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• Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Tips and Tricks&ndash;Part 1: Extensions

  - by ToStringTheory

  I don’t know about you, but when it comes to development, I prefer my environment to be as free of clutter as possible.  It may surprise you to know that I have tried ReSharper, and did not like it, for the reason that I stated above.  In my opinion, it had too much clutter.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of features that I did like about it (inversion of if blocks, code feedback), but for the most part, I actually felt that it was slowing me down. Introduction Another large factor besides intrusiveness/speed in my choice to dislike ReSharper would probably be that I have become comfortable with my current setup and extensions.  I believe I have a good collection, and am quite happy with what I can accomplish in a short amount of time.  I figured that I would share some of my tips/findings regarding Visual Studio productivity here, and see what you had to say. The first section of things that I would like to cover, are Visual Studio Extensions.  In case you have been living under a rock for the past several years, Extensions are available under the Tools menu in Visual Studio: The extension manager enables integrated access to the Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery online with access to a few thousand different extensions.  I have tried many extensions, but for reasons of lack reliability, usability, or features, have uninstalled almost all of them.  However, I have come across several that I find I can not do without anymore: NuGet Package Manager (Microsoft) Perspectives (Adam Driscoll) Productivity Power Tools (Microsoft) Web Essentials (Mads Kristensen) Extensions NuGet Package Manager To be honest, I debated on whether or not to put this in here.  Most people seem to have it, however, there was a time when I didn’t, and was always confused when blogs/posts would say to right click and “Add Package Reference…” which with one of the latest updates is now “Manage NuGet Packages”.  So, if you haven’t downloaded the NuGet Package Manager yet, or don’t know what it is, I would highly suggest downloading it now! Features Simply put, the NuGet Package Manager gives you a GUI and command line to access different libraries that have been uploaded to NuGet. Some of its features include: Ability to search NuGet for packages via the GUI, with information in the detail bar on the right. Quick access to see what packages are in a solution, and what packages have updates available, with easy 1-click updating. If you download a package that requires references to work on other NuGet packages, they will be downloaded and referenced automatically. Productivity Tip If you use any type of source control in Visual Studio as well as using NuGet packages, be sure to right-click on the solution and click "Enable NuGet Package Restore". What this does is add a NuGet package to the solution so that it will be checked in along side your solution, as well as automatically grab packages from NuGet on build if needed. This is an extremely simple system to use to manage your package references, instead of having to manually go into TFS and add the Packages folder. Perspectives I can't stand developing with just one monitor. Especially if it comes to debugging. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010, is that all of the panels and windows are floatable, and can dock to other screens. The only bad thing is, I don't use the same toolset with everything that I am doing. By this, I mean that I don't use all of the same windows for debugging a web application, as I do for coding a WPF application. Only thing is, Visual Studio doesn't save the screen positions for all of the undocked windows. So, I got curious one day and decided to check and see if there was an extension to help out. This is where I found Perspectives. Features Perspectives gives you the ability to configure window positions across any or your monitors, and then to save the positions in a profile. Perspectives offers a Panel to manage different presets/favorites, and a toolbar to add to the toolbars at the top of Visual Studio. Ability to 'Favorite' a profile to add it to the perspectives toolbar. Productivity Tip Take the time to setup profiles for each of your scenarios - debugging web/winforms/xaml, coding, maintenance, etc. Try to remember to use the profiles for a few days, and at the end of a week, you may find that your productivity was never better. Productivity Power Tools Ah, the Productivity Power Tools... Quite possibly one of my most used extensions, if not my most used. The tool pack gives you a variety of enhancements ranging from key shortcuts, interface tweaks, and completely new features to Visual Studio 2010. Features I don't want to bore you with all of the features here, so here are my favorite: Quick Find - Unobtrusive search box in upper-right corner of the code window. Great for searching in general, especially in a file. Solution Navigator - The 'Solution Explorer' on steroids. Easy to search for files, see defined members/properties/methods in files, and my favorite feature is the 'set as root' option. Updated 'Add Reference...' Dialog - This is probably my favorite enhancement period... The 'Add Reference...' dialog redone in a manner that resembles the Extension/Package managers. I especially love the ability to search through all of the references. "Ctrl - Click" for Definition - I am still getting used to this as I usually try to use my keyboard for everything, but I love the ability to hold Ctrl and turn property/methods/variables into hyperlinks, that you click on to see their definitions. Great for travelling down a rabbit hole in an application to research problems. While there are other commands/utilities, I find these to be the ones that I lean on the most for the usefulness. Web Essentials If you have do any type of web development in ASP .Net, ASP .Net MVC, even HTML, I highly suggest grabbing the Web Essentials right NOW! This extension alone is great for productivity in web development, and greatly decreases my development time on new features. Features Some of its best features include: CSS Previews - I say 'previews' because of the multiple kinds of previews in CSS that you get font-family, color, background/background-image previews. This is great for just tweaking UI slightly in different ways and seeing how they look in the CSS window at a glance. Live Preview - One word - awesome! This goes well with my multi-monitor setup. I put the site on one monitor in a Live Preview panel, and then as I make changes to CSS/cshtml/aspx/html, the preview window will update with each save/build automatically. For CSS, you can even turn on live-update, so as you are tweaking CSS, the style changes in real time. Great for tweaking colors or font-sizes. Outlining - Small, but I like to be able to collapse regions/declarations that are in the way of new work, or are just distracting. Commenting Shortcuts - I don't know why it wasn't included by default, but it is nice to have the key shortcuts for commenting working in the CSS editor as well. Productivity Tip When working on a site, hit CTRL-ALT-ENTER to launch the Live Preview window. Dock it to another monitor. When you make changes to the document/css, just save and glance at the other monitor. No need to alt tab, then alt tab before continuing editing. Conclusion These extensions are only the most useful and least intrusive - ones that I use every day. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010 is the extensibility options that it gives developers to utilize. Have an extension that you use that isn't intrusive, but isn't listed here? Please, feel free to comment. I love trying new things, and am always looking for new additions to my toolset of the most useful. Finally, please keep an eye out for Part 2 on key shortcuts in Visual Studio. Also, if you are visiting my site (http://tostringtheory.com || http://geekswithblogs.net/tostringtheory) from an actual browser and not a feed, please let me know what you think of the new styling!

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• How I Work: Staying Productive Whilst Traveling

  - by BuckWoody

  I travel a lot. Not like some folks that are gone every week, mind you, although in the last month I’ve been to: Cambridge, UK; Anchorage, AK; San Jose, CA; Copenhagen, DK, Boston, MA; and I’m currently en-route to Anaheim, CA.  While this many places in a month is a bit unusual for me, I would say I travel frequently. I’ve travelled most of my 28+ years in IT, and at one time was a consultant traveling weekly.   With that much time away from my primary work location, I have to find ways to stay productive. Some might say “just rest – take a nap!” – but I’m not able to do that. For one thing, I’m a very light sleeper and I’ve never slept on a plane - even a 30+ hour trip to New Zealand in Business Class - so that just isn’t option. I also am not always in the plane, of course. There’s the hotel, the taxi/bus/train, the airport and then all that over again when I arrive. Since my regular jobs have many demands, I have to get work done.   Note: No, I’m not always focused on work. I need downtime just like everyone else. Sometimes I just think, watch a movie or listen to tunes – and I give myself permission to do that anytime – sometimes the whole trip. I have too fewheartbeats left in life to only focus on work – it’s just not that important, and neither am I. Some of these tasks are letters to friends and family, or other personal things. What I’m talking about here is a plan, not some task list I have to follow. When I get to the location I’m traveling to, I always build in as much time as I can to ensure I enjoy those sights and the people I’m with. I would find traveling to be a waste if not for that.   The Unrealistic Expectation As I would evaluate the trip I was taking – say a 6-8 hour flight – I would expect to get 10-12 hours of work done. After all, there’s the time at the airport, the taxi and so on, and then of course the time in the air with all of the room, power, internet and everything else I needed to get my work done. I would pile up tasks at home, pack my bags, and head happily to the magical land of the TSA.   Right. On return from the trip, I had accomplished little, had more e-mails and other work that had piled up, and I was tired, hungry, and unorganized. This had to change. So, I decided to do three things: Segment my work Set realistic expectations Plan accordingly  Segmenting By Available Resources The first task was to decide what kind of work I could do in each location – if any. I found that I was dependent on a few things to get work done, such as power, the Internet, and a place to sit down. Before I fly, I take some time at home to get all of the work I’d like to accomplish while away segmented into these areas, and print that out on paper, which goes in my suit-coat pocket along with a mechanical pencil. I print my tickets, and I’m all set for the adventure ahead. Then I simply do each kind of work whenever I’m in that situation. No power There are certain times when I don’t have power available. But not only that, I might not even be able to use most of my electronics. So I now schedule as many phone calls as I can for the taxi/bus/train ride and the airports as I can. I have a paper notebook (Moleskine, of course) and a pencil and I print out any notes or numbers I need prior to the trip. Once I’m airborne or at the airport, I work on my laptop. I check and respond to e-mails, create slides, write code, do architecture, whatever I can.  If I can’t use any electronics, or once the power runs out, I schedule time for reading. I can read at the airport or anywhere, actually, even in-flight or any other transport. I “read with a pencil”, meaning I take a lot of notes, which I liketo put in OneNote, but since in most cases I don’t have power, I use the Moleskine to do that. Speaking of which, sometimes as I’m thinking I come up with new topics, ideas, blog posts, or things to teach in my classes. Once again I take out the notebook and write it down. All of these notes get a check-mark when I get back to the office and transfer the writing to OneNote. I’ve tried those “smart pens” and so on to automate this, but it just never works out. Pencil and paper are just fine. As I mentioned, sometime I just need to think. I’ll do nothing, and let my mind wander, thinking of nothing in particular, or some math problem or science question I’m interested in. My only issue with this is that I communicate tothink, and I don’t want to drive people crazy by being that guy that won’t shut up, so I think in a different way. Power, but no Internet or Phone If I have power but no Internet or phone, I focus on the laptop and the tablet as before, and I also recharge my other gadgets. Power, Internet, Phone and a Place to Work At first I thought that when I arrived at the hotel or event I could get the same amount of work done that I do at the office. Not so. There’s simply too many distractions, things you need, or other issues that allow this. Of course, Ican work on any device, read, think, write or whatever, but I am simply not as productive as I am in my home office. So I plan for about 25-50% as much work getting done in this environment as I think I could really do. I’ve done some measurements, and this holds out to be true almost every time. The key is that I re-set my expectations (and my co-worker’s expectations as well) that this is the case. I use the Out-Of-Office notices to let people know that I’m just not going to be 100% at this time – it’s hard for everyone, but it’s more honest and realistic, and I’d rather they know that – and that I realize that – than to let them think I’m totally available. Because I’m not – I’m traveling. I don’t tend to put too much detail, because after all I don’t necessarily want to let people know when I’m not home :) but I do think it’s important to let people that depend on my know that I’ll get back with them later. I hope this helps you think through your own methodology of staying productive when you travel. Or perhaps you just go offline, and don’t worry about any of this – good for you! That’s completely valid as well.   (Oh, and yes, I wrote this at 35K feet, on Alaska Airlines on a trip. :)  Practice what you preach, Buck.)

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• I Know What I Did This Summer: Put Down Trex Decking

