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• jQuery: How do I stop the page being displayed until it's been processed?

  - by Alistair Christie

  I'm using jQuery to modify the style of some pages in a large set of existing Web pages. This works, but the problem I have is that, for longer pages, the page is briefly visible with the wrong styles before the javascript kicks in and transforms the page. I'm using this kind of thing (the alerts are just to emphasize the problem): $(document).ready(function(){ ... alert("at this point the page is visible unstyled"); $('body').addClass('myStyle'); alert("now page looks like I want it to"); ... } How do I prevent the browser from displaying the page until $(document).ready(function() completes?

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• Clean URLs for static HTML files with .htaccess and mod_rewrite

  - by alistair.mp

  Hello. mod_rewrite always baffles me... can anyone tell me the rules I need to get the following clean URLs? Desired URL on the left, real URL on the right. /our-work/ => /our-work.html /our-work/some-project/ => /our-work/some-project.html /contact/ => /contact.html As you can see, I want to force trailing slashes on all URLs too. Thanks!

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• How can I tackle 'profoundly found elsewhere' syndrome (inverse of NIH)?

  - by Alistair Knock

  How can I encourage colleagues to embrace small-scale innovation within our team(s), in order to get things done quicker and to encourage skills development? (the term 'profoundly found elsewhere' comes from Wikipedia, although it is scarcely used anywhere else apart from a reference to Proctor & Gamble) I've worked in both environments where there is a strong opposition to software which hasn't been developed in-house (usually because there's a large community of developers), and more recently (with far fewer central developers) where off-the-shelf products are far more favoured for the usual reasons: maintenance, total cost over product lifecycle, risk management and so on. I think the off the shelf argument works in the majority of cases for the majority of users, even though as a developer the product never quite does what I'd like it to do. However, in some cases there are clear gaps where the market isn't able to provide specifically what we would need, or at least it isn't able to without charging astronomical consultancy rates for a bespoke solution. These can be small web applications which provide a short-term solution to a particular need in one specific department, or could be larger developments that have the potential to serve a wider audience, both across the organisation and into external markets. The problem is that while development of these applications would be incredibly cheap in terms of developer hours, and delivered very quickly without the need for glacial consultation, the proposal usually falls flat because of risk: 'Who'll maintain the project tracker that hasn't had any maintenance for the past 7 years while you're on holiday for 2 weeks?' 'What if one of our systems changes and the connector breaks?' 'How can you guarantee it's secure/better/faster/cheaper/holier than Company X's?' With one developer behind these little projects, the answers are invariably: 'Nobody, but...' 'It will break, just like any other application would...' 'I, uh...' How can I better answer these questions and encourage people to take a little risk in order to stimulate creativity and fast-paced, short-lifecycle development instead of using that 6 months to consult about what tender process we might use?

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• How do I store multiple copies of the same field in Django?

  - by Alistair

  I'm storing OLAC metadata which describes linguistic resources. Many of the elements of the metadata are repeatable -- for example, a resource can have two languages, three authors and four dates associated with it. Is there any way of storing this in one model? It seems like overkill to define a model for each repeatable metadata element -- especially since the models will only have one field: it's value.

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• Use Case Actors - Primary versus Secondary

