starts - Page 208 - Developer IT

Issue Displaying/Hiding Views (Obj-C iPhone Programming)

- by roswell

All right all, So I've got a UITableView that is inited in applicationDidFinishLaunching like so: [self showForumList]; Said method does this: -(void)showForumList { ForumList *fl = [ForumList alloc]; [fl initWithNibName:@"ForumList" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]]; self.ForumList = fl; [window addSubview:[self.ForumList view]]; [fl release]; }where self.ForumList is previously defined in the interface as ForumList *ForumList;, etc. Now, in ForumList (itself an extension of UITableViewController obviously), I've got didSelectRowAtIndexPath: -- within it I have the following code: Forum *f = [Forum alloc]; NSArray *forums = [f getForumList]; NSDictionary *selectedForum = [forums objectAtIndex:[indexPath row]]; NSString *Url = [selectedForum objectForKey:@"url"]; NSString *Username = [selectedForum objectForKey:@"username"]; NSString *Password = [selectedForum objectForKey:@"password"]; NSLog(@"Identified press on forum %@ (%@/%@)", Url, Username, Password); [self.globalDelegate showForumListFromForumUsingUrl:Url username:Username password:Password]; [self.globalDelegate closeForumList]; NSLog(@"ForumListFromForum init"); Both of the NSLog calls in this function are executed and perform as they should. Now, here is where the issue starts. self.globalDelegate is defined as AppDelegate *globalDelegate; in the Interface specification in my header file. However, [self.globalDelegate showForumListFromForumUsingUrl:username:password] and and [self.globalDelegate closeForumList] are never actually called. They look like so: -(void)closeForumList { NSLog(@"Hiding forum list"); [[self.ForumList view] removeFromSuperview]; } -(void)showForumListFromForumUsingUrl:(NSString *)Url username:(NSString *)Username password:(NSString *)Password { NSLog(@"Showing forum list from forum"); ForumListFromForum *fl = [ForumListFromForum alloc]; [fl initWithNibName:@"ForumListFromForum" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]]; [fl initFromForumWithUrl:Url username:Username password:Password]; self.ForumListFromForum = fl; [window addSubview:[self.ForumListFromForum view]]; [fl release]; } The app does not respond to my press and neither of these NSLog calls are made. Any idea where I've gone wrong?

Read the article

Using KnockoutJS 2.2.0 & jQuery 1.8.2 remove all bindings from all children of #someDiv

- by Nukeface

I'm wanting to delete All bindings (ko.cleanNode) from all child elements of a certain div. Must be a noobie question but I can't figure out how to use jQuery to loop through all childre, grand-children, great-grand-children, etc. whilst having KnockoutJS remove the bindings of all the DOM elements. I do NOT want to remove the elements from the DOM. This is a single page application, therefore the elements are pre-loaded as embedded resources and don't get resend to a client if they were to visit the page again. If a client revisits that part of the application I'll have a function rebind the necessary elements, which currently works fine. Current setup: <html> <head> //loading all resources </head> <body> //load first element using some obscure setup <div id="firsPage" data-role="page"> <div data-role="header">@Global.header</div> <div data-role="fieldcontain"> <label for="firstInput" /> <input id="firstInput some other stuff /> </div> <div data-role="datebox  > //creates table using jQuery mobile (lots of (great-)(grand-)children) </div> <div data-role="fieldcontain"> <div id="secondInput"> <div class="checklist"> <ul> <li /> <li /> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> //Here the whole thing starts again <div id="secondPage" data-role="page">  </div> //And here again! and again... </body> The problem I'm having is that bindings of the children don't seem to get "cleaned up" when i use ko.cleanNode($('#firstPage')[0]); Or when I get the Element into a variable and then format it to ko.cleanNode($element). Is there a way to do this? Been staring at it for a good few hours now, so probably overlooking a way too obvious way of doing it... Thanks!

Read the article

Inlining an array of non-default constructible objects in a C++ class

- by porgarmingduod

C++ doesn't allow a class containing an array of items that are not default constructible: class Gordian { public: int member; Gordian(int must_have_variable) : member(must_have_variable) {} }; class Knot { Gordian* pointer_array[8]; // Sure, this works. Gordian inlined_array[8]; // Won't compile. Can't be initialized. }; As even beginner C++ users know, the language guarantees that all members are initialized when constructing a class. And it doesn't trust the user to initialize everything in the constructor - one has to provide valid arguments to the constructors of all members before the body of the constructor even starts. Generally, that's a great idea as far as I'm concerned, but I've come across a situation where it would be a lot easier if I could actually have an array of non-default constructible objects. The obvious solution: Have an array of pointers to the objects. This is not optimal in my case, as I am using shared memory. It would force me to do extra allocation from an already contended resource (that is, the shared memory). The entire reason I want to have the array inlined in the object is to reduce the number of allocations. This is a situation where I would be willing to use a hack, even an ugly one, provided it works. One possible hack I am thinking about would be: class Knot { public: struct dummy { char padding[sizeof(Gordian)]; }; dummy inlined_array[8]; Gordian* get(int index) { return reinterpret_cast<Gordian*>(&inlined_array[index]); } Knot() { for (int x = 0; x != 8; x++) { new (get(x)) Gordian(x*x); } } }; Sure, it compiles, but I'm not exactly an experienced C++ programmer. That is, I couldn't possibly trust my hacks less. So, the questions: 1) Does the hack I came up with seem workable? What are the issues? (I'm mainly concerned with C++0x on newer versions of GCC). 2) Is there a better way to inline an array of non-default constructible objects in a class?

Read the article

jquery animation problem using stop

- by Flanders

Hi! When running a Jquery animation like slideDown(), it looks like a number of element-specific css properties is set to be updated at a specific interval and when the animation is complete these properties are unset and the display property is simply set to auto or whatever. At least in firebug you can't see those temporary properties any more. The problem I've encountered is the scenario where we stop the slide down with stop(). The element is then left with the current temporary css values. Which is fine because it has to, but let us say that I stoped the slidedown because I have decided to slide it back up again a bit prematurely. It would look something like this: $(this).slideDown(2000) //The below events is not in queue but will rather start execute almost simultaneously as the above line. (dont remember the exact syntax) $(this).delay(1000).stop().slideUp(2000) The above code might not make much sense, but the point is: After 1 second of sliding down the animation is stopped and it starts to slide back up. Works like a charm. BUT!!! And here is the problem. Once it it has slid back up the elements css properties are reset to the exact values it had 1000ms into the slideDown() animation (when stop() was called). If we now try to run the following: $(this).slideDown(2000) It will slide down to the very point the prior slideDown was aborted and not further at half the speed (since it uses the same time for approximately half the height). This is because the css properties were saved as I see it. But it is not especially wished for. Of course I want it to slide all the way down this time. Due to UI interaction that is hard to predict everything might soon break. The longer animations we use increases the risk of something like this happening. Is this to be considered a bug, or am I doing something wrong? Or maybe it's just a feature that is not supported? I guess I can use a callback function to reset the css properties, but depending on the animation used, different css properties are used to render it, and covering your back would result in quite a not-so-fancy solution.

Read the article

Large memory chunk not garbage collected

- by Niels

In a hunt for a memory-leak in my app I chased down a behaviour I can't understand. I allocate a large memory block, but it doesn't get garbage-collected resulting in a OOM, unless I explicit null the reference in onDestroy. In this example I have two almost identical activities that switch between each others. Both have a single button. On pressing the button MainActivity starts OOMActivity and OOMActivity returns by calling finish(). After pressing the buttons a few times, Android throws a OOMException. If i add the the onDestroy to OOMActivity and explicit null the reference to the memory chunk, I can see in the log that the memory is correctly freed. Why doesn't the memory get freed automatically without the nulling? MainActivity: package com.example.oom; import android.app.Activity; import android.content.Intent; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.view.View.OnClickListener; import android.widget.Button; public class MainActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener { private int buttonId; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); System.gc(); Button OOMButton = new Button(this); OOMButton.setText("OOM"); buttonId = OOMButton.getId(); setContentView(OOMButton); OOMButton.setOnClickListener(this); } @Override public void onClick(View v) { if (v.getId() == buttonId) { Intent leakIntent = new Intent(this, OOMActivity.class); startActivity(leakIntent); } } } OOMActivity: public class OOMActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener { private static final int WASTE_SIZE = 20000000; private byte[] waste; private int buttonId; protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); Button BackButton = new Button(this); BackButton.setText("Back"); buttonId = BackButton.getId(); setContentView(BackButton); BackButton.setOnClickListener(this); waste = new byte[WASTE_SIZE]; } public void onClick(View view) { if (view.getId() == buttonId) { finish(); } } }

Read the article

When to use new layouts and when to use new activities?

- by cmdfrg

I'm making a game in Android and I'm trying to add a set of menu screens. Each screen takes up the whole display and has various transitions available to other screens. As a rough summary, the menu screens are: Start screen Difficult select screen Game screen. Pause screen. Game over screen. And there are several different ways you can transition between screen: 1 - 2 2 - 3 3 - 4 (pause game) 4 - 1 (exit game) 4 - 3 (resume game) 3 - 5 (game ends) Obviously, I need some stored state when moving between screens, such as the difficulty level select when starting a game and what the player's score is when the game over screen is shown. Can anyone give me some advice for the easiest way to implement the above screens and transitions in Android? All the create/destroy/pause/resume methods make me nervous about writing brittle code if I'm not careful. I'm not fond of using an Activity for each screen. It seems too heavy weight, having to pass data around using intents seems like a real pain and each screen isn't a useful module by itself. As the "back" button doesn't always go back to the previous screen either, my menu layout doesn't seem to fit the activity model well. At the moment, I'm representing each screen as an XML layout file and I have one activity. I set the different buttons on each layout to call setContentView to update the screen the main activity is showing (e.g. the pause button changes the layout to the pause screen). The activity holds onto all the state needed (e.g. the current difficulty level and the game high score), which makes it easy to share data between screens. This seems roughly similar to the LunarLander sample, except I'm using multiple screens. Does what I have at the moment sound OK or am I not doing things the typical Android way? Is there a class I can use (e.g. something like ViewFlipper) that could make my life easier? By the way, my game screen is implemented as a SurfaceView that stores the game state. I need the state in this view to persist between calls to setContentView (e.g. to resume from paused). Is the right idea to create the game view when the activity starts, keep a reference to it and then use this reference with setContentView whenever I want the game screen to appear?