  - by thatjeffsmith

  If you’re wondering why I would bore everyone with my pictures and frequent status updates/tweets from the past week – it’s so I could document the process of refurbishing my deck, or what some would call a porch. When we go to take a vacation, buy a car, do anything – we also read personal blogs to get the real story. So, if you’re curious about what it takes to tackle this sort of project, read on. Skills/Equipment/Manpower We Possessed I took the old decking out by myself. I’m about 230 lbs, more than 6′ tall, and I’m pretty healthy. This took about 8 hours over two afternoons. Three of us put the deck back together. My wife has two engineering degrees. Her father also has two engineering degrees. Lots of brainpower available here. Also, her dad ran the public works department for a country for more than 20 years – so lots and lots of practical experience on hand. We had a compound mitre saw, a skilsaw, 2-3 crowbars, a framing hammer, 3 cordless drills, a corded drill, lots of sawhorses, a power sander, an angle grinder, a 10×10 Coleman canopy tent, a Ford F-150 pickup truck, outdoor speakers and lots of iTunes playlists, plenty of water and cold beer. Why We Did This Our deck was relatively young – it was built in 2005. However, the pressure treated boards must not have been adequately maintained before we bought the house. I had powerwashed the deck every other year and had it stained a few times. The boards just rotted. We’re going to be in the house for a long time, and we wanted something that would look nice and require little maintenance. More bad deck boards The deck boards were in bad shape Things We Learned The two most important things: The hidden fasteners have to be put in JUST right. Wedge them into the grooved board, then bend down the bit that is screwed down. We didn’t do this on the first board and couldn’t get the second board to fit nearly close enough. Watching the official TREX YouTube video helped immensely, and we should have watched that first. When pre-drilling holes for the boards that need screwed down – DO NOT pre-drill through the underlying framing wood. ONLY pre-drill through the TREX itself. The screw won’t seat in the board properly. Instead of sitting down flush with the board, it will stop at the top of the board and just spin. I had to call the the place that sold me the screws to find this out. So about a third of our screws look like crap. If it doesn’t look or feel right – stop everything and pick up your computer or your phone. It’s not right, and it will be much easier to stop and find out why. We didn’t do this, and now I’m going to see every screw that’s not flush with the boards and get upset. Oh well. The Process How much time did it take? Well I spent about 8 hours taking the deck apart. And then the 3 of use spent 8 hours the first day, 10 hours the second day, 8 hours the third, and another 6 hours on the fourth day. That’s like 104 man-hours. We supposedly saved four or five thousand dollars in labor, but don’t do the math here or you might get a bit upset. The main thing is that we got what we wanted, and there won’t be any surprises later. Now for some pictures… This 6”+ pry bar made the destruction of the old deck much easier Most of the joists, once exposed, were OK. This joist wasn’t sitting on ANYTHING before. We think a lazy gas person cut the board to sneak a gas line in. Awesome… These monster lag bolts had to be accounted for when putting in the additional framing The border pattern Sheri wanted to put in required a lot more framing. These were the first boards to go down – we screwed them in as there was no way to attach clips I sat, kicked in the boards, and then drilled these clips in – but my wife was able to go MUCH faster by using her hands to lock the boards in and drill on her knees. I liked locking the board in with my feet when they needed to be ‘encouraged’ to go straight. The first board took FOREVER to go in, but then when we got rolling, we were able to put in a 20′ board in less than 10 minutes. This was end of construction day #2 – we got much further than we thought we would. Ah, the dreaded last 10% – what to do here? Remember those ‘floating’ stringers? Yeah, we fixed that up a bit, too. My wife used a website (and her brain) to calculate exactly how to cut the stringers to give us the rise/run we needed with the proper clearance and all that jazz. The stairs with stringers and toe kicks – this was worth the effort It started raining on us as I screwed down the steps – this we managed to get our shade tent up on the deck to protect us from the rain too The stairs, finished Finished, mostly Good corner shot The top of the stairs Stairs, looking down Celebratory beer In Summary There are a few things we’re not happy with. I think we can fix them up – but later. I have a few things left to finish, rewire the lighting, get the gas grille put back in, and rehang some screen doors. I was expecting this to be a lot worse than it was. If I didn’t have the help, I would have never done it myself. But I’m glad that I did have that help and did do that project. It’s not often you get to spend that kind of qualify time with family and building cool stuff.

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• Advice for a distracted, unhappy, recently graduated programmer? [closed]

  - by Re-Invent

  I graduated 4 months ago. I had offers from a few good places to work at. At the same time I wanted to stick to building a small software business of my own, still have some ideas with good potential, some half done projects frozen in my github. But due to social pressures, I chose a job, the pay is great, but I am half-passionate about it. A small team of smart folks building useful product, working out contracts across the world. I've started finding it extremely boring. Boring to the extent that I skip 2-3 days a week together not doing work. Neither do I spend that time progressing any of my own projects. Yes, I feel stupid at the way I'm wasting time, but I don't understand exactly why is it happening. It's as if all the excitement has been drained. What can I do about it? Long version: School - I was in third standard. Only students, 6th grade had access to computer labs. I once peeked into the lab from the little door opening. No hard-disks, MS DOS on 5 1/2 inch floppies. I asked a senior student to play some sound in BASIC. He used PLAY to compose a tune. Boy! I was so excited, I was jumping from within. Back home, asked my brother to teach me some programming. We bought a book "MODERN All About GW-BASIC for Schools & Colleges". The book had everything, right from printing, to taking input, file i/o, game programming, machine level support, etc. I was in 6th standard, wrote my first game - a wheel of fortune, rotated the wheel by manipulating 16 color palette's definition. Got internet soon, got hooked to QuickBasic programming community. Made some more games "007 in Danger", "Car Crush 2" for submission to allbasiccode archives. I was extremely excited about all this. My interests now swayed into "hacking" (computer security). Taught myself some perl, found it annoying, learnt PHP and a bit of SQL. Also taught myself Visual Basic one of the winters and wrote a pacman clone with Direct X. By the time I was in 10th standard, I created some evil tools using visual basic, php and mysql and eventually landed myself into an unpaid side-job at a government facility, building evil tools for them. It was a dream come true for crackers of that time. And so was I, still very excited. Things changed soon, last two years of school were not so great as I was balancing preps for college, work at govt. and studies for school at same time. College - College was opposite of all I had wished it to be. I imagined it to be a place where I'd spend my 4 years building something awesome. It was rather an epitome of rote learning, attendance, rules, busy schedules, ban on personal laptops, hardly any hackers surrounding you and shit like that. We had to take permissions to even introduce some cultural/creative activities in our annual schedule. The labs won't be open on weekends because the lab employees had to have their leaves. Yes, a horrible place for someone like me. I still managed to pull out a project with a friend over 2 months. Showed it to people high in the academia hierarchy. They were immensely impressed, we proposed to allow personal computers for students. They made up half-assed reasons and didn't agree. We felt frustrated. And so on, I still managed to teach myself new languages, do new projects of my own, do an intern at the same govt. facility, start a small business for sometime, give a talk at a conference I'm passionate about, win game-dev and hacking contest at most respected colleges, solve good deal of programming contest problems, etc. At the same time I was not content with all these restrictions, great emphasis on rote learning, and sheer wastage of time due to college. I never felt I was overdoing, but now I feel I burnt myself out. During my last days at college, I did an intern at a bigco. While I spent my time building prototypes for certain LBS, the other interns around me, even a good friend, was just skipping time. I thought maybe, in a few weeks he would put in some serious efforts at work assigned to him, but all he did was to find creative ways to skip work, hide his face from manager, engage people in talks if they try to question his progress, etc. I tried a few time to get him on track, but it seems all he wanted was to "not to work hard at all and still reap the fruits". I don't know how others take such people, but I find their vicinity very very poisonous to one's own motivation and productivity. Over that, the place where I come from, HRs don't give much value to what have you done past 4 years. So towards the end of out intern, we all were offered work at the bigco, but the slacker, even after not writing more than 200 lines of code was made a much better offer. I felt enraged instantly - "Is this how the corp world treats someone who does fruitful, if not extra-ordinary work form them for past 6 months?". Yes, I did try to negotiate and debate. The bigcos seem blind due to departmentalization of responsibilities and many layers of management. I decided not to be in touch with any characters of that depressing play. Probably the busy time I had at college, ignoring friends, ignoring fun and squeezing every bit of free time for myself is also responsible. Probably this is what has drained all my willingness to work for anyone. I find my day job boring, at the same time I with to maintain it for financial reasons. I feel a bit burnt out, unsatisfied and at the same time an urge to quit working for someone else and start finishing my frozen side-projects (which may be profitable). Though I haven't got much to support myself with food, office, internet bills, etc in savings. I still have my day job, but I don't find it very interesting, even though the pay is higher than the slacker, I don't find money to be a great motivator here. I keep comparing myself to my past version. I wonder how to get rid of this and reboot myself back to the way I was in school days - excited about it, tinkering, building, learning new things daily, and NOT BORED?

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• Simplifying Human Capital Management with Mobile Applications

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Aaron Green If you're starting to think 'mobility' is a recurring theme in your reading, you'd be right. For those who haven't started to build organisational capabilities to leverage it, it's fair to say you're late to the party. The good news: better late than never. Research firm eMarketer says the worldwide smartphone audience will total 1.75 billion this year, while communications technology and services provider Ericsson suggests smartphones will triple to 5.6 billion globally by 2019. It should be no surprise, smart phone adoption is reaching the farthest corners of the globe; the subsequent impact of enterprise applications enabled by these devices is driving business performance improvement and will continue to do so. Companies using advanced workforce analytics can add significantly to the bottom line, while impacting customer satisfaction, quality and productivity. It's a statement that makes most business leaders sit forward in their chairs. Achieving these three standards is like sipping The Golden Elixir for the business world. No-one would argue their importance. So what are 'advanced workforce analytics?' Simply, they're unprecedented access to workforce trends and performance markers. Many are made possible by a mobile world and the enterprise applications that come with it on smart devices. Some refer to it as 'the consumerisation of IT'. As this phenomenon has matured and become more widely appreciated it has impacted the spectrum of functional units within an enterprise differently, but powerfully. Whether it's sales, HR, marketing, IT, or operations, all have benefited from a more mobile approach. It has been the catalyst for improvement in, and management of, the employee experience. The net result of which is happier customers. The obvious benefits but the lesser realised impact Most people understand that mobility allows for greater efficiency and productivity, collaboration and flexibility, but how that translates into business outcomes within the various functional groups is lesser known. In actuality mobility has helped galvanise partnerships between cross-functional groups within the enterprise. Where in some quarters it was once feared mobility could fragment a workforce, its rallying cry of support is coming from what you might describe as an unlikely source - HR. As the bedrock of an enterprise, it is conceivable HR might contemplate the possible negative impact of a mobile workforce that no-longer sits in an office, at the same desks every day. After all, who would know what they were doing or saying? How would they collaborate? It's reasonable to see why HR might have a legitimate claim to try and retain as much 'perceived control' as possible. The reality however is mobility has emancipated human capital and its management. Mobility and enterprise applications are expediting decision making. Google calls it Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. It enables smoother operation and can contribute to faster growth. From a collaborative perspective, with the growing use of enterprise social media, which in many cases is being driven by HR, workforce planning and the tangible impact of change is much easier to map. This in turn provides a platform from which individuals and teams can thrive. With more agility and ability to anticipate, staff satisfaction and retention is higher, and real time feedback constant. The management team can save time, energy and costs with more accurate data, which is then intelligently applied across the workforce to truly engage with staff, customers and partners. From a human capital management (HCM) perspective, mobility can help you close the loop on true talent management. It can enhance what managers can offer and what employees can provide in return. It can create nested relationships and powerful partnerships. IT and HR - partners and stewards of mobility One effect of enterprise mobility is an evolution in the nature of the relationship between HR and IT from one of service provision to partnership. The reason for the dynamic shift is largely due to the 'bring your own device' (BYOD) movement, which is transitioning to a 'bring your own application' (BYOA) scenario. As enterprise technology has in some ways reverse-engineered its solutions to help manage this situation, the partnership between IT (the functional owner) and HR (the strategic enabler) is deeply entrenched. And it has to be. The CIO and the HR leader are faced with compliance and regulatory issues and concerns around information security and personal privacy on a daily basis, complicated by global reach and varied domestic legislation. There are tens of thousands of new mobile apps entering the market each month and, unlike many consumer applications which get downloaded but are often never opened again after initial perusal, enterprise applications are being relied upon by functional groups, not least by HR to enhance people management. It requires a systematic approach across all applications in use within the enterprise in order to ensure they're used to best effect. No turning back, and no desire to With real time analytics on performance and the ability for immediate feedback, there is no turning back for managers. In my experience with Oracle, our customers' operational efficiency is at record levels. It's clear as a result of the combination of individual KPIs and organisational goals, CIOs have been able to give HR leaders the ability to build predictive models that feed into an enterprise organisations' evolving strategy. It also helps them ensure regulatory compliance much more easily. Once an arduous task, with mobile enabled automation and quality data, compliance is simpler. Their world has changed for the better. For the CIO, mobility also assists them to optimise performance. While it doesn't come without challenges, mobile-enabled applications and the native experience users have with them means employees don't need high-level technical expertise to train users. It reduces the training and engagement required from the IT team so they can focus on other things that deliver value to the bottom line; all the while lowering the cost of assets and related maintenance work by simplifying processes. Rewards of a mobile enterprise outweigh risks With mobile tools allowing us to increasingly integrate our personal and professional lives, terms like "office hours" are becoming irrelevant, so work/life balance is a cultural must. Enterprises are expected to offer tools that enable workers to access information from anywhere, at any time, from any device. Employees want simplicity and convenience but it doesn't stop at private enterprise. This is a societal shift. Governments, which traditionally have been known to be slower to adopt newer technology, are also offering support for local businesses to go mobile. Several state government websites have advice on how to create mobile apps and more. And as recently as last week the Victorian Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips unveiled his State government's ICT roadmap for the next two years, which details an increased use of the public cloud, as well as mobile communications, and improved access to online data-sets. Tech giants are investing significantly in solutions designed to simplify mobile deployment and enablement. The mobility trend is creating a wave of change in the industry and driving transformation in the enterprise. If you're not on that wave, the business risk continues to rise as your competitiveness drops. Aaron is the Vice President of HCM Strategy at Oracle Corporation where he is responsible for researching and identifying emerging trends in the practice of Human Resources and works to deliver industry-leading technology solutions. Other responsibilities include, ownership of Oracle's innovative HCM solutions across JAPAC and enabling organisations to transform and modernise their workforce tools. Follow him on Twitter @aaronjgreen

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• Introduction to Human Workflow 11g

