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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012Popular ReleasesSharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.5: Version 1.5 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerZ3: Z3 4.1.1 source code: Snapshot corresponding to version 4.1.1.DirectX Tool Kit: October 2012: October 2, 2012 Added ScreenGrab module Added CreateGeoSphere for drawing a geodesic sphere Put DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader into the DirectX C++ namespace Renamed project files for better naming consistency Updated WICTextureLoader for Windows 8 96bpp floating-point formats Win32 desktop projects updated to use Windows Vista (0x0600) rather than Windows 7 (0x0601) APIs Tweaked SpriteBatch.cpp to workaround ARM NEON compiler codegen bugHome Access Plus+: v8.1: HAP+ Web v8.1.1003.000079318 Fixed: Issue with the Help Desk and updating a ticket as an admin 79319 Fixed: formatting issue with the booking system admin header 79321 Moved to using the arrow with a circle symbol on the homepage instead of the > and < 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to login page 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to home page 79541 Added: slide events for homepage 79553 Fixed: Booking System Multiple Lesson Bug 79553 Fixed: IE Error Message 79684 Fixed: jQuery issue ...System.Net.FtpClient: System.Net.FtpClient 2012.10.02: This is the first release of the new code base. It is not compatible with the old API, I repeat it is not a drop in update for projects currently using System.Net.FtpClient. New users should download this release. The old code base (Branch: System.Net.FtpClient_1) will continue to be supported while the new code matures. This release is a complete re-write of System.Net.FtpClient. The API and code are simpler than ever before. There are some new features included as well as an attempt at be...CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1002.3): Visual Ribbon Editor 1.3.1002.3 What's New: Multi-language support for Labels/Tooltips for custom buttons and groups Support for base language other than English (1033) Connect dialog will not require organization name for ADFS / IFD connections Automatic creation of missing labels for all provisioned languages Minor connection issues fixed Notes: Before saving the ribbon to CRM server, editor will check Ribbon XML for any missing <Title> elements inside existing <LocLabel> elements...YAXLib: Yet Another XML Serialization Library for the .NET Framework: YAXLib 2.10: See change-log for the list of new features added and bugs fixedRenameApp: RenameApp 1.0: First release of RenameAppJsonToStaticTypeGenerator: JsonToStaticTypeGenerator 0.1: This is the first alpha release of JsonToStaticTypeGenerator.XiaoKyun: XiaoKyun V1.00: https://xiaokyun.codeplex.com/CatchThatException: Release 1.12: Wow a very fast change and a much better and faster writing to the text fileNaked Objects: Naked Objects Release 5.0.0: Corresponds to the packaged version 5.0.0 available via NuGet. Please note that the easiest way to install and run the Naked Objects Framework is via the NuGet package manager: just search the Official NuGet Package Source for 'nakedobjects'. It is only necessary to download the source code (from here) if you wish to modify or re-build the framework yourself. If you do wish to re-build the framework, consul the file HowToBuild.txt in the release. Major enhancementsNaked Objects 5.0 is desi...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.0: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.4.1: This version will automatically save a recording session on application exit if the user didn't stop the current session.SubExtractor: Release 1029: Feature: Added option to make i and ¡ characters movie-specific for improved OCR on Spanish subs (Special Characters tab in Options) Feature: Allow switch to Word Spacing dialog directly from Spell Check dialog Fix: Added more default word spacings for accented characters Fix: Changed Word Spacing dialog to show all OCR'd characters in current sub Fix: Removed application focus grab during OCR Fix: Tightened HD subs fuzzy logic to reduce false matches in small characters Fix: Improved Arrow k...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.2.18: Reccomended download Changelog for 2.2.18 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for checking if Showanalyzer has hung and cancelling it 2. New version of comskip, 0.81.48 3. Speeding up comskip 4. Fixed a build bug in 64bit 2.2.17 5. Added a new comkip.ini, better commercial detection for international channels and less aggressive. Old one has been retained as comskip_old.ini 6. Added support for Audio Offset on Conversion Task page in GUI (this overrides the profiles AudioDelay when specified)Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.1: See the KeePass Plugin Step By Step Guide for instructions on how to install the plugin. Changes Built against KeePass 2.20Windows 8 Toolkit - Charts and More: Beta 1.0: The First Compiled Version of my LibraryPDF.NET: PDF.NET.Ver4.5-OpenSourceCode: PDF.NET Ver4.5 ????，????Web??????。 PDF.NET Ver4.5 Open Source Code,include a sample Web application project.Visual Studio Icon Patcher: Version 1.5.2: This version contains no new images from v1.5.1 Contains the following improvements: Better support for detecting the installed languages The extract & inject commands won’t run if Visual Studio is running You may now run in extract or inject mode The p/invoke code was cleaned up based on Code Analysis recommendations When a p/invoke method fails the Win32 error message is now displayed Error messages use red text Status messages use green textNew Projects.Net Exception Reporter: A reusable and extensible exception reporter for Microsoft .NET projects.Aesha Broker: A rich client Auction House Broker application. Built upon Blizzard's new REST API. Provides a client experience which caches historical auction data to provideASP.NET Friendly URLs: A library that enables automatic resolving of extensionless URLs to ASP.NET file-based handlers, e.g. ASPX pages.Astro Power CMS: Astro Power CMS build on GraffitiCMS, a product of Telligent. GraffitiCMS stop develop, I create this project with name is Astro Power CMSaTester: Here is a good place. And now, I can upload my soruce to it. It's very good.Automacao Residencial: O Netduino é uma plataforma onde voce utiliza a linguagem C# para controlar hardware. O objetivo é criar uma estrutura de comunicaçao com o netduino.Derbster: Explore and learn about modern C# architecture and programming by implementing software to support the modern game of roller derby. Dot FPE - A free Format-preserving encryption implementation for .net: There aren't any widely available implementations of a format-preserving encryption in .NET. Thus we aim to be the first!DotNetEx: .NET Framework extended functionality for data access, working with Tasks and asynchronous programming, encryption algorithms such as SkipJack and other stuff.Elemental Development Toolchain (.NET version): A complete toolchain built around the Æthere langauge.elFinder ASP.NET Connector: The one and only .NET connector for the amazing elFinder 2.X web-based file manager. Finally you can manage your files easily right from your browser!Geosynkronisering: Prosjekt for utarbeidelse av spesifikasjoner for grensesnitt som muliggjør synkronisering av datalager med geografisk datainnhold på tvers av ulike plattformerGIII_P1: Jesli wszyscy w Ciebie zwatpili pokaz ze sie mylili !IntroduceCompany: Website gi?i thi?u doanh nghi?p - công ty.JsonToStaticTypeGenerator: This is the JsonToStaticTypeGenerator project that gives the possibility to generate c# classes out of Json data.kwerty: Coming soonMachine Learning: My machine learning project. Just to figure out things...MicroManager: MaNGOS Web-based ManagerMvcContrib3: This is the version of mvccontrib which works with ASP.Net MVC 3Oracle Destination via ODP.Net (Custom Destination Component): SSIS 2008 R2 solution (custom destination component) to write to oracle via ODP.NetOrchard Commerce History with PayPal: Project expands on Nwazet.Commerce module (and is required for this module to work). Adds a purchase history, product role associations, and PayPal.Phoenix Trans: Web Phoenix Trans v?n t?i hàng hóa trong và ngoài nu?cPowerState: PowerState is .NET application for sending Wake-On-LAN (WOL) requests to computers. It can also shutdown, log off and reboot computers using the WMI.RenameApp: RenameApp is a free and very simple to use renaming software for Windows. RenameApp allows you to easily rename files based on the specified criteria and order.Rose-Hulman User Experience Design: This project will contain labs intended for use in Rose-Hulman's Computer Science and Software Engineering department.Server d? phòng: Ðây là server d? phòng, SharePoint BCS External Connector Caching Pattern Library: Library for enabling caching on SharePoint BCS external connectors. Enables BCS .Net Assemblies to be written that are scalable and performant for search.SharpDX.WPF: This projects provides a DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 support for WPF. The assembly contains DXElement - an easy to use WPF-FrameworkElement.Simple Password Generator Library: The password generator library, written in C#, is a simple assembly which allow generation of passwords with length anywhere from 1-99.SisEagle.NET: Esse sistema foi desenvolvido pra fins de apresentação do TCC referente ao ano de 2012 na UDF-BrasiliaSWebshop: SWebshop is a PHP based webshop system which allows you to insert, edit and delete data easily and is easy to use for customers.Tabular Database Powershell Cmdlets: This project provides a sample of PowerShell Cmdlets to manage Tabular models, from Analysis Services.University timetable using java: the project is using java language to create timetable (full timetable with exam tables and labs tables) and it will be free for all users with sql databaseURLShoter: This project for shorting URL for ASP.NETWeb Input Form Control: This control allow developer to create the input form by configuring the control in html modeWeibo: rtWorkoutMemo: Project descritpion(first draft): Memorise your workout. Keep archive records of your daily trening such: - series of excercise, - quantity of each serie, - weWPF - Automate Acrobat Security Policy: This WPF Tool was created to quickly password protect batches of PDF documents, using a random generator to generate the passwords.XiaoKyun: Hello Page for Web.Z3: Z3 is a high-performance theorem prover being developed at Microsoft Research.

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• WPF Login Verification Using Active Directory

  - by psheriff

  Back in October of 2009 I created a WPF login screen (Figure 1) that just showed how to create the layout for a login screen. That one sample is probably the most downloaded sample we have. So in this blog post, I thought I would update that screen and also hook it up to show how to authenticate your user against Active Directory. Figure 1: Original WPF Login Screen I have updated not only the code behind for this login screen, but also the look and feel as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: An Updated WPF Login Screen The UI To create the UI for this login screen you can refer to my October of 2009 blog post to see how to create the borderless window. You can then look at the sample code to see how I created the linear gradient brush for the background. There are just a few differences in this screen compared to the old version. First, I changed the key image and instead of using words for the Cancel and Login buttons, I used some icons. Secondly I added a text box to hold the Domain name that you wish to authenticate against. This text box is automatically filled in if you are connected to a network. In the Window_Loaded event procedure of the winLogin window you can retrieve the user’s domain name from the Environment.UserDomainName property. For example: txtDomain.Text = Environment.UserDomainName The ADHelper Class Instead of coding the call to authenticate the user directly in the login screen I created an ADHelper class. This will make it easier if you want to add additional AD calls in the future. The ADHelper class contains just one method at this time called AuthenticateUser. This method authenticates a user name and password against the specified domain. The login screen will gather the credentials from the user such as their user name and password, and also the domain name to authenticate against. To use this ADHelper class you will need to add a reference to the System.DirectoryServices.dll in .NET. The AuthenticateUser Method In order to authenticate a user against your Active Directory you will need to supply a valid LDAP path string to the constructor of the DirectoryEntry class. The LDAP path string will be in the format LDAP://DomainName. You will also pass in the user name and password to the constructor of the DirectoryEntry class as well. With a DirectoryEntry object populated with this LDAP path string, the user name and password you will now pass this object to the constructor of a DirectorySearcher object. You then perform the FindOne method on the DirectorySearcher object. If the DirectorySearcher object returns a SearchResult then the credentials supplied are valid. If the credentials are not valid on the Active Directory then an exception is thrown. C#public bool AuthenticateUser(string domainName, string userName,  string password){  bool ret = false;   try  {    DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + domainName,                                           userName, password);    DirectorySearcher dsearch = new DirectorySearcher(de);    SearchResult results = null;     results = dsearch.FindOne();     ret = true;  }  catch  {    ret = false;  }   return ret;} Visual Basic Public Function AuthenticateUser(ByVal domainName As String, _ ByVal userName As String, ByVal password As String) As Boolean  Dim ret As Boolean = False   Try    Dim de As New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" & domainName, _                                 userName, password)    Dim dsearch As New DirectorySearcher(de)    Dim results As SearchResult = Nothing     results = dsearch.FindOne()     ret = True  Catch    ret = False  End Try   Return retEnd Function In the Click event procedure under the Login button you will find the following code that will validate the credentials that the user types into the login window. C#private void btnLogin_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e){  ADHelper ad = new ADHelper();   if(ad.AuthenticateUser(txtDomain.Text,         txtUserName.Text, txtPassword.Password))    DialogResult = true;  else    MessageBox.Show("Unable to Authenticate Using the                      Supplied Credentials");} Visual BasicPrivate Sub btnLogin_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _ ByVal e As RoutedEventArgs)  Dim ad As New ADHelper()   If ad.AuthenticateUser(txtDomain.Text, txtUserName.Text, _                         txtPassword.Password) Then    DialogResult = True  Else    MessageBox.Show("Unable to Authenticate Using the                      Supplied Credentials")  End IfEnd Sub Displaying the Login Screen At some point when your application launches, you will need to display your login screen modally. Below is the code that you would call to display the login form (named winLogin in my sample application). This code is called from the main application form, and thus the owner of the login screen is set to “this”. You then call the ShowDialog method on the login screen to have this form displayed modally. After the user clicks on one of the two buttons you need to check to see what the DialogResult property was set to. The DialogResult property is a nullable type and thus you first need to check to see if the value has been set. C# private void DisplayLoginScreen(){  winLogin win = new winLogin();   win.Owner = this;  win.ShowDialog();  if (win.DialogResult.HasValue && win.DialogResult.Value)    MessageBox.Show("User Logged In");  else    this.Close();} Visual Basic Private Sub DisplayLoginScreen()  Dim win As New winLogin()   win.Owner = Me  win.ShowDialog()  If win.DialogResult.HasValue And win.DialogResult.Value Then    MessageBox.Show("User Logged In")  Else    Me.Close()  End IfEnd Sub Summary Creating a nice looking login screen is fairly simple to do in WPF. Using the Active Directory services from a WPF application should make your desktop programming task easier as you do not need to create your own user authentication system. I hope this article gave you some ideas on how to create a login screen in WPF. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code for this blog entry at my website: http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Click on Tips & Tricks, then select 'WPF Login Verification Using Active Directory' from the drop down list. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **We frequently offer a FREE gift for readers of my blog. Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for your FREE gift!

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• T-SQL Tuesday #53-Matt's Making Me Do This!

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  Hello everyone! It's that time again, time for T-SQL Tuesday, the wonderful blog series started by Adam Machanic (b|t). This month we are hosted by Matt Velic (b|t) who asks the question, "Why So Serious?", in celebration of April Fool's Day. He asks the contributors for their dirty tricks. And for some reason that escapes me, he and Jeff Verheul (b|t) seem to think I might be able to write about those. Shocked, I am! Nah, not really. They're absolutely right, this one is gonna be fun! I took some inspiration from Matt's suggestions, namely Resource Governor and Login Triggers.  I've done some interesting login trigger stuff for a presentation, but nothing yet with Resource Governor. Best way to learn it! One of my oldest pet peeves is abuse of the sa login. Don't get me wrong, I use it too, but typically only as SQL Agent job owner. It's been a while since I've been stuck with it, but back when I started using SQL Server, EVERY application needed sa to function. It was hard-coded and couldn't be changed. (welllllll, that is if you didn't use a hex editor on the EXE file, but who would do such a thing?) My standard warning applies: don't run anything on this page in production. In fact, back up whatever server you're testing this on, including the master database. Snapshotting a VM is a good idea. Also make sure you have other sysadmin level logins on that server. So here's a standard template for a logon trigger to address those pesky sa users: CREATE TRIGGER SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY ON ALL SERVER WITH ENCRYPTION, EXECUTE AS N'sa' AFTER LOGON AS IF ORIGINAL_LOGIN()<>N'sa' OR APP_NAME() LIKE N'SQL Agent%' RETURN; -- interesting stuff goes here GO   What can you do for "interesting stuff"? Books Online limits itself to merely rolling back the logon, which will throw an error (and alert the person that the logon trigger fired).  That's a good use for logon triggers, but really not tricky enough for this blog.  Some of my suggestions are below: WAITFOR DELAY '23:59:59';   Or: EXEC sp_MSforeach_db 'EXEC sp_detach_db ''?'';'   Or: EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_job @job_name=N'`', @enabled=1, @start_step_id=1, @notify_level_eventlog=0, @delete_level=3; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver @job_name=N'`', @server_name=@@SERVERNAME; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep @job_name=N'`', @step_id=1, @step_name=N'`', @command=N'SHUTDOWN;'; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_start_job @job_name=N'`';   Really, I don't want to spoil your own exploration, try it yourself!  The thing I really like about these is it lets me promote the idea that "sa is SLOW, sa is BUGGY, don't use sa!".  Before we get into Resource Governor, make sure to drop or disable that logon trigger. They don't work well in combination. (Had to redo all the following code when SSMS locked up) Resource Governor is a feature that lets you control how many resources a single session can consume. The main goal is to limit the damage from a runaway query. But we're not here to read about its main goal or normal usage! I'm trying to make people stop using sa BECAUSE IT'S SLOW! Here's how RG can do that: USE master; GO CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY() RETURNS sysname WITH SCHEMABINDING, ENCRYPTION AS BEGIN RETURN CASE WHEN ORIGINAL_LOGIN()=N'sa' AND APP_NAME() NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' THEN N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY' ELSE N'default' END END GO CREATE RESOURCE POOL SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( MIN_CPU_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,CAP_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,AFFINITY SCHEDULER = (0) ,MIN_MEMORY_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_MEMORY_PERCENT = 1 -- ,MIN_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 ,MAX_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 -- uncomment for SQL Server 2014 ); CREATE WORKLOAD GROUP SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( IMPORTANCE = LOW ,REQUEST_MAX_MEMORY_GRANT_PERCENT = 1 ,REQUEST_MAX_CPU_TIME_SEC = 1 ,REQUEST_MEMORY_GRANT_TIMEOUT_SEC = 1 ,MAX_DOP = 1 ,GROUP_MAX_REQUESTS = 1 ) USING SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY; ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR WITH (CLASSIFIER_FUNCTION=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY); ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE;   From top to bottom: Create a classifier function to determine which pool the session should go to. More info on classifier functions. Create the pool and provide a generous helping of resources for the sa login. Create the workload group and further prioritize those resources for the sa login. Apply the classifier function and reconfigure RG to use it. I have to say this one is a bit sneakier than the logon trigger, least of all you don't get any error messages.  I heartily recommend testing it in Management Studio, and click around the UI a lot, there's some fun behavior there. And DEFINITELY try it on SQL 2014 with the IO settings included!  You'll notice I made allowances for SQL Agent jobs owned by sa, they'll go into the default workload group.  You can add your own overrides to the classifier function if needed. Some interesting ideas I didn't have time for but expect you to get to before me: Set up different pools/workgroups with different settings and randomize which one the classifier chooses Do the same but base it on time of day (Books Online example covers this)... Or, which workstation it connects from. This can be modified for certain special people in your office who either don't listen, or are attracted (and attractive) to you. And if things go wrong you can always use the following from another sysadmin or Dedicated Admin connection: ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR DISABLE;   That will let you go in and either fix (or drop) the pools, workgroups and classifier function. So now that you know these types of things are possible, and if you are tired of your team using sa when they shouldn't, I expect you'll enjoy playing with these quite a bit! Unfortunately, the aforementioned Dedicated Admin Connection kinda poops on the party here.  Books Online for both topics will tell you that the DAC will not fire either feature. So if you have a crafty user who does their research, they can still sneak in with sa and do their bidding without being hampered. Of course, you can still detect their login via various methods, like a server trace, SQL Server Audit, extended events, and enabling "Audit Successful Logins" on the server.  These all have their downsides: traces take resources, extended events and SQL Audit can't fire off actions, and enabling successful logins will bloat your error log very quickly.  SQL Audit is also limited unless you have Enterprise Edition, and Resource Governor is Enterprise-only.  And WORST OF ALL, these features are all available and visible through the SSMS UI, so even a doofus developer or manager could find them. Fortunately there are Event Notifications! Event notifications are becoming one of my favorite features of SQL Server (keep an eye out for more blogs from me about them). They are practically unknown and heinously underutilized.  They are also a great gateway drug to using Service Broker, another great but underutilized feature. Hopefully this will get you to start using them, or at least your enemies in the office will once they read this, and then you'll have to learn them in order to fix things. So here's the setup: USE msdb; GO CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act WITH ENCRYPTION AS DECLARE @x XML, @message nvarchar(max); RECEIVE @x=CAST(message_body AS XML) FROM SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q; IF @x.value('(//LoginName)[1]','sysname')=N'sa' AND @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' BEGIN -- interesting activation procedure stuff goes here END GO CREATE QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q WITH STATUS=ON, RETENTION=OFF, ACTIVATION (PROCEDURE_NAME=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act, MAX_QUEUE_READERS=1, EXECUTE AS OWNER); CREATE SERVICE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s ON QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q([http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification]); CREATE EVENT NOTIFICATION SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_en ON SERVER WITH FAN_IN FOR AUDIT_LOGIN TO SERVICE N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s', N'current database' GO   From top to bottom: Create activation procedure for event notification queue. Create queue to accept messages from event notification, and activate the procedure to process those messages when received. Create service to send messages to that queue. Create event notification on AUDIT_LOGIN events that fire the service. I placed this in msdb as it is an available system database and already has Service Broker enabled by default. You should change this to another database if you can guarantee it won't get dropped. So what to put in place for "interesting activation procedure code"?  Hmmm, so far I haven't addressed Matt's suggestion of writing a lengthy script to send an annoying message: SET @[email protected]('(//HostName)[1]','sysname') + N' tried to log in to server ' + @x.value('(//ServerName)[1]','sysname') + N' as SA at ' + @x.value('(//StartTime)[1]','sysname') + N' using the ' + @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') + N' program. That''s why you''re getting this message and the attached pornography which' + N' is bloating your inbox and violating company policy, among other things. If you know' + N' this person you can go to their desk and hit them, or use the following SQL to end their session: KILL ' + @x.value('(//SPID)[1]','sysname') + N'; Hopefully they''re in the middle of a huge query that they need to finish right away.' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients=N'[email protected]', @subject=N'SA Login Alert', @query_result_width=32767, @body=@message, @query=N'EXEC sp_readerrorlog;', @attach_query_result_as_file=1, @query_attachment_filename=N'UtterlyGrossPorn_SeriouslyDontOpenIt.jpg' I'm not sure I'd call that a lengthy script, but the attachment should get pretty big, and I'm sure the email admins will love storing multiple copies of it.  The nice thing is that this also fires on Dedicated Admin connections! You can even identify DAC connections from the event data returned, I leave that as an exercise for you. You can use that info to change the action taken by the activation procedure, and since it's a stored procedure, it can pretty much do anything! Except KILL the SPID, or SHUTDOWN the server directly.  I'm still working on those.