Read the article

factory class, wrong number of arguments being passed to subclass constructor

- by Hugh Bothwell

I was looking at Python: Exception in the separated module works wrong which uses a multi-purpose GnuLibError class to 'stand in' for a variety of different errors. Each sub-error has its own ID number and error format string. I figured it would be better written as a hierarchy of Exception classes, and set out to do so: class GNULibError(Exception): sub_exceptions = 0 # patched with dict of subclasses once subclasses are created err_num = 0 err_format = None def __new__(cls, *args): print("new {}".format(cls)) # DEBUG if len(args) and args[0] in GNULibError.sub_exceptions: print(" factory -> {} {}".format(GNULibError.sub_exceptions[args[0]], args[1:])) # DEBUG return super(GNULibError, cls).__new__(GNULibError.sub_exceptions[args[0]], *(args[1:])) else: print(" plain {} {}".format(cls, args)) # DEBUG return super(GNULibError, cls).__new__(cls, *args) def __init__(self, *args): cls = type(self) print("init {} {}".format(cls, args)) # DEBUG self.args = args if cls.err_format is None: self.message = str(args) else: self.message = "[GNU Error {}] ".format(cls.err_num) + cls.err_format.format(*args) def __str__(self): return self.message def __repr__(self): return '{}{}'.format(type(self).__name__, self.args) class GNULibError_Directory(GNULibError): err_num = 1 err_format = "destination directory does not exist: {}" class GNULibError_Config(GNULibError): err_num = 2 err_format = "configure file does not exist: {}" class GNULibError_Module(GNULibError): err_num = 3 err_format = "selected module does not exist: {}" class GNULibError_Cache(GNULibError): err_num = 4 err_format = "{} is expected to contain gl_M4_BASE({})" class GNULibError_Sourcebase(GNULibError): err_num = 5 err_format = "missing sourcebase argument: {}" class GNULibError_Docbase(GNULibError): err_num = 6 err_format = "missing docbase argument: {}" class GNULibError_Testbase(GNULibError): err_num = 7 err_format = "missing testsbase argument: {}" class GNULibError_Libname(GNULibError): err_num = 8 err_format = "missing libname argument: {}" # patch master class with subclass reference # (TO DO: auto-detect all available subclasses instead of hardcoding them) GNULibError.sub_exceptions = { 1: GNULibError_Directory, 2: GNULibError_Config, 3: GNULibError_Module, 4: GNULibError_Cache, 5: GNULibError_Sourcebase, 6: GNULibError_Docbase, 7: GNULibError_Testbase, 8: GNULibError_Libname } This starts out with GNULibError as a factory class - if you call it with an error number belonging to a recognized subclass, it returns an object belonging to that subclass, otherwise it returns itself as a default error type. Based on this code, the following should be exactly equivalent (but aren't): e = GNULibError(3, 'missing.lib') f = GNULibError_Module('missing.lib') print e # -> '[GNU Error 3] selected module does not exist: 3' print f # -> '[GNU Error 3] selected module does not exist: missing.lib' I added some strategic print statements, and the error seems to be in GNULibError.__new__: >>> e = GNULibError(3, 'missing.lib') new <class '__main__.GNULibError'> factory -> <class '__main__.GNULibError_Module'> ('missing.lib',) # good... init <class '__main__.GNULibError_Module'> (3, 'missing.lib') # NO! ^ why? I call the subclass constructor as subclass.__new__(*args[1:]) - this should drop the 3, the subclass type ID - and yet its __init__ is still getting the 3 anyway! How can I trim the argument list that gets passed to subclass.__init__?

Read the article

Calling a webservice synchronously from a Silverlight 3 application?

- by Lasse V. Karlsen

I am trying to reuse some .NET code that performs some calls to a data-access-layer type service. I have managed to package up both the input to the method and the output from the method, but unfortunately the service is called from inside code that I really don't want to rewrite in order to be asynchronous. Unfortunately, the webservice code generated in Silverlight only produces asynchronous methods, so I was wondering if anyone had working code that managed to work around this? I tried the recipe found here: The Easy Way To Synchronously Call WCF Services In Silverlight, but unfortunately it times out and never completes the call. Or rather, what seems to happen is that the completed event handler is called, but only after the method returns. I am suspecting that the event handler is called from a dispatcher or similar, and since I'm blocking the main thread here, it never completes until the code is actually back into the GUI loop. Or something like that. Here's my own version that I wrote before I found the above recipe, but it suffers from the same problem: public static object ExecuteRequestOnServer(Type dalInterfaceType, string methodName, object[] arguments) { string securityToken = "DUMMYTOKEN"; string input = "DUMMYINPUT"; object result = null; Exception resultException = null; object evtLock = new object(); var evt = new System.Threading.ManualResetEvent(false); try { var client = new MinGatServices.DataAccessLayerServiceSoapClient(); client.ExecuteRequestCompleted += (s, e) => { resultException = e.Error; result = e.Result; lock (evtLock) { if (evt != null) evt.Set(); } }; client.ExecuteRequestAsync(securityToken, input); try { var didComplete = evt.WaitOne(10000); if (!didComplete) throw new TimeoutException("A data access layer web service request timed out (" + dalInterfaceType.Name + "." + methodName + ")"); } finally { client.CloseAsync(); } } finally { lock (evtLock) { evt.Close(); evt = null; } } if (resultException != null) throw resultException; else return result; } Basically, both recipes does this: Set up a ManualResetEvent Hook into the Completed event The event handler grabs the result from the service call, and signals the event The main thread now starts the web service call asynchronously It then waits for the event to become signalled However, the event handler is not called until the method above has returned, hence my code that checks for evt != null and such, to avoid TargetInvocationException from killing my program after the method has timed out. Does anyone know: ... if it is possible at all in Silverlight 3 ... what I have done wrong above?

Read the article

Code to generate random numbers in C++

- by user1678927

Basically I have to write a program to generate random numbers to simulate the rolling of a pair of dice. This program should be constructed in multiple files. The main function should be in one file, the other functions should be in a second source file, and their prototypes should be in a header file. First I write a short function that returns a random value between 1 and 6 to simulate the rolling of a single 6-sided die.Second, i write a function that pretends to roll a pair of dice by calling this function twice. My program starts by asking the user how many rolls should be made. Then I write a function to simulate rolling the dice this many times, keeping a count of exactly how many times the values 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12(each number is the sum of a pair of dice) occur in an array. Later I write a function to display a small bar chart using these counts that ideally would look something like below for a sample of 144 rolls, where the number of asterisks printed corresponds to the count: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Next, to see how well the random number generator is doing, I write a function to compute the average value rolled. Compare this to the ideal average of 7. Also, print out a small table showing the counts of each roll made by the program, the ideal count based on the frequencies above given the total number of rolls, and the difference between these values in separate columns. This is my incomplete code so far: "Compiler visual studio 2010" int rolling(){ //Function that returns a random value between 1 and 6 rand(unsigned(time(NULL))); int dice = 1 + (rand() %6); return dice; } int roll_dice(int num1,int num2){ //it calls 'rolling function' twice int result1,result2; num1 = rolling(); num2 = rolling(); result1 = num1; result2 = num2; return result1,result2; } int main(void){ int times,i,sum,n1,n2; int c1,c2,c3,c4,c5,c6,c7,c8,c9,c10,c11;//counters for each sum printf("Please enter how many times you want to roll the dice.\n") scanf_s("%i",&times); I pretend to use counters to count each sum and store the number(the count) in an array. I know i need a loop (for) and some conditional statements (if) but m main problem is to get the values from roll_dice and store them in n1 and n2 so then i can sum them up and store the sum in 'sum'.

Read the article

A question about making a C# class persistant during a file load

- by Adam

Apologies for the indescriptive title, however it's the best I could think of for the moment. Basically, I've written a singleton class that loads files into a database. These files are typically large, and take hours to process. What I am looking for is to make a method where I can have this class running, and be able to call methods from within it, even if it's calling class is shut down. The singleton class is simple. It starts a thread that loads the file into the database, while having methods to report on the current status. In a nutshell it's al little like this: public sealed class BulkFileLoader { static BulkFileLoader instance = null; int currentCount = 0; BulkFileLoader() public static BulkFileLoader Instance { // Instanciate the instance class if necessary, and return it } public void Go() { // kick of 'ProcessFile' thread } public void GetCurrentCount() { return currentCount; } private void ProcessFile() { while (more rows in the import file) { // insert the row into the database currentCount++; } } } The idea is that you can get an instance of BulkFileLoader to execute, which will process a file to load, while at any time you can get realtime updates on the number of rows its done so far using the GetCurrentCount() method. This works fine, except the calling class needs to stay open the whole time for the processing to continue. As soon as I stop the calling class, the BulkFileLoader instance is removed, and it stops processing the file. What I am after is a solution where it will continue to run independently, regardless of what happens to the calling class. I then tried another approach. I created a simple console application that kicks off the BulkFileLoader, and then wrapped it around as a process. This fixes one problem, since now when I kick off the process, the file will continue to load even if I close the class that called the process. However, now the problem I have is that cannot get updates on the current count, since if I try and get the instance of BulkFileLoader (which, as mentioned before is a singleton), it creates a new instance, rather than returning the instance that is currently in the executing process. It would appear that singletons don't extend into the scope of other processes running on the machine. In the end, I want to be able to kick off the BulkFileLoader, and at any time be able to find out how many rows it's processed. However, that is even if I close the application I used to start it. Can anyone see a solution to my problem?