  - by agiovannetti

  Human Workflow is a component of SOA Suite just like BPEL, Mediator, Business Rules, etc. The Human Workflow component allows you to incorporate human intervention in a business process. You can use Human Workflow to create a business process that requires a manager to approve purchase orders greater than $10,000; or a business process that handles article reviews in which a group of reviewers need to vote/approve an article before it gets published. Human Workflow can handle the task assignment and routing as well as the generation of notifications to the participants. There are three common patterns or usages of Human Workflow: 1) Approval Scenarios: manage documents and other transactional data through approval chains . For example: approve expense report, vacation approval, hiring approval, etc. 2) Reviews by multiple users or groups: group collaboration and review of documents or proposals. For example, processing a sales quote which is subject to review by multiple people. 3) Case Management: workflows around work management or case management. For example, processing a service request. This could be routed to various people who all need to modify the task. It may also incorporate ad hoc routing which is unknown at design time. SOA 11g Human Workflow includes the following features: Assignment and routing of tasks to the correct users or groups. Deadlines, escalations, notifications, and other features required for ensuring the timely performance of a task. Presentation of tasks to end users through a variety of mechanisms, including a Worklist application. Organization, filtering, prioritization and other features required for end users to productively perform their tasks. Reports, reassignments, load balancing and other features required by supervisors and business owners to manage the performance of tasks. Human Workflow Architecture The Human Workflow component is divided into 3 modules: the service interface, the task definition and the client interface module. The Service Interface handles the interaction with BPEL and other components. The Client Interface handles the presentation of task data through clients like the Worklist application, portals and notification channels. The task definition module is in charge of managing the lifecycle of a task. Who should get the task assigned? What should happen next with the task? When must the task be completed? Should the task be escalated?, etc Stages and Participants When you create a Human Task you need to specify how the task is assigned and routed. The first step is to define the stages and participants. A stage is just a logical group. A participant can be a user, a group of users or an application role. The participants indicate the type of assignment and routing that will be performed. Stages can be sequential or in parallel. You can combine them to create any usage you require. See diagram below: Assignment and Routing There are different ways a task can be assigned and routed: Single Approver: task is assigned to a single user, group or role. For example, a vacation request is assigned to a manager. If the manager approves or rejects the request, the employee is notified with the decision. If the task is assigned to a group then once one of managers acts on it, the task is completed. Parallel : task is assigned to a set of people that must work in parallel. This is commonly used for voting. For example, a task gets approved once 50% of the participants approve it. You can also set it up to be a unanimous vote. Serial : participants must work in sequence. The most common scenario for this is management chain escalation. FYI (For Your Information) : task is assigned to participants who can view it, add comments and attachments, but can not modify or complete the task. Task Actions The following is the list of actions that can be performed on a task: Claim : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, then the task must be claimed first to be able to act on it. Escalate : if the participant is not able to complete a task, he/she can escalate it. The task is reassigned to his/her manager (up one level in a hierarchy). Pushback : the task is sent back to the previous assignee. Reassign :if the participant is a manager, he/she can delegate a task to his/her reports. Release : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, it can be released if the user who claimed the task cannot complete the task. Any of the other assignees can claim and complete the task. Request Information and Submit Information : use when the participant needs to supply more information or to request more information from the task creator or any of the previous assignees. Suspend and Resume :if a task is not relevant, it can be suspended. A suspension is indefinite. It does not expire until Resume is used to resume working on the task. Withdraw : if the creator of a task does not want to continue with it, for example, he wants to cancel a vacation request, he can withdraw the task. The business process determines what happens next. Renew : if a task is about to expire, the participant can renew it. The task expiration date is extended one week. Notifications Human Workflow provides a mechanism for sending notifications to participants to alert them of changes on a task. Notifications can be sent via email, telephone voice message, instant messaging (IM) or short message service (SMS). Notifications can be sent when the task status changes to any of the following: Assigned/renewed/delegated/reassigned/escalated Completed Error Expired Request Info Resume Suspended Added/Updated comments and/or attachments Updated Outcome Withdraw Other Actions (e.g. acquiring a task) Here is an example of an email notification: Worklist Application Oracle BPM Worklist application is the default user interface included in SOA Suite. It allows users to access and act on tasks that have been assigned to them. For example, from the Worklist application, a loan agent can review loan applications or a manager can approve employee vacation requests. Through the Worklist Application users can: Perform authorized actions on tasks, acquire and check out shared tasks, define personal to-do tasks and define subtasks. Filter tasks view based on various criteria. Work with standard work queues, such as high priority tasks, tasks due soon and so on. Work queues allow users to create a custom view to group a subset of tasks in the worklist, for example, high priority tasks, tasks due in 24 hours, expense approval tasks and more. Define custom work queues. Gain proxy access to part of another user's tasks. Define custom vacation rules and delegation rules. Enable group owners to define task dispatching rules for shared tasks. Collect a complete workflow history and audit trail. Use digital signatures for tasks. Run reports like Unattended tasks, Tasks productivity, etc. Here is a screenshoot of what the Worklist Application looks like. On the right hand side you can see the tasks that have been assigned to the user and the task's detail. References Introduction to SOA Suite 11g Human Workflow Webcast Note 1452937.2 Human Workflow Information Center Using the Human Workflow Service Component 11.1.1.6 Human Workflow Samples Human Workflow APIs Java Docs

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• Making Those PanelBoxes Behave

  - by Duncan Mills

  I have a little problem to solve earlier this week - misbehaving <af:panelBox> components... What do I mean by that? Well here's the scenario, I have a page fragment containing a set of panelBoxes arranged vertically. As it happens, they are stamped out in a loop but that does not really matter. What I want to be able to do is to provide the user with a simple UI to close and open all of the panelBoxes in concert. This could also apply to showDetailHeader and similar items with a disclosed attrubute, but in this case it's good old panelBoxes.  Ok, so the basic solution to this should be self evident. I can set up a suitable scoped managed bean that the panelBoxes all refer to for their disclosed attribute state. Then the open all / close commandButtons in the UI can simply set the state of that bean for all the panelBoxes to pick up via EL on their disclosed attribute. Sound OK? Well that works basically without a hitch, but turns out that there is a slight problem and this is where the framework is attempting to be a little too helpful. The issue is that is the user manually discloses or hides a panelBox then that will override the value that the EL is setting. So for example. I start the page with all panelBoxes collapsed, all set by the EL state I'm storing on the session I manually disclose panelBox no 1. I press the Expand All button - all works as you would hope and all the panelBoxes are now disclosed, including of course panelBox 1 which I just expanded manually. Finally I press the Collapse All button and everything collapses except that first panelBox that I manually disclosed.  The problem is that the component remembers this manual disclosure and that overrides the value provided by the expression. If I change the viewId (navigate away and back) then the panelBox will start to behave again, until of course I touch it again! Now, the more astute amoungst you would think (as I did) Ah, sound like the MDS personalizaton stuff is getting in the way and the solution should simply be to set the dontPersist attribute to disclosed | ALL. Alas this does not fix the issue.  After a little noodling on the best way to approach this I came up with a solution that works well, although if you think of an alternative way do let me know. The principle is simple. In the disclosureListener for the panelBox I take a note of the clientID of the panelBox component that has been touched by the user along with the state. This all gets stored in a Map of Booleans in ViewScope which is keyed by clientID and stores the current disclosed state in the Boolean value.  The listener looks like this (it's held in a request scope backing bean for the page): public void handlePBDisclosureEvent(DisclosureEvent disclosureEvent) { String clientId = disclosureEvent.getComponent().getClientId(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance()); boolean state = disclosureEvent.isExpanded(); pbState.addTouchedPanelBox(clientId, state); } The pbState variable referenced here is a reference to the bean which will hold the state of the panelBoxes that lives in viewScope (recall that everything is re-set when the viewid is changed so keeping this in viewScope is just fine and cleans things up automatically). The addTouchedPanelBox() method looks like this: public void addTouchedPanelBox(String clientId, boolean state) { //create the cache if needed this is just a Map<String,Boolean> if (_touchedPanelBoxState == null) { _touchedPanelBoxState = new HashMap<String, Boolean>(); } // Simply put / replace _touchedPanelBoxState.put(clientId, state); } So that's the first part, we now have a record of every panelBox that the user has touched. So what do we do when the Collapse All or Expand All buttons are pressed? Here we do some JavaScript magic. Basically for each clientID that we have stored away, we issue a client side disclosure event from JavaScript - just as if the user had gone back and changed it manually. So here's the Collapse All button action: public String CloseAllAction() { submitDiscloseOverride(pbState.getTouchedClientIds(true), false); _uiManager.closeAllBoxes(); return null; }  The _uiManager.closeAllBoxes() method is just manipulating the master-state that all of the panelBoxes are bound to using EL. The interesting bit though is the line:  submitDiscloseOverride(pbState.getTouchedClientIds(true), false); To break that down, the first part is a call to that viewScoped state holder to ask for a list of clientIDs that need to be "tweaked": public String getTouchedClientIds(boolean targetState) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); if (_touchedPanelBoxState != null && _touchedPanelBoxState.size() > 0) { for (Map.Entry<String, Boolean> entry : _touchedPanelBoxState.entrySet()) { if (entry.getValue() == targetState) { if (sb.length() > 0) { sb.append(','); } sb.append(entry.getKey()); } } } return sb.toString(); } You'll notice that this method only processes those panelBoxes that will be in the wrong state and returns those as a comma separated list. This is then processed by the submitDiscloseOverride() method: private void submitDiscloseOverride(String clientIdList, boolean targetDisclosureState) { if (clientIdList != null && clientIdList.length() > 0) { FacesContext fctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance(); StringBuilder script = new StringBuilder(); script.append("overrideDiscloseHandler('"); script.append(clientIdList); script.append("',"); script.append(targetDisclosureState); script.append(");"); Service.getRenderKitService(fctx, ExtendedRenderKitService.class).addScript(fctx, script.toString()); } } This method constructs a JavaScript command to call a routine called overrideDiscloseHandler() in a script attached to the page (using the standard <af:resource> tag). That method parses out the list of clientIDs and sends the correct message to each one: function overrideDiscloseHandler(clientIdList, newState) { AdfLogger.LOGGER.logMessage(AdfLogger.INFO, "Disclosure Hander newState " + newState + " Called with: " + clientIdList); //Parse out the list of clientIds var clientIdArray = clientIdList.split(','); for (var i = 0; i < clientIdArray.length; i++){ var panelBox = flipPanel = AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId(clientIdArray[i]); if (panelBox.getComponentType() == "oracle.adf.RichPanelBox"){ panelBox.broadcast(new AdfDisclosureEvent(panelBox, newState)); } }  }  So there you go. You can see how, with a few tweaks the same code could be used for other components with disclosure that might suffer from the same problem, although I'd point out that the behavior I'm working around here us usually desirable. You can download the running example (11.1.2.2) from here. 

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• Azure Task Scheduling Options

  - by charlie.mott

  Currently, the Azure PaaS does not offer a distributed\resilient task scheduling service.  If you do want to host a task scheduling product\solution off-premise (and ideally use Azure), what are your options? PaaS Option 1: Worker Roles Use a worker role to schedule and execute actions at specific time periods.  There are a few frameworks available to assist with this: http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com https://github.com/Lokad/lokad-cloud/wiki/TaskScheduler http://blog.smarx.com/posts/building-a-task-scheduler-in-windows-azure - This addresses a slightly different set of requirements. It’s a more dynamic approach for queuing up tasks, but not repeatable tasks (e.g. daily). I found the Azure Toolkit option the most simple to implement.  Step 1 : Create a domain entity implementing IJob for each job to schedule.  In this sample, I asynchronously call a WCF service method. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole.Jobs 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit; 4: using ScheduledTasksService; 5: 6: public class UploadEmployeesJob : IJob 7: { 8: public void Run() 9: { 10: // Call Tasks Service 11: var client = new ScheduledTasksServiceClient("BasicHttpBinding_IScheduledTasksService"); 12: client.UploadEmployees(); 13: client.Close(); 14: } 15: } 16: } Step 2 : In the worker role run method, add the jobs to the toolkit engine. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit.Engine; 4: using Jobs; 5:   6: public class WorkerRole : WorkerRoleEntryPoint 7: { 8: public override void Run() 9: { 10: var engine = new CloudEngine(); 11:   12: // Add Scheduled Jobs (using CronJob syntax - see http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference). 13:   14: // 1. Upload Employee job - 8.00 PM every weekday (Mon-Fri) 15: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<UploadEmployeesJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 20 * * 1-5"; }); 16: // 2. Purge Data job - 10 AM every Saturday 17: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<PurgeDataJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 10 * * 6"; }); 18: // 3. Process Exceptions job - Every 5 minutes 19: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<ProcessExceptionsJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "*/5 * * * *"; }); 20:   21: engine.Run(); 22: base.Run(); 23: } 24: } 25: } Pros Cons Azure Toolkit option is simple to implement. For the AzureToolkit option, you are limited to a single worker role.  Otherwise, the jobs will be executed multiple times, once for each worker role instance.   Paying for a continuously running worker role, even if it just processes a single job once a week.  If you only have a few scheduled tasks to run calling asynchronous services hosted in different web roles, an extra small worker role likely to be sufficient.  However, for an extra small worker role this still costs $14.40/month (03/09/2012). Option 2: Use Scheduled Task on Azure Web Role calling a console app Setup a Windows Scheduled Task on the Azure Web Role. This calls a console application that calls the WCF service methods that run the task actions. This design is described here: http://www.ronaldwidha.net/2011/02/23/cron-job-on-azure-using-scheduled-task-on-a-web-role-to-replace-azure-worker-role-for-background-job/ http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2011/07/windows-azure-task-scheduler/ http://devlicio.us/blogs/vinull/archive/2011/10/23/moving-to-azure-worker-roles-for-nothing-and-tasks-for-free.aspx Pros Cons Fairly easy to implement. Supportability - I RDC’ed onto the Azure server and stopped the scheduled task. I then rebooted the machine and the task was re-started. I also tried deleting the task and rebooting, the same thing occurred. The only way to permanently guarantee that a task is disabled is to do a fresh deployment. I think this is a major supportability concern.   Saleability - multiple instances would trigger multiple tasks. You can only have one instance for the scheduled task web role. The guidance implements setup of the scheduled task as part of a web role instance. But if you have more than one instance in a web role, the task will be triggered multiple times for each scheduled action (once per machine). Workaround: If we wanted to use scheduled tasks for another client with a saleable WCF service, then we could include the console & tasks scripts in a separate web role (e.g. a empty WCF service with no real purpose to it). SaaS Option 3: Azure Marketplace I thought that someone might be offering this type of service via the Azure marketplace. At the point of writing this blog post, I did not find anyone doing so. https://datamarket.azure.com/ Pros Cons   Nobody currently offers this on the Azure Marketplace. Option 4: Online Job Scheduling Service Provider There are plenty of online providers that offer this type of service on a pay-as-you-go approach.  Some of these are free for small usage.   Many of these providers are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webcron Pros Cons No bespoke development for scheduler. Reliance on third party. IaaS Option 5: Setup Scheduling Software on Azure IaaS VM’s One of job scheduling software offerings could be installed and configured on Azure VM’s.  A list of software options is listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_job_scheduler_software Pros Cons Enterprise distributed\resilient task scheduling service VM Setup and maintenance   Software Licence Costs Option 6: VM Gallery A the time of writing this blog post, I did not spot a VM in the gallery that included pre-installation of any of the above software options. Pros Cons   No current VM template. Summary For my current project that had a small handful of tasks to schedule with a limited project budget I chose option 1 (a worker role using the Azure Toolkit to schedule tasks).  If I was building an enterprise scale solution for the future, options 4 and 5 are currently worthy of consideration. Hopefully, Microsoft will include tasks scheduling in the future as part of their PaaS offerings.

