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• 12.04: Apt-Get Update: failure to fetch; can't connect to any sources

  - by weberc2

  I realize there are dozens of "apt-get update: failure to fetch" questions (I read through all I could find), but my present circumstance is unique to 12.04 and it affects all sources; not just launchpad. Additionally, I've tried several different servers in Europe and the U.S. as well as the "main server" (wherever that is) and they all yield the same result: I can't connect to any software sources. Additionally, I'm fairly certain the problem stems from the upgrade from 11.10-12.04 I performed this morning, as updates worked immediately before. Updates from the Update Manager worked fine and I could download some things (mutter) from the Software Center without incident, which makes me think I can connect to some subset of the Ubuntu servers (however, several other Ubuntu servers--like extras--and some canonical servers are listed as 'unable to connect'). Here is the output from sudo apt-get update: sudo apt-get update Ign http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise InRelease Ign http://archive.canonical.com precise InRelease Ign http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-updates InRelease Ign http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-backports InRelease Err http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-security InRelease Err http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: Err http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-updates Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: Err http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-backports Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: Err http://ftp.u-picardie.fr precise-security Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise Release.gpg Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise Release Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner i386 Packages Ign http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner TranslationIndex Ign http://dl.google.com stable InRelease Ign http://dl.google.com stable InRelease Err http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner Translation-en_US Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] Err http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner Translation-en Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Get:1 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198 B] Err http://extras.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg Could not connect to extras.ubuntu.com:80 (91.189.88.33). - connect (111: Connection refused) Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Get:2 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198 B] Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: Get:3 http://dl.google.com stable Release [1,347 B] Get:4 http://dl.google.com stable Release [1,347 B] Get:5 http://dl.google.com stable/main i386 Packages [1,268 B] Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main TranslationIndex Get:6 http://dl.google.com stable/main i386 Packages [769 B] Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main TranslationIndex Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en_US Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en_US Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en Fetched 5,127 B in 7s (673 B/s) Reading package lists... Done W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/elementary-os/stable/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/elementaryart/elementary-dev/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/midori/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/nemequ/sqlheavy/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/ricotz/docky/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sgringwe/beatbox/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/y-ppa-manager/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/yorba/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ftp.u-picardie.fr:http: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] W: Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Could not connect to extras.ubuntu.com:80 (91.189.88.33). - connect (111: Connection refused) W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/caffeine-developers/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/elementary-os/stable/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/elementaryart/elementary-dev/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/midori/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/nemequ/sqlheavy/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/ricotz/docky/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sgringwe/beatbox/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/y-ppa-manager/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/yorba/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to ppa.launchpad.net:http: W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://ppa.launchpad.net/nemequ/sqlheavy/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_nemequ_sqlheavy_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages) W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://ppa.launchpad.net/sgringwe/beatbox/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_sgringwe_beatbox_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages) Contents of /etc/apt/sources.list: # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ - Release i386 (20111012)]/ oneiric main restricted deb-src http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise main restricted #Added by software-properties # See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise main restricted deb-src http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted deb-src http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-updates restricted main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise universe deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise multiverse deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse deb-src http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse #Added by software-properties deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted deb-src http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-security restricted main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-security universe deb http://ftp.u-picardie.fr/mirror/ubuntu/ubuntu/ precise-security multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. # deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner # deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main Testing Alternate sources.list file These are the steps I followed to produce the following output: Please backup your sources.list: sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.backup and then replace the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list with the below lines and run apt-get update: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main Output: someone@someone-UBook:~$ sudo apt-get update Ign http://archive.canonical.com precise InRelease Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise Release.gpg Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise Release Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates InRelease Hit http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner i386 Packages Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports InRelease Ign http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner TranslationIndex Err http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner Translation-en_US Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] Err http://archive.canonical.com precise/partner Translation-en Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com precise Release Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg [198 B] Ign http://dl.google.com stable InRelease Err http://dl.google.com stable InRelease Err http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg Unable to connect to dl.google.com:http: [IP: 173.194.34.38 80] Err http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg Unable to connect to dl.google.com:http: [IP: 173.194.34.38 80] Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates Release.gpg [198 B] Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com precise/main i386 Packages Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release.gpg [198 B] Ign http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security InRelease Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com precise/main TranslationIndex Err http://extras.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http: Err http://extras.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http: Get:4 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security Release.gpg [198 B] Get:5 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise Release [49.6 kB] Get:6 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security Release [49.6 kB] Get:7 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates Release [49.6 kB] Get:8 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release [49.6 kB] Get:9 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/main i386 Packages [32.9 kB] Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main i386 Packages [1,274 kB] Get:11 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted i386 Packages [14 B] Get:12 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe i386 Packages [8,594 B] Get:13 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse i386 Packages [1,393 B] Get:14 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/main TranslationIndex [73 B] Get:15 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse TranslationIndex [71 B] Get:16 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted TranslationIndex [70 B] Get:17 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe TranslationIndex [72 B] Get:18 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/main Translation-en [13.6 kB] Get:19 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse Translation-en [587 B] Get:20 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted Translation-en [14 B] Get:21 http://security.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe Translation-en [6,261 B] Get:22 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted i386 Packages [8,431 B] Get:23 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe i386 Packages [4,796 kB] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise InRelease Get:24 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Get:25 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Get:26 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Get:27 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Get:28 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Get:29 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Get:30 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg [316 B] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release.gpg Get:31 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Get:32 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Get:33 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse i386 Packages [121 kB] Get:34 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release Get:35 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted TranslationIndex Get:36 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe TranslationIndex Get:37 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Get:38 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main i386 Packages [96.5 kB] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release Get:39 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release [11.9 kB] Get:40 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted i386 Packages [770 B] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise Release Get:41 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe i386 Packages [27.7 kB] Get:42 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [524 B] Get:43 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse i386 Packages [1,393 B] Get:44 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [507 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main TranslationIndex Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted TranslationIndex Get:45 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [932 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe TranslationIndex Get:46 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [1,017 B] Get:47 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main i386 Packages [559 B] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Get:48 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted i386 Packages [14 B] Get:49 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe i386 Packages [1,391 B] Get:50 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [1,402 B] Get:51 http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse i386 Packages [14 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main TranslationIndex Get:52 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [1,605 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse TranslationIndex Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse Translation-en Get:53 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [931 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted Translation-en Get:54 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [1,079 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main Translation-en Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe Translation-en Get:55 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [3,611 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main Translation-en Get:56 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [2,468 B] Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted Translation-en Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe Translation-en Get:57 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [1,524 B] Get:58 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [2,719 B] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Get:59 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [1,052 B] Get:60 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [1,388 B] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Get:61 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources [1,185 B] Get:62 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [1,698 B] Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main TranslationIndex Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Sources 404 Not Found Err http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages 404 Not Found Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main Translation-en Fetched 6,699 kB in 15s (445 kB/s) Reading package lists... Done W: Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/dists/stable/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to archive.canonical.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.150 80] W: Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/dists/sta

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• 'sudo apt-get update' error

  - by psilo

  I've been having an issue with 'sudo apt-get update' for several days now. I've tried every proposed solution I could find but to no avail. Here is the output to 'apt-get update'. Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates InRelease Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports InRelease Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security InRelease Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://archive.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise Release Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates Release Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise Release Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports Release Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security Release Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/main TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe TranslationIndex Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/main TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted TranslationIndex Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe TranslationIndex Err http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/main i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/main Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/main i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse i386 Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/main Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/multiverse Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/restricted Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise/universe Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/main Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/multiverse Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/restricted Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates/universe Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/main Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/multiverse Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/restricted Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-backports/universe Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/main Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/main Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/multiverse Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/restricted Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise-security/universe Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/Release.gpg Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/restricted/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/universe/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/multiverse/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/universe/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/restricted/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/universe/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/multiverse/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/universe/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/restricted/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/universe/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/multiverse/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/universe/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/restricted/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/universe/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/multiverse/source/Sources Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/universe/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/restricted/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/universe/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/universe/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/restricted/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/universe/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/universe/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/main/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/restricted/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/universe/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/universe/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/main/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/restricted/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/universe/i18n/Translation-en_US Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/universe/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to 69.163.233.85:80: E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

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• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Released

  - by ScottGu

  The final release of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 is now available. Download and Install Today MSDN subscribers, as well as WebsiteSpark/BizSpark/DreamSpark members, can now download the final releases of Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 through the MSDN subscribers download center.  If you are not an MSDN Subscriber, you can download free 90-day trial editions of Visual Studio 2010.  Or you can can download the free Visual Studio express editions of Visual Web Developer 2010, Visual Basic 2010, Visual C# 2010 and Visual C++.  These express editions are available completely for free (and never time out).  If you are looking for an easy way to setup a new machine for web-development you can automate installing ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC 2, IIS, SQL Server Express and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express really quickly with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (just click the install button on the page). What is new with VS 2010 and .NET 4 Today’s release is a big one – and brings with it a ton of new feature and capabilities. One of the things we tried hard to focus on with this release was to invest heavily in making existing applications, projects and developer experiences better.  What this means is that you don’t need to read 1000+ page books or spend time learning major new concepts in order to take advantage of the release.  There are literally thousands of improvements (both big and small) that make you more productive and successful without having to learn big new concepts in order to start using them.  Below is just a small sampling of some of the improvements with this release: Visual Studio 2010 IDE  Visual Studio 2010 now supports multiple-monitors (enabling much better use of screen real-estate).  It has new code Intellisense support that makes it easier to find and use classes and methods. It has improved code navigation support for searching code-bases and seeing how code is called and used.  It has new code visualization support that allows you to see the relationships across projects and classes within projects, as well as to automatically generate sequence diagrams to chart execution flow.  The editor now supports HTML and JavaScript snippet support as well as improved JavaScript intellisense. The VS 2010 Debugger and Profiling support is now much, much richer and enables new features like Intellitrace (aka Historical Debugging), debugging of Crash/Dump files, and better parallel debugging.  VS 2010’s multi-targeting support is now much richer, and enables you to use VS 2010 to target .NET 2, .NET 3, .NET 3.5 and .NET 4 applications.  And the infamous Add Reference dialog now loads much faster. TFS 2010 is now easy to setup (you can now install the server in under 10 minutes) and enables great source-control, bug/work-item tracking, and continuous integration support.  Testing (both automated and manual) is now much, much richer.  And VS 2010 Premium and Ultimate provide much richer architecture and design tooling support. VB and C# Language Features VB and C# in VS 2010 both contain a bunch of new features and capabilities.  VB adds new support for automatic properties, collection initializers, and implicit line continuation support among many other features.  C# adds support for optional parameters and named arguments, a new dynamic keyword, co-variance and contra-variance, and among many other features. ASP.NET 4 and ASP.NET MVC 2 With ASP.NET 4, Web Forms controls now render clean, semantically correct, and CSS friendly HTML markup. Built-in URL routing functionality allows you to expose clean, search engine friendly, URLs and increase the traffic to your Website.  ViewState within applications can now be more easily controlled and made smaller.  ASP.NET Dynamic Data support has been expanded.  More controls, including rich charting and data controls, are now built-into ASP.NET 4 and enable you to build applications even faster.  New starter project templates now make it easier to get going with new projects.  SEO enhancements make it easier to drive traffic to your public facing sites.  And web.config files are now clean and simple. ASP.NET MVC 2 is now built-into VS 2010 and ASP.NET 4, and provides a great way to build web sites and applications using a model-view-controller based pattern. ASP.NET MVC 2 adds features to easily enable client and server validation logic, provides new strongly-typed HTML and UI-scaffolding helper methods.  It also enables more modular/reusable applications.  The new <%: %> syntax in ASP.NET makes it easier to HTML encode output.  Visual Studio 2010 also now includes better tooling support for unit testing and TDD.  In particular, “Consume first intellisense” and “generate from usage" support within VS 2010 make it easier to write your unit tests first, and then drive your implementation from them. Deploying ASP.NET applications gets a lot easier with this release. You can now publish your Websites and applications to a staging or production server from within Visual Studio itself. Visual Studio 2010 makes it easy to transfer all your files, code, configuration, database schema and data in one complete package. VS 2010 also makes it easy to manage separate web.config configuration files settings depending upon whether you are in debug, release, staging or production modes. WPF 4 and Silverlight 4 WPF 4 includes a ton of new improvements and capabilities including more built-in controls, richer graphics features (cached composition, pixel shader 3 support, layoutrounding, and animation easing functions), a much improved text stack (with crisper text rendering, custom dictionary support, and selection and caret brush options).  WPF 4 also includes a bunch of support to enable you to take advantage of new Windows 7 features – including multi-touch and Windows 7 shell integration. Silverlight 4 will launch this week as well.  You can watch my Silverlight 4 launch keynote streamed live Tuesday (April 13th) at 8am Pacific Time.  Silverlight 4 includes a ton of new capabilities – including a bunch for making it possible to build great business applications and out of the browser applications.  I’ll be doing a separate blog post later this week (once it is live on the web) that talks more about its capabilities. Visual Studio 2010 now includes great tooling support for both WPF and Silverlight.  The new VS 2010 WPF and Silverlight designer makes it much easier to build client applications as well as build great line of business solutions, as well as integrate and bind with data.  Tooling support for Silverlight 4 with the final release of Visual Studio 2010 will be available when Silverlight 4 releases to the web this week. SharePoint and Azure Visual Studio 2010 now includes built-in support for building SharePoint applications.  You can now create, edit, build, and debug SharePoint applications directly within Visual Studio 2010.  You can also now use SharePoint with TFS 2010. Support for creating Azure-hosted applications is also now included with VS 2010 – allowing you to build ASP.NET and WCF based applications and host them within the cloud. Data Access Data access has a lot of improvements coming to it with .NET 4.  Entity Framework 4 includes a ton of new features and capabilities – including support for model first and POCO development, default support for lazy loading, built-in support for pluralization/singularization of table/property names within the VS 2010 designer, full support for all the LINQ operators, the ability to optionally expose foreign keys on model objects (useful for some stateless web scenarios), disconnected API support to better handle N-Tier and stateless web scenarios, and T4 template customization support within VS 2010 to allow you to customize and automate how code is generated for you by the data designer.  In addition to improvements with the Entity Framework, LINQ to SQL with .NET 4 also includes a bunch of nice improvements.  WCF and Workflow WCF includes a bunch of great new capabilities – including better REST, activation and configuration support.  WCF Data Services (formerly known as Astoria) and WCF RIA Services also now enable you to easily expose and work with data from remote clients. Windows Workflow is now much faster, includes flowchart services, and now makes it easier to make custom services than before.  More details can be found here. CLR and Core .NET Library Improvements .NET 4 includes the new CLR 4 engine – which includes a lot of nice performance and feature improvements.  CLR 4 engine now runs side-by-side in-process with older versions of the CLR – allowing you to use two different versions of .NET within the same process.  It also includes improved COM interop support.  The .NET 4 base class libraries (BCL) include a bunch of nice additions and refinements.  In particular, the .NET 4 BCL now includes new parallel programming support that makes it much easier to build applications that take advantage of multiple CPUs and cores on a computer.  This work dove-tails nicely with the new VS 2010 parallel debugger (making it much easier to debug parallel applications), as well as the new F# functional language support now included in the VS 2010 IDE.  .NET 4 also now also has the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) library built-in – which makes it easier to use dynamic language functionality with .NET.  MEF – a really cool library that enables rich extensibility – is also now built-into .NET 4 and included as part of the base class libraries.  .NET 4 Client Profile The download size of the .NET 4 redist is now much smaller than it was before (the x86 full .NET 4 package is about 36MB).  We also now have a .NET 4 Client Profile package which is a pure sub-set of the full .NET that can be used to streamline client application installs. C++ VS 2010 includes a bunch of great improvements for C++ development.  This includes better C++ Intellisense support, MSBuild support for projects, improved parallel debugging and profiler support, MFC improvements, and a number of language features and compiler optimizations. My VS 2010 and .NET 4 Blog Series I’ve been cranking away on a blog series the last few months that highlights many of the new VS 2010 and .NET 4 improvements.  The good news is that I have about 20 in-depth posts already written.  The bad news (for me) is that I have about 200 more to go until I’m done!  I’m going to try and keep adding a few more each week over the next few months to discuss the new improvements and how best to take advantage of them. Below is a list of the already written ones that you can check out today: Clean Web.Config Files Starter Project Templates Multi-targeting Multiple Monitor Support New Code Focused Web Profile Option HTML / ASP.NET / JavaScript Code Snippets Auto-Start ASP.NET Applications URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Searching and Navigating Code in VS 2010 VS 2010 Code Intellisense Improvements WPF 4 Add Reference Dialog Improvements SEO Improvements with ASP.NET 4 Output Cache Extensibility with ASP.NET 4 Built-in Charting Controls for ASP.NET and Windows Forms Cleaner HTML Markup with ASP.NET 4 - Client IDs Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 - and a cool scenarios with ASP.NET MVC 2 Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers and Implicit Line Continuation Support with VB 2010 New <%: %> Syntax for HTML Encoding Output using ASP.NET 4 JavaScript Intellisense Improvements with VS 2010 Stay tuned to my blog as I post more.  Also check out this page which links to a bunch of great articles and videos done by others. VS 2010 Installation Notes If you have installed a previous version of VS 2010 on your machine (either the beta or the RC) you must first uninstall it before installing the final VS 2010 release.  I also recommend uninstalling .NET 4 betas (including both the client and full .NET 4 installs) as well as the other installs that come with VS 2010 (e.g. ASP.NET MVC 2 preview builds, etc).  The uninstalls of the betas/RCs will clean up all the old state on your machine – after which you can install the final VS 2010 version and should have everything just work (this is what I’ve done on all of my machines and I haven’t had any problems). The VS 2010 and .NET 4 installs add a bunch of new managed assemblies to your machine.  Some of these will be “NGEN’d” to native code during the actual install process (making them run fast).  To avoid adding too much time to VS setup, though, we don’t NGEN all assemblies immediately – and instead will NGEN the rest in the background when your machine is idle.  Until it finishes NGENing the assemblies they will be JIT’d to native code the first time they are used in a process – which for large assemblies can sometimes cause a slight performance hit. If you run into this you can manually force all assemblies to be NGEN’d to native code immediately (and not just wait till the machine is idle) by launching the Visual Studio command line prompt from the Windows Start Menu (Microsoft Visual Studio 2010->Visual Studio Tools->Visual Studio Command Prompt).  Within the command prompt type “Ngen executequeueditems” – this will cause everything to be NGEN’d immediately. How to Buy Visual Studio 2010 You can can download and use the free Visual Studio express editions of Visual Web Developer 2010, Visual Basic 2010, Visual C# 2010 and Visual C++.  These express editions are available completely for free (and never time out). You can buy a new copy of VS 2010 Professional that includes a 1 year subscription to MSDN Essentials for $799.  MSDN Essentials includes a developer license of Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 DataCenter R2, and 20 hours of Azure hosting time.  Subscribers also have access to MSDN’s Online Concierge, and Priority Support in MSDN Forums. Upgrade prices from previous releases of Visual Studio are also available.  Existing Visual Studio 2005/2008 Standard customers can upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 Professional for a special $299 retail price until October.  You can take advantage of this VS Standard->Professional upgrade promotion here. Web developers who build applications for others, and who are either independent developers or who work for companies with less than 10 employees, can also optionally take advantage of the Microsoft WebSiteSpark program.  This program gives you three copies of Visual Studio 2010 Professional, 1 copy of Expression Studio, and 4 CPU licenses of both Windows 2008 R2 Web Server and SQL 2008 Web Edition that you can use to both develop and deploy applications with at no cost for 3 years.  At the end of the 3 years there is no obligation to buy anything.  You can sign-up for WebSiteSpark today in under 5 minutes – and immediately have access to the products to download. Summary Today’s release is a big one – and has a bunch of improvements for pretty much every developer.  Thank you everyone who provided feedback, suggestions and reported bugs throughout the development process – we couldn’t have delivered it without you.  Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• The Execute SQL Task

  In this article we are going to take you through the Execute SQL Task in SQL Server Integration Services for SQL Server 2005 (although it appies just as well to SQL Server 2008).  We will be covering all the essentials that you will need to know to effectively use this task and make it as flexible as possible. The things we will be looking at are as follows: A tour of the Task. The properties of the Task. After looking at these introductory topics we will then get into some examples. The examples will show different types of usage for the task: Returning a single value from a SQL query with two input parameters. Returning a rowset from a SQL query. Executing a stored procedure and retrieveing a rowset, a return value, an output parameter value and passing in an input parameter. Passing in the SQL Statement from a variable. Passing in the SQL Statement from a file. Tour Of The Task Before we can start to use the Execute SQL Task in our packages we are going to need to locate it in the toolbox. Let's do that now. Whilst in the Control Flow section of the package expand your toolbox and locate the Execute SQL Task. Below is how we found ours. Now drag the task onto the designer. As you can see from the following image we have a validation error appear telling us that no connection manager has been assigned to the task. This can be easily remedied by creating a connection manager. There are certain types of connection manager that are compatable with this task so we cannot just create any connection manager and these are detailed in a few graphics time. Double click on the task itself to take a look at the custom user interface provided to us for this task. The task will open on the general tab as shown below. Take a bit of time to have a look around here as throughout this article we will be revisting this page many times. Whilst on the general tab, drop down the combobox next to the ConnectionType property. In here you will see the types of connection manager which this task will accept. As with SQL Server 2000 DTS, SSIS allows you to output values from this task in a number of formats. Have a look at the combobox next to the Resultset property. The major difference here is the ability to output into XML. If you drop down the combobox next to the SQLSourceType property you will see the ways in which you can pass a SQL Statement into the task itself. We will have examples of each of these later on but certainly when we saw these for the first time we were very excited. Next to the SQLStatement property if you click in the empty box next to it you will see ellipses appear. Click on them and you will see the very basic query editor that becomes available to you. Alternatively after you have specified a connection manager for the task you can click on the Build Query button to bring up a completely different query editor. This is slightly inconsistent. Once you've finished looking around the general tab, move on to the next tab which is the parameter mapping tab. We shall, again, be visiting this tab throughout the article but to give you an initial heads up this is where you define the input, output and return values from your task. Note this is not where you specify the resultset. If however you now move on to the ResultSet tab this is where you define what variable will receive the output from your SQL Statement in whatever form that is. Property Expressions are one of the most amazing things to happen in SSIS and they will not be covered here as they deserve a whole article to themselves. Watch out for this as their usefulness will astound you. For a more detailed discussion of what should be the parameter markers in the SQL Statements on the General tab and how to map them to variables on the Parameter Mapping tab see Working with Parameters and Return Codes in the Execute SQL Task. Task Properties There are two places where you can specify the properties for your task. One is in the task UI itself and the other is in the property pane which will appear if you right click on your task and select Properties from the context menu. We will be doing plenty of property setting in the UI later so let's take a moment to have a look at the property pane. Below is a graphic showing our properties pane. Now we shall take you through all the properties and tell you exactly what they mean. A lot of these properties you will see across all tasks as well as the package because of everything's base structure The Container. BypassPrepare Should the statement be prepared before sending to the connection manager destination (True/False) Connection This is simply the name of the connection manager that the task will use. We can get this from the connection manager tray at the bottom of the package. DelayValidation Really interesting property and it tells the task to not validate until it actually executes. A usage for this may be that you are operating on table yet to be created but at runtime you know the table will be there. Description Very simply the description of your Task. Disable Should the task be enabled or not? You can also set this through a context menu by right clicking on the task itself. DisableEventHandlers As a result of events that happen in the task, should the event handlers for the container fire? ExecValueVariable The variable assigned here will get or set the execution value of the task. Expressions Expressions as we mentioned earlier are a really powerful tool in SSIS and this graphic below shows us a small peek of what you can do. We select a property on the left and assign an expression to the value of that property on the right causing the value to be dynamically changed at runtime. One of the most obvious uses of this is that the property value can be built dynamically from within the package allowing you a great deal of flexibility FailPackageOnFailure If this task fails does the package? FailParentOnFailure If this task fails does the parent container? A task can he hosted inside another container i.e. the For Each Loop Container and this would then be the parent. ForcedExecutionValue This property allows you to hard code an execution value for the task. ForcedExecutionValueType What is the datatype of the ForcedExecutionValue? ForceExecutionResult Force the task to return a certain execution result. This could then be used by the workflow constraints. Possible values are None, Success, Failure and Completion. ForceExecutionValue Should we force the execution result? IsolationLevel This is the transaction isolation level of the task. IsStoredProcedure Certain optimisations are made by the task if it knows that the query is a Stored Procedure invocation. The docs say this will always be false unless the connection is an ADO connection. LocaleID Gets or sets the LocaleID of the container. LoggingMode Should we log for this container and what settings should we use? The value choices are UseParentSetting, Enabled and Disabled. MaximumErrorCount How many times can the task fail before we call it a day? Name Very simply the name of the task. ResultSetType How do you want the results of your query returned? The choices are ResultSetType_None, ResultSetType_SingleRow, ResultSetType_Rowset and ResultSetType_XML. SqlStatementSource Your Query/SQL Statement. SqlStatementSourceType The method of specifying the query. Your choices here are DirectInput, FileConnection and Variables TimeOut How long should the task wait to receive results? TransactionOption How should the task handle being asked to join a transaction? Usage Examples As we move through the examples we will only cover in them what we think you must know and what we think you should see. This means that some of the more elementary steps like setting up variables will be covered in the early examples but skipped and simply referred to in later ones. All these examples used the AventureWorks database that comes with SQL Server 2005. Returning a Single Value, Passing in Two Input Parameters So the first thing we are going to do is add some variables to our package. The graphic below shows us those variables having been defined. Here the CountOfEmployees variable will be used as the output from the query and EndDate and StartDate will be used as input parameters. As you can see all these variables have been scoped to the package. Scoping allows us to have domains for variables. Each container has a scope and remember a package is a container as well. Variable values of the parent container can be seen in child containers but cannot be passed back up to the parent from a child. Our following graphic has had a number of changes made. The first of those changes is that we have created and assigned an OLEDB connection manager to this Task ExecuteSQL Task Connection. The next thing is we have made sure that the SQLSourceType property is set to Direct Input as we will be writing in our statement ourselves. We have also specified that only a single row will be returned from this query. The expressions we typed in was: SELECT COUNT(*) AS CountOfEmployees FROM HumanResources.Employee WHERE (HireDate BETWEEN ? AND ?) Moving on now to the Parameter Mapping tab this is where we are going to tell the task about our input paramaters. We Add them to the window specifying their direction and datatype. A quick word here about the structure of the variable name. As you can see SSIS has preceeded the variable with the word user. This is a default namespace for variables but you can create your own. When defining your variables if you look at the variables window title bar you will see some icons. If you hover over the last one on the right you will see it says "Choose Variable Columns". If you click the button you will see a list of checkbox options and one of them is namespace. after checking this you will see now where you can define your own namespace. The next tab, result set, is where we need to get back the value(s) returned from our statement and assign to a variable which in our case is CountOfEmployees so we can use it later perhaps. Because we are only returning a single value then if you remember from earlier we are allowed to assign a name to the resultset but it must be the name of the column (or alias) from the query. A really cool feature of Business Intelligence Studio being hosted by Visual Studio is that we get breakpoint support for free. In our package we set a Breakpoint so we can break the package and have a look in a watch window at the variable values as they appear to our task and what the variable value of our resultset is after the task has done the assignment. Here's that window now. As you can see the count of employess that matched the data range was 2. Returning a Rowset In this example we are going to return a resultset back to a variable after the task has executed not just a single row single value. There are no input parameters required so the variables window is nice and straight forward. One variable of type object. Here is the statement that will form the soure for our Resultset. select p.ProductNumber, p.name, pc.Name as ProductCategoryNameFROM Production.ProductCategory pcJOIN Production.ProductSubCategory pscON pc.ProductCategoryID = psc.ProductCategoryIDJOIN Production.Product pON psc.ProductSubCategoryID = p.ProductSubCategoryID We need to make sure that we have selected Full result set as the ResultSet as shown below on the task's General tab. Because there are no input parameters we can skip the parameter mapping tab and move straight to the Result Set tab. Here we need to Add our variable defined earlier and map it to the result name of 0 (remember we covered this earlier) Once we run the task we can again set a breakpoint and have a look at the values coming back from the task. In the following graphic you can see the result set returned to us as a COM object. We can do some pretty interesting things with this COM object and in later articles that is exactly what we shall be doing. Return Values, Input/Output Parameters and Returning a Rowset from a Stored Procedure This example is pretty much going to give us a taste of everything. We have already covered in the previous example how to specify the ResultSet to be a Full result set so we will not cover it again here. For this example we are going to need 4 variables. One for the return value, one for the input parameter, one for the output parameter and one for the result set. Here is the statement we want to execute. Note how much cleaner it is than if you wanted to do it using the current version of DTS. In the Parameter Mapping tab we are going to Add our variables and specify their direction and datatypes. In the Result Set tab we can now map our final variable to the rowset returned from the stored procedure. It really is as simple as that and we were amazed at how much easier it is than in DTS 2000. Passing in the SQL Statement from a Variable SSIS as we have mentioned is hugely more flexible than its predecessor and one of the things you will notice when moving around the tasks and the adapters is that a lot of them accept a variable as an input for something they need. The ExecuteSQL task is no different. It will allow us to pass in a string variable as the SQL Statement. This variable value could have been set earlier on from inside the package or it could have been populated from outside using a configuration. The ResultSet property is set to single row and we'll show you why in a second when we look at the variables. Note also the SQLSourceType property. Here's the General Tab again. Looking at the variable we have in this package you can see we have only two. One for the return value from the statement and one which is obviously for the statement itself. Again we need to map the Result name to our variable and this can be a named Result Name (The column name or alias returned by the query) and not 0. The expected result into our variable should be the amount of rows in the Person.Contact table and if we look in the watch window we see that it is.   Passing in the SQL Statement from a File The final example we are going to show is a really interesting one. We are going to pass in the SQL statement to the task by using a file connection manager. The file itself contains the statement to run. The first thing we are going to need to do is create our file connection mananger to point to our file. Click in the connections tray at the bottom of the designer, right click and choose "New File Connection" As you can see in the graphic below we have chosen to use an existing file and have passed in the name as well. Have a look around at the other "Usage Type" values available whilst you are here. Having set that up we can now see in the connection manager tray our file connection manager sitting alongside our OLE-DB connection we have been using for the rest of these examples. Now we can go back to the familiar General Tab to set up how the task will accept our file connection as the source. All the other properties in this task are set up exactly as we have been doing for other examples depending on the options chosen so we will not cover them again here.   We hope you will agree that the Execute SQL Task has changed considerably in this release from its DTS predecessor. It has a lot of options available but once you have configured it a few times you get to learn what needs to go where. We hope you have found this article useful.