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• Cloning a WebCenter Portal Managed Server

  - by Maiko Rocha

  I had to run some tests on a WebCenter Portal application deployed in a cluster. I've got a development VM with WebCenter PS4 (this also works on PS5) and I was trying to figure out how could I easily add a new managed server to my single-node domain, and make it a cluster. Creating the machine and cluster are a piece of cake, you can do it pretty quick through WLS Console. Now, you'd guess that using the clone option on WLS Console would do the magic of cloning an existing instance, right? Well, it does, but all you get is an "empty" managed server: with no target libraries.  It was a good surprise to find that WebCenter provides a way of cloning an existing WebCenter Portal managed server through a simple WLST command: cloneWebCenterManagedServer  This is a screenshot of my starting point. I want to clone WC_CustomPortal managed server: These are the steps to clone my WC_CustomPortal managed server: 1. In the command line, invoke WLST. It should be on <ORACLE_HOME_for_component>/common/bin/wlst.sh. In my case, it is ./product/Middleware/WebCenterPortal/common/bin/wlst.sh 2. Connect to the Admin Server:  connect ('<wls_admin_username>','<password>','t3://<server>:<port>') 3. Execute the following command: wls:/webcenter/serverConfig> cloneWebCenterManagedServer(baseManagedServer='WC_CustomPortal', newManagedServer='WC_CustomPortal2', newManagedServerPort=8893, verbose=1) I've turned on verbose output on purpose so I could see what the script was doing while executing. This is the output:  [...] Creating the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" MBean type Server with name WC_CustomPortal2 has been created successfully. Targeting the library "oracle.bi.adf.model.slib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.bi.adf.view.slib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.bi.adf.webcenter.slib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.wsm.seedpolicies#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.jsp.next#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.dconfig-infra#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "orai18n-adf#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.adf.dconfigbeans#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.pwdgen#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.jrf.system.filter" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "adf.oracle.domain#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "adf.oracle.businesseditor#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.adf.management#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "adf.oracle.domain.webapp#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "jsf#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "jstl#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "UIX#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "ohw-rcf#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "ohw-uix#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.adf.desktopintegration.model#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.adf.desktopintegration#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.bi.jbips#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.bi.composer#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.skin#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.composer#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.framework.core#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.sdp.client#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.soa.workflow.wc#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.soa.worklist.webapp#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.ucm.ridc.app-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "p13n-app-lib-base#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "p13n-core-web-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "jaxrs-framework-web-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "jersey-web-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "wcps-util-app-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "wcps-services-client-web-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "content-app-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "content-web-lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.framework#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.framework.view#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.forum.dependency#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.jive.dependency#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.spaces.fwk#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the library "oracle.webcenter.activitygraph.lib#[email protected]" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the datasource "mds-CustomPortalDS" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the datasource "WebCenter-CustomPortalDS" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the datasource "Activities-CustomPortalDS" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the application "wsil-wls" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the application "DMS Application#11.1.1.1.0" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the application "ViewHandlerOverride_webapp1#V2.0" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the application "ViewHandlerOverride_application1#V2.0" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "JRF Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "JPS Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "ODL-Startup" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "Audit Loader Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "AWT Application Context Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "JMX Framework Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "Web Services Startup Class" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "JOC-Startup" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the startup class "DMS-Startup" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the shutdown class "JOC-Shutdown" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Targeting the shutdown class "DMSShutdown" to the Managed Server "WC_CustomPortal2" Validating changes ... Validated the changes successfully [...] And this is the newly created WC_CustomPortal2 managed server showing up on Weblogic console:  Here is the full reference to WebCenter Portal Custom WLST Commands. Special thanks to Todd Vender for pointing this one out! :-)

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• Caching NHibernate Named Queries

  - by TStewartDev

  I recently started a new job and one of my first tasks was to implement a "popular products" design. The parameters were that it be done with NHibernate and be cached for 24 hours at a time because the query will be pretty taxing and the results do not need to be constantly up to date. This ended up being tougher than it sounds. The database schema meant a minimum of four joins with filtering and ordering criteria. I decided to use a stored procedure rather than letting NHibernate create the SQL for me. Here is a summary of what I learned (even if I didn't ultimately use all of it): You can't, at the time of this writing, use Fluent NHibernate to configure SQL named queries or imports You can return persistent entities from a stored procedure and there are a couple ways to do that You can populate POCOs using the results of a stored procedure, but it isn't quite as obvious You can reuse your named query result mapping other places (avoid duplication) Caching your query results is not at all obvious Testing to see if your cache is working is a pain NHibernate does a lot of things right. Having unified, up-to-date, comprehensive, and easy-to-find documentation is not one of them. By the way, if you're new to this, I'll use the terms "named query" and "stored procedure" (from NHibernate's perspective) fairly interchangeably. Technically, a named query can execute any SQL, not just a stored procedure, and a stored procedure doesn't have to be executed from a named query, but for reusability, it seems to me like the best practice. If you're here, chances are good you're looking for answers to a similar problem. You don't want to read about the path, you just want the result. So, here's how to get this thing going. The Stored Procedure NHibernate has some guidelines when using stored procedures. For Microsoft SQL Server, you have to return a result set. The scalar value that the stored procedure returns is ignored as are any result sets after the first. Other than that, it's nothing special. CREATE PROCEDURE GetPopularProducts @StartDate DATETIME, @MaxResults INT AS BEGIN SELECT [ProductId], [ProductName], [ImageUrl] FROM SomeTableWithJoinsEtc END The Result Class - PopularProduct You have two options to transport your query results to your view (or wherever is the final destination): you can populate an existing mapped entity class in your model, or you can create a new entity class. If you go with the existing model, the advantage is that the query will act as a loader and you'll get full proxied access to the domain model. However, this can be a disadvantage if you require access to the related entities that aren't loaded by your results. For example, my PopularProduct has image references. Unless I tie them into the query (thus making it even more complicated and expensive to run), they'll have to be loaded on access, requiring more trips to the database. Since we're trying to avoid trips to the database by using a second-level cache, we should use the second option, which is to create a separate entity for results. This approach is (I believe) in the spirit of the Command-Query Separation principle, and it allows us to flatten our data and optimize our report-generation process from data source to view. public class PopularProduct { public virtual int ProductId { get; set; } public virtual string ProductName { get; set; } public virtual string ImageUrl { get; set; } } The NHibernate Mappings (hbm) Next up, we need to let NHibernate know about the query and where the results will go. Below is the markup for the PopularProduct class. Notice that I'm using the <resultset> element and that it has a name attribute. The name allows us to drop this into our query map and any others, giving us reusability. Also notice the <import> element which lets NHibernate know about our entity class. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2"> <import class="PopularProduct, Infrastructure.NHibernate, Version=1.0.0.0"/> <resultset name="PopularProductResultSet"> <return-scalar column="ProductId" type="System.Int32"/> <return-scalar column="ProductName" type="System.String"/> <return-scalar column="ImageUrl" type="System.String"/> </resultset> </hibernate-mapping>  And now the PopularProductsMap: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2"> <sql-query name="GetPopularProducts" resultset-ref="PopularProductResultSet" cacheable="true" cache-mode="normal"> <query-param name="StartDate" type="System.DateTime" /> <query-param name="MaxResults" type="System.Int32" /> exec GetPopularProducts @StartDate = :StartDate, @MaxResults = :MaxResults </sql-query> </hibernate-mapping>  The two most important things to notice here are the resultset-ref attribute, which links in our resultset mapping, and the cacheable attribute. The Query Class – PopularProductsQuery So far, this has been fairly obvious if you're familiar with NHibernate. This next part, maybe not so much. You can implement your query however you want to; for me, I wanted a self-encapsulated Query class, so here's what it looks like: public class PopularProductsQuery : IPopularProductsQuery { private static readonly IResultTransformer ResultTransformer; private readonly ISessionBuilder _sessionBuilder;   static PopularProductsQuery() { ResultTransformer = Transformers.AliasToBean<PopularProduct>(); }   public PopularProductsQuery(ISessionBuilder sessionBuilder) { _sessionBuilder = sessionBuilder; }   public IList<PopularProduct> GetPopularProducts(DateTime startDate, int maxResults) { var session = _sessionBuilder.GetSession(); var popularProducts = session .GetNamedQuery("GetPopularProducts") .SetCacheable(true) .SetCacheRegion("PopularProductsCacheRegion") .SetCacheMode(CacheMode.Normal) .SetReadOnly(true) .SetResultTransformer(ResultTransformer) .SetParameter("StartDate", startDate.Date) .SetParameter("MaxResults", maxResults) .List<PopularProduct>();   return popularProducts; } }  Okay, so let's look at each line of the query execution. The first, GetNamedQuery, matches up with our NHibernate mapping for the sql-query. Next, we set it as cacheable (this is probably redundant since our mapping also specified it, but it can't hurt, right?). Then we set the cache region which we'll get to in the next section. Set the cache mode (optional, I believe), and my cache is read-only, so I set that as well. The result transformer is very important. This tells NHibernate how to transform your query results into a non-persistent entity. You can see I've defined ResultTransformer in the static constructor using the AliasToBean transformer. The name is obviously leftover from Java/Hibernate. Finally, set your parameters and then call a result method which will execute the query. Because this is set to cached, you execute this statement every time you run the query and NHibernate will know based on your parameters whether to use its cached version or a fresh version. The Configuration – hibernate.cfg.xml and Web.config You need to explicitly enable second-level caching in your hibernate configuration: <hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2"> <session-factory> [...] <property name="dialect">NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2005Dialect</property> <property name="cache.provider_class">NHibernate.Caches.SysCache.SysCacheProvider,NHibernate.Caches.SysCache</property> <property name="cache.use_query_cache">true</property> <property name="cache.use_second_level_cache">true</property> [...] </session-factory> </hibernate-configuration> Both properties "use_query_cache" and "use_second_level_cache" are necessary. As this is for a web deployement, we're using SysCache which relies on ASP.NET's caching. Be aware of this if you're not deploying to the web! You'll have to use a different cache provider. We also need to tell our cache provider (in this cache, SysCache) about our caching region: <syscache> <cache region="PopularProductsCacheRegion" expiration="86400" priority="5" /> </syscache> Here I've set the cache to be valid for 24 hours. This XML snippet goes in your Web.config (or in a separate file referenced by Web.config, which helps keep things tidy). The Payoff That should be it! At this point, your queries should run once against the database for a given set of parameters and then use the cache thereafter until it expires. You can, of course, adjust settings to work in your particular environment. Testing Testing your application to ensure it is using the cache is a pain, but if you're like me, you want to know that it's actually working. It's a bit involved, though, so I'll create a separate post for it if comments indicate there is interest.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010New ProjectsAdaptCMS: AdaptCMS is an open source CMS that is made for complete control of your website, easiness of use and easily adaptable to any type of website. It's...Aura: Aura is a application that calculates average color of desktop background image or whole screen and sets it as Aero Glass color.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Boxee and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.ClothingSMS: ClothingSMSEasySL3ColorPicker: Silverlight 3 color picker user control.Fluent Moq Builder: Gives a fluent interface to help with building complex mock objects with Moq, such as mocks of HttpContextBase for help in unit testing ASP.NET MVC.Folder Bookmarks: A simple folder/file bookmark manager. Simple and easy to use. No need to navigate large folder directories, just double-click the bookmark to open...GeocodeThe.Net: GeoCodeThe.Net seeks to promote geographic tagging for all content on the web. It is our belief that anything on the web can and should be geocoded...GNF: GNF is a open source WPF based GPS library controlsHKGolden Express: HKGolden Express is a web application to generate simplified layout of HKGolden forum. HKGolden Express is written in Java EE, it can be deployed o...Informant: Informant provides people with the desire to send mass SMS to specific groups with the ability to do so using Google Voice. Included with Informant...JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: JSON serializer is used to created javascript object notation strings. It was written in the .NET 1.1 framework, and has capabilities of serializ...LightWeight Application Server: LWAS aims to provide the means for non-technical developers using just a web browser to create data-centered applications from user interface desig...MicroHedge: Quant FiNerd Clock: NerdClock is my windows phone 7 test app. A clock for nerds, time reads in binary.PhotoHelper: PhotoHelper makes it easier to organize the photoes, if your photoes are put into different locations, but you think they are the same category, yo...Pylor: An ASP.NET MVC custom attribute that allows the configuration of role based security access rules with similar functionality to the System.Web.Mvc....radiogaga: Access an online data source of internet streaming media and present it using a mixed paradigm of embedded web browser and rich client functionalit...Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: If you would like to use MSBuild to register a WCF LOB Adapter in a given server, the custom tasks: RegisterWCFLOBAdapter and UnregisterWCFLOBAdapt...Restart Explorer: Utility to start, stop and restart Windows Explorer.Silverlight 4 Netflix Browser: Demonstrates using a WCF Data Client in Silverlight 4 to browse movie titles with the Netflix OData API announced at MIX 10.trayTwittr: With trayTwittr you can easily update your Twitterstatus right from the Systray. The GUI is designed like the Notificationpanels in Windows 7 (e.g....Warensoft Socket Server: Warensoft Socket Server is a solo server, which never cares about the real logical business. While you could process your socket message with IronP...Weka - Message Serialization: Message serialization framework for .net, including Compact Framework.New Releases[Tool] Vczh Visual Studio UnitTest Coverage Analyzer: Coverage Analyzer (beta): Done features: Load Visual Studio Code Coverage XML File (get this file by clicking "Export Results" in "Test->Windows->Code Coverage Results" in V...Aura: Aura Beta 1: Initial releaseBoxee Launcher: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.2: System Requirements Outlook 2007 / 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running instances in the b...CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.33: removed ASP.NET Menu from admin module applied security role filtering to Dashboard panels/tabsDDDSample.Net: 0.7: This is the next major release of DDDSample. This time I give you 4 different versions of the application: Classic (vanilla) with synchronous inter...DirectoryInfoEx: DirectoryInfoEx 0.16: 03-14-10 Version 0.13 o Fixed FileSystemWaterEx ignore remove directory event. o Fixed Removed IDisposable ...Employee Scheduler: Employee Scheduler [2.6]: Fixed clear data methods to handle holiday modification Added buttons to allow holiday and add time exceptions Updated drag/drop and resize of holi...Enovatics Foundation Library: Enovatics Foundation Library V1.4: This version provides the following components : Strongly Typed cache management, CSV management Base classes for SQL Server data access laye...Fluent Moq Builder: Version 0.1: Intial release. Contains (incomplete) builders for HttpRequestBase, HttpContextBase and ControllerContext. Mock methods so far focus around request...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. Once you have ex...Folder Bookmarks: Source Code: This has the all the code for Folder Bookmarks in a Text file.Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis Smart Client Framework v1.60.1024.1: This release features the first installer for the Genesis Smart Client Framework. The installer creates the database and set's up the Internet Info...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003201725): New features: (None) Bug fix: (None) Improvements: Added <meta> tag to optimize screen layout for different screen size. Added drop-down li...Home Access Plus+: v3.1.5.0: Version 3.1.5.0 Release Change Log: Fixed CSS for My Computer in List View Ability to remember which view mode you have selected Added HA+ home...IT Tycoon: IT Tycoon 0.2.0: Started refactoring toward more formatted and documented code and XAML.JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: jsonSerializer: Basic jsonSerializer binary. Now only handles an object model using reflection. There's no optimization added to the codebase handling .Net Refle...LightWeight Application Server: 0.4.0: 2010-03-20 lwas 0.4.0 This release is intended for c# developers audience only. Developed with MS vWD 2008 Express with .NET 3.5 and writen in c#....Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Marketing List Member Importer: Nocelab ExcelAddin - Release 2.0: Release note: - new installation procedure - fix some bugs related with the import procedure - errors during the import are displayed in red bold ...MSBuild Mercurial Tasks: 0.2.1 Stable: This release realises the Scenario 2 and provides two MSBuild tasks: HgCommit and HgPush. This task allows to create a new changeset in the current...NetSockets: NetBox (Example): Example application using the NetSockets library.NetSockets: NetSockets: The NetSockets library (DLL)Open Dotnet CMS: Open Dotnet CMS 1.6.2: This release update Open Dotnet CMS Console which now uses the modulare client application framework provided by Viking.Windows.Form library. The ...Open Portal Foundation: Open Portal Foundation V1.4: This release updates templates and theming library, and templates are now thematizable. This release also provides a better sample site and online ...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.0 Beta: Changelog: Added support for hyperlinks (inserting and formatting) Added support for GD images (created by PHP) Added support for Full-Table-St...Plurk.NET API and Client Applications: Plurk API Component: Plurk API Component is a wrapper of Plurk HTTP API.Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task 1.0: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task Version 1.0 For more information visit: http://whiteboardworks.com/2010/02/installing-wcf-lob-adapters-wit...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 11 - Complete User-Friendly Burning App!: I made numerous internal and external changes in this release of the program, the most important ones of which are: An intermediate buffer to make ...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.2: This release has following improvements: Scroll position is maintained when log is refreshed Filtering/Sorting performance has been significantly ...ShellLight: ShellLight 0.2.0.0: This is the first feature complete and full functional version of ShellLight. It is still a very simple framework with a limited set of features, b...Silverlight Media Player (3.0): Silverlight Media Player v.02: Silverlight Media Player (2.0/3.0/4.0) major upgrade: initial settings and media elements are stored in external XML filesStardust: Stardust Binaries: Stardust BinariesToolkit.forasp.net Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in C#: Beta 1: Beta 1 of csToolkit.dllToolkitVB.net is a set of Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in VB: Beta 1: Beta 1 of ToolKitVB.dllTransparent Persistence.Net: TP.Net 0.1.1: This is a minor update that produces separate 2.0 and 3.5 builds. Additionally type to persistence store naming has been enhanced.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30320.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Screen Capture Program (Visual C++ 2008): This screen capture program can capture the whole screen of your computer and save it in any picture format you want including gif, bmp, jpg and pn...WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.3 for .Net 3.5: This is a special version of the "Version 0.1.3" for the .Net-framework 3.5. You can use these library like the .Net 4.0 version. The changes are o...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Optimizing Solaris 11 SHA-1 on Intel Processors