Read the article

When i add a bitmap to an array list the last element is duplicated in previous indexes

- by saxofone2

I'm trying to implement a personal way of undo/redo in a finger paint-like app. I have in synthesis three objects: the Main class (named ScorePadActivity), the relative Main Layout (with buttons, menus, etc, as well as a View object where I create my drawings), and a third object named ArrayList where i'm writing the undo/redo code. The problem is, when I press the undo button nothing happens, but if I draw anything again "one-time" and press undo, the screen is updated. If I draw many times, to see any changes happen on screen I have to press the undo button the same number of times I have drawn. Seems like (as in title) when I add a bitmap to the array list the last element is duplicated in previous indexes, and for some strange reason, everytime I press the Undo Button, the system is ok for one time, but starts to duplicate until the next undo. The index increase is verified with a series of System.out.println inserted in code. Now when I draw something on screen, the array list is updated with the code inserted after the invocation of touchup(); method in motionEvent touch_up(); } this.arrayClass.incrementArray(mBitmap); mPath.rewind(); invalidate(); and in ArrayList activity; public void incrementArray(Bitmap mBitmap) { this._mBitmap=mBitmap; _size=undoArray.size(); undoArray.add(_size, _mBitmap); } (All Logs removed for clear reading) The undo button in ScorePadActivity calls the undo method in View activity: Button undobtn= (Button)findViewById(R.id.undo); undobtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { mView.undo(); } }); in View activity: public void undo() { this.mBitmap= arrayClass.undo(); mCanvas = new Canvas(mBitmap); mPath.rewind(); invalidate(); } that calls the relative undo method in ArrayList activity: public Bitmap undo() { // TODO Auto-generated method stub _size=undoArray.size(); if (_size>1) { undoArray.remove(_size-1); _size=undoArray.size(); _mBitmap = ((Bitmap) undoArray.get(_size-1)).copy(Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888,true); } return _mBitmap; } return mBitmap and invalidate: Due to my bad English I have made a scheme to make the problem more clear: I have tried with HashMap, with a simple array, I have tried to change mPath.rewind(); with reset();, new Path(); etc but nothing. Why? Sorry for the complex answer, i want give you a great thanks in advance. Best regards

Read the article

Improving performance for WRITE operation on Oracle DB in Java

- by Lucky

I've a typical scenario & need to understand best possible way to handle this, so here it goes - I'm developing a solution that will retrieve data from a remote SOAP based web service & will then push this data to an Oracle database on network. Also, this will be a scheduled task that will execute every 15 minutes. I've event queues on remote service that contains the INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE operations that have been done since last retrieval, & once I retrieve the events for last 15 minutes, it again add events for next retrieval. Now, its just pushing data to Oracle so all my interactions are INSERT & UPDATE statements. There are around 60 tables on Oracle with some of them having 100+ columns. Moreover, for every 15 minutes cycle there would be around 60-70 Inserts, 100+ Updates & 10-20 Deletes. This will be an executable jar file that will terminate after operation & will again start on next 15 minutes cycle. So, I need to understand how should I handle WRITE operations (best practices) to improve performance for this application as whole ? Current Test Code (on every cycle) - Connects to remote service to get events. Creates a connection with DB (single connection object). Identifies the type of operation (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) & table on which it is done. After above, calls the respective method based on type of operation & table. Uses Preparedstatement with positional parameters, & retrieves each column value from remote service & assigns that to statement parameters. Commits the statement & returns to get event class to process next event. Above is repeated till all the retrieved events are processed after which program closes & then starts on next cycle & everything repeats again. Thanks for help !

Read the article

Entity Framework: An object with the same key already exists in the objectstatemanager

- by NealR

I see that this question has been asked a lot, however I haven't found anything yet that solves the problem I'm having. Obviously i'm using the Entity Framework to perform an update to a record. Once the updates are complete, however, whenever I try to save I get the following error message: An object with the same key already exists in the objectstatemanager At first I was passing in a collection object from the view that contained a copy of the the ZipCodeTerritory model object zipToUpdate. I changed the code by pulling this object out and just sending in the relevant fields instead. However, I'm still getting the same error. What's also weird is the first time I run this code, it works fine. Any attempt after that I get the error. Controller Here is the code from the method calling the edit function public static string DescriptionOnly(ZipCodeIndex updateZip) { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(updateZip.newEffectiveDate) || !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(updateZip.newEndDate)) { return "Neither effective or end date can be present if updating Territory Code only; "; } _updated = 0; foreach (var zipCode in updateZip.displayForPaging.Where(x => x.Update)) { ProcessAllChanges(zipCode, updateZip.newTerritory, updateZip.newStateCode, updateZip.newDescription, updateZip.newChannelCode); } _msg += _updated + " record(s) updated; "; return _msg; } And here is the method that actually does the updating. private static void ProcessAllChanges(ZipCodeTerritory zipToUpdate, string newTerritory, string newStateCode, string newDescription, string newChannelCode) { try { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(newTerritory)) zipToUpdate.IndDistrnId = newTerritory; if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(newStateCode)) zipToUpdate.StateCode = newStateCode; if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(newDescription)) zipToUpdate.DrmTerrDesc = newDescription; if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(newChannelCode)) zipToUpdate.ChannelCode = newChannelCode; if (zipToUpdate.EndDate == DateTime.MinValue) zipToUpdate.EndDate = DateTime.MaxValue; _db.Entry(zipToUpdate).State = EntityState.Modified; _db.SaveChanges(); _updated++; } catch (DbEntityValidationException dbEx) { _msg += "Error during update; "; EventLog.WriteEntry("Monet", "Error during ProcessAllChanges: " + zipToUpdate.ToString() + " |EX| " + dbEx.Message); } catch (Exception ex) { _msg += "Error during update; "; EventLog.WriteEntry("Monet", "Error during ProcessAllChanges: " + zipToUpdate.ToString() + " |MESSAGE| " + ex.Message); } } EDIT The ZipCodeIndex object contains a list of ZipCodeTerritory model objects. These aren't being pulled from a linq query, but instead simply passed back to the controller from the view. Here is the signature of the controller method that starts the process: [HttpPost] public ActionResult Update(ZipCodeIndex updateZip, string button)

Read the article

MEF C# Service - DLL Updating

- by connerb

Currently, I have a C# service that runs off of many .dll's and has modules/plugins that it imports at startup. I would like to create an update system that basically stops the service, deletes any files it is told to delete (old versions), downloads new versions from a server, and starts the service. I believe I have coded this right except for the delete part, because as long as I am not overwriting anything, the file will download. If I try to overwrite something, it won't work, which is why I am trying to delete it before hand. However, when I do File.Delete() to the path that I want to do, it gives me access to the path is denied. Here is my code: new Thread(new ThreadStart(() => { ServiceController controller = new ServiceController("client"); controller.Stop(); controller.WaitForStatus(ServiceControllerStatus.Stopped); try { if (um.FilesUpdated != null) { foreach (FilesUpdated file in um.FilesUpdated) { if (file.OldFile != null) { File.Delete(Path.Combine(Utility.AssemblyDirectory, file.OldFile)); } if (file.NewFile != null) { wc.DownloadFile(cs.UpdateUrl + "/updates/client/" + file.NewFile, Path.Combine(Utility.AssemblyDirectory, file.NewFile)); } } } if (um.ModulesUpdated != null) { foreach (ModulesUpdated module in um.ModulesUpdated) { if (module.OldModule != null) { File.Delete(Path.Combine(cs.ModulePath, module.OldModule)); } if (module.NewModule != null) { wc.DownloadFile(cs.UpdateUrl + "/updates/client/modules/" + module.NewModule, Path.Combine(cs.ModulePath, module.NewModule)); } } } } catch (Exception ex) { Logger.log(ex); } controller.Start(); })).Start(); I believe it is because the files are in use, but I can't seem to unload them. I though stopping the service would work, but apparently not. I have also checked the files and they are not read-only (but the folder is, which is located in Program Files, however I couldn't seem to get it to not be read-only programmatically or manually). The service is also being run as an administrator (NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM). I've read about unloading the AppDomain but AppDomain.Unload(AppDomain.CurrentDomain); returned an exception as well. Not too sure even if this is a problem with MEF or my program just not having the correct permissions...I would assume that it's mainly because the file is in use.

Read the article

From Binary to Data Structures

- by Cédric Menzi

Table of Contents Introduction PE file format and COFF header COFF file header BaseCoffReader Byte4ByteCoffReader UnsafeCoffReader ManagedCoffReader Conclusion History This article is also available on CodeProject Introduction Sometimes, you want to parse well-formed binary data and bring it into your objects to do some dirty stuff with it. In the Windows world most data structures are stored in special binary format. Either we call a WinApi function or we want to read from special files like images, spool files, executables or may be the previously announced Outlook Personal Folders File. Most specifications for these files can be found on the MSDN Libarary: Open Specification In my example, we are going to get the COFF (Common Object File Format) file header from a PE (Portable Executable). The exact specification can be found here: PECOFF PE file format and COFF header Before we start we need to know how this file is formatted. The following figure shows an overview of the Microsoft PE executable format. Source: Microsoft Our goal is to get the PE header. As we can see, the image starts with a MS-DOS 2.0 header with is not important for us. From the documentation we can read "...After the MS DOS stub, at the file offset specified at offset 0x3c, is a 4-byte...". With this information we know our reader has to jump to location 0x3c and read the offset to the signature. The signature is always 4 bytes that ensures that the image is a PE file. The signature is: PE\0\0. To prove this we first seek to the offset 0x3c, read if the file consist the signature. So we need to declare some constants, because we do not want magic numbers. private const int PeSignatureOffsetLocation = 0x3c; private const int PeSignatureSize = 4; private const string PeSignatureContent = "PE"; Then a method for moving the reader to the correct location to read the offset of signature. With this method we always move the underlining Stream of the BinaryReader to the start location of the PE signature. private void SeekToPeSignature(BinaryReader br) { // seek to the offset for the PE signagure br.BaseStream.Seek(PeSignatureOffsetLocation, SeekOrigin.Begin); // read the offset int offsetToPeSig = br.ReadInt32(); // seek to the start of the PE signature br.BaseStream.Seek(offsetToPeSig, SeekOrigin.Begin); } Now, we can check if it is a valid PE image by reading of the next 4 byte contains the content PE. private bool IsValidPeSignature(BinaryReader br) { // read 4 bytes to get the PE signature byte[] peSigBytes = br.ReadBytes(PeSignatureSize); // convert it to a string and trim \0 at the end of the content string peContent = Encoding.Default.GetString(peSigBytes).TrimEnd('\0'); // check if PE is in the content return peContent.Equals(PeSignatureContent); } With this basic functionality we have a good base reader class to try the different methods of parsing the COFF file header. COFF file header The COFF header has the following structure: Offset Size Field 0 2 Machine 2 2 NumberOfSections 4 4 TimeDateStamp 8 4 PointerToSymbolTable 12 4 NumberOfSymbols 16 2 SizeOfOptionalHeader 18 2 Characteristics If we translate this table to code, we get something like this: [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)] public struct CoffHeader { public MachineType Machine; public ushort NumberOfSections; public uint TimeDateStamp; public uint PointerToSymbolTable; public uint NumberOfSymbols; public ushort SizeOfOptionalHeader; public Characteristic Characteristics; } BaseCoffReader All readers do the same thing, so we go to the patterns library in our head and see that Strategy pattern or Template method pattern is sticked out in the bookshelf. I have decided to take the template method pattern in this case, because the Parse() should handle the IO for all implementations and the concrete parsing should done in its derived classes. public CoffHeader Parse() { using (var br = new BinaryReader(File.Open(_fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))) { SeekToPeSignature(br); if (!IsValidPeSignature(br)) { throw new BadImageFormatException(); } return ParseInternal(br); } } protected abstract CoffHeader ParseInternal(BinaryReader br); First we open the BinaryReader, seek to the PE signature then we check if it contains a valid PE signature and rest is done by the derived implementations. Byte4ByteCoffReader The first solution is using the BinaryReader. It is the general way to get the data. We only need to know which order, which data-type and its size. If we read byte for byte we could comment out the first line in the CoffHeader structure, because we have control about the order of the member assignment. protected override CoffHeader ParseInternal(BinaryReader br) { CoffHeader coff = new CoffHeader(); coff.Machine = (MachineType)br.ReadInt16(); coff.NumberOfSections = (ushort)br.ReadInt16(); coff.TimeDateStamp = br.ReadUInt32(); coff.PointerToSymbolTable = br.ReadUInt32(); coff.NumberOfSymbols = br.ReadUInt32(); coff.SizeOfOptionalHeader = (ushort)br.ReadInt16(); coff.Characteristics = (Characteristic)br.ReadInt16(); return coff; } If the structure is as short as the COFF header here and the specification will never changed, there is probably no reason to change the strategy. But if a data-type will be changed, a new member will be added or ordering of member will be changed the maintenance costs of this method are very high. UnsafeCoffReader Another way to bring the data into this structure is using a "magically" unsafe trick. As above, we know the layout and order of the data structure. Now, we need the StructLayout attribute, because we have to ensure that the .NET Runtime allocates the structure in the same order as it is specified in the source code. We also need to enable "Allow unsafe code (/unsafe)" in the project's build properties. Then we need to add the following constructor to the CoffHeader structure. [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)] public struct CoffHeader { public CoffHeader(byte[] data) { unsafe { fixed (byte* packet = &data[0]) { this = *(CoffHeader*)packet; } } } } The "magic" trick is in the statement: this = *(CoffHeader*)packet;. What happens here? We have a fixed size of data somewhere in the memory and because a struct in C# is a value-type, the assignment operator = copies the whole data of the structure and not only the reference. To fill the structure with data, we need to pass the data as bytes into the CoffHeader structure. This can be achieved by reading the exact size of the structure from the PE file. protected override CoffHeader ParseInternal(BinaryReader br) { return new CoffHeader(br.ReadBytes(Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(CoffHeader)))); } This solution is the fastest way to parse the data and bring it into the structure, but it is unsafe and it could introduce some security and stability risks. ManagedCoffReader In this solution we are using the same approach of the structure assignment as above. But we need to replace the unsafe part in the constructor with the following managed part: [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)] public struct CoffHeader { public CoffHeader(byte[] data) { IntPtr coffPtr = IntPtr.Zero; try { int size = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(CoffHeader)); coffPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size); Marshal.Copy(data, 0, coffPtr, size); this = (CoffHeader)Marshal.PtrToStructure(coffPtr, typeof(CoffHeader)); } finally { Marshal.FreeHGlobal(coffPtr); } } } Conclusion We saw that we can parse well-formed binary data to our data structures using different approaches. The first is probably the clearest way, because we know each member and its size and ordering and we have control about the reading the data for each member. But if add member or the structure is going change by some reason, we need to change the reader. The two other solutions use the approach of the structure assignment. In the unsafe implementation we need to compile the project with the /unsafe option. We increase the performance, but we get some security risks.