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• SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience

  - by pinaldave

  I recently attended most prestigious SQL Server event SQLPASS between Nov 8-11, 2010 at Seattle. I have only one expression for the event - Best Summit Ever This year the summit was at its best. Instead of writing about my usual routine or the event, I am going to write about the interesting things I did and how I felt about it! Best Summit Ever Trip to Seattle! This was my second trip to Seattle this year and the journey is always long. Here is the travel stats on how long it takes to get to Seattle: 24 hours official air time 36 hours total travel time (connection waits and airport commute) Every time I travel to USA I gain a day and when I travel back to home, I lose a day. However, the total traveling time is around 3 days. The journey is long and very exhausting. However, it is all worth it when you’re attending an event like SQLPASS. Here are few things I carry when I travel for a long journey: Dry Snack packs – I like to have some good Indian Dry Snacks along with me in my backpack so I can have my own snack when I want Amazon Kindle – Loaded with 80+ books A physical book – This is usually a very easy to read book I do not watch movies on the plane and usually spend my time reading something quick and easy. If I can go to sleep, I go for it. I prefer to not to spend time in conversation with the guy sitting next to me because usually I end up listening to their biography, which I cannot blog about. Sheraton Seattle SQLPASS In any case, I love to go to Seattle as the city is great and has everything a brilliant metropolis has to offer. The new Light Train is extremely convenient, and I can take it directly from the airport to the city center. My hotel, the Sheraton, was only few meters (in the USA people count in blocks – 3 blocks) away from the train station. This time I saved USD 40 each round trip due to the Light Train. Sessions I attended! Well, I really wanted to attend most of the sessions but there was great dilemma of which ones to choose. There were many, many sessions to be attended and at any given time there was more than one good session being presented. I had decided to attend sessions in area performance tuning and I attended quite a few sessions this year, compared to what I was able to do last year. Here are few names of the speakers whose sessions I attended (please note, following great speakers are not listed in any order. I loved them and I enjoyed their sessions): Conor Cunningham Rushabh Mehta Buck Woody Brent Ozar Jonathan Kehayias Chris Leonard Bob Ward Grant Fritchey I had great fun attending their sessions. The sessions were meaningful and enlightening. It is hard to rate any session but I have found that the insights learned in Conor Cunningham’s sessions are the highlight of the PASS Summit. Rushabh Mehta at Keynote SQLPASS   Bucky Woody and Brent Ozar I always like the sessions where the speaker is much closer to the audience and has real world experience. I think speakers who have worked in the real world deliver the best content and most useful information. Sessions I did not like! Indeed there were few sessions I did not like it and I am not going to name them here. However, there were strong reasons I did not like their sessions, and here is why: Sessions were all theory and had no real world connections. All technical questions ended with confusing answers (lots of “I will get back to you on it,” “it depends,” “let us take this offline” and many more…) “I am God” kind of attitude in the speakers For example, I attended a session of one very well known speaker who is a specialist for one particular area. I was bit late for the session and was surprised to see that in a room that could hold 350 people there were only 30 attendees. After sitting there for 15 minutes, I realized why lots of people left. Very soon I found I preferred to stare out the window instead of listening to that particular speaker. One on One Talk! Many times people ask me what I really like about PASS. I always say the experience of meeting SQL legends and spending time with them one on one and LEARNING! Here is the quick list of the people I met during this event and spent more than 30 minutes with each of them talking about various subjects: Pinal Dave and Brad Shulz Pinal Dave and Rushabh Mehta Michael Coles and Pinal Dave Rushabh Mehta – It is always pleasure to meet with him. He is a man with lots of energy and a passion for community. He recently told me that he really wanted to turn PASS into resource for learning for every SQL Server Developer and Administrator in the world. I had great in-depth discussion regarding how a single person can contribute to a community. Michael Coles – I consider him my best friend. It is always fun to meet him. He is funny and very knowledgeable. I think there are very few people who are as expert as he is in encryption and spatial databases. Worth meeting him every single time. Glenn Berry – A real friend of everybody. He is very a simple person and very true to his heart. I think there is not a single person in whole community who does not like him. He is a friends of all and everybody likes him very much. I once again had time to sit with him and learn so much from him. As he is known as Dr. DMV, I can be his nurse in the area of DMV. Brad Schulz – I always wanted to meet him but never got chance until today. I had great time meeting him in person and we have spent considerable amount of time together discussing various T-SQL tricks and tips. I do not know where he comes up with all the different ideas but I enjoy reading his blog and sharing his wisdom with me. Jonathan Kehayias – He is drill sergeant in US army. If you get the impression that he is a giant with very strong personality – you are wrong. He is very kind and soft spoken DBA with strong performance tuning skills. I asked him how he has kept his two jobs separate and I got very good answer – just work hard and have passion for what you do. I attended his sessions and his presentation style is very unique.  I feel like he is speaking in a language I understand. Louis Davidson – I had never had a chance to sit with him and talk about technology before. He has so much wisdom and he is very kind. During the dinner, I had talked with him for long time and without hesitation he started to draw a schema for me on the menu. It was a wonderful experience to learn from a master at the dinner table. He explained to me the real and practical differences between third normal form and forth normal form. Honestly I did not know earlier, but now I do. Erland Sommarskog – This man needs no introduction, he is very well known and very clear in conveying his ideas. I learned a lot from him during the course of year. Every time I meet him, I learn something new and this time was no exception. Joe Webb – Joey is all about community and people, we had interesting conversation about community, MVP and how one can be helpful to community without losing passion for long time. It is always pleasant to talk to him and of course, I had fun time. Ross Mistry – I call him my brother many times because he indeed looks like my cousin. He provided me lots of insight of how one can write book and how he keeps his books simple to appeal to all the readers. A wonderful person and great friend. Ola Hallgren - I did not know he was coming to the summit. I had great time meeting him and had a wonderful conversation with him regarding his scripts and future community activities. Blythe Morrow – She used to be integrated part of SQL Server Community and PASS HQ. It was wonderful to meet her again and re-connect. She is wonderful person and I had a great time talking to her. Solid Quality Mentors – It is difficult to decide who to mention here. Instead of writing all the names, I am going to include a photo of our meeting. I had great fun meeting various members of our global branches. This year I was sitting with my Spanish speaking friends and had great fun as Javier Loria from Solid Quality translated lots of things for me. Party, Party and Parties Every evening there were various parties. I did attend almost all of them. Every party had different theme but the goal of all the parties the same – networking. Here are the few parties where I had lots of fun: Dell Reception Party Exhibitor Party Solid Quality Fun Party Red Gate Friends Party MVP Dinner Microsoft Party MVP Dinner Quest Party Gameworks PASS Party Volunteer Party at Garage Solid Quality Mentors (10 Members out of 120) They were all great networking opportunities and lots of fun. I really had great time meeting people at the various parties. There were few people everywhere – well, I will say I am among them – who hopped parties. NDA – Not Decided Agenda During the event there were few meetings marked “NDA.” Someone asked me “why are these things NDA?”  My response was simple: because they are not sure themselves. NDA stands for Not Decided Agenda. Toys, Giveaways and Luggage I admit, I was like child in Gameworks and was playing to win soft toys. I was doing it for my daughter. I must thank all of the people who gave me their cards to try my luck. I won 4 soft-toys for my daughter and it was fun. Also, thanks to Angel who did a final toy swap with me to get the desired toy for my daughter. I also collected ducks from Idera, as my daughter really loves them. Solid Quality Booth Each of the exhibitors was giving away something and I got so much stuff that my luggage got quite a bit bigger when I returned. Best Exhibitor Idera had SQLDoctor (a real magician and fun guy) to promote their new tool SQLDoctor. I really had a great time participating in the magic myself. At one point, the magician made my watch disappear.  I have seen better magic before, but this time it caught me unexpectedly and I was taken by surprise. I won many ducks again. The Common Question I heard the following common questions: I have seen you somewhere – who are you? – I am Pinal Dave. I did not know that Pinal is your first name and Dave is your last name, how do you pronounce your last name again? – Da-way How old are you? – I am as old as I can be. Are you an Indian because you look like one? – I did not answer this one. Where are you from? This question was usually asked after looking at my badge which says India. So did you really fly from India? – Yes, because I have seasickness so I do not prefer the sea journey. How long was the journey? – 24/36/12 (air travel time/total travel time/time zone difference) Why do you write on SQLAuthority.com? – Because I want to. I remember your daughter looks like you. – Is this even a question? Of course, she is daddy’s little girl. There were so many other questions, I will have to write another blog post about it. SQLPASS Again, Best Summit Ever! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQLPASS

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• Working with PivotTables in Excel

  - by Mark Virtue

  PivotTables are one of the most powerful features of Microsoft Excel.  They allow large amounts of data to be analyzed and summarized in just a few mouse clicks. In this article, we explore PivotTables, understand what they are, and learn how to create and customize them. Note:  This article is written using Excel 2010 (Beta).  The concept of a PivotTable has changed little over the years, but the method of creating one has changed in nearly every iteration of Excel.  If you are using a version of Excel that is not 2010, expect different screens from the ones you see in this article. A Little History In the early days of spreadsheet programs, Lotus 1-2-3 ruled the roost.  Its dominance was so complete that people thought it was a waste of time for Microsoft to bother developing their own spreadsheet software (Excel) to compete with Lotus.  Flash-forward to 2010, and Excel’s dominance of the spreadsheet market is greater than Lotus’s ever was, while the number of users still running Lotus 1-2-3 is approaching zero.  How did this happen?  What caused such a dramatic reversal of fortunes? Industry analysts put it down to two factors:  Firstly, Lotus decided that this fancy new GUI platform called “Windows” was a passing fad that would never take off.  They declined to create a Windows version of Lotus 1-2-3 (for a few years, anyway), predicting that their DOS version of the software was all anyone would ever need.  Microsoft, naturally, developed Excel exclusively for Windows.  Secondly, Microsoft developed a feature for Excel that Lotus didn’t provide in 1-2-3, namely PivotTables.  The PivotTables feature, exclusive to Excel, was deemed so staggeringly useful that people were willing to learn an entire new software package (Excel) rather than stick with a program (1-2-3) that didn’t have it.  This one feature, along with the misjudgment of the success of Windows, was the death-knell for Lotus 1-2-3, and the beginning of the success of Microsoft Excel. Understanding PivotTables So what is a PivotTable, exactly? Put simply, a PivotTable is a summary of some data, created to allow easy analysis of said data.  But unlike a manually created summary, Excel PivotTables are interactive.  Once you have created one, you can easily change it if it doesn’t offer the exact insights into your data that you were hoping for.  In a couple of clicks the summary can be “pivoted” – rotated in such a way that the column headings become row headings, and vice versa.  There’s a lot more that can be done, too.  Rather than try to describe all the features of PivotTables, we’ll simply demonstrate them… The data that you analyze using a PivotTable can’t be just any data – it has to be raw data, previously unprocessed (unsummarized) – typically a list of some sort.  An example of this might be the list of sales transactions in a company for the past six months. Examine the data shown below: Notice that this is not raw data.  In fact, it is already a summary of some sort.  In cell B3 we can see $30,000, which apparently is the total of James Cook’s sales for the month of January.  So where is the raw data?  How did we arrive at the figure of $30,000?  Where is the original list of sales transactions that this figure was generated from?  It’s clear that somewhere, someone must have gone to the trouble of collating all of the sales transactions for the past six months into the summary we see above.  How long do you suppose this took?  An hour?  Ten?  Probably. If we were to track down the original list of sales transactions, it might look something like this: You may be surprised to learn that, using the PivotTable feature of Excel, we can create a monthly sales summary similar to the one above in a few seconds, with only a few mouse clicks.  We can do this – and a lot more too! How to Create a PivotTable First, ensure that you have some raw data in a worksheet in Excel.  A list of financial transactions is typical, but it can be a list of just about anything:  Employee contact details, your CD collection, or fuel consumption figures for your company’s fleet of cars. So we start Excel… …and we load such a list… Once we have the list open in Excel, we’re ready to start creating the PivotTable. Click on any one single cell within the list: Then, from the Insert tab, click the PivotTable icon: The Create PivotTable box appears, asking you two questions:  What data should your new PivotTable be based on, and where should it be created?  Because we already clicked on a cell within the list (in the step above), the entire list surrounding that cell is already selected for us ($A$1:$G$88 on the Payments sheet, in this example).  Note that we could select a list in any other region of any other worksheet, or even some external data source, such as an Access database table, or even a MS-SQL Server database table.  We also need to select whether we want our new PivotTable to be created on a new worksheet, or on an existing one.  In this example we will select a new one: The new worksheet is created for us, and a blank PivotTable is created on that worksheet: Another box also appears:  The PivotTable Field List.  This field list will be shown whenever we click on any cell within the PivotTable (above): The list of fields in the top part of the box is actually the collection of column headings from the original raw data worksheet.  The four blank boxes in the lower part of the screen allow us to choose the way we would like our PivotTable to summarize the raw data.  So far, there is nothing in those boxes, so the PivotTable is blank.  All we need to do is drag fields down from the list above and drop them in the lower boxes.  A PivotTable is then automatically created to match our instructions.  If we get it wrong, we only need to drag the fields back to where they came from and/or drag new fields down to replace them. The Values box is arguably the most important of the four.  The field that is dragged into this box represents the data that needs to be summarized in some way (by summing, averaging, finding the maximum, minimum, etc).  It is almost always numerical data.  A perfect candidate for this box in our sample data is the “Amount” field/column.  Let’s drag that field into the Values box: Notice that (a) the “Amount” field in the list of fields is now ticked, and “Sum of Amount” has been added to the Values box, indicating that the amount column has been summed. If we examine the PivotTable itself, we indeed find the sum of all the “Amount” values from the raw data worksheet: We’ve created our first PivotTable!  Handy, but not particularly impressive.  It’s likely that we need a little more insight into our data than that. Referring to our sample data, we need to identify one or more column headings that we could conceivably use to split this total.  For example, we may decide that we would like to see a summary of our data where we have a row heading for each of the different salespersons in our company, and a total for each.  To achieve this, all we need to do is to drag the “Salesperson” field into the Row Labels box: Now, finally, things start to get interesting!  Our PivotTable starts to take shape….   With a couple of clicks we have created a table that would have taken a long time to do manually. So what else can we do?  Well, in one sense our PivotTable is complete.  We’ve created a useful summary of our source data.  The important stuff is already learned!  For the rest of the article, we will examine some ways that more complex PivotTables can be created, and ways that those PivotTables can be customized. First, we can create a two-dimensional table.  Let’s do that by using “Payment Method” as a column heading.  Simply drag the “Payment Method” heading to the Column Labels box: Which looks like this: Starting to get very cool! Let’s make it a three-dimensional table.  What could such a table possibly look like?  Well, let’s see… Drag the “Package” column/heading to the Report Filter box: Notice where it ends up…. This allows us to filter our report based on which “holiday package” was being purchased.  For example, we can see the breakdown of salesperson vs payment method for all packages, or, with a couple of clicks, change it to show the same breakdown for the “Sunseekers” package: And so, if you think about it the right way, our PivotTable is now three-dimensional.  Let’s keep customizing… If it turns out, say, that we only want to see cheque and credit card transactions (i.e. no cash transactions), then we can deselect the “Cash” item from the column headings.  Click the drop-down arrow next to Column Labels, and untick “Cash”: Let’s see what that looks like…As you can see, “Cash” is gone. Formatting This is obviously a very powerful system, but so far the results look very plain and boring.  For a start, the numbers that we’re summing do not look like dollar amounts – just plain old numbers.  Let’s rectify that. A temptation might be to do what we’re used to doing in such circumstances and simply select the whole table (or the whole worksheet) and use the standard number formatting buttons on the toolbar to complete the formatting.  The problem with that approach is that if you ever change the structure of the PivotTable in the future (which is 99% likely), then those number formats will be lost.  We need a way that will make them (semi-)permanent. First, we locate the “Sum of Amount” entry in the Values box, and click on it.  A menu appears.  We select Value Field Settings… from the menu: The Value Field Settings box appears. Click the Number Format button, and the standard Format Cells box appears: From the Category list, select (say) Accounting, and drop the number of decimal places to 0.  Click OK a few times to get back to the PivotTable… As you can see, the numbers have been correctly formatted as dollar amounts. While we’re on the subject of formatting, let’s format the entire PivotTable.  There are a few ways to do this.  Let’s use a simple one… Click the PivotTable Tools/Design tab: Then drop down the arrow in the bottom-right of the PivotTable Styles list to see a vast collection of built-in styles: Choose any one that appeals, and look at the result in your PivotTable:   Other Options We can work with dates as well.  Now usually, there are many, many dates in a transaction list such as the one we started with.  But Excel provides the option to group data items together by day, week, month, year, etc.  Let’s see how this is done. First, let’s remove the “Payment Method” column from the Column Labels box (simply drag it back up to the field list), and replace it with the “Date Booked” column: As you can see, this makes our PivotTable instantly useless, giving us one column for each date that a transaction occurred on – a very wide table! To fix this, right-click on any date and select Group… from the context-menu: The grouping box appears.  We select Months and click OK: Voila!  A much more useful table: (Incidentally, this table is virtually identical to the one shown at the beginning of this article – the original sales summary that was created manually.) Another cool thing to be aware of is that you can have more than one set of row headings (or column headings): …which looks like this…. You can do a similar thing with column headings (or even report filters). Keeping things simple again, let’s see how to plot averaged values, rather than summed values. First, click on “Sum of Amount”, and select Value Field Settings… from the context-menu that appears: In the Summarize value field by list in the Value Field Settings box, select Average: While we’re here, let’s change the Custom Name, from “Average of Amount” to something a little more concise.  Type in something like “Avg”: Click OK, and see what it looks like.  Notice that all the values change from summed totals to averages, and the table title (top-left cell) has changed to “Avg”: If we like, we can even have sums, averages and counts (counts = how many sales there were) all on the same PivotTable! Here are the steps to get something like that in place (starting from a blank PivotTable): Drag “Salesperson” into the Column Labels Drag “Amount” field down into the Values box three times For the first “Amount” field, change its custom name to “Total” and it’s number format to Accounting (0 decimal places) For the second “Amount” field, change its custom name to “Average”, its function to Average and it’s number format to Accounting (0 decimal places) For the third “Amount” field, change its name to “Count” and its function to Count Drag the automatically created field from Column Labels to Row Labels Here’s what we end up with: Total, average and count on the same PivotTable! Conclusion There are many, many more features and options for PivotTables created by Microsoft Excel – far too many to list in an article like this.  To fully cover the potential of PivotTables, a small book (or a large website) would be required.  Brave and/or geeky readers can explore PivotTables further quite easily:  Simply right-click on just about everything, and see what options become available to you.  There are also the two ribbon-tabs: PivotTable Tools/Options and Design.  It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake – it’s easy to delete the PivotTable and start again – a possibility old DOS users of Lotus 1-2-3 never had. We’ve included an Excel that should work with most versions of Excel, so you can download to practice your PivotTable skills. Download Our Practice Excel File Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Magnify Selected Cells In Excel 2007Share Access Data with Excel in Office 2010Make Excel 2007 Print Gridlines In Workbook FileMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 18, 2010New ProjectsBordecal tools for FxCop: Bordecal tools for FxCop provides an extended framework for FxCop rule development. It allows rule developers to avoid using embedded XML resource...DotNetNuke® Skin City: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by allsnnskins. We integrate orange color and black colour in this ...DotNetNuke® Skin Dawn: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Out of the box" category by allsnnskins. This design reflects the theme of daylight. U...DotNetNuke® Skin Dream: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by WhNuke. Uses the DNNJDMenu skin object.DotNetNuke® Skin Expression: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Out of the box" category by Salar Golestanian of SalarO. This is a pure CSS skin with ...DotNetNuke® Skin ModernBiz: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by allsnnskins. This simple and unaffected company skin uses...DotNetNuke® Skin Profound: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by WhNuke Technology. This skin is simple and clean and the ...DotNetNuke® Skin Technology: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Standards" category by allsnnskins. It's compatible with common browsers such ...DotNetNuke® Skin Unravel: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by Salar Golestanian of SalarO. This is a pure CSS skin wit...E! - ECMAScript Runtime Environment: E! (pronounced E-Bang) is a lightweight runtime environment for editing basic ECMAScript scripts with access to .NET Framework class libraries.Easy ArcGIS Library: Easy ArcGIS Library is a set of C# .net classes that wrap the common functionality of ArcObjects, that help ArcGIS developers do a lot of common fu...File Categorizer: The File Categorizer will help people tag the files on their system for easy searching. Instead of keyword searches, you can find files based on v...GMFS Cosmos: This is a file system for Cosmos a OS that was built with C# and we will be implementing this for windows and linuxIFilter Core Implementation (interface and structures): IFilter C# implementation for you to embed when writing Windows Search capabilities into your application.Image Wall Control for Silverlight: A control for Silverlight that emulates the wall of images in the Zune. imenik_za _dev4fun: imenik is a very simple program and easy to use where you can save and organise your contacts.LegoPhysX: LegoPhysX is an atomic based physics enginePersonal Accounting: Personal system for managing financial accounts, which supports multiple accounts in different currencies. It has movement imputation and basic que...Pipes & Filters Engine: The Pipes & Filters Engine allows you to process a sequence of separate operations (filters) asynchronously in a multi-threaded manner. Filters wil...Prerequisites Checker: Check preqrequisites for software. Example: Software S1 is delivered. S1 has prerequisites PR1, PR2... PRN You may load the config file for S...Puzzle Lib: A library for creating grid-and-tile puzzles. Includes two separate UIs for the Tetriminoes puzzle as examples.QuotesPlugin for Windows Live Writer: The QuotesPlugin for Windows Live Writer lists quotes from web sites such as quotes4all.net. It's very easy for you to select your favourite ones a...RobiJ2se: Robi j2se Learning!SkinEngine: This is a Skin Framework for C# Winform, It use easy.and Create Skin GreatSQL Azure .NET Connection: This is a demo application that shows how to connect with SQL AzureSupermarket Soft: WPF Application that helps you manage your supermarket shoppings.Tally Marks for Windows Phone 7 Series: Tally Marks is a counting application. It can count almost anything you'd like to count, and it does it with tally marks! Count the number of peo...TwitCast: TwitCast is a simple notifier for Twitter using the [url:http://linqtotwitter.codeplex.com/] LINQ 2 Twitter library.WodnySwiat: Projekt grupowy wodny światWSS Task Manager Activity: A custom task creation activity that can be used in a sequential or state machine workflow. The activity was specifically developed to handle task ...New ReleasesAddress Book: Address Book: Address BookAutoAudit: AutoAudit 1.10c: Veresion 1.10 includes most of the bug fix requests. adds createdby and modifiedby columns to the audited base tables. If the user name is set by...blog for umbraco 4: Blog 4 Umbraco 2.0.26: Fixes: -Regex bug in base -Directory urls and rss link bug -Open reader bug -Rss bugDotNetNuke® Skin City: City Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by allsnnskins. We integrate orange color and black colour in this ...DotNetNuke® Skin Dawn: Dawn Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Out of the box" category by allsnnskins. This design reflects the theme of daylight. U...DotNetNuke® Skin Dream: Dream Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by WhNuke. Uses the DNNJDMenu skin object.DotNetNuke® Skin Expression: Expression Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Out of the box" category by Salar Golestanian of SalarO. This is a pure CSS skin with ...DotNetNuke® Skin ModernBiz: ModernBiz Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by allsnnskins. This simple and unaffected company skin uses...DotNetNuke® Skin Profound: Profound Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by WhNuke Technology. This skin is simple and clean and the ...DotNetNuke® Skin Technology: Technology Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Standards" category by allsnnskins. It's compatible with common browsers such a...DotNetNuke® Skin Unravel: Unravel Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by Salar Golestanian of SalarO. This is a pure CSS skin with...E! - ECMAScript Runtime Environment: E! beta 1: This is really meant as a learning project for playing with dynamically compiled code, so you'd be better off getting the source code.Easy ArcGIS Library: EAGL Binaries: Easy ArcGIS Library Last Build (Version 1.1.2.4139)Easy ArcGIS Library: EAGL Binaries And Documentation: EAGL Latest Build With DocumentationEasy ArcGIS Library: EAGL Documentation: EAGL 1.1.2.4139 DocumentationEnterprise Library Extensions: Release 1.1: This is a service release for version 1.0 The installation process now works as intended. The assemblies are now visible in the Visual Studio As...Family Tree Analyzer: Version 1.2.1.0: Version 1.2.1.0 Fixed GB radio button not working renamed UK Added fixes for UK regions/shires/counties where country is missing Add country reco...Family Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.0.0: Version 1.3.0.0 Added IGI Search results viewer Tweaked filenames of IGI search so that results window has more informative displayFile Archive: File Archive: If your computer is only word processing machine or document merge machine, this program is really fit for you. It's so...o useful! This program ar...GameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0.4: Fixes bug 7434. Changed version number to the standard format of Major.Minor.ReleaseIFilter Core Implementation (interface and structures): Stable release: First release of interface implementation.IFilter Core Implementation (interface and structures): System.Search.Core: Ifilter interface for implementation in your own Search Providers.imenik_za _dev4fun: imenik_aplikacija: imenik aplikacija is an application easy to use where you can save and organise your contacts.KDRE - kernel debugger regular expression extension: KDRE 0.0.2: KDRE - Windbg regexp extension Changes: - amd64 build addedMapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 17): This release introduces some minor tweaks to the source code exposing more buffering functionality. This also fixes a problem with selecting point...MockingBird: MockingBird_2.0_RC: This is the V2.0 RC release. The documentation includes notes about the WCF components. Check this blog post for more details about the release. ...MPF for Projects - Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 - Final Release: This contains the source code for the release of MPF for Projects corresponding to Visual Studio 2010. For Beta 2, you will need the Beta 2 release...Physics Helper for Silverlight, WPF, Blend, and Farseer: PhysicsHelper 3.0.0.4 ALPHA: This is an initial release that supports Windows Phone 7 Series Development, along with the Silverlight 3 and WPF support. It requires Visual Studi...Pocket GPW: Pocket GPW 1.2: Modyfikacje wg. change set-a 56678. Poprzednia baza danych (z wersji 1.1) jest zgodna z aktualną. Przed instalacją skopiuj poprzednią bazę danych ...Prerequisites Checker: Prerequisites Checker: Check your software prerequisitesPuzzle Lib: Puzzle Lib examples: Tetriminoes examples using a common Puzzle LIB and common Puzzle Implementation library, demonstrating a basic MVC architecture for game developmentRoTwee: RoTwee (8.0.7.0): Now you can rotate tweets by your hand !SharePoint Icon Integration: SharePoint Icon Integration PDF: This is the first stable release of the SPIconIntegration. To install the PDF Icon integration just start the setup.exe file that you will find in ...SkinEngine: SkinEngine-Src-2010-03-17: this is a release on 2010-03-17Spell Corrector: Spell Corrector 0.2 Binary: Fixed a bug in the word indexing in the database.Spell Corrector: Spell Corrector 0.2 Code: Fixed a bug in the indexing of the words in the database. Now insertion of new words in the database is faster.SQL Azure .NET Connection: LittleBlackBook.NET Release 1.0: This was a demo project for a SQL Azure Presentation at ConfooSQL Server Extended Properties Quick Editor: New release 1.5.5: Whats new: Move preferences to application settings and add a form to edit preferences. Support to add, modify and delete operations could be made ...SuperModel - A Dynamic View-Model Generator: 1.0.0.1 - Tyra+: Resolving a couple of bugs; models generated using INotifyPropertyChanged were not being created correctly. Property resolution on proxied types w...Survey - web survey & form engine: Survey 1.2.0: The Survey 1.2.0 release is based on the original sources of the Nsurvey 1.9 application. Compared to the Survey 1.1.0 version many new features ...T.S.T. the T-SQL Test Tool: Version 1.5: Version 1.5 changes: Bug fix. In V1.4 and earlier table comparison failed if the tables compared had columns with spaces in them.TwitCast: TwitCast 1.0.0.0: First release of TwitCast. Be warned that this is just a development release and there are a lot of things that remain to be done.unbinder: Unbound.dll: from change set ef6f2303dd32VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30317.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWatchersNET.TagCloud: WatchersNET.TagCloud 01.02.00: Whats New Show only Tags from Pages the Current User has View Acess (As Option) A Url can be specified for a Custom tag Added Module Package fo...WSS Task Manager Activity: 1.0: Download either the source for Moss Task Manager Activity, Workflow sample if you are interested to see how to use the activity in the workflow or ...XML pretty print for python (xmlpp): version 0.92b: Fixes issues when element name contains :Xpress - ASP.NET MVC 个人博客程序: xpress2.1.1.0317.beta: 最新beta版 更改内容： 模板与系统所需配置文件移动到App_Data中 Service对象注入到Controller中 Controller对象放入IOC容器中 邮件发送BUG修正Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPDirectQOpen Data App Framework (ODAF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesMapWindow6NB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words