  - by danx

  SHA-1 is a "hash" or "digest" operation that produces a 160 bit (20 byte) checksum value on arbitrary data, such as a file. It is intended to uniquely identify text and to verify it hasn't been modified. Max Locktyukhin and others at Intel have improved the performance of the SHA-1 digest algorithm using multiple techniques. This code has been incorporated into Solaris 11 and is available in the Solaris Crypto Framework via the libmd(3LIB), the industry-standard libpkcs11(3LIB) library, and Solaris kernel module sha1. The optimized code is used automatically on systems with a x86 CPU supporting SSSE3 (Intel Supplemental SSSE3). Intel microprocessor architectures that support SSSE3 include Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy Bridge microprocessor families. Further optimizations are available for microprocessors that support AVX (such as Sandy Bridge). Although SHA-1 is considered obsolete because of weaknesses found in the SHA-1 algorithm—NIST recommends using at least SHA-256, SHA-1 is still widely used and will be with us for awhile more. Collisions (the same SHA-1 result for two different inputs) can be found with moderate effort. SHA-1 is used heavily though in SSL/TLS, for example. And SHA-1 is stronger than the older MD5 digest algorithm, another digest option defined in SSL/TLS. Optimizations Review SHA-1 operates by reading an arbitrary amount of data. The data is read in 512 bit (64 byte) blocks (the last block is padded in a specific way to ensure it's a full 64 bytes). Each 64 byte block has 80 "rounds" of calculations (consisting of a mixture of "ROTATE-LEFT", "AND", and "XOR") applied to the block. Each round produces a 32-bit intermediate result, called W[i]. Here's what each round operates: The first 16 rounds, rounds 0 to 15, read the 512 bit block 32 bits at-a-time. These 32 bits is used as input to the round. The remaining rounds, rounds 16 to 79, use the results from the previous rounds as input. Specifically for round i it XORs the results of rounds i-3, i-8, i-14, and i-16 and rotates the result left 1 bit. The remaining calculations for the round is a series of AND, XOR, and ROTATE-LEFT operators on the 32-bit input and some constants. The 32-bit result is saved as W[i] for round i. The 32-bit result of the final round, W[79], is the SHA-1 checksum. Optimization: Vectorization The first 16 rounds can be vectorized (computed in parallel) because they don't depend on the output of a previous round. As for the remaining rounds, because of step 2 above, computing round i depends on the results of round i-3, W[i-3], one can vectorize 3 rounds at-a-time. Max Locktyukhin found through simple factoring, explained in detail in his article referenced below, that the dependencies of round i on the results of rounds i-3, i-8, i-14, and i-16 can be replaced instead with dependencies on the results of rounds i-6, i-16, i-28, and i-32. That is, instead of initializing intermediate result W[i] with: W[i] = (W[i-3] XOR W[i-8] XOR W[i-14] XOR W[i-16]) ROTATE-LEFT 1 Initialize W[i] as follows: W[i] = (W[i-6] XOR W[i-16] XOR W[i-28] XOR W[i-32]) ROTATE-LEFT 2 That means that 6 rounds could be vectorized at once, with no additional calculations, instead of just 3! This optimization is independent of Intel or any other microprocessor architecture, although the microprocessor has to support vectorization to use it, and exploits one of the weaknesses of SHA-1. Optimization: SSSE3 Intel SSSE3 makes use of 16 %xmm registers, each 128 bits wide. The 4 32-bit inputs to a round, W[i-6], W[i-16], W[i-28], W[i-32], all fit in one %xmm register. The following code snippet, from Max Locktyukhin's article, converted to ATT assembly syntax, computes 4 rounds in parallel with just a dozen or so SSSE3 instructions: movdqa W_minus_04, W_TMP pxor W_minus_28, W // W equals W[i-32:i-29] before XOR // W = W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25] palignr $8, W_minus_08, W_TMP // W_TMP = W[i-6:i-3], combined from // W[i-4:i-1] and W[i-8:i-5] vectors pxor W_minus_16, W // W = (W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25]) ^ W[i-16:i-13] pxor W_TMP, W // W = (W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25] ^ W[i-16:i-13]) ^ W[i-6:i-3]) movdqa W, W_TMP // 4 dwords in W are rotated left by 2 psrld $30, W // rotate left by 2 W = (W >> 30) | (W << 2) pslld $2, W_TMP por W, W_TMP movdqa W_TMP, W // four new W values W[i:i+3] are now calculated paddd (K_XMM), W_TMP // adding 4 current round's values of K movdqa W_TMP, (WK(i)) // storing for downstream GPR instructions to read A window of the 32 previous results, W[i-1] to W[i-32] is saved in memory on the stack. This is best illustrated with a chart. Without vectorization, computing the rounds is like this (each "R" represents 1 round of SHA-1 computation): RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR With vectorization, 4 rounds can be computed in parallel: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Optimization: AVX The new "Sandy Bridge" microprocessor architecture, which supports AVX, allows another interesting optimization. SSSE3 instructions have two operands, a input and an output. AVX allows three operands, two inputs and an output. In many cases two SSSE3 instructions can be combined into one AVX instruction. The difference is best illustrated with an example. Consider these two instructions from the snippet above: pxor W_minus_16, W // W = (W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25]) ^ W[i-16:i-13] pxor W_TMP, W // W = (W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25] ^ W[i-16:i-13]) ^ W[i-6:i-3]) With AVX they can be combined in one instruction: vpxor W_minus_16, W, W_TMP // W = (W[i-32:i-29] ^ W[i-28:i-25] ^ W[i-16:i-13]) ^ W[i-6:i-3]) This optimization is also in Solaris, although Sandy Bridge-based systems aren't widely available yet. As an exercise for the reader, AVX also has 256-bit media registers, %ymm0 - %ymm15 (a superset of 128-bit %xmm0 - %xmm15). Can %ymm registers be used to parallelize the code even more? Optimization: Solaris-specific In addition to using the Intel code described above, I performed other minor optimizations to the Solaris SHA-1 code: Increased the digest(1) and mac(1) command's buffer size from 4K to 64K, as previously done for decrypt(1) and encrypt(1). This size is well suited for ZFS file systems, but helps for other file systems as well. Optimized encode functions, which byte swap the input and output data, to copy/byte-swap 4 or 8 bytes at-a-time instead of 1 byte-at-a-time. Enhanced the Solaris mdb(1) and kmdb(1) debuggers to display all 16 %xmm and %ymm registers (mdb "$x" command). Previously they only displayed the first 8 that are available in 32-bit mode. Can't optimize if you can't debug :-). Changed the SHA-1 code to allow processing in "chunks" greater than 2 Gigabytes (64-bits) Performance I measured performance on a Sun Ultra 27 (which has a Nehalem-class Xeon 5500 Intel W3570 microprocessor @3.2GHz). Turbo mode is disabled for consistent performance measurement. Graphs are better than words and numbers, so here they are: The first graph shows the Solaris digest(1) command before and after the optimizations discussed here, contained in libmd(3LIB). I ran the digest command on a half GByte file in swapfs (/tmp) and execution time decreased from 1.35 seconds to 0.98 seconds. The second graph shows the the results of an internal microbenchmark that uses the Solaris libpkcs11(3LIB) library. The operations are on a 128 byte buffer with 10,000 iterations. The results show operations increased from 320,000 to 416,000 operations per second. Finally the third graph shows the results of an internal kernel microbenchmark that uses the Solaris /kernel/crypto/amd64/sha1 module. The operations are on a 64Kbyte buffer with 100 iterations. third graph shows the results of an internal kernel microbenchmark that uses the Solaris /kernel/crypto/amd64/sha1 module. The operations are on a 64Kbyte buffer with 100 iterations. The results show for 1 kernel thread, operations increased from 410 to 600 MBytes/second. For 8 kernel threads, operations increase from 1540 to 1940 MBytes/second. Availability This code is in Solaris 11 FCS. It is available in the 64-bit libmd(3LIB) library for 64-bit programs and is in the Solaris kernel. You must be running hardware that supports Intel's SSSE3 instructions (for example, Intel Nehalem, Westmere, or Sandy Bridge microprocessor architectures). The easiest way to determine if SSSE3 is available is with the isainfo(1) command. For example, nehalem $ isainfo -v $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu 32-bit i386 applications sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu If the output also shows "avx", the Solaris executes the even-more optimized 3-operand AVX instructions for SHA-1 mentioned above: sandybridge $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications avx xsave pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu 32-bit i386 applications avx xsave pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu No special configuration or setup is needed to take advantage of this code. Solaris libraries and kernel automatically determine if it's running on SSSE3 or AVX-capable machines and execute the correctly-tuned code for that microprocessor. Summary The Solaris 11 Crypto Framework, via the sha1 kernel module and libmd(3LIB) and libpkcs11(3LIB) libraries, incorporated a useful SHA-1 optimization from Intel for SSSE3-capable microprocessors. As with other Solaris optimizations, they come automatically "under the hood" with the current Solaris release. References "Improving the Performance of the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1)" by Max Locktyukhin (Intel, March 2010). The source for these SHA-1 optimizations used in Solaris "SHA-1", Wikipedia Good overview of SHA-1 FIPS 180-1 SHA-1 standard (FIPS, 1995) NIST Comments on Cryptanalytic Attacks on SHA-1 (2005, revised 2006)

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• Solaris X86 64-bit Assembly Programming

  - by danx

  Solaris X86 64-bit Assembly Programming This is a simple example on writing, compiling, and debugging Solaris 64-bit x86 assembly language with a C program. This is also referred to as "AMD64" assembly. The term "AMD64" is used in an inclusive sense to refer to all X86 64-bit processors, whether AMD Opteron family or Intel 64 processor family. Both run Solaris x86. I'm keeping this example simple mainly to illustrate how everything comes together—compiler, assembler, linker, and debugger when using assembly language. The example I'm using here is a C program that calls an assembly language program passing a C string. The assembly language program takes the C string and calls printf() with it to print the string. AMD64 Register Usage But first let's review the use of AMD64 registers. AMD64 has several 64-bit registers, some special purpose (such as the stack pointer) and others general purpose. By convention, Solaris follows the AMD64 ABI in register usage, which is the same used by Linux, but different from Microsoft Windows in usage (such as which registers are used to pass parameters). This blog will only discuss conventions for Linux and Solaris. The following chart shows how AMD64 registers are used. The first six parameters to a function are passed through registers. If there's more than six parameters, parameter 7 and above are pushed on the stack before calling the function. The stack is also used to save temporary "stack" variables for use by a function. 64-bit Register Usage %rip Instruction Pointer points to the current instruction %rsp Stack Pointer %rbp Frame Pointer (saved stack pointer pointing to parameters on stack) %rdi Function Parameter 1 %rsi Function Parameter 2 %rdx Function Parameter 3 %rcx Function Parameter 4 %r8 Function Parameter 5 %r9 Function Parameter 6 %rax Function return value %r10, %r11 Temporary registers (need not be saved before used) %rbx, %r12, %r13, %r14, %r15 Temporary registers, but must be saved before use and restored before returning from the current function (usually with the push and pop instructions). 32-, 16-, and 8-bit registers To access the lower 32-, 16-, or 8-bits of a 64-bit register use the following: 64-bit register Least significant 32-bits Least significant 16-bits Least significant 8-bits %rax%eax%ax%al %rbx%ebx%bx%bl %rcx%ecx%cx%cl %rdx%edx%dx%dl %rsi%esi%si%sil %rdi%edi%di%axl %rbp%ebp%bp%bp %rsp%esp%sp%spl %r9%r9d%r9w%r9b %r10%r10d%r10w%r10b %r11%r11d%r11w%r11b %r12%r12d%r12w%r12b %r13%r13d%r13w%r13b %r14%r14d%r14w%r14b %r15%r15d%r15w%r15b %r16%r16d%r16w%r16b There's other registers present, such as the 64-bit %mm registers, 128-bit %xmm registers, 256-bit %ymm registers, and 512-bit %zmm registers. Except for %mm registers, these registers may not present on older AMD64 processors. Assembly Source The following is the source for a C program, helloas1.c, that calls an assembly function, hello_asm(). $ cat helloas1.c extern void hello_asm(char *s); int main(void) { hello_asm("Hello, World!"); } The assembly function called above, hello_asm(), is defined below. $ cat helloas2.s /* * helloas2.s * To build: * cc -m64 -o helloas2-cpp.s -D_ASM -E helloas2.s * cc -m64 -c -o helloas2.o helloas2-cpp.s */ #if defined(lint) || defined(__lint) /* ARGSUSED */ void hello_asm(char *s) { } #else /* lint */ #include <sys/asm_linkage.h> .extern printf ENTRY_NP(hello_asm) // Setup printf parameters on stack mov %rdi, %rsi // P2 (%rsi) is string variable lea .printf_string, %rdi // P1 (%rdi) is printf format string call printf ret SET_SIZE(hello_asm) // Read-only data .text .align 16 .type .printf_string, @object .printf_string: .ascii "The string is: %s.\n\0" #endif /* lint || __lint */ In the assembly source above, the C skeleton code under "#if defined(lint)" is optionally used for lint to check the interfaces with your C program--very useful to catch nasty interface bugs. The "asm_linkage.h" file includes some handy macros useful for assembly, such as ENTRY_NP(), used to define a program entry point, and SET_SIZE(), used to set the function size in the symbol table. The function hello_asm calls C function printf() by passing two parameters, Parameter 1 (P1) is a printf format string, and P2 is a string variable. The function begins by moving %rdi, which contains Parameter 1 (P1) passed hello_asm, to printf()'s P2, %rsi. Then it sets printf's P1, the format string, by loading the address the address of the format string in %rdi, P1. Finally it calls printf. After returning from printf, the hello_asm function returns itself. Larger, more complex assembly functions usually do more setup than the example above. If a function is returning a value, it would set %rax to the return value. Also, it's typical for a function to save the %rbp and %rsp registers of the calling function and to restore these registers before returning. %rsp contains the stack pointer and %rbp contains the frame pointer. Here is the typical function setup and return sequence for a function: ENTRY_NP(sample_assembly_function) push %rbp // save frame pointer on stack mov %rsp, %rbp // save stack pointer in frame pointer xor %rax, %r4ax // set function return value to 0. mov %rbp, %rsp // restore stack pointer pop %rbp // restore frame pointer ret // return to calling function SET_SIZE(sample_assembly_function) Compiling and Running Assembly Use the Solaris cc command to compile both C and assembly source, and to pre-process assembly source. You can also use GNU gcc instead of cc to compile, if you prefer. The "-m64" option tells the compiler to compile in 64-bit address mode (instead of 32-bit). $ cc -m64 -o helloas2-cpp.s -D_ASM -E helloas2.s $ cc -m64 -c -o helloas2.o helloas2-cpp.s $ cc -m64 -c helloas1.c $ cc -m64 -o hello-asm helloas1.o helloas2.o $ file hello-asm helloas1.o helloas2.o hello-asm: ELF 64-bit LSB executable AMD64 Version 1 [SSE FXSR FPU], dynamically linked, not stripped helloas1.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 helloas2.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 $ hello-asm The string is: Hello, World!. Debugging Assembly with MDB MDB is the Solaris system debugger. It can also be used to debug user programs, including assembly and C. The following example runs the above program, hello-asm, under control of the debugger. In the example below I load the program, set a breakpoint at the assembly function hello_asm, display the registers and the first parameter, step through the assembly function, and continue execution. $ mdb hello-asm # Start the debugger > hello_asm:b # Set a breakpoint > ::run # Run the program under the debugger mdb: stop at hello_asm mdb: target stopped at: hello_asm: movq %rdi,%rsi > $C # display function stack ffff80ffbffff6e0 hello_asm() ffff80ffbffff6f0 0x400adc() > $r # display registers %rax = 0x0000000000000000 %r8 = 0x0000000000000000 %rbx = 0xffff80ffbf7f8e70 %r9 = 0x0000000000000000 %rcx = 0x0000000000000000 %r10 = 0x0000000000000000 %rdx = 0xffff80ffbffff718 %r11 = 0xffff80ffbf537db8 %rsi = 0xffff80ffbffff708 %r12 = 0x0000000000000000 %rdi = 0x0000000000400cf8 %r13 = 0x0000000000000000 %r14 = 0x0000000000000000 %r15 = 0x0000000000000000 %cs = 0x0053 %fs = 0x0000 %gs = 0x0000 %ds = 0x0000 %es = 0x0000 %ss = 0x004b %rip = 0x0000000000400c70 hello_asm %rbp = 0xffff80ffbffff6e0 %rsp = 0xffff80ffbffff6c8 %rflags = 0x00000282 id=0 vip=0 vif=0 ac=0 vm=0 rf=0 nt=0 iopl=0x0 status=<of,df,IF,tf,SF,zf,af,pf,cf> %gsbase = 0x0000000000000000 %fsbase = 0xffff80ffbf782a40 %trapno = 0x3 %err = 0x0 > ::dis # disassemble the current instructions hello_asm: movq %rdi,%rsi hello_asm+3: leaq 0x400c90,%rdi hello_asm+0xb: call -0x220 <PLT:printf> hello_asm+0x10: ret 0x400c81: nop 0x400c85: nop 0x400c88: nop 0x400c8c: nop 0x400c90: pushq %rsp 0x400c91: pushq $0x74732065 0x400c96: jb +0x69 <0x400d01> > 0x0000000000400cf8/S # %rdi contains Parameter 1 0x400cf8: Hello, World! > [ # Step and execute 1 instruction mdb: target stopped at: hello_asm+3: leaq 0x400c90,%rdi > [ mdb: target stopped at: hello_asm+0xb: call -0x220 <PLT:printf> > [ The string is: Hello, World!. mdb: target stopped at: hello_asm+0x10: ret > [ mdb: target stopped at: main+0x19: movl $0x0,-0x4(%rbp) > :c # continue program execution mdb: target has terminated > $q # quit the MDB debugger $ In the example above, at the start of function hello_asm(), I display the stack contents with "$C", display the registers contents with "$r", then disassemble the current function with "::dis". The first function parameter, which is a C string, is passed by reference with the string address in %rdi (see the register usage chart above). The address is 0x400cf8, so I print the value of the string with the "/S" MDB command: "0x0000000000400cf8/S". I can also print the contents at an address in several other formats. Here's a few popular formats. For more, see the mdb(1) man page for details. address/S C string address/C ASCII character (1 byte) address/E unsigned decimal (8 bytes) address/U unsigned decimal (4 bytes) address/D signed decimal (4 bytes) address/J hexadecimal (8 bytes) address/X hexadecimal (4 bytes) address/B hexadecimal (1 bytes) address/K pointer in hexadecimal (4 or 8 bytes) address/I disassembled instruction Finally, I step through each machine instruction with the "[" command, which steps over functions. If I wanted to enter a function, I would use the "]" command. Then I continue program execution with ":c", which continues until the program terminates. MDB Basic Cheat Sheet Here's a brief cheat sheet of some of the more common MDB commands useful for assembly debugging. There's an entire set of macros and more powerful commands, especially some for debugging the Solaris kernel, but that's beyond the scope of this example. $C Display function stack with pointers $c Display function stack $e Display external function names $v Display non-zero variables and registers $r Display registers ::fpregs Display floating point (or "media" registers). Includes %st, %xmm, and %ymm registers. ::status Display program status ::run Run the program (followed by optional command line parameters) $q Quit the debugger address:b Set a breakpoint address:d Delete a breakpoint $b Display breakpoints :c Continue program execution after a breakpoint [ Step 1 instruction, but step over function calls ] Step 1 instruction address::dis Disassemble instructions at an address ::events Display events Further Information "Assembly Language Techniques for Oracle Solaris on x86 Platforms" by Paul Lowik (2004). Good tutorial on Solaris x86 optimization with assembly. The Solaris Operating System on x86 Platforms An excellent, detailed tutorial on X86 architecture, with Solaris specifics. By an ex-Sun employee, Frank Hofmann (2005). "AMD64 ABI Features", Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide contains rules on data types and register usage for Intel 64/AMD64-class processors. (available at docs.oracle.com) Solaris X86 Assembly Language Reference Manual (available at docs.oracle.com) SPARC Assembly Language Reference Manual (available at docs.oracle.com) System V Application Binary Interface (2003) defines the AMD64 ABI for UNIX-class operating systems, including Solaris, Linux, and BSD. Google for it—the original website is gone. cc(1), gcc(1), and mdb(1) man pages.