  - by Dave Burke

  The Unified Modeling Language (UML1) defines an Actor (from UseCases) as: An actor specifies a role played by a user or any other system that interacts with the subject. In Alistair Cockburn’s book “Writing Effective Use Cases” (2) Actors are further defined as follows: Primary Actor: The primary actor of a use case is the stakeholder that calls on the system to deliver one of its services. It has a goal with respect to the system – one that can be satisfied by its operation. The primary actor is often, but not always, the actor who triggers the use case. Supporting Actors: A supporting actor in a use case in an external actor that provides a service to the system under design. It might be a high-speed printer, a web service, or humans that have to do some research and get back to us. In a 2006 article (3) Cockburn refined the definitions slightly to read: Primary Actors: The Actor(s) using the system to achieve a goal. The Use Case documents the interactions between the system and the actors to achieve the goal of the primary actor. Secondary Actors: Actors that the system needs assistance from to achieve the primary actor’s goal. Finally, the Oracle Unified Method (OUM) concurs with the UML definition of Actors, along with Cockburn’s refinement, but OUM also includes the following: Secondary actors may or may not have goals that they expect to be satisfied by the use case, the primary actor always has a goal, and the use case exists to satisfy the primary actor. Now that we are on the same “page”, let’s consider two examples: A bank loan officer wants to review a loan application from a customer, and part of the process involves a real-time credit rating check. Use Case Name: Review Loan Application Primary Actor: Loan Officer Secondary Actors: Credit Rating System A Human Resources manager wants to change the job code of an employee, and as part of the process, automatically notify several other departments within the company of the change. Use Case Name: Maintain Job Code Primary Actor: Human Resources Manager Secondary Actors: None The first example is quite straight forward; we need to define the Secondary Actor because without the “Credit Rating System” we cannot successfully complete the Use Case. In other words, the goal of the Primary Actor is to successfully complete the Loan Application, but they need the explicit “help” of the Secondary Actor (Credit Rating System) to achieve this goal. The second example is where people sometimes get confused. Within OUM we would not include the “other departments” as Secondary Actors and therefore not include them on the Use Case diagram for the following reasons: The other departments are not required for the successful completion of the Use Case We are not expecting any response from the other departments (at least within the bounds of the Use Case under discussion) Having said that, within the detail of the Use Case Specification Main Success Scenario, we would include something like: “The system sends a notification to the related department heads (ref. Business Rule BR101)” Now let’s consider one final example. A Procurement Manager wants to place a “bid” for some goods using an On-Line Trading Community (B2B version of eBay) Use Case Name: Create Bid Primary Actor: Procurement Manager Secondary Actors: On-Line Trading Community You might wonder why the Trading Community is listed as a Secondary Actor, i.e. if all we are going to do is place a bid for a specific quantity of goods at a given price and send that off to the Trading Community, then why would the Trading Community need to “assist” in that Use Case? Well, once again, it comes back to the “User Experience” and how we want to optimize that when we think about our Use Case, and ultimately, when the developer comes to assembling some code. In this final example, the Procurement Manager cannot successfully complete the “Create Bid” Use Case until they receive an affirmative confirmation back from the Trading Community that the Bid has been accepted. Therefore, the Trading Community must become a Secondary Actor and be referenced both on the Use Case diagram and Use Case Specification. Any astute readers who are wondering about the “single sitting” rule will have to wait for a follow-up Blog entry to find out how that consideration can be factored in!!! Happy Use Case writing! (1) OMG Unified Modeling LanguageTM (OMG UML), Superstructure Version 2.4.1 (2) Cockburn, A, 2000, Writing Effective Use Case, Addison-Wesley Professional; Edition 1 (3) Cockburn, A, 2006 “Use Case fundamentals” viewed 20th March 2012, http://alistair.cockburn.us/Use+case+fundamentals

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• Expression Studio 4 Launch on June 7th

  I cant wait til next week when Expression Studio 4 (Expression Blend, SketchFlow, Expression Web, Expression Design) will launch at the Internet Week conference in New York City on June 7th! I wish I could go, I grew up in NY and still call it home, but there will be a lot of great people there including Blenders: Adam Kinney Arturo Toledo Bill Buxton Christian Schormann Pete Blois Weve shown some of the new features off on Silverlight TV but we have even more to share! Here are...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Free Windows Azure event next Monday in London (29th March)