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• At times, you need to hire a professional.

  - by Phil Factor

  After months of increasingly demanding toil, the development team I belonged to was told that the project was to be canned and the whole team would be fired.  I’d been brought into the team as an expert in the data implications of a business re-engineering of a major financial institution. Nowadays, you’d call me a data architect, I suppose.  I’d spent a happy year being paid consultancy fees solving a succession of interesting problems until the point when the company lost is nerve, and closed the entire initiative. The IT industry was in one of its characteristic mood-swings downwards.  After the announcement, we met in the canteen. A few developers had scented the smell of death around the project already hand had been applying unsuccessfully for jobs. There was a sense of doom in the mass of dishevelled and bleary-eyed developers. After giving vent to anger and despair, talk turned to getting new employment. It was then that I perked up. I’m not an obvious choice to give advice on getting, or passing,  IT interviews. I reckon I’ve failed most of the job interviews I’ve ever attended. I once even failed an interview for a job I’d already been doing perfectly well for a year. The jobs I’ve got have mostly been from personal recommendation. Paradoxically though, from years as a manager trying to recruit good staff, I know a lot about what IT managers are looking for.  I gave an impassioned speech outlining the important factors in getting to an interview.  The most important thing, certainly in my time at work is the quality of the résumé or CV. I can’t even guess the huge number of CVs (résumés) I’ve read through, scanning for candidates worth interviewing.  Many IT Developers find it impossible to describe their  career succinctly on two sides of paper.  They leave chunks of their life out (were they in prison?), get immersed in detail, put in irrelevancies, describe what was going on at work rather than what they themselves did, exaggerate their importance, criticize their previous employers, aren’t  aware of the important aspects of a role to a potential employer, suffer from shyness and modesty,  and lack any sort of organized perspective of their work. There are many ways of failing to write a decent CV. Many developers suffer from the delusion that their worth can be recognized purely from the code that they write, and shy away from anything that seems like self-aggrandizement. No.  A resume must make a good impression, which means presenting the facts about yourself in a clear and positive way. You can’t do it yourself. Why not have your resume professionally written? A good professional CV Writer will know the qualities being looked for in a CV and interrogate you to winkle them out. Their job is to make order and sense out of a confused career, to summarize in one page a mass of detail that presents to any recruiter the information that’s wanted. To stand back and describe an accurate summary of your skills, and work-experiences dispassionately, without rancor, pity or modesty. You are no more capable of producing an objective documentation of your career than you are of taking your own appendix out.  My next recommendation was more controversial. This is to have a professional image overhaul, or makeover, followed by a professionally-taken photo portrait. I discovered this by accident. It is normal for IT professionals to face impossible deadlines and long working hours by looking more and more like something that had recently blocked a sink. Whilst working in IT, and in a state of personal dishevelment, I’d been offered the role in a high-powered amateur production of an old ex- Broadway show, purely for my singing voice. I was supposed to be the presentable star. When the production team saw me, the air was thick with tension and despair. I was dragged kicking and protesting through a succession of desperate grooming, scrubbing, dressing, dieting. I emerged feeling like “That jewelled mass of millinery, That oiled and curled Assyrian bull, Smelling of musk and of insolence.” (Tennyson Maud; A Monodrama (1855) Section v1 stanza 6) I was then photographed by a professional stage photographer.  When the photographs were delivered, I was amazed. It wasn’t me, but it looked somehow respectable, confident, trustworthy.   A while later, when the show had ended, I took the photos, and used them for work. They went with the CV to job applications. It did the trick better than I could ever imagine.  My views went down big with the developers. Old rivalries were put immediately to one side. We voted, with a show of hands, to devote our energies for the entire notice period to getting employable. We had a team sourcing the CV Writer,  a team organising the make-overs and photographer, and a third team arranging  mock interviews. A fourth team determined the best websites and agencies for recruitment, with the help of friends in the trade.  Because there were around thirty developers, we were in a good negotiating position.  Of the three CV Writers we found who lived locally, one proved exceptional. She was an ex-journalist with an eye to detail, and years of experience in manipulating language. We tried her skills out on a developer who seemed a hopeless case, and he was called to interview within a week.  I was surprised, too, how many companies were experts at image makeovers. Within the month, we all looked like those weird slick  people in the ‘Office-tagged’ stock photographs who stare keenly and interestedly at PowerPoint slides in sleek chromium-plated high-rise offices. The portraits we used still adorn the entries of many of my ex-colleagues in LinkedIn. After a months’ worth of mock interviews, and technical Q&A, our stutters, hesitations, evasions and periphrastic circumlocutions were all gone.  There is little more to relate. With the résumés or CVs, mugshots, and schooling in how to pass interviews, we’d all got new and better-paid jobs well  before our month’s notice was ended. Whilst normally, an IT team under the axe is a sad and depressed place to belong to, this wonderful group of people had proved the power of organized group action in turning the experience to advantage. It left us feeling slightly guilty that we were somehow cheating, but I guess we were merely leveling the playing-field.

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• Finding nuggets in ARC discussions

  - by alanc

  A bit over twenty years ago, Sun formed an Architecture Review Committee (ARC) that evaluates proposals to change interfaces between components in Sun software products. During the OpenSolaris days, we opened many of these discussions to the community. While they’re back behind closed doors, and at a different company now, we still continue to hold these reviews for the software from what’s now the Sun Systems Group division of Oracle. Recently one of these reviews was held (via e-mail discussion) to review a proposal to update our GNU findutils package to the latest upstream release. One of the upstream changes discussed was the addition of an “oldfind” program. In findutils 4.3, find was modified to use the fts() function to walk the directory tree, and oldfind was created to provide the old mechanism in case there were bugs in the new implementation that users needed to workaround. In Solaris 11 though, we still ship the find descended from SVR4 as /usr/bin/find and the GNU find is available as either /usr/bin/gfind or /usr/gnu/bin/find. This raised the discussion of if we should add oldfind, and if so what should we call it. Normally our policy is to only add the g* names for GNU commands that conflict with an existing Solaris command – for instance, we ship /usr/bin/emacs, not /usr/bin/gemacs. In this case however, that seemed like it would be more confusing to have /usr/bin/oldfind be the older version of /usr/bin/gfind not of /usr/bin/find. Thus if we shipped it, it would make more sense to call it /usr/bin/goldfind, which several ARC members noted read more naturally as “gold find” than as “g old find”. One of the concerns we often discuss in ARC is if a change is likely to be understood by users or if it will result in more calls to support. As we hit this part of the discussion on a Friday at the end of a long week, I couldn’t resist putting forth a hypothetical support call for this command: “Hello, Oracle Solaris Support, how may I help you?” “My admin is out sick, but he sent an email that he put the findutils package on our server, and I can run goldfind now. I tried it, but goldfind didn’t find gold.” “Did he get the binutils package too?” “No he just said findutils, do we need binutils?” “Well, gold comes in the binutils package, so goldfind would be able to find gold if you got that package.” “How much does Oracle charge for that package?” “It’s free for Solaris users.” “You mean Oracle ships packages of gold to customers for free?” “Yes, if you get the binutils package, it includes GNU gold.” “New gold? Is that some sort of alchemy, turning stuff into gold?” “Not new gold, gold from the GNU project.” “Oracle’s taking gold from the GNU project and shipping it to me?” “Yes, if you get binutils, that package includes gold along with the other tools from the GNU project.” “And GNU doesn’t mind Oracle taking their gold and giving it to customers?” “No, GNU is a non-profit whose goal is to share their software.” “Sharing software sure, but gold? Where does a non-profit like GNU get gold anyway?” “Oh, Google donated it to them.” “Ah! So Oracle will give me the gold that GNU got from Google!” “Yes, if you get the package from us.” “How do I get the package with the gold?” “Just run pkg install binutils and it will put it on your disk.” “We’ve got multiple disks here - which one will it put it on?” “The one with the system image - do you know which one that is? “Well the note from the admin says the system is on the first disk and the users are on the second disk.” “Okay, so it should go on the first disk then.” “And where will I find the gold?” “It will be in the /usr/bin directory.” “In the user’s bin? So thats on the second disk?” “No, it would be on the system disk, with the other development tools, like make, as, and what.” “So what’s on the first disk?” “Well if the system image is there the commands should all be there.” “All the commands? Not just what?” “Right, all the commands that come with the OS, like the shell, ps, and who.” “So who’s on the first disk too?” “Yes. Did your admin say when he’d be back?” “No, just that he had a massive headache and was going home after I tried to get him to explain this stuff to me.” “I can’t imagine why.” “Oh, is why a command too?” “No, _why was a Ruby programmer.” “Ruby? Do you give those away with the gold too?” “Yes, but it comes in the ruby package, not binutils.” “Oh, I’ll have to have my admin get that package too! Thanks!” Needless to say, we decided this might not be the best idea. Since the GNU package hasn’t had to release a serious bug fix in the new find in the past few years, the new GNU find seems pretty stable, and we always have the SVR4 find to use as a fallback in Solaris, so it didn’t seem that adding oldfind was really necessary, so we passed on including it when we update to the new findutils release. [Apologies to Abbott, Costello, their fans, and everyone who read this far. The Gold (linker) page on Wikipedia may explain some of the above, but can’t explain why goldfind is the old GNU find, but gold is the new GNU ld.]

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• Entity Framework 6: Alpha2 Now Available

  - by ScottGu

  The Entity Framework team recently announced the 2nd alpha release of EF6.   The alpha 2 package is available for download from NuGet. Since this is a pre-release package make sure to select “Include Prereleases” in the NuGet package manager, or execute the following from the package manager console to install it: PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Pre This week’s alpha release includes a bunch of great improvements in the following areas: Async language support is now available for queries and updates when running on .NET 4.5. Custom conventions now provide the ability to override the default conventions that Code First uses for mapping types, properties, etc. to your database. Multi-tenant migrations allow the same database to be used by multiple contexts with full Code First Migrations support for independently evolving the model backing each context. Using Enumerable.Contains in a LINQ query is now handled much more efficiently by EF and the SQL Server provider resulting greatly improved performance. All features of EF6 (except async) are available on both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5. This includes support for enums and spatial types and the performance improvements that were previously only available when using .NET 4.5. Start-up time for many large models has been dramatically improved thanks to improved view generation performance. Below are some additional details about a few of the improvements above: Async Support .NET 4.5 introduced the Task-Based Asynchronous Pattern that uses the async and await keywords to help make writing asynchronous code easier. EF 6 now supports this pattern. This is great for ASP.NET applications as database calls made through EF can now be processed asynchronously – avoiding any blocking of worker threads. This can increase scalability on the server by allowing more requests to be processed while waiting for the database to respond. The following code shows an MVC controller that is querying a database for a list of location entities:     public class HomeController : Controller     {         LocationContext db = new LocationContext();           public async Task<ActionResult> Index()         {             var locations = await db.Locations.ToListAsync();               return View(locations);         }     } Notice above the call to the new ToListAsync method with the await keyword. When the web server reaches this code it initiates the database request, but rather than blocking while waiting for the results to come back, the thread that is processing the request returns to the thread pool, allowing ASP.NET to process another incoming request with the same thread. In other words, a thread is only consumed when there is actual processing work to do, allowing the web server to handle more concurrent requests with the same resources. A more detailed walkthrough covering async in EF is available with additional information and examples. Also a walkthrough is available showing how to use async in an ASP.NET MVC application. Custom Conventions When working with EF Code First, the default behavior is to map .NET classes to tables using a set of conventions baked into EF. For example, Code First will detect properties that end with “ID” and configure them automatically as primary keys. However, sometimes you cannot or do not want to follow those conventions and would rather provide your own. For example, maybe your primary key properties all end in “Key” instead of “Id”. Custom conventions allow the default conventions to be overridden or new conventions to be added so that Code First can map by convention using whatever rules make sense for your project. The following code demonstrates using custom conventions to set the precision of all decimals to 5. As with other Code First configuration, this code is placed in the OnModelCreating method which is overridden on your derived DbContext class:         protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)         {             modelBuilder.Properties<decimal>()                 .Configure(x => x.HasPrecision(5));           } But what if there are a couple of places where a decimal property should have a different precision? Just as with all the existing Code First conventions, this new convention can be overridden for a particular property simply by explicitly configuring that property using either the fluent API or a data annotation. A more detailed description of custom code first conventions is available here. Community Involvement I blogged a while ago about EF being released under an open source license.  Since then a number of community members have made contributions and these are included in EF6 alpha 2. Two examples of community contributions are: AlirezaHaghshenas contributed a change that increases the startup performance of EF for larger models by improving the performance of view generation. The change means that it is less often necessary to use of pre-generated views. UnaiZorrilla contributed the first community feature to EF: the ability to load all Code First configuration classes in an assembly with a single method call like the following: protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) {        modelBuilder.Configurations            .AddFromAssembly(typeof(LocationContext).Assembly); } This code will find and load all the classes that inherit from EntityTypeConfiguration<T> or ComplexTypeConfiguration<T> in the assembly where LocationContext is defined. This reduces the amount of coupling between the context and Code First configuration classes, and is also a very convenient shortcut for large models. Other upcoming features coming in EF 6 Lots of information about the development of EF6 can be found on the EF CodePlex site, including a roadmap showing the other features that are planned for EF6. One of of the nice upcoming features is connection resiliency, which will automate the process of retying database operations on transient failures common in cloud environments and with databases such as the Windows Azure SQL Database. Another often requested feature that will be included in EF6 is the ability to map stored procedures to query and update operations on entities when using Code First. Summary EF6 is the first open source release of Entity Framework being developed in CodePlex. The alpha 2 preview release of EF6 is now available on NuGet, and contains some really great features for you to try. The EF team are always looking for feedback from developers - especially on the new features such as custom Code First conventions and async support. To provide feedback you can post a comment on the EF6 alpha 2 announcement post, start a discussion or file a bug on the CodePlex site. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Chart Filtering

