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• How to deploy a single webapp with multiple web-modules that may be removed or added individually

  - by Daniel Bleisteiner

  We currently run two separate webapps (WARs) deployed in one single EAR containing additional JARs and settings. To improve our deployment I want to split one of these webapps into different modules that may be build and packaged individually. But I've currently no clue on how to package these modules so that I'm able to add or remove them as desired - at best during runtime. The webapp is getting more and more complex and I'd like to separate some of the functionality into modules. These modules should be packaged as single archives. As long as they contain only classes and resources loaded through code I know how to do this (simple JARs). But how about JSPs? Normally a WAR file contains JSPs or HTML files. I my case it are JSF pages utilizing JBoss Seam and RichFaces. These modules will add classes, resources and JSF pages and other includes to the running webapplication. Is it somehow possible to deploy them as individual archives to serve the same running webapp? We are using Maven for our build and packaging and deploy into JBoss v4.

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• Who Makes a Good Product Owner

  - by Robert May

  In general, the best product owners are those that care passionately about the customer of the product.  Note that I didn’t say about the product itself.  Actually, people that only care about the product, generally do not make good product owners.  Products only matter in relationship to their customers.  If a product doesn’t provide value to the customer, then the product has no value, no matter what a person might think of the product, and no matter what cool technologies exist inside of the product. A good product owner is also a good negotiator.  They recognize that many different priorities exist inside of a corporation, but that there can be only one list that developers work from.  A good product owner recognizes that its their job to help others around them prioritize (perhaps with a Product Council), but also understand that they alone have the final say about priorities and are willing to make the tough decisions required.  Deciding the priority between two perfectly valid stories is very difficult, especially when the stories are from two different departments! A good product owner is deeply interested in helping the team be successful.  They don’t seek to control the team, but instead seek to understand what the team can do and then work with the team to get the best product possible for the Customer.  A good product owner is never denigrating to team members, ever.  They recognize that such behavior would damage the trust that needs to be present between team members and product owners and will avoid it at all costs. In general, technical people (i.e. former or current developers) make poor product owners.  In their minds, they can’t separate implementation details from user functionality, so their stories end up sounding like implementation details.  For example, “The user enters their username on the password screen” is something that a technical product owner would write.  The proper wording for that story is “A user supplies the system with their credentials.”  Because technical people think different from the rest of the population, they are generally not a good fit. A good product owner is also a good writer.  Writing good stories demands good writing.  The art of persuasion, descriptiveness and just general good grammar are all required.  A good Product Owner must also be well spoken, since most of what will be conveyed will be conveyed with the spoken word, not just written word. A good product owner is a “People Person.”  They like talking to people and are very patient.  They don’t mind having questions repeated or fielding many questions, because they want to make sure that the ideas they’re conveying are properly understood so the customer gets the best product possible.  They are happy to answer any questions a team member may have and invite feedback and criticism of designs and stories, since they want a good product.  They really have little ego that gets in the way of building a great product. All of these qualities can be hard to find, but if you look close enough, you’ll find the right person in your organization.  Product owners can be found anywhere, not just in upper management.  Some of the best product owners are those that are very close to the customer.  In fact, check your customer support staff.  I’d bet that several great product owners are lurking there. Final note about what makes a good product owner.  You’re probably NOT going to find a good product owner in a manager, especially if they consider themselves a “Manager.”  Product owners don’t manage anything but the backlog, so be especially careful if the person you’re selecting for Product Owner is a manager. Up Next, “Messing with the Team.” Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

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• Searching for the last logon of users in Active Directory

  - by Robert May

  I needed to clean out a bunch of old accounts at Veracity Solutions, and wanted to delete those that hadn’t used their account in more than a year. I found that AD has a property on objects called the lastLogonTimestamp.  However, this value isn’t exposed to you in any useful fashion.  Sure, you can pull up ADSI Edit and and eventually get to it there, but it’s painful. I spent some time searching, and discovered that there’s not much out there to help, so I thought a blog post showing exactly how to get at this information would be in order. Basically, what you end up doing is using System.DirectoryServices to search for accounts and then filtering those for users, doing some conversion and such to make it happen.  Basically, the end result of this is that you get a list of users with their logon information and you can then do with that what you will.  I turned my list into an observable collection and bound it into a XAML form. One important note, you need to add a reference to ActiveDs Type Library in the COM section of the world in references to get to LargeInteger. Here’s the class: namespace Veracity.Utilities { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.DirectoryServices; using ActiveDs; using log4net; /// <summary> /// Finds users inside of the active directory system. /// </summary> public class UserFinder { /// <summary> /// Creates the default logger /// </summary> private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(UserFinder)); /// <summary> /// Finds last logon information /// </summary> /// <param name="domain">The domain to search.</param> /// <param name="userName">The username for the query.</param> /// <param name="password">The password for the query.</param> /// <returns>A list of users with their last logon information.</returns> public IList<UserLoginInformation> GetLastLogonInformation(string domain, string userName, string password) { IList<UserLoginInformation> result = new List<UserLoginInformation>(); DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(domain, userName, password, AuthenticationTypes.Secure); DirectorySearcher directorySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry); directorySearcher.PropertyNamesOnly = true; directorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name"); directorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("lastLogonTimeStamp"); SearchResultCollection searchResults; try { searchResults = directorySearcher.FindAll(); } catch (System.Exception ex) { log.Error("Failed to do a find all.", ex); throw; } try { foreach (SearchResult searchResult in searchResults) { DirectoryEntry resultEntry = searchResult.GetDirectoryEntry(); if (resultEntry.SchemaClassName == "user") { UserLoginInformation logon = new UserLoginInformation(); logon.Name = resultEntry.Name; PropertyValueCollection timeStampObject = resultEntry.Properties["lastLogonTimeStamp"]; if (timeStampObject.Count > 0) { IADsLargeInteger logonTimeStamp = (IADsLargeInteger)timeStampObject[0]; long lastLogon = (long)((uint)logonTimeStamp.LowPart + (((long)logonTimeStamp.HighPart) << 32)); logon.LastLogonTime = DateTime.FromFileTime(lastLogon); } result.Add(logon); } } } catch (System.Exception ex) { log.Error("Failed to iterate search results.", ex); throw; } return result; } } } Some important things to note: Username and Password can be set to null and if your computer us part of the domain, this may still work. Domain should be set to something like LDAP://servername/CN=Users,CN=Domain,CN=com You’re actually getting a com object back, so that’s why the LongInteger conversions are happening.  The class for UserLoginInformation looks like this:   namespace Veracity.Utilities { using System; /// <summary> /// Represents user login information. /// </summary> public class UserLoginInformation { /// <summary> /// Gets or sets Name /// </summary> public string Name { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets LastLogonTime /// </summary> public DateTime LastLogonTime { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the age of the account. /// </summary> public TimeSpan AccountAge { get { TimeSpan result = TimeSpan.Zero; if (this.LastLogonTime != DateTime.MinValue) { result = DateTime.Now.Subtract(this.LastLogonTime); } return result; } } } } I hope this is useful and instructive. Technorati Tags: Active Directory

