage provides a scalable, resilient way to store terabytes of user data. The storage facilities can also integrate with the Access Control service to ensure users’ data is delivered securely. Training & Examples These links point to online Windows Azure training labs and examples where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure (16 labs) Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Windows Azure Services (9 labs) As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure. Developing Applications for the Cloud, 2nd Edition (eBook) This book demonstrates how you can create from scratch a multi-tenant, Software as a Service (SaaS) application to run in the cloud using the latest versions of the Windows Azure Platform and tools. The book is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services that run on or interact with the cloud. Fabrikam Shipping (SaaS reference application) This is a full end to end sample scenario which demonstrates how to use the Windows Azure platform for exposing an application as a service. We developed this demo just as you would: we had an existing on-premises sample, Fabrikam Shipping, and we wanted to see what it would take to transform it in a full subscription based solution. The demo you find here is the result of that investigation See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including more links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• My Codemash 2011 Retrospective

  - by Greg Malcolm

  I just got back from Codemash yesterday, and still on an adrenaline buzz. Here's my take on this years encounter: The Awesome Nearly everybody in one place Codemash is the ultimate place to catch up with community friends. This is my 3rd year visiting and I've got to know a great number of very cool people through various conferences, Give Camps and other community events. I'm finding more and more that Codemash is the best place to catch up with everybody regardless of technology interest or location. Of course I always make a whole bunch more friends while I'm there! Yay! Open Spaced I found the open spaces didn't work so well last year. This year things went a lot smoother and the topics were engaging and fresh. While I miss Alan Steven's approach of running it like an agile project, it was very cool to see that it evolving. Laptops were often cracked open, not just once but frequently! For example: Jasmine - Paired on a javascript kata using the Jasmine javascript test runner J - Sat in on a J demo from local J enthusiast, Tracy Harms Watir - More pairing, this time using Ruby with the watir-webdriver through cucumber. I'd mostly forgotten that Cucumber runs just fine without Rails. It made a change to do without. The other spaces were engaging too, but I think that's enough for that topic. Javascript Shenanigans I've already mentioned that I attended a Jasmine kata session. Jasmine is close to my heart right now every since I discovered it while on the hunt for a decent Javascript testing framework for a javascript koans project earlier this year. Well, it also got covered in the Java Precompiler and Pillar's vendor session, which was great to see. Node.js was also a reoccurring theme. Node.js in a nutshell? It's an extremely scalable Event based I/O server which runs on Javascript. I'd already encountered through a Startup Weekend project and have been noticing increasing interest of late. After encountering more node.js driven excitement from my peers at codemash I absolutely had to attend the open space on it. At least 20 people turned up and by the end we had some answers, a whole ton of new questions and an impromptu user group in the form of a twitter channel (#nodemash). I have no idea where this is going to go or how big it is going to become, but if it can cross the chasm into the enterprise it could become huge... Scala Koans I'm a bit of a Koans addict, and I really need more exposure to functional languages so I gave the Scala Koans precompiler a try. Great fun! I'm really glad I attended because I found I had a whole ton of questions. Currently the koans are available here, and the answers are here. Opportunities While we're on the subject can we change the subject now? Hai Gregory, You really need to keep the drinking for later in the day. I mean seriously, you're 34 and you still do this every single time! Sure, you made it to Chad Fowler keynote ok, but you looking a rather pale weren't you? Also might have been nice to attend 'Netflicks in the Cloud' instead of 'Sleeping It Off For People Who Should Know Better'. Kthxbye PS: Stop talking to yourself Not that I entirely regret it, I've had some of my greatest insights through late night drunken conversations at the CodeMash bar. Just might be nice to reign it in a little and get something out of the next morning too. Diversity This is something that is in the back of my mind because of conversations at Codemash as well as throughout the year; I'm realizing more and more how discouraging the IT profession is for women. I notice in the community there has been a lot of attention paid to stamping out harrasment, which is good, but there also seems to be a massive PR issue. I really don't have any solutions, but I figure it can't hurt to pay more attention to whats going on... And in Other News I now have a picture of Chad Fowler giving me more cowbell! Sadly I managed to lose the cowbell later on. Hopefully it's gone to a Better Place. The Womack Family Band joined in with the musicians jam this year. There's my cowbell again! Why must you hide from me? I also finally went in the water for the first time in all the I've been coming to codemash. Why did I wait so long?!?

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• Character-encoding problem spring

  - by aelshereay

  Hi All, I am stuck in a big problem with encoding in my website! I use spring 3, tomcat 6, and mysql db. I want to support German and Czech along with English in my website, I created all the JSPs as UTF-8 files, and in each jsp I include the following: <%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> I created messages.properties (the default which is Czech), messages_de.properties, and messages_en.properties. And all of them are saved as UTF-8 files. I added the following to web.xml: <filter> <filter-name>encodingFilter</filter-name> <filterclass> org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filterclass> <init-param> <param-name>encoding</param-name> <param-value>UTF-8</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>forceEncoding</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <locale-encoding-mapping-list> <locale-encoding-mapping> <locale>en</locale> <encoding>UTF-8</encoding> </locale-encoding-mapping> <locale-encoding-mapping> <locale>cz</locale> <encoding>UTF-8</encoding> </locale-encoding-mapping> <locale-encoding-mapping> <locale>de</locale> <encoding>UTF-8</encoding> </locale-encoding-mapping> </locale-encoding-mapping-list> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>encodingFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping> And add the following to my applicationContext.xml: <bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource" p:basenames="messages"/> <!-- Declare the Interceptor --> <mvc:interceptors> <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" p:paramName="locale" /> </mvc:interceptors> <!-- Declare the Resolver --> <bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.SessionLocaleResolver" /> I set the useBodyEncodingForURI attribute to true in the element of server.xml under: %CATALINA_HOME%/conf, also another time tried to add URIEncoding="UTF-8" instead. I created all the tables and fields with charset [utf8] and collection [utf8_general_ci] The encoding in my browser is UTF-8 (BTW, I have IE8 and Firefox 3.6.3) When I open the MYSQL Query browser and insert manually Czech or German data, it's being inserted correctly, and displayed correctly in my app as well. So, here's the list of problems I have: By default the messages.properties (Czech) should load, instead the messages_en.properties loads by default. In the web form, when I enter Czech data, then click submit, in the Controller I print out the data in the console before to save it to db, what's being printed is not correct having strange chars, and this is the exact data that saves to db. I don't know where's the mistake! Why can't I get it working although I did what people did and worked for them! don't know.. Please help me, I am stuck in this crappy problem since days, and it drives me crazy! Thank you in advance.

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• Can Kind People Finish First?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In an earlier post, I expressed my undying love for KIND Snacks' products. This month's Oracle Profit magazine features an interview with KIND Healthy Snacks Founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky entitled "Better Business". Lubetzky expresses his vision for making KIND a "not for profit only" company.  All great companies start with a good idea. In this case, that one great idea was to offer a healthy snack with ingredients you can "see and pronounce". That's one of things I really like about this company--that coupled with the fact that their snacks taste great. They compete in an over crowded playing field but I've found that it's rare to find an energy snack that both tastes good and is good for you.  A couple of interesting facts I learned from reading this article: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 9 out of 10 consumers who try a KIND bar will purchase a KIND product again and recommend it to others KIND has the highest Net Promoter Score among the top 10 brands in the nutritional bar category (I confess I've never heard about this rating before but now that I have it's pretty cool) KIND's coporate mantra, "Do the Kind Thing" both encourages people to do random acts of kindness and provides easy mechanisms for doing so. Not coincidentally, I think, KIND is indeed a story about how nice guys can finish first. KIND has doubled in size every year for the last ten  years and now employees over 300 people, with sales exceeding $120M annually. Growth Applies Pressures One thing I know for certain from interacting our with fast growing customers over the last fifteen years is that growth applies myriad pressures across the organization--resources, processes, technology systems, and leadership agility. And it's easy to forget that Oracle was once an entrepreneurial startup and experienced all those same pressures that other growing companies are experiencing today. When asked by Profit Editor in Chief Aaron Lazenby, " What sort of pressure does KIND"s growth and success place on operations?", Lubetzky responded, "We have a demand planning process right now that is manual to a significant extent, and it just takes so much management time. It takes us days and sometimes weeks to produce information that is critical to our business—and by the time we get the results, we need revised data. Our sales leadership could go out selling, but instead they’re talking to our team about forecasts." Hitching Your Wagon to Oracle Lubetzky and his team selected Oracle for what I believe is our company's greatest strength: hitch your wagon to Oracle and you can trust that we will be there for the long run with the solutions you need and financial staying power. In Lubetzky's words, "The KIND philosophy requires you to have a long-term view of things; taking shortcuts may be the fastest way to get things done, but in the long term that can come back and bite you. Oracle is the type of company—and has the kind of platform—that is here for the long term. It’s not going to go away tomorrow. And Oracle is going to invest all the necessary resources into staying ahead of the game and improving." o next time you're in the supermarket or an REI (my favorite store in the world) or any of the other 80,000 locations that carry KIND, give one a try. Maybe some day you'll want to become a KIND Brand Ambassador.   Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• Silverlight 4 Twitter Client &ndash; Part 7