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

  - by Jialiang

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

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 24, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 24, 2010New Projects(SocketCoder) Full Silverlight Web Video/Voice Conference: Is an open source project to develop full Silverlight Web Video/Voice Conference System in C# .NETabc123: Prueba Archetype Programming Language: See http://dvanderboom.wordpress.comBusiness Process Automation (BPA): BPA is a project initiative to develop an ERP which will integrate with work flow of an organization. It is build on the concept that all business ...Content Rendering: Content Rendering is a .NET 3.5 string template engine. The program uses reflection, an extensibility API and a template document, which has a cust...DTA Output Renamer: The DTA Output Renamer takes recommendations from the SQL Server Database Tuning Advisor (DTA) and updates the names of the indexes/statistics to b...Flexible Editing Toolkit: The Flexible Editing Toolkit aims to enable users who have coding experience in .Net to write own editors/tools using an easy-to-use framework and ...Fluent NHibernate, MVC 2: Projeto ultra simples desenvolvido em Asp.Net MVC 2 com Fluent NHibernate. Foram utilizadas camadas baseadas no DDD. Sample project to test DDD arc...GravityGame: Proyecto del capítulo del IGDA en el Tec de Monterrey Campus Sonora Norte. El objetivo es la creación de un primer juego para conocer cuales son l...Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: R2 of the PRM accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.Posh-Hg: Mercurial integration for Windows PowershellSuiteMap: selfSvenska till Rövarspråket: Översätter svenska till rövarspråketTV4Home: This projects extends MediaPortal TV Server with a solution for MediaCenter clients, a Web-Interface and a WHS Add-In.User Profile WebPart: Use this webpart to display SharePoint User Profile information. VolumeMasterCmd: Command line application that will set the wave volume level. Usage: VolumeMaster | VolumeMaster [0-100] Display or set the wave volume level ...wawa cloud store service: 盖茨描述了云计算和云存储之间的区别。“人们老是会搞混。云存储是把你的文件存储到其他地方，进行备份，这和云计算是不同的。这两者都很了不起，都是很好的技术。” 他表示，“云存储的效能没有折扣，因此富于理性的存储经理将会考虑使用云存储技术。” 相反，他表示云计算则会有一些问题，延迟和带宽都可能会...XNA Collision Detection: A collision library which extracts the triangles from a given model, and tests for collision using multiple methods on all existing triangles. Thi...You Private Social Network: YourPrivateNet is for all people who are unsatisfied with how social networking giants, namely facebook, are dealing with privacy and the users dat...New ReleasesArchetype Programming Language: C Sharp 4.0 Grammar in M: This is a C# 4.0 grammar that I am using to learn about parsers and the process of generating ASTs, in preparation for doing the same for the Arche...CassiniDev - Cassini 3.5/4.0 Developers Edition: CassiniDev 3.5.1.4 and 4.0.1.4 beta3: Binary release includes: .net 3.5sp1 and 4.0 builds of Gui app, Console app, Library assembly and Visual Studio development server replacements f...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.10: The current build has the following capabilities: Can create new workbooks Add worksheets Access cells using R1C1, A1, and mixed notations. A...CRM Web Service Toolkit: MSCRM4 Web Service Toolkit for JavaScript v2.0: MSCRM Web Service Toolkit for JavaScript v2.0. The release contains: CrmServiceToolkit.js (The uncompressed code) CrmServiceToolkit.min.js (The ...DBFramework: Kenly.DBFramework4.6.5.2: Kenly.DBFramework4.6.5.2eComic: eComic 2010.0.0.1: With the release of .NET 4.0 the system was upgraded. This upgrade involved starting the project over from scratch, so the installation package wil...Exchange 2010 RBAC Editor (RBAC GUI) - updated on 5/24/2010: RBAC Editor 0.9.3.1: Some bugs fixed, support added for unscopedtoplevel roles (still in progress), added logging capabilities Please use email address in About menu o...Hammock for REST: Hammock v1.0.4: v1.0.4 ChangesAdded handling for special characters in OAuth signatures (\r\n\t\b) Corrected an inconsistency in OAuth GET vs. POST when encoding...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201005231730): New features: (None) Bug fix: Fixed problem of unable to start new thread. Fixed problem of unable to show user icons due to incorrect path. ...Kurumsal Ofis Paketi: Kurumsal Ofis Paketi Sürüm 1.0: Kurumsal Ofis Paketi Sürüm 1.0MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.15.59175: Fixed FileFactory implementation (FileFactory team doesn't give up); Fixed minor bugs.Munq: Tools for ASP.NET MVC: Munq IocContainer Version 2.0: The latest and greatest.NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: Nightly Build 2010.05.23.001: Changes since the last build:2010-05-23 00:01:19 Jarek Kowalski Made contition on <when /> required. Added unit tests. 2010-05-22 20:06:16 Jarek K...NUnit for Team Build: Version 2.0 Alpha 1: This version has experimental TFS 2010 support. I have been using it successfully with TFS 2010 for a few weeks now with no problems. It should be ...Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: PRM Accelerator (R2) for Dynamics CRM 4.0: The Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manag...Percussion Toolkit: Command line Note Detector 1.0: A command line tool for detecting note onsets in WAV files. Note: Currently only supports 32-bit float encoded Microsoft WAV files with a sample ...Percussion Toolkit: Reference Input Data Set (A): This release contains a set of input WAV files for testing note onset detection accuracy and effectiveness. The archive contains computer-generate...Percussion Toolkit: Rhythm Friend: Rhythm Friend is an interactive tool for practicing drum rudiments. It provides a simple metronome coupled with rhythm coach features.SharePoint List Field Manager: SharePoint List Field Manager: This is Version 2 of the SharePoint List Field Manager. First created for CorasWorks customers, we have decided to make it publically available to ...Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0 v1.2 Beta: - Added delay on hover events for both parent and child menus. - Parent menus now close automatically when child menu is clicked. - Updated referen...Software Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+03: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+03 UNSUPPORTED, UNTESTED ALPHA RELEASE Code may disappear. This is just a preview of code that was in progress. Code is s...The Fastcopy Helper: The Fastcopy Helper 2.0: The Fastcopy Helper 2.0 This is a new method to run for it . Fastcopy同步辅助器 方案二 这个方案二，是使用了全新的方法进行磁盘文件扫描，和比较。速度飙升到最快！同时优化了很多细节的内容，使得性能大幅度提升。User Profile WebPart: UserProfileWebPart 1.0: Inititial release.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30523.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVolumeMasterCmd: VolumeMaster 1.0: First release.XNA Collision Detection: XNA Static Collider: Provides collision detection between a Model and BoundingSphere, or a Model and Ray. An example of how to initialize a collision object: Collidee...xxfd1r4w96: 20100523: Приложението има следната функционалност: 1. Добавяне на сайта https://online.bulbank.bg в trusted sites. 2. Инсталиране на Bulbank Root Certificat...Yet another developer blog - Examples: Asynchronous Form in ASP.NET MVC: This sample application shows how to use jQuery Validation plugin for creating an asynchronous form in ASP.NET MVC 1 with client side validation. T...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibrarySqlServerExtensionsGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlightpatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security GuidanceCassiniDev - Cassini 3.5/4.0 Developers EditionNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleCodeReviewBlogEngine.NET

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 01, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 01, 2013Popular ReleasesDotNetNuke® Form and List: 06.00.06: DotNetNuke Form and List 06.00.06 Changes to 6.0.6•Add in Sql to remove 'text on row' setting for UserDefinedTable to make SQL Azure compatible. •Add new azureCompatible element to manifest. •Added a fix for importing templates. Changes to 6.0.2•Fix: MakeThumbnail was broken if the application pool was configured to .Net 4 •Change: Data is now stored in nvarchar(max) instead of ntext Changes to 6.0.1•Scripts now compatible with SQL Azure. Changes to 6.0.0•Icons are shown in module action b...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.6: 2013.09.30 Ver5.9.6 (1)SMTP???????、???????????????? (2)WinAPI??????? (3)Web???????CGI???????????????????????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 5.2: Mostly internal code tweaks. added -nosize switch to turn off the size- and gzip-calculations done after minification. removed the comments in the build targets script for the old AjaxMin build task (discussion #458831). Fixed an issue with extended Unicode characters encoded inside a string literal with adjacent \uHHHH\uHHHH sequences. Fixed an IndexOutOfRange exception when encountering a CSS identifier that's a single underscore character (_). In previous builds, the net35 and net20...AJAX Control Toolkit: September 2013 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - September 2013 Release Version 7.0930September 2013 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - Instructions for using the AJAX Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 can b...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha is for testers to figure out if we got the NEW api plugged in ok. thanksVisual Log Parser: VisualLogParser: Portable Visual Log Parser for Dotnet 4.0Random searcher i pochodne: Generatorek playlisty: Generuje playlisty w formacie .m3u. Na razie beta z bety - ale juz dziala i mozna uzywac.sb0t v.5: sb0t 5.15: Fixed bug in join filter. Fixed bug in pm blocking. Added new Crypto and Entities static classes to scripting. Updated the default node list.Trace Reader for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Trace Reader (1.2013.9.29): Initial releaseAudioWordsDownloader: AudioWordsDownloader 1.1 build 88: New features list of words (mp3 files) is available upon typing when a download path is defined list of download paths is added paths history settings added Bug fixed case mismatch in word search field fixed path not exist bug fixed when history has been used path, when filled from dialog, not stored refresh autocomplete list after path change word sought is deleted when path is changed at the end sought word list is deleted word list not refreshed download ends. word lis...HD-Trailers.NET Downloader: HD-Trailer.Net Downloader v 2.1.5: This started out as an effort to improve the search for the corr3ct IMDB page for the movie. I think I have done that here. I have run about 200 movies and the correct movie was identified in all cases including some entries that were problematic in the past. I also swatted several bugs that popped up under special circumstances and resulted in exceptions. This version should be quite a bit better than previous versions. Let me know if there are any issues.Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1309.28: Fix a bug, where WPP crash when running on a computer where Windows was installed in another language than Fr, En or De, and launching the Update Creation Wizard. Fix a bug, where WPP crash if some Multi-Thread job are launch with more than 64 items. Add a button to abort "Install This Update" wizard. Allow WPP to remember which columns are shown last time. Make URL clickable on the Update Information Tab. Add a new feature, when Double-Clicking on an update, the default action exec...Tweetinvi a friendly Twitter C# API: Alpha 0.8.3.0: Version 0.8.3.0 emphasis on the FIlteredStream and ease how to manage Exceptions that can occur due to the network or any other issue you might encounter. Will be available through nuget the 29/09/2013. FilteredStream Features provided by the Twitter Stream API - Ability to track specific keywords - Ability to track specific users - Ability to track specific locations Additional features - Detect the reasons the tweet has been retrieved from the Filtered API. You have access to both the ma...AcDown?????: AcDown????? v4.5: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ??v4.5 ???? AcPlay????????v3.5 ????????，???????????30% ?? ???????GoodManga.net???? ?? ?????????? ?? ??Acfun?????????? ??Bilibili??????????? ?????????flvcd???????? ??SfAcg????????????? ???????????? ???????????????? ????32...C# Intellisense for Notepad++: Release v1.0.6.0: Added support for classless scripts To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.SimpleExcelReportMaker: Serm 0.02: SourceCode and SampleMagick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.7.001: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.7.0. Breaking changes: - ToBitmap method of MagickImage returns a png instead of a bmp. - Changed the value for full transparency from 255(Q8)/65535(Q16) to 0. - MagickColor now uses floats instead of Byte/UInt16.Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.578b: With the feedback received over the renaming of Movie Folders, and files, there has been some refinement done. As well as I would like to introduce Blu-Ray movie folder support, for Pre-Frodo and Frodo onwards versions of XBMC. To start with, Context menu option for renaming movies, now has three sub options: Movie & Folder, Movie only & Folder only. The option Manual Movie Rename needs to be selected from Movie Preferences, but the autoscrape boxes do not need to be selected. Blu Ray Fo...FFXIV Crafting Simulator: Crafting Simulator 2.3: - Major refactoring of the code behind. - Added a current durability and a current CP textbox.DNN CMS Platform: 07.01.02: Major HighlightsAdded the ability to manage the Vanity URL prefix Added the ability to filter members in the member directory by role Fixed issue where the user could inadvertently click the login button multiple times Fixed issues where core classes could not be used in out of process cache provider Fixed issue where profile visibility submenu was not displayed correctly Fixed issue where the member directory was broken when Convert URL to lowercase setting was enabled Fixed issu...New Projects.netProject: .Net Project 3TINafs-m: Secure file storageASP.NET dhtmlxChart Class: Create different types of charts and render them to webforms.ASP.NET dhtmxGantt Class: Add tasks Add dependencies Use lighboxBestCodeTrainer: Project BestCode is for Training. Black Dragon Online Shop: An online shop with basic functionalities implemented with ASP.NET MVC as a team project in Telerik Academy 2012/2013.Central fovea -X: ????: 1.???????????Cell,??RGB,HSL,X,Y 2.???????? 3.???????????? 4.????????，???????? 5.????????CorvusSKK: SKK-like Japanese Input Method for Windowsdaneshjoo: ?? ??? ???????DBA Toolbox: A tool for the production DBA. A place to store all those scripts, tools, references and queries that make your job as a DBA easier.Devpad IDE: Basic integrated development environment.DXUT for Direct3D 11: Latest version of the Microsoft DXUT framework for Direct3D 11 Win32 desktop applications formerly in the now legacy DirectX SDK.Dynamics CRM Messaging Integration: This project shows how to implement a simple custom messaging solution using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and based on its standard development components.Kockafölde: Kliens program.Medusa's Ebay: Teamwork assignment @ TelerikAcademy 2012/2013. Project is for creating simple (or more complicated) interneTeamwork assignment @ TelerikAcademy 2012/2013.Nauplius.PAS: Nauplius.PAS allows end users to leverage the PowerPoint Conversion Services within SharePoint 2013 to convert PowerPoint documents from one format to another.PayBox payment gateway provider for NB_Store: PayBox payment provider for NB_StorePet passport: This is a teamwork projectProject Euler solutions: Solutions to the ProjectEuler problemsRoboSubSync: Fixes an unsynchronized subtitle in any language according to an already synced subtitle in english, with the help of some advanced algorithm magic... ShopBook: Shopbooksliders: jQuery slidersSQLite to JSON: A simple program to convert SQLite data to JSON.Super64: This is a Commodore 64 emulator that is determined to have extremely unnecessary accuracy.TeamProject1: This is just Demo ProjectXnaHelper: A collection of tools for making 2D XNA Games

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• Customize Your WordPress Blog & Build an Audience

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to quickly give your blog a fresh coat of paint and make it stand out from the pack?  Here’s how you can customize your WordPress blog and make it uniquely yours. WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be.  Although it doesn’t offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like.  Here we’ll look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience. Personalize Your Blog WordPress make it easy to personalize your blog.  Most of the personalization options are available under the Appearance menu on the left.  Here we’ll look at how you can use most of these. Add New Theme WordPress is popular for the wide range of themes available for it.  While you cannot upload your own theme to your blog, you can choose from over 90 free themes currently available with more added all the time.  To change your theme, select the Themes page under Appearance. The Themes page will show random themes, but you can choose to view them in alphabetical order, by popularity, or how recently they were added.  Or, you can search for a theme by name or features. One neat way to find a theme that suites your needs is the Feature Filter.  Click the link on the right of the search button, and then select the options you want to make sure your theme has.  Click Apply Filters and WordPress will streamline your choices to themes that contain these features. Once you find a theme you like, click Preview under its name to see how your blog will look. This will open a popup that shows your blog with the new theme.  Click the Activate link in the top right corner of the popup if you want to keep this theme; otherwise, click the x in the top left corner to close the preview and continue your search for one you want.   Edit Current Theme Many of the themes on WordPress have customization options so you can make your blog stand out from others using the same theme.  The default theme Twenty Ten lets you customize both the header and background image, and many themes have similar options. To choose a new header image, select the Header page under Appearance.  Select one of the pre-installed images and click Save Changes, or upload your own image. If you upload an image larger than the size for the header, WordPress will let you crop it directly in the web interface.  Click Crop Header when you’ve selected the portion you want for the header of your blog. You can also customize your blog’s background from the Background page under Appearance.  You can upload an image for the background, or can enter a hex value of a color for a solid background.  If you’d rather visually choose a color, click Select a Color to open a color wheel that makes it easy to choose a nice color.  Click Save Changes when you’re done. Note: that all themes may not contain these customization options, but many are flexible.  You cannot edit the actual CSS of your theme on free WordPress blogs, but you you can purchase the Custom CSS Upgrade for $14.97/year to add this ability. Add Widgets With Extra Content Widgets are small addons for your blog, similar to Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 or Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X.  You can add widgets to your blog to show recent Tweets, favorite Flickr pictures, popular articles, and more.  To add widgets to your blog, open the Widgets page under Appearance. You’ll see a variety of widgets available in the main white box.  Select one you want to add, and drag it to the widget area of your choice.  Different themes may offer different areas to place Widgets, such as the sidebar or footer. Most of the widgets offer configuration options.  Click the down arrow beside its name to edit it.  Set them up as you wish, and click Save on the bottom of the widget. Now we’ve got some nice dynamic content on our blog that’s automatically updated from the net. Choose Blog Extras By default, WordPress shows previews of websites when visitors hover over links on your blog, uses a special mobile theme when people visit from a mobile device, and shows related links to other blogs on the WordPress network at the end of your posts.  If you don’t like these features, you can disable them on the Extras page under Appearance. Build Your Audience Now that your blog is looking nice, we can make sure others will discover it.  WordPress makes it easy for you to make your site discoverable on search engines or social network, and even gives you the option to keep your site private if you’d prefer.  Open the Privacy page under Tools to change your site’s visibility.  By default, it will be indexed by search engines and be viewable to everyone.  You can also choose to leave your blog public but block search engines, or you can make it fully private. If you choose to make your blog private, you can enter up to 35 usernames of people you want to be able to see it.  Each private visitor must have a WordPress.com account so they can login.  If you need more than 35 private members, you can upgrade to allow unlimited private members for $29.97/year. Then, if you do want your site visible from search engines, one of the best ways to make sure your content is discovered by search engines is to register with their webmaster tools.  Once registered, you need to add your key to your site so the search engine will find and index it.  On the bottom of the Tools page, WordPress lets you enter your key from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to make sure your site is discovered.  If you haven’t signed up with these tools yet, you can signup via the links on this page as well. Post Blog Updates to Social Networks Many people discover the sites they visit from friends and others via social networks.  WordPress makes it easy to automatically share links to your content on popular social networks.  To activate this feature, open the My Blogs page under Dashboard. Now, select the services you want to activate under the Publicize section.  This will automatically update Yahoo!, Twitter, and/or Facebook every time you publish a new post. You’ll have to authorize your connection with the social network.  With Twitter and Yahoo!, you can authorize them with only two clicks, but integrating with Facebook will take several steps.   If you’d rather share links yourself on social networks, you can get shortened URLs to your posts.  When you write a new post or edit an existing one, click the Get Shortlink button located underneath the post’s title. This will give you a small URL, usually 20 characters or less, that you can use to post on social networks such as Twitter.   This should help build your traffic, and if you want to see how many people are checking out your site, check out the stats on your Dashboard.  This shows a graph of how many people are visiting, and popular posts.  Click View All if you’d like more detailed stats including search engine terms that lead people to your blog. Conclusion Whether you’re looking to make a private blog for your group or publish a blog that’s read by millions around the world, WordPress is a great way to do it for free.  And with all of the personalization options, you can make your it memorable and exciting for your visitors. If you don’t have a blog, you can always signup for a free one from WordPress.com.  Also make sure to check out our article on how to Start Your Own Blog with WordPress. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Manage Your WordPress Blog Comments from Your Windows DesktopAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek SoftwareMake a Backup Copy of your Production Wordpress Blog on UbuntuOops! Sorry About the Feed Errors TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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• Metro: Creating a Master/Detail View with a WinJS ListView Control