  - by raul.goycoolea

  p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1 { margin-top: 0.33in; margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(54, 95, 145); page-break-inside: avoid; }h1.western { font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 14pt; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 14pt; }h1.ctl { font-size: 14pt; } Getting Started with Business Transformations A well-known proverb states that "A picture is worth a thousand words." In relation to Business Process Management (BPM), a credible analyst might have a few questions. What if the picture was taken from some particular angle, like directly overhead? What if it was taken from only an inch away or a mile away? What if the photographer did not focus the camera correctly? Does the value of the picture depend on who is looking at it? Enterprise Process Maps are analogous in this sense of relative value. Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment, from the biggest picture representations down to the lowest level required or desired for the particular project type, scope and objectives. The Enterprise Process Map serves as an entry point for the process architecture and is defined: the single highest level of process mapping for an organization. It is constructed and evaluated during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. (see Figure 1) Fig. 1: Business Process Management Lifecycle Many organizations view such maps as visual abstractions, constructed for the single purpose of process categorization. This, in turn, results in a lesser focus on the inherent intricacies of the Enterprise Process view, which are explored in the course of this paper. With the main focus of a large scale process documentation effort usually underlying an ERP or other system implementation, it is common for the work to be driven by the desire to "get to the details," and to the type of modeling that will derive near-term tangible results. For instance, a project in American Pharmaceutical Company X is driven by the Director of IT. With 120+ systems in place, and a lack of standardized processes across the United States, he and the VP of IT have decided to embark on a long-term ERP implementation. At the forethought of both are questions, such as: How does my application architecture map to the business? What are each application's functionalities, and where do the business processes utilize them? Where can we retire legacy systems? Well-developed BPM methodologies prescribe numerous model types to capture such information and allow for thorough analysis in these areas. Process to application maps, Event Driven Process Chains, etc. provide this level of detail and facilitate the completion of such project-specific questions. These models and such analysis are appropriately carried out at a relatively low level of process detail. (see figure 2) Fig. 2: The Level Concept, Generic Process HierarchySome of the questions remaining are ones of documentation longevity, the continuation of BPM practice in the organization, process governance and ownership, process transparency and clarity in business process objectives and strategy. The Level Concept in Brief Figure 2 shows a generic, four-level process hierarchy depicting the breakdown of a "Process Area" into progressively more detailed process classifications. The number of levels and the names of these levels are flexible, and can be fit to the standards of the organization's chosen terminology or any other chosen reference model that makes logical sense for both short and long term process description. It is at Level 1 (in this case the Process Area level), that the Enterprise Process Map is created. This map and its contained objects become the foundation for a top-down approach to subsequent mapping, object relationship development, and analysis of the organization's processes and its supporting infrastructure. Additionally, this picture serves as a communication device, at an executive level, describing the design of the business in its service to a customer. It seems, then, imperative that the process development effort, and this map, start off on the right foot. Figuring out just what that right foot is, however, is critical and trend-setting in an evolving organization. Key Considerations Enterprise Process Maps are usually not as living and breathing as other process maps. Just as it would be an extremely difficult task to change the foundation of the Sears Tower or a city plan for the entire city of Chicago, the Enterprise Process view of an organization usually remains unchanged once developed (unless, of course, an organization is at a stage where it is capable of true, high-level process innovation). Regardless, the Enterprise Process map is a key first step, and one that must be taken in a precise way. What makes this groundwork solid depends on not only the materials used to construct it (process areas), but also the layout plan and knowledge base of what will be built (the entire process architecture). It seems reasonable that care and consideration are required to create this critical high level map... but what are the important factors? Does the process modeler need to worry about how many process areas there are? About who is looking at it? Should he only use the color pink because it's his boss' favorite color? Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, these are all valid considerations that may just require a bit of structure. Below are Three Key Factors to consider when building an Enterprise Process Map: Company Strategic Focus Process Categorization: Customer is Core End-to-end versus Functional Processes Company Strategic Focus As mentioned above, the Enterprise Process Map is created during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. From Oracle Business Process Management methodology for business transformation, it is apparent that business processes exist for the purpose of achieving the strategic objectives of an organization. In a prescribed, top-down approach to process development, it must be ensured that each process fulfills its objectives, and in an aggregated manner, drives fulfillment of the strategic objectives of the company, whether for particular business segments or in a broader sense. This is a crucial point, as the strategic messages of the company must therefore resound in its process maps, in particular one that spans the processes of the complete business: the Enterprise Process Map. One simple example from Company X is shown below (see figure 3). Fig. 3: Company X Enterprise Process Map In reviewing Company X's Enterprise Process Map, one can immediately begin to understand the general strategic mindset of the organization. It shows that Company X is focused on its customers, defining 10 of its process areas belonging to customer-focused categories. Additionally, the organization views these end-customer-oriented process areas as part of customer-fulfilling value chains, while support process areas do not provide as much contiguous value. However, by including both support and strategic process categorizations, it becomes apparent that all processes are considered vital to the success of the customer-oriented focus processes. Below is an example from Company Y (see figure 4). Fig. 4: Company Y Enterprise Process Map Company Y, although also a customer-oriented company, sends a differently focused message with its depiction of the Enterprise Process Map. Along the top of the map is the company's product tree, overarching the process areas, which when executed deliver the products themselves. This indicates one strategic objective of excellence in product quality. Additionally, the view represents a less linear value chain, with strong overlaps of the various process areas. Marketing and quality management are seen as a key support processes, as they span the process lifecycle. Often, companies may incorporate graphics, logos and symbols representing customers and suppliers, and other objects to truly send the strategic message to the business. Other times, Enterprise Process Maps may show high level of responsibility to organizational units, or the application types that support the process areas. It is possible that hundreds of formats and focuses can be applied to an Enterprise Process Map. What is of vital importance, however, is which formats and focuses are chosen to truly represent the direction of the company, and serve as a driver for focusing the business on the strategic objectives set forth in that right. Process Categorization: Customer is Core In the previous two examples, processes were grouped using differing categories and techniques. Company X showed one support and three customer process categorizations using encompassing chevron objects; Customer Y achieved a less distinct categorization using a gradual color scheme. Either way, and in general, modeling of the process areas becomes even more valuable and easily understood within the context of business categorization, be it strategic or otherwise. But how one categorizes their processes is typically more complex than simply choosing object shapes and colors. Previously, it was stated that the ideal is a prescribed top-down approach to developing processes, to make certain linkages all the way back up to corporate strategy. But what about external influences? What forces push and pull corporate strategy? Industry maturity, product lifecycle, market profitability, competition, etc. can all drive the critical success factors of a particular business segment, or the company as a whole, in addition to previous corporate strategy. This may seem to be turning into a discussion of theory, but that is far from the case. In fact, in years of recent study and evolution of the way businesses operate, cross-industry and across the globe, one invariable has surfaced with such strength to make it undeniable in the game plan of any strategy fit for survival. That constant is the customer. Many of a company's critical success factors, in any business segment, relate to the customer: customer retention, satisfaction, loyalty, etc. Businesses serve customers, and so do a business's processes, mapped or unmapped. The most effective way to categorize processes is in a manner that visualizes convergence to what is core for a company. It is the value chain, beginning with the customer in mind, and ending with the fulfillment of that customer, that becomes the core or the centerpiece of the Enterprise Process Map. (See figure 5) Fig. 5: Company Z Enterprise Process Map Company Z has what may be viewed as several different perspectives or "cuts" baked into their Enterprise Process Map. It has divided its processes into three main categories (top, middle, and bottom) of Management Processes, the Core Value Chain and Supporting Processes. The Core category begins with Corporate Marketing (which contains the activities of beginning to engage customers) and ends with Customer Service Management. Within the value chain, this company has divided into the focus areas of their two primary business lines, Foods and Beverages. Does this mean that areas, such as Strategy, Information Management or Project Management are not as important as those in the Core category? No! In some cases, though, depending on the organization's understanding of high-level BPM concepts, use of category names, such as "Core," "Management" or "Support," can be a touchy subject. What is important to understand, is that no matter the nomenclature chosen, the Core processes are those that drive directly to customer value, Support processes are those which make the Core processes possible to execute, and Management Processes are those which steer and influence the Core. Some common terms for these three basic categorizations are Core, Customer Fulfillment, Customer Relationship Management, Governing, Controlling, Enabling, Support, etc. End-to-end versus Functional Processes Every high and low level of process: function, task, activity, process/work step (whatever an organization calls it), should add value to the flow of business in an organization. Suppose that within the process "Deliver package," there is a documented task titled "Stop for ice cream." It doesn't take a process expert to deduce the room for improvement. Though stopping for ice cream may create gain for the one person performing it, it likely benefits neither the organization nor, more importantly, the customer. In most cases, "Stop for ice cream" wouldn't make it past the first pass of To-Be process development. What would make the cut, however, would be a flow of tasks that, each having their own value add, build up to greater and greater levels of process objective. In this case, those tasks would combine to achieve a status of "package delivered." Figure 3 shows a simple example: Just as the package can only be delivered (outcome of the process) without first being retrieved, loaded, and the travel destination reached (outcomes of the process steps), some higher level of process "Play Practical Joke" (e.g., main process or process area) cannot be completed until a package is delivered. It seems that isolated or functionally separated processes, such as "Deliver Package" (shown in Figure 6), are necessary, but are always part of a bigger value chain. Each of these individual processes must be analyzed within the context of that value chain in order to ensure successful end-to-end process performance. For example, this company's "Create Joke Package" process could be operating flawlessly and efficiently, but if a joke is never developed, it cannot be created, so the end-to-end process breaks. Fig. 6: End to End Process Construction That being recognized, it is clear that processes must be viewed as end-to-end, customer-to-customer, and in the context of company strategy. But as can also be seen from the previous example, these vital end-to-end processes cannot be built without the functionally oriented building blocks. Without one, the other cannot be had, or at least not in a complete and organized fashion. As it turns out, but not discussed in depth here, the process modeling effort, BPM organizational development, and comprehensive coverage cannot be fully realized without a semi-functional, process-oriented approach. Then, an Enterprise Process Map should be concerned with both views, the building blocks, and access points to the business-critical end-to-end processes, which they construct. Without the functional building blocks, all streams of work needed for any business transformation would be lost mess of process disorganization. End-to-end views are essential for utilization in optimization in context, understanding customer impacts, base-lining all project phases and aligning objectives. Including both views on an Enterprise Process Map allows management to understand the functional orientation of the company's processes, while still providing access to end-to-end processes, which are most valuable to them. (See figures 7 and 8). Fig. 7: Simplified Enterprise Process Map with end-to-end Access Point The above examples show two unique ways to achieve a successful Enterprise Process Map. The first example is a simple map that shows a high level set of process areas and a separate section with the end-to-end processes of concern for the organization. This particular map is filtered to show just one vital end-to-end process for a project-specific focus. Fig. 8: Detailed Enterprise Process Map showing connected Functional Processes The second example shows a more complex arrangement and categorization of functional processes (the names of each process area has been removed). The end-to-end perspective is achieved at this level through the connections (interfaces at lower levels) between these functional process areas. An important point to note is that the organization of these two views of the Enterprise Process Map is dependent, in large part, on the orientation of its audience, and the complexity of the landscape at the highest level. If both are not apparent, the Enterprise Process Map is missing an opportunity to serve as a holistic, high-level view. Conclusion In the world of BPM, and specifically regarding Enterprise Process Maps, a picture can be worth as many words as the thought and effort that is put into it. Enterprise Process Maps alone cannot change an organization, but they serve more purposes than initially meet the eye, and therefore must be designed in a way that enables a BPM mindset, business process understanding and business transformation efforts. Every Enterprise Process Map will and should be different when looking across organizations. Its design will be driven by company strategy, a level of customer focus, and functional versus end-to-end orientations. This high-level description of the considerations of the Enterprise Process Maps is not a prescriptive "how to" guide. However, a company attempting to create one may not have the practical BPM experience to truly explore its options or impacts to the coming work of business process transformation. The biggest takeaway is that process modeling, at all levels, is a science and an art, and art is open to interpretation. It is critical that the modeler of the highest level of process mapping be a cognoscente of the message he is delivering and the factors at hand. Without sufficient focus on the design of the Enterprise Process Map, an entire BPM effort may suffer. For additional information please check: Oracle Business Process Management.

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• SOA Suite Integration: Part 1: Building a Web Service

  - by Anthony Shorten

  Over the next few weeks I will be posting blog entries outlying the SOA Suite integration of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework. This will illustrate how easy it is to integrate by providing some samples. I will use a consistent set of features as examples. The examples will be simple and while will not illustrate ALL the possibilities it will illustrate the relative ease of integration. Think of them as a foundation. You can obviously build upon them. Now, to ease a few customers minds, this series will certainly feature the latest version of SOA Suite and the latest version of Oracle Utilities Application Framework but the principles will apply to past versions of both those products. So if you have Oracle SOA Suite 10g or are a customer of Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 or above most of what I will show you will work with those versions. It is just easier in Oracle SOA Suite 11g and Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.x. This first posting will not feature SOA Suite at all but concentrate on the capability for the Oracle Utilities Application Framework to create Web Services you can use for integration. The XML Application Integration (XAI) component of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework allows product objects to be exposed as XML based transactions or as Web Services (or both). XAI was written before Web Services became fashionable and has allowed customers of our products to provide a consistent interface into and out of our product line. XAI has been enhanced over the last few years to take advantages of the maturing landscape of Web Services in the market place to a point where it now easier to integrate to SOA infrastructure. There are a number of object types that can be exposed as Web Services: Maintenance Objects – These are the lowest level objects that can be exposed as Web Services. Customers of past versions of the product will be familiar with XAI services based upon Maintenance Objects as they used to be the only method of generating Web Services. These are still supported for background compatibility but are starting to become less popular as they were strict in their structure and were solely attribute based. To generate Maintenance Object based Web Services definition you need to use the XAI Schema Editor component. Business Objects – In Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 we introduced the concept of Business Objects. These are site or industry specific objects that are based upon Maintenance Objects. These allow sites to respecify, in configuration, the structure and elements of a Maintenance Object and other Business Objects (they are true objects with support for inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation etc.). These can be exposed as Web Services. Business Services – As with Business Objects, we introduced Business Services in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 which allowed applications services and query zones to be expressed as custom services. These can then be exposed as Web Services via the Business Service definition. Service Scripts - As with Business Objects and Business Services, we introduced Service Scripts in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1. These allow services and/objects to be combined into complex objects or simply expose common routines as callable scripts. These can also be defined as Web Services. For the purpose of this series we will restrict ourselves to Business Objects. The techniques can apply to any of the objects discussed above. Now, lets get to the important bit of this blog post, the creation of a Web Service. To build a Business Object, you first logon to the product and navigate to the Administration Menu by selecting the Admin Menu from the Menu action on left top of the screen (next to Home). A popup menu will appear with the menu’s available. If you do not see the Admin menu then you do not have authority to use it. Here is an example: Navigate to the B menu and select the + symbol next to the Business Object menu item. This indicates that you want to ADD a new Business Object. This menu will appear if you are running Alphabetic mode in your installation (I almost forgot that point). You will be presented with the Business Object maintenance screen. You will fill out the following on the first tab (at a minimum): Business Object – The name of the Business Object. Typically you will make it descriptive and also prefix with CM to denote it as a customization (you can easily find it if you prefix it). As I running this on my personal copy of the product I will use my initials as the prefix and call the sample Web Service “AS-User”. Description – A short description of the object to tell others what it is used for. For my example, I will use “Anthony Shorten’s User Object”. Detailed Description – You can add a long description to help other developers understand your object. I am just going to specify “Anthony Shorten’s Test Object for SOA Suite Integration”. Maintenance Object – As this Business Service is going to be based upon a Maintenance Object I will specify the desired Maintenance Object. In this example, I have decided to use the Framework object USER. Now, I chose this for a number of reasons. It is meaningful, simple and is across all our product lines. I could choose ANY maintenance object I wished to expose (including any custom ones, if I had them). Parent Business Object – If I was not using a Maintenance Object but building a child Business Object against another Business Object, then I would specify the Parent Business Object here. I am not using Parent’s so I will leave this blank. You either use Parent Business Object or Maintenance Object not both. Application Service – Business Objects like other objects are subject to security. You can attach an Application Service to an object to specify which groups of users (remember services are attached to user groups not users) have appropriate access to the object. I will use a default service provided with the product, F1-DFLTS ,as this is just a demonstration so I do not have to be too sophisticated about security. Instance Control – This allows the object to create instances in its objects. You can specify a Business Object purely to hold rules. I am being simple here so I will set it to Allow New Instances to allow the Business Object to be used to create, read, update and delete user records. The rest of the tab I will leave empty as I want this to be a very simple object. Other options allow lots of flexibility. The contents should look like this: Before saving your work, you need to navigate to the Schema tab and specify the contents of your object. I will save some time. When you create an object the schema will only contain the basic root elements of the object (in fact only the schema tag is visible). When you go to the Schema Tab, on the dashboard you will see a BO Schema zone with a solitary button. This will allow you to Generate the Schema for you from our metadata. Click on the Generate button to generate a basic schema from the metadata. You will now see a Schema with the element tags and references to the metadata of the Maintenance object (in the mapField attribute). I could spend a while outlining all the ways you can change the schema with defaults, formatting, tagging etc but the online help has plenty of great examples to illustrate this. You can use the Schema Tips zone in the for more details of the available customizations. Note: The tags are generated from the language pack you have installed. The sample is English so the tags are in English (which is the base language of all installations). If you are using a language pack then the tags will be generated in the language of the user that generated the object. At this point you can save your Business Object by pressing the Save action. At this point you have a basic Business Object based on the USER maintenance object ready for use but it is not defined as a Web Service yet. To do this you need to define the newly created Business Object as an XAI Inbound Service. The easiest and quickest way is to select + off the XAI Inbound Service off the context menu on the Business Object maintenance screen. This will prepopulate the service definition with the following: Adapter – This will be set to Business Adaptor. This indicates that the service is either Business Object, Business Service or Service Script based. Schema Type – Whether the object is a Business Object, Business Service or Service Script. In this case it is a Business Object. Schema Name – The name of the object. In this case it is the Business Object AS-User. Active – Set to Yes. This means the service is available upon startup automatically. You can enable and disable services as needed. Transaction Type – A default transaction type as this is Business Object Service. More about this in later postings. In our case we use the default Read. This means that if we only specify data and not a transaction type then the product will assume you want to issue a read against the object. You need to fill in the following: XAI Inbound Service – The name of the Web Service. Usually people use the same name as the underlying object , in the case of this example, but this can match your sites interfacing standards. By the way you can define multiple XAI Inbound Services/Web Services against the same object if you want. Description and Detail Description – Documentation for your Web Service. I just supplied some basic documentation for this demonstration. You can now save the service definition. Note: There are lots of other options on this screen that allow for behavior of your service to be specified. I will leave them blank for now. When you save the service you are issued with two new pieces of information. XAI Inbound Service Id is a randomly generated identifier used internally by the XAI Servlet. WSDL URL is the WSDL standard URL used for integration. We will take advantage of that in later posts. An example of the definition is shown below: Now you have defined the service but it will only be available when the next server restart or when you flush the data cache. XAI Inbound Services are cached for performance so the cache needs to be told of this new service. To refresh the cache you can use the Admin –> X –> XAI Command menu item. From the command dropdown select Refresh Registry and press Send Command. You will see an XML of the command sent to the server (the presence of the XML means it is finished). If you have an error around the authorization, then check your default user and password settings on the XAI Options menu item. Be careful with flushing the cache as the cache is shared (unless of course you are the only Web Service user on the system – In that case it only affects you). The Web Service is NOW available to be used. To perform a simple test of your new Web Service, navigate to the Admin –> X –> XAI Submission menu item. You will see an open XML request tab. You need to type in the request XML you want to test in the Main tab. The first tag is the XAI Inbound Service Name and the elements are as per your schema (minus the schema tag itself as that is only used internally). My example is as follows (I want to return the details of user SYSUSER) – Remember to close tags. Hitting the Save button will issue the XML and return the response according to the Business Object schema. Now before you panic, you noticed that it did not ask for credentials. It propagates the online credentials to the service call on this function. You now have a Web Service you can use for integration. We will reuse this information in subsequent posts. The process I just described can be used for ANY object in the system you want to expose. This whole process at a minimum can take under a minute. Obviously I only showed the basics but you can at least get an appreciation of the ease of defining a Web Service (just by using a browser). The next posts now build upon this. Hope you enjoyed the post.