  - by Max

  Download this article as a PDF Welcome back :) This week we are going to look at something more exciting and a much required feature for any twitter client – auto refresh so as to show new status updates. We are going to achieve this using Silverlight 4 Timers and a bit and refresh our datagrid every 2 minutes to show new updates. We will do this so that we do only minimal request to the twitter api, so that twitter does not block us – there is a limit of 150 request an hour. Let us get started now. Also we will get the profile user id hyperlinked, so that when ever the user click on it, we will take them to their twitter page. Also it was a pain to always run this application by pressing F5, then it would open in a browser you would have to right click uninstall and install it again to see any changes. All this and yet we were not able to debug it :( Now there is a solution for this to run a silverlight application directly out of browser and yet have the debug feature. Super cool, here is how. Right on the Silverlight project and go to debug and then select the Out-Of-Browser application option and choose the *.Web project. Then just right click on the SL project and set as Startup Project. There you go, now every time you press F5, it will automatically run out of browser and still have the debug options. I go to know about this after some binging. Now let us jump to the core straight away. 1) To get the user id hyperlinked, we need to have a DataGridTemplateColumn and within that have a HyperLinkButton. The code for this will  be <data:DataGridTemplateColumn> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> <DataTemplate> <HyperlinkButton Click="HyperlinkButton_Click" Content="{Binding UserName}" TargetName="_blank" ></HyperlinkButton> </DataTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn> 2) Now let us look at how we are getting this done by looking into HyperlinkButton_Click event handler. There we will dynamically set the NavigateUri to the twitter page. I tried to do this using some binding, eval like stuff as in ASP.NET, but no luck! private void HyperlinkButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { HyperlinkButton hb = (HyperlinkButton)e.OriginalSource; hb.NavigateUri = new Uri("http://twitter.com/" + hb.Content.ToString(), UriKind.Absolute); } 3) Now we need to switch on our Timer right in the OnNavigated to event on our SL page. So we need to modify our OnNavigated event to some thing like below: protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e) { image1.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(GlobalVariable.profileImage, UriKind.Absolute)); this.Title = GlobalVariable.getUserName() + " - Home"; if (!GlobalVariable.isLoggedin()) this.NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/Login", UriKind.Relative)); else { currentGrid = "Timeline-Grid"; TwitterCredentialsSubmit(); myDispatcherTimer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 60, 0); myDispatcherTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(Each_Tick); myDispatcherTimer.Start(); } } I use a global string – here it is currentGrid variable to indicate what is bound in the datagrid so that after every timer tick, I can rebind the latest data to it again. Like I will only rebind the friends timeline again if the data grid currently holds it and I’ll only rebind the respective list status again in the data grid, if already a list status is bound to the data grid. In the above timer code, its set to trigger the Each_Tick event handler every 1 minute (60 seconds). TimeSpan takes in (days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds). 4) Now we need to set the list name in the currentGrid variable when a list button is clicked. So add the code line below to the list button event handler currentGrid = currentList = b.Content.ToString(); 5) Now let us see how Each_Tick event handler is implemented. public void Each_Tick(object o, EventArgs sender) { if (!currentGrid.Equals("Timeline-Grid")) getListStatuses(currentGrid); else { WebRequest.RegisterPrefix("https://", System.Net.Browser.WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp); WebClient myService = new WebClient(); myService.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(GlobalVariable.getUserName(), GlobalVariable.getPassword()); myService.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(TimelineRequestCompleted); myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("https://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml")); } } If the data grid hold friends timeline, I just use the same bit of code we had already to bind the friends timeline to the data grid. Copy Paste. But if it is some list timeline that is bound in the datagrid, I then call the getListStatus method with the currentGrid string which will actually be holding the list name. 6) I wanted to make the hyperlinks inside the status message as hyperlinks and when the user clicks on it, we can then open that link. I tried using a convertor and using a regex to recognize a url and wrap it up with a href, but that is not gonna work in silverlight textblock :( Anyways that convertor code is in the zip file. 7) You can get the complete project files from here. 8) Please comment below for your doubts, suggestions, improvements. I will try to reply as early as possible. Thanks for all your support. Technorati Tags: Silverlight 4,Datagrid,Twitter API,Silverlight Timer

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• Swap partition not recognized (The disk drive with UUID=... is not ready yet or not present)

  - by ladaghini

  I think I had an encrypted swap partition, because I chose to encrypt my home directory during the installation. I believe that's what the line with /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 ... in my /etc/fstab is all about. I did something to bork my swap because on the next boot, I got a message (paraphrased): The disk drive for /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 is not ready yet or not present. Wait to continue. Press S to skip or M to manually recover. (As a side note, pressing S or M seemed to do nothing different from just waiting.) Here's what I've tried: This tutorial on how to fix the swap partition not mounting. However, in the above, the mkswap command fails because the device is busy. So I booted from a live USB, ran GParted to reformat the swap partition (which showed up as an unknown fs type), and chrooted into the broken system to try that tutorial again. I also adjusted /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume and /etc/fstab to reflect the new UUID generated from formatting the partition as a swap. That still didn't work; instead of /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 not present, "The disk drive with UUID=[swap partition's UUID] is not ready yet or not present..." So I decided to start afresh as though I never had created a swap partition in the first place. From the Live USB, I deleted the swap partition altogether (which, again showed up in GParted as an unknown fs type), removed the swap and cryptswap entries in /etc/fstab as well as removed /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume and /etc/crypttab. At this point the main system shouldn't be considered broken because there is no swap partition and no instructions to mount one, right? I didn't get any errors during startup. I followed the same instructions to create and encrypt the swap partition, starting with creating a partition for the swap, though I think fdisk said a reboot was necessary to see changes. I was confident the 3rd process above would work, but the problem yet persists. Some relevant info (/dev/sda8 is the swap partition): /etc/fstab file: # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=4c11e82c-5fe9-49d5-92d9-cdaa6865c991 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # /boot was on /dev/sda5 during installation UUID=4031413e-e89f-49a9-b54c-e887286bb15e /boot ext4 defaults 0 2 # /home was on /dev/sda7 during installation UUID=d5bbfc6f-482a-464e-9f26-fd213230ae84 /home ext4 defaults 0 2 # swap was on /dev/sda8 during installation UUID=5da2c720-8787-4332-9317-7d96cf1e9b80 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0 output of sudo mount: /dev/sda6 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/sda5 on /boot type ext4 (rw) /dev/sda7 on /home type ext4 (rw) /home/undisclosed/.Private on /home/undisclosed type ecryptfs (ecryptfs_check_dev_ruid,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_unlink_sigs,ecryptfs_sig=cbae1771abd34009,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=7cefe2f59aab8e58) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/undisclosed/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=undisclosed) output of sudo blkid (note that /dev/sda8 is missing): /dev/sda1: LABEL="SYSTEM" UUID="960490E80490CC9D" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda2: UUID="D4043140043126C0" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda3: LABEL="Shared" UUID="80F613E1F613D5EE" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda5: UUID="4031413e-e89f-49a9-b54c-e887286bb15e" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda6: UUID="4c11e82c-5fe9-49d5-92d9-cdaa6865c991" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda7: UUID="d5bbfc6f-482a-464e-9f26-fd213230ae84" TYPE="ext4" /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: UUID="41fa147a-3e2c-4e61-b29b-3f240fffbba0" TYPE="swap" output of sudo fdisk -l: Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xdec3fed2 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 409599 203776 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 409600 210135039 104862720 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 210135040 415422463 102643712 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 415424510 625141759 104858625 5 Extended /dev/sda5 415424512 415922175 248832 83 Linux /dev/sda6 415924224 515921919 49998848 83 Linux /dev/sda7 515923968 621389823 52732928 83 Linux /dev/sda8 621391872 625141759 1874944 82 Linux swap / Solaris Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: 1919 MB, 1919942656 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 233 cylinders, total 3749888 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xaf5321b5 /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume file: RESUME=UUID=5da2c720-8787-4332-9317-7d96cf1e9b80 /etc/crypttab file: cryptswap1 /dev/sda8 /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 output of sudo swapon -as: Filename Type Size Used Priority /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 partition 1874940 0 -1 output of sudo free -m: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1476 1296 179 0 35 671 -/+ buffers/cache: 590 886 Swap: 1830 0 1830 So, how can this be fixed?

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• Did I find a bug in PHP's `crypt()`?