Read the article

Installing Lubuntu 14.04.1 forcepae fails

- by Rantanplan

I tried to install Lubuntu 14.04.1 from a CD. First, I chose Try Lubuntu without installing which gave: ERROR: PAE is disabled on this Pentium M (PAE can potentially be enabled with kernel parameter "forcepae" ... Following the description on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE, I used forcepae and tried Try Lubuntu without installing again. That worked fine. dmesg | grep -i pae showed: [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: file=/cdrom/preseed/lubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- forcepae [ 0.008118] PAE forced! On the live-CD session, I tried installing Lubuntu double clicking on the install button on the desktop. Here, the CD starts running but then stops running and nothing happens. Next, I rebooted and tried installing Lubuntu directly from the boot menu screen using forcepae again. After a while, I receive the following error message: The installer encountered an unrecoverable error. A desktop session will now be run so that you may investigate the problem or try installing again. Hitting Enter brings me to the desktop. For what errors should I search? And how? Finally, I rebooted once more and tried Check disc for defects with forcepae option; no errors have been found. Now, I am wondering how to find the error or whether it would be better to follow advice c in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE: "Move the hard disk to a computer on which the processor has PAE capability and PAE flag (that is, almost everything else than a Banias). Install the system as usual but don't add restricted drivers. After the install move the disk back." Thanks for some hints! Perhaps some of the following can help: On Lubuntu 12.04: cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz stepping : 6 microcode : 0x17 cpu MHz : 600.000 cache size : 2048 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2 bogomips : 1284.76 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: uname -a Linux humboldt 3.2.0-67-generic #101-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 17:45:51 UTC 2014 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS Release: 12.04 Codename: precise cpuid eax in eax ebx ecx edx 00000000 00000002 756e6547 6c65746e 49656e69 00000001 000006d6 00000816 00000180 afe9f9bf 00000002 02b3b001 000000f0 00000000 2c04307d 80000000 80000004 00000000 00000000 00000000 80000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 80000002 20202020 20202020 65746e49 2952286c 80000003 6e655020 6d756974 20295228 7270204d 80000004 7365636f 20726f73 30352e31 007a4847 Vendor ID: "GenuineIntel"; CPUID level 2 Intel-specific functions: Version 000006d6: Type 0 - Original OEM Family 6 - Pentium Pro Model 13 - Stepping 6 Reserved 0 Brand index: 22 [not in table] Extended brand string: " Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz" CLFLUSH instruction cache line size: 8 Feature flags afe9f9bf: FPU Floating Point Unit VME Virtual 8086 Mode Enhancements DE Debugging Extensions PSE Page Size Extensions TSC Time Stamp Counter MSR Model Specific Registers MCE Machine Check Exception CX8 COMPXCHG8B Instruction SEP Fast System Call MTRR Memory Type Range Registers PGE PTE Global Flag MCA Machine Check Architecture CMOV Conditional Move and Compare Instructions FGPAT Page Attribute Table CLFSH CFLUSH instruction DS Debug store ACPI Thermal Monitor and Clock Ctrl MMX MMX instruction set FXSR Fast FP/MMX Streaming SIMD Extensions save/restore SSE Streaming SIMD Extensions instruction set SSE2 SSE2 extensions SS Self Snoop TM Thermal monitor 31 reserved TLB and cache info: b0: unknown TLB/cache descriptor b3: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 02: Instruction TLB: 4MB pages, 4-way set assoc, 2 entries f0: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 7d: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 30: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 04: Data TLB: 4MB pages, 4-way set assoc, 8 entries 2c: unknown TLB/cache descriptor On Lubuntu 14.04.1 live-CD with forcepae: cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz stepping : 6 microcode : 0x17 cpu MHz : 600.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 1 core id : 0 cpu cores : 1 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fdiv_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe bts est tm2 bogomips : 1284.68 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: uname -a Linux lubuntu 3.13.0-32-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 03:51:12 UTC 2014 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Release: 14.04 Codename: trusty cpuid CPU 0: vendor_id = "GenuineIntel" version information (1/eax): processor type = primary processor (0) family = Intel Pentium Pro/II/III/Celeron/Core/Core 2/Atom, AMD Athlon/Duron, Cyrix M2, VIA C3 (6) model = 0xd (13) stepping id = 0x6 (6) extended family = 0x0 (0) extended model = 0x0 (0) (simple synth) = Intel Pentium M (Dothan B1) / Celeron M (Dothan B1), 90nm miscellaneous (1/ebx): process local APIC physical ID = 0x0 (0) cpu count = 0x0 (0) CLFLUSH line size = 0x8 (8) brand index = 0x16 (22) brand id = 0x16 (22): Intel Pentium M, .13um feature information (1/edx): x87 FPU on chip = true virtual-8086 mode enhancement = true debugging extensions = true page size extensions = true time stamp counter = true RDMSR and WRMSR support = true physical address extensions = false machine check exception = true CMPXCHG8B inst. = true APIC on chip = false SYSENTER and SYSEXIT = true memory type range registers = true PTE global bit = true machine check architecture = true conditional move/compare instruction = true page attribute table = true page size extension = false processor serial number = false CLFLUSH instruction = true debug store = true thermal monitor and clock ctrl = true MMX Technology = true FXSAVE/FXRSTOR = true SSE extensions = true SSE2 extensions = true self snoop = true hyper-threading / multi-core supported = false therm. monitor = true IA64 = false pending break event = true feature information (1/ecx): PNI/SSE3: Prescott New Instructions = false PCLMULDQ instruction = false 64-bit debug store = false MONITOR/MWAIT = false CPL-qualified debug store = false VMX: virtual machine extensions = false SMX: safer mode extensions = false Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology = true thermal monitor 2 = true SSSE3 extensions = false context ID: adaptive or shared L1 data = false FMA instruction = false CMPXCHG16B instruction = false xTPR disable = false perfmon and debug = false process context identifiers = false direct cache access = false SSE4.1 extensions = false SSE4.2 extensions = false extended xAPIC support = false MOVBE instruction = false POPCNT instruction = false time stamp counter deadline = false AES instruction = false XSAVE/XSTOR states = false OS-enabled XSAVE/XSTOR = false AVX: advanced vector extensions = false F16C half-precision convert instruction = false RDRAND instruction = false hypervisor guest status = false cache and TLB information (2): 0xb0: instruction TLB: 4K, 4-way, 128 entries 0xb3: data TLB: 4K, 4-way, 128 entries 0x02: instruction TLB: 4M pages, 4-way, 2 entries 0xf0: 64 byte prefetching 0x7d: L2 cache: 2M, 8-way, sectored, 64 byte lines 0x30: L1 cache: 32K, 8-way, 64 byte lines 0x04: data TLB: 4M pages, 4-way, 8 entries 0x2c: L1 data cache: 32K, 8-way, 64 byte lines extended feature flags (0x80000001/edx): SYSCALL and SYSRET instructions = false execution disable = false 1-GB large page support = false RDTSCP = false 64-bit extensions technology available = false Intel feature flags (0x80000001/ecx): LAHF/SAHF supported in 64-bit mode = false LZCNT advanced bit manipulation = false 3DNow! PREFETCH/PREFETCHW instructions = false brand = " Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz" (multi-processing synth): none (multi-processing method): Intel leaf 1 (synth) = Intel Pentium M (Dothan B1), 90nm