  - by Tim Dexter

  Interesting question from a colleague this week. Can you add a filter to a chart to just show a specific set of data? In an RTF template, you need to do a little finagling in the chart definition. In an online template, a couple of clicks and you're done. RTF Build your chart as you would normally to include all the data to start with. Now flip to the Advanced tab to see the code behind the chart. Its not very pretty but with a little effort you can get it looking a little more friendly. Here's my chart showing employees and their salaries. <Graph depthAngle="50" depthRadius="8" seriesEffect="SE_AUTO_GRADIENT"> <LegendArea visible="true"/>  <Title text="Executive Department Only" visible="true" horizontalAlignment="CENTER"/>  <LocalGridData colCount="{count(.//G_2)}" rowCount="1">   <RowLabels>    <Label>SALARY</Label>   </RowLabels>   <ColLabels>    <xsl:for-each select=".//G_2">     <Label><xsl:value-of select="EMP_NAME"/></Label>    </xsl:for-each>   </ColLabels>   <DataValues>    <RowData>     <xsl:for-each select=".//G_2">      <Cell><xsl:value-of select="SALARY"/></Cell>     </xsl:for-each>    </RowData>   </DataValues>  </LocalGridData> </Graph> Note the emboldened text. Its currently grabbing all values in the G_2 level of the data. We can use an XPATH expression to filter the data to the set we want to see. In my case I want to only see the employees that are in the Executive department. My  data is structured thus:   <DATA_DS>     <G_1>         <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Accounting</DEPARTMENT_NAME>         <G_2>             <MANAGER>Higgins</MANAGER>             <EMPLOYEE_ID>206</EMPLOYEE_ID>             <HIRE_DATE>2002-06-07T00:00:00.000-04:00</HIRE_DATE>             <SALARY>8300</SALARY>             <JOB_TITLE>Public Accountant</JOB_TITLE>             <PARAS>11000</PARAS>             <EMP_NAME>William Gietz</EMP_NAME>         </G_2> So the XPATH expression Im going to use to limit the data to the Executive department would be .//G_2[../DEPARTMENT_NAME='Executive'] Note the ../ moves the parser up the XML tree to be able to test the DEPARTMENT_NAME value. I added this XPATH expression to the three instances that need it ColCount, ColLabels and RowData. Its simple enough to do. Testing your XPATH expression is easier to do using a table of data. Please note, as soon as you make changes to the chart code. Going back to the Builder tab, you'll find that everything is grayed out. I recommend you make all the changes you can via the chart dialog before updating the code. Online Template Implementing the filter is much simpler, there is a dialog box to help you out. Add you chart and fill out the various data points you want to show. then hit the Filter item in the ribbon above the chart. That will pop the filter dialog box where you can then add a filter to the chart.   You can add multiple filters if needed and of course you can use the Manage Filters button to re-open and edit the filters. Pretty straightforward stuff!

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• I'm a contract developer and I think I'm about to get screwed [closed]

  - by kagaku

  I do contract development on the side. You could say that I'm a contract developer? Considering I've only ever had one client I'd say that's not exactly the truth - more like I took a side job and needed some extra cash. It started out as a "rebuild our website and we'll pay you $10k" type project. Once that was complete (a bit over schedule, but certainly not over budget), the company hired me on as a "long term support" contractor. The contract is to go from March of this year, expiring on December 31st of this year - 10 months. Over which a payment is to be paid on the 30th of each month for a set amount. I've been fulfilling my end of the contract on all points - doing server maintenence, application and database changes, doing huge rush changes and pretty much just going above and beyond. Currently I'm in the middle of development of an iPhone mobile application (PhoneGap based) which is nearing completion (probably 3-4 weeks from submission). It has not been all peaches and flowers though. Each and every month when my paycheck comes due, there always seems to be an issue of sorts. These issues did not occur during the initial project, only during the support contract. The actual contract states that my check should be mailed out on the 30th of the month. I have received my check on time approximately once (on time being about 2-3 days within the 30th). I've received my paycheck as late as the 15th of the next month - over two weeks late. I've put up with it because I need the paycheck. There have been promises and promises of "we'll send it out on time next time! I promise" - only to receive it just as late the next month. When I ask about payment they give me a vibe like "why are you only worried about money?" - unfortunately I don't have the luxury of not worrying about money. The last straw was with my August payment, which should have been mailed on August 30th. I received it on September 12th. The reason for the delay? "USPS is delaying it man! we sent it out on the 1st!" is the reason I got. When I finally got the check in the mail, the postage on the envelope was marked September 10th - the date it was run through the postage machine. I've been outright lied to, at this point. I carry on working, because again - I need a paycheck. I orchestrated the move of our application to a new server, developed a bunch of new changes and continued work on the iPhone app. All told I probably went over my hourly allotment (I'm paid for 40 hours a month, I probably put in at least 50). On Saturday, the 1st, I gave the main contact at the company (a company of 3, by the way - this is not some big corporation) a ring and filled him in on the status of my work for the past two weeks. Unusually I hadn't heard from him since the middle of September. His response was "oh... well, that is nice and uh.. good job. well, we've been talking within the company about things and we've certainly got some decisions ahead of us..." - not verbatim but you get the idea (I hope?). I got out of this conversation that the site is not doing very well (which it's not) and they're considering pulling the plug. Crap, this contract is going to end early - there goes Christmas! Fine, that's alright, no problem. I'll get paid for the last months work and call it a day. Unfortunately I still haven't gotten last months check, and I'm getting dicked around now. "Oh.. we had problems transferring funds, we'll try and mail it out tomorrow" and "I left a VM with the finance guy, but I can't get ahold of him". So I'm getting the feeling I'm not getting paid for all the work I put in for September. This is obviously breach of contract, and I am pissed. Thinking irrationally, I considered changing all their passwords and holding their stuff hostage. Before I think it through (by the way, I am NOT going to do this, realized it would probably get me in trouble), I go and try some passwords for our various accounts. Google Apps? Oh, I'm no longer administrator here. Godaddy? Whoops, invalid password. Disqus? Nope, invalid password here too. Google Adsense / Analytics? Invalid password. Dedicated server account manager? Invalid password. Now, I have the servers root password - I just built the box last week and haven't had a chance to send the guy the root password. Wasn't in a rush, I manage the server and they never touch it. Now all of a sudden all the passwords except this one are changed; the writing is on the wall - I am out. Here's the conundrum. I have the root password, they do not. If I give them this password all the leverage I have is gone, out the door and out of my hands. During this argument of why am I not getting paid the guy sends me an email saying "oh by the way, what's the root username and password to the server?". Considering he knows absolutely nothing, I gave him an "admin" account which really has almost no rights. I still have exclusive access to the server, I just don't know where to go. I can hold their data hostage, but I'm almost positive this is the wrong thing to do. I'd consider it blackmail, regardless of whether or not I have gotten paid yet. I can "break" something on the server and give them the whole "well, if you were paying me I could fix it!" spiel. This works from a "well he's not holding their stuff hostage" point of view, but what stops them from hiring some one else to just fix the issue at hand? For all I know the guys nephew is a "l33t hax0r" and can figure it out for free. I can give in, document as much as I can and take him to small claims court. This is breach of contract, I'm not getting paid. I have a case, right? ???? Does anyone have any experience in this? What can I do? What are my options? I'm broke, I can't afford a lawyer and I can barely afford not getting this paycheck. My wife doesn't work (I work two jobs so she doesn't have to work - we have a 1 year old) and is already looking at getting a part time job to cover the bills. Long term we'll be fine, but this has pissed me off beyond belief! Help me out, I'm about to get screwed.

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• Ruby Debug IDE error : ruby-debug-ide-0.4.9/lib/ruby-debug-ide.rb:109:in `debug_load'

  - by Paul

  I hope someone can assist me. I have RubyMine 2.0.2 installed on Windows 7 32 bit computer. Since a week ago (I presume it must have been after I have update some gems) I cant seem to debug form the IDE. I am trying to debug a rake task which I could before. Running the rake task normally works perfect, just debug doesnt. Its not just limited to the rake, I cant debug any ruby files. I've tried installing older versions of debug-ide and debug-base but to no success. I've tried it with ruby 1.8.7 and 1.8.6 on different computers but nothing. Trying to search the web gave some information, which I've tried, but also no success. Im desperate to get this working. Below are the full error and my current settings: Error: C:\InstantRails\ruby\bin\ruby.exe -e STDOUT.sync=true;STDERR.sync=true;load($0=ARGV.shift) C:\InstantRails\ruby\bin/rdebug-ide --port 57167 -- C:/InstantRails/rails_apps/paperserve/lib/tasks/poll_snmp.rake Fast Debugger (ruby-debug-ide 0.4.9) listens on :57167 C:/InstantRails/rails_apps/paperserve/lib/tasks/poll_snmp.rake:5 C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-ide-0.4.9/lib/ruby-debug ide.rb:109:in `debug_load' C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-ide-0.4.9/lib/ruby-debug ide.rb:109:in `debug_program' C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-ide-0.4.9/bin/rdebug-ide:87 C:\InstantRails\ruby\bin/rdebug-ide:19:in `load' C:\InstantRails\ruby\bin/rdebug-ide:19 -e:1:in `load' -e:1 Uncaught exception: undefined method `namespace' for main:Object Process finished with exit code 1 Code snippet (It fails at the start of namespace. If I remove this, it fails on the next line, etc, etc) #This script should run every 15 minutes require 'snmp' require 'yaml' namespace :cdeweb do RubyGems Environment: RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.7 RUBY VERSION: 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [i386-mswin32] INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8 RUBY EXECUTABLE: C:/InstantRails/ruby/bin/ruby.exe EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: C:/InstantRails/ruby/bin RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS: ruby x86-mswin32-60 GEM PATHS: C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8 C:/Users/Paul.LPFSYSTEMS/.gem/ruby/1.8 GEM CONFIGURATION: :update_sources = true :verbose = true :benchmark = false :backtrace = false :bulk_threshold = 1000 REMOTE SOURCES: http://rubygems.org/ * LOCAL GEMS * actionmailer (2.3.5, 2.0.2) actionpack (2.3.5, 2.0.2) activerecord (2.3.5, 2.0.2) activeresource (2.3.5, 2.0.2) activesupport (2.3.5, 2.0.2) capistrano (2.5.18, 2.1.0) cgi_multipart_eof_fix (2.5.0) cmdparse (2.0.2) columnize (0.3.1) fxri (0.3.7, 0.3.6) fxruby (1.6.12 mswin32) gem_plugin (0.2.3) highline(1.5.2, 1.4.0) hpricot (0.8.2 x86-mswin32, 0.6 mswin32) inaction_mailer (0.6) json (1.4.2 x86-mswin32) json_pure (1.4.2) linecache (0.43 mswin32) log4r (1.1.7, 1.0.5) mongrel (1.1.5 x86-mswin32-60, 1.1.2 mswin32) mysql(2.8.1 x86-mswin32, 2.7.3 mswin32) needle (1.3.0) net-scp (1.0.2) net-sftp (2.0.4, 1.1.0) net-ssh (2.0.22, 1.1.2) net-ssh-gateway (1.0.1) rack (1.0.1) rails (2.3.5, 2.0.2) rake (0.8.7, 0.8.1, 0.8.0, 0.7.3) ruby-debug-base (0.10.3 mswin32) ruby-debug-ide (0.4.9) ruby-net-ldap (0.0.4) rubygems-update (1.3.7, 1.3.6, 1.0.1) snmp (1.0.2) sources (0.0.1) sqlite3-ruby (1.2.5 x86-mswin32, 1.2.1 mswin32) win32-api (1.4.6 x86-mswin32-60, 1.0.4 mswin32) win32-clipboard (0.5.2, 0.4.3) win32-dir (0.3.6, 0.3.2) win32-eventlog (0.5.2, 0.4.6) win32-file (0.6.3, 0.5.4) win32-file-stat (1.3.4, 1.2.7) win32-process (0.6.2, 0.5.3) win32-sapi (0.1.5, 0.1.4) win32-sound (0.4.2, 0.4.1) windows-api (0.4.0, 0.2.0)