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• My History with Agile

  - by Robert May

  I’m going to write my history with Agile here.  That way, in future posts, I can refer back to it, instead of typing it out in the post that contains information you may actually want to read.  Note that I’m actually a pretty senior developer, and do lots of technical interviews.  I’m an Agile fan because of the difference it makes in peoples lives and the improvement in quality it brings, and I’ll sacrifice my technological advance to help teams. Management History I started management pretty early in my career, starting with the first job that I ever had.  I actually do NOT have a CS or similar degree.  I have a Bachelor’s of Business Administration with an emphasis in Computer Information Systems. My first management gigs were around call center work and were very schedule oriented.  I didn’t understand the true value of teams, and I’m ashamed to admit, I actually installed a fingerprint scanner as a time clock in this job.  I shudder to think of the impact that I had on the team spirit.  I didn’t even trust them enough to fill out their time cards correctly.  How sad. I was managing nearly 100 people in this position, with the help of a great set of subordinates. I did try to come up with reward programs for the team, but again, didn’t understand the concept of team, so instead of letting the team determine how the rewards should work, I mandated from on high, which isn’t a good thing. I was told that I wasn’t the type that would be a good manager by people whom I respected a lot.  They said it because I was a computer geek, since they don’t understand good management either, but in retrospect, they were right about me then.  I was too green. After my first job, I went on to other jobs and with the exception of one job, I’ve managed people at them all.  The rest of the management story is important for understanding agile, so I’ll save it for my next post. Technical History I’ve been in software development for many, many years.  I technically started programming on a commodore 64 in basic.  I didn’t know that I was programming, but I was sure having fun.  That was followed by batch files, Gorilla hacking (I always had to win), WordPerfect Macro programming and other things that taught me the basics. My first “real” job was with a telephone company, and that’s where I made my first database application in DataEase, wrote my first VBA app and started using real programming tools, like turbo pascal, vb3-vb5, and semi-real tools like RPG and VisualRPG.  I wrote my first web page in 1994, and built my first data driven web page in 1995 using perlDB.  You really can do anything with Perl.  At this time, I also started a Linux based internet service provider that is still in operation today.  One of the people I worked with is now a Microsoft employee building and designing frameworks you probably know well.  Smart guy.  I also built my first ASP applications connecting to Sql Server 6.5, setup Exchange 5.5 for the company, and many other system administration stuff.  I’m a programmer by choice, mostly because I don’t really like PC support. From there, I went on to a large state agency.  I got to see and maintain true waterfall projects.  5 years of maintaining the 200 VB COM+ (MTS, actually) dlls that were used to calculate a single number is a long time.  That was all Microsoft DNS technologies.  SQL Server and VB6 were the tools of choice, although .net started to be a factor near the end of employment.  I did some heavy XML work at this job and even wrote an XSD parser and validator in VB6 that was a shim until MSXML 3.0 came out.  Prior to 3.0, XSD’s weren’t supported, and I didn’t want to write DTDs. Ironically, jobs after this were more generic.  I pretty much settled in on the .net framework and revisions of it.  Lots of WPF, some silverlight, lots of ASP.NET, some SQL Azure, lots of SQL Server, some Oracle, but I don’t think that I was as passionate about development and technologies.  I was more into the management of development.  I like people. Technorati Tags: Agile,history

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• SQLAuthority News – We’re sorry… … but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To

  - by pinaldave

  I use multiple browser many times when I am working with multiple projects simultaneously. Often I use Google Reader to read few feeds. Recently, I faced the following error and this error will not go. I even restarted my computer and rebooted my network. I am confident that my computer does not have viruses or malware, I could not tackle this error. When I opened Google Reader on another browser, it worked fine. Finally, I found the solution and I want share it with all of you. Error We’re sorry… … but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now. I removed the cookies of Google Reader with the name ‘reader_offline’ as displayed in image below. Once I remove the above mentioned cookie, I could login perfectly fine in Google Reader. I think this message from Google was misleading and inaccurate; however, the solution is easy enough. I just wanted to share this quick tip with everyone who is facing such an issue. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Google

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• Cowboy Agile?

  - by Robert May

  In a previous post, I outlined the rules of Scrum.  This post details one of those rules. I’ve often heard similar phrases around Scrum that clue me in to someone who doesn’t understand Scrum.  The phrases go something like this: “We don’t do Agile because the idea of letting people just do whatever they want is wrong.  We believe in a more structured approach.” (i.e. Work is Prison, and I’m the Warden!) “I love Agile.  Agile lets us do whatever we want!” (Cowboy Agile?) “We’re Agile, but we use a process that I’ve created.” (Cowboy Agile?) All of those phrases have one thing in common:  The assumption that Agile, and I mean Scrum, lets you do whatever you want.  This is simply not true. Executing Scrum properly requires more dedication, rigor, and diligence than happens in most traditional development methods. Scrum and Waterfall Compared Since Scrum and Waterfall are two of the most commonly used methodologies, a little bit of contrasting and comparing is in order. Waterfall Scrum A project manager defines all tasks and then manages the tasks that team members are working on. The team members define the tasks and estimates of the stories for the current iteration.  Any team member may work on any task in the iteration. Usually only a few milestones that need to be met, the milestones are measured in months, and these milestones are expected to be missed.  Little work is ever done to improve estimates and poor estimators can hide behind high estimates. Stories must be delivered every iteration, milestones are measured in hours, and the team is expected to figure out why their estimates were wrong, even when they were under.  Repeated misses can get the entire team fired. Partially completed work is normal. Partially completed work doesn’t count. Nobody knows the task you’re working on. Everyone knows what you’re working on, whether or not you’re making progress and how much longer you think its going to take, in hours. Little requirement to show working code.  Prototypes are ok. Working code must be shown each iteration.  No smoke and mirrors allowed.  Testing is done in lengthy cycles at the end of development.  Developers aren’t held accountable. Testing is part of the team.  If the testers don’t accept the story as complete, the team can’t count it.  Complete means that the story’s functionality works as designed.  The team can’t have any open defects on the story. Velocity is rarely truly measured and difficult to evaluate. Velocity is integral to the process and can be seen at a glance and everyone in the company knows what it is. A business analyst writes requirements.  Designers mock up screens.  Developers hide behind “I did it just like the spec doc told me to and made the screen exactly like the picture” Developers are expected to collaborate in real time.  If a design is bad or lacks needed details, the developers are required to get it right in the iteration, because all software must be functional.  Designers and Business Analysts are part of the team and must do their work in iterations slightly ahead of the developers. Upper Management is often surprised.  “You told me things were going well two months ago!” Management receives updates at the end of every iteration showing them exactly what the team did and how that compares to what' is remaining in the backlog.  Managers know every iteration what their money is buying. Status meetings are rare or don’t occur.  Email is a primary form of communication. Teams coordinate every single day with each other and use other high bandwidth communication channels to make sure they’re making progress.  Email is used only as a last resort.  Instead, team members stand up, walk to each other, and talk, face to face.  If that’s not possible, they pick up the phone. IF someone asks what happened, its at the end of a lengthy development cycle measured in months, and nobody really knows why it happened. Someone asks what happened every iteration.  The team talks about what happened, and then adapts to make sure that what happened either never happens again or happens every time.   That’s probably enough for now.  As you can see, a lot is required of Scrum teams! One of the key differences in Scrum is that the burden for many activities is shifted to a group of people who share responsibility, instead of a single person having responsibility.  This is a very good thing, since small groups usually come up with better and more insightful work than single individuals.  This shift also results in better velocity.  Team members can take vacations and the rest of the team simply picks up the slack.  With Waterfall, if a key team member takes a vacation, delays can ensue. Scrum requires much more out of every team member and as a result, Scrum teams outperform non-Scrum teams working 60 hour weeks. Recommended Reading Everyone considering Scrum should read Mike Cohn’s excellent book, User Stories Applied. Technorati Tags: Agile,Scrum,Waterfall

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• Coolstack MySQL Crash Unable to Restart