  - by Nathan Long

  I think I may have found a bug in PHP's crypt() function under Windows. However: I recognize that it's probably my fault. PHP is used by millions and worked on by thousands; my code is used by tens and worked on by me. (This argument is best explained on Coding Horror.) So I'm asking for help: show me my fault. I've been trying to find it for a few days now, with no luck. The setup I'm using a Windows server installation with Apache 2.2.14 (Win32) and PHP 5.3.2. My development box runs Windows XP Professional; the 'production' server (this is an intranet setup) runs Windows Storage Server 2003. The problem happens on both. I don't see anything in php.ini related to crypt(), but will happily answer questions about my config. The problem Several scripts in my PHP app occasionally hang: the page sits there on 'waiting for localhost' and never finishes. Each of these scripts uses crypt to hash a user's password before storing it in the database, or, in the case of the login page, to hash the entered password before comparing it to the version stored in the database. Since the login page is the simplest, I focused on it for testing. I repeatedly logged in, and found that it would hang maybe 4 out of 10 times. As an experiment, I changed the login page to use the plain text password and changed my password in the database to its plain text version. The page stopped hanging. I saw that PHP's latest version lists this bugfix: Fixed bug #51059 (crypt crashes when invalid salt are [sic] given). So I created a very simple test script, as follows, using the same salt given in an official example: $foo = crypt('rasmuslerdorf','r1'); echo $foo; This page, too, will hang, if I reload it like crazy. I only see it hanging in Chrome, but regardless of browser, the effect on Apache is the same. Effect on Apache When these pages hang, Apache's server-status page (which I explained here, regarding a different problem) increments the number of requests being processed and decrements the number of idle workers. The requests being processed almost all have a status of 'Sending Reply,' though sometimes for a moment they will show either 'Reading request' or 'keepalive (read).' Eventually, Apache may crash. When it does, the Windows crash report looks like this: szAppName: httpd.exe szAppVer: 2.2.14.0 szModName: php5ts.dll szModVer: 5.3.1.0 // OK, this report was before I upgraded to PHP 5.3.2, // but that didn't fix it offset: 00a2615 Is it my fault? I'm tempted to file a bug report to PHP on this. The argument against it is, as stated above, that bugs are nearly always my fault. However, my argument in favor of 'it's PHP's fault' is: I'm using Windows, whereas most servers use Linux (I don't get to choose this), so the chances are greater that I've found an edge case There was recently a bug with crypt(), so maybe it still has issues I have made the simplest test case I can, and I still have the problem Can anyone duplicate this? Can you suggest where I've gone wrong? Should I file the bug after all? Thanks in advance for any help you may give.

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• Xobni Plus for Outlook [Review]

  - by The Geek

  Overview Xobni Plus is an addin that will bring a sidebar to Outlook which allows you to search through your inbox and contacts a lot easier. It provides the ability to search and keep track of your favorite social networks. Searching with Xobni is a lot more powerful than the default search feature in Outlook. It let’s you drill down your searches to conversations, email, links, and attachments. It now supports Outlook 2010 both 32 & 64-bit versions. Installation & Setup Installation is easy following the wizard. After completing the wizard you can tell you’re friends on Facebook and Twitter that you are now using it. You can also decide to join their Product Improvement Program if you want. After installation when you open Outlook, Xobni appears as a sidebar on the right side. Don’t worry about it always being in the way, as you can hide it if you need more room for other Outlook functions. After Xobni free is installed, you can upgrade to the Plus version at any time. A new window will open up and you can use your Credit Card, PayPal, or redeem a code if you have one. Features & Use Where to begin with the amount of features available in Xobni Plus? It really has an amazing amount of cool features. Of course you’ll have all of the features of the Free Version which we previously covered…and a lot more. After Xobni is installed you’ll notice a section for it on the Ribbon. From here you can search Xobni, show or hide the Sidebar, and change other options. It allows you to easily keep up with various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn… Check out email analytics and contact ranks. Click on the Files Exchanged tab to search for specific attachments. Quickly search links exchanged with your contacts. Hover over a link to get a preview of what it entails. It gives you the ability to index all of your Yahoo mail as well, without the need for purchasing Yahoo Plus! Then your Yahoo messages appear in the Xobni sidebar. When you select a contact you can see related messages from you Yahoo account. Easily index all of your mail…including Yahoo mail for better organization and faster search results. There are several options you can select to change the way Xobni works. From setting up your Yahoo email, Indexing options, and much more. Additional Features of Xobni Plus Advanced Search Capabilities – Filter results, Boolean & Phrase Search, Ability to search Appointments & Tasks, Advanced Search Builder Search unlimited PST data files Xobni contacts in the compose screen Find links exchanged with your contacts View calendar appointments One year premium tech support No Ads! Performance We ran Xobni Plus on Outlook 2010 32-bit on a Dual-Core AMD Athlon system with 4GB of RAM and found it to run quite smoothly. However, we did notice it would sometimes slow down launching Outlook, especially if other apps are running at the same time. Product Support When you buy a license for Xobni Plus you get a full year of premium tech support. They provide a Questions and Answers page on their site where you can run a search query and answers appear instantly. You can contact support directly as a Plus member through their web form and they advise the turn around time is 2 business days. However, when we tested it, we received a response within 24 hours. They also provide FAQ, Community forum, and you can download the Owners Manual in PDF format from the support page. Conclusion Xobni Plus is a very powerful addin for Outlook and includes a lot more features that we didn’t cover in this review. You can download Xobni free edition which includes an 8 day free trial of the Plus version. This provides a good way to start getting familiar with it. Then upgrade to Xobni Plus at any time for $29.95. Once you get started, you’ll find the sidebar is nicely laid out and intuitive to use. If you live out of Outlook during the day, Xobni Plus is a great addition for fast and powerful searches. It provides an easy way to keep all of your contacts and messages well organized and easy to find. Xobni Plus works with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit editions) Outlook 2003, 2007 and both 32 & 64-bit editions of Outlook 2010. Download Xobni Plus Download Xobni Free Edition Rating Installation: 8 Ease of Use: 8 Features: 9 Performance: 8 Product Support: 8 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Xobni Free Powers Up Outlook’s Search and ContactsCreate an Email Template in Outlook 2003Add Social Elements to Your Gmail Contacts with RapportiveChange Outlook Startup FolderClear Outlook Searches and MRU (Most Recently Used) Lists TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides

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• Google App Engine + Form Validation

  - by Iwona

  Hi, I would like to do google app engine form validation but I dont know how to do it? I tried like this: from google.appengine.ext.db import djangoforms from django import newforms as forms class SurveyForm(forms.Form): occupations_choices = ( ('1', ""), ('2', "Undergraduate student"), ('3', "Postgraduate student (MSc)"), ('4', "Postgraduate student (PhD)"), ('5', "Lab assistant"), ('6', "Technician"), ('7', "Lecturer"), ('8', "Other" ) ) howreach_choices = ( ('1', ""), ('2', "Typed the URL directly"), ('3', "Site is bookmarked"), ('4', "A search engine"), ('5', "A link from another site"), ('6', "From a book"), ('7', "Other") ) boxes_choices = ( ("des", "Website Design"), ("svr", "Web Server Administration"), ("com", "Electronic Commerce"), ("mkt", "Web Marketing/Advertising"), ("edu", "Web-Related Education") ) name = forms.CharField(label='Name', max_length=100, required=True) email = forms.EmailField(label='Your Email Address:') occupations = forms.ChoiceField(choices=occupations_choices, label='What is your occupation?') howreach = forms.ChoiceField(choices=howreach_choices, label='How did you reach this site?') # radio buttons 1-5 rating = forms.ChoiceField(choices=range(1,6), label='What is your occupation?', widget=forms.RadioSelect) boxes = forms.ChoiceField(choices=boxes_choices, label='Are you involved in any of the following? (check all that apply):', widget=forms.CheckboxInput) comment = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea, required=False) And I wanted to display it like this: template_values = { 'url' : url, 'url_linktext' : url_linktext, 'userName' : userName, 'item1' : SurveyForm() } And I have this error message: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\google\appengine\ext\webapp_init_.py", line 515, in call handler.get(*groups) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\demos\b00213576\main.py", line 144, in get self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\google\appengine\ext\webapp\template.py", line 143, in render return t.render(Context(template_dict)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\google\appengine\ext\webapp\template.py", line 183, in wrap_render return orig_render(context) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 168, in render return self.nodelist.render(context) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 705, in render bits.append(self.render_node(node, context)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 718, in render_node return(node.render(context)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template\defaulttags.py", line 209, in render return self.nodelist_true.render(context) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 705, in render bits.append(self.render_node(node, context)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 718, in render_node return(node.render(context)) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 768, in render return self.encode_output(output) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\template_init_.py", line 757, in encode_output return str(output) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\util.py", line 26, in str return self.unicode().encode(settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\forms.py", line 73, in unicode return self.as_table() File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\forms.py", line 144, in as_table return self._html_output(u'%(label)s%(errors)s%(field)s%(help_text)s', u'%s', '', u'%s', False) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\forms.py", line 129, in _html_output output.append(normal_row % {'errors': bf_errors, 'label': label, 'field': unicode(bf), 'help_text': help_text}) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\forms.py", line 232, in unicode value = value.str() File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\util.py", line 26, in str return self.unicode().encode(settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\widgets.py", line 246, in unicode return u'\n%s\n' % u'\n'.join([u'%s' % w for w in self]) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\widgets.py", line 238, in iter yield RadioInput(self.name, self.value, self.attrs.copy(), choice, i) File "C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\lib\django\django\newforms\widgets.py", line 212, in init self.choice_value = smart_unicode(choice[0]) TypeError: 'int' object is unsubscriptable Do You have any idea how I can do this validation in different case? I have tried to do it using this kind of: class ItemUserAnswer(djangoforms.ModelForm): class Meta: model = UserAnswer But I dont know how to add extra labels to this form and it is displayed in one line. Do You have any suggestions? Thanks a lot as it making me crazy why it is still not working:/