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• Write-error on swap-device, Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK

  - by Jan

  My root server at 1&1 was unresponsive on HTTP and SSH, so I logged into the serial console . It flooded my connection with endless error messages like quoted below. I initiated a reboot and now everything seems to work properly. After googling, I installed smartctl and ran a short self test, which told me the device was healthy. Is this likely a disk failure soon to happen or could it be just some program going wild? I assume, the swap device could also grow full when huge amounts of memory get consumed by a buggy program? How can I find out for sure? The sever was already unresponsive a week ago when I just restarted it without proper investigation. The server is running on CentOS. Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351055) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351063) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351071) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351079) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351087) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351095) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351103) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351111) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351119) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351127) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351135) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351143) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351151) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351159) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351167) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351175) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351183) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:8351191) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 9c 00 ef 00 00 08 00 end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 10223855 Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10223863) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 9c 0e 97 00 00 10 00 end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 10227351 Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10227359) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10227367) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 9c b0 1f 00 00 10 00 end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 10268703 Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10268711) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10268719) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 a0 84 7f 00 00 08 00 end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 10519679 Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10519687) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 a7 26 af 00 04 00 00 end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 10954415 Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954423) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954431) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954439) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954447) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954455) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954463) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954471) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954479) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954487) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954495) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954503) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954511) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954519) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954527) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954535) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954543) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954551) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954559) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954567) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954575) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954583) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954591) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954599) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954607) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954615) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954623) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954631) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954639) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954647) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954655) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954663) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954671) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954679) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954687) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954695) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954703) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954711) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954719) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954727) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954735) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954743) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954751) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954759) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954767) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954775) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954783) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954791) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954799) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954807) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954815) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954823) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954831) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954839) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954847) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954855) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954863) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954871) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954879) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954887) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954895) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954903) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954911) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954919) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954927) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954935) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954943) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954951) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954959) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954967) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954975) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954983) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954991) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10954999) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955007) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955015) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955023) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955031) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955039) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955047) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955055) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955063) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955071) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955079) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955087) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955095) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955103) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955111) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955119) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955127) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955135) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955143) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955151) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955159) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955167) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955175) Write-error on swap-device (8:16:10955183)

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• WPF Layout algorithm woes - control will resize, but not below some arbitrary value.

  - by Quantumplation

  I'm working on an application for a client, and one of the requirements is the ability to make appointments, and display the current week's appointments in a visual format, much like in Google Calender's or Microsoft Office. I found a great (3 part) article on codeproject, in which he builds a "RangePanel", and composes one for each "period" (for example, the work day.) You can find part 1 here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/OutlookWpfCalendarPart1.aspx The code presents, but seems to choose an arbitrary height value overall (440.04), and won't resize below that without clipping. What I mean to say, is that the window/container will resize, but it just cuts off the bottom of the control, instead of recalculating the height of the range panels, and the controls in the range panels representing the appointment. It will resize and recalculate for greater values, but not less. Code-wise, what's happening is that when you resize below that value, first the "MeasureOverride" is called with the correct "new height". However, by the time the "ArrangeOverride" method is called, it's passing the same 440.04 value as the height to arrange to. I need to find a solution/workaround, but any information that you can provide that might direct me for things to look into would also be greatly appreciated ( I understand how frustrating it is to debug code when you don't have the codebase in front of you. :) ) The code for the various Arrange and Measure functions are provided below. The "CalendarView" control has a "CalendarViewContentPresenter", which handles several periods. Then, the periods have a "CalendarPeriodContentPresenter", which handles each "block" of appointments. Finally, the "RangePanel" has it's own implementation. (To be honest, i'm still a bit hazy on how the control works, so if my explanations are a bit hazy, the article I linked probably has a more cogent explanation. :) ) CalendarViewContentPresenter: protected override Size ArrangeOverride(Size finalSize) { int columnCount = this.CalendarView.Periods.Count; Size columnSize = new Size(finalSize.Width / columnCount, finalSize.Height); double elementX = 0; foreach (UIElement element in this.visualChildren) { element.Arrange(new Rect(new Point(elementX, 0), columnSize)); elementX = elementX + columnSize.Width; } return finalSize; } protected override Size MeasureOverride(Size constraint) { this.GenerateVisualChildren(); this.GenerateListViewItemVisuals(); // If it's coming back infinity, just return some value. if (constraint.Width == Double.PositiveInfinity) constraint.Width = 10; if (constraint.Height == Double.PositiveInfinity) constraint.Height = 10; return constraint; } CalendarViewPeriodPersenter: protected override Size ArrangeOverride(Size finalSize) { foreach (UIElement element in this.visualChildren) { element.Arrange(new Rect(new Point(0, 0), finalSize)); } return finalSize; } protected override Size MeasureOverride(Size constraint) { this.GenerateVisualChildren(); return constraint; } RangePanel: protected override Size ArrangeOverride(Size finalSize) { double containerRange = (this.Maximum - this.Minimum); foreach (UIElement element in this.Children) { double begin = (double)element.GetValue(RangePanel.BeginProperty); double end = (double)element.GetValue(RangePanel.EndProperty); double elementRange = end - begin; Size size = new Size(); size.Width = (Orientation == Orientation.Vertical) ? finalSize.Width : elementRange / containerRange * finalSize.Width; size.Height = (Orientation == Orientation.Vertical) ? elementRange / containerRange * finalSize.Height : finalSize.Height; Point location = new Point(); location.X = (Orientation == Orientation.Vertical) ? 0 : (begin - this.Minimum) / containerRange * finalSize.Width; location.Y = (Orientation == Orientation.Vertical) ? (begin - this.Minimum) / containerRange * finalSize.Height : 0; element.Arrange(new Rect(location, size)); } return finalSize; } protected override Size MeasureOverride(Size availableSize) { foreach (UIElement element in this.Children) { element.Measure(availableSize); } // Constrain infinities if (availableSize.Width == double.PositiveInfinity) availableSize.Width = 10; if (availableSize.Height == double.PositiveInfinity) availableSize.Height = 10; return availableSize; }

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• Un-failing over a Cisco PIX 515e

  - by ABrown

  We had a power outage at our data center last week and when our dual PIX 515E running IOS 7.0(8) (configured with a failover cable) came back, they were in a failed over state where the Secondary unit is active and the Primary unit is standby I have tried 'failover reset', 'failover active', and 'failover reload-standby' as well as executing reloads on both units in a variety of orders, and they don't come back Primary/Active Secondary/Standby. The only thing in my arsenal that I haven't tried is driving to the data center and performing a hard reboot, which I hate to do. I have read How Failover Works on the Cisco Secure Firewall and it seems like this should be wicked straight forward. output of show failover on Primary: Failover On Cable status: Normal Failover unit Primary Failover LAN Interface: N/A - Serial-based failover enabled Unit Poll frequency 15 seconds, holdtime 45 seconds Interface Poll frequency 15 seconds Interface Policy 1 Monitored Interfaces 2 of 250 maximum Version: Ours 7.0(8), Mate 7.0(8) Last Failover at: 02:52:05 UTC Mar 10 2010 This host: Primary - Standby Ready Active time: 0 (sec) Interface outside (x.x.x.165): Normal Interface inside (y.y.y.3): Normal Other host: Secondary - Active Active time: 897045 (sec) Interface outside (x.x.x.164): Normal Interface inside (y.y.y.4): Normal Stateful Failover Logical Update Statistics Link : Unconfigured. output of show failover on Secondary: Failover On Cable status: Normal Failover unit Secondary Failover LAN Interface: N/A - Serial-based failover enabled Unit Poll frequency 15 seconds, holdtime 45 seconds Interface Poll frequency 15 seconds Interface Policy 1 Monitored Interfaces 2 of 250 maximum Version: Ours 7.0(8), Mate 7.0(8) Last Failover at: 02:03:04 UTC Feb 28 2010 This host: Secondary - Active Active time: 896925 (sec) Interface outside (x.x.x.164): Normal Interface inside (y.y.y.4): Normal Other host: Primary - Standby Ready Active time: 0 (sec) Interface outside (x.x.x.165): Normal Interface inside (y.y.y.3): Normal Stateful Failover Logical Update Statistics Link : Unconfigured. I'm seeing the following in my syslog: Mar 10 03:05:00 fw1 %PIX-5-111008: User 'enable_15' executed the 'failover reset' command. Mar 10 03:05:09 fw1 %PIX-5-111008: User 'enable_15' executed the 'failover reload-standby' command. Mar 10 03:05:12 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=406,op=20,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:05:12 fw1 %PIX-6-720028: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Peer state Failed. Mar 10 03:06:09 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=401,op=0,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:06:09 fw1 %PIX-6-720024: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Control channel is down. Mar 10 03:06:09 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=401,op=1,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:06:10 fw1 %PIX-6-720024: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Control channel is up. Mar 10 03:06:10 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=411,op=2,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:06:23 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=406,op=80,my=Active,peer=Standby Ready. Mar 10 03:06:23 fw1 %PIX-6-720028: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Peer state Standby Ready. Mar 10 03:06:24 fw2 %PIX-6-720027: (VPN-Primary) HA status callback: My state Standby Ready. Mar 10 03:07:05 fw1 %PIX-5-111008: User 'enable_15' executed the 'failover reset' command. Mar 10 03:07:31 fw1 %PIX-5-111008: User 'enable_15' executed the 'failover active' command. Mar 10 03:08:04 fw1 %PIX-5-611103: User logged out: Uname: enable_1 Mar 10 03:08:04 fw1 %PIX-6-315011: SSH session from admin1_int on interface inside for user "pix" terminated normally Mar 10 03:08:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=406,op=20,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:08:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720028: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Peer state Failed. Mar 10 03:09:10 fw1 %PIX-6-605005: Login permitted from admin1_int/36891 to inside:192.168.4.4/ssh for user "pix" Mar 10 03:09:23 fw1 %PIX-5-111008: User 'enable_15' executed the 'failover reset' command. Mar 10 03:09:38 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=401,op=0,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:09:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720024: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Control channel is down. Mar 10 03:09:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=401,op=1,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:09:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720024: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Control channel is up. Mar 10 03:09:39 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=411,op=2,my=Active,peer=Failed. Mar 10 03:09:52 fw1 %PIX-6-720032: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: id=3,seq=200,grp=0,event=406,op=80,my=Active,peer=Standby Ready. Mar 10 03:09:52 fw1 %PIX-6-720028: (VPN-Secondary) HA status callback: Peer state Standby Ready. Mar 10 03:09:53 fw2 %PIX-6-720027: (VPN-Primary) HA status callback: My state Standby Ready. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret that syslog data. Primary doesn't seem to even try to become Active. When I reload the individual units separately, my connections are retained, so it doesn't seem like I have a real hardware failure. Is there something I can query (IOS or SNMP) to check for hardware issues? Any thoughts? My IOS-fu is weak. Thanks for any help you might provide, Aaron

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• Android question - how to prep 100 images to be shown via Fling/Swipe?