  - by rayblasdel

  Environment: Solaris 10 This mysql server has been up and running for 6 months now. Today all of a sudden it crashed. When typing 'mysql' as user it gives the error MYSQL" Error 2002 (HY000): Can't Connect to Local MySQL server though socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' The server try to open mysql, it stays open for 9-10 seconds and restarts the process. Below are the application logs. Application-database-mysql_mysql-csk.log [ May 30 22:37:52 Enabled. ] [ May 30 22:37:58 Rereading configuration. ] [ May 30 22:37:59 Executing start method ("/opt/coolstack/lib/svc/method/svc-cskmysql start") ] /opt/coolstack/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql --datadir=/dbpool1/data --pid-file=/dbpool1/data/database.soliaonline.com.pid [ May 30 22:37:59 Method "start" exited with status 0 ] [ May 30 22:38:13 Stopping because all processes in service exited. ] [ May 30 22:38:13 Executing stop method ("/opt/coolstack/lib/svc/method/svc-cskmysql stop") ] [ May 30 22:38:13 Method "stop" exited with status 0 ] [ May 30 22:38:13 Executing start method ("/opt/coolstack/lib/svc/method/svc-cskmysql start") ] /opt/coolstack/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql --datadir=/dbpool1/data --pid-file=/dbpool1/data/database.soliaonline.com.pid [ May 30 22:38:13 Method "start" exited with status 0 ] [ May 30 22:38:25 Stopping because all processes in service exited. ] [ May 30 22:38:25 Executing stop method ("/opt/coolstack/lib/svc/method/svc-cskmysql stop") ] [ May 30 22:38:25 Method "stop" exited with status 0 ] I am hoping someone might have run into this before and might know how to fix it. The following is an excerpt from the MySQL Error log 100530 22:44:03 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /dbpool1/data/database.soliaonline.com.pid ended 100530 22:44:04 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /dbpool1/data InnoDB: Log scan progressed past the checkpoint lsn 32 727170612 100530 22:44:13 InnoDB: Database was not shut down normally! InnoDB: Starting crash recovery. InnoDB: Reading tablespace information from the .ibd files... InnoDB: Restoring possible half-written data pages from the doublewrite InnoDB: buffer... InnoDB: Doing recovery: scanned up to log sequence number 32 727200901 100530 22:44:14 InnoDB: Starting an apply batch of log records to the database... InnoDB: Progress in percents: 100530 22:44:14 - mysqld got signal 11 ; This could be because you hit a bug. It is also possible that this binary or one of the libraries it was linked against is corrupt, improperly built, or misconfigured. This error can also be caused by malfunctioning hardware. We will try our best to scrape up some info that will hopefully help diagnose the problem, but since we have already crashed, something is definitely wrong and this may fail. key_buffer_size=209715200 read_buffer_size=1048576 max_used_connections=0 max_threads=10000 threads_connected=0 It is possible that mysqld could use up to key_buffer_size + (read_buffer_size + sort_buffer_size)*max_threads = 31024253 K bytes of memory Hope that's ok; if not, decrease some variables in the equation. enter code here

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• Looking for Your Next Challenge...Don't Stretch Too Far

  - by david.talamelli

  In my role as a Recruiter at Oracle I receive a large number of resumes of people who are interested in working with us. People contact me for a number of reasons, it can be about a specific role that we may be hiring for or they may send me an email asking if there are any suitable roles for them. Sometimes when I speak to people we have similar roles available to the roles that they may actually be in now. Sometimes people are interested in making this type of sideways move if their motivation to change jobs is not necessarily that they are looking for increased responsibility or career advancement (example: money, redundancy, work environment). However there are times when after walking through a specific role with a candidate that they may say to me - "You know that is very similar to the role that I am doing now. I would not want to move unless my next role presents me with the next challenge in my career". This is a far statement - if a person is looking to change jobs for the next step in their career they should be looking at suitable opportunities that will address their need. In this instance a sideways step will not really present any new challenges or responsibilities. The main change would be the company they are working for. Candidates looking for a new role because they are looking to move up the ladder should be looking for a role that offers them the next level of responsibility. I think the best job changes for people who are looking for career advancement are the roles that stretch someone outside of their comfort zone but do not stretch them so much that they can't cope with the added responsibilities and pressure. In my head I often think of this example in the same context of an elastic band - you can stretch it, but only so much before it snaps. That is what you should be looking for - to be stretched but not so much that you snap. If you are for example in an individual contributor role and would like to move into a management role - you may not be quite ready to take on a role that is managing a large workforce or requires significant people management experience. While your intentions may be right, your lack of management experience may fit you outside of the scope of search to be successful this type of role. In this example you can move from an individual contributor role to a management role but it may need to be managing a smaller team rather than a larger team. While you are trying to make this transition you can try to pick up some responsibilities in your current role that would give you the skills and experience you need for your next role. Never be afraid to put your hand up to help on a new project or piece of work. You never know when that newly gained experience may come in handy in your career. This article was originally posted on David Talamelli's Blog - David's Journal on Tap

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• Where I&rsquo;ve Been

  - by Lee Brandt

  Hey all. I am still here. Still kickin’. I’ve been swamped with work and community stuff. But I wanted to post about some of the things going on. Just finished up Twin Cities Code Camp 8, and had a blast! Always good to see these guys. First of all, up-coming speaking engagements: Iowa Code Camp – May 1st in Iowa City, IA [more info] DevLink – August 5-7 in Nashville, TN [more info]   Plus I am organizing a second developer’s conference in Kansas City. Kansas City Developer’s Conference (KCDC) – June 19th in Kansas City [more info]   I will also be doing Lunch & Learns for my company in April and May at JCCC: April 29th, May 12th and May 27th at Johnson County Community College in Kansas City.   So May, June and August are covered. I may just take July off, I could use a break after KCDC is over.

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• How to Tell If Your Computer is Overheating and What to Do About It

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Heat is a computer’s enemy. Computers are designed with heat dispersion and ventilation in mind so they don’t overheat. If too much heat builds up, your computer may become unstable or suddenly shut down. The CPU and graphics card produce much more heat when running demanding applications. If there’s a problem with your computer’s cooling system, an excess of heat could even physically damage its components. Is Your Computer Overheating? When using a typical computer in a typical way, you shouldn’t have to worry about overheating at all. However, if you’re encountering system instability issues like abrupt shut downs, blue screens, and freezes — especially while doing something demanding like playing PC games or encoding video — your computer may be overheating. This can happen for several reasons. Your computer’s case may be full of dust, a fan may have failed, something may be blocking your computer’s vents, or you may have a compact laptop that was never designed to run at maximum performance for hours on end. Monitoring Your Computer’s Temperature First, bear in mind that different CPUs and GPUs (graphics cards) have different optimal temperature ranges. Before getting too worried about a temperature, be sure to check your computer’s documentation — or its CPU or graphics card specifications — and ensure you know the temperature ranges your hardware can handle. You can monitor your computer’s temperatures in a variety of different ways. First, you may have a way to monitor temperature that is already built into your system. You can often view temperature values in your computer’s BIOS or UEFI settings screen. This allows you to quickly see your computer’s temperature if Windows freezes or blue screens on you — just boot the computer, enter the BIOS or UEFI screen, and check the temperatures displayed there. Note that not all BIOSes or UEFI screens will display this information, but it is very common. There are also programs that will display your computer’s temperature. Such programs just read the sensors inside your computer and show you the temperature value they report, so there are a wide variety of tools you can use for this, from the simple Speccy system information utility to an advanced tool like SpeedFan. HWMonitor also offer this feature, displaying a wide variety of sensor information. Be sure to look at your CPU and graphics card temperatures. You can also find other temperatures, such as the temperature of your hard drive, but these components will generally only overheat if it becomes extremely hot in the computer’s case. They shouldn’t generate too much heat on their own. If you think your computer may be overheating, don’t just glance as these sensors once and ignore them. Do something demanding with your computer, such as running a CPU burn-in test with Prime 95, playing a PC game, or running a graphical benchmark. Monitor the computer’s temperature while you do this, even checking a few hours later — does any component overheat after you push it hard for a while? Preventing Your Computer From Overheating If your computer is overheating, here are some things you can do about it: Dust Out Your Computer’s Case: Dust accumulates in desktop PC cases and even laptops over time, clogging fans and blocking air flow. This dust can cause ventilation problems, trapping heat and preventing your PC from cooling itself properly. Be sure to clean your computer’s case occasionally to prevent dust build-up. Unfortunately, it’s often more difficult to dust out overheating laptops. Ensure Proper Ventilation: Put the computer in a location where it can properly ventilate itself. If it’s a desktop, don’t push the case up against a wall so that the computer’s vents become blocked or leave it near a radiator or heating vent. If it’s a laptop, be careful to not block its air vents, particularly when doing something demanding. For example, putting a laptop down on a mattress, allowing it to sink in, and leaving it there can lead to overheating — especially if the laptop is doing something demanding and generating heat it can’t get rid of. Check if Fans Are Running: If you’re not sure why your computer started overheating, open its case and check that all the fans are running. It’s possible that a CPU, graphics card, or case fan failed or became unplugged, reducing air flow. Tune Up Heat Sinks: If your CPU is overheating, its heat sink may not be seated correctly or its thermal paste may be old. You may need to remove the heat sink and re-apply new thermal paste before reseating the heat sink properly. This tip applies more to tweakers, overclockers, and people who build their own PCs, especially if they may have made a mistake when originally applying the thermal paste. This is often much more difficult when it comes to laptops, which generally aren’t designed to be user-serviceable. That can lead to trouble if the laptop becomes filled with dust and needs to be cleaned out, especially if the laptop was never designed to be opened by users at all. Consult our guide to diagnosing and fixing an overheating laptop for help with cooling down a hot laptop. Overheating is a definite danger when overclocking your CPU or graphics card. Overclocking will cause your components to run hotter, and the additional heat will cause problems unless you can properly cool your components. If you’ve overclocked your hardware and it has started to overheat — well, throttle back the overclock! Image Credit: Vinni Malek on Flickr     