  - by Eric Nelson

  I just heard that we still have spaces for this event happening next week (29th March 2010). Whilst the event is designed for start-ups, I’m sure nobody would notice if you snuck in :-) Just keep it to yourself ;-) Register using invitation code: 79F2AB. Hope to see you there. The agenda is looking pretty swish: 09:00 – 09:30 Registration 09:30 - 10:15 Keynote  ‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now....’– John Taysom, Active Seed Investor 10:15 - 10:45   The Microsoft Vision for Cloud Computing – Steve Clayton, Director Software + Services, EMEA 10:45 - 11:00   Break 11:00 - 12:30 “Windows Azure in Real World” – hear from startups that have built their business around the Azure platform, moderated by Alistair Beagley, Azure UK Developer and Platform Lead 12:30 - 13:15 Lunch and networking  13:15 - 14:15  Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. Windows Azure Technical Overview - David Gristwood, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. SQL Azure Technical Overview – Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 3. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 14:15 - 14:30 Session change over 14:30 - 15:30   Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. SQL Azure Technical Overview (repeat) - Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. Deep dive into Windows Azure – Neil Kidd, Architect, Microsoft Technology Centre 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session – Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 15:30 - 16:00 Break & Session change over 16:00 - 17:00 Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. PHP / Ruby on Azure Simon Davies, Architect, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 2. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups (repeat) - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session #2 Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 17:00 - 18:00 Pitches and Judging 18:15 Wrap-up and close 18:15 - 20:00 Drinks & Networking

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• How to resolve this VC++ 6.0 linker error?

  - by fishdump

  This is a Windows Console application (actually a service) that a previous guy built 4 years ago and is installed and running. I now need to make some changes but can't even build the current version! Here is the build output: --------------------Configuration: MyApp - Win32 Debug-------------------- Compiling resources... Compiling... Main.cpp winsock.cpp Linking... LINK : warning LNK4098: defaultlib "LIBCMTD" conflicts with use of other libs; use /NODEFAULTLIB:library Main.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _socket_dontblock Debug/MyApp.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals Error executing link.exe. MyApp.exe - 2 error(s), 1 warning(s) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I use /NODEFAULTLIB then I get loads of errors. The code does not actually use _socket_noblock but I can't find anything on it on the 'net. Presumably it is used by some library I am linking to but I don't know what library it is in. --- Alistair.

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• What good practices, if any, has the agile movement lost?

  - by clarke ching

  I am a long time agile advocated but one of the things that bothers me about Agile is that a lot of agile practitioners, especially the younger ones, have thrown out or are missing a whole lot of good (non Scrum, non XP) practices. Alistair Cockburn's style of writing Use Cases springs to mind; orthogonal arrays (pairwise testing) is another. I hope this is an okay forum to ask this, but since I read mostly Agile related books and articles and work with mostly Agile folk ... is there anything I'm missing? Thanks for all your help. StackOverlow is a fantastic resource.

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• Podcast: The Invisible UI : Natural User Interfaces with Josh Blake

  - by craigshoemaker

  Josh Blake of Infostrat joins Pixel8 to discuss NUI development in .NET. Josh is the author of the upcoming book Multitouch on Windows from Manning. Reaching far beyond theory and the niche market of Microsoft Surface, NUI development is now possible with Silverlight and WPF development on Windows 7 and Windows 7 Mobile devices. Subscribe to the podcast! The Natural User Interface (NUI) was a prominent force at MIX10. What is NUI? Wikipedia defines it as: Natural user interface, or NUI, is the common parlance used by designers and developers of computer interfaces to refer to a user interface that is effectively invisible, or becomes invisible with successive learned interactions, to its users. The word natural is used because most computer interfaces use artificial control devices whose operation has to be learned. A NUI relies on a user being able to carry out relatively natural motions, movements or gestures that they quickly discover control the computer application or manipulate the on-screen content. The most descriptive identifier of a NUI is the lack of a physical keyboard and/or mouse. In our interview Josh demystifies what NUI is, makes a distinction between gestures and manipulations, and talks about what is possible today for NUI development. For more from Josh make sure to check out his book: and watch his MIX Presentation: Developing Natural User Interfaces with Microsoft Silverlight and WPF 4 Touch Resources Mentioned in the Show Check out the following videos that show the roots and future of NUI development: Jeff Han's Multi-Touch TED Presentation Microsoft Surface Project Natal MIX10 Day 2 Keynote A few times during our talk Bill Buxton’s work is mentioned. To see his segment of the MIX10 day 2 keynote, click below:

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• Oracle 'In Touch' PartnerCast - July 1, 2014