  - by fooyee

  I'm totally new to this, been tinkering around for a week. Came up with a simple image viewer app for 2 images. Feature: Left and right swipes will switch the images. Dead simple. What i'd like to do: Have up to 100 images. note: All my images are in my res/drawable folder. They're named image1.png to image100.png I obviously don't want to do: ImageView i = new ImageView(this); i.setImageResource(R.drawable.image1); viewFlipper.addView(i); ImageView i2 = new ImageView(this); i2.setImageResource(R.drawable.image2); viewFlipper.addView(i2); ImageView i3 = new ImageView(this); i3.setImageResource(R.drawable.image3); viewFlipper.addView(i3); all the way to i100. how do I make this into a loop, which is flexible and reads everything from the drawable folder ( and not be limited to 100 images)? source: public class ImageViewTest extends Activity { private static final String LOGID = "CHECKTHISOUT"; private static final int SWIPE_MIN_DISTANCE = 120; private static final int SWIPE_MAX_OFF_PATH = 250; private static final int SWIPE_THRESHOLD_VELOCITY = 200; private GestureDetector gestureDetector; View.OnTouchListener gestureListener; private Animation slideLeftIn; private Animation slideLeftOut; private Animation slideRightIn; private Animation slideRightOut; private ViewFlipper viewFlipper; String message = "Initial Message"; /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //Set up viewflipper viewFlipper = new ViewFlipper(this); ImageView i = new ImageView(this); i.setImageResource(R.drawable.sample_1); ImageView i2 = new ImageView(this); i2.setImageResource(R.drawable.sample_2); viewFlipper.addView(i); viewFlipper.addView(i2); //set up animations slideLeftIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.slide_left_in); slideLeftOut = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.slide_left_out); slideRightIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.slide_right_in); slideRightOut = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.slide_right_out); //put up a brownie as a starter setContentView(viewFlipper); gestureDetector = new GestureDetector(new MyGestureDetector()); } public class MyGestureDetector extends SimpleOnGestureListener { @Override public boolean onFling(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float velocityX, float velocityY) { try { if (Math.abs(e1.getY() - e2.getY()) > SWIPE_MAX_OFF_PATH) return false; // right to left swipe if(e1.getX() - e2.getX() > SWIPE_MIN_DISTANCE && Math.abs(velocityX) > SWIPE_THRESHOLD_VELOCITY) { Log.v(LOGID,"right to left swipe detected"); viewFlipper.setInAnimation(slideLeftIn); viewFlipper.setOutAnimation(slideLeftOut); viewFlipper.showNext(); setContentView(viewFlipper); } // left to right swipe else if (e2.getX() - e1.getX() > SWIPE_MIN_DISTANCE && Math.abs(velocityX) > SWIPE_THRESHOLD_VELOCITY) { Log.v(LOGID,"left to right swipe detected"); viewFlipper.setInAnimation(slideRightIn); viewFlipper.setOutAnimation(slideRightOut); viewFlipper.showPrevious(); setContentView(viewFlipper); } } catch (Exception e) { // nothing } return false; } } // This doesn't work @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { if (gestureDetector.onTouchEvent(event)){ Log.v(LOGID,"screen touched"); return true; } else{ return false; } } }

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• What does it mean when ARP shows <incomplete> on eth1

  - by Geoff Dalgas

  We have been using HAProxy along with heartbeat from the Linux-HA project. We are using two linux instances to provide a failover. Each server has with their own public IP and a single IP which is shared between the two using a virtual interface (eth1:1) at IP: 69.59.196.211 The virtual interface (eth1:1) IP 69.59.196.211 is configured as the gateway for the windows servers behind them and we use ip_forwarding to route traffic. We are experiencing an occasional network outage on one of our windows servers behind our linux gateways. HAProxy will detect the server is offline which we can verify by remoting to the failed server and attempting to ping the gateway: Pinging 69.59.196.211 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 69.59.196.220: Destination host unreachable. Running arp -a on this failed server shows that there is no entry for the gateway address (69.59.196.211): Interface: 69.59.196.220 --- 0xa Internet Address Physical Address Type 69.59.196.161 00-26-88-63-c7-80 dynamic 69.59.196.210 00-15-5d-0a-3e-0e dynamic 69.59.196.212 00-21-5e-4d-45-c9 dynamic 69.59.196.213 00-15-5d-00-b2-0d dynamic 69.59.196.215 00-21-5e-4d-61-1a dynamic 69.59.196.217 00-21-5e-4d-2c-e8 dynamic 69.59.196.219 00-21-5e-4d-38-e5 dynamic 69.59.196.221 00-15-5d-00-b2-0d dynamic 69.59.196.222 00-15-5d-0a-3e-09 dynamic 69.59.196.223 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static 224.0.0.22 01-00-5e-00-00-16 static 224.0.0.252 01-00-5e-00-00-fc static 225.0.0.1 01-00-5e-00-00-01 static On our linux gateway instances arp -a shows: peak-colo-196-220.peak.org (69.59.196.220) at <incomplete> on eth1 stackoverflow.com (69.59.196.212) at 00:21:5e:4d:45:c9 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-215.peak.org (69.59.196.215) at 00:21:5e:4d:61:1a [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-219.peak.org (69.59.196.219) at 00:21:5e:4d:38:e5 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-222.peak.org (69.59.196.222) at 00:15:5d:0a:3e:09 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-209.peak.org (69.59.196.209) at 00:26:88:63:c7:80 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-217.peak.org (69.59.196.217) at 00:21:5e:4d:2c:e8 [ether] on eth1 Why would arp occasionally set the entry for this failed server as <incomplete>? Should we be defining our arp entries statically? I've always left arp alone since it works 99% of the time, but in this one instance it appears to be failing. Are there any additional troubleshooting steps we can take help resolve this issue? THINGS WE HAVE TRIED I added a static arp entry for testing on one of the linux gateways which still didn't help. root@haproxy2:~# arp -a peak-colo-196-215.peak.org (69.59.196.215) at 00:21:5e:4d:61:1a [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-221.peak.org (69.59.196.221) at 00:15:5d:00:b2:0d [ether] on eth1 stackoverflow.com (69.59.196.212) at 00:21:5e:4d:45:c9 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-219.peak.org (69.59.196.219) at 00:21:5e:4d:38:e5 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-209.peak.org (69.59.196.209) at 00:26:88:63:c7:80 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-217.peak.org (69.59.196.217) at 00:21:5e:4d:2c:e8 [ether] on eth1 peak-colo-196-220.peak.org (69.59.196.220) at 00:21:5e:4d:30:8d [ether] PERM on eth1 root@haproxy2:~# arp -i eth1 -s 69.59.196.220 00:21:5e:4d:30:8d root@haproxy2:~# ping 69.59.196.220 PING 69.59.196.220 (69.59.196.220) 56(84) bytes of data. --- 69.59.196.220 ping statistics --- 7 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 6006ms Rebooting the windows web server solves this issue temporarily with no other changes to the network but our experience shows this issue will come back. Swapping network cards and switches I noticed the link light on the port of the switch for the failed windows server was running at 100Mb instead of 1Gb on the failed interface. I moved the cable to several other open ports and the link indicated 100Mb for each port that I tried. I also swapped the cable with the same result. I tried changing the properties of the network card in windows and the server locked up and required a hard reset after clicking apply. This windows server has two physical network interfaces so I have swapped the cables and network settings on the two interfaces to see if the problem follows the interface. If the public interface goes down again we will know that it is not an issue with the network card. (We also tried another switch we have on hand, no change) Changing network hardware driver versions We've had the same problem with the latest Broadcom driver, as well as the built-in driver that ships in Windows Server 2008 R2. Replacing network cables As a last ditch effort we remembered another change that occurred was the replacement of all of the patch cords between our servers / switch. We had purchased two sets, one green of lengths 1ft - 3ft for the private interfaces and another set of red cables for the public interfaces. We swapped out all of the public interface patch cables with a different brand and ran our servers without issue for a full week ... aaaaaand then the problem recurred. Disable checksum offload, remove TProxy We also tried disabling TCP/IP checksum offload in the driver, no change. We're now pulling out TProxy and moving to a more traditional x-forwarded-for network arrangement without any fancy IP address rewriting. We'll see if that helps.

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• JAXB adding namespace to parent but not to the child elements contained

  - by Nishant

  I put together an XSD and used JAXB to generate classes out of it. Here are my XSDs- myDoc.xsd : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xs:schema xmlns="http://www.mydoc.org" targetNamespace="http://www.mydoc.org" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:mtp="http://www.mytypes.com" elementFormDefault="qualified"> <xs:import namespace="http://www.mytypes.com" schemaLocation="mytypes.xsd" /> <xs:element name="myDoc"> <xs:complexType> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name="crap" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element ref="mtp:foo"/> <xs:element ref="mtp:bar"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:element> mytypes.xsd <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xs:schema targetNamespace="http://www.mytypes.com" xmlns="http://www.mytypes.com" xmlns:tns="http://www.mytypes.com" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" attributeFormDefault="qualified" elementFormDefault="qualified"> <xs:element name="foo" type="tns:Foo"/> <xs:element name="bar" type="tns:Bar"/> <xs:element name="spam" type="tns:Spam"/> <xs:simpleType name="Foo"> <xs:restriction base="xs:string"></xs:restriction> </xs:simpleType> <xs:complexType name="Bar"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element ref="spam"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:simpleType name="Spam"> <xs:restriction base="xs:string" /> </xs:simpleType> </xs:schema> The document marshalled is- <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <myDoc xmlns:ns2="http://www.mytypes.com"> <crap>real crap</crap> <ns2:foo>bleh</ns2:foo> <ns2:bar> <spam>blah</spam> </ns2:bar> </myDoc> Note that the <spam> element uses the default namespace. I would like it to use the ns2 namespace. The schema (mytypes.xsd) expresses the fact that <spam> is contained within <bar> which in the XML instance is bound to the ns2 namespace. I've broken my head over this for over a week and I would like ns2 prefix to appear in <spam>. What should I do? Required : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <myDoc xmlns:ns2="http://www.mytypes.com"> <crap>real crap</crap> <ns2:foo>bleh</ns2:foo> <ns2:bar> <ns2:spam>blah</ns2:spam><!--NS NS NS--> </ns2:bar> </myDoc>

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• PHP pages working slow from time to time

  - by user1038179

  I have VPS with limit of 2GB of ram and 8 CPU cores. I have 5 sites on that VPS (one of them is just for testing, no visitors exept me). All 5 sites are image galleries, like wallpaper sites. Last week I noticed problem on one site (main domain, used for name servers, and also with most traffic, visitors). That site has two image galleries, one is old static html gallery made few years ago and another, main, is powered by ZENPhoto CMS. Also I have that same gallery CMS on another two sites on that same VPS (on one running site and on one just for testing site). On other two sites I have diferent PHP driven gallery. Problem is that after some time (it vary from 10 minutes to few hours after apache restart), loading of pages on main site becomes very slow, or I get 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error. So pages becomes unavailable. But just that part with new CMS gallery, old part of site with static html pages are working fast and just fine. Also other two sites with same CMS gallery and other two with different PHP driven gallery are working fine and fast at the same time. I thought it must be something with CMS on that main site, because other sites are working nice. Then I tryed to open contact and guest book pages on that main site which are outside of that CMS but also PHP pages, and they do not load too, but that same contact php scipts are working on other sites at the same time. So, when site starts to hangs, ONLY PHP generated content is not working, like I said other static pages are working. And, ONLY on that one main site I have problems. Then I need to restart Apache, after restart everything is vorking nice and fast, for some time, than again, just PHP pages on main site are becomming slower. If I do not restart apache that slowness take some time (several minutes, hours, depending ot traffic) and during that time PHP diven content is loading very slow or unavailable on that site. After sime time, on moments everything start to work and is fast again for some time, and again. In hours with more traffic PHP content is loading slowly or it is unavailable, in hours with less traffic it is sometimes fast and sometimes little bit slower than usually. And ones again, only on that main site, and only PHP driven pages, static pages are working fast even in most traffic hours also other sites with even same CMS are working fast. Currently I have about 7000 unique visitors on that site but site worked nice even with 11500 visitors per day. And about 17000 in total visitors on VPS, all sites ( about 3 pages per unique visitor). When site start to slow down sometimes in apache status I can see something like this: mod_fcgid status: Total FastCGI processes: 37 Process: php5 (/usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/php5)Pid Active Idle Accesses State 11300 39 28 7 Working 11274 47 28 7 Working 11296 40 29 3 Working 11283 45 30 3 Working 11304 36 31 1 Working 11282 46 32 3 Working 11292 42 33 1 Working 11289 44 34 1 Working 11305 35 35 0 Working 11273 48 36 2 Working 11280 47 39 1 Working 10125 133 40 12 Exiting(communication error) 11294 41 41 1 Exiting(communication error) 11277 47 42 2 Exiting(communication error) 11291 43 43 1 Exiting(communication error) 10187 108 43 10 Exiting(communication error) 10209 95 44 7 Exiting(communication error) 10171 113 44 5 Exiting(communication error) 11275 47 47 1 Exiting(communication error) 10144 125 48 8 Exiting(communication error) 10086 149 48 20 Exiting(communication error) 10212 94 49 5 Exiting(communication error) 10158 118 49 5 Exiting(communication error) 10169 114 50 4 Exiting(communication error) 10105 141 50 16 Exiting(communication error) 10094 146 50 15 Exiting(communication error) 10115 139 51 17 Exiting(communication error) 10213 93 51 9 Exiting(communication error) 10197 103 51 7 Exiting(communication error) Process: php5 (/usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/php5)Pid Active Idle Accesses State 7983 1079 2 149 Ready 7979 1079 11 151 Ready Process: php5 (/usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/php5)Pid Active Idle Accesses State 7990 1066 0 57 Ready 8001 1031 64 35 Ready 7999 1032 94 29 Ready 8000 1031 91 36 Ready 8002 1029 34 52 Ready Process: php5 (/usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/php5)Pid Active Idle Accesses State 7991 1064 29 115 Ready When it is working nicly there is no lines with "Exiting(communication error)" Active and Idle are time active and time since last request, in seconds. Here are system info. Sysem info: Total processors: 8 Processor #1 Vendor GenuineIntel Name Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5440 @ 2.83GHz Speed 88.320 MHz Cache 6144 KB All other seven are the same. System Information Linux vps.nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.nnn 2.6.18-028stab099.3 #1 SMP Wed Mar 7 15:20:22 MSK 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux Current Memory Usage total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 8388608 882164 7506444 0 0 0 -/+ buffers/cache: 882164 7506444 Swap: 0 0 0 Total: 8388608 882164 7506444 Current Disk Usage Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vzfs 100G 34G 67G 34% / none System Details: Running on: Apache/2.2.22 System info: (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_fcgid/2.3.6 Powered by: PHP/5.3.10 Current Configuration Default PHP Version (.php files) 5 PHP 5 Handler fcgi PHP 4 Handler suphp Apache suEXEC on Apache Ruid2 off PHP 4 Handler suphp Apache suEXEC on Apache Configuration The following settings have been saved: fileetag: All keepalive: On keepalivetimeout: 3 maxclients: 150 maxkeepaliverequests: 10 maxrequestsperchild: 10000 maxspareservers: 10 minspareservers: 5 root_options: ExecCGI, FollowSymLinks, Includes, IncludesNOEXEC, Indexes, MultiViews, SymLinksIfOwnerMatch serverlimit: 256 serversignature: Off servertokens: Full sslciphersuite: ALL:!ADH:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:-LOW:-SSLv2:-EXP:!kEDH startservers: 5 timeout: 30 I hope, I explained my problem nicely. Any help would be nice.