Read the article

Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

- by Asian Angel

This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

Read the article

Random movement of wandering monsters in x & y axis in LibGDX

- by Vishal Kumar

I am making a simple top down RPG game in LibGDX. What I want is ... the enemies should wander here and there in x and y directions in certain interval so that it looks natural that they are guarding something. I spend several hours doing this but could not achieve what I want. After a long time of coding, I came with this code. But what I observed is when enemies come to an end of x or start of x or start of y or end of y of the map. It starts flickering for random intervals. Sometimes they remain nice, sometimes, they start flickering for long time. public class Enemy extends Sprite { public float MAX_VELOCITY = 0.05f; public static final int MOVING_LEFT = 0; public static final int MOVING_RIGHT = 1; public static final int MOVING_UP = 2; public static final int MOVING_DOWN = 3; public static final int HORIZONTAL_GUARD = 0; public static final int VERTICAL_GUARD = 1; public static final int RANDOM_GUARD = 2; private float startTime = System.nanoTime(); private static float SECONDS_TIME = 0; private boolean randomDecider; public int enemyType; public static final float width = 30 * World.WORLD_UNIT; public static final float height = 32 * World.WORLD_UNIT; public int state; public float stateTime; public boolean visible; public boolean dead; public Enemy(float x, float y, int enemyType) { super(x, y); state = MOVING_LEFT; this.enemyType = enemyType; stateTime = 0; visible = true; dead = false; boolean random = Math.random()>=0.5f ? true :false; if(enemyType == HORIZONTAL_GUARD){ if(random) velocity.x = -MAX_VELOCITY; else velocity.x = MAX_VELOCITY; } if(enemyType == VERTICAL_GUARD){ if(random) velocity.y = -MAX_VELOCITY; else velocity.y = MAX_VELOCITY; } if(enemyType == RANDOM_GUARD){ //if(random) //velocity.x = -MAX_VELOCITY; //else //velocity.y = MAX_VELOCITY; } } public void update(Enemy e, float deltaTime) { super.update(deltaTime); e.stateTime+= deltaTime; e.position.add(velocity); // This is for updating the Animation for Enemy Movement Direction. VERY IMPORTANT FOR REAL EFFECTS updateDirections(); //Here the various movement methods are called depending upon the type of the Enemy if(e.enemyType == HORIZONTAL_GUARD) guardHorizontally(); if(e.enemyType == VERTICAL_GUARD) guardVertically(); if(e.enemyType == RANDOM_GUARD) guardRandomly(); //quadrantMovement(e, deltaTime); } private void guardHorizontally(){ if(position.x <= 0){ velocity.x= MAX_VELOCITY; velocity.y= 0; } else if(position.x>= World.mapWidth-width){ velocity.x= -MAX_VELOCITY; velocity.y= 0; } } private void guardVertically(){ if(position.y<= 0){ velocity.y= MAX_VELOCITY; velocity.x= 0; } else if(position.y>= World.mapHeight- height){ velocity.y= -MAX_VELOCITY; velocity.x= 0; } } private void guardRandomly(){ if (System.nanoTime() - startTime >= 1000000000) { SECONDS_TIME++; if(SECONDS_TIME % 5==0) randomDecider = Math.random()>=0.5f ? true :false; if(SECONDS_TIME>=30) SECONDS_TIME =0; startTime = System.nanoTime(); } if(SECONDS_TIME <=30){ if(randomDecider && position.x >= 0) velocity.x= -MAX_VELOCITY; else{ if(position.x < World.mapWidth-width) velocity.x= MAX_VELOCITY; else velocity.x= -MAX_VELOCITY; } velocity.y =0; } else{ if(randomDecider && position.y >0) velocity.y= -MAX_VELOCITY; else velocity.y= MAX_VELOCITY; velocity.x =0; } /* //This is essential so as to keep the enemies inside the boundary of the Map if(position.x <= 0){ velocity.x= MAX_VELOCITY; //velocity.y= 0; } else if(position.x>= World.mapWidth-width){ velocity.x= -MAX_VELOCITY; //velocity.y= 0; } else if(position.y<= 0){ velocity.y= MAX_VELOCITY; //velocity.x= 0; } else if(position.y>= World.mapHeight- height){ velocity.y= -MAX_VELOCITY; //velocity.x= 0; } */ } private void updateDirections() { if(velocity.x > 0) state = MOVING_RIGHT; else if(velocity.x<0) state = MOVING_LEFT; else if(velocity.y>0) state = MOVING_UP; else if(velocity.y<0) state = MOVING_DOWN; } public Rectangle getBounds() { return new Rectangle(position.x, position.y, width, height); } private void quadrantMovement(Enemy e, float deltaTime) { int temp = e.getEnemyQuadrant(e.position.x, e.position.y); boolean random = Math.random()>=0.5f ? true :false; switch(temp){ case 1: velocity.x = MAX_VELOCITY; break; case 2: velocity.x = MAX_VELOCITY; break; case 3: velocity.x = -MAX_VELOCITY; break; case 4: velocity.x = -MAX_VELOCITY; break; default: if(random) velocity.x = MAX_VELOCITY; else velocity.y =-MAX_VELOCITY; } } public float getDistanceFromPoint(float p1,float p2){ Vector2 v1 = new Vector2(p1,p2); return position.dst(v1); } private int getEnemyQuadrant(float x, float y){ Rectangle enemyQuad = new Rectangle(x, y, 30, 32); if(ScreenQuadrants.getQuad1().contains(enemyQuad)) return 1; if(ScreenQuadrants.getQuad2().contains(enemyQuad)) return 2; if(ScreenQuadrants.getQuad3().contains(enemyQuad)) return 3; if(ScreenQuadrants.getQuad4().contains(enemyQuad)) return 4; return 0; } } Is there a better way of doing this. I am new to game development. I shall be very grateful to any help or reference.

Read the article

VS 2010 SP1 (Beta) and IIS Express

- by ScottGu

Last month we released the VS 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta. You can learn more about the VS 2010 SP1 Beta from Jason Zander’s two blog posts about it, and from Scott Hanselman’s blog post that covers some of the new capabilities enabled with it. You can download and install the VS 2010 SP1 Beta here. IIS Express Earlier this summer I blogged about IIS Express. IIS Express is a free version of IIS 7.5 that is optimized for developer scenarios. We think it combines the ease of use of the ASP.NET Web Server (aka Cassini) currently built-into VS today with the full power of IIS. Specifically: It’s lightweight and easy to install (less than 5Mb download and a quick install) It does not require an administrator account to run/debug applications from Visual Studio It enables a full web-server feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, and other IIS 7.x modules It supports and enables the same extensibility model and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support It can be installed side-by-side with the full IIS web server as well as the ASP.NET Development Server (they do not conflict at all) It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems – giving you a full IIS 7.x developer feature-set on all Windows OS platforms IIS Express (like the ASP.NET Development Server) can be quickly launched to run a site from a directory on disk. It does not require any registration/configuration steps. This makes it really easy to launch and run for development scenarios. Visual Studio 2010 SP1 adds support for IIS Express – and you can start to take advantage of this starting with last month’s VS 2010 SP1 Beta release. Downloading and Installing IIS Express IIS Express isn’t included as part of the VS 2010 SP1 Beta. Instead it is a separate ~4MB download which you can download and install using this link (it uses WebPI to install it). Once IIS Express is installed, VS 2010 SP1 will enable some additional IIS Express commands and dialog options that allow you to easily use it. Enabling IIS Express for Existing Projects Visual Studio today defaults to using the built-in ASP.NET Development Server (aka Cassini) when running ASP.NET Projects: Converting your existing projects to use IIS Express is really easy. You can do this by opening up the project properties dialog of an existing project, and then by clicking the “web” tab within it and selecting the “Use IIS Express” checkbox. Or even simpler, just right-click on your existing project, and select the “Use IIS Express…” menu command: And now when you run or debug your project you’ll see that IIS Express now starts up and runs automatically as your web-server: You can optionally right-click on the IIS Express icon within your system tray to see/browse all of sites and applications running on it: Note that if you ever want to revert back to using the ASP.NET Development Server you can do this by right-clicking the project again and then select the “Use Visual Studio Development Server” option (or go into the project properties, click the web tab, and uncheck IIS Express). This will revert back to the ASP.NET Development Server the next time you run the project. IIS Express Properties Visual Studio 2010 SP1 exposes several new IIS Express configuration options that you couldn’t previously set with the ASP.NET Development Server. Some of these are exposed via the property grid of your project (select the project node in the solution explorer and then change them via the property window): For example, enabling something like SSL support (which is not possible with the ASP.NET Development Server) can now be done simply by changing the “SSL Enabled” property to “True”: Once this is done IIS Express will expose both an HTTP and HTTPS endpoint for the project that we can use: SSL Self Signed Certs IIS Express ships with a self-signed SSL cert that it installs as part of setup – which removes the need for you to install your own certificate to use SSL during development. Once you change the above drop-down to enable SSL, you’ll be able to browse to your site with the appropriate https:// URL prefix and it will connect via SSL. One caveat with self-signed certificates, though, is that browsers (like IE) will go out of their way to warn you that they aren’t to be trusted: You can mark the certificate as trusted to avoid seeing dialogs like this – or just keep the certificate un-trusted and press the “continue” button when the browser warns you not to trust your local web server. Additional IIS Settings IIS Express uses its own per-user ApplicationHost.config file to configure default server behavior. Because it is per-user, it can be configured by developers who do not have admin credentials – unlike the full IIS. You can customize all IIS features and settings via it if you want ultimate server customization (for example: to use your own certificates for SSL instead of self-signed ones). We recommend storing all app specific settings for IIS and ASP.NET within the web.config file which is part of your project – since that makes deploying apps easier (since the settings can be copied with the application content). IIS (since IIS 7) no longer uses the metabase, and instead uses the same web.config configuration files that ASP.NET has always supported – which makes xcopy/ftp based deployment much easier. Making IIS Express your Default Web Server Above we looked at how we can convert existing sites that use the ASP.NET Developer Web Server to instead use IIS Express. You can configure Visual Studio to use IIS Express as the default web server for all new projects by clicking the Tools->Options menu command and opening up the Projects and Solutions->Web Projects node with the Options dialog: Clicking the “Use IIS Express for new file-based web site and projects” checkbox will cause Visual Studio to use it for all new web site and projects. Summary We think IIS Express makes it even easier to build, run and test web applications. It works with all versions of ASP.NET and supports all ASP.NET application types (including obviously both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications). Because IIS Express is based on the IIS 7.5 codebase, you have a full web-server feature-set that you can use. This means you can build and run your applications just like they’ll work on a real production web-server. In addition to supporting ASP.NET, IIS Express also supports Classic ASP and other file-types and extensions supported by IIS – which also makes it ideal for sites that combine a variety of different technologies. Best of all – you do not need to change any code to take advantage of it. As you can see above, updating existing Visual Studio web projects to use it is trivial. You can begin to take advantage of IIS Express today using the VS 2010 SP1 Beta. Hope this helps, Scott