  - by Cinzia Mascanzoni

  27 May 2014 'In Touch' Webcast for Oracle EMEA Partners Invitation Stay Connected Oracle Media Network   OPN on PartnerCast   Oracle 'In Touch' PartnerCast (July 1, 2014)Be prepared for a year of growth Register Now! Dear partner, We would like to invite you to join David Callaghan, Senior Vice President Oracle EMEA Alliances and Channels, and his studio guests for the next broadcast of the Oracle ‘In Touch’ PartnerCast on Tuesday 1st July 2014 from 10:30am UK / 11:30am CET. In this cast, David’s studio guests and his regional reporters will be looking at your priorities as EMEA partners and how best to grow with Oracle. We also look forward to the broadcast covering topics on the following: Highlights of FY14 Strategic themes for FY15 HCM, CRM and ERP Oracle on Oracle Exclusive for ‘In Touch’ David Callaghan questions Rich Geraffo, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances & Channels, on how the FY15 partner Global kick off relates to EMEA. Plus David provides your chance to hear from some of the newly appointed Worldwide A&C Leadership team as he discusses with Bruce Chumley VP Oracle Channel Distribution Sales & Troy Richardson VP Oracle Strategic Alliances; their core focus and strategy of growth and what they intend on bringing to the table in their new role. Register Now! With lots of studio guests joining David, why not get in touch on Twitter using the hashtag #OracleInTouch or by emailing [email protected] to get your questions featured in the cast! To find out more information and to watch previous episodes on-demand, please visit our webpage here. Best regards, Oracle EMEA Alliances & Channels Oracle 'In Touch' PartnerCast: be prepared for a year of growth July 01, 2014 10:30am UK / 11:30am CET Duration: 45 mins. Host David Callaghan Senior VP Oracle EMEA Alliances & Channels Studio Guests Alistair Hopkins VP Sales & Strategy, Technology Solutions, Oracle EMEA Alliances & Channels More to be announced shortly Features Contributors Rich Geraffo Senior Vice President, Oracle Worldwide Alliances & Channels Bruce Chumley Vice President Channel Distribution Sales, Oracle WW Alliances & Channels Steve Biondi VP Channel Distribution Sales, Oracle WW Alliances & Channels Regional Reporters Silvia Kaske VP Oracle A&C WCE North Will O'Brien VP Oracle A&C UK/IE Eric Fontaine VP Oracle A&C WCE South Janusz Naklicki VP Oracle A&C ECEMEA

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• Controller Error: Do I need to worry?

  - by Kryten

  Hi, I have a HP Pavillion dv5224ea Laptop with Windows 7 on it. Recently I discovered a Error in Event Viewer: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort1. (more details): - System - Provider [ Name] atapi - EventID 11 [ Qualifiers] 49156 Level 2 Task 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2010-03-07T12:43:07.090197600Z EventRecordID 30198 Channel System Computer Alistair-Win7 Security - EventData \Device\Ide\IdePort1 0000100001000000000000000B0004C002000000850100C00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000004100000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Binary data: In Words 0000: 00100000 00000001 00000000 C004000B 0008: 00000002 C0000185 00000000 00000000 0010: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 0018: 00000000 00001004 In Bytes 0000: 00 00 10 00 01 00 00 00 ........ 0008: 00 00 00 00 0B 00 04 C0 .......À 0010: 02 00 00 00 85 01 00 C0 ......À 0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0030: 00 00 00 00 04 10 00 00 ........ Event Viewer is recording A LOT of these errors (sometimes 13, one after the other!). Do I need to worry? What does this error mean? What device could "\Device\Ide\IdePort1" be? What is a ATAPI Error? Do I need to re-install Windows? I generally find the occurs when I try to backup my machine (using Windows Backup) or when using a program that uses Volume Shadow Copy. I have run "sfc", no problems. There are no Device Errors in Device Manager. I have also run "vssadmin list writers", no problems. Whats going on??? Would it be a good idea to re-install Windows 7?

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• Controller Error: Do I need to worry?