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to explain how you can create a simple master/detail view by using the WinJS ListView and Template controls. In particular, I explain how you can use a ListView control to display a list of movies and how you can use a Template control to display the details of the selected movie. Creating a master/detail view requires completing the following four steps: Create the data source – The data source contains the list of movies. Declare the ListView control – The ListView control displays the entire list of movies. It is the master part of the master/detail view. Declare the Details Template control – The Details Template control displays the details for the selected movie. It is the details part of the master/detail view. Handle the selectionchanged event – You handle the selectionchanged event to display the details for a movie when a new movie is selected. Creating the Data Source There is nothing special about our data source. We initialize a WinJS.Binding.List object to represent a list of movies: (function () { "use strict"; var movies = new WinJS.Binding.List([ { title: "Star Wars", director: "Lucas"}, { title: "Shrek", director: "Adamson" }, { title: "Star Trek", director: "Abrams" }, { title: "Spiderman", director: "Raimi" }, { title: "Memento", director: "Nolan" }, { title: "Minority Report", director: "Spielberg" } ]); // Expose the data source WinJS.Namespace.define("ListViewDemos", { movies: movies }); })(); The data source is exposed to the rest of our application with the name ListViewDemos.movies. Declaring the ListView Control The ListView control is declared with the following markup: <div id="movieList" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemDataSource: ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource, itemTemplate: select('#masterItemTemplate'), tapBehavior: 'directSelect', selectionMode: 'single', layout: { type: WinJS.UI.ListLayout } }"> </div> The data-win-options attribute is used to set the following properties of the ListView control: itemDataSource – The ListView is bound to the list of movies which we created in the previous section. Notice that the ListView is bound to ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource and not just ListViewDemos.movies. itemTemplate – The item template contains the template used for rendering each item in the ListView. The markup for this template is included below. tabBehavior – This enumeration determines what happens when you tap or click on an item in the ListView. The possible values are directSelect, toggleSelect, invokeOnly, none. Because we want to handle the selectionchanged event, we set tapBehavior to the value directSelect. selectionMode – This enumeration determines whether you can select multiple items or only a single item. The possible values are none, single, multi. In the code above, this property is set to the value single. layout – You can use ListLayout or GridLayout with a ListView. If you want to display a vertical ListView, then you should select ListLayout. You must associate a ListView with an item template if you want to render anything interesting. The ListView above is associated with an item template named #masterItemTemplate. Here’s the markup for the masterItemTemplate: <div id="masterItemTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movie"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> </div> This template simply renders the title of each movie. Declaring the Details Template Control The details part of the master/detail view is created with the help of a Template control. Here’s the markup used to declare the Details Template control: <div id="detailsTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div> <div> Title: <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> <div> Director: <span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> </div> The Details Template control displays the movie title and director.   Handling the selectionchanged Event The ListView control can raise two types of events: the iteminvoked and selectionchanged events. The iteminvoked event is raised when you click on a ListView item. The selectionchanged event is raised when one or more ListView items are selected. When you set the tapBehavior property of the ListView control to the value “directSelect” then tapping or clicking a list item raised both the iteminvoked and selectionchanged event. Tapping a list item causes the item to be selected and the item appears with a checkmark. In our code, we handle the selectionchanged event to update the movie details Template when you select a new movie. Here’s the code from the default.js file used to handle the selectionchanged event: var movieList = document.getElementById("movieList"); var detailsTemplate = document.getElementById("detailsTemplate"); var movieDetails = document.getElementById("movieDetails"); // Setup selectionchanged handler movieList.winControl.addEventListener("selectionchanged", function (evt) { if (movieList.winControl.selection.count() > 0) { movieList.winControl.selection.getItems().then(function (items) { // Clear the template container movieDetails.innerHTML = ""; // Render the template detailsTemplate.winControl.render(items[0].data, movieDetails); }); } }); The code above sets up an event handler (listener) for the selectionchanged event. The event handler first verifies that an item has been selected in the ListView (selection.count() > 0). Next, the details for the movie are rendered using the movie details Template (we created this Template in the previous section). The Complete Code For the sake of completeness, I’ve included the complete code for the master/detail view below. I’ve included both the default.html, default.js, and movies.js files. Here is the final code for the default.html file: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>ListViewMasterDetail</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- ListViewMasterDetail references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/movies.js"></script> <style type="text/css"> body { font-size: xx-large; } .movie { padding: 5px; } #masterDetail { display: -ms-box; } #movieList { width: 300px; margin: 20px; } #movieDetails { margin: 20px; } </style> </head> <body> <!-- Templates --> <div id="masterItemTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movie"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> </div> <div id="detailsTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div> <div> Title: <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> <div> Director: <span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> </div> <!-- Master/Detail --> <div id="masterDetail"> <!-- Master --> <div id="movieList" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemDataSource: ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource, itemTemplate: select('#masterItemTemplate'), tapBehavior: 'directSelect', selectionMode: 'single', layout: { type: WinJS.UI.ListLayout } }"> </div> <!-- Detail --> <div id="movieDetails"></div> </div> </body> </html> Here is the default.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { WinJS.UI.processAll(); var movieList = document.getElementById("movieList"); var detailsTemplate = document.getElementById("detailsTemplate"); var movieDetails = document.getElementById("movieDetails"); // Setup selectionchanged handler movieList.winControl.addEventListener("selectionchanged", function (evt) { if (movieList.winControl.selection.count() > 0) { movieList.winControl.selection.getItems().then(function (items) { // Clear the template container movieDetails.innerHTML = ""; // Render the template detailsTemplate.winControl.render(items[0].data, movieDetails); }); } }); } }; app.start(); })();   Here is the movies.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var movies = new WinJS.Binding.List([ { title: "Star Wars", director: "Lucas"}, { title: "Shrek", director: "Adamson" }, { title: "Star Trek", director: "Abrams" }, { title: "Spiderman", director: "Raimi" }, { title: "Memento", director: "Nolan" }, { title: "Minority Report", director: "Spielberg" } ]); // Expose the data source WinJS.Namespace.define("ListViewDemos", { movies: movies }); })();   Summary The purpose of this blog entry was to describe how to create a simple master/detail view by taking advantage of the WinJS ListView control. We handled the selectionchanged event of the ListView control to display movie details when you select a movie in the ListView.

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• Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Tips and Tricks-Part 2: Key Shortcuts

  - by ToStringTheory

  Ask anyone that knows me, and they will confirm that I hate the mouse.  This isn’t because I deny affection to objects that don’t look like their mammalian-named self, but rather for a much more simple and not-insane reason: I have terrible eyesight.  Introduction Thanks to a degenerative eye disease known as Choroideremia, I have learned to rely more on the keyboard which I can feel digital/static positions of keys relative to my fingers, than the much more analog/random position of the mouse.  Now, I would like to share some of the keyboard shortcuts with you now, as I believe that they not only increase my productivity, but yours as well once you know them (if you don’t already of course)...  I share one of my biggest tips for productivity in the conclusion at the end. Visual Studio Key Shortcuts Global Editor Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are available from almost any application running in Windows, however are many times forgotten. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality Ctrl + X Cut This shortcut works without a selection. If nothing is selected, the entire line that the caret is on is cut from the editor. Ctrl + C Copy This shortcut works without a selection. If nothing is selected, the entire line that the caret is on is copied from the editor. Ctrl + V Paste If you copied an entire line by the method above, the data is pasted in the line above the current caret line. Ctrl + Shift + V Next Clipboard Element Cut/Copy multiple things, and then hit this combo repeatedly to switch to the next clipboard item when pasting. Ctrl + Backspace Delete Previous Will delete the previous word from the editor directly before the caret. If anything is selected, will just delete that. Ctrl + Del Delete Next Word Will delete the next word/space from the editor directly after the caret. If anything is selected, will just delete that. Shift + Del Delete Focused Line Will delete the line from the editor that the caret is on. If something is selected, will just delete that. Ctrl + ? or Ctrl + ? Left/Right by Word This will move the caret left or right by word or special character boundary. Holding Shift will also select the word. Ctrl + F Quick Find Either the Quick Find panel, or the search bar if you have the Productivity Power Tools installed. Ctrl + Shift + F Find in Solution Opens up the 'Find in Files' window, allowing you to search your solution, as well as using regex for pattern matching. F2 Rename File... While not debugging, selecting a file in the solution explorer\navigator and pressing F2 allows you to rename the selected file. Global Application Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are available from almost any application running in Windows, however are many times forgotten... Again... Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality Ctrl + N New File dialog Opens up the 'New File' dialog to add a new file to the current directory in the Solution\Project. Ctrl + O Open File dialog Opens up the 'Open File' dialog to open a file in the editor, not necessarily in the solution. Ctrl + S Save File dialog Saves the currently focused editor tab back to your HDD/SSD. Ctrl + Shift + S Save All... Quickly save all open/edited documents back to your disk. Ctrl + Tab Switch Panel\Tab Tapping this combo switches between tabs quickly. Holding down Ctrl when hitting tab will bring up a chooser window. Building Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are focused on building and running a solution. These are not usable when the IDE is in Debug mode, as the shortcut changes by context. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality Ctrl + Shift + B Build Solution Starts a build process on the solution according to the current build configuration manager settings. Ctrl + Break Cancel a Building Solution Will cancel a build operation currently in progress. Good for long running builds when you think of one last change. F5 Start Debugging Will build the solution if needed and launch debugging according to the current configuration manager settings. Ctrl + F5 Start Without Debugger Will build the solution if needed and launch the startup project without attaching a debugger. Debugging Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are used when debugging a solution. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality F5 Continue Execution Continues execution of code until the next breakpoint. Ctrl + Alt + Break Pause Execution Pauses the program execution. Shift + F5 Stop Debugging Stops the current debugging session. NOTE: Web apps will still continue processing after stopping the debugger. Keep this in mind if working on code such as credit card processing. Ctrl + Shift + F5 Restart Debugging Stops the current debugging session and restarts the debugging session from the beginning. F9 Place Breakpoint Toggles/Places a breakpoint in the editor on the current line. Set a breakpoint in condensed code by highlighting the statement first. F10 Step Over Statement When debugging, executes all code in methods/properties on the current line until the next line. F11 Step Into Statement When debugging, steps into a method call so you can walk through the code executed there (if available). Ctrl + Alt + I Immediate Window Open the Immediate Window to execute commands when execution is paused. Navigation Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are used for navigating in the IDE or editor panel. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality F4 Properties Panel Opens the properties panel for the selected item in the editor/designer/solution navigator (context driven). F12 Go to Definition Press F12 with the caret on a member to navigate to its declaration. With the Productivity tools, Ctrl + Click works too. Ctrl + K Ctrl + T View Call Hierarchy View the call hierarchy of the member the caret is on. Great for going through n-tier solutions and interface implementations! Ctrl + Alt + B Breakpoint Window View the breakpoint window to manage breakpoints and their advanced options. Allows easy toggling of breakpoints. Ctrl + Alt + L Solution Navigator Open the solution explorer panel. Ctrl + Alt + O Output Window View the output window to see build\general output from Visual Studio. Ctrl + Alt + Enter Live Web Preview Only available with the Web Essential plugin. Launches the auto-updating Preview panel. Testing Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are used for running tests in the IDE. Please note, Visual Studio 2010 is all about context. If your caret is within a test method when you use one of these combinations, the combination will apply to that test. If your caret is within a test class, it will apply to that class. If the caret is outside of a test class, it will apply to all tests. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality Ctrl + R T Run Test(s) Run all tests in the current context without a debugger attached. Breakpoints will not be stopped on. Ctrl + R Ctrl + T Run Test(s) (Debug) Run all tests in the current context with a debugger attached. This allows you to use breakpoints. Substitute A for T from the preceding combos to run/debug ALL tests in the current context. Substitute Y for T from the preceding combos to run/debug ALL impacted/covering tests for a method in the current context. Advanced Editor Shortcuts These are shortcuts that are used for more advanced editing in the editor window. Shortcut Action Visual Studio 2010 Functionality Shift + Alt + ? Shift + Alt + ? Multiline caret up/down Use this combo to edit multiple lines at once. Not too many uses for it, but once in a blue moon one comes along. Ctrl + Alt + Enter Insert Line Above Inserts a blank line above the line the caret is currently on. No need to be at end or start of line, so no cutting off words/code. Ctrl + K Ctrl + C Comment Selection Comments the current selection out of compilation. Ctrl + K Ctrl + U Uncomment Selection Uncomments the current selection into compilation. Ctrl + K Ctrl + D Format Document Automatically formats the document into a structured layout. Lines up nodes or code into columns intelligently. Alt + ? Alt + ? Code line up/down *Use this combo to move a line of code up or down quickly. Great for small rearrangements of code. *Requires the Productivity Power pack from Microsoft. Conclusion This list is by no means meant to be exhaustive, but these are the shortcuts I use regularly every hour/minute of the day. There are still 100s more in Visual Studio that you can discover through the configuration window, or by tooltips. Something that I started doing months ago seems to have interest in my office.. In my last post, I talked about how I hated a cluttered UI. One of the ways that I aimed to resolve that was by systematically cleaning up the toolbars week by week. First day, I removed ALL icons that I already knew shortcuts to, or would never use them (Undo in a toolbar?!). Then, every week from that point on, I make it a point to remove an icon/two from the toolbar and make an effort to remember its key combination. I gain extra space in the toolbar area, AND become more productive at the same time! I hope that you found this article interesting or at least somewhat informative.. Maybe a shortcut or two you didn't know. I know some of them seem trivial, but I often see people going to the edit menu for Copy/Paste... Thought a refresher might be helpful!

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• Custom Content Pipeline with Automatic Serialization Load Error

  - by Direweasel

  I'm running into this error: Error loading "desert". Cannot find type TiledLib.MapContent, TiledLib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.InstantiateTypeReader(String readerTypeName, ContentReader contentReader, ContentTypeReader& reader) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.GetTypeReader(String readerTypeName, ContentReader contentReader, List1& newTypeReaders) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.ReadTypeManifest(Int32 typeCount, ContentReader contentReader) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadHeader() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at TiledTest.Game1.LoadContent() in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Game1.cs:line 51 at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Initialize() at TiledTest.Game1.Initialize() in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Game1.cs:line 39 at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.RunGame(Boolean useBlockingRun) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run() at TiledTest.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Program.cs:line 15 When trying to run the game. This is a basic demo to try and utilize a separate project library called TiledLib. I have four projects overall: TiledLib (C# Class Library) TiledTest (Windows Game) TiledTestContent (Content) TMX CP Ext (Content Pipeline Extension Library) TiledLib contains MapContent which is throwing the error, however I believe this may just be a generic error with a deeper root problem. EMX CP Ext contains one file: MapProcessor.cs using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Processors; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using TiledLib; namespace TMX_CP_Ext { // Each tile has a texture, source rect, and sprite effects. [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("TiledTest.Tile, TiledTest")] public class DemoMapTileContent { public ExternalReference<Texture2DContent> Texture; public Rectangle SourceRectangle; public SpriteEffects SpriteEffects; } // For each layer, we store the size of the layer and the tiles. [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("TiledTest.Layer, TiledTest")] public class DemoMapLayerContent { public int Width; public int Height; public DemoMapTileContent[] Tiles; } // For the map itself, we just store the size, tile size, and a list of layers. [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("TiledTest.Map, TiledTest")] public class DemoMapContent { public int TileWidth; public int TileHeight; public List<DemoMapLayerContent> Layers = new List<DemoMapLayerContent>(); } [ContentProcessor(DisplayName = "TMX Processor - TiledLib")] public class MapProcessor : ContentProcessor<MapContent, DemoMapContent> { public override DemoMapContent Process(MapContent input, ContentProcessorContext context) { // build the textures TiledHelpers.BuildTileSetTextures(input, context); // generate source rectangles TiledHelpers.GenerateTileSourceRectangles(input); // now build our output, first by just copying over some data DemoMapContent output = new DemoMapContent { TileWidth = input.TileWidth, TileHeight = input.TileHeight }; // iterate all the layers of the input foreach (LayerContent layer in input.Layers) { // we only care about tile layers in our demo TileLayerContent tlc = layer as TileLayerContent; if (tlc != null) { // create the new layer DemoMapLayerContent outLayer = new DemoMapLayerContent { Width = tlc.Width, Height = tlc.Height, }; // we need to build up our tile list now outLayer.Tiles = new DemoMapTileContent[tlc.Data.Length]; for (int i = 0; i < tlc.Data.Length; i++) { // get the ID of the tile uint tileID = tlc.Data[i]; // use that to get the actual index as well as the SpriteEffects int tileIndex; SpriteEffects spriteEffects; TiledHelpers.DecodeTileID(tileID, out tileIndex, out spriteEffects); // figure out which tile set has this tile index in it and grab // the texture reference and source rectangle. ExternalReference<Texture2DContent> textureContent = null; Rectangle sourceRect = new Rectangle(); // iterate all the tile sets foreach (var tileSet in input.TileSets) { // if our tile index is in this set if (tileIndex - tileSet.FirstId < tileSet.Tiles.Count) { // store the texture content and source rectangle textureContent = tileSet.Texture; sourceRect = tileSet.Tiles[(int)(tileIndex - tileSet.FirstId)].Source; // and break out of the foreach loop break; } } // now insert the tile into our output outLayer.Tiles[i] = new DemoMapTileContent { Texture = textureContent, SourceRectangle = sourceRect, SpriteEffects = spriteEffects }; } // add the layer to our output output.Layers.Add(outLayer); } } // return the output object. because we have ContentSerializerRuntimeType attributes on our // objects, we don't need a ContentTypeWriter and can just use the automatic serialization. return output; } } } TiledLib contains a large amount of files including MapContent.cs using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Globalization; using System.Xml; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline; namespace TiledLib { public enum Orientation : byte { Orthogonal, Isometric, } public class MapContent { public string Filename; public string Directory; public string Version = string.Empty; public Orientation Orientation; public int Width; public int Height; public int TileWidth; public int TileHeight; public PropertyCollection Properties = new PropertyCollection(); public List<TileSetContent> TileSets = new List<TileSetContent>(); public List<LayerContent> Layers = new List<LayerContent>(); public MapContent(XmlDocument document, ContentImporterContext context) { XmlNode mapNode = document["map"]; Version = mapNode.Attributes["version"].Value; Orientation = (Orientation)Enum.Parse(typeof(Orientation), mapNode.Attributes["orientation"].Value, true); Width = int.Parse(mapNode.Attributes["width"].Value, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); Height = int.Parse(mapNode.Attributes["height"].Value, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); TileWidth = int.Parse(mapNode.Attributes["tilewidth"].Value, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); TileHeight = int.Parse(mapNode.Attributes["tileheight"].Value, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); XmlNode propertiesNode = document.SelectSingleNode("map/properties"); if (propertiesNode != null) { Properties = new PropertyCollection(propertiesNode, context); } foreach (XmlNode tileSet in document.SelectNodes("map/tileset")) { if (tileSet.Attributes["source"] != null) { TileSets.Add(new ExternalTileSetContent(tileSet, context)); } else { TileSets.Add(new TileSetContent(tileSet, context)); } } foreach (XmlNode layerNode in document.SelectNodes("map/layer|map/objectgroup")) { LayerContent layerContent; if (layerNode.Name == "layer") { layerContent = new TileLayerContent(layerNode, context); } else if (layerNode.Name == "objectgroup") { layerContent = new MapObjectLayerContent(layerNode, context); } else { throw new Exception("Unknown layer name: " + layerNode.Name); } // Layer names need to be unique for our lookup system, but Tiled // doesn't require unique names. string layerName = layerContent.Name; int duplicateCount = 2; // if a layer already has the same name... if (Layers.Find(l => l.Name == layerName) != null) { // figure out a layer name that does work do { layerName = string.Format("{0}{1}", layerContent.Name, duplicateCount); duplicateCount++; } while (Layers.Find(l => l.Name == layerName) != null); // log a warning for the user to see context.Logger.LogWarning(string.Empty, new ContentIdentity(), "Renaming layer \"{1}\" to \"{2}\" to make a unique name.", layerContent.Type, layerContent.Name, layerName); // save that name layerContent.Name = layerName; } Layers.Add(layerContent); } } } } I'm lost as to why this is failing. Thoughts? -- EDIT -- After playing with it a bit, I would think it has something to do with referencing the projects. I'm already referencing the TiledLib within my main windows project (TiledTest). However, this doesn't seem to make a difference. I can place the dll generated from the TiledLib project into the debug folder of TiledTest, and this causes it to generate a different error: Error loading "desert". Cannot find ContentTypeReader for Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.ExternalReference`1[Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Graphics.Texture2DContent]. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.GetTypeReader(Type targetType, ContentReader contentReader) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.GetTypeReader(Type targetType) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ReflectiveReaderMemberHelper..ctor(ContentTypeReaderManager manager, FieldInfo fieldInfo, PropertyInfo propertyInfo, Type memberType, Boolean canWrite) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ReflectiveReaderMemberHelper.TryCreate(ContentTypeReaderManager manager, Type declaringType, FieldInfo fieldInfo) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ReflectiveReader1.Initialize(ContentTypeReaderManager manager) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentTypeReaderManager.ReadTypeManifest(Int32 typeCount, ContentReader contentReader) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadHeader() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at TiledTest.Game1.LoadContent() in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Game1.cs:line 51 at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Initialize() at TiledTest.Game1.Initialize() in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Game1.cs:line 39 at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.RunGame(Boolean useBlockingRun) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run() at TiledTest.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\My Documents\Dropbox\Visual Studio Projects\TiledTest\TiledTest\TiledTest\Program.cs:line 15 This is all incredibly frustrating as the demo doesn't appear to have any special linking properties. The TiledLib I am utilizing is from Nick Gravelyn, and can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/nickgravelyn/tiledlib. The demo it comes with works fine, and yet in recreating I always run into this error.