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• Modern.IE VM license

  - by Thomas W.

  Microsoft provides some VMs for testing purposes (advertised on StackOverflow) and I'm trying to understand the license terms. The one I don't really understand is 1.b. You may use the software for testing purposes only. You may not use the software for commercial purposes. My thoughts: a) Testing a website in several browsers on several different virtual machines seems a quite professional approach. I hardly believe many private developers would do that. Of course they should, but which private developer has the time to do so? b) If that's really only available to private developers, what is the offer to companies doing the same thing? I am missing the advertisement for a paid service. My question as a non-native English speaker: Is testing by a company considered as a commercial purpose? Can I use the VMs within a company for testing or not?

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• Finding it Hard to Deliver Right Customer Experience: Think BPM!

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Our relationship with our customers is not a just a single interaction and we should not treat it like one. A customer’s relationship with a vendor is like a journey which starts way before customer makes a purchase and lasts long after that. The journey may start with customer researching a product that may lead to the eventual purchase and may continue with support or service needs for the product. A typical customer journey can be represented as shown below: As you may notice, customers tend to use multiple channels to interact with a company throughout their journey.  They also expect that they should get consistent experience, no matter what interaction channel they may choose. Customers do not like to repeat the information they have already provided and expect companies to remember their preferences, and offer them relevant products and services. If the company fails to meet this expectation, customers not only will abandon the purchase and go to the competitor but may also influence others’ purchase decision. Gone are the days when word of mouth was the only medium, and the customer could influence “Six” others. This is the age of social media and customer’s good or bad experience, especially bad get highly amplified and may influence hundreds of others. Challenges that face B2C companies today include: Delivering consistent experience: The reason that delivering consistent experience is challenging is due to fragmented data, disjointed systems and siloed multichannel interactions. Customers tend to get different service quality if they use web vs. phone vs. store. They get different responses from different service agents or get inconsistent answers if they call sales vs. service group in the company. Such inconsistent experiences result in lower customer satisfaction or NPS (net promoter score) numbers. Increasing Revenue: To stay competitive companies frequently introduce new products and services. Delay in launching such offerings has a significant impact on revenue realization. In addition to new product revenue, there are multiple opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell that impact bottom line. If companies are not able to identify such opportunities, bring a product to market quickly, or not offer the right product to the right customer at the right time, significant loss of revenue may occur. Ensuring Compliance: Companies must be compliant to ever changing regulations, these could be about Know Your Customer (KYC), Export/Import regulations, or taxation policies. In addition to government agencies, companies also need to comply with the SLA that they have committed to their customers. Lapse in meeting any of these requirements may lead to serious fines, penalties and loss in business. Companies have to make sure that they are in compliance will all such regulations and SLA commitments, at any given time. With the advent of social networks and mobile technology, companies not only need to focus on process efficiency but also on customer engagement. Improving engagement means delivering the customer experience as the customer is expecting and interacting with the customer at right time using right channel. Customers expect to be able to contact you via any channel of their choice (web, email, chat, mobile, social media), purchase via any viable channel (web, phone, store, mobile). Customers expect companies to understand their particular needs and remember their preferences on repeated visits. To deliver such an integrated, consistent, and contextual experience, power of BPM in must. Your company may be organized in departments like Marketing, Sales, Service. You may hold prospect data in SFA, order information in ERP, customer issues in CRM. However, the experience delivered to the customer must not be constrained by your system legacy. BPM helps in designing the right experience for the right customer and integrates all the underlining channels, systems, applications to make sure right information will be delivered to the right knowledge worker or to the customer every single time.     Orchestrating information across all systems (MDM, CRM, ERP), departments (commerce, merchandising, marketing service) and channels (Email, phone, web, social)  is the key, and that’s what BPM delivers. In addition to orchestrating systems and channels for consistency, BPM also provides an ability for analysis and decision management. By using data from historical transactions, social media and from other systems, users can determine the customer preferences, customer value, and churn propensity. This information, in the context, is then used while making a decision at a process step. Working with real-time decision management system can also suggest right up-sell or cross-sell offers, discounts or next-best-action steps for a particular customer. Timely action on customer issues or request is also a key tenet of a good customer experience. BPM’s complex event processing capabilities help companies to take proactive actions before issues get escalated. BPM system can be designed to listen to a certain event patters then deduce from those customer situations (credit card stolen, baggage lost, change of address) and do a triage before situation goes out of control. If such a situation arises you can send alerts to right people or immediately invoke corrective actions. Last but not least one of BPM’s key values is to drive continuous improvement. Learning about customers past experiences, interactions and social conversations, provide valuable insight. Such insight can be used to improve products, customer facing processes, and customer experience. You may take these insights as an input to design better more efficient and customer friendly sales, contact center or self-service processes. If customer experience is important for your business, make sure you have incorporated BPM as a part of your strategy to design, orchestrate and improve your customer facing processes.

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• SQL SERVER – Fix: Error: 147 An aggregate may not appear in the WHERE clause unless it is in a subquery contained in a HAVING clause or a select list, and the column being aggregated is an outer reference

  - by pinaldave

  Everybody was beginner once and I always like to get involved in the questions from beginners. There is a big difference between the question from beginner and question from advanced user. I have noticed that if an advanced user gets an error, they usually need just a small hint to resolve the problem. However, when a beginner gets error he sometimes sits on the error for a long time as he/she has no idea about how to solve the problem as well have no idea regarding what is the capability of the product. I recently received a very novice level question. When I received the problem I quickly see how the user was stuck. When I replied him with the solution, he wrote a long email explaining how he was not able to solve the problem. He thanked multiple times in the email. This whole thing inspired me to write this quick blog post. I have modified the user’s question to match the code with AdventureWorks as well simplified so it contains the core content which I wanted to discuss. Problem Statement: Find all the details of SalesOrderHeaders for the latest ShipDate. He comes up with following T-SQL Query: SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] WHERE ShipDate = MAX(ShipDate) GO When he executed above script it gave him following error: Msg 147, Level 15, State 1, Line 3 An aggregate may not appear in the WHERE clause unless it is in a subquery contained in a HAVING clause or a select list, and the column being aggregated is an outer reference. He was not able to resolve this problem, even though the solution was given in the query description itself. Due to lack of experience he came up with another version of above query based on the error message. SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] HAVING ShipDate = MAX(ShipDate) GO When he ran above query it produced another error. Msg 8121, Level 16, State 1, Line 3 Column ‘Sales.SalesOrderHeader.ShipDate’ is invalid in the HAVING clause because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause. What he wanted actually was the SalesOrderHeader all the Sales shipped on the last day. Based on the problem statement what the right solution is as following, which does not generate error. SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] WHERE ShipDate = (SELECT MAX(ShipDate) FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader]) Well, that’s it! Very simple. With SQL Server there are always multiple solution to a single problem. Is there any other solution available to the problem stated? Please share in the comment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• How to change the blue highlight color of a UITableViewCell?