  - by Kryten

  I have a HP Pavillion dv5224ea Laptop with Windows 7 on it. Recently I discovered a Error in Event Viewer: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort1. (more details): - System - Provider [ Name] atapi - EventID 11 [ Qualifiers] 49156 Level 2 Task 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2010-03-07T12:43:07.090197600Z EventRecordID 30198 Channel System Computer Alistair-Win7 Security - EventData \Device\Ide\IdePort1 0000100001000000000000000B0004C002000000850100C00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000004100000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Binary data: In Words 0000: 00100000 00000001 00000000 C004000B 0008: 00000002 C0000185 00000000 00000000 0010: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 0018: 00000000 00001004 In Bytes 0000: 00 00 10 00 01 00 00 00 ........ 0008: 00 00 00 00 0B 00 04 C0 .......À 0010: 02 00 00 00 85 01 00 C0 ......À 0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0030: 00 00 00 00 04 10 00 00 ........ Event Viewer is recording A LOT of these errors (sometimes 13, one after the other!). Do I need to worry? What does this error mean? What device could "\Device\Ide\IdePort1" be? What is a ATAPI Error? Do I need to re-install Windows? I generally find the occurs when I try to backup my machine (using Windows Backup) or when using a program that uses Volume Shadow Copy. I have run "sfc", no problems. There are no Device Errors in Device Manager. I have also run "vssadmin list writers", no problems. Whats going on??? Would it be a good idea to re-install Windows 7?

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• Silverlight Cream for April 01, 2010 -- #827

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Max Paulousky, Hassan, Viktor Larsson, Fons Sonnemans, Jim McCurdy, Scott Marlowe, Mike Taulty, Brad Abrams, Jesse Liberty, Scott Barnes, Christopher Bennage, and John Papa and Ward Bell. Shoutouts: Tim Heuer posted a survey: What tools are the minimum to get started in Silverlight?... have you responded yet? Don't want to miss this discussion: Channel 9 Live at MIX10: Bill Buxton & Erik Meijer - Perspectives on Design Bookmark this... Jesse Liberty has moved his site: Silverlight Geek I stand with Tim Heuer on this: Congratulations to latest 2nd quarter Silverlight MVPs From SilverlightCream.com: Wizards. Prototype of sketching Wizard for WPF - 1 Max Paulousky is creating a SketchFlow WPF wizard in Expression Blend... looks like good Expression Blend and SketchFlow no matter what the target is Windows Phone 7 Navigation Hassan has another WP7 Video up, and this one is on Navigation and passing data from page to page. Silverlight 4 PathListBox Viktor Larsson is blogging about the PathListBox, and definitely had a good time doing so.. lots of fun examples. CountDown Clock in Silverlight 4 Fons Sonnemans has reworked his Sivlerlight 3 FlipClock to be this Silverlight 4 CountDown Clock utilizing the Viewbox control to make it scalable. Generic class for deep clone of Silverlight and CLR objects Jim McCurdy has a Silverlight 3 and 4-tested CloneObject class that he's using for creating a deep copy of an object and all it's properties... think drag/drop or undo/redo. Animating the Fill Color of a Silverlight Ellipse Scott Marlowe has a tutorial up that animates a pass/fail indicator with a smooth transition from a red to a green state... all with code. Silverlight 4, Blend 4, MVVM, Binding, DependencyObject Mike Taulty has a great tutorial up on Blend4 and binding... he's got a somewhat contrived example going, but it certainly looks good to me :) Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Authentication and Personalization Next up in Brad Abrams' series is Authentication and Personalization. RIA Services makes this easy to do... let Brad show you! An Annotated Line of Business Application Jesse Liberty is walking through the design and delivery of his HyperVideo project with this mini tutorial. Want to understand the thought process behind the LOB app, check this out. How to hack Expression Blend Seems like there was just some discussion about some of this today and here Scott Barnes posts this hack job for Expression Blend... pretty cool actually :) d:DesignInstance in Blend 4 Christopher Bennage has a follow-on post about using d:DesignInstance in Blend 4, and this is a very nice tutorial on the subject Silverlight TV 19: Hidden Gems from MIX10, UFC's Multi-Touch App John Papa and Ward Bell front and center for Silverlight TV number 19... and check out those threads! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• C# array of objects - conditional validation