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – September 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/wlscommunity Oracle Exalogic? VIDEO: Oracle Public Cloud Built on Exalogic!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGzjDloUw_s&feature=plcp … oracleopenworld #NetBeans Community Day at #JavaOne http://ow.ly/dunFL Oracle Cloud Zone Building an enterprise Cloud? Have Oracle show you the RIGHT way to plan, deploy and monitor enterprise clouds.... http://fb.me/286978S4S OTNArchBeat? Oracle Exalogic X2-2 walk-through with Brad Cameron | @jvzoggel http://pub.vitrue.com/yE7d Oracle Technet? Stash your cash. September OTN Member Offers - discounts on books, more | OTN Blog http://pub.vitrue.com/yTr9 C2B2 Consulting? C2B2 is Speaking at @UKOUG App Server Middleware SIG Meeting 'Real Life #WebLogic Performance Tuning' http://www.c2b2.co.uk/ukoug_application_server_middleware_sig_meeting … @wlscommunity JAXenter.com? From yesterday, @smeyen offers his views on the next generation #Java - do you agree? http://jaxenter.com/next-gen-java-we-don-t-need-another-revolutionary-44334.html … Markus Eisele? Awesome: professor from ITU uploads her programming lectures to #YouTube. Programming classes without having to pay! http://bit.ly/UtkJIW Adam Bien? Real World Java EE 6 Patterns--Rethinking Best Practices Reloaded: A completely rewritten, second, iteration of ... http://bit.ly/Qc3xTH Markus Eisele [blog] #PrimeFaces Push with #Atmosphere on #GlassFish 3.1.2.2 http://goo.gl/fb/jPDzA Lucas Jellema? Forms community event at Oracle Open World - Tuesday, 2nd Oct with the BIG names in Forms - see: http://oracleformsinfo.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/ask-the-product-manager-join-us-at-the-oracle-forms-community-event-at-openworld-2012/ … WebLogic Community WebLogic & Coherence & Cloud presentations for customer meetings http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kw Adam Bien? New Book: Rethinking Best Practices with Java EE 6 is out: http://realworldpatterns.com (fully rewritten, re-edited and reformatted) WebLogic Community? Want to become and WebLogic 12c expert? free WebLogic 12c partner bootcamps &ndash;new locations: Madrid Spain http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kK WebLogic Community? Promote Your WebLogic events at http://oracle.com http://wp.me/p1LMIb-ku OracleBlogs Gartner review Oracle ADF http://ow.ly/1mgkCV Simon Haslam Next #ukoug App Server & MW SIG on 10 Oct: http://www.ukoug.org/events/ukoug-application-server-and-middleware-sig-meeting8/ … Hopefully plenty of good admin stuff! Michel Schildmeijer My book "WebLogic 12c; First look" has been reviewed again..see http://www.amazon.com/review/R28L6E3CC9RPMK/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1849687188&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag= … … Markus Eisele? #Weblogic 11g Interactive Quick Reference Map: http://bit.ly/Ugsq52 #wls #oracle #reference /via @TonyvanEsch Marc? Playing with #syslog server and #weblogic. Is there a simple how-to to configure all the logging from #WLS to #syslog-ng WebLogic Community Java update http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kI WebLogic Community top tweets WebLogic Partner Community &ndash; August 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kA Andrejus Baranovskis? Oracle University Training: ADF/WebCenter 11g Development in Depth | Andrejus Baranovskis http://fb.me/253ZTS2zp OracleSupport_WLS? How neat is a free tool that allows you to inspect and debug traffic from virtually any application? http://pub.vitrue.com/vXdP WebLogic Community WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter August 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kn OTNArchBeat Integrating Coherence & Java EE 6 Applications using ActiveCache | Ricardo Ferreira http://pub.vitrue.com/rwGg Adam Bien? Thanks for attending the #javaee #techtalk "Enterprise Java 2.0" I pushed the project and slides to: http://kenai.com/projects/javaee-patterns/sources/hg/show/hacks/techtalk2012?rev=429 … JDeveloper & ADF? How to service-enable Oracle ADF Business Components http://ht.ly/1mcfsZ OracleSupport_WLS? Do you know that #WebLogic 12.1.1.0 is certified for production with JDK 7? @ http://pub.vitrue.com/35Kn Andreas Koop? My latest upload : WebLogic Administration und Deployment mit WLST on @slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/multikoop/weblogic-administration-und-deployment-mit-wlst … OTNArchBeat? Demo for OPN: Oracle Coherence Management with EM Cloud Control 12c http://pub.vitrue.com/reoo Markus Eisele? [blog] Java Champions at #JavaOne 2012 http://goo.gl/fb/Ibb6N #javachampion OracleBlogs Buy This Book!: Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Handbook http://ow.ly/1malM1 WebLogic Community? Coherence Management with EM Cloud Control 12c &ndash;demo for partners http://wp.me/p1LMIb-iE Arun Gupta? Learn how Java can help Internet of Things at Java Embedded at JavaOne: http://bit.ly/POBizh WebLogic Community? Follow WebLogicCommunity on facebook http://www.facebook.com/WebLogicCommunity … #WebLogicCommunity WebLogic Community? Building Java EE in the Cloud–Webcast August 30th 2012 https://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/building-java-ee-in-the-cloudwebcast-august-30th-2012/ … #WebLogicCommunity #Java #oracle #opn WebLogic Community? Call for WebLogic Community newsletter content. Please send @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity OracleSupport_WLS? The #weblogic wasp: lots of tips, Q&A and examples http://pub.vitrue.com/v0bw Frank Nimphius? Free ADF Best Practices Webinar by Andrejus Baranovskis for ODTUG (18, 2012 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT) http://bit.ly/OiSWbi ADF Code Corner Webcast- Friday September 14, 8:30 AM - 9.00 AM (CET) - ADF as a basis of Fusion Apps (in English) - with Chris Muir: http://bit.ly/OiQVMb Oracle WebLogic? New blog post: Developing Custom User Principal Object http://pub.vitrue.com/ltam JAX London? Just 4days left to get in on the early bird special, don't miss out!! http://jaxlondon.com/ #JAXLondon #Java WebLogic Community Building Java EE in the Cloud&ndash;Webcast August 30th 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kE Andrejus Baranovskis? New Record Master-Detail Validation and ADF BC Groovy Use Case http://fb.me/1D2NEIl8g JAX London? Don't miss out!!! Only 6 days left to make use of our early bird offer #JAXLondon #JAVA http://jaxlondon.com/ Michel Schildmeijer Qualogy launches Proof of Concept Center for Oracle Fusion Applications http://www.qualogy.com/qualogy-launches-proof-of-concept-center-for-oracle-fusion-applications/ … via @Qualogy_news OracleSupport_WLS ?Need to troubleshoot redeployment failure in #Weblogic? Check this http://pub.vitrue.com/auhz OracleEnterpriseMgr? Blog : Managing Oracle #Exalogic Elastic #Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center http://ow.ly/dd40e #em12c ODTUG? 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• Evil DRY

  - by StefanSteinegger

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

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 01, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 01, 2012Popular ReleasesD3 Loot Tracker: 1.4.1: This version will automatically save a recording session on application exit if the user didn't stop the current session.CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.2.1001.1): Visual Ribbon Editor 1.2.1001.1 What's New: Ability to hide currently selected tab Password in the connection file is now being encrypted Esc and Enter keyboard keys are now supported in all dialogs Extended width of Prefix and Id fields in New Button and New Group dialogs Minor UI enchancements for Hide Button button Minor UI enchancements for View XML button and dialog File/assembly versioning for executable file Notes: Existing plain-text password will be automatically encrypt...Untangler: Untangler: First version of Untangler application available now.SubExtractor: Release 1029: Feature: Added option to make i and ¡ characters movie-specific for improved OCR on Spanish subs (Special Characters tab in Options) Feature: Allow switch to Word Spacing dialog directly from Spell Check dialog Fix: Added more default word spacings for accented characters Fix: Changed Word Spacing dialog to show all OCR'd characters in current sub Fix: Removed application focus grab during OCR Fix: Tightened HD subs fuzzy logic to reduce false matches in small characters Fix: Improved Arrow k...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.2.18: Reccomended download Changelog for 2.2.18 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for checking if Showanalyzer has hung and cancelling it 2. New version of comskip, 0.81.48 3. Speeding up comskip 4. Fixed a build bug in 64bit 2.2.17 5. Added a new comkip.ini, better commercial detection for international channels and less aggressive. Old one has been retained as comskip_old.ini 6. Added support for Audio Offset on Conversion Task page in GUI (this overrides the profiles AudioDelay when specified)Mugen Injection: Mugen Injection 3.0: Added a generic version of the fluent syntax. Big changes in fluent-syntax. Added support to resolve a parameters: - Factory: AnyCustomFunc{T}, AnyCustomFunc{IEnumerable<IInjectionParameters>,T}, AnyCustomFunc{IDictionary<string, object>,T}, AnyCustomFunc{IEnumerable<IInjectionParameters>,IDictionary<string, object>,T} - Lazy: AnyCustomLazy<T> - Binding metadata: ISetting Change binding builders, now you can configure them through the string settings. Increase performance. F...Aggravation: Version 1.0: This version 1.0 release is pretty stable. You need the Silverlight 4 runtime, developer tools, and Experssion Blend 4 installed.Tube++: Tube++ 4.0.0.43: Fix parser for downloading and add new default slate gray styleReadable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.1: See the KeePass Plugin Step By Step Guide for instructions on how to install the plugin. Changes Built against KeePass 2.20Windows 8 Toolkit - Charts and More: Beta 1.0: The First Compiled Version of my LibraryCatchThatException: Release 1.0: This is the first relase for CatchThatException library at 29-9-2012CardPlay: a Solitaire Framework for .Net: 0.3.0: Added 5 games: Blockade, Chessboard, Colorado, Sly Fox, TwentyUltraFluid Modeling Suite: Beta 1: This release is experimental but contains a lot of features like: - xml serialization - multiple selection - clipboard copy/cut/paste on context menu There is the debug and the release (recommanded default) versions.PDF.NET: PDF.NET.Ver4.5-OpenSourceCode: PDF.NET Ver4.5 ????，????Web??????。 PDF.NET Ver4.5 Open Source Code,include a sample Web application project.Visual Studio Icon Patcher: Version 1.5.2: This version contains no new images from v1.5.1 Contains the following improvements: Better support for detecting the installed languages The extract & inject commands won’t run if Visual Studio is running You may now run in extract or inject mode The p/invoke code was cleaned up based on Code Analysis recommendations When a p/invoke method fails the Win32 error message is now displayed Error messages use red text Status messages use green textZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.9.0.0: On the way to a release 1.0 the API should be stable now with this version. sync with rev. 2393 of the java version improved api better Unity support Windows RT binaries Windows CE binaries new Windows Service demo new WPF demo WindowsCE Hotfix: Fixes an error with ISO8859-1 encoding and scannning of QR-Codes. The hotfix is only needed for the WindowsCE platform.C.B.R. : Comic Book Reader: CBR 0.7: Synthesis since 0.6 : ePUB : Complete refactoring Add a new dedicated feed viewer for opds stream PDF conversion : improved with image merge Make all backstage panel scrollable Integrate the new AvalonDock 2 library. Support multi-document. Library explorer and Table of content are now toolboxes Designer for dynamic books is now mvvm and much better New BrowserForControl Customized xps viewer to suppress toolbars and bind it to cbr commands Add quick start manual and button ...sosoft: sosoft source: sosoft source include alarm clockRawr: Rawr 5.0.0: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr Addon (NOT UPDATED YET FOR MOP)We now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including ba...Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.26: The zh-CN issue has been solved. We also add a project management module.New ProjectsAmazonGlacierGUI - GUI Client for Amazon Glacier | WPF: a GUI client for amazon glacier , Written in .NET 4, C#,WPF,MVVM & RavenDB for storageAthene: UML editor.Basic Helpdesk Application: Develop a simple application to be used in a network environment to aid support staff while working remotely with users to resolve problems in their local PC.CAPTCHA Solver: CSolver, is a CAPTCHA Solver for Simple CAPTCHAs.ComicExt: ComicExt Works with CBZ files decompress them into a folder of the same name and convert them into zip files and vice versa from a single folder.Copy Your Table Storage: Tool to permit copy table storage dotCMS: it is a content management system base on BlogEngine.NET and Ext.NETihongma??: ?????????????????????????，????????????????、??????，?????????????????????????????，??????????????????????。 ??????????????，??????；???????????????，???????Liam F: Basic mathematical functions implemented using AVX/AVX2MVC Solution: MVC Solution, including many mvc best practicesopengltest: opengl testsample project: Testing...Sériethèque: A small tvshow organizer with viewed option, link to addict7ed.com, rename file etc ...SHOIC (SUPER HIGH ORBIT ION CANION): SHOIC (Super Hight Orbit Ion Canion) es una aplicación derivada de LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Canion)SignalRServerTry: signal r trySilverlight Datagrid Plus: Silverlight Datagrid plus adds basic features to the Silverlight toolkit datagrid such as grouping, filtering, new record and formatting of the datagrid.Sitecore Modules: This is a home for all the Sitecore Shared Source modules distributed by 5 Limes. Over time we expect this solution to contain several projects.Spiritual Chanting Utility: A quick media loop utilitySQL Web Studio Pad: A Simple Web Based SQL Management IDE for managing Database objectsStockmarket Simulation: Stockmarket Simulationtest_proj: ok testTISSEAN.NET: This project is based on: TISEAN 3.0.1 Nonlinear Time Series Analysis Rainer Hegger,Holger Kantz, Thomas Schreiber With major contributions by Eckehard OlbrichUntangler: Class hierarchy viewer for .Net assemblyValarmathi Hospital: Patient management.Windows 8 App For SharePoint Online: Windows 8 app to SharePoint 2013 OnlineWPF Anti-DataBinding Anti-DataTemplate Extensions: WPF Anti-DataBinding Anti-DataTemplate Extensions offers a pure C# code-behind (no XAML) approach to working with WPF controls, starting with the WPF ListBox.Yandex Positions Parser: ?????? ??????? ????? ? ?????? ??????? ?? ???????? ???????? ??????.YunCMS: A simple CMS for build protal site.

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• ADDS: 1 - Introducing and designing

  - by marc dekeyser

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} What is ADDS?  Every Microsoft oriented infrastructure in today's enterprises will depend largely on the active directory version built by Microsoft. It is the foundation stone on which all other products (Exchange, update services, office communicator, the system center family, etc) rely on to get their information. And that is just looking at it from an infrastructure perspective. A well designed and implemented Active Directory implementation makes life for IT personnel and user alike a lot easier. Centralised management and the abilities opened up  by having it in place are ample.  But what is Active Directory Domain Services? We can look at ADDS as a centralised directory containing all objects your infrastructure runs on in one way or another. Since it is a Microsoft product you'll obviously not be seeing linux or mac clients listed in here (exceptions exist) but in general we can say it contains everything your company has in place in one form or another.  The domain name services. The domain naming service (or DNS for short) is a service which translates IP address (the identifiers for each computer in your domain) into readable and easy to understand names. This service is a prequisite for ADDA to work and having wrong record in a DNS server will make any ADDS service fail. Generally speaking a DNS service will be run on the same server as the ADDS service but it is worth wile to remember that this is not necessary. You could, for example, run your DNS services on a linux box (which would need special preparing to host an ADDS integrated DNS zone) and run the ADDS service of another box… Where to start? If the aim is to put in place a first time implementation of ADDS in your enterprise there are plenty of things to consider depending on what you are going to do in the long run. Great care has to be taken when first designing and implementing as having it set up wrong will cause a headache down the line. It is for that reason that I like to start building from the bottom up and start with a generic installation of ADDS (which will still differ for every client) and make it adaptable for future services which can hook in to the existing environment. Adapting existing environments is out of scope for this document (and series) although it is possible to take the pointers and change your existing environment to run in a smoother manor. Take great care when changing things as one small slip of the hand can give you a forest wide failure… Whenever starting with an ADDS deployment I ask the client the following questions:  What are your long term plans and goals?  How flexible do you want it? Are you currently linux heavy and want to keep this or can we go for an all Microsoft design? Those three questions should give some sort of indicator what direction can be taken and if the client has thought about some things themselves :).  The technical side of things  What is next to consider is what kind of infrastructure is already in place. For these series I'll keep it simple and introduce some general concepts without going in to depth on integrating ADDS with other DNS services.  Building from the ground up means we need to consider our layers on which our infrastructure will rely. In my view that goes as follows:  Network (WAN/LAN links and physical sites DNS Namespacing All in one domain or split up in different domains/forests? Security (both for ADDS and physical sites) The network side of things  Looking at how the network is currently set up can potentially teach us a large deal about the client. Do they have multiple physical site? What network speeds exist between these sites, etc… Depending on this information we will design our site links (which controls replication) in future stages. DNS Namespacing Maybe the single most intresting thing to know is what the domain will be named (ADDS will need a DNS domain with the same name) and where this will be hosted. Note that active directory can be set up with a singe name (aka contoso instead of contoso.com) but it is highly recommended to never do this. If you do end up with a domain like that for some reason there will be a lot of services that are going to give you good grief in the future (exchange being one of them). So one of the best practises would be always to use a double name (contoso.com or contoso.lan for example). Internal namespace A single namespace is just what it sounds like. You have a DNS domain which is different internally from what the client has as an external namespace. f.e. contoso.com as an external name (out on the internet) and contoso.lan on the internal network. his setup is has its advantages in that you have more obscurity from the internet in the DNS side of this but it will require additional work to publish services to the web. External namespace Quite like the internal namespace only here you do not differ the internal namespace of the company from what is known on the internet. In this implementation you would host your own DNS servers for the external domain inside the network. Or in other words, any external computer doing a DNS lookup would contact your internal DNS server for the resolution. Generally speaking this set up is a bad idea from the security side of things. Split DNS Whilst using an external namespace design is fairly easy it involves a lot of security risks. Opening up you ADDS DSN servers for lookups exposes your entire network to the internet and should be avoided at any cost. And that is where the "split DNS" design comes in. In this setup up would still have the same namespace internally and externally but you would be using different DNS servers for lookups on the external network who have no records of your internal resources unless you explicitly publish them. All in one or not? In determining your active directory design you can look at the following possibilities:  Single forest, Single domain Single forest, multiple domains Multiple forests, multiple domains I've listed the possibilities for design in increasing order of administrative magnitude. Microsoft recommends trying to use a single forest, single domain in as much situations as possible. It is, however, always possible that you require your services to be seperated from your users in a resource forest with trusts set up between the different forests. To start out I would go with the single forest design to avoid complexity unless there are strict requirements to have multiple forests. Security What kind of security is required on the domain and does this reflect the physical security on the sites? Not every client can afford to have a domain controller in a secluded server room on every site and it is exactly for that reason that Microsoft introduced the RODC (read only domain controller). A RODC is a domain controller that has been limited in functionality, in essence it will only cache the data you explicitly tell it to cache and in the case of a DC compromise (it being stolen) only a limited number of accounts will need to be affected. Th- Th- Th- That’s all folks! Well at least for now! In future editions of this series we’ll be walking through the different task that need to be done and the thought which needs to be put in to it. But for all editions we’ll be going from the concept of running a single forest, single domain with a split DNS setup… See you next time!