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• .NET development on a Retina MacBook Pro with Windows 8

  - by Jeff

  I remember sitting in Building 5 at Microsoft with some of my coworkers, when one of them came in with a shiny new 11” MacBook Air. It was nearly two years ago, and we found it pretty odd that the OEM’s building Windows machines sucked at industrial design in a way that defied logic. While Dell and HP were in a race to the bottom building commodity crap, Apple was staying out of the low-end market completely, and focusing on better design. In the process, they managed to build machines people actually wanted, and maintain an insanely high margin in the process. I stopped buying the commodity crap and custom builds in 2006, when Apple went Intel. As a .NET guy, I was still in it for Microsoft’s stack of development tools, which I found awesome, but had back to back crappy laptops from HP and Dell. After that original 15” MacBook Pro, I also had a Mac Pro tower (that I sold after three years for $1,500!), a 27” iMac, and my favorite, a 17” MacBook Pro (the unibody style) with an SSD added from OWC. The 17” was a little much to carry around because it was heavy, but it sure was nice getting as much as eight hours of battery life, and the screen was amazing. When the rumors started about a 15” model with a “retina” screen inspired by the Air, I made up my mind I wanted one, and ordered it the day it came out. I sold my 17”, after three years, for $750 to a friend who is really enjoying it. I got the base model with the upgrade to 16 gigs of RAM. It feels solid for being so thin, and if you’ve used the third generation iPad or the newer iPhone, you’ll be just as thrilled with the screen resolution. I’m typically getting just over six hours of battery life while running a VM, but Parallels 8 allegedly makes some power improvements, so we’ll see what happens. (It was just released today.) The nice thing about VM’s are that you can run more than one at a time. Primarily I run the Windows 8 VM with four cores (the laptop is quad-core, but has 8 logical cores due to hyperthreading or whatever Intel calls it) and 8 gigs of RAM. I also have a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM I spin up when I need to test stuff in a “real” server environment, and I give it two cores and 4 gigs of RAM. The Windows 8 VM spins up in about 8 seconds. Visual Studio 2012 takes a few more seconds, but count part of that as the “ReSharper tax” as it does its startup magic. The real beauty, the thing I looked most forward to, is that beautifully crisp C# text. Consolas has never looked as good as it does at 10pt. as it does on this display. You know how it looks great at 80pt. when conference speakers demo stuff on a projector? Think that sharpness, only tiny. It’s just gorgeous. Beyond that, everything is just so responsive and fast. Builds of large projects happen in seconds, hundreds of unit tests run in seconds… you just don’t spend a lot of time waiting for stuff. It’s kind of painful to go back to my 27” iMac (which would be better if I put an SSD in it before its third birthday). Are there negatives? A few minor issues, yes. As is the case with OS X, not everything scales right. You’ll see some weirdness at times with splash screens and icons and such. Chrome’s text rendering (in Windows) is apparently not aware of how to deal with higher DPI’s, so text is fuzzy (the OS X version is super sharp, however). You’ll also have to do some fiddling with keyboard settings to use the Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts. Overall, it’s as close to a no-compromise development experience as I’ve ever had. I’m not even going to bother with Boot Camp because the VM route already exceeds my expectations. You definitely get what you pay for. If this one also lasts three years and I can turn around and sell it, it’s worth it for something I use every day.

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• Masters vs. PhD - long [closed]

  - by Sterling

  I'm 21 years old and a first year master's computer science student. Whether or not to continue with my PhD has been plaguing me for the past few months. I can't stop thinking about it and am extremely torn on the issue. I have read http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html and many, many other masters vs phd articles on the web. Unfortunately, I have not yet come to a conclusion. I was hoping that I could post my ideas about the issue on here in hopes to 1) get some extra insight on the issue and 2) make sure that I am correct in my assumptions. Hopefully having people who have experience in the respective fields can tell me if I am wrong so I don't make my decision based on false ideas. Okay, to get this topic out of the way - money. Money isn't the most important thing to me, but it is still important. It's always been a goal of mine to make 6 figures, but I realize that will probably take me a long time with either path. According to most online salary calculating sites, the average starting salary for a software engineer is ~60-70k. The PhD program here is 5 years, so that's about 300k I am missing out on by not going into the workforce with a masters. I have only ever had ~1k at one time in my life so 300k is something I can't even really accurately imagine. I know that I wouldn't have at once obviously, but just to know I would be earning that is kinda crazy to me. I feel like I would be living quite comfortably by the time I'm 30 years old (but risk being too content too soon). I would definitely love to have at least a few years of my 20s to spend with that kind of money before I have a family to spend it all on. I haven't grown up very financially stable so it would be so nice to just spend some money…get a nice car, buy a new guitar or two, eat some good food, and just be financially comfortable. I have always felt like I deserved to make good money in my life, even as a kid growing up, and I just want to have it be a reality. I know that either path I take will make good money by the time I'm ~40-45 years old, but I guess I'm just sick of not making money and am getting impatient about it. However, a big idea pushing me towards a PhD is that I feel the masters path would give me a feeling of selling out if I have the capability to solve real questions in the computer science world. (pretty straight-forward - not much to elaborate on, but this is a big deal) Now onto other aspects of the decision. I originally got into computer science because of programming. I started in high school and knew very soon that it was what I wanted to do for a career. I feel like getting a masters and being a software engineer in the industry gives me much more time to program in my career. In research, I feel like I would spend more time reading, writing, trying to get grant money, etc than I would coding. A guy I work with in the lab just recently published a paper. He showed it to me and I was shocked by it. The first two pages was littered with equations and formulas. Then the next page or so was followed by more equations and formulas that he derived from the previous ones. That was his work - breaking down and creating all of these formulas for robotic arm movement. And whenever I read computer science papers, they all seem to follow this pattern. I always pictured myself coding all day long…not proving equations and things of that nature. I know that's only one part of computer science research, but that part bores me. A couple cons on each side - Phd - I don't really enjoy writing or feel like I'm that great at technical writing. Whenever I'm in groups to make something, I'm always the one who does the large majority of the work and then give it to my team members to write up a report. Presenting is different though - I don't mind presenting at all as long as I have a good grasp on what I am presenting. But writing papers seems like such a chore to me. And because of this, the "publish or perish" phrase really turns me off from research. Another bad thing - I feel like if I am doing research, most of it would be done alone. I work best in small groups. I like to have at least one person to bounce ideas off of when I am brainstorming. The idea of being a part of some small elite group to build things sounds ideal to me. So being able to work in small groups for the majority of my career is a definite plus. I don't feel like I can get this doing research. Masters - I read a lot online that most people come in as engineers and eventually move into management positions. As of now, I don't see myself wanting to be a part of management. Lets say my company wanted to make some new product or system - I would get much more pride, enjoyment, and overall satisfaction to say "I made this" rather than "I managed a group of people that made this." I want to be a big part of the development process. I want to make things. I think it would be great to be more specialized than other people. I would rather know everything about something than something about everything. I always have been that way - was a great pitcher during my baseball years, but not so good at everything else, great at certain classes in school, but not so good at others, etc. To think that my career would be the same way sounds okay to me. Getting a PhD would point me in this direction. It would be great to be some guy who is someone that people look towards and come to ask for help because of being such an important contributor to a very specific field, such as artificial neural networks or robotic haptic perception. From what I gather about the software industry, being specialized can be a very bad thing because of the speed of the new technology. I When it comes to being employed, I have pretty conservative views. I don't want to change companies every 5 years. Maybe this is something everyone wishes, but I would love to just be an important person in one company for 10+ (maybe 20-25+ if I'm lucky!) years if the working conditions were acceptable. I feel like that is more possible as a PhD though, being a professor or researcher. The more I read about people in the software industry, the more it seems like most software engineers bounce from company to company at rapid paces. Some even work like a hired gun from project to project which is NOT what I want AT ALL. But finding a place to make great and important software would be great if that actually happens in the real world. I'm a very competitive person. I thrive on competition. I don't really know why, but I have always been that way even as a kid growing up. Competition always gave me a reason to practice that little extra every night, always push my limits, etc. It seems to me like there is no competition in the research world. It seems like everyone is very relaxed as long as research is being conducted. The only competition is if someone is researching the same thing as you and its whoever can finish and publish first (but everyone seems to careful to check that circumstance). The only noticeable competition to me is just with yourself and your own discipline. I like the idea that in the industry, there is real competition between companies to put out the best product or be put out of business. I feel like this would constantly be pushing me to be better at what I do. One thing that is really pushing me towards a PhD is the lifetime of the things you make. I feel like if you make something truly innovative in the industry…just some really great new application or system…there is a shelf-life of about 5-10 years before someone just does it faster and more efficiently. But with research work, you could create an idea or algorithm that last decades. For instance, the A* search algorithm was described in 1968 and is still widely used today. That is amazing to me. In the words of Palahniuk, "The goal isn't to live forever, its to create something that will." Over anything, I just want to do something that matters. I want my work to help and progress society. Seriously, if I'm stuck programming GUIs for the next 40 years…I might shoot myself in the face. But then again, I hate the idea that less than 1% of the population will come into contact with my work and even less understand its importance. So if anything I have said is false then please inform me. If you think I come off as a masters or PhD, inform me. If you want to give me some extra insight or add on to any point I made, please do. Thank you so much to anyone for any help.