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• Introducing Data Annotations Extensions

  - by srkirkland

  Validation of user input is integral to building a modern web application, and ASP.NET MVC offers us a way to enforce business rules on both the client and server using Model Validation.  The recent release of ASP.NET MVC 3 has improved these offerings on the client side by introducing an unobtrusive validation library built on top of jquery.validation.  Out of the box MVC comes with support for Data Annotations (that is, System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations) and can be extended to support other frameworks.  Data Annotations Validation is becoming more popular and is being baked in to many other Microsoft offerings, including Entity Framework, though with MVC it only contains four validators: Range, Required, StringLength and Regular Expression.  The Data Annotations Extensions project attempts to augment these validators with additional attributes while maintaining the clean integration Data Annotations provides. A Quick Word About Data Annotations Extensions The Data Annotations Extensions project can be found at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/, and currently provides 11 additional validation attributes (ex: Email, EqualTo, Min/Max) on top of Data Annotations’ original 4.  You can find a current list of the validation attributes on the afore mentioned website. The core library provides server-side validation attributes that can be used in any .NET 4.0 project (no MVC dependency). There is also an easily pluggable client-side validation library which can be used in ASP.NET MVC 3 projects using unobtrusive jquery validation (only MVC3 included javascript files are required). On to the Preview Let’s say you had the following “Customer” domain model (or view model, depending on your project structure) in an MVC 3 project: public class Customer { public string Email { get; set; } public int Age { get; set; } public string ProfilePictureLocation { get; set; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } When it comes time to create/edit this Customer, you will probably have a CustomerController and a simple form that just uses one of the Html.EditorFor() methods that the ASP.NET MVC tooling generates for you (or you can write yourself).  It should look something like this: With no validation, the customer can enter nonsense for an email address, and then can even report their age as a negative number!  With the built-in Data Annotations validation, I could do a bit better by adding a Range to the age, adding a RegularExpression for email (yuck!), and adding some required attributes.  However, I’d still be able to report my age as 10.75 years old, and my profile picture could still be any string.  Let’s use Data Annotations along with this project, Data Annotations Extensions, and see what we can get: public class Customer { [Email] [Required] public string Email { get; set; }   [Integer] [Min(1, ErrorMessage="Unless you are benjamin button you are lying.")] [Required] public int Age { get; set; }   [FileExtensions("png|jpg|jpeg|gif")] public string ProfilePictureLocation { get; set; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Now let’s try to put in some invalid values and see what happens: That is very nice validation, all done on the client side (will also be validated on the server).  Also, the Customer class validation attributes are very easy to read and understand. Another bonus: Since Data Annotations Extensions can integrate with MVC 3’s unobtrusive validation, no additional scripts are required! Now that we’ve seen our target, let’s take a look at how to get there within a new MVC 3 project. Adding Data Annotations Extensions To Your Project First we will File->New Project and create an ASP.NET MVC 3 project.  I am going to use Razor for these examples, but any view engine can be used in practice.  Now go into the NuGet Extension Manager (right click on references and select add Library Package Reference) and search for “DataAnnotationsExtensions.”  You should see the following two packages: The first package is for server-side validation scenarios, but since we are using MVC 3 and would like comprehensive sever and client validation support, click on the DataAnnotationsExtensions.MVC3 project and then click Install.  This will install the Data Annotations Extensions server and client validation DLLs along with David Ebbo’s web activator (which enables the validation attributes to be registered with MVC 3). Now that Data Annotations Extensions is installed you have all you need to start doing advanced model validation.  If you are already using Data Annotations in your project, just making use of the additional validation attributes will provide client and server validation automatically.  However, assuming you are starting with a blank project I’ll walk you through setting up a controller and model to test with. Creating Your Model In the Models folder, create a new User.cs file with a User class that you can use as a model.  To start with, I’ll use the following class: public class User { public string Email { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } public string PasswordConfirm { get; set; } public string HomePage { get; set; } public int Age { get; set; } } Next, create a simple controller with at least a Create method, and then a matching Create view (note, you can do all of this via the MVC built-in tooling).  Your files will look something like this: UserController.cs: public class UserController : Controller { public ActionResult Create() { return View(new User()); }   [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(User user) { if (!ModelState.IsValid) { return View(user); }   return Content("User valid!"); } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Create.cshtml: @model NuGetValidationTester.Models.User   @{ ViewBag.Title = "Create"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <fieldset> <legend>User</legend> @Html.EditorForModel() <p> <input type="submit" value="Create" /> </p> </fieldset> } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } In the Create.cshtml view, note that we are referencing jquery validation and jquery unobtrusive (jquery is referenced in the layout page).  These MVC 3 included scripts are the only ones you need to enjoy both the basic Data Annotations validation as well as the validation additions available in Data Annotations Extensions.  These references are added by default when you use the MVC 3 “Add View” dialog on a modification template type. Now when we go to /User/Create we should see a form for editing a User Since we haven’t yet added any validation attributes, this form is valid as shown (including no password, email and an age of 0).  With the built-in Data Annotations attributes we can make some of the fields required, and we could use a range validator of maybe 1 to 110 on Age (of course we don’t want to leave out supercentenarians) but let’s go further and validate our input comprehensively using Data Annotations Extensions.  The new and improved User.cs model class. { [Required] [Email] public string Email { get; set; }   [Required] public string Password { get; set; }   [Required] [EqualTo("Password")] public string PasswordConfirm { get; set; }   [Url] public string HomePage { get; set; }   [Integer] [Min(1)] public int Age { get; set; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Now let’s re-run our form and try to use some invalid values: All of the validation errors you see above occurred on the client, without ever even hitting submit.  The validation is also checked on the server, which is a good practice since client validation is easily bypassed. That’s all you need to do to start a new project and include Data Annotations Extensions, and of course you can integrate it into an existing project just as easily. Nitpickers Corner ASP.NET MVC 3 futures defines four new data annotations attributes which this project has as well: CreditCard, Email, Url and EqualTo.  Unfortunately referencing MVC 3 futures necessitates taking an dependency on MVC 3 in your model layer, which may be unadvisable in a multi-tiered project.  Data Annotations Extensions keeps the server and client side libraries separate so using the project’s validation attributes don’t require you to take any additional dependencies in your model layer which still allowing for the rich client validation experience if you are using MVC 3. Custom Error Message and Globalization: Since the Data Annotations Extensions are build on top of Data Annotations, you have the ability to define your own static error messages and even to use resource files for very customizable error messages. Available Validators: Please see the project site at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/ for an up-to-date list of the new validators included in this project.  As of this post, the following validators are available: CreditCard Date Digits Email EqualTo FileExtensions Integer Max Min Numeric Url Conclusion Hopefully I’ve illustrated how easy it is to add server and client validation to your MVC 3 projects, and how to easily you can extend the available validation options to meet real world needs. The Data Annotations Extensions project is fully open source under the BSD license.  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.  More information than you require, along with links to the source code, is available at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/. Enjoy!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 25, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 25, 2010New ProjectsBibleNames: BibleNames BibleNames BibleNames BibleNames BibleNamesBing Search for PHP Developers: This is the Bing SDK for PHP, a toolkit that allows you to easily use Bing's API to fetch search results and use in your own application. The Bin...Fading Clock: Fading Clock is a normal clock that has the ability to fade in out. It's developed in C# as a Windows App in .net 2.0.Fuzzy string matching algorithm in C# and LINQ: Fuzzy matching strings. Find out how similar two string is, and find the best fuzzy matching string from a string table. Given a string (strA) and...HexTile editor: Testing hexagonal tile editorhgcheck12: hgcheck12Metaverse Router: Metaverse Router makes it easier for MIIS, ILM, FIM Sync engine administrators to manage multiple provisioning modules, turn on/off provisioning wi...MyVocabulary: Use MyVocabulary to structure and test the words you want to learn in a foreign language. This is a .net 3.5 windows forms application developed in...phpxw: Phpxw 是一个简易的PHP框架。以我自己的姓名命名的。 Phpxw is a simple PHP framework. Take my name named.Plop: Social networking wrappers and projects.PST Data Structure View Tool: PST Data Structure View Tool (PSTViewTool) is a tool supporting the PST file format documentation effort. It allows the user to browse the internal...PST File Format SDK: PST File Format SDK (pstsdk) is a cross platform header only C++ library for reading PST files.QWine: QWine is Queue Machine ApplicationSharePoint Cross Site Collection Security Trimmed Navigation: This SP2010 project will show security trimmed navigation that works across site collections. The project is written for SP2010, but can be easily ...SharePoint List Field Manager: The SharePoint List Field Manager allows users to manage the Boolean properties of a list such as Read Only, Hidden, Show in New Form etc... It sup...Silverlight Toolbar for DataGrid working with RIA Services or local data: DataGridToolbar contains two controls for Silverlight DataGrid designed for RIA Services and local data. It can be used to filter or remove a data,...SilverShader - Silverlight Pixel Shader Demos: SilverShader is an extensible Silverlight application that is used to demonstrate the effect of different pixel shaders. The shaders can be applied...SNCFT Gadget: Ce gadget permet de consulter les horaires des trains et de chercher des informations sur le site de la société nationale des chemins de fer tunisi...Software Transaction Memory: Software Transaction Memory for .NETStreamInsight Samples: This project contains sample code for StreamInsight, Microsoft's platform for complex event processing. 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• LLBLGen Pro feature highlights: automatic element name construction

  - by FransBouma

  (This post is part of a series of posts about features of the LLBLGen Pro system) One of the things one might take for granted but which has a huge impact on the time spent in an entity modeling environment is the way the system creates names for elements out of the information provided, in short: automatic element name construction. Element names are created in both directions of modeling: database first and model first and the more names the system can create for you without you having to rename them, the better. LLBLGen Pro has a rich, fine grained system for creating element names out of the meta-data available, which I'll describe more in detail below. First the model element related element naming features are highlighted, in the section Automatic model element naming features and after that I'll go more into detail about the relational model element naming features LLBLGen Pro has to offer in the section Automatic relational model element naming features. Automatic model element naming features When working database first, the element names in the model, e.g. entity names, entity field names and so on, are in general determined from the relational model element (e.g. table, table field) they're mapped on, as the model elements are reverse engineered from these relational model elements. It doesn't take rocket science to automatically name an entity Customer if the entity was created after reverse engineering a table named Customer. It gets a little trickier when the entity which was created by reverse engineering a table called TBL_ORDER_LINES has to be named 'OrderLine' automatically. Automatic model element naming also takes into effect with model first development, where some settings are used to provide you with a default name, e.g. in the case of navigator name creation when you create a new relationship. The features below are available to you in the Project Settings. Open Project Settings on a loaded project and navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction. Strippers! The above example 'TBL_ORDER_LINES' shows that some parts of the table name might not be needed for name creation, in this case the 'TBL_' prefix. Some 'brilliant' DBAs even add suffixes to table names, fragments you might not want to appear in the entity names. LLBLGen Pro offers you to define both prefix and suffix fragments to strip off of table, view, stored procedure, parameter, table field and view field names. In the example above, the fragment 'TBL_' is a good candidate for such a strip pattern. You can specify more than one pattern for e.g. the table prefix strip pattern, so even a really messy schema can still be used to produce clean names. Underscores Be Gone Another thing you might get rid of are underscores. After all, most naming schemes for entities and their classes use PasCal casing rules and don't allow for underscores to appear. LLBLGen Pro can automatically strip out underscores for you. It's an optional feature, so if you like the underscores, you're not forced to see them go: LLBLGen Pro will leave them alone when ordered to to so. PasCal everywhere... or not, your call LLBLGen Pro can automatically PasCal case names on word breaks. It determines word breaks in a couple of ways: a space marks a word break, an underscore marks a word break and a case difference marks a word break. It will remove spaces in all cases, and based on the underscore removal setting, keep or remove the underscores, and upper-case the first character of a word break fragment, and lower case the rest. Say, we keep the defaults, which is remove underscores and PasCal case always and strip the TBL_ fragment, we get with our example TBL_ORDER_LINES, after stripping TBL_ from the table name two word fragments: ORDER and LINES. The underscores are removed, the first character of each fragment is upper-cased, the rest lower-cased, so this results in OrderLines. Almost there! Pluralization and Singularization In general entity names are singular, like Customer or OrderLine so LLBLGen Pro offers a way to singularize the names. This will convert OrderLines, the result we got after the PasCal casing functionality, into OrderLine, exactly what we're after. Show me the patterns! There are other situations in which you want more flexibility. Say, you have an entity Customer and an entity Order and there's a foreign key constraint defined from the target of Order and the target of Customer. This foreign key constraint results in a 1:n relationship between the entities Customer and Order. A relationship has navigators mapped onto the relationship in both entities the relationship is between. For this particular relationship we'd like to have Customer as navigator in Order and Orders as navigator in Customer, so the relationship becomes Customer.Orders 1:n Order.Customer. To control the naming of these navigators for the various relationship types, LLBLGen Pro defines a set of patterns which allow you, using macros, to define how the auto-created navigator names will look like. For example, if you rather have Customer.OrderCollection, you can do so, by changing the pattern from {$EndEntityName$P} to {$EndEntityName}Collection. The $P directive makes sure the name is pluralized, which is not what you want if you're going for <EntityName>Collection, hence it's removed. When working model first, it's a given you'll create foreign key fields along the way when you define relationships. For example, you've defined two entities: Customer and Order, and they have their fields setup properly. Now you want to define a relationship between them. This will automatically create a foreign key field in the Order entity, which reflects the value of the PK field in Customer. (No worries if you hate the foreign key fields in your classes, on NHibernate and EF these can be hidden in the generated code if you want to). A specific pattern is available for you to direct LLBLGen Pro how to name this foreign key field. For example, if all your entities have Id as PK field, you might want to have a different name than Id as foreign key field. In our Customer - Order example, you might want to have CustomerId instead as foreign key name in Order. The pattern for foreign key fields gives you that freedom. Abbreviations... make sense of OrdNr and friends I already described word breaks in the PasCal casing paragraph, how they're used for the PasCal casing in the constructed name. Word breaks are used for another neat feature LLBLGen Pro has to offer: abbreviation support. Burt, your friendly DBA in the dungeons below the office has a hate-hate relationship with his keyboard: he can't stand it: typing is something he avoids like the plague. This has resulted in tables and fields which have names which are very short, but also very unreadable. Example: our TBL_ORDER_LINES example has a lovely field called ORD_NR. What you would like to see in your fancy new OrderLine entity mapped onto this table is a field called OrderNumber, not a field called OrdNr. What you also like is to not have to rename that field manually. There are better things to do with your time, after all. LLBLGen Pro has you covered. All it takes is to define some abbreviation - full word pairs and during reverse engineering model elements from tables/views, LLBLGen Pro will take care of the rest. For the ORD_NR field, you need two values: ORD as abbreviation and Order as full word, and NR as abbreviation and Number as full word. LLBLGen Pro will now convert every word fragment found with the word breaks which matches an abbreviation to the given full word. They're case sensitive and can be found in the Project Settings: Navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction -> Abbreviations. Automatic relational model element naming features Not everyone works database first: it may very well be the case you start from scratch, or have to add additional tables to an existing database. For these situations, it's key you have the flexibility that you can control the created table names and table fields without any work: let the designer create these names based on the entity model you defined and a set of rules. LLBLGen Pro offers several features in this area, which are described in more detail below. These features are found in Project Settings: navigate to Conventions -> Model First Development. Underscores, welcome back! Not every database is case insensitive, and not every organization requires PasCal cased table/field names, some demand all lower or all uppercase names with underscores at word breaks. Say you create an entity model with an entity called OrderLine. You work with Oracle and your organization requires underscores at word breaks: a table created from OrderLine should be called ORDER_LINE. LLBLGen Pro allows you to do that: with a simple checkbox you can order LLBLGen Pro to insert an underscore at each word break for the type of database you're working with: case sensitive or case insensitive. Checking the checkbox Insert underscore at word break case insensitive dbs will let LLBLGen Pro create a table from the entity called Order_Line. Half-way there, as there are still lower case characters there and you need all caps. No worries, see below Casing directives so everyone can sleep well at night For case sensitive databases and case insensitive databases there is one setting for each of them which controls the casing of the name created from a model element (e.g. a table created from an entity definition using the auto-mapping feature). The settings can have the following values: AsProjectElement, AllUpperCase or AllLowerCase. AsProjectElement is the default, and it keeps the casing as-is. In our example, we need to get all upper case characters, so we select AllUpperCase for the setting for case sensitive databases. This will produce the name ORDER_LINE. Sequence naming after a pattern Some databases support sequences, and using model-first development it's key to have sequences, when needed, to be created automatically and if possible using a name which shows where they're used. Say you have an entity Order and you want to have the PK values be created by the database using a sequence. The database you're using supports sequences (e.g. Oracle) and as you want all numeric PK fields to be sequenced, you have enabled this by the setting Auto assign sequences to integer pks. When you're using LLBLGen Pro's auto-map feature, to create new tables and constraints from the model, it will create a new table, ORDER, based on your settings I previously discussed above, with a PK field ID and it also creates a sequence, SEQ_ORDER, which is auto-assigns to the ID field mapping. The name of the sequence is created by using a pattern, defined in the Model First Development setting Sequence pattern, which uses plain text and macros like with the other patterns previously discussed. Grouping and schemas When you start from scratch, and you're working model first, the tables created by LLBLGen Pro will be in a catalog and / or schema created by LLBLGen Pro as well. If you use LLBLGen Pro's grouping feature, which allows you to group entities and other model elements into groups in the project (described in a future blog post), you might want to have that group name reflected in the schema name the targets of the model elements are in. Say you have a model with a group CRM and a group HRM, both with entities unique for these groups, e.g. Employee in HRM, Customer in CRM. When auto-mapping this model to create tables, you might want to have the table created for Employee in the HRM schema but the table created for Customer in the CRM schema. LLBLGen Pro will do just that when you check the setting Set schema name after group name to true (default). This gives you total control over where what is placed in the database from your model. But I want plural table names... and TBL_ prefixes! For now we follow best practices which suggest singular table names and no prefixes/suffixes for names. Of course that won't keep everyone happy, so we're looking into making it possible to have that in a future version. Conclusion LLBLGen Pro offers a variety of options to let the modeling system do as much work for you as possible. Hopefully you enjoyed this little highlight post and that it has given you new insights in the smaller features available to you in LLBLGen Pro, ones you might not have thought off in the first place. Enjoy!

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• Windows Phone 7: Building a simple dictionary web client

  - by TechTwaddle

  Like I mentioned in this post a while back, I came across a dictionary web service called Aonaware that serves up word definitions from various dictionaries and is really easy to use. The services page on their website, http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx, lists all the operations that are supported by the dictionary service. Here they are, Word Dictionary Web Service The following operations are supported. For a formal definition, please review the Service Description. Define Define given word, returning definitions from all dictionaries DefineInDict Define given word, returning definitions from specified dictionary DictionaryInfo Show information about the specified dictionary DictionaryList Returns a list of available dictionaries DictionaryListExtended Returns a list of advanced dictionaries (e.g. translating dictionaries) Match Look for matching words in all dictionaries using the given strategy MatchInDict Look for matching words in the specified dictionary using the given strategy ServerInfo Show remote server information StrategyList Return list of all available strategies on the server Follow the links above to get more information on each API. In this post we will be building a simple windows phone 7 client which uses this service to get word definitions for words entered by the user. The application will also allow the user to select a dictionary from all the available ones and look up the word definition in that dictionary. So of all the apis above we will be using only two, DictionaryList() to get a list of all supported dictionaries and DefineInDict() to get the word definition from a particular dictionary. Before we get started, a note to you all; I would have liked to implement this application using concepts from data binding, item templates, data templates etc. I have a basic understanding of what they are but, being a beginner, I am not very comfortable with those topics yet so I didn’t use them. I thought I’ll get this version out of the way and maybe in the next version I could give those a try. A somewhat scary mock-up of the what the final application will look like, Select Dictionary is a list picker control from the silverlight toolkit (you need to download and install the toolkit if you haven’t already). Below it is a textbox where the user can enter words to look up and a button beside it to fetch the word definition when clicked. Finally we have a textblock which occupies the remaining area and displays the word definition from the selected dictionary. Create a silverlight application for windows phone 7, AonawareDictionaryClient, and add references to the silverlight toolkit and the web service. From the solution explorer right on References and select Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit from under the .NET tab, Next, add a reference to the web service. Again right click on References and this time select Add Service Reference In the resulting dialog paste the service url in the Address field and press go, (url –> http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx) once the service is discovered, provide a name for the NameSpace, in this case I’ve called it AonawareDictionaryService. Press OK. You can now use the classes and functions that are generated in the AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService namespace. Let’s get the UI done now. In MainPage.xaml add a namespace declaration to use the toolkit controls, xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit" the content of LayoutRoot is changed as follows, (sorry, no syntax highlighting in this post) <StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,5,0,5">     <TextBlock x:Name="ApplicationTitle" Text="AONAWARE DICTIONARY CLIENT" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>     <!--<TextBlock x:Name="PageTitle" Text="page name" Margin="9,-7,0,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}"/>--> </StackPanel> <!--ContentPanel - place additional content here--> <Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0">     <Grid.RowDefinitions>         <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>         <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>         <RowDefinition Height="*"/>     </Grid.RowDefinitions>     <toolkit:ListPicker Grid.Column="1" x:Name="listPickerDictionaryList"                         Header="Select Dictionary :">     </toolkit:ListPicker>     <Grid Grid.Row="1" Margin="0,5,0,0">         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>             <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBox x:Name="txtboxInputWord" Grid.Column="0" GotFocus="OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus" />         <Button x:Name="btnGo" Grid.Column="1" Click="OnButtonGoClick" >             <Button.Content>                 <Image Source="/images/button-go.png"/>             </Button.Content>         </Button>     </Grid>     <ScrollViewer Grid.Row="2" x:Name="scrollViewer">         <TextBlock  Margin="12,5,12,5"  x:Name="txtBlockWordMeaning" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"                    VerticalAlignment="Stretch" TextWrapping="Wrap"                    FontSize="26" />     </ScrollViewer> </Grid> I have commented out the PageTitle as it occupies too much valuable space, and the ContentPanel is changed to contain three rows. First row contains the list picker control, second row contains the textbox and the button, and the third row contains a textblock within a scroll viewer. The designer will now be showing the final ui, Now go to MainPage.xaml.cs, and add the following namespace declarations, using Microsoft.Phone.Controls; using AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService; using System.IO.IsolatedStorage; A class called DictServiceSoapClient would have been created for you in the background when you added a reference to the web service. This class functions as a wrapper to the services exported by the web service. All the web service functions that we saw at the start can be access through this class, or more precisely through an object of this class. Create a data member of type DictServiceSoapClient in the Mainpage class, and a function which initializes it, DictServiceSoapClient DictSvcClient = null; private DictServiceSoapClient GetDictServiceSoapClient() {     if (null == DictSvcClient)     {         DictSvcClient = new DictServiceSoapClient();     }     return DictSvcClient; } We have two major tasks remaining. First, when the application loads we need to populate the list picker with all the supported dictionaries and second, when the user enters a word and clicks on the arrow button we need to fetch the word’s meaning. Populating the List Picker In the OnNavigatingTo event of the MainPage, we call the DictionaryList() api. This can also be done in the OnLoading event handler of the MainPage; not sure if one has an advantage over the other. Here’s the code for OnNavigatedTo, protected override void OnNavigatedTo(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e) {     DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient();     client.DictionaryListCompleted += new EventHandler<DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs>(OnGetDictionaryListCompleted);     client.DictionaryListAsync();     base.OnNavigatedTo(e); } Windows Phone 7 supports only async calls to web services. When we added a reference to the dictionary service, asynchronous versions of all the functions were generated automatically. So in the above function we register a handler to the DictionaryListCompleted event which will occur when the call to DictionaryList() gets a response from the server. Then we call the DictionaryListAsynch() function which is the async version of the DictionaryList() api. The result of this api will be sent to the handler OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(), void OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(object sender, DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs e) {     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries;     if (e.Error == null)     {         listOfDictionaries = e.Result;         PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings);     }     else if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionaryList"))     {         listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[];         PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings);     }     else     {         MessageBoxResult res = MessageBox.Show("An error occured while retrieving dictionary list, do you want to try again?", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OKCancel);         if (MessageBoxResult.OK == res)         {             GetDictServiceSoapClient().DictionaryListAsync();         }     }     settings.Save(); } I have used IsolatedStorageSettings to store a few things; the entire dictionary list and the dictionary that is selected when the user exits the application, so that the next time when the user starts the application the current dictionary is set to the last selected value. First we check if the api returned any error, if the error object is null e.Result will contain the list (actually array) of Dictionary type objects. If there was an error, we check the isolated storage settings to see if there is a dictionary list stored from a previous instance of the application and if so, we populate the list picker based on this saved list. Note that in this case there are chances that the dictionary list might be out of date if there have been changes on the server. Finally, if none of these cases are true, we display an error message to the user and try to fetch the list again. PopulateListPicker() is passed the array of Dictionary objects and the settings object as well, void PopulateListPicker(Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries, IsolatedStorageSettings settings) {     listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Clear();     foreach (Dictionary dictionary in listOfDictionaries)     {         listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Add(dictionary.Name);     }     settings["SavedDictionaryList"] = listOfDictionaries;     string savedDictionaryName;     if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionary"))     {         savedDictionaryName = settings["SavedDictionary"] as string;     }     else     {         savedDictionaryName = "WordNet (r) 2.0"; //default dictionary, wordnet     }     foreach (string dictName in listPickerDictionaryList.Items)     {         if (dictName == savedDictionaryName)         {             listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem = dictName;             break;         }     }     settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string; } We first clear all the items from the list picker, add the dictionary names from the array and then create a key in the settings called SavedDictionaryList and store the dictionary list in it. We then check if there is saved dictionary available from a previous instance, if there is, we set it as the selected item in the list picker. And if not, we set “WordNet ® 2.0” as the default dictionary. Before returning, we save the selected dictionary in the “SavedDictionary” key of the isolated storage settings. Fetching word definitions Getting this part done is very similar to the above code. We get the input word from the textbox, call into DefineInDictAsync() to fetch the definition and when DefineInDictAsync completes, we get the result and display it in the textblock. Here is the handler for the button click, private void OnButtonGoClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = "Please wait..";     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     if (txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim().Length <= 0)     {         MessageBox.Show("Please enter a word in the textbox and press 'Go'");     }     else     {         Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[];         string selectedDictionary = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString();         string dictId = "wn"; //default dictionary is wordnet (wn is the dict id)         foreach (Dictionary dict in listOfDictionaries)         {             if (dict.Name == selectedDictionary)             {                 dictId = dict.Id;                 break;             }         }         DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient();         client.DefineInDictCompleted += new EventHandler<DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs>(OnDefineInDictCompleted);         client.DefineInDictAsync(dictId, txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim());     } } We validate the input and then select the dictionary id based on the currently selected dictionary. We need the dictionary id because the api DefineInDict() expects the dictionary identifier and not the dictionary name. We could very well have stored the dictionary id in isolated storage settings too. Again, same as before, we register a event handler for the DefineInDictCompleted event and call the DefineInDictAsync() method passing in the dictionary id and the input word. void OnDefineInDictCompleted(object sender, DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs e) {     WordDefinition wd = e.Result;     scrollViewer.ScrollToVerticalOffset(0.0f);     if (wd.Definitions.Length == 0)     {         txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = String.Format("No definitions were found for '{0}' in '{1}'", txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim(), listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString().Trim());     }     else     {         foreach (Definition def in wd.Definitions)         {             string str = def.WordDefinition;             str = str.Replace("  ", " "); //some formatting             txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = str;         }     } } When the api completes, e.Result will contain a WordDefnition object. This class is also generated in the background while adding the service reference. We check the word definitions within this class to see if any results were returned, if not, we display a message to the user in the textblock. If a definition was found the text on the textblock is set to display the definition of the word. Adding final touches, we now need to save the current dictionary when the application exits. A small but useful thing is selecting the entire word in the input textbox when the user selects it. This makes sure that if the user has looked up a definition for a really long word, he doesn’t have to press ‘clear’ too many times to enter the next word, protected override void OnNavigatingFrom(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigatingCancelEventArgs e) {     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string;     settings.Save();     base.OnNavigatingFrom(e); } private void OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     TextBox txtbox = sender as TextBox;     if (txtbox.Text.Trim().Length > 0)     {         txtbox.SelectionStart = 0;         txtbox.SelectionLength = txtbox.Text.Length;     } } OnNavigatingFrom() is called whenever you navigate away from the MainPage, since our application contains only one page that would mean that it is exiting. I leave you with a short video of the application in action, but before that if you have any suggestions on how to make the code better and improve it please do leave a comment. Until next time…