  - by Thomas Joos

  hi, I'm wondering how to change the blue highlight/selection color of a UITableViewCell, any ideas? Thomas

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• Is my dns server being attacked? And what should I do about it?

  - by Mnebuerquo

  I've been having some intermittent dns problems with a web server, where certain isp's dns servers don't have my hostnames in cache and fail to look them up. At the same time, queries to opendns for those hostnames resolve correctly. It's intermittent, and it always works fine for me, so it's hard to identify the problem when someone reports connectivity problems to my site. In trying to figure this out, I've been looking at my logs to see if there are any errors I should know about. I found thousands of the following messages in my logs, from different ip's, but all requesting similar dns records: May 12 11:42:13 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#36141: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:42:13 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#29075: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:42:13 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#47924: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:42:13 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#4727: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:42:14 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#16153: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:42:14 localhost named[26399]: client 94.76.107.2#40267: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:43:35 localhost named[26399]: client 82.209.240.241#63507: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:43:35 localhost named[26399]: client 82.209.240.241#63721: query (cache) 'burningpianos.org/MX/IN' denied May 12 11:43:36 localhost named[26399]: client 82.209.240.241#3537: query (cache) 'burningpianos.com/MX/IN' denied I've read of Dan Kaminski's dns cache poisoning vulnerability, and I'm wondering if these log records are an attempt by some evildoer to attack my dns server. There are thousands of records in my logs, all requesting "burningpianos", some for com and some for org, most looking for an mx record. There are requests from multiple ip's, but each ip will request hundreds of times per day. So this smells to me like an attack. What is the defense against this?

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• Error in Bind9 named.conf file. Bind won't start.

  - by tj111

  I'm trying to setup a DNS server on an Ubuntu Server machine (10.04). I configured an entry in named.conf.local to test it, but when trying to restart bind9 I get the following error: * Starting domain name service... bind9 [fail] So I checked the output of syslog and this is what I get. May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: starting BIND 9.7.0-P1 -u bind May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: built with '--prefix=/usr' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--sysconfdir=/etc/bind' '--localstatedir=/var' '--enable-threads' '--enable-largefile' '--with-libtool' '--enable-shared' '--enable-static' '--with-openssl=/usr' '--with-gssapi=/usr' '--with-gnu-ld' '--with-dlz-postgres=no' '--with-dlz-mysql=no' '--with-dlz-bdb=yes' '--with-dlz-filesystem=yes' '--with-dlz-ldap=yes' '--with-dlz-stub=yes' '--with-geoip=/usr' '--enable-ipv6' 'CFLAGS=-fno-strict-aliasing -DDIG_SIGCHASE -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions' 'CPPFLAGS=' May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: adjusted limit on open files from 1024 to 1048576 May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: found 4 CPUs, using 4 worker threads May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: using up to 4096 sockets May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: loading configuration from '/etc/bind/named.conf' May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: /etc/bind/named.conf:10: missing ';' before 'include' May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: loading configuration: failure May 20 18:11:13 empression-server1 named[4700]: exiting (due to fatal error) So it thinks I have an error in the default named.conf file, which is pretty ridiculous. I went through it and deleted a blank line just for the hell of it, but I can't see how it figures there's an error in there. Note that before this I did have an error in named.conf.local, but it showed up properly in syslog and I fixed it, so it is reporting the correct file. Here is the contents of named.conf: // This is the primary configuration file for the BIND DNS server named. // // Please read /usr/share/doc/bind9/README.Debian.gz for information on the // structure of BIND configuration files in Debian, *BEFORE* you customize // this configuration file. // // If you are just adding zones, please do that in /etc/bind/named.conf.local include "/etc/bind/named.conf.options"; include "/etc/bind/named.conf.local"; include "/etc/bind/named.conf.default-zones";

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• Dovecot unable to perform mysql query

  - by NathanJ2012

  I have been following the ISPMail tutorials on workaround.org (the 2.9 Wheezy version) and thus far everything has been working fine. When I reached the step to "Testing email delivery" step I noticed a error about the query in the output log from /var/log/mail.log. May 14 06:48:59 mail postfix/pickup[17704]: EA4AD240A98: uid=0 from=<root> May 14 06:48:59 mail postfix/cleanup[17776]: EA4AD240A98: message-id=<[email protected]> May 14 06:48:59 mail postfix/qmgr[17706]: EA4AD240A98: from=<[email protected]>, size=429, nrcpt=1 (queue active) May 14 06:49:00 mail dovecot: auth-worker(17782): mysql(127.0.0.1): Connected to database mailserver May 14 06:49:00 mail dovecot: auth-worker(17782): Warning: mysql: Query failed, retrying: Table 'mailserver.users' doesn't exist May 14 06:49:00 mail dovecot: auth-worker(17782): Error: sql([email protected]): User query failed: Table 'mailserver.users' doesn't exist (using built-in default user_query: SELECT home, uid, gid FROM users WHERE username = '%n' AND domain = '%d') May 14 06:49:00 mail dovecot: lda([email protected]): msgid=<[email protected]>: saved mail to INBOX May 14 06:49:00 mail postfix/pipe[17780]: EA4AD240A98: to=<[email protected]>, relay=dovecot, delay=0.09, delays=0.03/0.01/0/0.06, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered via dovecot service) May 14 06:49:00 mail postfix/qmgr[17706]: EA4AD240A98: removed I found this rather interesting that it isn't finding the DB so I went back through and checked EVERY file that I touched that involved the DB (including the postfix cf files) and everything is correct so I am baffled at this point, but oddly enough it would seem the email still made it to the correct destination in /var/vmail/domain.com/. Should I be worried about this or am I missing something here? Since it is a message from dovecot it would be the query from dovecot-sql.conf.ext which I am including here driver = mysql connect = host=127.0.0.1 dbname=mailserver user=blocked password=***REMOVED*** default_pass_scheme = PLAIN-MD5 password_query = SELECT email as user, password FROM virtual_users WHERE email='%u';

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• An introductory presentation about testing with MSTest, Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server 2010

  - by Thomas Weller

  While it was very quiet here on my blog during the last months, this was not at all true for the rest of my professional life. The simple story is that I was too busy to find the time for authoring blog posts (and you might see from my previous ones that they’re usually not of the ‘Hey, I’m currently reading X’ or ‘I’m currently thinking about Y’ kind…). Anyway. Among the things I did during the last months were setting up a TFS environment (2010) and introducing a development team to the MSTest framework (aka. Visual Studio Unit Testing), some additional tools (e.g. Moq, Moles, White),  how this is supported in Visual Studio, and how it integrates into the broader context of the then new TFS environment. After wiping out all the stuff which was directly related to my former customer and reviewing/extending the Speaker notes, I thought I share this presentation (via Slideshare) with the rest of the world. Hopefully it can be useful to someone else out there… Introduction to testing with MSTest, Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server 2010 View more presentations from Thomas Weller. Be sure to also check out the slide notes (either by viewing the presentation directly on Slideshare or - even better - by downloading it). They contain quite some additional information, hints, and (in my opinion) best practices.