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• ListBoxFor not populating with selected items

  - by user576838

  I've see this question asked a couple of other times, and I followed this after I tried things on my own with the MS music store demo to no avail, but I still can't get this to work. I've also noticed when I look at my MultiSelectList object in the viewmodel, it has the correct items in the selected items property, but if I expand the results view, it doesn't have any listboxitem with the selected value. What am I missing here? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Thanks in advance. model: public class Article { public int ArticleID { get; set; } public DateTime? DatePurchased { get; set; } public DateTime? LastWorn { get; set; } public string ThumbnailImg { get; set; } public string LargeImg { get; set; } public virtual List<Outfit> Outfits { get; set; } public virtual List<Tag> Tags { get; set; } } viewmodel: public class ArticleViewModel { public int ArticleID { get; set; } public List<Tag> Tags { get; set; } public MultiSelectList mslTags { get; set; } public virtual Article Article { get; set; } public ArticleViewModel(int ArticleID) { using (ctContext db = new ctContext()) { this.Article = db.Articles.Find(ArticleID); this.Tags = db.Tags.ToList(); this.mslTags = new MultiSelectList(this.Tags, "TagID", "Name", this.Article.Tags); } } } controller: public ActionResult Index() { ArticleIndexViewModel vm = new ArticleIndexViewModel(db); return View(vm); } view: @model ClosetTracker.ArticleViewModel @using (Html.BeginForm()) { <img id="bigImg" src="@Model.Article.ThumbnailImg" alt="img" /> @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.ArticleID); @Html.LabelFor(m => m.Article.Tags) @* @Html.ListBoxFor(m => m.Article.Tags, Model.Tags.Select(t => new SelectListItem { Text = t.Name, Value = t.TagID.ToString() }), new { Multiple = "multiple" }) *@ @Html.ListBoxFor(m => m.Article.Tags, Model.mslTags); @Html.LabelFor(m => m.Article.LastWorn) @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Article.LastWorn, new { @class = "datepicker" }) @Html.LabelFor(m => m.Article.DatePurchased) @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Article.DatePurchased, new { @class = "datepicker" }) <p> <input type="submit" value="Save" /> </p> } EDITED Ok, I changed around the constructor of the MultiSelectList to have a list of TagID in the selected value arg instead of a list of Tag objects. This shows the correct tags as selected in the results view when I watch the mslTags object in debug mode. However, it still isn't rendering correctly to the page. public class ArticleViewModel { public int ArticleID { get; set; } public List<Tag> Tags { get; set; } public MultiSelectList mslTags { get; set; } public virtual Article Article { get; set; } public ArticleViewModel(int ArticleID) { using (ctContext db = new ctContext()) { this.Article = db.Articles.Find(ArticleID); this.Tags = db.Tags.ToList(); this.mslTags = new MultiSelectList(this.Tags, "TagID", "Name", this.Article.Tags.Select(t => t.TagID).ToList()); } } }

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• Eloqua Experience 2013: Mystique, Modern Marketing and Masterful Engagement

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is a guest post from Erick Mott, a social business leader at Oracle Eloqua. There’s a growing gap between 20th century marketing and a modern marketing way of doing business. I can’t think of a better example of modern marketing in action than what more than 2,000 people experienced in San Francisco at #EE13; customer-obsession, multichannel content, and real-time engagement all coming together at one extraordinary event. This was my first Eloqua Experience as a new Oracle Eloqua employee. In weeks prior, I heard about the mystique but didn’t know what to expect. What I’ve come to understand with more clarity is everything we do revolves around customer success, and we operate and educate at all times with these five tenets in mind: 1. Targeting: Really Know Your Buyer 2. Engagement: Create a 1:1 Relationship 3. Conversion: Visualize Guided Thinking 4. Analysis: Learn What’s Working 5. Marketing Technology: Enable and Extend the Cloud Product News from Eloqua Experience 2013 We made some announcements that John Stetic, VP of Products, Oracle Eloqua covers in this brief ‘Modern Marketing Minute’ video recorded after Wednesday’s keynote; summarized below, too: Oracle Eloqua AdFocus: While understanding the impact of a specific marketing channel was formerly relegated to marketers’ wish lists, the channels we now focus on are digital, social, and mobile. AdFocus gives marketers a single platform to dynamically create, manage and measure display ads alongside owned and earned media. AdFocus enables marketers to target only key accounts or prospects you want to reach with display ads, as well as provide creative content or personalized ad copy based on their persona and activities. Oracle Eloqua Profiler: The details of what we now know about customers have expanded into a universal customer profile, which can be used to create highly targeted segments. Marketers now can take data that’s not even stored in Eloqua to help targeted and score prospects for a complete, multichannel view of the customer. Profiler gives sales reps one, detailed view of the prospect to extend views beyond Oracle Eloqua asset activity (emails, forms, page views) to any external assets stored in Oracle Eloqua. Marketing Resource Management: New capabilities create more secure and controlled access to marketing resources and data. New integrations provide greater insight into campaign resources and management through a central marketing calendar and simplify resource management. Integrated Sales and Marketing Funnel: An integrated sales and marketing funnel view gives marketing and sales users, cross-functional teams, and executive management a consistent and clear view of pipeline performance. It also quickly provides users with historical metrics across different time spans and conditions. Eloqua AppCloud: More than 20 new AppCloud partners have been added to the community, which now includes 100+ apps. Eloqua AppCloud now provides modern marketers with an even broader range of marketing applications that help expand and enrich sales and marketing efforts; easily accessible in the Topliners Community. Social Capabilities: Recent integration between Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) deliver a comprehensive, scalable and integrated modern marketing solution. New capabilities include better tracking of social activities for a more complete customer profile. Engage Facebook custom audiences with AdFocus to deliver ads and meaningful experiences through trusted social networks. Biggest and Best Eloqua Experience. There’s a lot of talk in the industry about the Marketing Cloud. At Oracle Eloqua, we have been on a mission of delivering the most advanced and integrated modern marketing technology on the planet. It’s not just a concept but reality with proven execution, as seen first-hand this week in San Francisco. In this video, Kevin Akeroyd, SVP of Oracle Eloqua, provides some highlights of what made this year’s Eloqua Experience, exceptional, including Steve Woods’ presentation about the journey of modern marketers and Andrea Ward’s conversation with Vince Gilligan, creator of the Breaking Bad television series. The 2013 Markie Awards The Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud was best exemplified for me as 19 Markies were awarded to customers for their exceptional creativity and results as modern marketers. Wow, what a night to remember with so many committed and talented people working to create an extraordinary experience! To learn more about how to become a modern marketer, check out these resources. We look forward to seeing you next year at Eloqua Experience. More on Erick: 20 years experience at Oracle, Ektron, Sitecore, Lyris, Habeas, Nokia, creatorbase, Mark Monitor, Cisco Systems, GlobalFluency, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS TV. Patent holder with agency, Fortune 500, media, and startup company expertise. @mikestiles

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• Defend PHP; convince me it isn't horrible

  - by Jason L

  I made a tongue-in-cheek comment in another question thread calling PHP a terrible language and it got down-voted like crazy. Apparently there are lots of people here who love PHP. So I'm genuinely curious. What am I missing? What makes PHP a good language? Here are my reasons for disliking it: PHP has inconsistent naming of built-in and library functions. Predictable naming patterns are important in any design. PHP has inconsistent parameter ordering of built-in functions, eg array_map vs. array_filter which is annoying in the simple cases and raises all sorts of unexpected behaviour or worse. The PHP developers constantly deprecate built-in functions and lower-level functionality. A good example is when they deprecated pass-by-reference for functions. This created a nightmare for anyone doing, say, function callbacks. A lack of consideration in redesign. The above deprecation eliminated the ability to, in many cases, provide default keyword values for functions. They fixed this in PHP 5, but they deprecated the pass-by-reference in PHP 4! Poor execution of name spaces (formerly no name spaces at all). Now that name spaces exist, what do we use as the dereference character? Backslash! The character used universally for escaping, even in PHP! Overly-broad implicit type conversion leads to bugs. I have no problem with implicit conversions of, say, float to integer or back again. But PHP (last I checked) will happily attempt to magically convert an array to an integer. Poor recursion performance. Recursion is a fundamentally important tool for writing in any language; it can make complex algorithms far simpler. Poor support is inexcusable. Functions are case insensitive. I have no idea what they were thinking on this one. A programming language is a way to specify behavior to both a computer and a reader of the code without ambiguity. Case insensitivity introduces much ambiguity. PHP encourages (practically requires) a coupling of processing with presentation. Yes, you can write PHP that doesn't do so, but it's actually easier to write code in the incorrect (from a sound design perspective) manner. PHP performance is abysmal without caching. Does anyone sell a commercial caching product for PHP? Oh, look, the designers of PHP do. Worst of all, PHP convinces people that designing web applications is easy. And it does indeed make much of the effort involved much easier. But the fact is, designing a web application that is both secure and efficient is a very difficult task. By convincing so many to take up programming, PHP has taught an entire subgroup of programmers bad habits and bad design. It's given them access to capabilities that they lack the understanding to use safely. This has led to PHP's reputation as being insecure. (However, I will readily admit that PHP is no more or less secure than any other web programming language.) What is it that I'm missing about PHP? I'm seeing an organically-grown, poorly-managed mess of a language that's spawning poor programmers. So convince me otherwise!