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Tuples and Tuple Factory Methods

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can really help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain.  This week, we look at the System.Tuple class and the handy factory methods for creating a Tuple by inferring the types. What is a Tuple? The System.Tuple is a class that tends to inspire a reaction in one of two ways: love or hate.  Simply put, a Tuple is a data structure that holds a specific number of items of a specific type in a specific order.  That is, a Tuple<int, string, int> is a tuple that contains exactly three items: an int, followed by a string, followed by an int.  The sequence is important not only to distinguish between two members of the tuple with the same type, but also for comparisons between tuples.  Some people tend to love tuples because they give you a quick way to combine multiple values into one result.  This can be handy for returning more than one value from a method (without using out or ref parameters), or for creating a compound key to a Dictionary, or any other purpose you can think of.  They can be especially handy when passing a series of items into a call that only takes one object parameter, such as passing an argument to a thread's startup routine.  In these cases, you do not need to define a class, simply create a tuple containing the types you wish to return, and you are ready to go? On the other hand, there are some people who see tuples as a crutch in object-oriented design.  They may view the tuple as a very watered down class with very little inherent semantic meaning.  As an example, what if you saw this in a piece of code: 1: var x = new Tuple<int, int>(2, 5); What are the contents of this tuple?  If the tuple isn't named appropriately, and if the contents of each member are not self evident from the type this can be a confusing question.  The people who tend to be against tuples would rather you explicitly code a class to contain the values, such as: 1: public sealed class RetrySettings 2: { 3: public int TimeoutSeconds { get; set; } 4: public int MaxRetries { get; set; } 5: } Here, the meaning of each int in the class is much more clear, but it's a bit more work to create the class and can clutter a solution with extra classes. So, what's the correct way to go?  That's a tough call.  You will have people who will argue quite well for one or the other.  For me, I consider the Tuple to be a tool to make it easy to collect values together easily.  There are times when I just need to combine items for a key or a result, in which case the tuple is short lived and so the meaning isn't easily lost and I feel this is a good compromise.  If the scope of the collection of items, though, is more application-wide I tend to favor creating a full class. Finally, it should be noted that tuples are immutable.  That means they are assigned a value at construction, and that value cannot be changed.  Now, of course if the tuple contains an item of a reference type, this means that the reference is immutable and not the item referred to. Tuples from 1 to N Tuples come in all sizes, you can have as few as one element in your tuple, or as many as you like.  However, since C# generics can't have an infinite generic type parameter list, any items after 7 have to be collapsed into another tuple, as we'll show shortly. So when you declare your tuple from sizes 1 (a 1-tuple or singleton) to 7 (a 7-tuple or septuple), simply include the appropriate number of type arguments: 1: // a singleton tuple of integer 2: Tuple<int> x; 3:  4: // or more 5: Tuple<int, double> y; 6:  7: // up to seven 8: Tuple<int, double, char, double, int, string, uint> z; Anything eight and above, and we have to nest tuples inside of tuples.  The last element of the 8-tuple is the generic type parameter Rest, this is special in that the Tuple checks to make sure at runtime that the type is a Tuple.  This means that a simple 8-tuple must nest a singleton tuple (one of the good uses for a singleton tuple, by the way) for the Rest property. 1: // an 8-tuple 2: Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, double, char, Tuple<string>> t8; 3:  4: // an 9-tuple 5: Tuple<int, int, int, int, double, int, char, Tuple<string, DateTime>> t9; 6:  7: // a 16-tuple 8: Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, Tuple<int,int>>> t14; Notice that on the 14-tuple we had to have a nested tuple in the nested tuple.  Since the tuple can only support up to seven items, and then a rest element, that means that if the nested tuple needs more than seven items you must nest in it as well.  Constructing tuples Constructing tuples is just as straightforward as declaring them.  That said, you have two distinct ways to do it.  The first is to construct the tuple explicitly yourself: 1: var t3 = new Tuple<int, string, double>(1, "Hello", 3.1415927); This creates a triple that has an int, string, and double and assigns the values 1, "Hello", and 3.1415927 respectively.  Make sure the order of the arguments supplied matches the order of the types!  Also notice that we can't half-assign a tuple or create a default tuple.  Tuples are immutable (you can't change the values once constructed), so thus you must provide all values at construction time. Another way to easily create tuples is to do it implicitly using the System.Tuple static class's Create() factory methods.  These methods (much like C++'s std::make_pair method) will infer the types from the method call so you don't have to type them in.  This can dramatically reduce the amount of typing required especially for complex tuples! 1: // this 4-tuple is typed Tuple<int, double, string, char> 2: var t4 = Tuple.Create(42, 3.1415927, "Love", 'X'); Notice how much easier it is to use the factory methods and infer the types?  This can cut down on typing quite a bit when constructing tuples.  The Create() factory method can construct from a 1-tuple (singleton) to an 8-tuple (octuple), which of course will be a octuple where the last item is a singleton as we described before in nested tuples. Accessing tuple members Accessing a tuple's members is simplicity itself… mostly.  The properties for accessing up to the first seven items are Item1, Item2, …, Item7.  If you have an octuple or beyond, the final property is Rest which will give you the nested tuple which you can then access in a similar matter.  Once again, keep in mind that these are read-only properties and cannot be changed. 1: // for septuples and below, use the Item properties 2: var t1 = Tuple.Create(42, 3.14); 3:  4: Console.WriteLine("First item is {0} and second is {1}", 5: t1.Item1, t1.Item2); 6:  7: // for octuples and above, use Rest to retrieve nested tuple 8: var t9 = new Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, 9: Tuple<int, int>>(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,Tuple.Create(8,9)); 10:  11: Console.WriteLine("The 8th item is {0}", t9.Rest.Item1); Tuples are IStructuralComparable and IStructuralEquatable Most of you know about IComparable and IEquatable, what you may not know is that there are two sister interfaces to these that were added in .NET 4.0 to help support tuples.  These IStructuralComparable and IStructuralEquatable make it easy to compare two tuples for equality and ordering.  This is invaluable for sorting, and makes it easy to use tuples as a compound-key to a dictionary (one of my favorite uses)! Why is this so important?  Remember when we said that some folks think tuples are too generic and you should define a custom class?  This is all well and good, but if you want to design a custom class that can automatically order itself based on its members and build a hash code for itself based on its members, it is no longer a trivial task!  Thankfully the tuple does this all for you through the explicit implementations of these interfaces. For equality, two tuples are equal if all elements are equal between the two tuples, that is if t1.Item1 == t2.Item1 and t1.Item2 == t2.Item2, and so on.  For ordering, it's a little more complex in that it compares the two tuples one at a time starting at Item1, and sees which one has a smaller Item1.  If one has a smaller Item1, it is the smaller tuple.  However if both Item1 are the same, it compares Item2 and so on. For example: 1: var t1 = Tuple.Create(1, 3.14, "Hi"); 2: var t2 = Tuple.Create(1, 3.14, "Hi"); 3: var t3 = Tuple.Create(2, 2.72, "Bye"); 4:  5: // true, t1 == t2 because all items are == 6: Console.WriteLine("t1 == t2 : " + t1.Equals(t2)); 7:  8: // false, t1 != t2 because at least one item different 9: Console.WriteLine("t2 == t2 : " + t2.Equals(t3)); The actual implementation of IComparable, IEquatable, IStructuralComparable, and IStructuralEquatable is explicit, so if you want to invoke the methods defined there you'll have to manually cast to the appropriate interface: 1: // true because t1.Item1 < t3.Item1, if had been same would check Item2 and so on 2: Console.WriteLine("t1 < t3 : " + (((IComparable)t1).CompareTo(t3) < 0)); So, as I mentioned, the fact that tuples are automatically equatable and comparable (provided the types you use define equality and comparability as needed) means that we can use tuples for compound keys in hashing and ordering containers like Dictionary and SortedList: 1: var tupleDict = new Dictionary<Tuple<int, double, string>, string>(); 2:  3: tupleDict.Add(t1, "First tuple"); 4: tupleDict.Add(t2, "Second tuple"); 5: tupleDict.Add(t3, "Third tuple"); Because IEquatable defines GetHashCode(), and Tuple's IStructuralEquatable implementation creates this hash code by combining the hash codes of the members, this makes using the tuple as a complex key quite easy!  For example, let's say you are creating account charts for a financial application, and you want to cache those charts in a Dictionary based on the account number and the number of days of chart data (for example, a 1 day chart, 1 week chart, etc): 1: // the account number (string) and number of days (int) are key to get cached chart 2: var chartCache = new Dictionary<Tuple<string, int>, IChart>(); Summary The System.Tuple, like any tool, is best used where it will achieve a greater benefit.  I wouldn't advise overusing them, on objects with a large scope or it can become difficult to maintain.  However, when used properly in a well defined scope they can make your code cleaner and easier to maintain by removing the need for extraneous POCOs and custom property hashing and ordering. They are especially useful in defining compound keys to IDictionary implementations and for returning multiple values from methods, or passing multiple values to a single object parameter. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Tuple,Little Wonders

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• Organizations &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 7

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Name different device categories Discuss the functions and structure of I/.O modules Describe the principles of Programmed I/O Describe the principles of Interrupt-driven I/O Describe the principles of DMA Discuss the evolution characteristic of I/O channels Describe different types of I/O interface Explain the principles of point-to-point and multipoint configurations Discuss the way in which a FireWire serial bus functions Discuss the principles of InfiniBand architecture External Devices An external device attaches to the computer by a link to an I/O module. The link is used to exchange control, status, and data between the I/O module and the external device. External devices can be classified into 3 categories… Human readable – e.g. video display Machine readable – e.g. magnetic disk Communications – e.g. wifi card I/O Modules An I/O module has two major functions… Interface to the processor and memory via the system bus or central switch Interface to one or more peripheral devices by tailored data links Module Functions The major functions or requirements for an I/O module fall into the following categories… Control and timing Processor communication Device communication Data buffering Error detection I/O function includes a control and timing requirement, to coordinate the flow of traffic between internal resources and external devices. Processor communication involves the following… Command decoding Data Status reporting Address recognition The I/O device must be able to perform device communication. This communication involves commands, status information, and data. An essential task of an I/O module is data buffering due to the relative slow speeds of most external devices. An I/O module is often responsible for error detection and for subsequently reporting errors to the processor. I/O Module Structure An I/O module functions to allow the processor to view a wide range of devices in a simple minded way. The I/O module may hide the details of timing, formats, and the electro mechanics of an external device so that the processor can function in terms of simple reads and write commands. An I/O channel/processor is an I/O module that takes on most of the detailed processing burden, presenting a high-level interface to the processor. There are 3 techniques are possible for I/O operations Programmed I/O Interrupt[t I/O DMA Access Programmed I/O When a processor is executing a program and encounters an instruction relating to I/O it executes that instruction by issuing a command to the appropriate I/O module. With programmed I/O, the I/O module will perform the requested action and then set the appropriate bits in the I/O status register. The I/O module takes no further actions to alert the processor. I/O Commands To execute an I/O related instruction, the processor issues an address, specifying the particular I/O module and external device, and an I/O command. There are four types of I/O commands that an I/O module may receive when it is addressed by a processor… Control – used to activate a peripheral and tell it what to do Test – Used to test various status conditions associated with an I/O module and its peripherals Read – Causes the I/O module to obtain an item of data from the peripheral and place it in an internal buffer Write – Causes the I/O module to take an item of data form the data bus and subsequently transmit that data item to the peripheral The main disadvantage of this technique is it is a time consuming process that keeps the processor busy needlessly I/O Instructions With programmed I/O there is a close correspondence between the I/O related instructions that the processor fetches from memory and the I/O commands that the processor issues to an I/O module to execute the instructions. Typically there will be many I/O devices connected through I/O modules to the system – each device is given a unique identifier or address – when the processor issues an I/O command, the command contains the address of the address of the desired device, thus each I/O module must interpret the address lines to determine if the command is for itself. When the processor, main memory and I/O share a common bus, two modes of addressing are possible… Memory mapped I/O Isolated I/O (for a detailed explanation read page 245 of book) The advantage of memory mapped I/O over isolated I/O is that it has a large repertoire of instructions that can be used, allowing more efficient programming. The disadvantage of memory mapped I/O over isolated I/O is that valuable memory address space is sued up. Interrupts driven I/O Interrupt driven I/O works as follows… The processor issues an I/O command to a module and then goes on to do some other useful work The I/O module will then interrupts the processor to request service when is is ready to exchange data with the processor The processor then executes the data transfer and then resumes its former processing Interrupt Processing The occurrence of an interrupt triggers a number of events, both in the processor hardware and in software. When an I/O device completes an I/O operations the following sequence of hardware events occurs… The device issues an interrupt signal to the processor The processor finishes execution of the current instruction before responding to the interrupt The processor tests for an interrupt – determines that there is one – and sends an acknowledgement signal to the device that issues the interrupt. The acknowledgement allows the device to remove its interrupt signal The processor now needs to prepare to transfer control to the interrupt routine. To begin, it needs to save information needed to resume the current program at the point of interrupt. The minimum information required is the status of the processor and the location of the next instruction to be executed. The processor now loads the program counter with the entry location of the interrupt-handling program that will respond to this interrupt. It also saves the values of the process registers because the Interrupt operation may modify these The interrupt handler processes the interrupt – this includes examination of status information relating to the I/O operation or other event that caused an interrupt When interrupt processing is complete, the saved register values are retrieved from the stack and restored to the registers Finally, the PSW and program counter values from the stack are restored. Design Issues Two design issues arise in implementing interrupt I/O Because there will be multiple I/O modules, how does the processor determine which device issued the interrupt? If multiple interrupts have occurred, how does the processor decide which one to process? Addressing device recognition, 4 general categories of techniques are in common use… Multiple interrupt lines Software poll Daisy chain Bus arbitration For a detailed explanation of these approaches read page 250 of the textbook. Interrupt driven I/O while more efficient than simple programmed I/O still requires the active intervention of the processor to transfer data between memory and an I/O module, and any data transfer must traverse a path through the processor. Thus is suffers from two inherent drawbacks… The I/O transfer rate is limited by the speed with which the processor can test and service a device The processor is tied up in managing an I/O transfer; a number of instructions must be executed for each I/O transfer Direct Memory Access When large volumes of data are to be moved, an efficient technique is direct memory access (DMA) DMA Function DMA involves an additional module on the system bus. The DMA module is capable of mimicking the processor and taking over control of the system from the processor. It needs to do this to transfer data to and from memory over the system bus. DMA must the bus only when the processor does not need it, or it must force the processor to suspend operation temporarily (most common – referred to as cycle stealing). When the processor wishes to read or write a block of data, it issues a command to the DMA module by sending to the DMA module the following information… Whether a read or write is requested using the read or write control line between the processor and the DMA module The address of the I/O device involved, communicated on the data lines The starting location in memory to read from or write to, communicated on the data lines and stored by the DMA module in its address register The number of words to be read or written, communicated via the data lines and stored in the data count register The processor then continues with other work, it delegates the I/O operation to the DMA module which transfers the entire block of data, one word at a time, directly to or from memory without going through the processor. When the transfer is complete, the DMA module sends an interrupt signal to the processor, this the processor is involved only at the beginning and end of the transfer. I/O Channels and Processors Characteristics of I/O Channels As one proceeds along the evolutionary path, more and more of the I/O function is performed without CPU involvement. The I/O channel represents an extension of the DMA concept. An I/O channel ahs the ability to execute I/O instructions, which gives it complete control over I/O operations. In a computer system with such devices, the CPU does not execute I/O instructions – such instructions are stored in main memory to be executed by a special purpose processor in the I/O channel itself. Two types of I/O channels are common A selector channel controls multiple high-speed devices. A multiplexor channel can handle I/O with multiple characters as fast as possible to multiple devices. The external interface: FireWire and InfiniBand Types of Interfaces One major characteristic of the interface is whether it is serial or parallel parallel interface – there are multiple lines connecting the I/O module and the peripheral, and multiple bits are transferred simultaneously serial interface – there is only one line used to transmit data, and bits must be transmitted one at a time With new generation serial interfaces, parallel interfaces are becoming less common. In either case, the I/O module must engage in a dialogue with the peripheral. In general terms the dialog may look as follows… The I/O module sends a control signal requesting permission to send data The peripheral acknowledges the request The I/O module transfers data The peripheral acknowledges receipt of data For a detailed explanation of FireWire and InfiniBand technology read page 264 – 270 of the textbook

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 27, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 27, 2012Popular ReleasesHome Access Plus+: v8.0: v8.0827.1800 RELEASE CHANGED TO BETA Any issues, please log them on http://www.edugeek.net/forums/home-access-plus/ This is full release, NO upgrade ZIP will be provided as most files require replacing. To upgrade from a previous version, delete everything but your AppData folder, extract all but the AppData folder and run your HAP+ install Documentation is supplied in the Web Zip The Quota Services require executing a script to register the service, this can be found in there install di...Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.2.0: Major linear algebra rework since v2.1, now available on Codeplex as well (previous versions were only available via NuGet). Also available as NuGet packages: PM> Install-Package MathNet.Numerics PM> Install-Package MathNet.Numerics.FSharp New: instead of the special Silverlight build we now provide a portable version supporting .Net 4, Silverlight 5 and .Net Core (WinRT) 4.5: PM> Install-Package MathNet.Numerics.PortableMetodología General Ajustada - MGA: 03.00.08: Cambios Aury: Cambios realizados en el reporte de la MGA: Errores en la generación cuando se seleccionan todas las opciones y Que sólo se imprima la información de la alternativa seleccionada para el proyecto. Cambios John: Integración de código con cambios enviados por Aury Niño. Generación de instaladores. Soporte técnico por correo electrónico y telefónico.Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0.0.3391 (September 2012): New features: Extended ReflectionClass libxml error handling, constants TreatWarningsAsErrors MSBuild option OnlyPrecompiledCode configuration option; allows to use only compiled code Fixes: ArgsAware exception fix accessing .NET properties bug fix ASP.NET session handler fix for OutOfProc mode Phalanger Tools for Visual Studio: Visual Studio 2010 & 2012 New debugger engine, PHP-like debugging Lot of fixes of project files, formatting, smart indent, colorization etc. Improved ...WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke®: CKEditor Provider 1.14.06: Whats New Added CKEditor 3.6.4 oEmbed Plugin can now handle short urls changes The Template File can now parsed from an xml file instead of js (More Info...) Style Sets can now parsed from an xml file instead of js (More Info...) Fixed Showing wrong Pages in Child Portal in the Link Dialog Fixed Urls in dnnpages Plugin Fixed Issue #6969 WordCount Plugin Fixed Issue #6973 File-Browser: Fixed Deleting of Files File-Browser: Improved loading time File-Browser: Improved the loa...MabiCommerce: MabiCommerce 1.0.1: What's NewSetup now creates shortcuts Fix spelling errors Minor enhancement to the Map window.ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5.2: This release has been built from the 2.5 branch. Version 2.5.2 is functionally identical to the 2.5.1 release but also includes the XML documentation comments file generated by Visual Studio. It is not 100% comprehensive but it will give you Visual Studio IntelliSense for a large part of the API. Just make sure the ScintillaNET.xml file is in the same folder as the ScintillaNET.dll reference you're using in your projects. (The XML file does not need to be distributed with your application)....TouchInjector: TouchInjector 1.1: Version 1.1: fixed a bug with the autorun optionWinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.2.0: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.1: 2012.08.25 Ver5.7.1 (1)?????·?????LING?????????????? (2)SMTP???（????）????、?????\?????????????????????Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: 00.00.09 for DNN6: Probably the final VS2010 Release as I have some new VS2012 templates coming. BEFORE USE YOU need to install the MSBuild Community Tasks available from https://github.com/loresoft/msbuildtasks/downloads For best results you should configure your development environment as described in this blog post Then read this latest blog post about customizing and using these custom templates. Installation is simple To use this template place the ZIP (not extracted) file in your My Documents\Visual ...Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide: v2 - Visual Studio 2012: Welcome to the Branching and Merging Guide Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has been through an independent technical review Documentation has been reviewed by the quality and recording team All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issues / Bugs Spelling, grammar and content revisions are in progress. Hotfix will be published.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.62: Fix for issue #18525 - escaped characters in CSS identifiers get double-escaped if the character immediately after the backslash is not normally allowed in an identifier. fixed symbol problem with nuget package. 4.62 should have nuget symbols available again. Also want to highlight again the breaking change introduced in 4.61 regarding the renaming of the DLL from AjaxMin.dll to AjaxMinLibrary.dll to fix strong-name collisions between the DLL and the EXE. Please be aware of this change and...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.65: As some of you may know we were planning to release version 2.70 much later (the end of September). But today we have to release this intermediate version (2.65). It fixes a critical issue caused by a third-party assembly when running nopCommerce on a server with .NET 4.5 installed. No major features have been introduced with this release as our development efforts were focused on further enhancements and fixing bugs. To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes p...MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.2.9: . Fix: Some missing changes for fixing the window subclassing crash. · Fix: fixed bug when Run MyRouter at the first Time. · Fix: Log File · Fix: improve performance speed application · fix: solve some Exception.TFS Project Test Migrator: TestPlanMigration v1.0.0: Release 1.0.0 This first version do not create the test cases in the target project because the goal was to restore a Test Plan + Test Suite hierarchy after a manual user deletion without restoring all the Project Collection Database. As I discovered, deleting a Test Plan will do the following : - Delete all TestSuiteEntry (the link between a Test Suite node and a Test Case) - Delete all TestSuite (the nodes in the test hierarchy), including root TestSuite - Delete the TestPlan Test c...ERPStore eCommerce FrontOffice: ERPStore.Core V4.0.0.2 MVC4 RTM: ERPStore.Core V4.0.0.2 MVC4 RTM (Code Source)ZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.8.0.0: sync with rev. 2393 of the java version improved API, direct support for multiple barcode decoding, wrapper for barcode generating many other improvements and fixes encoder and decoder command line clients demo client for emguCV dev documentation startedMFCMAPI: August 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1035 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgePulse: Pulse Beta 5: Whats new in this release? Well to start with we now have Wallbase.cc Authentication! so you can access favorites or NSFW. This version requires .NET 4.0, you probably already have it, but if you don't it's a free and easy download from Microsoft. Pulse can bet set to start on Windows startup now too. The Wallpaper setter has settings now, so you can change the background color of the desktop and the Picture Position (Tile/Center/Fill/etc...) I've switched to Windows Forms instead of WPF...New ProjectsAStar Sample WPF Application by Ben Scharbach: The A* Pathfinding component contains an A* Manager, with three A* path finding engines, allowing for 3 simultaneous path searches on PC and XBOX. - By BenContactor: Programs and Schematics for sending a Short Message Service from a computer.JCI Page: gfdsgfdsgfdsL-Calc: Przykladowy kalkulator liczacy indukcyjnosc poprzez odczyt czestotliwosci obwodu rezonansowego.LibXmlSocket: XmlSocket LibraryNavegar: WPF Navigation pour MVVM Light et SimpleIocNUnit Comparisons: A set of libraries which extend the NUnit constraint framework to support deeper comparisons and report detailed differences useful to test debugging. ORMAC: ORMAC is a micro .NET ORM PersonalDataCenter: PDCNet1Project WarRoom: An experimental chatroom jQuery widget for instant messaging functionality on web applications.Quantum.Net: Quantum.Net is a free computation library developp in C#. Contains some mathematics functions and physical element.Specification Framework: A small framework to get started with a type safe variation of the specification pattern.Sphere Community: Sphere Community Pack 2.0TouchInjector: Generate Windows 8 Touch from TUIO messages.