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Joy of Anonymous Types

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. In the .NET 3 Framework, Microsoft introduced the concept of anonymous types, which provide a way to create a quick, compiler-generated types at the point of instantiation.  These may seem trivial, but are very handy for concisely creating lightweight, strongly-typed objects containing only read-only properties that can be used within a given scope. Creating an Anonymous Type In short, an anonymous type is a reference type that derives directly from object and is defined by its set of properties base on their names, number, types, and order given at initialization.  In addition to just holding these properties, it is also given appropriate overridden implementations for Equals() and GetHashCode() that take into account all of the properties to correctly perform property comparisons and hashing.  Also overridden is an implementation of ToString() which makes it easy to display the contents of an anonymous type instance in a fairly concise manner. To construct an anonymous type instance, you use basically the same initialization syntax as with a regular type.  So, for example, if we wanted to create an anonymous type to represent a particular point, we could do this: 1: var point = new { X = 13, Y = 7 }; Note the similarity between anonymous type initialization and regular initialization.  The main difference is that the compiler generates the type name and the properties (as readonly) based on the names and order provided, and inferring their types from the expressions they are assigned to. It is key to remember that all of those factors (number, names, types, order of properties) determine the anonymous type.  This is important, because while these two instances share the same anonymous type: 1: // same names, types, and order 2: var point1 = new { X = 13, Y = 7 }; 3: var point2 = new { X = 5, Y = 0 }; These similar ones do not: 1: var point3 = new { Y = 3, X = 5 }; // different order 2: var point4 = new { X = 3, Y = 5.0 }; // different type for Y 3: var point5 = new {MyX = 3, MyY = 5 }; // different names 4: var point6 = new { X = 1, Y = 2, Z = 3 }; // different count Limitations on Property Initialization Expressions The expression for a property in an anonymous type initialization cannot be null (though it can evaluate to null) or an anonymous function.  For example, the following are illegal: 1: // Null can't be used directly. Null reference of what type? 2: var cantUseNull = new { Value = null }; 3:  4: // Anonymous methods cannot be used. 5: var cantUseAnonymousFxn = new { Value = () => Console.WriteLine(“Can’t.”) }; Note that the restriction on null is just that you can’t use it directly as the expression, because otherwise how would it be able to determine the type?  You can, however, use it indirectly assigning a null expression such as a typed variable with the value null, or by casting null to a specific type: 1: string str = null; 2: var fineIndirectly = new { Value = str }; 3: var fineCast = new { Value = (string)null }; All of the examples above name the properties explicitly, but you can also implicitly name properties if they are being set from a property, field, or variable.  In these cases, when a field, property, or variable is used alone, and you don’t specify a property name assigned to it, the new property will have the same name.  For example: 1: int variable = 42; 2:  3: // creates two properties named varriable and Now 4: var implicitProperties = new { variable, DateTime.Now }; Is the same type as: 1: var explicitProperties = new { variable = variable, Now = DateTime.Now }; But this only works if you are using an existing field, variable, or property directly as the expression.  If you use a more complex expression then the name cannot be inferred: 1: // can't infer the name variable from variable * 2, must name explicitly 2: var wontWork = new { variable * 2, DateTime.Now }; In the example above, since we typed variable * 2, it is no longer just a variable and thus we would have to assign the property a name explicitly. ToString() on Anonymous Types One of the more trivial overrides that an anonymous type provides you is a ToString() method that prints the value of the anonymous type instance in much the same format as it was initialized (except actual values instead of expressions as appropriate of course). For example, if you had: 1: var point = new { X = 13, Y = 42 }; And then print it out: 1: Console.WriteLine(point.ToString()); You will get: 1: { X = 13, Y = 42 } While this isn’t necessarily the most stunning feature of anonymous types, it can be handy for debugging or logging values in a fairly easy to read format. Comparing Anonymous Type Instances Because anonymous types automatically create appropriate overrides of Equals() and GetHashCode() based on the underlying properties, we can reliably compare two instances or get hash codes.  For example, if we had the following 3 points: 1: var point1 = new { X = 1, Y = 2 }; 2: var point2 = new { X = 1, Y = 2 }; 3: var point3 = new { Y = 2, X = 1 }; If we compare point1 and point2 we’ll see that Equals() returns true because they overridden version of Equals() sees that the types are the same (same number, names, types, and order of properties) and that the values are the same.   In addition, because all equal objects should have the same hash code, we’ll see that the hash codes evaluate to the same as well: 1: // true, same type, same values 2: Console.WriteLine(point1.Equals(point2)); 3:  4: // true, equal anonymous type instances always have same hash code 5: Console.WriteLine(point1.GetHashCode() == point2.GetHashCode()); However, if we compare point2 and point3 we get false.  Even though the names, types, and values of the properties are the same, the order is not, thus they are two different types and cannot be compared (and thus return false).  And, since they are not equal objects (even though they have the same value) there is a good chance their hash codes are different as well (though not guaranteed): 1: // false, different types 2: Console.WriteLine(point2.Equals(point3)); 3:  4: // quite possibly false (was false on my machine) 5: Console.WriteLine(point2.GetHashCode() == point3.GetHashCode()); Using Anonymous Types Now that we’ve created instances of anonymous types, let’s actually use them.  The property names (whether implicit or explicit) are used to access the individual properties of the anonymous type.  The main thing, once again, to keep in mind is that the properties are readonly, so you cannot assign the properties a new value (note: this does not mean that instances referred to by a property are immutable – for more information check out C#/.NET Fundamentals: Returning Data Immutably in a Mutable World). Thus, if we have the following anonymous type instance: 1: var point = new { X = 13, Y = 42 }; We can get the properties as you’d expect: 1: Console.WriteLine(“The point is: ({0},{1})”, point.X, point.Y); But we cannot alter the property values: 1: // compiler error, properties are readonly 2: point.X = 99; Further, since the anonymous type name is only known by the compiler, there is no easy way to pass anonymous type instances outside of a given scope.  The only real choices are to pass them as object or dynamic.  But really that is not the intention of using anonymous types.  If you find yourself needing to pass an anonymous type outside of a given scope, you should really consider making a POCO (Plain Old CLR Type – i.e. a class that contains just properties to hold data with little/no business logic) instead. Given that, why use them at all?  Couldn’t you always just create a POCO to represent every anonymous type you needed?  Sure you could, but then you might litter your solution with many small POCO classes that have very localized uses. It turns out this is the key to when to use anonymous types to your advantage: when you just need a lightweight type in a local context to store intermediate results, consider an anonymous type – but when that result is more long-lived and used outside of the current scope, consider a POCO instead. So what do we mean by intermediate results in a local context?  Well, a classic example would be filtering down results from a LINQ expression.  For example, let’s say we had a List<Transaction>, where Transaction is defined something like: 1: public class Transaction 2: { 3: public string UserId { get; set; } 4: public DateTime At { get; set; } 5: public decimal Amount { get; set; } 6: // … 7: } And let’s say we had this data in our List<Transaction>: 1: var transactions = new List<Transaction> 2: { 3: new Transaction { UserId = "Jim", At = DateTime.Now, Amount = 2200.00m }, 4: new Transaction { UserId = "Jim", At = DateTime.Now, Amount = -1100.00m }, 5: new Transaction { UserId = "Jim", At = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1), Amount = 900.00m }, 6: new Transaction { UserId = "John", At = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-2), Amount = 300.00m }, 7: new Transaction { UserId = "John", At = DateTime.Now, Amount = -10.00m }, 8: new Transaction { UserId = "Jane", At = DateTime.Now, Amount = 200.00m }, 9: new Transaction { UserId = "Jane", At = DateTime.Now, Amount = -50.00m }, 10: new Transaction { UserId = "Jaime", At = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-3), Amount = -100.00m }, 11: new Transaction { UserId = "Jaime", At = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-3), Amount = 300.00m }, 12: }; So let’s say we wanted to get the transactions for each day for each user.  That is, for each day we’d want to see the transactions each user performed.  We could do this very simply with a nice LINQ expression, without the need of creating any POCOs: 1: // group the transactions based on an anonymous type with properties UserId and Date: 2: byUserAndDay = transactions 3: .GroupBy(tx => new { tx.UserId, tx.At.Date }) 4: .OrderBy(grp => grp.Key.Date) 5: .ThenBy(grp => grp.Key.UserId); Now, those of you who have attempted to use custom classes as a grouping type before (such as GroupBy(), Distinct(), etc.) may have discovered the hard way that LINQ gets a lot of its speed by utilizing not on Equals(), but also GetHashCode() on the type you are grouping by.  Thus, when you use custom types for these purposes, you generally end up having to write custom Equals() and GetHashCode() implementations or you won’t get the results you were expecting (the default implementations of Equals() and GetHashCode() are reference equality and reference identity based respectively). As we said before, it turns out that anonymous types already do these critical overrides for you.  This makes them even more convenient to use!  Instead of creating a small POCO to handle this grouping, and then having to implement a custom Equals() and GetHashCode() every time, we can just take advantage of the fact that anonymous types automatically override these methods with appropriate implementations that take into account the values of all of the properties. Now, we can look at our results: 1: foreach (var group in byUserAndDay) 2: { 3: // the group’s Key is an instance of our anonymous type 4: Console.WriteLine("{0} on {1:MM/dd/yyyy} did:", group.Key.UserId, group.Key.Date); 5:  6: // each grouping contains a sequence of the items. 7: foreach (var tx in group) 8: { 9: Console.WriteLine("\t{0}", tx.Amount); 10: } 11: } And see: 1: Jaime on 06/18/2012 did: 2: -100.00 3: 300.00 4:  5: John on 06/19/2012 did: 6: 300.00 7:  8: Jim on 06/20/2012 did: 9: 900.00 10:  11: Jane on 06/21/2012 did: 12: 200.00 13: -50.00 14:  15: Jim on 06/21/2012 did: 16: 2200.00 17: -1100.00 18:  19: John on 06/21/2012 did: 20: -10.00 Again, sure we could have just built a POCO to do this, given it an appropriate Equals() and GetHashCode() method, but that would have bloated our code with so many extra lines and been more difficult to maintain if the properties change.  Summary Anonymous types are one of those Little Wonders of the .NET language that are perfect at exactly that time when you need a temporary type to hold a set of properties together for an intermediate result.  While they are not very useful beyond the scope in which they are defined, they are excellent in LINQ expressions as a way to create and us intermediary values for further expressions and analysis. Anonymous types are defined by the compiler based on the number, type, names, and order of properties created, and they automatically implement appropriate Equals() and GetHashCode() overrides (as well as ToString()) which makes them ideal for LINQ expressions where you need to create a set of properties to group, evaluate, etc. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,Anonymous Types,LINQ

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• Oracle BI Server Modeling, Part 1- Designing a Query Factory

  - by bob.ertl(at)oracle.com

    Welcome to Oracle BI Development's BI Foundation blog, focused on helping you get the most value from your Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) platform deployments.  In my first series of posts, I plan to show developers the concepts and best practices for modeling in the Common Enterprise Information Model (CEIM), the semantic layer of Oracle BI EE.  In this segment, I will lay the groundwork for the modeling concepts.  First, I will cover the big picture of how the BI Server fits into the system, and how the CEIM controls the query processing. Oracle BI EE Query Cycle The purpose of the Oracle BI Server is to bridge the gap between the presentation services and the data sources.  There are typically a variety of data sources in a variety of technologies: relational, normalized transaction systems; relational star-schema data warehouses and marts; multidimensional analytic cubes and financial applications; flat files, Excel files, XML files, and so on. Business datasets can reside in a single type of source, or, most of the time, are spread across various types of sources. Presentation services users are generally business people who need to be able to query that set of sources without any knowledge of technologies, schemas, or how sources are organized in their company. They think of business analysis in terms of measures with specific calculations, hierarchical dimensions for breaking those measures down, and detailed reports of the business transactions themselves.  Most of them create queries without knowing it, by picking a dashboard page and some filters.  Others create their own analysis by selecting metrics and dimensional attributes, and possibly creating additional calculations. The BI Server bridges that gap from simple business terms to technical physical queries by exposing just the business focused measures and dimensional attributes that business people can use in their analyses and dashboards.   After they make their selections and start the analysis, the BI Server plans the best way to query the data sources, writes the optimized sequence of physical queries to those sources, post-processes the results, and presents them to the client as a single result set suitable for tables, pivots and charts. The CEIM is a model that controls the processing of the BI Server.  It provides the subject areas that presentation services exposes for business users to select simplified metrics and dimensional attributes for their analysis.  It models the mappings to the physical data access, the calculations and logical transformations, and the data access security rules.  The CEIM consists of metadata stored in the repository, authored by developers using the Administration Tool client.     Presentation services and other query clients create their queries in BI EE's SQL-92 language, called Logical SQL or LSQL.  The API simply uses ODBC or JDBC to pass the query to the BI Server.  Presentation services writes the LSQL query in terms of the simplified objects presented to the users.  The BI Server creates a query plan, and rewrites the LSQL into fully-detailed SQL or other languages suitable for querying the physical sources.  For example, the LSQL on the left below was rewritten into the physical SQL for an Oracle 11g database on the right. Logical SQL   Physical SQL SELECT "D0 Time"."T02 Per Name Month" saw_0, "D4 Product"."P01  Product" saw_1, "F2 Units"."2-01  Billed Qty  (Sum All)" saw_2 FROM "Sample Sales" ORDER BY saw_0, saw_1       WITH SAWITH0 AS ( select T986.Per_Name_Month as c1, T879.Prod_Dsc as c2,      sum(T835.Units) as c3, T879.Prod_Key as c4 from      Product T879 /* A05 Product */ ,      Time_Mth T986 /* A08 Time Mth */ ,      FactsRev T835 /* A11 Revenue (Billed Time Join) */ where ( T835.Prod_Key = T879.Prod_Key and T835.Bill_Mth = T986.Row_Wid) group by T879.Prod_Dsc, T879.Prod_Key, T986.Per_Name_Month ) select SAWITH0.c1 as c1, SAWITH0.c2 as c2, SAWITH0.c3 as c3 from SAWITH0 order by c1, c2   Probably everybody reading this blog can write SQL or MDX.  However, the trick in designing the CEIM is that you are modeling a query-generation factory.  Rather than hand-crafting individual queries, you model behavior and relationships, thus configuring the BI Server machinery to manufacture millions of different queries in response to random user requests.  This mass production requires a different mindset and approach than when you are designing individual SQL statements in tools such as Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting (formerly Brio), or Oracle BI Publisher.   The Structure of the Common Enterprise Information Model (CEIM) The CEIM has a unique structure specifically for modeling the relationships and behaviors that fill the gap from logical user requests to physical data source queries and back to the result.  The model divides the functionality into three specialized layers, called Presentation, Business Model and Mapping, and Physical, as shown below. Presentation services clients can generally only see the presentation layer, and the objects in the presentation layer are normally the only ones used in the LSQL request.  When a request comes into the BI Server from presentation services or another client, the relationships and objects in the model allow the BI Server to select the appropriate data sources, create a query plan, and generate the physical queries.  That's the left to right flow in the diagram below.  When the results come back from the data source queries, the right to left relationships in the model show how to transform the results and perform any final calculations and functions that could not be pushed down to the databases.   Business Model Think of the business model as the heart of the CEIM you are designing.  This is where you define the analytic behavior seen by the users, and the superset library of metric and dimension objects available to the user community as a whole.  It also provides the baseline business-friendly names and user-readable dictionary.  For these reasons, it is often called the "logical" model--it is a virtual database schema that persists no data, but can be queried as if it is a database. The business model always has a dimensional shape (more on this in future posts), and its simple shape and terminology hides the complexity of the source data models. Besides hiding complexity and normalizing terminology, this layer adds most of the analytic value, as well.  This is where you define the rich, dimensional behavior of the metrics and complex business calculations, as well as the conformed dimensions and hierarchies.  It contributes to the ease of use for business users, since the dimensional metric definitions apply in any context of filters and drill-downs, and the conformed dimensions enable dashboard-wide filters and guided analysis links that bring context along from one page to the next.  The conformed dimensions also provide a key to hiding the complexity of many sources, including federation of different databases, behind the simple business model. Note that the expression language in this layer is LSQL, so that any expression can be rewritten into any data source's query language at run time.  This is important for federation, where a given logical object can map to several different physical objects in different databases.  It is also important to portability of the CEIM to different database brands, which is a key requirement for Oracle's BI Applications products. Your requirements process with your user community will mostly affect the business model.  This is where you will define most of the things they specifically ask for, such as metric definitions.  For this reason, many of the best-practice methodologies of our consulting partners start with the high-level definition of this layer. Physical Model The physical model connects the business model that meets your users' requirements to the reality of the data sources you have available. In the query factory analogy, think of the physical layer as the bill of materials for generating physical queries.  Every schema, table, column, join, cube, hierarchy, etc., that will appear in any physical query manufactured at run time must be modeled here at design time. Each physical data source will have its own physical model, or "database" object in the CEIM.  The shape of each physical model matches the shape of its physical source.  In other words, if the source is normalized relational, the physical model will mimic that normalized shape.  If it is a hypercube, the physical model will have a hypercube shape.  If it is a flat file, it will have a denormalized tabular shape. To aid in query optimization, the physical layer also tracks the specifics of the database brand and release.  This allows the BI Server to make the most of each physical source's distinct capabilities, writing queries in its syntax, and using its specific functions. This allows the BI Server to push processing work as deep as possible into the physical source, which minimizes data movement and takes full advantage of the database's own optimizer.  For most data sources, native APIs are used to further optimize performance and functionality. The value of having a distinct separation between the logical (business) and physical models is encapsulation of the physical characteristics.  This encapsulation is another enabler of packaged BI applications and federation.  It is also key to hiding the complex shapes and relationships in the physical sources from the end users.  Consider a routine drill-down in the business model: physically, it can require a drill-through where the first query is MDX to a multidimensional cube, followed by the drill-down query in SQL to a normalized relational database.  The only difference from the user's point of view is that the 2nd query added a more detailed dimension level column - everything else was the same. Mappings Within the Business Model and Mapping Layer, the mappings provide the binding from each logical column and join in the dimensional business model, to each of the objects that can provide its data in the physical layer.  When there is more than one option for a physical source, rules in the mappings are applied to the query context to determine which of the data sources should be hit, and how to combine their results if more than one is used.  These rules specify aggregate navigation, vertical partitioning (fragmentation), and horizontal partitioning, any of which can be federated across multiple, heterogeneous sources.  These mappings are usually the most sophisticated part of the CEIM. Presentation You might think of the presentation layer as a set of very simple relational-like views into the business model.  Over ODBC/JDBC, they present a relational catalog consisting of databases, tables and columns.  For business users, presentation services interprets these as subject areas, folders and columns, respectively.  (Note that in 10g, subject areas were called presentation catalogs in the CEIM.  In this blog, I will stick to 11g terminology.)  Generally speaking, presentation services and other clients can query only these objects (there are exceptions for certain clients such as BI Publisher and Essbase Studio). The purpose of the presentation layer is to specialize the business model for different categories of users.  Based on a user's role, they will be restricted to specific subject areas, tables and columns for security.  The breakdown of the model into multiple subject areas organizes the content for users, and subjects superfluous to a particular business role can be hidden from that set of users.  Customized names and descriptions can be used to override the business model names for a specific audience.  Variables in the object names can be used for localization. For these reasons, you are better off thinking of the tables in the presentation layer as folders than as strict relational tables.  The real semantics of tables and how they function is in the business model, and any grouping of columns can be included in any table in the presentation layer.  In 11g, an LSQL query can also span multiple presentation subject areas, as long as they map to the same business model. Other Model Objects There are some objects that apply to multiple layers.  These include security-related objects, such as application roles, users, data filters, and query limits (governors).  There are also variables you can use in parameters and expressions, and initialization blocks for loading their initial values on a static or user session basis.  Finally, there are Multi-User Development (MUD) projects for developers to check out units of work, and objects for the marketing feature used by our packaged customer relationship management (CRM) software.   The Query Factory At this point, you should have a grasp on the query factory concept.  When developing the CEIM model, you are configuring the BI Server to automatically manufacture millions of queries in response to random user requests. You do this by defining the analytic behavior in the business model, mapping that to the physical data sources, and exposing it through the presentation layer's role-based subject areas. While configuring mass production requires a different mindset than when you hand-craft individual SQL or MDX statements, it builds on the modeling and query concepts you already understand. The following posts in this series will walk through the CEIM modeling concepts and best practices in detail.  We will initially review dimensional concepts so you can understand the business model, and then present a pattern-based approach to learning the mappings from a variety of physical schema shapes and deployments to the dimensional model.  Along the way, we will also present the dimensional calculation template, and learn how to configure the many additivity patterns.