Read the article

SQL SERVER – Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup

- by pinaldave

It is always pleasure for any author when other renowned authors in the industry write about you. Earlier I wrote a five part blog series on Developer Training and I have received a phenomenal response to the series. I have received plenty of comments, questions and feedback. I thought it would be nice to sum up the whole series as well answer a few of the questions received. Quick Recap Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product. An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. There are companies that pay for 100% of the expenses and there are employees who opt for training on their own expense during their personal time. Training is often looked at as vacation by employee and employers and we need to change this mind-set. One of the ways is to report back the learning to your manager and implement newly learned knowledge in day-to-day work. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. The manager often feels pressure to accommodate every single employee for training even though his training budget is limited. It is indeed the responsibility of the developer to get maximum advantage from the training. Training immediately helps organizations but stays as a part of an employee’s knowledge forever. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. The common element between both the methods is “learning material”. Learning material can be of any format – videos, books, paper notes or just a plain black board. Instructor-led training is a very effective mode but not possible every single time. During the course of the developer’s career, one has to learn lots of new technology and it is almost impossible to have a quality trainer available on that subject at that time. Books are most effective and proven methods, however, it always helps if someone explains the concepts of the book with a demonstration. In recent times I have started to believe in online trainings which leads to a hybrid experience. Online trainings take the best part of the books and the best part of the instructor-led training and gives effective training in a matter of hours. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 In this part, I shared what I was continuously thinking about developer training. There is no better teacher than oneself. There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. Once someone overcomes them, life is much easier. I believe that proper and appropriate high quality training can help to address the burning issues. Opinion of Friends I invited a few of my friends to express their opinion about developer training and here are their opinions. I am listing them here in the order of the blog post publishing date. Nakul Vachhrajani - Developer Trainings-Importance, Benefits, Tips and follow-up Nakul’s sums of many of the concepts which are complementary to my blog posts. Nakul addresses the burning question of developer training with different angles. I am personally very impressed by his following statement - “Being skilled does not mean having just a stack of certifications, but it also means having an understanding about the internals of the products that you are working on – and using that knowledge to improve the efficiency & productivity at the workplace in turn resulting in better products, better consulting abilities and a happier self.” Nakul also suggests the online training options of Pluralsight. Vinod Kumar - Training–a necessity or bonus Vinod Kumar comes up with excellent follow up on developer training. Vinod is known for his inspirational writing about SQL Server. Vinod starts with a story of a student who is extremely eager to learn the wisdom of life from a monk but the monk does not accept him as a disciple for a long time. The conversation between student and monk is indeed an essence of all learning. We all want to learn quickly and be successful but the most important thing in life is to have the right attitude towards learning and more so towards life. The blog post end with a very important thought about how to avoid the famous excuse – “I don’t have enough time.” Ritesh Shah - Training – useful or useless? Ritesh brings up very important concept related to training. Ritesh in his meticulous style explains why training is an important and lifelong process. Training must not stop at any age but should continue forever. The moment training stops, progress stops along with. Paras Doshi - Professional Development Resource Paras is known for his to–the-point writing, and has summarized the five part series very precisely. He read the five part series and created a digest summary of the blog post. If you are in a rush and have no time to read my five series – I suggest you read his blog post. Training Resources I am often asked what the best resources for learning new technology are. This is the most difficult question EVER. There are plenty of good training resources available. When it is about training our needs are different, our preference of learning is different and we all have an opinion. Additionally, we all are located in different geographic locations worldwide and there is no way one solution will fit all. However, let me list a few of the training resources which I have built so far and you can consume them if you find it relevant to your need. SQL Server Books SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers SQL Wait Stats SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Video Tutorials SQL Server Questions and Answers SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning SQL in Sixty Seconds Series of Sixty Seconds Learning Video on YouTube Trust me worldwide web is very big and there are plenty of high quality learning materials available worldwide – trainer-led as well online. I suggest you explore various options and make the best choice for yourself. Remember, training is your personal journey and it should never stop. Are you ready? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

Read the article

Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 1

- by rajbk

The Open Data Protocol, referred to as OData, is a new data-sharing standard that breaks down silos and fosters an interoperative ecosystem for data consumers (clients) and producers (services) that is far more powerful than currently possible. It enables more applications to make sense of a broader set of data, and helps every data service and client add value to the whole ecosystem. WCF Data Services (previously known as ADO.NET Data Services), then, was the first Microsoft technology to support the Open Data Protocol in Visual Studio 2008 SP1. It provides developers with client libraries for .NET, Silverlight, AJAX, PHP and Java. Microsoft now also supports OData in SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Azure Storage, Excel 2010 (through PowerPivot), and SharePoint 2010. Many other other applications in the works. * This post walks you through how to create an OData feed, define a shape for the data and pre-filter the data using Visual Studio 2010, WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework. A sample project is attached at the bottom of Part 2 of this post. Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 2 Create the Web Application File –› New –› Project, Select “ASP.NET Empty Web Application” Add the Entity Data Model Right click on the Web Application in the Solution Explorer and select “Add New Item..” Select “ADO.NET Entity Data Model” under "Data”. Name the Model “Northwind” and click “Add”. In the “Choose Model Contents”, select “Generate Model From Database” and click “Next” Define a connection to your database containing the Northwind database in the next screen. We are going to expose the Products table through our OData feed. Select “Products” in the “Choose your Database Object” screen. Click “Finish”. We are done creating our Entity Data Model. Save the Northwind.edmx file created. Add the WCF Data Service Right click on the Web Application in the Solution Explorer and select “Add New Item..” Select “WCF Data Service” from the list and call the service “DataService” (creative, huh?). Click “Add”. Enable Access to the Data Service Open the DataService.svc.cs class. The class is well commented and instructs us on the next steps. public class DataService : DataService< /* TODO: put your data source class name here */ > { // This method is called only once to initialize service-wide policies. public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { // TODO: set rules to indicate which entity sets and service operations are visible, updatable, etc. // Examples: // config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("MyEntityset", EntitySetRights.AllRead); // config.SetServiceOperationAccessRule("MyServiceOperation", ServiceOperationRights.All); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } Replace the comment that starts with “/* TODO:” with “NorthwindEntities” (the entity container name of the Model we created earlier). WCF Data Services is initially locked down by default, FTW! No data is exposed without you explicitly setting it. You have explicitly specify which Entity sets you wish to expose and what rights are allowed by using the SetEntitySetAccessRule. The SetServiceOperationAccessRule on the other hand sets rules for a specified operation. Let us define an access rule to expose the Products Entity we created earlier. We use the EnititySetRights.AllRead since we want to give read only access. Our modified code is shown below. public class DataService : DataService<NorthwindEntities> { public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("Products", EntitySetRights.AllRead); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } We are done setting up our ODataFeed! Compile your project. Right click on DataService.svc and select “View in Browser” to see the OData feed. To view the feed in IE, you must make sure that "Feed Reading View" is turned off. You set this under Tools -› Internet Options -› Content tab. If you navigate to “Products”, you should see the Products feed. Note also that URIs are case sensitive. ie. Products work but products doesn’t. Filtering our data OData has a set of system query operations you can use to perform common operations against data exposed by the model. For example, to see only Products in CategoryID 2, we can use the following request: /DataService.svc/Products?$filter=CategoryID eq 2 At the time of this writing, supported operations are $orderby, $top, $skip, $filter, $expand, $format†, $select, $inlinecount. Pre-filtering our data using Query Interceptors The Product feed currently returns all Products. We want to change that so that it contains only Products that have not been discontinued. WCF introduces the concept of interceptors which allows us to inject custom validation/policy logic into the request/response pipeline of a WCF data service. We will use a QueryInterceptor to pre-filter the data so that it returns only Products that are not discontinued. To create a QueryInterceptor, write a method that returns an Expression<Func<T, bool>> and mark it with the QueryInterceptor attribute as shown below. [QueryInterceptor("Products")] public Expression<Func<Product, bool>> OnReadProducts() { return o => o.Discontinued == false; } Viewing the feed after compilation will only show products that have not been discontinued. We also confirm this by looking at the WHERE clause in the SQL generated by the entity framework. SELECT [Extent1].[ProductID] AS [ProductID], ... ... [Extent1].[Discontinued] AS [Discontinued] FROM [dbo].[Products] AS [Extent1] WHERE 0 = [Extent1].[Discontinued] Other examples of Query/Change interceptors can be seen here including an example to filter data based on the identity of the authenticated user. We are done pre-filtering our data. In the next part of this post, we will see how to shape our data. Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 2 Foot Notes * http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937697.aspx † $format did not work for me. The way to get a Json response is to include the following in the request header “Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*” when making the request. This is easily done with most JavaScript libraries.

Read the article

SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services - The Word is But a Stage (T-SQL Tuesday #006)