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• Agile Awakenings and the Rules of Agile

  - by Robert May

  For those that care, you can read my history of management and technology to understand why I think I’m qualified to talk about this at all.  It’s boring, so feel free to skip it. Awakenings I first started to play around with the idea of “agile” in 2004 or 2005.  I found a book on the Rational Unified Process that I thought was good, and attempted to implement parts of it.  I thought I was agile, but really, it wasn’t.   I still didn’t understand the concept of a team.  I still wanted to tell the team what to do and how to get it done.  I still thought I was smarter than the team. After that job, I started work on another project and began helping that team.  The first few months were really rough.  We were implementing Scrum, which was relatively new to everyone on the team, and, quite frankly, I was doing a poor job of it.  I was trying to micro-manage every aspect of the teams work, and we were all miserable. The moment of change came when the senior architect bailed on the project.  His comment to me was: “This isn’t Agile.  Where are the stand-ups?  Where are the stories?”  He was dead on, and I finally woke up.  I finally realized that I was the problem!  I wasn’t trusting the team.  I wasn’t helping the team.  I was being a manager. Like many (most?), I was claiming to be Agile and use Scrum, but I wasn’t in fact following the rules Scrum.  Since then, I’ve done a lot of studying, hands on practice, coaching of many different teams, and other learning around Scrum, and I have discovered that Scrum has some rules that must be followed for success, even though the process is about continuous improvement. I’ve been practicing Scrum right for about 4 years now and have helped multiple teams implement it successfully, so what you’re about to get is based on experience, rather than just theory. The Rules of Scrum In my experience, what I’ve found is that most companies that claim to be doing Scrum or Agile are actually NOT doing either.  This stems largely because they think that they can “adopt the rules of Agile that fit their organization.”  Sadly, many of them think that this means they can adopt iterations (sprints) and not much else.  Either that, or they think they can do whatever they want, or were doing before, and call it Scrum.  This is simply not true. Here are some rules that must be followed for you to really be doing Scrum.  I’ll go into detail on each one of these posts in future blog posts and update links here.  My intent is that this will help other teams implementing scrum to see more success. Agile does not allow you to do whatever you want A Product Owner is required A ScrumMaster is required The team must function as a Team, and QA must be part of the team Support from upper management is required A prioritized product backlog is required A prioritized sprint backlog is required Release planning is required Complete spring planning is required Showcases are required Velocity must be measured Retrospectives are required Daily stand-ups are required Visibility is absolutely required For now, I think that’s enough, although I reserve the right to add more.  If you’re breaking any of these rules, you’re probably not doing Scrum.  There are exceptions to these rules, but until you have practiced Scrum for a while, you don’t know what those exceptions are. Breaking the Rules Many teams break these rules because they are the ones that expose the most pain.  Scrum is not Advil.  It’s not intended to mask the pain, its intended to cure it.  Let me explain that analogy a bit more.  Recently, my 7 year old son broke his arm, quite severely (see the X-Ray to the right).  That caused him a great deal of pain.  We went first to one doctor, and after viewing the X-Ray, they determined that there was no way that they’d cast the arm at their location.  It was simply too bad of a break for them to deal with.  They did, however, give him some Advil for the pain and put a splint on his arm to stabilize the broken bones.  Within minutes, he was feeling much better.  Had we been stupid, we could have gone home and he’d have been just as happy as ever . . . until the pain medication wore off or one of his siblings touched the splint.  Then, all of that pain would come right back to the top.  Sure, he could make it go away by just taking more Advil and moving the splint out of the way, but that wasn’t going to fix the problem permanently. We ended up in an emergency room with a doctor who could fix his arm.  However, we were warned that the fix was going to be VERY painful, and it was.  Even with heavy sedation (Propofol), my son was in enough pain that he squirmed and wiggled trying to get his arm away from the doctor.  He had to endure this pain in order to have a functional arm. But the setting wasn’t the end.  He had to have several casts, had to have it re-broken once, since the first setting didn’t take and finally was given a clean bill of health. Agile implementation is much like this story.  Agile was developed as a result of people recognizing that the development methodologies that were currently in place simply were ineffective.  However, the fix to the broken development that’s been festering for many years is not painless.  Many people start Agile thinking that things will be wonderful.  They won’t!  Agile is about visibility, and often, it brings great pain to surface.  It causes all of the missed deadlines, the cowboy coders, the coasters, the micro-managers, the lazy, and all of the other problems that are really part of your development process now to become painfully visible to EVERYONE.  Many people don’t like this exposure.  Agile will make the pain better, but not if you remove the cast (the rules above) prematurely and start breaking the rules that expose the most pain.  The healing will take time and is not instant (like Advil).  Figuring out what the true source of pain and fixing it is very valuable to you, your team, and your company.  Remember as you’re doing this that Agile isn’t the source of the pain, it’s really just exposing it.  Find the source. My recommendation is that ALL of these rules are followed for a minimum of six months, and preferably for an entire year, before you decide to break any of these rules.  Get a few good releases under your belt.  Figure out what your velocity is and start firing as a team.  Chances are, after you see agile really in action, you won’t want to break the rules because you’ll see their value. More Reading Jean Tabaka recently published a list of 78 Things I Have Learned in 6 Years of Agile Coaching.  Highly recommended. Technorati Tags: Agile,Scrum,Rules

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• WCF Error: the client and service bindings may be mismatched?

  - by Rev

  Hi let see server config and client config. Then help me find difference between these configs!! Client config <system.serviceModel> <client> <endpoint address="http://localhost/admin2/AdminCentralService.svc" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_Config" contract="TIR.ThreeTier.ICommandInvoker" name="AdminCentralServiceConfig" /> <endpoint binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_Config" contract="TIR.ThreeTier.ICommandInvoker" name="CommandInvokerConfig" /> </client> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="WSHttpBinding_Config" closeTimeout="00:10:00" openTimeout="00:10:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:10:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" messageEncoding="Mtom" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" /> <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false" /> <security mode="Message"> <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" /> <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true" /> </security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> Server Config <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="AdminCentral.Business.Web.Service1Behavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="WSHttpBinding_Config" closeTimeout="00:10:00" openTimeout="00:10:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:10:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" messageEncoding="Mtom" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647"/> <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false"/> <security mode="Message"> <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm=""/> <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true"/> </security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="AdminCentral.Business.Web.Service1Behavior" name="AdminCentral.Business.Web.AdminCentralService"> <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="AdminCentral.Business.Web.ICommandInvoker"> <identity> <dns value="localhost" /> </identity> </endpoint> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>

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• Service Level Loggin/Tracing

  - by Ahsan Alam

  We all love to develop services, right? First timers want to learn technologies like WCF and Web Services. Some simply want to build services; whereas, others may find services as natural architectural decision for particular systems. Whatever the reason might be, services are commonly used in building wide range of systems. Developers often encapsulates various functionality (small or big) within one or more services, and expose them for multiple applications. Sometimes from day one (and definitely over time) these services may evolve into a set of black boxes. Services or not, black boxes or not, issues and exceptions are sometimes hard to avoid, especially in highly evolving and transactional systems. We can try to be methodical with our unit testing, QA and overall process; but we may not be able to avoid some type of system issues. When issues arise from one or more highly transactional services, it becomes necessary to resolve them very quickly. When systems handle thousands of transaction in matter of hours, some issues may not surface immediately. That is when service level logging becomes very useful. Technologies such as WCF, allow us to enable service level tracing with minimal effort; but that may not provide us with complete picture. Developers may need to add tracing within critical areas of the code with various degrees of verbosity. Programmer can always utilize some logging framework such as the 'Logging Application Block' to get the job done. It may seem overkill sometimes; but I have noticed from my experience that service level logging helps programmer trace many issues very quickly.