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• Dynamic XAP loading in Task-It - Part 1

  Download Source Code NOTE 1: The source code provided is running against the RC versions of Silverlight 4 and VisualStudio 2010, so you will need to update to those bits to run it. NOTE 2: After downloading the source, be sure to set the .Web project as the StartUp Project, and Default.aspx as the Start Page In my MEF into post, MEF to the rescue in Task-It, I outlined a couple of issues I was facing and explained why I chose MEF (the Managed Extensibility Framework) to solve these issues. Other posts to check out There are a few other resources out there around dynamic XAP loading that you may want to review (by the way, Glenn Block is the main dude when it comes to MEF): Glenn Blocks 3-part series on a dynamically loaded dashboard Glenn and John Papas Silverlight TV video on dynamic xap loading These provide some great info, but didnt exactly cover the scenario I wanted to achieve in Task-Itand that is dynamically loading each of the apps pages the first time the user enters a page. The code In the code I provided for download above, I created a simple solution that shows the technique I used for dynamic XAP loading in Task-It, but without all of the other code that surrounds it. Taking all that other stuff away should make it easier to grasp. Having said that, there is still a fair amount of code involved. I am always looking for ways to make things simpler, and to achieve the desired result with as little code as possible, so if I find a better/simpler way I will blog about it, but for now this technique works for me. When I created this solution I started by creating a new Silverlight Navigation Application called DynamicXAP Loading. I then added the following line to my UriMappings in MainPage.xaml: <uriMapper:UriMapping Uri="/{assemblyName};component/{path}" MappedUri="/{assemblyName};component/{path}"/> In the section of MainPage.xaml that produces the page links in the upper right, I kept the Home link, but added a couple of new ones (page1 and page 2). These are the pages that will be dynamically (lazy) loaded: <StackPanel x:Name="LinksStackPanel" Style="{StaticResource LinksStackPanelStyle}">      <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" NavigateUri="/Home" TargetName="ContentFrame" Content="home"/>      <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource DividerStyle}"/>      <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" Content="page 1" Command="{Binding NavigateCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding ModulePage1}"/>      <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource DividerStyle}"/>      <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" Content="page 2" Command="{Binding NavigateCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding ModulePage2}"/>  </StackPanel> In App.xaml.cs I added a bit of MEF code. In Application_Startup I call a method called InitializeContainer, which creates a PackageCatalog (a MEF thing), then I create a CompositionContainer and pass it to the CompositionHost.Initialize method. This is boiler-plate MEF stuff that allows you to do 'composition' and import 'packages'. You're welcome to do a bit more MEF research on what is happening here if you'd like, but for the purpose of this example you can just trust that it works. :-) private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e) {     InitializeContainer();     this.RootVisual = new MainPage(); }   private static void InitializeContainer() {     var catalog = new PackageCatalog();     catalog.AddPackage(Package.Current);     var container = new CompositionContainer(catalog);     container.ComposeExportedValue(catalog);     CompositionHost.Initialize(container); } Infrastructure In the sample code you'll notice that there is a project in the solution called DynamicXAPLoading.Infrastructure. This is simply a Silverlight Class Library project that I created just to move stuff I considered application 'infrastructure' code into a separate place, rather than cluttering the main Silverlight project (DynamicXapLoading). I did this same thing in Task-It, as the amount of this type of code was starting to clutter up the Silverlight project, and it just seemed to make sense to move things like Enums, Constants and the like off to a separate place. In the DynamicXapLoading.Infrastructure project you'll see 3 classes: Enums - There is only one enum in here called ModuleEnum. We'll use these later. PageMetadata - We will use this class later to add metadata to a new dynamically loaded project. ViewModelBase - This is simply a base class for view models that we will use in this, as well as future samples. As mentioned in my MVVM post, I will be using the MVVM pattern throughout my code for reasons detailed in the post. By the way, the ViewModelExtension class in there allows me to do strongly-typed property changed notification, so rather than OnPropertyChanged("MyProperty"), I can do this.OnPropertyChanged(p => p.MyProperty). It's just a less error-prown approach, because if you don't spell "MyProperty" correctly using the first method, nothing will break, it just won't work. Adding a new page We currently have a couple of pages that are being dynamically (lazy) loaded, but now let's add a third page. 1. First, create a new Silverlight Application project: In this example I call it Page3. In the future you may prefer to use a different name, like DynamicXAPLoading.Page3, or even DynamicXAPLoading.Modules.Page3. It can be whatever you want. In my Task-It application I used the latter approach (with 'Modules' in the name). I do think of these application as 'modules', but Prism uses the same term, so some folks may not like that. Use whichever naming convention you feel is appropriate, but for now Page3 will do. When you change the name to Page3 and click OK, you will be presented with the Add New Project dialog: It is important that you leave the 'Host the Silverlight application in a new or existing Web site in the solution' checked, and the .Web project will be selected in the dropdown below. This will create the .xap file for this project under ClientBin in the .Web project, which is where we want it. 2. Uncheck the 'Add a test page that references the application' checkbox, and leave everything else as is. 3. Once the project is created, you can delete App.xaml and MainPage.xaml. 4. You will need to add references your new project to the following: DynamicXAPLoading.Infrastructure.dll (this is a Project reference) DynamicNavigation.dll (this is in the Libs directory under the DynamicXAPLoading project) System.ComponentModel.Composition.dll System.ComponentModel.Composition.Initialization.dll System.Windows.Controls.Navigation.dll If you have installed the latest RC bits you will find the last 3 dll's under the .NET tab in the Add Referenced dialog. They live in the following location, or if you are on a 64-bit machine like me, it will be Program Files (x86).       C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Client Now let's create some UI for our new project. 5. First, create a new Silverlight User Control called Page3.dyn.xaml 6. Paste the following code into the xaml: <dyn:DynamicPageShim xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:dyn="clr-namespace:DynamicNavigation;assembly=DynamicNavigation"     xmlns:my="clr-namespace:Page3;assembly=Page3">     <my:Page3Host /> </dyn:DynamicPageShim> This is just a 'shim', part of David Poll's technique for dynamic loading. 7. Expand the icon next to Page3.dyn.xaml and delete the code-behind file (Page3.dyn.xaml.cs). 8. Next we will create a control that will 'host' our page. Create another Silverlight User Control called Page3Host.xaml and paste in the following XAML: <dyn:DynamicPage x:Class="Page3.Page3Host"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"     xmlns:dyn="clr-namespace:DynamicNavigation;assembly=DynamicNavigation"     xmlns:Views="clr-namespace:Page3.Views"      mc:Ignorable="d"     d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="400"     Title="Page 3">       <Views:Page3/>   </dyn:DynamicPage> 9. Now paste the following code into the code-behind for this control: using DynamicXAPLoading.Infrastructure;   namespace Page3 {     [PageMetadata(NavigateUri = "/Page3;component/Page3.dyn.xaml", Module = Enums.Page3)]     public partial class Page3Host     {         public Page3Host()         {             InitializeComponent();         }     } } Notice that we are now using that PageMetadata custom attribute class that we created in the Infrastructure project, and setting its two properties. NavigateUri - This tells it that the assembly is called Page3 (with a slash beforehand), and the page we want to load is Page3.dyn.xaml...our 'shim'. That line we added to the UriMapper in MainPage.xaml will use this information to load the page. Module - This goes back to that ModuleEnum class in our Infrastructure project. However, setting the Module to ModuleEnum.Page3 will cause a compilation error, so... 10. Go back to that Enums.cs under the Infrastructure project and add a 3rd entry for Page3: public enum ModuleEnum {     Page1,     Page2,     Page3 } 11. Now right-click on the Page3 project and add a folder called Views. 12. Right-click on the Views folder and create a new Silverlight User Control called Page3.xaml. We won't bother creating a view model for this User Control as I did in the Page 1 and Page 2 projects, just for the sake of simplicity. Feel free to add one if you'd like though, and copy the code from one of those other projects. Right now those view models aren't really doing anything anyway...though they will in my next post. :-) 13. Now let's replace the xaml for Page3.xaml with the following: <dyn:DynamicPage x:Class="Page3.Views.Page3"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"     xmlns:dyn="clr-namespace:DynamicNavigation;assembly=DynamicNavigation"     mc:Ignorable="d"     d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="400"     Style="{StaticResource PageStyle}">       <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">         <ScrollViewer x:Name="PageScrollViewer" Style="{StaticResource PageScrollViewerStyle}">             <StackPanel x:Name="ContentStackPanel">                 <TextBlock x:Name="HeaderText" Style="{StaticResource HeaderTextStyle}" Text="Page 3"/>                 <TextBlock x:Name="ContentText" Style="{StaticResource ContentTextStyle}" Text="Page 3 content"/>             </StackPanel>         </ScrollViewer>     </Grid>   </dyn:DynamicPage> 14. And in the code-behind remove the inheritance from UserControl, so it should look like this: namespace Page3.Views {     public partial class Page3     {         public Page3()         {             InitializeComponent();         }     } } One thing you may have noticed is that the base class for the last two User Controls we created is DynamicPage. Once again, we are using the infrastructure that David Poll created. 15. OK, a few last things. We need a link on our main page so that we can access our new page. In MainPage.xaml let's update our links to look like this: <StackPanel x:Name="LinksStackPanel" Style="{StaticResource LinksStackPanelStyle}">     <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" NavigateUri="/Home" TargetName="ContentFrame" Content="home"/>     <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource DividerStyle}"/>     <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" Content="page 1" Command="{Binding NavigateCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding ModulePage1}"/>     <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource DividerStyle}"/>     <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" Content="page 2" Command="{Binding NavigateCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding ModulePage2}"/>     <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource DividerStyle}"/>     <HyperlinkButton Style="{StaticResource LinkStyle}" Content="page 3" Command="{Binding NavigateCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding ModulePage3}"/> </StackPanel> 16. Next, we need to add the following at the bottom of MainPageViewModel in the ViewModels directory of our DynamicXAPLoading project: public ModuleEnum ModulePage3 {     get { return ModuleEnum.Page3; } } 17. And at last, we need to add a case for our new page to the switch statement in MainPageViewModel: switch (module) {     case ModuleEnum.Page1:         DownloadPackage("Page1.xap");         break;     case ModuleEnum.Page2:         DownloadPackage("Page2.xap");         break;     case ModuleEnum.Page3:         DownloadPackage("Page3.xap");         break;     default:         break; } Now fire up the application and click the page 1, page 2 and page 3 links. What you'll notice is that there is a 2-second delay the first time you hit each page. That is because I added the following line to the Navigate method in MainPageViewModel: Thread.Sleep(2000); // Simulate a 2 second initial loading delay The reason I put this in there is that I wanted to simulate a delay the first time the page loads (as the .xap is being downloaded from the server). You'll notice that after the first hit to the page though that there is no delay...that's because the .xap has already been downloaded. Feel free to comment out this 2-second delay, or remove it if you'd like. I just wanted to show how subsequent hits to the page would be quicker than the initial one. By the way, you may want to display some sort of BusyIndicator while the .xap is loading. I have that in my Task-It appplication, but for the sake of simplicity I did not include it here. In the future I'll blog about how I show and hide the BusyIndicator using events (I'm currently using the eventing framework in Prism for that, but may move to the one in the MVVM Light Toolkit some time soon). Whew, that felt like a lot of steps, but it does work quite nicely. As I mentioned earlier, I'll try to find ways to simplify the code (I'd like to get away from having things like hard-coded .xap file names) and will blog about it in the future if I find a better way. In my next post, I'll talk more about what is actually happening with the code that makes this all work.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Unable to connect to Samba printer

  - by user127236

  I have a headless Ubuntu 12.04 server for files and printers. It shares files via Samba just fine. However, the HP PSC-750xi connected to the server via USB is not accessible from my Ubuntu 12.04 laptop. I can browse for it in the Printing control panel, but any attempt to authenticate my ID to the printer with my user credentials results in the error "This print share is not accessible". I have included the Samba smb.conf file below. Any help appreciated. Thanks... JGB # # Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux. # # # This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the # smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed # here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which # are not shown in this example # # Some options that are often worth tuning have been included as # commented-out examples in this file. # - When such options are commented with ";", the proposed setting # differs from the default Samba behaviour # - When commented with "#", the proposed setting is the default # behaviour of Samba but the option is considered important # enough to be mentioned here # # NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command # "testparm" to check that you have not made any basic syntactic # errors. # A well-established practice is to name the original file # "smb.conf.master" and create the "real" config file with # testparm -s smb.conf.master >smb.conf # This minimizes the size of the really used smb.conf file # which, according to the Samba Team, impacts performance # However, use this with caution if your smb.conf file contains nested # "include" statements. See Debian bug #483187 for a case # where using a master file is not a good idea. # #======================= Global Settings ======================= [global] log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* . obey pam restrictions = yes map to guest = bad user encrypt passwords = true passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u passdb backend = tdbsam dns proxy = no writeable = yes server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu) unix password sync = yes workgroup = WORKGROUP syslog = 0 panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d usershare allow guests = yes max log size = 1000 pam password change = yes ## Browsing/Identification ### # Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of # server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field # Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section: # WINS Support - Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable its WINS Server # wins support = no # WINS Server - Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client # Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both ; wins server = w.x.y.z # This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS. # What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names # to IP addresses ; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast #### Networking #### # The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to # This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask; # interface names are normally preferred ; interfaces = 127.0.0.0/8 eth0 # Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the # 'interfaces' option above to use this. # It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is # not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself. However, this # option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly. ; bind interfaces only = yes #### Debugging/Accounting #### # This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine # that connects # Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB). # If you want Samba to only log through syslog then set the following # parameter to 'yes'. # syslog only = no # We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything # should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log # through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher. # Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace ####### Authentication ####### # "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account # in this server for every user accessing the server. See # /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html # in the samba-doc package for details. # security = user # You may wish to use password encryption. See the section on # 'encrypt passwords' in the smb.conf(5) manpage before enabling. # If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what # password database type you are using. # This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix # password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the # passdb is changed. # For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following # parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<[email protected]> for # sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge). # This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes # when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in # 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'. # This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped # to anonymous connections ########## Domains ########### # Is this machine able to authenticate users. Both PDC and BDC # must have this setting enabled. If you are the BDC you must # change the 'domain master' setting to no # ; domain logons = yes # # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the location of the user's profile directory # from the client point of view) # The following required a [profiles] share to be setup on the # samba server (see below) ; logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U # Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory # (this is Samba's default) # logon path = \\%N\%U\profile # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client # point of view) ; logon drive = H: # logon home = \\%N\%U # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored # in the [netlogon] share # NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention ; logon script = logon.cmd # This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix # password; please adapt to your needs ; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u # This allows machine accounts to be created on the domain controller via the # SAMR RPC pipe. # The following assumes a "machines" group exists on the system ; add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -g machines -c "%u machine account" -d /var/lib/samba -s /bin/false %u # This allows Unix groups to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. ; add group script = /usr/sbin/addgroup --force-badname %g ########## Printing ########## # If you want to automatically load your printer list rather # than setting them up individually then you'll need this # load printers = yes # lpr(ng) printing. You may wish to override the location of the # printcap file ; printing = bsd ; printcap name = /etc/printcap # CUPS printing. See also the cupsaddsmb(8) manpage in the # cupsys-client package. ; printing = cups ; printcap name = cups ############ Misc ############ # Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration # on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name # of the machine that is connecting ; include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m # Most people will find that this option gives better performance. # See smb.conf(5) and /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/speed.html # for details # You may want to add the following on a Linux system: # SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192 # socket options = TCP_NODELAY # The following parameter is useful only if you have the linpopup package # installed. The samba maintainer and the linpopup maintainer are # working to ease installation and configuration of linpopup and samba. ; message command = /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/linpopup "%f" "%m" %s; rm %s' & # Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. If this # machine will be configured as a BDC (a secondary logon server), you # must set this to 'no'; otherwise, the default behavior is recommended. # domain master = auto # Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges # for something else.) ; idmap uid = 10000-20000 ; idmap gid = 10000-20000 ; template shell = /bin/bash # The following was the default behaviour in sarge, # but samba upstream reverted the default because it might induce # performance issues in large organizations. # See Debian bug #368251 for some of the consequences of *not* # having this setting and smb.conf(5) for details. ; winbind enum groups = yes ; winbind enum users = yes # Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders # with the net usershare command. # Maximum number of usershare. 0 (default) means that usershare is disabled. ; usershare max shares = 100 # Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create # public shares, not just authenticated ones #======================= Share Definitions ======================= # Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit) # to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each # user's home director as \\server\username ;[homes] ; comment = Home Directories ; browseable = no # By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the # next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them. ; read only = yes # File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; create mask = 0700 # Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; directory mask = 0700 # By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone # with access to the samba server. Un-comment the following parameter # to make sure that only "username" can connect to \\server\username # The following parameter makes sure that only "username" can connect # # This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes ; valid users = %S # Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) ;[netlogon] ; comment = Network Logon Service ; path = /home/samba/netlogon ; guest ok = yes ; read only = yes # Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store # users profiles (see the "logon path" option above) # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) # The path below should be writable by all users so that their # profile directory may be created the first time they log on ;[profiles] ; comment = Users profiles ; path = /home/samba/profiles ; guest ok = no ; browseable = no ; create mask = 0600 ; directory mask = 0700 [printers] comment = All Printers browseable = no path = /var/spool/samba printable = yes guest ok = no read only = yes create mask = 0700 # Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable # printer drivers [print$] comment = Printer Drivers browseable = yes writeable = no path = /var/lib/samba/printers # Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers. # You may need to replace 'lpadmin' with the name of the group your # admin users are members of. # Please note that you also need to set appropriate Unix permissions # to the drivers directory for these users to have write rights in it ; write list = root, @lpadmin # A sample share for sharing your CD-ROM with others. ;[cdrom] ; comment = Samba server's CD-ROM ; read only = yes ; locking = no ; path = /cdrom ; guest ok = yes # The next two parameters show how to auto-mount a CD-ROM when the # cdrom share is accesed. For this to work /etc/fstab must contain # an entry like this: # # /dev/scd0 /cdrom iso9660 defaults,noauto,ro,user 0 0 # # The CD-ROM gets unmounted automatically after the connection to the # # If you don't want to use auto-mounting/unmounting make sure the CD # is mounted on /cdrom # ; preexec = /bin/mount /cdrom ; postexec = /bin/umount /cdrom [mediafiles] path = /media/multimedia/

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• MSCC: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp

  Mauritius participated and contributed to the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 (GWAB). Again! And this time stronger than ever, and together with 137 other locations in 56 countries world-wide. We had 62 named registrations, 7 guest additions and approximately 10 offline participants prior to the event day. Most interestingly the organisation of the GWAB through the MSCC helped to increased the number of craftsmen. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community has currently 138 registered members - in less than one year! Only with those numbers we can proudly say that all the preparations and hard work towards this event already paid off. Personally, I'm really grateful that we had this kind of response and the feedback from some attendees confirmed that the MSCC is on the right track here on Cyber Island Mauritius. Inspired and motivated by the success of this event, rest assured that there will be more public events like the GWAB. This time it took some time to reflect on our meetup, following my first impression right on spot: "Wow, what an experience to organise and participate in this global event. Overall, I've been very pleased with the preparations and the event itself. Surely, there have been some nicks that we have to address and to improve for future activities like this. Quite frankly, we are not professional event organisers (not yet) but we learned a lot over the past couple of days. A big Thank You to our event sponsors, namely Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific, Ceridian Mauritius and Emtel. Without them this event wouldn't have happened - Thank You! And to the cool team members of Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs). You geeks did a great job! Thanks!" So, how many attendees did we actually have? 61! - Awesome - 61 cloud computing instances to help on the research of diabetes. During Saturday afternoon there was even an online publication on L'Express: Les développeurs mauriciens se joignent au combat contre le diabète Reactions of other attendees Don't take my word for granted... Here are some impressions and feedback from our participants: "Awesome event, really appreciated the presentations :-)" -- Kevin on event comments "very interesting and enriching." -- Diana on event comments "#gwab #gwabmru 2014 great success. Looking forward for gwab 2015" -- Wasiim on Twitter "Was there till the end. Awesome Event. I'll surely join upcoming meetup sessions :)" -- Luchmun on event comments "#gwabmru was not that cool. left early" -- Mohammad on Twitter The overall feedback is positive but we are absolutely aware that there quite a number of problems we had to face. We are already looking into that and ideas / action plans on how we will be able to improve it for future events. The sessions We started the day with welcoming speeches by Thierry Coret, Sr. Marketing Manager of Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific and Vidia Mooneegan, Managing Director and Sr. Vice President of Ceridian Mauritius. The clear emphasis was on the endless possibilities of cloud computing and how it can enable any kind of sectors here in the country. Then it was about time to set up the cloud computing services in order to contribute each attendees cloud computing resources to the global research of diabetes, a step by step guide presented by Arnaud Meslier, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft. Given a rendering package and a configuration file it was very interesting to follow the single steps in Windows Azure. Also, during the day we were not sure whether the set up had been correctly, as Mauritius didn't show up on the results board - which should have been the case after approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Anyways, let the minions work... Next, Arnaud gave a brief overview of the variety of services Windows Azure has to offer. Whether you need a development environment for your websites or mobiles app, running a virtual machine with your existing applications or simply putting a SQL database online. No worries, Windows Azure has the right packages available and the online management portal is really easy t handle. After this, we got a little bit more business oriented while Wasiim Hosenbocus, employee at Ceridian, took the attendees through the inerts of a real-life application, and demoed a couple of the existing features. He did a great job by showing how the different services of Windows Azure can be created and pulled together. After the lunch break it is always tough to keep the audience awake... And it was my turn. I gave a brief overview on operating and managing a SQL database on Windows Azure. Well, there are actually two options available and depending on your individual requirements you should be aware of both. The simpler version is called SQL Database and while provisioning only takes a couple of seconds, you should take into consideration that SQL Database has a number of constraints, like limitations on the actual database size - up to 5 GB as web edition and up to 150 GB maximum as business edition -, among others. Next, it was Chervine Bhiwoo's session on Windows Azure Mobile Services. It was absolutely amazing to see that the mobiles services directly offers you various project templates, like Windows 8 Store App, Android app, iOS app, and even Xamarin cross-platform app development. So, within a couple of minutes you can have your first mobile app active and running on Windows Azure. Furthermore, Chervine showed the attendees that adding another user interface, like Web Sites running on ASP.NET MVC 4 only takes a couple of minutes, too. And last but not least, we rounded up the day with Windows Azure Websites and hosting of Virtual Machines presented by some members of the local Microsoft Students Partners programme. Surely, one of the big advantages using Windows Azure is the availability of pre-defined installation packages of known web applications, like WordPress, Joomla!, or Ghost. Compared to running your own web site with a traditional web hoster it is surely en par, and depending on your personal level of expertise, Windows Azure provides you more liberty in terms of configuration than maybe a shared hosting environment. Running a pre-defined web application is one thing but in case that you would like to have more control over your hosting environment it is highly advised to opt for a virtual machine. Provisioning of an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS system was very simple to do but it takes some more minutes than you might expect. So, please be patient and take your time while Windows Azure gets everything in place for you. Afterwards, you can use a SecureShell (ssh) client like Putty in case of a Linux-based machine, or Remote Desktop Services when operating a Windows Server system to log in into your virtual machine. At the end of the day we had a great Q&A session and we finalised the event with our raffle of goodies. Participation in the raffle was bound to submission of the session survey and most gratefully we had a give-away for everyone. What a nice coincidence to finish of the day. Note: All session slides (and demo codes) will be made available on the MSCC event page. Please, check the Files section over there. (Some) Visual impressions from the event Just to give you an idea about what has happened during the GWAB 2014 at Ebene... Speakers and Microsoft Student Partners are getting ready for the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 GWAB 2014 attendees are fully integrated into the hands-on-labs and setting up their individuals cloud computing services 60 attendees at the GWAB 2014. Despite some technical difficulties we had a great time running the event GWAB 2014: Using the lunch break for networking and exchange of ideas - Great conversations and topics amongst attendees There are more pictures on the original event page: Questions & Answers Following are a couple of questions which have been asked and didn't get an answer during the event: Q: Is it possible to upload static pages via FTP? A: Yes, you can. Have a look at the right side column on the dashboard of your website. There you'll find information about the FTP and SFTP host names. You can use any FTP client, like ie. FileZilla to log in. FTP also gives you access to your log files. Q: What are the size limitations on SQL Database? A: 5 GB on the Web Edition, and 150 GB on the business edition. A maximum 150 databases (inclusing 'master') per SQL Database server. More details here: General Guidelines and Limitations (Azure SQL Database) Q: What's the maximum size of a SQL Server running in a Virtual Machine? A: The maximum Windows Azure VM has currently 8 CPU cores, 14 or 56 GB of RAM and 16x 1 TB hard drives. More details here: Virtual Machine and Cloud Service Sizes for Azure Q: How can we register for Windows Azure? A: Mauritius is currently not listed for phone verification. Please get in touch with Arnaud Meslier at Microsoft IOI & FP Q: Can I use my own domain name for Windows Azure websites? A: Yes, you can. But this might require to upscale your account to Standard. In case that I missed a question and answer, please use the comment section at the end of the article. Thanks! Final results Every participant was instructed during the hands-on-lab session on how to set up a cloud computing service in their account. Of course, I won't keep the results from you... Global Azure Lab GWAB 2014: Our cloud computing contribution to the research of diabetes And I would say Mauritius did a good job! Upcoming Events What are the upcoming events here in Mauritius? So far, we have the following ones (incomplete list as usual) in chronological order: Launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (15.4.2014) Corsair Hackers Reboot (19.4.2014) WebCup (TBA ~ June 2014) Developers Conference (TBA ~ July 2014) Linuxfest 2014 (TBA ~ November 2014) Hopefully, there will be more announcements during the next couple of weeks and months. If you know about any other event, like a bootcamp, a code challenge or hackathon here in Mauritius, please drop me a note in the comment section below this article. Thanks! Networking and job/project opportunities Despite having technical presentations on Windows Azure an event like this always offers a great bunch of possibilities and opportunities to get in touch with new people in IT, have an exchange of experience with other like-minded people. As I already wrote about Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion - I had a great conversation with representatives of the University des Mascareignes which are currently embracing cloud infrastructure and cloud computing for their various campuses in the Indian Ocean. As for the MSCC it would be a great experience to stay in touch with them, and to work on upcoming, common activities. Furthermore, I had a very good conversation with Thierry and Ludovic of Microsoft IOI & FP on the necessity of user groups and IT communities here on the island. It's great to see that the MSCC is currently on a run and that local companies are sharing our thoughts on promoting IT careers and exchange of IT knowledge in such an open way. I'm also looking forward to be able to participate and to contribute on more events in the near future. My resume of the day We learned a lot today and there is always room for improvement! It was an awesome event and quite frankly it was a pleasure to spend the day with so many enthuastic IT people in the same room. It was a great experience to organise such event locally and participate on a global scale to support the GlyQ-IQ Technology in their research on diabetes. I was so pleased to see the involvement of new MSCC members in taking the opportunity to share and learn about the power of cloud computing. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is on the right way and this year's bootcamp on Windows Azure only marked the beginning of our journey. Thank you to our sponsors and my kudos to the MSPs! Update: Media coverage The event has been reported in local media, too. Following are some resources: Orange - Local - Business: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Maurice Info.mu: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Le Quotidien Pg 2: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 - Le cloud pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète The Observer Pg 12: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète

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• Building a SOA/BPM/BAM Cluster Part I &ndash; Preparing the Environment