  - by fishdump

  Sorry about the vague title! I have an class with a number of member variables (system, zone, site, ...) public sealed class Cello { public String Company; public String Zone; public String System; public String Site; public String Facility; public String Process; //... } I have an array of objects of this class. private Cello[] m_cellos = null; // ... I need to know whether the array contains objects with the same site but different systems, zones or companies since such a situation would be illegal. I have various other checks to make but they are all along similar lines. The Array class has a number of functions that look promising but I am not very up on defining 'key selector' functions and things like that. Any suggestions or pointers would be greatly appreciated. --- Alistair.

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• F1 Pit Pragmatics

  - by mikef

  "I hate computers. No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life. but I actually hate the computers themselves." - Scott Merrill, 'I hate computers: confessions of a Sysadmin' If Scott's goal was to polarize opinion and trigger raging arguments over the 'real reasons why computers suck', then he certainly succeeded. Impassioned vitriol sits side-by-side with rational debate. Yet Scott's fundamental point is absolutely on the money - Computers are a means to an end. The IT industry is finally starting to put weight behind the notion that good User Experience is an absolutely crucial goal, a cause championed by the likes of Microsoft's Bill Buxton, and which Apple's increasingly ubiquitous touch screen interface exemplifies. However, that doesn't change the fact that, occasionally, you just have to man up and deal with complex systems. In fact, sometimes you just need to sacrifice everything else in the name of performance. You'll find a perfect example of this Faustian bargain in Trevor Clarke's fascinating look into the (diabolical) IT infrastructure of modern F1 racing - high performance, high availability. high everything. To paraphrase, each car has up to 100 sensors, transmitting around 30Gb of data over the course of a race (70% in real-time). This data is then processed by no less than 3 servers (per car) so that the engineers in the pit have access to telemetry, strategy information, timing feeds, a connection back to the operations room in the team's home base - the list goes on. All of this while the servers are exposed "to carbon dust, oil, vibration, rain, heat, [and] variable power". Now, this is admittedly an extreme context where there's no real choice but to use complex systems where ease-of-use is, at best, a secondary concern. The flip-side is seen in small-scale personal computing such as that seen in Apple's iDevices, which are incredibly intuitive but limited in their scope. In terms of what kinds of systems they prefer to use, I suspect that most SysAdmins find themselves somewhere along this axis of Power vs. Usability, and which end of this axis you resonate with also hints at where you think the IT industry should focus its energy. Do you see yourself in the F1 pit, making split-second decisions, wrestling with information flows and reticent hardware to bend them to your will? If so, I imagine you feel that computers are subtle tools which need to be tuned and honed, using the advanced knowledge possessed only by responsible SysAdmins (If you have an iPhone, I suspect it's jail-broken). If the machines throw enigmatic errors, it's the price of flexibility and raw power. Alternatively, would you prefer to have your role more accessible, with users empowered by knowledge, spreading the load of managing IT environments? In that case, then you want hardware and software to have User Experience as their primary focus, and are of the "means to an end" school of thought (you're probably also fed up with users not listening to you when you try and help). At its heart, the dichotomy is between raw power (which might be difficult to use) and ease-of-use (which might have some limitations, but you can be up and running immediately). Of course, the ultimate goal is a fusion of flexibility, power and usability all in one system. It's achievable in specific software environments, and Red Gate considers it a target worth aiming for, but in other cases it's a goal right up there with cold fusion. I think it'll be a long time before we see it become ubiquitous. In the meantime, are you Power-Hungry or a Champion of Usability? Cheers, Michael Francis Simple Talk SysAdmin Editor

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• Using MS Standalone profiler in VS2008 Professional