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• WSDL-world vs CLR-world – some differences

  - by nmarun

  A change in mindset is required when switching between a typical CLR application and a web service application. There are some things in a CLR environment that just don’t add-up in a WSDL arena (and vice-versa). I’m listing some of them here. When I say WSDL-world, I’m mostly talking with respect to a WCF Service and / or a Web Service. No (direct) Method Overloading: You definitely can have overloaded methods in a, say, Console application, but when it comes to a WCF / Web Services application, you need to adorn these overloaded methods with a special attribute so the service knows which specific method to invoke. When you’re working with WCF, use the Name property of the OperationContract attribute to provide unique names. 1: [OperationContract(Name = "AddInt")] 2: int Add(int arg1, int arg2); 3:  4: [OperationContract(Name = "AddDouble")] 5: double Add(double arg1, double arg2); By default, the proxy generates the code for this as: 1: [System.ServiceModel.OperationContractAttribute( 2: Action="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfService/AddInt", 3: ReplyAction="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfService/AddIntResponse")] 4: int AddInt(int arg1, int arg2); 5: 6: [System.ServiceModel.OperationContractAttribute( 7: Action="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfServiceExtend/AddDouble", 8: ReplyAction="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfServiceExtend/AddDoubleResponse")] 9: double AddDouble(double arg1, double arg2); With Web Services though the story is slightly different. Even after setting the MessageName property of the WebMethod attribute, the proxy does not change the name of the method, but only the underlying soap message changes. 1: [WebMethod] 2: public string HelloGalaxy() 3: { 4: return "Hello Milky Way!"; 5: } 6:  7: [WebMethod(MessageName = "HelloAnyGalaxy")] 8: public string HelloGalaxy(string galaxyName) 9: { 10: return string.Format("Hello {0}!", galaxyName); 11: } The one thing you need to remember is to set the WebServiceBinding accordingly. 1: [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.None)] The proxy is: 1: [System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapDocumentMethodAttribute("http://tempuri.org/HelloGalaxy", 2: RequestNamespace="http://tempuri.org/", 3: ResponseNamespace="http://tempuri.org/", 4: Use=System.Web.Services.Description.SoapBindingUse.Literal, 5: ParameterStyle=System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapParameterStyle.Wrapped)] 6: public string HelloGalaxy() 7:  8: [System.Web.Services.WebMethodAttribute(MessageName="HelloGalaxy1")] 9: [System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapDocumentMethodAttribute("http://tempuri.org/HelloAnyGalaxy", 10: RequestElementName="HelloAnyGalaxy", 11: RequestNamespace="http://tempuri.org/", 12: ResponseElementName="HelloAnyGalaxyResponse", 13: ResponseNamespace="http://tempuri.org/", 14: Use=System.Web.Services.Description.SoapBindingUse.Literal, 15: ParameterStyle=System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapParameterStyle.Wrapped)] 16: [return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("HelloAnyGalaxyResult")] 17: public string HelloGalaxy(string galaxyName) 18:  You see the calling method name is the same in the proxy, however the soap message that gets generated is different. Using interchangeable data types: See details on this here. Type visibility: In a CLR-based application, if you mark a field as private, well we all know, it’s ‘private’. Coming to a WSDL side of things, in a Web Service, private fields and web methods will not get generated in the proxy. In WCF however, all your operation contracts will be public as they get implemented from an interface. Even in case your ServiceContract interface is declared internal/private, you will see it as a public interface in the proxy. This is because type visibility is a CLR concept and has no bearing on WCF. Also if a private field has the [DataMember] attribute in a data contract, it will get emitted in the proxy class as a public property for the very same reason. 1: [DataContract] 2: public struct Person 3: { 4: [DataMember] 5: private int _x; 6:  7: [DataMember] 8: public int Id { get; set; } 9:  10: [DataMember] 11: public string FirstName { get; set; } 12:  13: [DataMember] 14: public string Header { get; set; } 15: } 16: } See the ‘_x’ field is a private member with the [DataMember] attribute, but the proxy class shows as below: 1: [System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMemberAttribute()] 2: public int _x { 3: get { 4: return this._xField; 5: } 6: set { 7: if ((this._xField.Equals(value) != true)) { 8: this._xField = value; 9: this.RaisePropertyChanged("_x"); 10: } 11: } 12: } Passing derived types to web methods / operation contracts: Once again, in a CLR application, I can have a derived class be passed as a parameter where a base class is expected. I have the following set up for my WCF service. 1: [DataContract] 2: public class Employee 3: { 4: [DataMember(Name = "Id")] 5: public int EmployeeId { get; set; } 6:  7: [DataMember(Name="FirstName")] 8: public string FName { get; set; } 9:  10: [DataMember] 11: public string Header { get; set; } 12: } 13:  14: [DataContract] 15: public class Manager : Employee 16: { 17: [DataMember] 18: private int _x; 19: } 20:  21: // service contract 22: [OperationContract] 23: Manager SaveManager(Employee employee); 24:  25: // in my calling code 26: Manager manager = new Manager {_x = 1, FirstName = "abc"}; 27: manager = LearnWcfServiceClient.SaveManager(manager); The above will throw an exception saying: In short, this is saying, that a Manager type was found where an Employee type was expected! Hierarchy flattening of interfaces in WCF: See details on this here. In CLR world, you’ll see the entire hierarchy as is. That’s another difference. Using ref parameters: * can use ref for parameters, but operation contract should not be one-way (gives an error when you do an update service reference)   => bad programming; create a return object that is composed of everything you need! This one kind of stumped me. Not sure why I tried this, but you can pass parameters prefixed with ref keyword* (* terms and conditions apply). The main issue is this, how would we know the changes that were made to a ‘ref’ input parameter are returned back from the service and updated to the local variable? Turns out both Web Services and WCF make this tracking happen by passing the input parameter in the response soap. This way when the deserializer does its magic, it maps all the elements of the response xml thereby updating our local variable. Here’s what I’m talking about. 1: [WebMethod(MessageName = "HelloAnyGalaxy")] 2: public string HelloGalaxy(ref string galaxyName) 3: { 4: string output = string.Format("Hello {0}", galaxyName); 5: if (galaxyName == "Andromeda") 6: { 7: galaxyName = string.Format("{0} (2.5 million light-years away)", galaxyName); 8: } 9: return output; 10: } This is how the request and response look like in soapUI. As I said above, the behavior is quite similar for WCF as well. But the catch comes when you have a one-way web methods / operation contracts. If you have an operation contract whose return type is void, is marked one-way and that has ref parameters then you’ll get an error message when you try to reference such a service. 1: [OperationContract(Name = "Sum", IsOneWay = true)] 2: void Sum(ref double arg1, ref double arg2); 3:  4: public void Sum(ref double arg1, ref double arg2) 5: { 6: arg1 += arg2; 7: } This is what I got when I did an update to my service reference: Makes sense, because a OneWay operation is… one-way – there’s no returning from this operation. You can also have a one-way web method: 1: [SoapDocumentMethod(OneWay = true)] 2: [WebMethod(MessageName = "HelloAnyGalaxy")] 3: public void HelloGalaxy(ref string galaxyName) This will throw an exception message similar to the one above when you try to update your web service reference. In the CLR space, there’s no such concept of a ‘one-way’ street! Yes, there’s void, but you very well can have ref parameters returned through such a method. Just a point here; although the ref/out concept sounds cool, it’s generally is a code-smell. The better approach is to always return an object that is composed of everything you need returned from a method. These are some of the differences that we need to bear when dealing with services that are different from our daily ‘CLR’ life.

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• Spooling in SQL execution plans

  - by Rob Farley

  Sewing has never been my thing. I barely even know the terminology, and when discussing this with American friends, I even found out that half the words that Americans use are different to the words that English and Australian people use. That said – let’s talk about spools! In particular, the Spool operators that you find in some SQL execution plans. This post is for T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by me! I’ve chosen to write about spools because they seem to get a bad rap (even in my song I used the line “There’s spooling from a CTE, they’ve got recursion needlessly”). I figured it was worth covering some of what spools are about, and hopefully explain why they are remarkably necessary, and generally very useful. If you have a look at the Books Online page about Plan Operators, at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191158.aspx, and do a search for the word ‘spool’, you’ll notice it says there are 46 matches. 46! Yeah, that’s what I thought too... Spooling is mentioned in several operators: Eager Spool, Lazy Spool, Index Spool (sometimes called a Nonclustered Index Spool), Row Count Spool, Spool, Table Spool, and Window Spool (oh, and Cache, which is a special kind of spool for a single row, but as it isn’t used in SQL 2012, I won’t describe it any further here). Spool, Table Spool, Index Spool, Window Spool and Row Count Spool are all physical operators, whereas Eager Spool and Lazy Spool are logical operators, describing the way that the other spools work. For example, you might see a Table Spool which is either Eager or Lazy. A Window Spool can actually act as both, as I’ll mention in a moment. In sewing, cotton is put onto a spool to make it more useful. You might buy it in bulk on a cone, but if you’re going to be using a sewing machine, then you quite probably want to have it on a spool or bobbin, which allows it to be used in a more effective way. This is the picture that I want you to think about in relation to your data. I’m sure you use spools every time you use your sewing machine. I know I do. I can’t think of a time when I’ve got out my sewing machine to do some sewing and haven’t used a spool. However, I often run SQL queries that don’t use spools. You see, the data that is consumed by my query is typically in a useful state without a spool. It’s like I can just sew with my cotton despite it not being on a spool! Many of my favourite features in T-SQL do like to use spools though. This looks like a very similar query to before, but includes an OVER clause to return a column telling me the number of rows in my data set. I’ll describe what’s going on in a few paragraphs’ time. So what does a Spool operator actually do? The spool operator consumes a set of data, and stores it in a temporary structure, in the tempdb database. This structure is typically either a Table (ie, a heap), or an Index (ie, a b-tree). If no data is actually needed from it, then it could also be a Row Count spool, which only stores the number of rows that the spool operator consumes. A Window Spool is another option if the data being consumed is tightly linked to windows of data, such as when the ROWS/RANGE clause of the OVER clause is being used. You could maybe think about the type of spool being like whether the cotton is going onto a small bobbin to fit in the base of the sewing machine, or whether it’s a larger spool for the top. A Table or Index Spool is either Eager or Lazy in nature. Eager and Lazy are Logical operators, which talk more about the behaviour, rather than the physical operation. If I’m sewing, I can either be all enthusiastic and get all my cotton onto the spool before I start, or I can do it as I need it. “Lazy” might not the be the best word to describe a person – in the SQL world it describes the idea of either fetching all the rows to build up the whole spool when the operator is called (Eager), or populating the spool only as it’s needed (Lazy). Window Spools are both physical and logical. They’re eager on a per-window basis, but lazy between windows. And when is it needed? The way I see it, spools are needed for two reasons. 1 – When data is going to be needed AGAIN. 2 – When data needs to be kept away from the original source. If you’re someone that writes long stored procedures, you are probably quite aware of the second scenario. I see plenty of stored procedures being written this way – where the query writer populates a temporary table, so that they can make updates to it without risking the original table. SQL does this too. Imagine I’m updating my contact list, and some of my changes move data to later in the book. If I’m not careful, I might update the same row a second time (or even enter an infinite loop, updating it over and over). A spool can make sure that I don’t, by using a copy of the data. This problem is known as the Halloween Effect (not because it’s spooky, but because it was discovered in late October one year). As I’m sure you can imagine, the kind of spool you’d need to protect against the Halloween Effect would be eager, because if you’re only handling one row at a time, then you’re not providing the protection... An eager spool will block the flow of data, waiting until it has fetched all the data before serving it up to the operator that called it. In the query below I’m forcing the Query Optimizer to use an index which would be upset if the Name column values got changed, and we see that before any data is fetched, a spool is created to load the data into. This doesn’t stop the index being maintained, but it does mean that the index is protected from the changes that are being done. There are plenty of times, though, when you need data repeatedly. Consider the query I put above. A simple join, but then counting the number of rows that came through. The way that this has executed (be it ideal or not), is to ask that a Table Spool be populated. That’s the Table Spool operator on the top row. That spool can produce the same set of rows repeatedly. This is the behaviour that we see in the bottom half of the plan. In the bottom half of the plan, we see that the a join is being done between the rows that are being sourced from the spool – one being aggregated and one not – producing the columns that we need for the query. Table v Index When considering whether to use a Table Spool or an Index Spool, the question that the Query Optimizer needs to answer is whether there is sufficient benefit to storing the data in a b-tree. The idea of having data in indexes is great, but of course there is a cost to maintaining them. Here we’re creating a temporary structure for data, and there is a cost associated with populating each row into its correct position according to a b-tree, as opposed to simply adding it to the end of the list of rows in a heap. Using a b-tree could even result in page-splits as the b-tree is populated, so there had better be a reason to use that kind of structure. That all depends on how the data is going to be used in other parts of the plan. If you’ve ever thought that you could use a temporary index for a particular query, well this is it – and the Query Optimizer can do that if it thinks it’s worthwhile. It’s worth noting that just because a Spool is populated using an Index Spool, it can still be fetched using a Table Spool. The details about whether or not a Spool used as a source shows as a Table Spool or an Index Spool is more about whether a Seek predicate is used, rather than on the underlying structure. Recursive CTE I’ve already shown you an example of spooling when the OVER clause is used. You might see them being used whenever you have data that is needed multiple times, and CTEs are quite common here. With the definition of a set of data described in a CTE, if the query writer is leveraging this by referring to the CTE multiple times, and there’s no simplification to be leveraged, a spool could theoretically be used to avoid reapplying the CTE’s logic. Annoyingly, this doesn’t happen. Consider this query, which really looks like it’s using the same data twice. I’m creating a set of data (which is completely deterministic, by the way), and then joining it back to itself. There seems to be no reason why it shouldn’t use a spool for the set described by the CTE, but it doesn’t. On the other hand, if we don’t pull as many columns back, we might see a very different plan. You see, CTEs, like all sub-queries, are simplified out to figure out the best way of executing the whole query. My example is somewhat contrived, and although there are plenty of cases when it’s nice to give the Query Optimizer hints about how to execute queries, it usually doesn’t do a bad job, even without spooling (and you can always use a temporary table). When recursion is used, though, spooling should be expected. Consider what we’re asking for in a recursive CTE. We’re telling the system to construct a set of data using an initial query, and then use set as a source for another query, piping this back into the same set and back around. It’s very much a spool. The analogy of cotton is long gone here, as the idea of having a continual loop of cotton feeding onto a spool and off again doesn’t quite fit, but that’s what we have here. Data is being fed onto the spool, and getting pulled out a second time when the spool is used as a source. (This query is running on AdventureWorks, which has a ManagerID column in HumanResources.Employee, not AdventureWorks2012) The Index Spool operator is sucking rows into it – lazily. It has to be lazy, because at the start, there’s only one row to be had. However, as rows get populated onto the spool, the Table Spool operator on the right can return rows when asked, ending up with more rows (potentially) getting back onto the spool, ready for the next round. (The Assert operator is merely checking to see if we’ve reached the MAXRECURSION point – it vanishes if you use OPTION (MAXRECURSION 0), which you can try yourself if you like). Spools are useful. Don’t lose sight of that. Every time you use temporary tables or table variables in a stored procedure, you’re essentially doing the same – don’t get upset at the Query Optimizer for doing so, even if you think the spool looks like an expensive part of the query. I hope you’re enjoying this T-SQL Tuesday. Why not head over to my post that is hosting it this month to read about some other plan operators? At some point I’ll write a summary post – once I have you should find a comment below pointing at it. @rob_farley

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• 'Content' is NOT 'Text' in XAML

  - by psheriff

  One of the key concepts in XAML is that the Content property of a XAML control like a Button or ComboBoxItem does not have to contain just textual data. In fact, Content can be almost any other XAML that you want. To illustrate here is a simple example of how to spruce up your Button controls in Silverlight. Here is some very simple XAML that consists of two Button controls within a StackPanel on a Silverlight User Control. <StackPanel>  <Button Name="btnHome"          HorizontalAlignment="Left"          Content="Home" />  <Button Name="btnLog"          HorizontalAlignment="Left"          Content="Logs" /></StackPanel> The XAML listed above will produce a Silverlight control within a Browser that looks like Figure 1.   Figure 1: Normal button controls are quite boring. With just a little bit of refactoring to move the button attributes into Styles, we can make the buttons look a little better. I am a big believer in Styles, so I typically create a Resources section within my user control where I can factor out the common attribute settings for a particular set of controls. Here is a Resources section that I added to my Silverlight user control. <UserControl.Resources>  <Style TargetType="Button"         x:Key="NormalButton">    <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment"            Value="Left" />    <Setter Property="MinWidth"            Value="50" />    <Setter Property="Margin"            Value="10" />  </Style></UserControl.Resources> Now back in the XAML within the Grid control I update the Button controls to use the Style attribute and have each button use the Static Resource called NormalButton. <StackPanel>  <Button Name="btnHome"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}"          Content="Home" />  <Button Name="btnLog"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}"          Content="Logs" /></StackPanel> With the additional attributes set in the Resources section on the Button, the above XAML will now display the two buttons as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Use Resources to Make Buttons More Consistent Now let’s re-design these buttons even more. Instead of using words for each button, let’s replace the Content property to use a picture. As they say… a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s take advantage of that. Modify each of the Button controls and eliminate the Content attribute and instead, insert an <Image> control with the <Button> and the </Button> tags. Add a ToolTip to still display the words you had before in the Content and you will now have better looking buttons, as shown in Figure 3.   Figure 3: Using pictures instead of words can be an effective method of communication The XAML to produce Figure 3 is shown in the following listing: <StackPanel>  <Button Name="btnHome"          ToolTipService.ToolTip="Home"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}">    <Image Style="{StaticResource NormalImage}"            Source="Images/Home.jpg" />  </Button>  <Button Name="btnLog"          ToolTipService.ToolTip="Logs"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}">    <Image Style="{StaticResource NormalImage}"            Source="Images/Log.jpg" />  </Button></StackPanel> You will also need to add the following XAML to the User Control’s Resources section. <Style TargetType="Image"        x:Key="NormalImage">  <Setter Property="Width"          Value="50" /></Style> Add Multiple Controls to Content Now, since the Content can be whatever we want, you could also modify the Content of each button to be a StackPanel control. Then you can have an image and text within the button. <StackPanel>  <Button Name="btnHome"          ToolTipService.ToolTip="Home"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}">    <StackPanel>      <Image Style="{StaticResource NormalImage}"              Source="Images/Home.jpg" />      <TextBlock Text="Home"                  Style="{StaticResource NormalTextBlock}" />    </StackPanel>  </Button>  <Button Name="btnLog"          ToolTipService.ToolTip="Logs"          Style="{StaticResource NormalButton}">    <StackPanel>      <Image Style="{StaticResource NormalImage}"              Source="Images/Log.jpg" />      <TextBlock Text="Logs"                  Style="{StaticResource NormalTextBlock}" />    </StackPanel>  </Button></StackPanel> You will need to add one more resource for the TextBlock control too. <Style TargetType="TextBlock"        x:Key="NormalTextBlock">  <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment"          Value="Center" /></Style> All of the above will now produce the following:   Figure 4: Add multiple controls to the content to make your buttons even more interesting. Summary While this is a simple example, you can see how XAML Content has great flexibility. You could add a MediaElement control as the content of a Button and play a video within the Button. Not that you would necessarily do this, but it does work. What is nice about adding different content within the Button control is you still get the Click event and other attributes of a button, but it does necessarily look like a normal button. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free video on Silverlight entitled "Silverlight XAML for the Complete Novice - Part 1."

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