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• wordexp followed by strcpy = EXC_BAD_ACCESS + sharedlibrary apply-load-rules-all

  - by fyngyrz

  The implication is a memory problem. I have static allocations for these: char akdir[400]; char homedir[400]; This crashes on the first strcpy(): void setuplibfoo() { long ii; double x; wordexp_t result; // This obtains the user's home directory // -------------------------------------- homedir[0]=0; // in case wordexp fails switch (wordexp("~/",&result,0)) { case 0: // Successful. We'll fall into deallocate when done. { strcpy(homedir,result.we_wordv[0]); // <<--- CRASH! strcpy(akdir,homedir); strcat(akdir,"ak-plugins/"); vs_status(akdir); } case WRDE_NOSPACE: // If the error was WRDE_NOSPACE, then { // perhaps part of the result was allocated. wordfree (&result); } default: // all other errors do not require deallocation { break; } } ...additional code clipped.. doesn't get there on crash. This is in a shared library I've written that is linked to my application, also something I've written. In this case, it doesn't get very far, although if it starts, it's fine. ...I've read the wordexp docs several times; they say they allocate new objects, so you just set up that type and call them with the address. The switch error model is right from the wordexp docs: http://www.gnu.org/s/libc/manual/html_mono/libc.html#Wordexp-Example It doesn't always crash. Just sometimes, and just under 10.6. Never under 10.5 I'm building debug mode with XCode 3.1.1, under OSX 10.5.8 it seems to run ok, I've not seen a crash -- under 10.6, it crashes... sometimes. But always with that same exception, and always in the same place. The Google has it that this actually means, somehow, that it's too soon to allocate memory. But all the instances I could find were memory errors on the part of the programmer. Overruns, etc. And I can't find any docs on when it IS safe to allocate memory. Now, the path that expands there is nowhere near 400 characters. it's this (it it completes): /Users/flake/ak-plugins/ and this: /Users/flake/ ...if it doesn't. the strcpy... copies 2nd param to first. Theirs to mine. And it works! under 10.5. :/ So is wordexp broke? Is 10.6 broke? Am I cRaZy? Here's the debugger output: 0x00013446 <+0049> call 0xc98da <dyld_stub_wordexp> 0x0001344b <+0054> test %eax,%eax 0x0001344d <+0056> je 0x13454 <setuplibfoo+63> 0x0001344f <+0058> jmp 0x134da <setuplibfoo+197> 0x00013454 <+0063> mov -0x1c(%ebp),%eax 0x00013457 <+0066> mov (%eax),%eax 0x00013459 <+0068> mov %eax,0x4(%esp) 0x0001345d <+0072> lea 0xb6cc2(%ebx),%eax 0x00013463 <+0078> mov (%eax),%eax 0x00013465 <+0080> mov %eax,(%esp) 0x00013468 <+0083> call 0xc9898 <dyld_stub_strcpy> 0x0001346d <+0088> lea 0xb6cc2(%ebx),%eax <<--CRASH!

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• WP7 listbox binding not working properly

  - by Marco

  A noob error for sure (I started yesterday afternoon developing in WP7), but I'm wasting a lot time on it. I post my class and a little part of my code: public class ChronoLaps : INotifyPropertyChanged { private ObservableCollection<ChronoLap> laps = null; public int CurrentLap { get { return lap; } set { if (value == lap) return; // Some code here .... ChronoLap newlap = new ChronoLap() { // Some code here ... }; Laps.Insert(0, newlap); lap = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("CurrentLap"); NotifyPropertyChanged("Laps"); } } public ObservableCollection<ChronoLap> Laps { get { return laps; } set { if (value == laps) return; laps = value; if (laps != null) { laps.CollectionChanged += delegate { MeanTime = Laps.Sum(p => p.Time.TotalMilliseconds) / (Laps.Count * 1000); NotifyPropertyChanged("MeanTime"); }; } NotifyPropertyChanged("Laps"); } } } MainPage.xaml.cs public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage { public ChronoLaps History { get; private set; } private void butStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { History = new ChronoLaps(); // History.Laps.Add(new ChronoLap() { Distance = 0 }); LayoutRoot.DataContext = History; } } MainPage.xaml <phone:PhoneApplicationPage> <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Transparent"> <Grid Grid.Row="2"> <ScrollViewer Margin="-5,13,3,36" Height="758"> <ListBox Name="lbHistory" ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource ListBoxStyle}" ItemsSource="{Binding Laps}" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="5,25,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="444"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Lap}" Width="40" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Time}" Width="140" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding TotalTime}" Width="140" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Distance}" /> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> </ScrollViewer> </Grid> </Grid> </phone:PhoneApplicationPage> Problem is that when I add one or more items to History.Laps collection, my listbox is not refreshed and these items don't appear. But if I remove comment on // History.Laps.Add(new ChronoLap()... line, this item appear and so every other inserted later. More: if I remove that comment and then write History.Laps.Clear() (before or after setting binding) binding is not working anymore. It's like it gets crazy if collection is empty. I really don't understand the reason... UPDATE AND SOLUTION: If i move History = new ChronoLaps(); LayoutRoot.DataContext = History; from butStart_Click to public MainPage() everything works as expected. Can someone explain me the reason?

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• Javascript style objects in Objective-C

  - by awolf

  Background: I use a ton of NSDictionary objects in my iPhone and iPad code. I'm sick of the verbose way of getting/setting keys to these state dictionaries. So a little bit of an experiment: I just created a class I call Remap. Remap will take any arbitrary set[VariableName]:(NSObject *) obj selector and forward that message to a function that will insert obj into an internal NSMutableDictionary under the key [vairableName]. Remap will also take any (zero argument) arbitrary [variableName] selector and return the NSObject mapped in the NSMutableDictionary under the key [variableName]. e.g. Remap * remap = [[Remap alloc] init]; NSNumber * testNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInt:46]; [remap setTestNumber:testNumber]; testNumber = [remap testNumber]; [remap setTestString:@"test string"]; NSString * testString = [remap testString]; NSMutableDictionary * testDict = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithObject:testNumber forKey:@"testNumber"]; [remap setTestDict:testDict]; testDict = [remap testDict]; where none of the properties testNumber, testString, or testDict are actually defined in Remap. The crazy thing? It works... My only question is how can I disable the "may not respond to " warnings for JUST accesses to Remap? P.S. : I'll probably end up scrapping this and going with macros since message forwarding is quite inefficient... but aside from that does anyone see other problems with Remap? Here's Remap's .m for those who are curious: #import "Remap.h" @interface Remap () @property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableDictionary * _data; @end @implementation Remap @synthesize _data; - (void) dealloc { relnil(_data); [super dealloc]; } - (id) init { self = [super init]; if (self != nil) { NSMutableDictionary * dict = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init]; [self set_data:dict]; relnil(dict); } return self; } - (void)forwardInvocation:(NSInvocation *)anInvocation { NSString * selectorName = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: sel_getName([anInvocation selector])]; NSRange range = [selectorName rangeOfString:@"set"]; NSInteger numArguments = [[anInvocation methodSignature] numberOfArguments]; if (range.location == 0 && numArguments == 4) { //setter [anInvocation setSelector:@selector(setData:withKey:)]; [anInvocation setArgument:&selectorName atIndex:3]; [anInvocation invokeWithTarget:self]; } else if (numArguments == 3) { [anInvocation setSelector:@selector(getDataWithKey:)]; [anInvocation setArgument:&selectorName atIndex:2]; [anInvocation invokeWithTarget:self]; } } - (NSMethodSignature *) methodSignatureForSelector:(SEL) aSelector { NSString * selectorName = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: sel_getName(aSelector)]; NSMethodSignature * sig = [super methodSignatureForSelector:aSelector]; if (sig == nil) { NSRange range = [selectorName rangeOfString:@"set"]; if (range.location == 0) { sig = [self methodSignatureForSelector:@selector(setData:withKey:)]; } else { sig = [self methodSignatureForSelector:@selector(getDataWithKey:)]; } } return sig; } - (NSObject *) getDataWithKey: (NSString *) key { NSObject * returnValue = [[self _data] objectForKey:key]; return returnValue; } - (void) setData: (NSObject *) data withKey:(NSString *)key { if (key && [key length] >= 5 && data) { NSRange range; range.length = 1; range.location = 3; NSString * firstChar = [key substringWithRange:range]; firstChar = [firstChar lowercaseString]; range.length = [key length] - 5; // the 4 we have processed plus the training : range.location = 4; NSString * adjustedKey = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@", firstChar, [key substringWithRange:range]]; [[self _data] setObject:data forKey:adjustedKey]; } else { //assert? } } @end