  - by antony.reynolds

  An increasing number of customers are using SOA Suite in a cluster configuration, I might hazard to say that the majority of production deployments are now using SOA clusters.  So I thought it may be useful to detail the steps in building an 11g cluster and explain a little about why things are done the way they are. In this series of posts I will explain how to build a SOA/BPM cluster using the Enterprise Deployment Guide. This post will explain the setting required to prepare the cluster for installation and configuration. Software Required The following software is required for an 11.1.1.3 SOA/BPM install. Software Version Notes Oracle Database Certified databases are listed here SOA & BPM Suites require a working database installation. Repository Creation Utility (RCU) 11.1.1.3 If upgrading an 11.1.1.2 repository then a separate script is available. Web Tier Utilities 11.1.1.3 Provides Web Server, 11.1.1.3 is an upgrade to 11.1.1.2, so 11.1.1.2 must be installed first. Web Tier Utilities 11.1.1.3 Web Server, 11.1.1.3 Patch.  You can use the 11.1.1.2 version without problems. Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 10.3.3 This is the host platform for 11.1.1.3 SOA/BPM Suites. SOA Suite 11.1.1.2 SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 is an upgrade to 11.1.1.2, so 11.1.1.2 must be installed first. SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 patch, requires 11.1.12 to have been installed. My installation was performed on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 64-bit. Database I will not cover setting up the database in this series other than to identify the database requirements.  If setting up a SOA cluster then ideally we would also be using a RAC database.  I assume that this is running on separate machines to the SOA cluster.  Section 2.1, “Database”, of the EDG covers the database configuration in detail. Settings The database should have processes set to at least 400 if running SOA/BPM and BAM. alter system set processes=400 scope=spfile Run RCU The Repository Creation Utility creates the necessary database tables for the SOA Suite.  The RCU can be run from any machine that can access the target database.  In 11g the RCU creates a number of pre-defined users and schema with a user defiend prefix.  This allows you to have multiple 11g installations in the same database. After running the RCU you need to grant some additional privileges to the soainfra user.  The soainfra user should have privileges on the transaction tables. grant select on sys.dba_pending_transactions to prefix_soainfra Grant force any transaction to prefix_soainfra Machines The cluster will be built on the following machines. EDG Name is the name used for this machine in the EDG. Notes are a description of the purpose of the machine. EDG Name Notes LB External load balancer to distribute load across and failover between web servers. WEBHOST1 Hosts a web server. WEBHOST2 Hosts a web server. SOAHOST1 Hosts SOA components. SOAHOST2 Hosts SOA components. BAMHOST1 Hosts BAM components. BAMHOST2 Hosts BAM components. Note that it is possible to collapse the BAM servers so that they run on the same machines as the SOA servers. In this case BAMHOST1 and SOAHOST1 would be the same, as would BAMHOST2 and SOAHOST2. The cluster may include more than 2 servers and in this case we add SOAHOST3, SOAHOST4 etc as needed. My cluster has WEBHOST1, SOAHOST1 and BAMHOST1 all running on a single machine. Software Components The cluster will use the following software components. EDG Name is the name used for this machine in the EDG. Type is the type of component, generally a WebLogic component. Notes are a description of the purpose of the component. EDG Name Type Notes AdminServer Admin Server Domain Admin Server WLS_WSM1 Managed Server Web Services Manager Policy Manager Server WLS_WSM2 Managed Server Web Services Manager Policy Manager Server WLS_SOA1 Managed Server SOA/BPM Managed Server WLS_SOA2 Managed Server SOA/BPM Managed Server WLS_BAM1 Managed Server BAM Managed Server running Active Data Cache WLS_BAM2 Managed Server BAM Manager Server without Active Data Cache   Node Manager Will run on all hosts with WLS servers OHS1 Web Server Oracle HTTP Server OHS2 Web Server Oracle HTTP Server LB Load Balancer Load Balancer, not part of SOA Suite The above assumes a 2 node cluster. Network Configuration The SOA cluster requires an extensive amount of network configuration.  I would recommend assigning a private sub-net (internal IP addresses such as 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x or 172.168.x.x) to the cluster for use by addresses that only need to be accessible to the Load Balancer or other cluster members.  Section 2.2, "Network", of the EDG covers the network configuration in detail. EDG Name is the hostname used in the EDG. IP Name is the IP address name used in the EDG. Type is the type of IP address: Fixed is fixed to a single machine. Floating is assigned to one of several machines to allow for server migration. Virtual is assigned to a load balancer and used to distribute load across several machines. Host is the host where this IP address is active.  Note for floating IP addresses a range of hosts is given. Bound By identifies which software component will use this IP address. Scope shows where this IP address needs to be resolved. Cluster scope addresses only have to be resolvable by machines in the cluster, i.e. the machines listed in the previous section.  These addresses are only used for inter-cluster communication or for access by the load balancer. Internal scope addresses Notes are comments on why that type of IP is used. EDG Name IP Name Type Host Bound By Scope Notes ADMINVHN VIP1 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn AdminServer Cluster Admin server, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines. SOAHOST1 IP1 Fixed SOAHOST1 NodeManager, WLS_WSM1 Cluster WSM Server 1 does not require server migration. SOAHOST2 IP2 Fixed SOAHOST1 NodeManager, WLS_WSM2 Cluster WSM Server 2 does not require server migration SOAHOST1VHN VIP2 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn WLS_SOA1 Cluster SOA server 1, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines SOAHOST2VHN VIP3 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn WLS_SOA2 Cluster SOA server 2, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines BAMHOST1 IP4 Fixed BAMHOST1 NodeManager Cluster   BAMHOST1VHN VIP4 Floating BAMHOST1-BAMHOSTn WLS_BAM1 Cluster BAM server 1, must be able to migrate between BAM server machines BAMHOST2 IP3 Fixed BAMHOST2 NodeManager, WLS_BAM2 Cluster BAM server 2 does not require server migration WEBHOST1 IP5 Fixed WEBHOST1 OHS1 Cluster   WEBHOST2 IP6 Fixed WEBHOST2 OHS2 Cluster   soa.mycompany.com VIP5 Virtual LB LB Public External access point to SOA cluster. admin.mycompany.com VIP6 Virtual LB LB Internal Internal access to WLS console and EM soainternal.mycompany.com VIP7 Virtual LB LB Internal Internal access point to SOA cluster Floating IP addresses are IP addresses that may be re-assigned between machines in the cluster.  For example in the event of failure of SOAHOST1 then WLS_SOA1 will need to be migrated to another server.  In this case VIP2 (SOAHOST1VHN) will need to be activated on the new target machine.  Once set up the node manager will manage registration and removal of the floating IP addresses with the exception of the AdminServer floating IP address. Note that if the BAMHOSTs and SOAHOSTs are the same machine then you can obviously share the hostname and fixed IP addresses, but you still need separate floating IP addresses for the different managed servers.  The hostnames don’t have to be the ones given in the EDG, but they must be distinct in the same way as the ETC names are distinct.  If the type is a fixed IP then if the addresses are the same you can use the same hostname, for example if you collapse the soahost1, bamhost1 and webhost1 onto a single machine then you could refer to them all as HOST1 and give them the same IP address, however SOAHOST1VHN can never be the same as BAMHOST1VHN because these are floating IP addresses. Notes on DNS IP addresses that are of scope “Cluster” just need to be in the hosts file (/etc/hosts on Linux, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows) of all the machines in the cluster and the load balancer.  IP addresses that are of scope “Internal” need to be available on the internal DNS servers, whilst IP addresses of scope “Public” need to be available on external and internal DNS servers. Shared File System At a minimum the cluster needs shared storage for the domain configuration, XA transaction logs and JMS file stores.  It is also possible to place the software itself on a shared server.  I strongly recommend that all machines have the same file structure for their SOA installation otherwise you will experience pain!  Section 2.3, "Shared Storage and Recommended Directory Structure", of the EDG covers the shared storage recommendations in detail. The following shorthand is used for locations: ORACLE_BASE is the root of the file system used for software and configuration files. MW_HOME is the location used by the installed SOA/BPM Suite installation.  This is also used by the web server installation.  In my installation it is set to <ORACLE_BASE>/SOA11gPS2. ORACLE_HOME is the location of the Oracle SOA components or the Oracle Web components.  This directory is installed under the the MW_HOME but the name is decided by the user at installation, default values are Oracle_SOA1 and Oracle_Web1.  In my installation they are set to <MW_HOME>/Oracle_SOA and <MW_HOME>/Oracle _WEB. ORACLE_COMMON_HOME is the location of the common components and is located under the MW_HOME directory.  This is always <MW_HOME>/oracle_common. ORACLE_INSTANCE is used by the Oracle HTTP Server and/or Oracle Web Cache.  It is recommended to create it under <ORACLE_BASE>/admin.  In my installation they are set to <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/Web1, <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/Web2 and <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/WC1. WL_HOME is the WebLogic server home and is always found at <MW_HOME>/wlserver_10.3. Key file locations are shown below. Directory Notes <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/aserver/domain_name Shared location for domain.  Used to allow admin server to manually fail over between machines.  When creating domain_name provide the aserver directory as the location for the domain. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/aserver/soa_domain as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/aserver/applications Shared location for deployed applications.  Needs to be provided when creating the domain. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/aserver/applications as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/mserver/domain_name Either unique location for each machine or can be shared between machines to simplify task of packing and unpacking domain.  This acts as the managed server configuration location.  Keeping it separate from Admin server helps to avoid problems with the managed servers messing up the Admin Server. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/mserver/soa_domain as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/mserver/applications Either unique location for each machine or can be shared between machines.  Holds deployed applications. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/mserver/applications as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/soa_cluster_name Shared directory to hold the following   dd – deployment descriptors   jms – shared JMS file stores   fadapter – shared file adapter co-ordination files   tlogs – shared transaction log files In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/soa_cluster. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/instance_name Local folder for web server (OHS) instance. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/web1 and <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/web2. I also have <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/wc1 for the Web Cache I use as a load balancer. <ORACLE_BASE>/product/fmw This can be a shared or local folder for the SOA/BPM Suite software.  I used a shared location so I only ran the installer once. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/SOA11gPS2 All the shared files need to be put onto a shared storage media.  I am using NFS, but recommendation for production would be a SAN, with mirrored disks for resilience. Collapsing Environments To reduce the hardware requirements it is possible to collapse the BAMHOST, SOAHOST and WEBHOST machines onto a single physical machine.  This will require more memory but memory is a lot cheaper than additional machines.  For environments that require higher security then stay with a separate WEBHOST tier as per the EDG.  Similarly for high volume environments then keep a separate set of machines for BAM and/or Web tier as per the EDG. Notes on Dev Environments In a dev environment it is acceptable to use a a single node (non-RAC) database, but be aware that the config of the data sources is different (no need to use multi-data source in WLS).  Typically in a dev environment we will collapse the BAMHOST, SOAHOST and WEBHOST onto a single machine and use a software load balancer.  To test a cluster properly we will need at least 2 machines. For my test environment I used Oracle Web Cache as a load balancer.  I ran it on one of the SOA Suite machines and it load balanced across the Web Servers on both machines.  This was easy for me to set up and I could administer it from a web based console.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 30, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 30, 2012Popular ReleasesSIPSorcery: SIPSorcery Softphone v1.0.0: The SIPSorcery softphone is a demo (note the "demo") application to prototype using .Net as a suitable runtime environment for a SIP softphone application requiring deterministic audio sampling and playback, it's not. And also to prototype placing calls via Google Voice's XMPP gateway, this works well.ScriptIDE: Release 4.4: ...Media Companion: MC 3.434b Release: General This release should be the last beta for 3.4xx. If there are no major problems, by the end of the week it will upgraded to 3.500 Stable! The latest mc_com.exe should be included too! TV Bug fix - crash when using XBMC scraper for TV episodes. Bug fix - episode count update when adding new episodes. Bug fix - crash when actors name was missing. Enhanced TV scrape progress text. Enhancements made to missing episodes display. Movies Bug fix - hide "Play Trailer" when multisaev...Better Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.831 Alpha: - A new release with: - many bugfixes - changed icon - added code for more failsafe registry usage on x64 systems - not needed regfix anymore - added ribbon shortcut keys - Other fixes Note: If you have problems opening system libraries, a suggestion was given to copy all of these libraries and then delete the originals. Thanks to Gaugamela for that! (see discussion here: 349015 ) Note2: I was upload again the setup due to missing file!XAML Dialect Comparer Tool: Beta 1: This is a first beta version of this tool (as shown at DevConncetions in Vegas, March 2012). Community participation and suggestions are appreciated.LINQ Extensions Library: 1.0.2.7: Append and Prepend extensions (1.0.2.7) IndexOf extensions (1.0.2.7) New Align/Match extensions (1.0.2.6) Ready to use stable code with comprehensive unit tests and samples New Pivot extensions New Filter ExtensionsStartrinity.com Silverlight realtime multiple face and feature points detector: Version 1.2: *Added public methods to start and stop capturing *Added public access to captured snapshot. Applications can crop faces out of snapshot imageMonoGame - Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 2.5: The MonoGame team are pleased to announce that MonoGame v2.5 has been released. This release contains important bug fixes, implements optimisations and adds key features. MonoGame now has the capability to use OpenGLES 2.0 on Android and iOS devices, meaning it now supports custom shaders across mobile and desktop platforms. Also included in this release are native orientation animations on iOS devices and better Orientation support for Android. There have also been a lot of bug fixes since t...callisto: callisto 2.0.23: Patched Script static class and peak user count bug fix.Circuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Alpha 3: New in this release: Added components: Microcontroller Demultiplexer Flip & rotate components Open XML files from older versions of Circuit Diagram Text formatting for components New CDDX syntax Other fixesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.1 CMS (Beta): Beta build for testing - please report issues at issues.umbraco.org (Latest uploaded: 5.1.0.123) What's new in 5.1? The full list of changes is on our http://progress.umbraco.org task tracking page. It shows items complete for 5.1, and 5.1 includes items for 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 listed there too. Here's two headline acts: Members5.1 adds support for backoffice editing of Members. We support the pairing up of our content type system in Hive with regular ASP.NET Membership providers (we ship a def...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.2.11: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla Public Licence 2. 2. User interface control and associated data access layer classes have been added to aid developers integrating 51Degrees.mobi into wider projects such as content management systems or web hosting management solutions. Use the following in a web form or user control to access these new UI components. <%@ Register Assembly="FiftyOne.Foundation" Namespace="...JSON Toolkit: JSON Toolkit 3.1: slight performance improvement (5% - 10%) new JsonException classPicturethrill: Version 2.3.28.0: Straightforward image selection. New clean UI look. Super stable. Simplified user experience.SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQL Monitor 4.2 alpha 16: 1. finally fixed problem with logic fault checking for temporary table name... I really mean finally ...ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5: A slew of bug-fixes with a few new features sprinkled in. This release also upgrades the SciLexer and SciLexer64 DLLs to version 3.0.4. The official stuff: Issue # Title 32402 32402 27137 27137 31548 31548 30179 30179 24932 24932 29701 29701 31238 31238 26875 26875 30052 30052 Harness: Harness 2.0.2: change to .NET Framework Client Profile bug fix the download dialog auto answer. bug fix setFocus command. add "SendKeys" command. remove "closeAll" command. minor bugs fixed.BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.161: Below is a list of fixes in this release. Bug BGN-2092 - Link in Email "visit your profile" not functional BGN-2083 - Manager of bugnet can not edit project when it is not public BGN-2080 - clicking on a link in the project summary causes error (0.9.152.0) BGN-2070 - Missing Functionality On Feed.aspx BGN-2069 - Calendar View does not work BGN-2068 - Time tracking totals not ok BGN-2067 - Issues List Page Size Bug: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the si...YAF.NET (aka Yet Another Forum.NET): v1.9.6.1 RTW: v1.9.6.1 FINAL is .NET v4.0 ONLY v1.9.6.1 has: Performance Improvements .NET v4.0 improvements Improved FaceBook Integration KNOWN ISSUES WITH THIS RELEASE: ON INSTALL PLEASE DON'T CHECK "Upgrade BBCode Extensions...". More complete change list and discussion here: http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postst14201_v1-9-6-1-RTW-Dated--3-26-2012.aspxCraig's Utility Library: Craig's Utility Library 3.1: This update adds about 60 new extension methods, a couple of new classes, and a number of fixes including: Additions Added DateSpan class Added GenericDelimited class Random additions Added static thread friendly version of Random.Next called ThreadSafeNext. AOP Manager additions Added Destroy function to AOPManager (clears out all data so system can be recreated. Really only useful for testing...) ORM additions Added PagedCommand and PageCount functions to ObjectBaseClass (same as M...New ProjectsBig-Tuto DirectX Site du Zéro: Dépôt de code source pour le big tuto DirectX du site du ZéroBlob Drop: Azure Blob Drop watches a local file folder (or several) and passes on any file changes (creates, updates, deletes) to a blob container in Windows Azure Storage account. Just "dump" files into a folder (such as content for a web site) and they will get uploaded to the cloud.C++ AMP Algorithms Library: C++ AMP Algorithms Library is a library of Parallel Patterns that C++ AMP developers can freely use in their own projects.C++ AMP BLAS Library: C++ AMP BLAS Library is a library of Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines that C++ AMP developers can freely use in their own projects.C++ AMP RNG Library: C++ AMP RNG Library is a library of Random Number Generators that C++ AMP developers can freely use in their own projects.cphobby: This is a project to high performance computing on WindowsCSharp Tesseract OCR GUI UTB Spring 2012: n/aecho test project: echo test projectFacebook Connection Manager: Facebook Application written in Asp.Net. Monitors the list of contacts (for its users), revealing when they or someone they know has lost a contact (e.g. deleted their profile or linkage). Works by storing all the auth tickets, extending them, and using them to regularly poll the facebook API.Fast Excel Spreadsheet Writer: The Fast Excel Spreadsheet Writer makes it easier for developers to write 2007 / 2010 Excel spreadsheets containing large sets of raw data. It can write hundreds of thousands of records in seconds. It is developed in C# and uses the Packaging namespace and Xml writers. fieldGames: Demonstrates wp7 gps featuresfucksmzdm: fuck smzdm projectGeo.LibraryManage: Geo.LibraryManageGraph my Code: Silverlight graph control and tools to visualize .net assembly in human readable way.Iron Server: Control Your PC IUBookStore: Build an online system the supports the process of renting and purchasing books from HCMC International University's Post-graduation Centerkage: how to make a kageLCDSmartie dll to display MediaPortal status: MP.dll allows the display of MediaPortal data on an LCDSmartie driven display. Uses WifiConnect and MPExtended to gain access to the MediaPortal data. Written in C.MaxiService: Controle Integrado de Serviço e ManutençãoNetduinoBot: This project is to have fun and learn more about .Net The plan is to improve a simple netduino based robot (2 powered wheels using stepper engines and a support wheel) Next steps: Adding BT communication Adding interactive driving Adding distance measurement Adding routingNovaUmbracoDemo: This is a demo site for Nova in Umbraco business domain.Orchard Members Only: This is a simple module to protect anonymous users from accessing specified content To utilize the feature, simply add the Members Only content part to any content type to make that content type available to authenticated users only.POC's project around web and azure related development: POC's project around web and azure related developmentPractice: nonepromising: asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvc jqueryeasyui rbac asp.net mvRRPandora for RideRunner: RRPandora is a Pandora plugin for RideRunner front end. Play your pandora stations, create new ones, and love/hate your tracks all from within your car PC front end of choice. Discusion on RRPandora project can be found here: http://www.mp3car.com/rr-plugins/150505-so-have-you-guys-ever-heard-of-this-new-thing-called-pandora.htmlSharepoint & CRM Toolkit: Reusable components and tools to speed up Sharepoint and Dynamics CRM development, e.g. Site Definitions, Web Parts, Event Handlers, Workflows, Management Tools for sharepoint and Plugin, workflow, custom reports for MS CRM. Sharepoint QuotaCheck Webpart: A Sharepoint webpart wich shows a progressbar with the current percent usage from the maximum quota. Also shows the warning, max quota and the current usage in MB. Change color if the warning quota is reached.Silverlight MultiSelectComboBox: A multi-select combobox for Silverlight (hope this gets included in the toolkit at some time)Simple OWL.Api: Simple OWL.Api is a .Net OWL Api wrapper library.Taxi Please!: This is the Taxi Please! windows phone application.testtom03292012hg02: testtom03292012hg02testtom03292012tfs01: testtom03292012tfs01theBrent StartPage: A simple personal start page portalVirtualization Automation via Powershell: Scratch Project to enable Virtualization Automation via PowershellXAML Dialect Comparer Tool: This tool allows for comparison of different XAML dialects and utilized framework namespaces. Want to know if your Silverlight project will translate well to Windows 8 Metro? And whether your Metro assets can be reused in your Windows Phone app? And how about that WPF app? This helpful tool provides some interesting metrics. Note that it only compares types/classes and all their members. It makes no comparison of behavior differences between classes and members of identical names.

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• Another Marketing Conference, part one – the best morning sessions.

  - by Roger Hart

  Yesterday I went to Another Marketing Conference. I honestly can’t tell if the title is just tipping over into smug, but in the balance of things that doesn’t matter, because it was a good conference. There was an enjoyable blend of theoretical and practical, and enough inter-disciplinary spread to keep my inner dilettante grinning from ear to ear. Sure, there was a bumpy bit in the middle, with two back-to-back sales pitches and a rather thin overview of the state of the web. But the signal:noise ratio at AMC2012 was impressively high. Here’s the first part of my write-up of the sessions. It’s a bit of a mammoth. It’s also a bit of a mash-up of what was said and what I thought about it. I’ll add links to the videos and slides from the sessions as they become available. Although it was in the morning session, I’ve not included Vanessa Northam’s session on the power of internal comms to build brand ambassadors. It’ll be in the next roundup, as this is already pushing 2.5k words. First, the important stuff. I was keeping a tally, and nobody said “synergy” or “leverage”. I did, however, hear the term “marketeers” six times. Shame on you – you know who you are. 1 – Branding in a post-digital world, Graham Hales This initially looked like being a sales presentation for Interbrand, but Graham pulled it out of the bag a few minutes in. He introduced a model for brand management that was essentially Plan >> Do >> Check >> Act, with Do and Check rolled up together, and went on to stress that this looks like on overall business management model for a reason. Brand has to be part of your overall business strategy and metrics if you’re going to care about it at all. This was the first iteration of what proved to be one of the event’s emergent themes: do it throughout the stack or don’t bother. Graham went on to remind us that brands, in so far as they are owned at all, are owned by and co-created with our customers. Advertising can offer a message to customers, but they provide the expression of a brand. This was a preface to talking about an increasingly chaotic marketplace, with increasingly hard-to-manage purchase processes. Services like Amazon reviews and TripAdvisor (four presenters would make this point) saturate customers with information, and give them a kind of vigilante power to comment on and define brands. Consequentially, they experience a number of “moments of deflection” in our sales funnels. Our control is lessened, and failure to engage can negatively-impact buying decisions increasingly poorly. The clearest example given was the failure of NatWest’s “caring bank” campaign, where staff in branches, customer support, and online presences didn’t align. A discontinuity of experience basically made the campaign worthless, and disgruntled customers talked about it loudly on social media. This in turn presented an opportunity to engage and show caring, but that wasn’t taken. What I took away was that brand (co)creation is ongoing and needs monitoring and metrics. But reciprocally, given you get what you measure, strategy and metrics must include brand if any kind of branding is to work at all. Campaigns and messages must permeate product and service design. What that doesn’t mean (and Graham didn’t say it did) is putting Marketing at the top of the pyramid, and having them bawl demands at Product Management, Support, and Development like an entitled toddler. It’s going to have to be collaborative, and session 6 on internal comms handled this really well. The main thing missing here was substantiating data, and the main question I found myself chewing on was: if we’re building brands collaboratively and in the open, what about the cultural politics of trolling? 2 – Challenging our core beliefs about human behaviour, Mark Earls This was definitely the best show of the day. It was also some of the best content. Mark talked us through nudging, behavioural economics, and some key misconceptions around decision making. Basically, people aren’t rational, they’re petty, reactive, emotional sacks of meat, and they’ll go where they’re led. Comforting stuff. Examples given were the spread of the London Riots and the “discovery” of the mountains of Kong, and the popularity of Susan Boyle, which, in turn made me think about Per Mollerup’s concept of “social wayshowing”. Mark boiled his thoughts down into four key points which I completely failed to write down word for word: People do, then think – Changing minds to change behaviour doesn’t work. Post-rationalization rules the day. See also: mere exposure effects. Spock < Kirk - Emotional/intuitive comes first, then we rationalize impulses. The non-thinking, emotive, reactive processes run much faster than the deliberative ones. People are not really rational decision makers, so  intervening with information may not be appropriate. Maximisers or satisficers? – Related to the last point. People do not consistently, rationally, maximise. When faced with an abundance of choice, they prefer to satisfice than evaluate, and will often follow social leads rather than think. Things tend to converge – Behaviour trends to a consensus normal. When faced with choices people overwhelmingly just do what they see others doing. Humans are extraordinarily good at mirroring behaviours and receiving influence. People “outsource the cognitive load” of choices to the crowd. Mark’s headline quote was probably “the real influence happens at the table next to you”. Reference examples, word of mouth, and social influence are tremendously important, and so talking about product experiences may be more important than talking about products. This reminded me of Kathy Sierra’s “creating bad-ass users” concept of designing to make people more awesome rather than products they like. If we can expose user-awesome, and make sharing easy, we can normalise the behaviours we want. If we normalize the behaviours we want, people should make and post-rationalize the buying decisions we want.  Where we need to be: “A bigger boy made me do it” Where we are: “a wizard did it and ran away” However, it’s worth bearing in mind that some purchasing decisions are personal and informed rather than social and reactive. There’s a quadrant diagram, in fact. What was really interesting, though, towards the end of the talk, was some advice for working out how social your products might be. The standard technology adoption lifecycle graph is essentially about social product diffusion. So this idea isn’t really new. Geoffrey Moore’s “chasm” idea may not strictly apply. However, his concepts of beachheads and reference segments are exactly what is required to normalize and thus enable purchase decisions (behaviour change). The final thing is that in only very few categories does a better product actually affect purchase decision. Where the choice is personal and informed, this is true. But where it’s personal and impulsive, or in any way social, “better” is trumped by popularity, endorsement, or “point of sale salience”. UX, UCD, and e-commerce know this to be true. A better (and easier) experience will always beat “more features”. Easy to use, and easy to observe being used will beat “what the user says they want”. This made me think about the astounding stickiness of rational fallacies, “common sense” and the pathological willful simplifications of the media. Rational fallacies seem like they’re basically the heuristics we use for post-rationalization. If I were profoundly grimy and cynical, I’d suggest deploying a boat-load in our messaging, to see if they’re really as sticky and appealing as they look. 4 – Changing behaviour through communication, Stephen Donajgrodzki This was a fantastic follow up to Mark’s session. Stephen basically talked us through some tactics used in public information/health comms that implement the kind of behavioural theory Mark introduced. The session was largely about how to get people to do (good) things they’re predisposed not to do, and how communication can (and can’t) make positive interventions. A couple of things stood out, in particular “implementation intentions” and how they can be linked to goals. For example, in order to get people to check and test their smoke alarms (a goal intention, rarely actualized  an information campaign will attempt to link this activity to the clocks going back or forward (a strong implementation intention, well-actualized). The talk reinforced the idea that making behaviour changes easy and visible normalizes them and makes them more likely to succeed. To do this, they have to be embodied throughout a product and service cycle. Experiential disconnects undermine the normalization. So campaigns, products, and customer interactions must be aligned. This is underscored by the second section of the presentation, which talked about interventions and pre-conditions for change. Taking the examples of drug addiction and stopping smoking, Stephen showed us a framework for attempting (and succeeding or failing in) behaviour change. He noted that when the change is something people fundamentally want to do, and that is easy, this gets a to simpler. Coordinated, easily-observed environmental pressures create preconditions for change and build motivation. (price, pub smoking ban, ad campaigns, friend quitting, declining social acceptability) A triggering even leads to a change attempt. (getting a cold and panicking about how bad the cough is) Interventions can be made to enable an attempt (NHS services, public information, nicotine patches) If it succeeds – yay. If it fails, there’s strong negative enforcement. Triggering events seem largely personal, but messaging can intervene in the creation of preconditions and in supporting decisions. Stephen talked more about systems of thinking and “bounded rationality”. The idea being that to enable change you need to break through “automatic” thinking into “reflective” thinking. Disruption and emotion are great tools for this, but that is only the start of the process. It occurs to me that a great deal of market research is focused on determining triggers rather than analysing necessary preconditions. Although they are presumably related. The final section talked about setting goals. Marketing goals are often seen as deriving directly from business goals. However, marketing may be unable to deliver on these directly where decision and behaviour-change processes are involved. In those cases, marketing and communication goals should be to create preconditions. They should also consider priming and norms. Content marketing and brand awareness are good first steps here, as brands can be heuristics in decision making for choice-saturated consumers, or those seeking education. 5 – The power of engaged communities and how to build them, Harriet Minter (the Guardian) The meat of this was that you need to let communities define and establish themselves, and be quick to react to their needs. Harriet had been in charge of building the Guardian’s community sites, and learned a lot about how they come together, stabilize  grow, and react. Crucially, they can’t be about sales or push messaging. A community is not just an audience. It’s essential to start with what this particular segment or tribe are interested in, then what they want to hear. Eventually you can consider – in light of this – what they might want to buy, but you can’t start with the product. A community won’t cohere around one you’re pushing. Her tips for community building were (again, sorry, not verbatim): Set goals Have some targets. Community building sounds vague and fluffy, but you can have (and adjust) concrete goals. Think like a start-up This is the “lean” stuff. Try things, fail quickly, respond. Don’t restrict platforms Let the audience choose them, and be aware of their differences. For example, LinkedIn is very different to Twitter. Track your stats Related to the first point. Keeping an eye on the numbers lets you respond. They should be qualified, however. If you want a community of enterprise decision makers, headcount alone may be a bad metric – have you got CIOs, or just people who want to get jobs by mingling with CIOs? Build brand advocates Do things to involve people and make them awesome, and they’ll cheer-lead for you. The last part really got my attention. Little bits of drive-by kindness go a long way. But more than that, genuinely helping people turns them into powerful advocates. Harriet gave an example of the Guardian engaging with an aspiring journalist on its Q&A forums. Through a series of serendipitous encounters he became a BBC producer, and now enthusiastically speaks up for the Guardian community sites. Cultivating many small, authentic, influential voices may have a better pay-off than schmoozing the big guys. This could be particularly important in the context of Mark and Stephen’s models of social, endorsement-led, and example-led decision making. There’s a lot here I haven’t covered, and it may be worth some follow-up on community building. Thoughts I was quite sceptical of nudge theory and behavioural economics. First off it sounds too good to be true, and second it sounds too sinister to permit. But I haven’t done the background reading. So I’m going to, and if it seems to hold real water, and if it’s possible to do it ethically (Stephen’s presentations suggests it may be) then it’s probably worth exploring. The message seemed to be: change what people do, and they’ll work out why afterwards. Moreover, the people around them will do it too. Make the things you want them to do extraordinarily easy and very, very visible. Normalize and support the decisions you want them to make, and they’ll make them. In practice this means not talking about the thing, but showing the user-awesome. Glib? Perhaps. But it feels worth considering. Also, if I ever run a marketing conference, I’m going to ban speakers from using examples from Apple. Quite apart from not being consistently generalizable, it’s becoming an irritating cliché.