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• Not All “Viruses” Are Viruses: 10 Malware Terms Explained

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Most people seem to call every type of malware a “virus”, but that isn’t technically accurate. You’ve probably heard of many more terms beyond virus: malware, worm, Trojan, rootkit, keylogger, spyware, and more. But what do all these terms mean? These terms aren’t just used by geeks. They make their way into even mainstream news stories about the latest web security problems and tech scares. Understanding them will help you understand the dangers your\ hear about. Malware The word “malware” is short for “malicious software.” Many people use the word “virus” to indicate any type of harmful software, but a virus is actually just a specific type of malware. The word “malware” encompasses all harmful software, including all the ones listed below. Virus Let’s start with viruses. A virus is a type of malware that copies itself by infecting other files,  just as viruses in the real world infect biological cells and use those biological cells to reproduce copies of themselves. A virus can do many different things — watch in the background and steal your passwords, display advertisements, or just crash your computer — but the key thing that makes it a virus is how it spreads. When you run a virus, it will infect programs on your computer. When you run the program on another computer, the virus will infect programs on that computer, and so on. For example, a virus might infect program files on a USB stick. When the programs on that USB stick are run on another computer, the virus runs on the other computer and infects more program files. The virus will continue to spread in this way. Worm A worm is similar to a virus, but it spreads a different way. Rather than infecting files and relying on human activity to move those files around and run them on different systems, a worm spreads over computer networks on its own accord. For example, the Blaster and Sasser worms spread very quickly in the days of Windows XP because Windows XP did not come properly secured and exposed system services to the Internet. The worm accessed these system services over the Internet, exploited a vulnerability, and infected the computer. The worm then used the new infected computer to continue replicating itself. Such worms are less common now that Windows is properly firewalled by default, but worms can also spread in other ways — for example, by mass-emailing themselves to every email address in an effected user’s address book. Like a virus, a worm can do any number of other harmful things once it infects a computer. The key thing that makes it a worm is simply how it spreads copies of itself. Trojan (or Trojan Horse) A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a type of malware that disguises itself as a legitimate file. When you download and run the program, the Trojan horse will run in the background, allowing third-parties to access your computer. Trojans can do this for any number of reasons — to monitor activity on your computer, to join your computer to a botnet. Trojans may also be used to open the floodgates and download many other types of malware onto your computer. The key thing that makes this type of malware a Trojan is how it arrives. It pretends to be a useful program and, when run, it hides in the background and gives malicious people access to your computer. It isn’t obsessed with copying itself into other files or spreading over the network, as viruses and worms are. For example, a piece of pirated software on an unscrupulous website may actually contain a Trojan. Spyware Spyware is a type of malicious software that spies on you without your knowledge. It collects a variety of different types of data, depending on the piece of spyware. Different types of malware can function as spyware — there may be malicious spyware included in Trojans that spies on your keystrokes to steal financial data, for example. More “legitimate” spyware may be bundled along with free software and simply monitor your web browsing habits, uploading this data to advertising servers so the software’s creator can make money from selling their knowledge of your activities. Adware Adware often comes along with spyware. It’s any type of software that displays advertising on your computer. Programs that display advertisements inside the program itself aren’t generally classified as malware. The kind of “adware” that’s particularly malicious is the kind that abuses its access to your system to display ads when it shouldn’t. For example, a piece of harmful adware may cause pop-up advertisements to appear on your computer when you’re not doing anything else. Or, adware may inject additional advertising into other web pages as you browse the web. Adware is often combined with spyware — a piece of malware may monitor your browsing habits and use them to serve you more targeted ads. Adware is more “socially acceptable” than other types of malware on Windows and you may see adware bundled with legitimate programs. For example, some people consider the Ask Toolbar included with Oracle’s Java software adware. Keylogger A keylogger is a type of malware that runs in the background, recording every key stroke you make. These keystrokes can include usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive data. The keylogger then, most likely, uploads these keystrokes to a malicious server, where it can be analyzed and people can pick out the useful passwords and credit card numbers. Other types of malware can act as keyloggers. A virus, worm, or Trojan may function as a keylogger, for example. Keyloggers may also be installed for monitoring purposes by businesses or even jealous spouses. Botnet, Bot A botnet is a large network of computers that are under the botnet creator’s control. Each computer functions as a “bot” because it’s infected with a specific piece of malware. Once the bot software infects the computer, ir will connect to some sort of control server and wait for instructions from the botnet’s creator. For example, a botnet may be used to initiate a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. Every computer in the botnet will be told to bombard a specific website or server with requests at once, and such millions or requests can cause a server to become unresponsive or crash. Botnet creators may sell access to their botnets, allowing other malicious individuals to use large botnets to do their dirty work. Rootkit A rootkit is a type of malware designed to burrow deep into your computer, avoiding detection by security programs and users. For example, a rootkit might load before most of Windows, burying itself deep into the system and modifying system functions so that security programs can’t detect it. A rootkit might hide itself completely, preventing itself from showing up in the Windows task manager. The key thing that makes a type of malware a rootkit is that it’s stealthy and focused on hiding itself once it arrives. Ransomware Ransomware is a fairly new type of malware. It holds your computer or files hostage and demands a ransom payment. Some ransomware may simply pop up a box asking for money before you can continue using your computer. Such prompts are easily defeated with antivirus software. More harmful malware like CryptoLocker literally encrypts your files and demands a payment before you can access them. Such types of malware are dangerous, especially if you don’t have backups. Most malware these days is produced for profit, and ransomware is a good example of that. Ransomware doesn’t want to crash your computer and delete your files just to cause you trouble. It wants to take something hostage and get a quick payment from you. So why is it called “antivirus software,” anyway? Well, most people continue to consider the word “virus” synonymous with malware as a whole. Antivirus software doesn’t just protect against viruses, but against all types of malware. It may be more accurately referred to as “antimalware” or “security” software. Image Credit: Marcelo Alves on Flickr, Tama Leaver on Flickr, Szilard Mihaly on Flickr     

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• Prioritizing Product Features