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• FBML is not rendered in Facebook App in iframe - please help

  - by Jakob

  I'm developing an Facebook Application in PHP. It's loaded as an iframe and not as FBML. The normal interaction with Facebook works. For example the following code gives the username: $facebook = new Facebook($config->appapikey, $config->appsecret); $user_id = $facebook->require_login($required_permissions = 'email'); echo $user->name; Where $user is my class in which the user-details are loaded from facebook. My document begins the following way: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml"> <head><title>Appname</title> </head> <body> <script src="http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php/de_DE" type="text/javascript"></script> And ends likes this: <script type="text/javascript"> FB_RequireFeatures(['XFBML','CanvasUtil'], function(){ FB.init("<?php echo $config->appapikey; ?>", "/app/xd_receiver.htm"); FB.CanvasClient.startTimerToSizeToContent(); }); </script> </body> </html> Also the file xd_receiver.htm is loaded as I can see in Firebug. But my problem is that for example the request-form is not loaded. My code: <fb:serverFbml> <script type="text/fbml"> <fb:fbml> <fb:request-form method="post" action="<?php echo $config->site; ?>index.php" type="appname" invite="true" target="_top" content="content"> <fb:multi-friend-selector actiontext="text" rows="3" showborder="true" target="_top"/> </fb:request-form> </fb:fbml> </script> </fb:serverFbml> I can see the code with Firebug but the form ist not displayed by Facebook. 2 or 3 weeks ago it was displayed but in this time I had the tags </fb:fbml> </script> </fb:serverFbml> arround my complete text in the body. 2 weeks ago I had the the problem that nothing any more was displayed. After I removed the tags my app is displayed but not the form. I am searchign the web vor 1 week now and read many Threads about FBML and XFBML in Facebook but nothing worked for me. So thank you in advance for help.

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• Poor home office network performance and cannot figure out where the issue is

  - by Jeff Willener

  This is the most bizarre issue. I have worked with small to mid size networks for quite a long time and can say I'm comfortable connecting hardware. Where you will start to lose me is with managed switches and firewalls. To start, let me describe my network (sigh, shouldn't but I MUST solve this). 1) Comcast Cable Internet 2) Motorola SURFboard eXtreme Cable Modem. a) Model: SB6120 b) DOCSIS 3.0 and 2.0 support c) IPv4 and IPv6 support 3-A) Cisco Small Business RV220W Wireless N Firewall a) Latest firmware b) Model: RV220W-A-K9-NA c) WAN Port to Modem (2) d) vlan 1: work e) vlan 2: everything else. 3-B) D-Link DIR-615 Draft 802.11 N Wireless Router a) Latest firmware b) WAN Port to Modem (2) 4) Servers connected directly to firewall a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 1 b) CAT5e patch cables c) Dell PowerEdge 1400SC w/ 10/100 integrated NIC (Domain Controller, DNS, former DHCP) d) Dell PowerEdge 400SC w/ 10/100/1000 integrated NIC (VMWare Server) 4) Linksys EZXS88W unmanaged Workgroup 10/100 Switch a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 2 b) 25' CAT5e patch cable to firewall (3-A or 3-B) c) Connects xBox 360, Blu-Ray player, PC at TV 5) Office equipment connected directly to firewall a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 1 b) ~80' CAT6 or CAT5e patch cable to firewall (3-A or 3-B) c) Connects 1) Dell Latitude laptop 10/100/1000 2) Dell Inspiron laptop 10/100 3) Dell Workstation 10/100/1000 (Pristine host, VMWare Workstation 7.x with many bridged VM's) 4) Brother Laser Printer 10/100 5) Epson All-In-One Workforce 310 10/100 5-A) NetGear FS116 unmanaged 10/100 switch a) I've had this switch for a long time and never had issues. 5-B) NetGear GS108 unmanaged 10/100/1000 switch a) Bought new for this issue and returned. 5-C) Linksys SE2500 unmanaged 10/100/1000 switch a) Bought new for this issue and returned. 5-D) TP-Link TL-SG10008D unmanaged 10/100/1000 a) Bought new for this issue and still have. 6) VLan 1 Wireless Connections (on same subnet if 3-B) a) Any of those at 5c b) HP Laptop 7) VLan 2 Wireless Connection (on same subnet if 3-B) a) IPad, IPod b) Compaq Laptop c) Epson Wireless Printer Shew, without hosting a diagram I hope that paints a good picture. The Issue The breakdown here is at item 5. No matter what I do I cannot have a switch at 5 and have to run everything wireless regardless of router. Issues related to using a switch (point 5 above) SpeedTest is good. Poor throughput to other devices if can communicate at all. Usually cannot ping other devices even on the same switch although, when able, ping times are good. Eventual lose of connectivity and can "sometimes" be restored by unplugging everything for several days, not minutes or hours but we're talking a week if at all. Directly connect to computer gives good internet connection however throughput to other devices connected to firewall is at best horrible. Yet printing doesn't seem to be an issue as long as they are connected via wireless. I have to force the RV220W to 1000Mb on the respective port if using a Gig Switch Issues related to using wireless in place of a switch (point 5 above) Poor throughput to other devices if can communicate. SpeedTest is good. Bottom line Internet speeds are awesome. By the way, Comcast went WAY above and beyond to make sure it was not them. They rewired EVERYTHING which did solve internet drops. Computer to computer connections are garbage Cannot get switch at 5 to work, yet other at 4 has never had an issue. Direct connection, bypass switch, is good for DHCP and internet. DNS must be on server, not firewall. Cisco insists its my switches but as you can see I have used four and two different cables with the same result. My gut feeling is something is happening with routing. But I'm not smart enough to know that answer. I run a lot of VM's at 5-c-3, could that cause it? What's different compared to my previous house is I have introduced Gigabit hardware (firewall/switches/computers). Some of my computers might have IPv6 turned on if I haven't turned it off already. I'm truly at a loss and hope anyone has some crazy idea how to solve this. Bottom line, I need a switch in my office behind the firewall. I've changed everything. The real crux is I will find a working solution and, again, after days it will stop working. So this means I cannot isolate if its a computer since I have to use them. Oh and a solution is not throwing more money at this. I'm well into $1k already. Yah, lame.

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• LDAP query on linux against AD returns groups with no members

  - by SethG

  I am using LDAP+kerberos to authenticate against Active Directory on Windows 2003 R2. My krb5.conf and ldap.conf appear to be correct (according to pretty much every sample I found on the 'net). I can login to the host with both password and ssh keys. When I run getent passwd, all my ldap user accounts are listed with all the important attributes. When I run getent group, all the ldap groups and their gid's are listed, but no group members. If I run ldapsearch and filter on any group, the members are all listed with the "member" attribute. So the data is there for the taking, it's just not being parsed properly. It would appear that I simply am using an incorrect mapping in ldap.conf, but I can't see it. I've tried several variations and all give the same result. Here is my current ldap.conf: host <ad-host1-ip> <ad-host2-ip> base dc=my,dc=full,dc=dn uri ldap://<ad-host1> ldap://<ad-host2> ldap_version 3 binddn <mybinddn> bindpw <mybindpw> scope sub bind_policy hard nss_reconnect_tries 3 nss_reconnect_sleeptime 1 nss_reconnect_maxsleeptime 8 nss_reconnect_maxconntries 3 nss_map_objectclass posixAccount User nss_map_objectclass posixGroup Group nss_map_attribute uid sAMAccountName nss_map_attribute gidNumber msSFU30GidNumber nss_map_attribute uidNumber msSFU30UidNumber nss_map_attribute cn cn nss_map_attribute gecos displayName nss_map_attribute homeDirectory msSFU30HomeDirectory nss_map_attribute loginShell msSFU30LoginShell nss_map_attribute uniqueMember member pam_filter objectcategory=User pam_login_attribute sAMAccountName pam_member_attribute member pam_password ad Here's the kicker: this config works 100% fine on a different linux box with a different distro. It does not work on the distro I am planning on switching to. I have installed from source the versions of pam_ldap and nss_ldap on the new box to match the old box, which fixed another problem I was having with this setup. Other relevant info is the original AD box was Windows 2003. It's mirror died a horrible hardware death so I'm trying to add two more 2003-R2 servers to the mirror tree and ultimately drop the old 2003 box. The new R2 boxes appear to have joined the DC forest properly. What do I need to do to get groups working? I've exhausted all the resources I could find and need a different angle. Any input is appreciated. Status update, 7/31/09 I have managed to tweak my config file to get full info from the AD and performance is nice and snappy. I replaced the back-rev'd copies of pam_ldap and nss_ldap with the current ones for the distro I'm using, so it's back to a standard out-of-the-box install. Here's my current config: host <ad-host1-ip> <ad-host2-ip> base dc=my,dc=full,dc=dn uri ldap://<ad-host1> ldap://<ad-host2> ldap_version 3 binddn <mybinddn> bindpw <mybindpw> scope sub bind_policy soft nss_reconnect_tries 3 nss_reconnect_sleeptime 1 nss_reconnect_maxsleeptime 8 nss_reconnect_maxconntries 3 nss_connect_policy oneshot referrals no nss_map_objectclass posixAccount User nss_map_objectclass posixGroup Group nss_map_attribute uid sAMAccountName nss_map_attribute gidNumber msSFU30GidNumber nss_map_attribute uidNumber msSFU30UidNumber nss_map_attribute cn cn nss_map_attribute gecos displayName nss_map_attribute homeDirectory msSFU30HomeDirectory nss_map_attribute loginShell msSFU30LoginShell nss_map_attribute uniqueMember member pam_filter objectcategory=CN=Person,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=w2k,DC=cis,DC=ksu,DC=edu pam_login_attribute sAMAccountName pam_member_attribute member pam_password ad ssl off tls_checkpeer no sasl_secprops maxssf=0 The remaining problem now is when you run the groups command, not all subscribed groups are listed. Some are (one or two), but not all. Group memberships are still honored, such as file and printer access. getent group foo still shows that the user is a member of group foo. So it appears to be a presentation bug, and does not interfere with normal operation. It also appears that some (I have not determined exactly how many) group searches do not resolve correctly, even though the group is listed. eg, when you run "getent group bar", nothing is returned, but if you run "getent group|grep bar" or "getent group|grep <bar_gid>" you can see that it indeed listed and your group name and gid are correct. This still seems like an LDAP search or mapping error, but I can't figure out what it is. I'm a heckuva lot closer than earlier in the week, but I'd really like to get this last detail ironed out.

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• Blocking a distributed, consistent spam attack? Could it be something more serious?

  - by mattmcmanus

  I will do my best to try and explain this as it's strange and confusing to me. I posted a little while ago about a sustained spike in mysql queries on a VPS I had recently setup. It turned out to be a single post on a site I was developmenting. The post had over 30,000 spam comments! Since the site was one I was slowly building I hadn't configured the anti-spam comment software yet. I've since deleted the particular post which has given the server a break but the post's url keeps on getting hit. The frustrating thing is every hit is from a different IP. How do I even start to block/prevent this? Is this even something I need to worry about? Here are some more specific details about my setup, just to give some context: Ubuntu 8.10 server with ufw setup The site I'm building is in Drupal which now has Mollom setup for spam control. It wasn't configured before. The requests happen inconsistently. Sometimes it's every couple seconds and other times it's a an or so between hits. However it's been going on pretty much constantly like that for over a week. Here is a sample of my apache access log from the last 15 minutes just for the page in question: dev.domain-name.com:80 97.87.97.169 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:47:40 +0000] "POST http://dev.domain-name.com/comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 202.149.24.193 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:50:37 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 193.106.92.77 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:50:39 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 194.85.136.187 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:52:03 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 220.255.7.13 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:52:14 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 195.70.55.151 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:53:41 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 71.91.4.31 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:56:07 +0000] "POST http://dev.domain-name.com/comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 98.209.203.170 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:56:10 +0000] "POST http://dev.domain-name.com/comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 24.255.137.159 - - [28/Mar/2010:06:56:19 +0000] "POST http://dev.domain-name.com/comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 77.242.20.18 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:00:15 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 94.75.215.42 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:01:34 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.0" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 89.115.2.128 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:03:20 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 75.65.230.252 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:05:05 +0000] "POST http://dev.domain-name.com/comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 206.251.255.61 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:06:46 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.0" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" dev.domain-name.com:80 213.194.120.14 - - [28/Mar/2010:07:07:22 +0000] "POST /comment/reply/3 HTTP/1.1" 404 5895 "http://dev.domain-name.com/blog/2009/11/23/another" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)" I understand this is an open ended question, but any help or insight you could give would be much appreciated.

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