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• Restoring OutlineView Changes

  - by Geertjan

  Spent the last afternoons working with Ruben Hinojo, who I met recently at the Tinkerforge/NetBeans integration course in Germany. He's Spanish, lives in Scotland, and joined the course by flying from Edinburgh to Amsterdam and then driving from there to the course in Germany. Since then he spent some days in Amsterdam and we've been working a bit in a cafe in Amsterdam. He's working freelance on a freight management system on the NetBeans Platform and here's a pic of him and his application: I showed him a few things to improve the initial appearance of the application, such as removing the unneeded tab in the editor position and displaying data at startup so that the main window isn't empty initially. He, in turn, told me about something I didn't know about, where "freightViewer" below is an OutlineView: void writeProperties(java.util.Properties p) {     // better to version settings since initial version as advocated at     // http://wiki.apidesign.org/wiki/PropertyFiles     p.setProperty("version", "1.0");     freightViewer.writeSettings(p, "FreightViewer"); } void readProperties(java.util.Properties p) {     String version = p.getProperty("version");     freightViewer.readSettings(p, "FreightViewer"); } The "OutlineView.read/writeSettings" enables you to save/restore changes to an OutlineView, e.g., column width, column position, and which columns are displayed/hidden. In the user dir, within the .settings file of the TopComponent (in config/Windows2Local/Components), you'll then find content like this, where the "FreightViewer" argument above is now the prefix of the name of each property element: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <!DOCTYPE properties PUBLIC "-//org.ruben.viewer//RubenViewer//EN" "http://www.netbeans.org/dtds/properties-1_0.dtd"> <properties>     <property name="FreightViewerOutlineViewOutlineColumn-1-shortDescription" value="Type"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-HeaderValue" value="Type"/>     <property name="FreightViewerColumnsNumber" value="3"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-PreferredWidth" value="75"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-HeaderValue" value="Description"/>     <property name="version" value="1.0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-SortRank" value="0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-Width" value="122"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-ModelIndex" value="0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-Width" value="123"/>     <property name="FreightViewerHiddenColumnsNumber" value="0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-SortRank" value="0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-ModelIndex" value="1"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-PreferredWidth" value="75"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-Ascending" value="true"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-ModelIndex" value="2"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-Ascending" value="true"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-PreferredWidth" value="75"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-1-SortRank" value="0"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-HeaderValue" value="Nodes"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-2-Ascending" value="true"/>     <property name="FreightViewerETableColumn-0-Width" value="122"/>     <property name="FreightViewerOutlineViewOutlineColumn-2-shortDescription" value="Description"/> </properties> NB: However, note as described in this issue, i.e., since 7.2, hiding a column isn't persisted and in fact causes problems. I replaced the org-openide-explorer.jar with a previous one, from 7.1.1, and then the problem was solved. But now the enhancements in the OutlineView since 7.2 are no longer present, of course. So, looking forward to seeing this problem fixed.

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• C++ Serial Port Question

  - by Pfeffer

  Problem: I have a hand held device that scans those graphic color barcodes on all packaging. There is a track device that I can use that will slide the device automatically. This track device functions by taking ascii code through a serial port. I need to get this thing to work in FileMaker on a Mac. So no terminal programs, etc... What I've got so far: I bought a Keyspan USB/Serial adapter. Using a program called ZTerm I was successful in sending commands to the device. Example: "C,7^M^J" I was also able to do the same thing in Terminal using this command: screen /dev/tty.KeySerial1 57600 and then type in the same command above(but when I typed in I just hit Control-M and Control-J for the carriage return and line feed) Now I'm writing a plug-in for FileMaker(in C++ of course). I want to get what I did above happen in C++ so when I install that plug-in in FileMaker I can just call one of those functions and have the whole process take place right there. I'm able to connect to the device, but I can't talk to it. It is not responding to anything. I've tried connecting to the device(successfully) using these: FILE *comport; if ((comport = fopen("/dev/tty.KeySerial1", "w")) == NULL){...} and int fd; fd = open("/dev/tty.KeySerial1", O_RDWR | O_NOCTTY | O_NDELAY); This is what I've tried so far in way of talking to the device: fputs ("C,7^M^J",comport); or fprintf(comport,"C,7^M^J"); or char buffer[] = { 'C' , ',' , '7' , '^' , 'M' , '^' , 'J' }; fwrite (buffer , 1 , sizeof(buffer) , comport ); or fwrite('C,7^M^J', 1, 1, comport); Questions: When I connected to the device from Terminal and using ZTerm, I was able to set my baud rate of 57600. I think that may be why it isn't responding here. But I don't know how to do it here.... Does any one know how to do that? I tried this, but it didn't work: comport->BaudRate = 57600; There are a lot of class solutions out there but they all call these include files like termios.h and stdio.h. I don't have these and, for whatever reason, I can't find them to download. I've downloaded a few examples but there are like 20 files in them and they're all calling other files I can't find(like the ones listed above). Do I need to find these and if so where? I just don't know enough about C++ Is there a website where I can download libraries?? Another solution might be to put those terminal commands in C++. Is there a way to do that? So this has been driving me crazy. I'm not a C++ guy, I only know basic programming concepts. Is anyone out there a C++ expert? I ideally I'd like this to just work using functions I already have, like those fwrite, fputs stuff. Thanks!

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• ComboBox Data Binding

  - by Geertjan

  Let's create a databound combobox, levering MVC in a desktop application. The result will be a combobox, provided by the NetBeans ChoiceView, that displays data retrieved from a database: What follows is not much different from the NetBeans Platform CRUD Application Tutorial and you're advised to consult that document if anything that follows isn't clear enough. One kind of interesting thing about the instructions that follow is that it shows that you're able to create an application where each element of the MVC architecture can be located within a separate module: Start by creating a new NetBeans Platform application named "MyApplication". Model We're going to start by generating JPA entity classes from a database connection. In the New Project wizard, choose "Java Class Library". Click Next. Name the Java Class Library "MyEntities". Click Finish. Right-click the MyEntities project, choose New, and then select "Entity Classes from Database". Work through the wizard, selecting the tables of interest from your database, and naming the package "entities". Click Finish. Now a JPA entity is created for each of the selected tables. In the Project Properties dialog of the project, choose "Copy Dependent Libraries" in the Packaging panel. Build the project. In your project's "dist" folder (visible in the Files window), you'll now see a JAR, together with a "lib" folder that contains the JARs you'll need. In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyModel", with code name base "org.my.model". Right-click the project, choose Properties, and in the "Libraries" panel, click Add Dependency button in the Wrapped JARs subtab to add all the JARs from the previous step to the module. Also include "derby-client.jar" or the equivalent driver for your database connection to the module. Controler In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyControler", with code name base "org.my.controler". Right-click the module's Libraries node, in the Projects window, and add a dependency on "Explorer & Property Sheet API". In the MyControler module, create a class with this content: package org.my.controler; import org.openide.explorer.ExplorerManager; public class MyUtils { static ExplorerManager controler; public static ExplorerManager getControler() { if (controler == null) { controler = new ExplorerManager(); } return controler; } } View In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyView", with code name base "org.my.view".  Create a new Window Component, in "explorer" view, for example, let it open on startup, with class name prefix "MyView". Add dependencies on the Nodes API and on the Explorer & Property Sheet API. Also add dependencies on the "MyModel" module and the "MyControler" module. Before doing so, in the "MyModel" module, make the "entities" package and the "javax.persistence" packages public (in the Libraries panel of the Project Properties dialog) and make the one package that you have in the "MyControler" package public too. Define the top part of the MyViewTopComponent as follows: public final class MyViewTopComponent extends TopComponent implements ExplorerManager.Provider { ExplorerManager controler = MyUtils.getControler(); public MyViewTopComponent() { initComponents(); setName(Bundle.CTL_MyViewTopComponent()); setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_MyViewTopComponent()); setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS)); controler.setRootContext(new AbstractNode(Children.create(new ChildFactory<Customer>() { @Override protected boolean createKeys(List list) { EntityManager entityManager = Persistence. createEntityManagerFactory("MyEntitiesPU").createEntityManager(); Query query = entityManager.createNamedQuery("Customer.findAll"); list.addAll(query.getResultList()); return true; } @Override protected Node createNodeForKey(Customer key) { Node customerNode = new AbstractNode(Children.LEAF, Lookups.singleton(key)); customerNode.setDisplayName(key.getName()); return customerNode; } }, true))); controler.addPropertyChangeListener(new PropertyChangeListener() { @Override public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent evt) { Customer selectedCustomer = controler.getSelectedNodes()[0].getLookup().lookup(Customer.class); StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText(selectedCustomer.getName()); } }); JPanel row1 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEADING)); row1.add(new JLabel("Customers: ")); row1.add(new ChoiceView()); add(row1); } @Override public ExplorerManager getExplorerManager() { return controler; } ... ... ... Now run the application and you'll see the same as the image with which this blog entry started.