  - by fishdump

  I am trying to profile my .NET dll while running it from VS unit testing tools but I am having problems. I am using the standalone command-line profiler as VS2008 Professional does not come with an inbuilt profiler. I have an open CMD window and have run the following commands (I instrumented it earlier which is why vsinstr gave the warning that it did): C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug>vsperfclrenv /samplegclife /tracegclife /globalsamplegclife /globaltracegclife Enabling VSPerf Sampling Attach Profiling. Allows to 'attaching' to managed applications. Current Profiling Environment variables are: COR_ENABLE_PROFILING=1 COR_PROFILER={0a56a683-003a-41a1-a0ac-0f94c4913c48} COR_LINE_PROFILING=1 COR_GC_PROFILING=2 C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug>vsinstr BusinessRules.dll Microsoft (R) VSInstr Post-Link Instrumentation 9.0.30729 x86 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. Error VSP1018 : VSInstr does not support processing binaries that are already instrumented. C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug>vsperfcmd /start:trace /output:foo.vsp Microsoft (R) VSPerf Command Version 9.0.30729 x86 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug> I then ran the unit tests that exercised the instrumented code. When the unit tests were complete, I did... C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug>vsperfcmd /shutdown Microsoft (R) VSPerf Command Version 9.0.30729 x86 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. Waiting for process 4836 ( C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\vstesthost.exe) to shutdown... It was clearly waiting for VS2008 to close so I closed it... Shutting down the Profile Monitor ------------------------------------------------------------ C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug> All looking good, there was a 3.2mb foo.vsp file in the directory. I next did... C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug>vsperfreport foo.vsp /summary:all Microsoft (R) VSPerf Report Generator, Version 9.0.0.0 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. VSP2340: Environment variables were not properly set during profiling run and managed symbols may not resolve. Please use vsperfclrenv before profiling. File opened Successfully opened the file. A report file, foo_Header.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_MarksSummary.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_ProcessSummary.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_ThreadSummary.csv, has been generated. Analysis completed A report file, foo_FunctionSummary.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_CallerCalleeSummary.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_CallTreeSummary.csv, has been generated. A report file, foo_ModuleSummary.csv, has been generated. C:\...\BusinessRules\obj\Debug> Notice the warning about environment variables and using vsperfclrenv? But I had run it! Maybe I used the wrong switches? I don't know. Anyway, loading the csv files into Excel or using the perfconsole tool gives loads of useful info with useless symbol names: *** Loading commands from: C:\temp\PerfConsole\bin\commands\timebytype.dll *** Adding command: timebytype *** Loading commands from: C:\temp\PerfConsole\bin\commands\partition.dll *** Adding command: partition Welcome to PerfConsole 1.0 (for bugs please email: [email protected]), for help type: ?, for a quickstart type: ?? > load foo.vsp *** Couldn't match to either expected sampled or instrumented profile schema, defaulting to sampled *** Couldn't match to either expected sampled or instrumented profile schema, defaulting to sampled *** Profile loaded from 'foo.vsp' into @foo > > functions @foo >>>>> Function Name Exclusive Inclusive Function Name Module Name -------------------- -------------------- -------------- --------------- 900,798,600,000.00 % 900,798,600,000.00 % 0x0600003F 20397910 14,968,500,000.00 % 44,691,540,000.00 % 0x06000040 14736385 8,101,253,000.00 % 14,836,330,000.00 % 0x06000041 5491345 3,216,315,000.00 % 6,876,929,000.00 % 0x06000042 3924533 <snip> 71,449,430.00 % 71,449,430.00 % 0x0A000074 42572 52,914,200.00 % 52,914,200.00 % 0x0A000073 0 14,791.00 % 13,006,010.00 % 0x0A00007B 0 199,177.00 % 6,082,932.00 % 0x2B000001 5350072 2,420,116.00 % 2,420,116.00 % 0x0A00008A 0 836.00 % 451,888.00 % 0x0A000045 0 9,616.00 % 399,436.00 % 0x0A000039 0 18,202.00 % 298,223.00 % 0x06000046 1479900 I am so close to being able to find the bottlenecks, if only it will give me the function and module names instead of hex numbers! What am I doing wrong? --- Alistair.

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