  - by Robert May

  A very common task in Agile Environments is prioritization.  Teams that are functioning well will prioritize new features, old features, the backlog, and any other source of stories for the team, and they’ll do it regularly. Not all teams are good at prioritizing according to the real return on investment that building stories will yield to the company.  This is unfortunate.  Too often, teams end up building features that are less valuable, and everyone seems to know it except perhaps the product owner!  Most features built into software are never even used.  Clearly, not much return for features that go unused. So how does a company avoid building features that add little value to the company?  This is a tough question to answer, but usually, this prioritization starts at the top with the executives of the company.  After all, they’re responsible for the overall vision of the company. Here’s what I recommend: Know your market. Know your customers and users. Know where you’re going and what you want to achieve. Implement the Vision Know Your Market We often see companies that don’t know their market.  Personally, I’m surprised by this.  These companies don’t know who their competitors are, don’t know what features make their product desirable in the market, and in many cases, get by with saying, “I’ve been doing this for XX years.  I know what the market wants!”  In many cases, they equate “marketing” with “advertising” and don’t understand the difference. This is almost never true.  Good companies will spend significant amounts of time and money finding out who they’re competing against and what makes their competitors successful in the marketplace.  Good companies understand that marketing involves more than just advertising.  Often, marketing is mostly research and analysis, not sales.  Until you understand your market, you cannot know what features will give you the best return on your investment dollar. Good companies have a marketing department and can answer the next important step which is to know your customers and your users. Know your Customers and Users First, note that I included both customers and users.  They’re often not the same thing.  Users use the product that you build.  Customers buy the product that you build.  It’s a subtle difference, but too often, I’ve seen companies that focus exclusively on one or the other and are not successful simply because they ignore an important part of the group. If your company is doing appropriate marketing, you know that these are two different aspects of your product and that both deserve attention to have a product that is successful in your target market.  Your marketing department should be spending a lot of time understanding these personas and then conveying that information to the company. I’m always surprised when development teams think that they can build a product that people want to use without understanding the users of that product.  Developers think differently than most people in the world.  They know what the computer is doing.  The computer isn’t magic to them.  So when they assume that they know how to build something, they bring with them quite a bit of baggage.  Never assume that you know your customer unless you’re regularly having interaction with them.  Also, don’t just leave this to Marketing or Product Management.  Take them time to get your developers out with the customers as well.  Developers are very smart people, and often, seeing how someone uses their software inspires them to make a much better product. Very often, because the users and customers aren’t know, teams will spend a significant amount of time building apps that are super flexible and configurable so that any possible combination of feature can be used.  This demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the customer.  Most configuration questions can quickly be answered by talking to the customer.  In most cases, if your software requires significant setup and configuration before its usable, you probably don’t know your customers and users very well. Until you know your customers, you cannot know what features will be most valuable to your customers and you cannot build those features in a way that your customers can use. Know Where You’re Going and What You Want to Achieve Many companies suffer from not having a plan.  Executives will tell the team to make them a plan.  The team, not knowing their market and customers and users, will come up with a plan that doesn’t reflect reality and doesn’t consider ROI.  Management then wonders why the product is doing poorly in the market place. Instead of leaving this up to the teams, as executives, work with Marketing to understand what broad categories of features will sell the most product in the marketplace.  Then, once you’ve determined that, give this vision to the team and let them run with it.  Revise the vision as needed, but avoid changing streams frequently.  Sure, sometimes you need to, but often, executives will change priorities many times a month, leading to nothing more than confusion.  If the team has a vision, they’ll be able to execute that vision far better than they could otherwise. By knowing what products are most important, you can set budgetary goals and guidelines that will help you achieve the vision that was created. Implement the Vision Creating the vision is often where the general executives stop participating in the plan.  The team is responsible for implementing that vision.  Executives should attend showcases and and should remain aware of the progress that the team is making towards meeting the vision, however. Once a broad vision has been created, the team should break that vision down into minimal market features (MMF).  These MMFs should be sized using story points so that, using the team’s velocity, an estimated cost can be determined for each feature.  The product management team should then try to quantify the relative value of the MMFs based on customer feedback and interviews.  Once the value and cost of creating the feature is understood, a return on investment can be calculated.  The features should then be prioritized with the MMF’s that have the highest value and lowest cost rising to the top of features to implement.  Don’t let politics get in the way! Once the MMF’s have been prioritized, they should go through release planning to schedule them for implementation. Conclusion By having a good grasp on the strategy of the company, your Agile teams can be much more effective.  Each and every story the team is implementing will roll up into features that matter to the company and provide ROI to them.  The steps outlined in this post should be repeated on a regular basis.  I recommend reviewing them at least once per quarter to make sure that the vision hasn’t shifted and that the teams are still working on what matters most to the company. Technorati Tags: Agile,Product Owner,ROI

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• According to MSDN ReadFile() Win32 function may incorrectly report read operation completion. When?

  - by Martin Dobšík

  The MSDN states in its description of ReadFile() function (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365467%28VS.85%29.aspx): “If hFile is opened with FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED, the lpOverlapped parameter must point to a valid and unique OVERLAPPED structure, otherwise the function can incorrectly report that the read operation is complete.” I have some applications that are violating the above recommendation and I would like to know the severity of the problem. I mean the program uses named pipe that has been created with FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED, but it reads from it using the following call: ReadFile(handle, &buf, n, &n_read, NULL); That means it passes NULL as the lpOverlapped parameter. That call should not work correctly in some circumstances according to documentation. I have spent a lot of time trying to reproduce the problem, but I was unable to! I always got all data in right place at right time. I was testing only Named Pipes though. Would anybody know when can I expect that ReadFile() will incorrectly return and report successful completion even the data are not yet in the buffer? What would have to happen in order to reproduce the problem? Does it happen with files, pipes, sockets, consoles, or other devices? Do I have to use particular version of OS? Or particular version of reading (like register the handle to I/O completion port)? Or particular synchronization of reading and writing processes/threads? Or when would that fail? It works for me :/ Please help! With regards Martin

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• Performing a clean database creation using msbuild

  - by Robert May

  So I’m taking a break from writing about other Agile stuff for a post. :)  I’m still going to get back to the other subjects, but this is fun too. Something I’ve done quite a bit of is MSBuild and CI work.  I’m experimenting with ways to improve what I’ve done in the past, particularly around database CI. Today, I developed a mechanism for starting from scratch with your database.  By scratch, I mean blowing away the existing database and creating it again from a single command line call.  I’m a firm believer that developers should be able to get to a known clean state at the database level with a single command and that they should be operating off of their own isolated database to improve productivity.  These scripts will help that. Here’s how I did it.  First, we have to disconnect users.  I did so using the help of a script from sql server central.  Note that I’m using sqlcmd variable replacement. -- kills all the users in a particular database -- dlhatheway/3M, 11-Jun-2000 declare @arg_dbname sysname declare @a_spid smallint declare @msg varchar(255) declare @a_dbid int set @arg_dbname = '$(DatabaseName)' select @a_dbid = sdb.dbid from master..sysdatabases sdb where sdb.name = @arg_dbname declare db_users insensitive cursor for select sp.spid from master..sysprocesses sp where sp.dbid = @a_dbid open db_users fetch next from db_users into @a_spid while @@fetch_status = 0 begin select @msg = 'kill '+convert(char(5),@a_spid) print @msg execute (@msg) fetch next from db_users into @a_spid end close db_users deallocate db_users GO Once all users are booted from the database, we can commence with recreating the database.  I generated the script that is used to create a database from SQL Server management studio, so I’m only going to show the bits that weren’t generated that are important.  There are a bunch of Alter Database statements that aren’t shown. First, I had to find the default location of the database files in the install, since they can be in many different locations.  I used Method 1 from a technet blog and then modified it a bit to do what I needed to do.  I ended up using dynamic SQL because for the life of me, I couldn’t get the “Filename” property to not return an error when I used anything besides a string.  I’m dropping the database first, if it exists.  Here’s the code:   IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = N'$(DatabaseName)') BEGIN drop database $(DatabaseName) END; go IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; -- Create temp database. Because no options are given, the default data and --- log path locations are used CREATE DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath; DECLARE @Default_Data_Path VARCHAR(512), @Default_Log_Path VARCHAR(512); --Get the default data path SELECT @Default_Data_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 0); --Get the default Log path SELECT @Default_Log_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 1); --Clean up. IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; DECLARE @SQL nvarchar(max) SET @SQL= 'CREATE DATABASE $(DatabaseName) ON PRIMARY ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Data_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.mdf' + ''', SIZE = 2048KB , FILEGROWTH = 1024KB ) LOG ON ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)Log'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Log_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.ldf' + ''', SIZE = 1024KB , FILEGROWTH = 10%) ' exec (@SQL) GO And with that, your database is created.  You can run these scripts on any server and on any database name.  To do that, I created an MSBuild script that looks like this: <Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0"> <PropertyGroup> <DatabaseName>MyDatabase</DatabaseName> <Server>localhost</Server> <SqlCmd>sqlcmd -v DatabaseName=$(DatabaseName) -S $(Server) -i </SqlCmd> <ScriptDirectory>.\Scripts</ScriptDirectory> </PropertyGroup> <Target Name ="Rebuild"> <ItemGroup> <ScriptFiles Include="$(ScriptDirectory)\*.sql"/> </ItemGroup> <Exec Command="$(SqlCmd) &quot;%(ScriptFiles.Identity)&quot;" ContinueOnError="false"/> </Target> </Project> Note that the Scripts directory is underneath the directory where I’m running the msbuild command and is relative to that directory.  Note also that the target is using batching to run each script in the scripts subdirectory, one after the other.  Each script is passed to the sqlcmd command line execution using the .Identity property on the itemgroup that is created.  This target file is saved in the file “Database.target”. To make this work, you’ll need msbuild in your path, and then run the following command: msbuild database.target /target:Rebuild Once you’ve got your virgin database setup, you’d then need to use a tool like dbdeploy.net to determine that it was a virgin database, build a change script based on the change scripts, and then you’d want another sqlcmd call to update the database with the appropriate scripts.  I’m doing that next, so I’ll post a blog update when I’ve got it working. Technorati Tags: MSBuild,Agile,CI,Database

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