- by smisner

Host Michael Coles (blog|twitter) has selected LOB data as the topic for this month's T-SQL Tuesday, so I'll take this opportunity to post an overview of reporting with spatial data types. As part of my work with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, I've been exploring the use of spatial data types in the new map data region. You can create a map using any of the following data sources: Map Gallery - a set of Shapefiles for the United States only that ships with Reporting Services ESRI Shapefile - a .shp file conforming to the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) shapefile spatial data format SQL Server spatial data - a query that includes SQLGeography or SQLGeometry data types Rob Farley (blog|twitter) points out today in his T-SQL Tuesday post that using the SQL geography field is a preferable alternative to ESRI shapefiles for storing spatial data in SQL Server. So how do you get spatial data? If you don't already have a GIS application in-house, you can find a variety of sources. Here are a few to get you started: US Census Bureau Website, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/ Global Administrative Areas Spatial Database, http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/gadm/ Digital Chart of the World Data Server, http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/ In a recent post by Pinal Dave (blog|twitter), you can find a link to free shapefiles for download and a tutorial for using Shape2SQL, a free tool to convert shapefiles into SQL Server data. In my post today, I'll show you how to use combine spatial data that describes boundaries with spatial data in AdventureWorks2008R2 that identifies stores locations to embed a map in a report. Preparing the spatial data First, I downloaded Shapefile data for the administrative boundaries in France and unzipped the data to a local folder. Then I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into a SQL Server database called Spatial. I'm not sure of the reason why, but I had to uncheck the option to create a spatial index to upload the data. Otherwise, the upload appeared to run successfully, but no table appeared in my database. The zip file that I downloaded contained three files, but I didn't know what was in them until I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into tables. Then I found that FRA_adm0 contains spatial data for the country of France, FRA_adm1 contains spatial data for each region, and FRA_adm2 contains spatial data for each department (a subdivision of region). Next I prepared my SQL query containing sales data for fictional stores selling Adventure Works products in France. The Person.Address table in the AdventureWorks2008R2 database (which you can download from Codeplex) contains a SpatialLocation column which I joined - along with several other tables - to the Sales.Customer and Sales.Store tables. I'll be able to superimpose this data on a map to see where these stores are located. I included the SQL script for this query (as well as the spatial data for France) in the downloadable project that I created for this post. Step 1: Using the Map Wizard to Create a Map of France You can build a map without using the wizard, but I find it's rather useful in this case. Whether you use Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) or Report Builder 3.0, the map wizard is the same. I used BIDS so that I could create a project that includes all the files related to this post. To get started, I added an empty report template to the project and named it France Stores. Then I opened the Toolbox window and dragged the Map item to the report body which starts the wizard. Here are the steps to perform to create a map of France: On the Choose a source of spatial data page of the wizard, select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. On the Choose a dataset with SQL Server spatial data page, select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data. On the Choose a connection to a SQL Server spatial data source page, select New. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the General page, add a connecton string like this (changing your server name if necessary): Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Spatial Click OK and then click Next. On the Design a query page, add a query for the country shape, like this: select * from fra_adm1 Click Next. The map wizard reads the spatial data and renders it for you on the Choose spatial data and map view options page, as shown below. You have the option to add a Bing Maps layer which shows surrounding countries. Depending on the type of Bing Maps layer that you choose to add (from Road, Aerial, or Hybrid) and the zoom percentage you select, you can view city names and roads and various boundaries. To keep from cluttering my map, I'm going to omit the Bing Maps layer in this example, but I do recommend that you experiment with this feature. It's a nice integration feature. Use the + or - button to rexize the map as needed. (I used the + button to increase the size of the map until its edges were just inside the boundaries of the visible map area (which is called the viewport). You can eliminate the color scale and distance scale boxes that appear in the map area later. Select the Embed map data in this report for faster rendering. The spatial data won't be changing, so there's no need to leave it in the database. However, it does increase the size of the RDL. Click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Map. We'll add data for visualization later. For now, we have just the outline of France to serve as the foundation layer for our map. Click Next, and then click Finish. Now click the color scale box in the lower left corner of the map, and press the Delete key to remove it. Then repeat to remove the distance scale box in the lower right corner of the map. Step 2: Add a Map Layer to an Existing Map The map data region allows you to add multiple layers. Each layer is associated with a different data set. Thus far, we have the spatial data that defines the regional boundaries in the first map layer. Now I'll add in another layer for the store locations by following these steps: If the Map Layers windows is not visible, click the report body, and then click twice anywhere on the map data region to display it. Click on the New Layer Wizard button in the Map layers window. And then we start over again with the process by choosing a spatial data source. Select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. Select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data, and click Next. Click New, add a connection string to the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, and click Next. Add a query with spatial data (like the one I included in the downloadable project), and click Next. The location data now appears as another layer on top of the regional map created earlier. Use the + button to resize the map again to fill as much of the viewport as possible without cutting off edges of the map. You might need to drag the map within the viewport to center it properly. Select Embed map data in this report, and click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Marker Map, and click Next. On the Choose color theme and data visualization page, in the Marker drop-down list, change the marker to diamond. There's no particular reason for a diamond; I think it stands out a little better than a circle on this map. Clear the Single color map checkbox as another way to distinguish the markers from the map. You can of course create an analytical map instead, which would change the size and/or color of the markers according to criteria that you specify, such as sales volume of each store, but I'll save that exploration for another post on another day. Click Finish and then click Preview to see the rendered report. Et voilà...c'est fini. Yes, it's a very simple map at this point, but there are many other things you can do to enhance the map. I'll create a series of posts to explore the possibilities. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

Read the article

SSIS Lookup component tuning tips

- by jamiet

Yesterday evening I attended a London meeting of the UK SQL Server User Group at Microsoft’s offices in London Victoria. As usual it was both a fun and informative evening and in particular there seemed to be a few questions arising about tuning the SSIS Lookup component; I rattled off some comments and figured it would be prudent to drop some of them into a dedicated blog post, hence the one you are reading right now. Scene setting A popular pattern in SSIS is to use a Lookup component to determine whether a record in the pipeline already exists in the intended destination table or not and I cover this pattern in my 2006 blog post Checking if a row exists and if it does, has it changed? (note to self: must rewrite that blog post for SSIS2008). Fundamentally the SSIS lookup component (when using FullCache option) sucks some data out of a database and holds it in memory so that it can be compared to data in the pipeline. One of the big benefits of using SSIS dataflows is that they process data one buffer at a time; that means that not all of the data from your source exists in the dataflow at the same time and is why a SSIS dataflow can process data volumes that far exceed the available memory. However, that only applies to data in the pipeline; for reasons that are hopefully obvious ALL of the data in the lookup set must exist in the memory cache for the duration of the dataflow’s execution which means that any memory used by the lookup cache will not be available to be used as a pipeline buffer. Moreover, there’s an obvious correlation between the amount of data in the lookup cache and the time it takes to charge that cache; the more data you have then the longer it will take to charge and the longer you have to wait until the dataflow actually starts to do anything. For these reasons your goal is simple: ensure that the lookup cache contains as little data as possible. General tips Here is a simple tick list you can follow in order to tune your lookups: Use a SQL statement to charge your cache, don’t just pick a table from the dropdown list made available to you. (Read why in SELECT *... or select from a dropdown in an OLE DB Source component?) Only pick the columns that you need, ignore everything else Make the database columns that your cache is populated from as narrow as possible. If a column is defined as VARCHAR(20) then SSIS will allocate 20 bytes for every value in that column – that is a big waste if the actual values are significantly less than 20 characters in length. Do you need DT_WSTR typed columns or will DT_STR suffice? DT_WSTR uses twice the amount of space to hold values that can be stored using a DT_STR so if you can use DT_STR, consider doing so. Same principle goes for the numerical datatypes DT_I2/DT_I4/DT_I8. Only populate the cache with data that you KNOW you will need. In other words, think about your WHERE clause! Thinking outside the box It is tempting to build a large monolithic dataflow that does many things, one of which is a Lookup. Often though you can make better use of your available resources by, well, mixing things up a little and here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing: There is no rule that says everything has to happen in a single dataflow. If you have some particularly resource intensive lookups then consider putting that lookup into a dataflow all of its own and using raw files to pass the pipeline data in and out of that dataflow. Know your data. If you think, for example, that the majority of your incoming rows will match with only a small subset of your lookup data then consider chaining multiple lookup components together; the first would use a FullCache containing that data subset and the remaining data that doesn’t find a match could be passed to a second lookup that perhaps uses a NoCache lookup thus negating the need to pull all of that least-used lookup data into memory. Do you need to process all of your incoming data all at once? If you can process different partitions of your data separately then you can partition your lookup cache as well. For example, if you are using a lookup to convert a location into a [LocationId] then why not process your data one region at a time? This will mean your lookup cache only has to contain data for the location that you are currently processing and with the ability of the Lookup in SSIS2008 and beyond to charge the cache using a dynamically built SQL statement you’ll be able to achieve it using the same dataflow and simply loop over it using a ForEach loop. Taking the previous data partitioning idea further … a dataflow can contain more than one data path so why not split your data using a conditional split component and, again, charge your lookup caches with only the data that they need for that partition. Lookups have two uses: to (1) find a matching row from the lookup set and (2) put attributes from that matching row into the pipeline. Ask yourself, do you need to do these two things at the same time? After all once you have the key column(s) from your lookup set then you can use that key to get the rest of attributes further downstream, perhaps even in another dataflow. Are you using the same lookup data set multiple times? If so, consider the file caching option in SSIS 2008 and beyond. Above all, experiment and be creative with different combinations. You may be surprised at what works. Final thoughts If you want to know more about how the Lookup component differs in SSIS2008 from SSIS2005 then I have a dedicated blog post about that at Lookup component gets a makeover. I am on a mini-crusade at the moment to get a BULK MERGE feature into the database engine, the thinking being that if the database engine can quickly merge massive amounts of data in a similar manner to how it can insert massive amounts using BULK INSERT then that’s a lot of work that wouldn’t have to be done in the SSIS pipeline. If you think that is a good idea then go and vote for BULK MERGE on Connect. If you have any other tips to share then please stick them in the comments. Hope this helps! @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