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• REST WCF service locks thread when called using AJAX in an ASP.Net site

  - by Jupaol

  I have a WCF REST service consumed in an ASP.Net site, from a page, using AJAX. I want to be able to call methods from my service async, which means I will have callback handlers in my javascript code and when the methods finish, the output will be updated. The methods should run in different threads, because each method will take different time to complete their task I have the code semi-working, but something strange is happening because the first time I execute the code after compiling, it works, running each call in a different threads but subsequent calls blocs the service, in such a way that each method call has to wait until the last call ends in order to execute the next one. And they are running on the same thread. I have had the same problem before when I was using Page Methods, and I solved it by disabling the session in the page but I have not figured it out how to do the same when consuming WCF REST services Note: Methods complete time (running them async should take only 7 sec and the result should be: Execute1 - Execute3 - Execute2) Execute1 -- 2 sec Execute2 -- 7 sec Execute3 -- 4 sec Output After compiling Output subsequent calls (this is the problem) I will post the code...I'll try to simplify it as much as I can Service Contract [ServiceContract( SessionMode = SessionMode.NotAllowed )] public interface IMyService { // I have other 3 methods like these: Execute2 and Execute3 [OperationContract] [WebInvoke( RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, UriTemplate = "/Execute1", Method = "POST")] string Execute1(string param); } [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] [ServiceBehavior( InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.PerCall )] public class MyService : IMyService { // I have other 3 methods like these: Execute2 (7 sec) and Execute3(4 sec) public string Execute1(string param) { var t = Observable.Start(() => Thread.Sleep(2000), Scheduler.NewThread); t.First(); return string.Format("Execute1 on: {0} count: {1} at: {2} thread: {3}", param, "0", DateTime.Now.ToString(), Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId.ToString()); } } ASPX page <%@ Page EnableSessionState="False" Title="Home Page" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="RestService._Default" %> <asp:Content ID="HeaderContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="HeadContent"> <script type="text/javascript"> function callMethodAsync(url, data) { $("#message").append("<br/>" + new Date()); $.ajax({ cache: false, type: "POST", async: true, url: url, data: '"de"', contentType: "application/json", dataType: "json", success: function (msg) { $("#message").append("<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;" + msg); }, error: function (xhr) { alert(xhr.responseText); } }); } $(function () { $("#callMany").click(function () { $("#message").html(""); callMethodAsync("/Execute1", "hello"); callMethodAsync("/Execute2", "crazy"); callMethodAsync("/Execute3", "world"); }); }); </script> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="BodyContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent"> <input type="button" id="callMany" value="Post Many" /> <div id="message"> </div> </asp:Content> Web.config (relevant) <system.webServer> <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" /> </system.webServer> <system.serviceModel> <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" /> <standardEndpoints> <webHttpEndpoint> <standardEndpoint name="" helpEnabled="true" automaticFormatSelectionEnabled="true" /> </webHttpEndpoint> </standardEndpoints> </system.serviceModel> Global.asax void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { RouteTable.Routes.Ignore("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); RouteTable.Routes.Add(new ServiceRoute("", new WebServiceHostFactory(), typeof(MyService))); }

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• Trying to packetize TCP with non-blocking IO is hard! Am I doing something wrong?

  - by Ricket

  Oh how I wish TCP was packet-based like UDP is! But alas, that's not the case, so I'm trying to implement my own packet layer. Here's the chain of events so far (ignoring writing packets) Oh, and my Packets are very simply structured: two unsigned bytes for length, and then byte[length] data. (I can't imagine if they were any more complex, I'd be up to my ears in if statements!) Server is in an infinite loop, accepting connections and adding them to a list of Connections. PacketGatherer (another thread) uses a Selector to figure out which Connection.SocketChannels are ready for reading. It loops over the results and tells each Connection to read(). Each Connection has a partial IncomingPacket and a list of Packets which have been fully read and are waiting to be processed. On read(): Tell the partial IncomingPacket to read more data. (IncomingPacket.readData below) If it's done reading (IncomingPacket.complete()), make a Packet from it and stick the Packet into the list waiting to be processed and then replace it with a new IncomingPacket. There are a couple problems with this. First, only one packet is being read at a time. If the IncomingPacket needs only one more byte, then only one byte is read this pass. This can of course be fixed with a loop but it starts to get sorta complicated and I wonder if there is a better overall way. Second, the logic in IncomingPacket is a little bit crazy, to be able to read the two bytes for the length and then read the actual data. Here is the code, boiled down for quick & easy reading: int readBytes; // number of total bytes read so far byte length1, length2; // each byte in an unsigned short int (see getLength()) public int getLength() { // will be inaccurate if readBytes < 2 return (int)(length1 << 8 | length2); } public void readData(SocketChannel c) { if (readBytes < 2) { // we don't yet know the length of the actual data ByteBuffer lengthBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(2 - readBytes); numBytesRead = c.read(lengthBuffer); if(readBytes == 0) { if(numBytesRead >= 1) length1 = lengthBuffer.get(); if(numBytesRead == 2) length2 = lengthBuffer.get(); } else if(readBytes == 1) { if(numBytesRead == 1) length2 = lengthBuffer.get(); } readBytes += numBytesRead; } if(readBytes >= 2) { // then we know we have the entire length variable // lazily-instantiate data buffers based on getLength() // read into data buffers, increment readBytes // (does not read more than the amount of this packet, so it does not // need to handle overflow into the next packet's data) } } public boolean complete() { return (readBytes > 2 && readBytes == getLength()+2); } Basically I need feedback on my code. Please suggest any improvements. Even overhauling my entire system would be okay, if you have suggestions for how better to implement the whole thing. Book recommendations are welcome too; I love books. I just get the feeling that something isn't quite right.

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• Programatically add UserControl with events

  - by schaermu

  Hi everybody I need to add multiple user controls to a panel for further editing of the contained data. My user control contains some panels, dropdown lists and input elements, which are populated in the user control's Page_Load event. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { // populate comparer ddl from enum string[] enumNames = Enum.GetNames(typeof (SearchComparision)); var al = new ArrayList(); for (int i = 0; i < enumNames.Length; i++) al.Add(new {Value = i, Name = enumNames[i]}); scOperatorSelection.DataValueField = "Value"; scOperatorSelection.DataTextField = "Name"; ... The data to be displayed is added to the user control as a Field, defined above Page_Load. The signature of the events is the following: public delegate void ControlStateChanged(object sender, SearchCriteriaEventArgs eventArgs); public event ControlStateChanged ItemUpdated; public event ControlStateChanged ItemRemoved; public event ControlStateChanged ItemAdded; The update button on the user control triggers the following method: protected void UpdateCriteria(object sender, EventArgs e) { var searchCritCtl = (SearchCriteria) sender; var scEArgs = new SearchCriteriaEventArgs { TargetCriteria = searchCritCtl.CurrentCriteria.CriteriaId, SearchComparision = ParseCurrentComparer(searchCritCtl.scOperatorSelection.SelectedValue), SearchField = searchCritCtl.scFieldSelection.SelectedValue, SearchValue = searchCritCtl.scFilterValue.Text, ClickTarget = SearchCriteriaClickTarget.Update }; if (ItemUpdated != null) ItemUpdated(this, scEArgs); } The rendering page fetches the data objects from a storage backend and displays it in it's Page_Load event. This is the point where it starts getting tricky: i connect to the custom events! int idIt = 0; foreach (var item in _currentSearch.Items) { SearchCriteria sc = (SearchCriteria)LoadControl("~/content/controls/SearchCriteria.ascx"); sc.ID = "scDispCtl_" + idIt; sc.ControlMode = SearchCriteriaMode.Display; sc.CurrentCriteria = item; sc.ItemUpdated += CriteriaUpdated; sc.ItemRemoved += CriteriaRemoved; pnlDisplayCrit.Controls.Add(sc); idIt++; } When first rendering the page, everything is displayed fine, i get all my data. When i trigger an update event, the user control event is fired correctly, but all fields and controls of the user control are NULL. After a bit of research, i had to come to the conclusion that the event is fired before the controls are initialized... Is there any way to prevent such behavior / to override the page lifecycle somehow? I cannot initialize the user controls in the page's Init-event, because i have to access the Session-Store (not initialized in Page_Init). Any advice is welcome... EDIT: Since we hold all criteria informations in the storage backend (including the count of criteria) and that store uses the userid from the session, we cannot use Page_Init... just for clarification EDIT #2: I managed to get past some of the problems. Since i'm now using simple types, im able to bind all the data declaratively (using a repeater with a simple ItemTemplate). It is bound to the control, they are rendered in correct fashion. On Postback, all the data is rebound to the user control, data is available in the OnDataBinding and OnLoad events, everything looks fine. But as soon it enters the real event (bound to the button control of the user control), all field values are lost somehow... Does anybody know, how the page lifecycle continues to process the request after Databinding/Loading ? I'm going crazy about this issue...

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