Read the article

Dynamic Types and DynamicObject References in C#

- by Rick Strahl

I've been working a bit with C# custom dynamic types for several customers recently and I've seen some confusion in understanding how dynamic types are referenced. This discussion specifically centers around types that implement IDynamicMetaObjectProvider or subclass from DynamicObject as opposed to arbitrary type casts of standard .NET types. IDynamicMetaObjectProvider types are treated special when they are cast to the dynamic type. Assume for a second that I've created my own implementation of a custom dynamic type called DynamicFoo which is about as simple of a dynamic class that I can think of:public class DynamicFoo : DynamicObject { Dictionary<string, object> properties = new Dictionary<string, object>(); public string Bar { get; set; } public DateTime Entered { get; set; } public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result) { result = null; if (!properties.ContainsKey(binder.Name)) return false; result = properties[binder.Name]; return true; } public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value) { properties[binder.Name] = value; return true; } } This class has an internal dictionary member and I'm exposing this dictionary member through a dynamic by implementing DynamicObject. This implementation exposes the properties dictionary so the dictionary keys can be referenced like properties (foo.NewProperty = "Cool!"). I override TryGetMember() and TrySetMember() which are fired at runtime every time you access a 'property' on a dynamic instance of this DynamicFoo type. Strong Typing and Dynamic Casting I now can instantiate and use DynamicFoo in a couple of different ways: Strong TypingDynamicFoo fooExplicit = new DynamicFoo(); var fooVar = new DynamicFoo(); These two commands are essentially identical and use strong typing. The compiler generates identical code for both of them. The var statement is merely a compiler directive to infer the type of fooVar at compile time and so the type of fooExplicit is DynamicFoo, just like fooExplicit. This is very static - nothing dynamic about it - and it completely ignores the IDynamicMetaObjectProvider implementation of my class above as it's never used. Using either of these I can access the native properties:DynamicFoo fooExplicit = new DynamicFoo();// static typing assignmentsfooVar.Bar = "Barred!"; fooExplicit.Entered = DateTime.Now; // echo back static values Console.WriteLine(fooVar.Bar); Console.WriteLine(fooExplicit.Entered); but I have no access whatsoever to the properties dictionary. Basically this creates a strongly typed instance of the type with access only to the strongly typed interface. You get no dynamic behavior at all. The IDynamicMetaObjectProvider features don't kick in until you cast the type to dynamic. If I try to access a non-existing property on fooExplicit I get a compilation error that tells me that the property doesn't exist. Again, it's clearly and utterly non-dynamic. Dynamicdynamic fooDynamic = new DynamicFoo(); fooDynamic on the other hand is created as a dynamic type and it's a completely different beast. I can also create a dynamic by simply casting any type to dynamic like this:DynamicFoo fooExplicit = new DynamicFoo(); dynamic fooDynamic = fooExplicit; Note that dynamic typically doesn't require an explicit cast as the compiler automatically performs the cast so there's no need to use as dynamic. Dynamic functionality works at runtime and allows for the dynamic wrapper to look up and call members dynamically. A dynamic type will look for members to access or call in two places: Using the strongly typed members of the object Using theIDynamicMetaObjectProvider Interface methods to access members So rather than statically linking and calling a method or retrieving a property, the dynamic type looks up - at runtime - where the value actually comes from. It's essentially late-binding which allows runtime determination what action to take when a member is accessed at runtime *if* the member you are accessing does not exist on the object. Class members are checked first before IDynamicMetaObjectProvider interface methods are kick in. All of the following works with the dynamic type:dynamic fooDynamic = new DynamicFoo(); // dynamic typing assignments fooDynamic.NewProperty = "Something new!"; fooDynamic.LastAccess = DateTime.Now; // dynamic assigning static properties fooDynamic.Bar = "dynamic barred"; fooDynamic.Entered = DateTime.Now; // echo back dynamic values Console.WriteLine(fooDynamic.NewProperty); Console.WriteLine(fooDynamic.LastAccess); Console.WriteLine(fooDynamic.Bar); Console.WriteLine(fooDynamic.Entered); The dynamic type can access the native class properties (Bar and Entered) and create and read new ones (NewProperty,LastAccess) all using a single type instance which is pretty cool. As you can see it's pretty easy to create an extensible type this way that can dynamically add members at runtime dynamically. The Alter Ego of IDynamicObject The key point here is that all three statements - explicit, var and dynamic - declare a new DynamicFoo(), but the dynamic declaration results in completely different behavior than the first two simply because the type has been cast to dynamic. Dynamic binding means that the type loses its typical strong typing, compile time features. You can see this easily in the Visual Studio code editor. As soon as you assign a value to a dynamic you lose Intellisense and you see which means there's no Intellisense and no compiler type checking on any members you apply to this instance. If you're new to the dynamic type it might seem really confusing that a single type can behave differently depending on how it is cast, but that's exactly what happens when you use a type that implements IDynamicMetaObjectProvider. Declare the type as its strong type name and you only get to access the native instance members of the type. Declare or cast it to dynamic and you get dynamic behavior which accesses native members plus it uses IDynamicMetaObjectProvider implementation to handle any missing member definitions by running custom code. You can easily cast objects back and forth between dynamic and the original type:dynamic fooDynamic = new DynamicFoo(); fooDynamic.NewProperty = "New Property Value"; DynamicFoo foo = fooDynamic; foo.Bar = "Barred"; Here the code starts out with a dynamic cast and a dynamic assignment. The code then casts back the value to the DynamicFoo. Notice that when casting from dynamic to DynamicFoo and back we typically do not have to specify the cast explicitly - the compiler can induce the type so I don't need to specify as dynamic or as DynamicFoo. Moral of the Story This easy interchange between dynamic and the underlying type is actually super useful, because it allows you to create extensible objects that can expose non-member data stores and expose them as an object interface. You can create an object that hosts a number of strongly typed properties and then cast the object to dynamic and add additional dynamic properties to the same type at runtime. You can easily switch back and forth between the strongly typed instance to access the well-known strongly typed properties and to dynamic for the dynamic properties added at runtime. Keep in mind that dynamic object access has quite a bit of overhead and is definitely slower than strongly typed binding, so if you're accessing the strongly typed parts of your objects you definitely want to use a strongly typed reference. Reserve dynamic for the dynamic members to optimize your code. The real beauty of dynamic is that with very little effort you can build expandable objects or objects that expose different data stores to an object interface. I'll have more on this in my next post when I create a customized and extensible Expando object based on DynamicObject.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in CSharp .NET Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

Read the article

Thursday Community Keynote: "By the Community, For the Community"

- by Janice J. Heiss

Sharat Chander, JavaOne Community Chairperson, began Thursday's Community Keynote. As part of the morning’s theme of "By the Community, For the Community," Chander noted that 60% of the material at the 2012 JavaOne conference was presented by Java Community members. "So next year, when the call for papers starts, put-in your submissions," he urged.From there, Gary Frost, Principal Member of Technical Staff, AMD, expanded upon Sunday's Strategy Keynote exploration of Project Sumatra, an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to heterogeneous computing platforms (which combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon). Sumatra entails enhancing the JVM to make maximum use of these advanced platforms. Within this development space, AMD created the Aparapi API, which converts Java bytecode into OpenCL for execution on such GPU devices. The Aparapi API was open sourced in September 2011.Whether it was zooming-in on a Mandelbrot set, "the game of life," or a swarm of 10,000 Dukes in a space-bound gravitational dance, Frost's demos, using an Aparapi/OpenCL implementation, produced stunningly faster display results. He indicated that the Java 9 timeframe is where they see Project Sumatra coming to ultimate fruition, employing the Lamdas of Java 8.Returning to the theme of the keynote, Donald Smith, Director, Java Product Management, Oracle, explored a mind map graphic demonstrating the importance of Community in terms of fostering innovation. "It's the sharing and mixing of culture, the diversity, and the rapid prototyping," he said. Within this topic, Smith, brought up a panel of representatives from Cloudera, Eclipse, Eucalyptus, Perrone Robotics, and Twitter--ideal manifestations of community and innovation in the world of Java.Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems, explored his company's open source cloud software platform, written in Java, and used by gaming companies, technology companies, media companies, and more. Chris Aniszczyk, Operations Engineering,Twitter, noted the importance of the JVM in terms of their multiple-language development environment. Mike Olson, CEO, Cloudera, described his company's Apache Hadoop-based software, support, and training. Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation, noted that they have about 270 tools projects at Eclipse, with 267 of them written in Java. Milinkovich added that Eclipse will even be going into space in 2013, as part of the control software on various experiments aboard the International Space Station. Lastly, Paul Perrone, CEO, Perrone Robotics, detailed his company's robotics and automation software platform built 100% on Java, including Java SE and Java ME--"on rat, to cat, to elephant-sized systems." Milinkovic noted that communities are by nature so good at innovation because of their very openness--"The more open you make your innovation process, the more ideas are challenged, and the more developers are focused on justifying their choices all the way through the process."From there, Georges Saab, VP Development Java SE OpenJDK, continued the topic of innovation and helping the Java Community to "Make the Future Java." Martijn Verburg, representing the London Java Community (winner of a Duke's Choice Award 2012 for their activity in OpenJDK and JCP), soon joined Saab onstage. Verburg detailed the LJC's "Adopt a JSR" program--"to get day-to-day developers more involved in the innovation that's happening around them." From its London launching pad, the innovative program has spread to Brazil, Morocco, Latvia, India, and more.Other active participants in the program joined Verburg onstage--Ben Evans, London Java Community; James Gough, Stackthread; Bruno Souza, SOUJava; Richard Warburton, jClarity; and Cecelia Borg, Oracle--OpenJDK Onboarding. Together, the group explored the goals and tasks inherent in the Adopt a JSR program--from organizing hack days (testing prototype implementations), to managing mailing lists and forums, to triaging issues, to evangelism—all with the goal of fostering greater community/developer involvement, but equally importantly, building better open standards. “Come join us, and make your ecosystem better!" urged Verburg.Paul Perrone returned to profile the latest in his company's robotics work around Java--including the AARDBOTS family of smaller robotic vehicles, running the Perrone MAX platform on top of the Java JVM. Perrone took his "Rumbles" four-wheeled robot out for a spin onstage--a roaming, ARM-based security-bot vehicle, complete with IR, ultrasonic, and "cliff" sensors (the latter, for the raised stage at JavaOne). As an ultimate window into the future of robotics, Perrone displayed a "head-set" controller--a sensor directed at the forehead to monitor brainwaves, for the someday-implementation of brain-to-robot control.Then, just when it seemed this might be the end of the day's futuristic offerings, a mystery voice from offstage pronounced "I've got some toys"--proving to be guest-visitor James Gosling, there to explore his cutting-edge work with Liquid Robotics. While most think of robots as something with wheels or arms or lasers, Gosling explained, the Liquid Robotics vehicle is an entirely new and innovative ocean-going 'bot. Looking like a floating surfboard, with an attached set of underwater wings, the autonomous devices roam the oceans using only the energy of ocean waves to propel them, and a single actuated rudder to steer. "We have to accomplish all guidance just by wiggling the rudder," Gosling said. The devices offer applications from self-installing weather buoy, to pollution monitoring station, to marine mammal monitoring device, to climate change data gathering, to even ocean life genomic sampling. The early versions of the vehicle used C code on very tiny industrial micro controllers, where they had to "count the bytes one at a time." But the latest generation vehicles, which just hit the water a week or so ago, employ an ARM processor running Linux and the ARM version of JDK 7. Gosling explained that vehicle communication from remote locations is achieved via the Iridium satellite network. But because of the costs of this communication path, the data must be sent in very small bursts--using SBD short burst data. "It costs $1/kb, so that rules everything in the software design,” said Gosling. “If you were trying to stream a Netflix video over this, it would cost a million dollars a movie. …We don't have a 'big data' problem," he quipped. There are currently about 150 Liquid Robotics vehicles out traversing the oceans. Gosling demonstrated real time satellite tracking of several vehicles currently at sea, noting that Java is actually particularly good at AI applications--due to the language having garbage collection, which facilitates complex data structures. To close-out his time onstage, Gosling of course participated in the ceremonial Java tee-shirt toss out to the audience…In parting, Chander passed the JavaOne Community Chairperson baton to Stephen Chin, Java Technology Evangelist, Oracle. Onstage in full motorcycle gear, Chin noted that he'll soon be touring Europe by motorcycle, meeting Java Community Members and streaming live via UStream--the ultimate manifestation of community and technology! He also reminded attendees of the upcoming JavaOne Latin America 2012, São Paulo, Brazil (December 4-6, 2012), and stated that the CFP (call for papers) at the conference has been extended for one more week. "Remember, December is summer in Brazil!" Chin said.

Search Results

Search found 5619 results on 225 pages for 'starts'.

Page 208/225 | < Previous Page | 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 | Next Page >

- by roswell

- by Nukeface

- by porgarmingduod

- by Flanders

- by Niels

- by cmdfrg

- by Hugh Bothwell

- by Lasse V. Karlsen

- by user1678927

- by Adam

- by saxofone2

- by Lucky

- by NealR

- by connerb

- by Cédric Menzi

- by Rantanplan

- by Asian Angel

- by Vishal Kumar

- by ScottGu

- by pinaldave

- by rajbk

- by smisner

- by jamiet

- by Rick Strahl

- by Janice J. Heiss

< Previous Page | 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 | Next Page >