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• Prepping a conference

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  I have had the chance to talk at many conferences these past few years, and came up with a way to prepare them which works really well for me. Most importantly, it would make it quite easy to overcome an emergency (for example if my laptop would suddenly lose data). The whole code as well as the slides and other documents are in the cloud. I also use source control for my demos, so that I always have the latest and the greatest, but also a history of changes I made to my demos. Finally I have a system of code snippets which works great, and I often had very positive remarks from the audience regarding that. Putting everything in the cloud The one thing I used to be the most scared of was a sudden crash of my laptop, and being unable to restore in time for a conference. Most conferences ask speakers to send slides a few days (or weeks…) in advance, but let's face it, we all have last minute changes to our talks and I always come in the conference with updated slides that I pass to the management team. The answer to that dilemma used to be working off memory sticks, and that worked not bad. However last year I started putting all the documents relating to a conference in a DropBox folder, and that works great too. Obviously DropBox works only if you have connectivity, so if I for instance update slides while on an international flight, I cannot save to the cloud. The obvious answer to that is to backup everything on a memory stick… but I have to admit, I have been trusting my luck and working off my laptop HD and then synching everything to the cloud after landing. Of course on some US national flights you get WiFi on board, so in that case it is even simpler :) Usually after the conference is done, I remove the files from DropBox and copy them to their "final destination". They are backed up from there to BackBlaze, the great online backup service I am using routinely (I currently have about 90GB of data in BackBlaze). Outlining the presentations I like to have a written outline of my presentations written somewhere. I keep it simple, just write the various sections of the presentation with timing. I guess it is a remnant of the time when I was a private pilot, and using checklists for flight preparation. For example: Demo about designability 15' (0:37) Switch to Blend Open MainPage.xaml Create a DataTemplate ... Here I can immediately see during the presentation if I am taking too much time for my demo (0:37 is where I need to be when I am done with this section of the presentation, and 15' is the time that this particular section takes). I keep these sections reasonable, I don't detail every step of the preparation. Typically I have one such section for every 10-15 minutes of my talks. Yes, I am timing my presentations. I keep adjusting these numbers when I rehearse, and this really helps to feel more confident during the presentations. This is especially important for presentations that are long, like my MIX11 demo which clocked at 57 minutes (I had a lot of stuff to show…). Such presentations are risky, because if anything goes wrong, you will have to cut stuff, so the answer to that is: Rehearse, rehearse and when you're done rehearsing, rehearse a little more. I also have a "Preparation" section where I outline what I need to do before a presentation. For instance: Preparation Reboot in VHD Make sure MSN and Twitter are not running. Open VS10 and load demo Open Blend and load demo Run the WP7 emulator ... I typically start preparing my laptop an hour before the talk, starting everything I need to start and then putting my laptop to sleep. Saving and printing the outline, Timing Printing is a real problem because it is really hard to find a printer at most conference venues, and also quite hard in hotels. To solve that, I simply write everything in OneNote (synched to the cloud, now you start to know what I like ;) and then I print it to a PDF (I use CutePDFWriter) that I save to my Kindle. During the presentation, I read the outline off the Kindle (I mostly just need a quick check to see how I am timing). For timing during the presentation, I use the free tool ChronoGPS on my Windows Phone 7, but of course any phone these days has a clock/chrono application. In some conferences, they even have timers that the presenters can see, but they tend to count down and I prefer to count up… so I just use my own :) Source control for demos For demos, I create a separate folder and use Mercurial as source control. Mercurial has the huge advantage (over SVN or TFS) to work offline too, so I can commit while on a plane, and all the history is saved. Then when I have connectivity I push everything to the cloud (I am using the fantastic Trunksapp.com for my private repositories). Here too the obvious downside is the risk of losing my last changes if my laptop crashes before I can push to the cloud, and here too the obvious answer would be to work from a memory stick… though I have to admit I didn't do that lately (except when I was writing Silverlight 4 Unleashed, where I was really paranoid…) And code snippets? I am one of these presenters who hates to type in front of an audience. I can type really fast (writing two books has this advantage, it really teaches you to touch type and be fast at it) but in the context of an audience, on a stage where it is often damn cold (an issue I had a lot in past conferences, air conditioning can freeze your fingers and make it really hard to type), it doesn't work as well. I don't know for you, but I really dislike seeing a presentation where the speaker uses the backspace key more often than others ;) To solve that, I like to have my code ready in snippets, and drag them to the screen. Then I can spend time explaining each code snippet, while highlighting portions of the code (always highlight what you talk about, the audience often doesn't even see the cursor and doesn't know where you are on the screen!) Over the years I have used various solutions for code snippets, and now I have one which works really well… if you take a few precautions! I use the Visual Studio Toolbox. Preparing the code snippets You can store code snippets in the Toolbox for anything, XAML, C# etc. I arrange the snippets in the order in which I need them, which is a great way to remember what comes next in the presentation. I also separate them by topic, to make it easier to find them, for example when I switch to the slides and then back to the code. Remember that no matter how experienced you are, you will feel more nervous on stage than while you are preparing, so any way to make it easier for you is going to be beneficial to the audience. To store a code snippet, I do the following: Open the final demo that you want to show to the audience in Visual Studio. In your code, select a snippet of code that you want to explain in particular. Make sure that the Visual Studio Toolbox is open (menu View, Toolbox or Ctrl-Alt-X). Drag the selected snippet from the code window to the toolbox. (if needed) drag the snippet to the correct location (for example between two other code snippets so that you can access it as you speak through the demo). Right click on the snippet and select Rename Item from the context menu. Select a meaningful name. For me I use the following conventions: If it is a method, I use the method's name. If it is not a whole method, I use a descriptive name. If it is the content of a method (i.e. the body only, without the method's signature), I use "-> MethodName". This reminds me during the presentation that this is only the body, and that I need to insert that into an existing signature. This is the case, for instance, when I use Visual Studio to automatically generate the members of an interface’s implementation; then I only need to insert my snippet inside the generated method body. Saving the snippets This is the most important!! It happened to me a few times that VS10 lost its settings. When that happens, the snippets are lost too! Yeah that really sucks, especially (as it happened once) when this is the case about an hour before a talk… Stress and sweat follows, not good conditions to start a talk in front of an audience believe me. Thankfully, saving snippets is really easy with the following steps: Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Export selected environment settings and press Next. Uncheck All Settings. Then expand General Settings and select Toolbox (only!). Press Next. Select your source control folder and save under a meaningful name (for instance Snippets.vssettings). Commit to source control and push to the cloud. By the way, this also has the advantage of applying source control to the snippets file (which is an XML file), so you get history for free on that file! Reimporting the snippets If VS loses its settings and you need to reimport the snippets, this can be done super easily and very fast. Make sure that the Toolbox is empty. When you import snippets, they are merged with existing ones, they do not replace the content of the Toolbox. Unless merging is really what you want, make sure that your Toolbox is clean before you import, it is really easier. Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Import selected environment settings and press Next. Select No, just import new settings and press Next. Press Browse and select the Snippets.vssettings file. Press Finish. Et voila, all your snippets appear again in the Toolbox. Whew, the worst was averted and you can start your demo without sweating! (I had to do that once literally 5 minutes before the start of a demo, while my laptop was already hooked to the projector, and it went just fine). What about special tools? When using special tools (for example beta versions of tools you have an early access to), or a special configuration of your laptop, things can get tricky because you cannot really be sure that you will get a laptop with the same tools and the same configuration at the conference. To solve that, I use the following precautions: I make my demos from a Virtual Hard Disk. The great John Papa made a very easy-to-follow web page where he explains how to create a VHD and install Win7 to it. This gives you the full power of your laptop (as fast as booting from the metal). For me, I have a basic configuration that I saved on a USB harddrive (Win7 plus drivers, basic settings for desktop, folder options, taskbar etc) and Visual Studio 2010 SP1 on it. When preparing, I start by copying this "basis VHD" to my laptop. I install additional tools and configurations. I save the VHD back to the USB harddrive in a different folder. This would allow me to reinstall my demo environment quite fast, for example in case of harddrive failure. Replace the harddrive, copy the VHD to it, configure the BCD and you can start. Unfortunately this only works if the laptop itself still works. In the worst case of total failure, my security is to back all the installers up: The installers I use are synched on all my laptops and backed up to BackBlaze. If the worst happens and my laptop is absolutely broken, I can download the installer from BackBlaze and install on another laptop. This of course takes some time, and if that happens 5 minutes before a presentation, well… I don't have an answer to that, except of course crossing my fingers. Still, all that gives me additional security. Conclusion Remember folks, talking to an audience, large or small, will make you nervous. Just ask Scott Hanselman :) The goal here is to create the best possible conditions for you, and to create an environment where everything is saved and easy to restore, where everything is well known and provides you with additional confidence. The cooler you feel before the presentation (and during ;)), the better your presentation will be. Here too, the goal is to provide the best user experience you can have, which in turn will make it more enjoyable for your audience! Happy presenting :) Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 21, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 21, 2011Popular ReleasesESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit: June 2011 - v2.2: ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit v2.2 New controls added: Attribution Control ScaleLine Control GpsLayer (WinPhone only)Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.4: Update June 21st World file will be stored in memory to minimize chances of Terraria writing to it while we read it. Different set of APIs allow the program to draw the world much quicker. Loading world information (world variables, chest list) won't cause the GUI to freeze at all anymore. Re-introduced the "Filter chests" checkbox: Allow disabling of chest filter/finder so all chest symbos are always drawn. First-time users will have a default world path suggested to them: C:\Users\U...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta7: ??AcDown???????????????，?????????????????????。????????????????????，??Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、?????，???????????、???????。 AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 AcDown???????C#??，?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ??v3.0 Beta7 ????????????? ???? ?? ????????????????? "??????"?????"?...BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC: BlogEngine.NET Hosting - Click Here! 3 Months FREE – BlogEngine.NET Hosting – Click Here! This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.5. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 2.0. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at ...Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: All-In-One Code Framework 2011-06-19: Alternatively, you can install Sample Browser or Sample Browser VS extension, and download the code samples from Sample Browser. Improved and Newly Added Examples:For an up-to-date code sample index, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Sample Catalog. NEW Samples for Windows Azure Sample Description Owner CSAzureStartupTask The sample demonstrates using the startup tasks to install the prerequisites or to modify configuration settings for your environment in Windows Azure Rafe Wu ...Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.40: This is a RTW release which adds new features to v5.0.26 RTW. Support for multiple FacebookMediaObjects in one request. Allow FacebookMediaObjects in batch requests. Removes support for Cassini WebServer (visual studio inbuilt web server). Better support for unit testing and mocking. updated SimpleJson to v0.6 Refer to CHANGES.txt for details. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Multiple file uploads in Batch Requests Faceb...NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: NLog 2.0 Release Candidate: Release notes for NLog 2.0 RC can be found at http://nlog-project.org/nlog-2-rc-release-notesPowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.5: Changes - VS SDK no longer required to be installed (a bug in v. 1.3.4).Gendering Add-In for Microsoft Office Word 2010: Gendering Add-In: This is the first stable Version of the Gendering Add-In. Unzip the package and start "setup.exe". The .reg file shows how to config an alternate path for suggestion table.Intelligent Enterprise Solution: Document for this project: Document for this projectTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This version adds tool tips. Almost every picture box you mouse over will tell you what item is in that box. I have also cleaned up the GUI a little more to make things easier on my end. There are various bug fixes including ones associated with opening different characters in the same instance of the program. As always, please bring any bugs you find to my attention.Kinect Paint: KinectPaint V1.0: This is version 1.0 of Kinect Paint. To run it, follow the steps: Install the Kinect SDK for Windows (available at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/download.aspx) Connect your Kinect device to the computer and to the power. Download the Zip file. Unblock the Zip file by right clicking on it, and pressing the Unblock button in the file properties (if available). Extract the content of the Zip file. Run KinectPaint.exe.CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET - 0.9.7 Beta: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. Samples in <root>\src\Lib\CommonLibrary.NET\Samples CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.7Documentation 6738 6503 New 6535 Enhancements 6583 6737DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.2: Public sub-folders are now monitored for changes as well (thanks to mcm69) Automatic public sync folder detection (thanks to mcm69) Non-Latin and special characters encoded correctly in URLs Pop-ups are now slot-based (use first free slot and will never be overlapped — test it while previewing timeout) Public sync folder setting is hidden when auto-detected Timeout interval is displayed in popup previews A lot of major and minor code refactoring performed .NET Framework 4.0 Client...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1.5 RC: Added Extended Dropdown allows a prompt item to be inserted as first element. RequiredAttribute, if present, trggers if no element is chosen Client side javascript function to set/get the values of DateTimeInput, TypedTextBox, TypedEditDisplay, and to bind/unbind a "change" handler The selected page in the pager is applied the attribute selected-page="selected" that can be used in the definition of CSS rules to style the selected page items controls now interpret a null value as an empr...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.0 CTP 1: Umbraco 5 Community Technology Preview Umbraco 5 will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out our first CTP of version 5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a quick low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video here. What's in the v5 CTP box? This is a preview version of version 5 and includes support for the following familiar Umbr...LevelZap: 1.0: Initial version. Zap away!Ribbon Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Browser (1.0.514.30): Initial releaseCoding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun.Kinect Toolkit: Version 1.0Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor v1.0: The initial release of the Kinect Mouse Cursor project!New ProjectsBaffoHat Kinect: BaffHat is a game for fun with friends and drink a little.Bango Windows Phone 7 Application Analytics SDK: Bango application analytics is an analytics solution for mobile applications. This SDK provides a framework you can use in your application to add analytics capabilities to your mobile applications. It's developed in C#.NET (4.0) and targets the Windows Phone 7 operating system.C++ Winsock WebSocket server: A websockets server built in C++ using the C APIs Winsock and <windows.h>. Works with the current version of Chrome (13.0.782.24).Core.Cpp: CORE-CPPDataContractJson ValueProviderFactory: ValueProviderFactory for ASP.NET MVC that uses the DataContractJsonSerializer for JSON Serialization. This comes in handy when porting RESTful JSON Services from WCF to ASP.NET MVC.E4D CRM 2011 Ribbon Utility: E4D CRM 2011 Ribbon Utility helps you speed Dynamics CRM 2011 Ribbon customization. Ribbon customization tasks can be exhausting, as it require many iterations, mouse clicks and input. This utility does the heavy lifting for you: it will zip, upload and publish automatically!EASY: Eve Application Service for YoueGlass: eGlassGrove SMTP Mailer: Grove SMTP Mailer is a Simple and Open Source SMTP E-Mail Sender Written in Visual Basic by Hommerhart - Effect-7 Grove SMTP Mailer on SourceForge : https://sourceforge.net/projects/grovesmtpmailer/hoox: PHP/MySQL CMS focused on speed and simplicity over feature-diversity.Intelligent Enterprise Solution: An ERP source code,including sample,demo,tool.documentKinect Touch Device: A simple "WPF4 Touch Device" using Kinect with OpenNI & NITE (written in C#). This project makes it easy to transform your WPF4 touch application in "touch less" with the Kinect with little change : replace "Window" base class by "KinectWindow". Currently the Touch Down and Touch Up is determined by the distance of the hand from the Kinect. A possible change would be to detect if the hand is open or closed to enable the Touch Down or Touch Up.kinectPainter: kinect paint projectLiteQuery: Lite Query is an implementation of the Query Object Pattern that will help you to build the queries in the Frontend layer in a way that will be independent from the ORM used in Data Access. The object is translated in the language of the ORM framework using Query Translators. This version comes with translators for Entity Framework and NHibernate.octoInstall: octoInstall is a fast and easy to operate installer and updater utility. For updating it uses a binary compare techology, that creates very small update packages to patch software from one version to another and saves up to 99% of update size.P7T_Engine: P7T_Engine makes it easier for developers to develop advanced 2D game and also basic 3D games. You'll no longer have to write your own engine for 2D games or write large chunks of code to make your project happen. The entire engine is developed in C++. LUA scripting ability is something that we are looking forward to.Panning Tile Control for Windows Phone 7: The panning tile control mimics the functionality of the Windows Phone 7 music tile: Photos and text slowly pan, scroll and fade. It can be used inside of any WP7 Silverlight app.PerstDemo: This project is to show the large amount of data, which is in the format of XML file on Window Phone 7 using Perst Database for this we convert XML to Perst. Due to large data, it consumes a lot of time in conversion & also if fire queries on the database. So, what can be done to lessen the time consumed. Please, download the project http://perstdemo.codeplex.com/releases/view/68640 and have a look. Waiting for the response, ideas, suggestions....SimplePaxos: Implement a simple paxos protocolSOL Polar Converter: Create optimized polars for Bluewater Racing and Expedition from Sailonline races or text polar dataStructured Web Data Extraction: The dataset used in SIGIR 2011 paperSurveyTemplate: This is just for practising the use of culteInfo class in c#Task Unlocker: A site level feature that provides UI for unclocking tasks locked by workflow upgrade. Why tasks get locked : Explanation of cause http://blogs.code-counsel.net/Wouter/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=118 Inspiration for this feature : Workaround code http://geek.hubkey.com/2007/09/locked-workflow.html Test Project kobi: just for testWindows Azure CDN Helpers: This is a project that helps you quickly utilize the Windows Azure CDN from your ASP.NET MVC website. These helpers will work on sites hosted on and off Windows Azure.WPF Breakout: Remake of the classic Breakout game using WPF. WPFRadio: a WPF Radio Web Player ...

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 18, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 18, 2011Popular ReleasesEffectControls-Silverlight controls with animation effects: EffectControls: EffectControlsMedia Companion: MC 3.408b weekly: Some minor fixes..... Fixed messagebox coming up during batch scrape Added <originaltitle></originaltitle> to movie nfo's - when a new movie is scraped, the original title will be set as the returned title. The end user can of course change the title in MC, however the original title will not change. The original title can be seen by hovering over the movie title in the right pane of the main movie tab. To update all of your current nfo's to add the original title the same as your current ...NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: NLog 2.0 Release Candidate: Release notes for NLog 2.0 RC can be found at http://nlog-project.org/nlog-2-rc-release-notesPowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.5: Changes - VS SDK no longer required to be installed (a bug in v. 1.3.4).Gendering Add-In for Microsoft Office Word 2010: Gendering Add-In: This is the first stable Version of the Gendering Add-In. Unzip the package and start "setup.exe". The .reg file shows how to config an alternate path for suggestion table.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This version adds tool tips. Almost every picture box you mouse over will tell you what item is in that box. I have also cleaned up the GUI a little more to make things easier on my end. There are various bug fixes including ones associated with opening different characters in the same instance of the program. As always, please bring any bugs you find to my attention.CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET - 0.9.7 Beta: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. Samples in <root>\src\Lib\CommonLibrary.NET\Samples CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.7Documentation 6738 6503 New 6535 Enhancements 6583 6737DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.2: Public sub-folders are now monitored for changes as well (thanks to mcm69) Automatic public sync folder detection (thanks to mcm69) Non-Latin and special characters encoded correctly in URLs Pop-ups are now slot-based (use first free slot and will never be overlapped — test it while previewing timeout) Public sync folder setting is hidden when auto-detected Timeout interval is displayed in popup previews A lot of major and minor code refactoring performed .NET Framework 4.0 Client...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.3: Update June 15th Removed "Draw Markers" checkbox from main window because of redundancy/confusing. (Select all or no items from the Settings tab for the same effect.) Fixed Marker preferences not being saved. It is now possible to render more than one map without having to restart the application. World file will not be locked while the world is being rendered. Note: The World Viewer might render an inaccurate map or even crash if Terraria decides to modify the World file during the pro...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1.5 RC: Added Extended Dropdown allows a prompt item to be inserted as first element. RequiredAttribute, if present, trggers if no element is chosen Client side javascript function to set/get the values of DateTimeInput, TypedTextBox, TypedEditDisplay, and to bind/unbind a "change" handler The selected page in the pager is applied the attribute selected-page="selected" that can be used in the definition of CSS rules to style the selected page items controls now interpret a null value as an empr...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.0 CTP 1: Umbraco 5 Community Technology Preview Umbraco 5 will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out our first CTP of version 5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a quick low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video here. What's in the v5 CTP box? This is a preview version of version 5 and includes support for the following familiar Umbr...Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun.Kinect Toolkit: Version 1.0Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor v1.0: The initial release of the Kinect Mouse Cursor project!patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 11 - June 14, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Many code changes: please see the readme.mht for details. New "Client Data Management and Caching" chapter. Updated "Application Notifications" chapter. Updated "Architecture" chapter. Updated "jQuery UI Widget" chapter. Updated "Widget QuickStart" appendix and code. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separat...Orchard Project: Orchard 1.2: Build: 1.2.41 Published: 6/14/2010 How to Install Orchard To install Orchard using Web PI, follow these instructions: http://www.orchardproject.net/docs/Installing-Orchard.ashx. Web PI will detect your hardware environment and install the application. Alternatively, to install the release manually, download the Orchard.Web.1.2.41.zip file. http://orchardproject.net/docs/Manually-installing-Orchard-zip-file.ashx The zip contents are pre-built and ready-to-run. Simply extract the contents o...Snippet Designer: Snippet Designer 1.4.0: Snippet Designer 1.4.0 for Visual Studio 2010 Change logSnippet Explorer ChangesReworked language filter UI to work better in the side bar. Added result count drop down which lets you choose how many results to see. Language filter and result count choices are persisted after Visual Studio is closed. Added file name to search criteria. Search is now case insensitive. Snippet Editor Changes Snippet Editor ChangesAdded menu option for the $end$ symbol which indicates where the c...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.4.1: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation is the best way to detect and redirect mobile devices and their capabilities on ASP.NET and is being used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re highly confident in our software and we recommend all users update to this version. Changes to Version 1.0.4.1Changed the BlackberryHandler and BlackberryVersion6Handler to have equal CONFIDENCE values to ensure they both get a chance at detecting BlackBerry version 4&5 and version 6 devices. Prior to thi...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.06: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta6: ??AcDown?????????????，?????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta6 ?????(imanhua.com)????? ???? ?? ??"????","?????","?????","????"?????? "????"?????"????????"?? ??????????? ?????????????? ?????????????/???? ?? ????Windows 7???????????? ????????? ?? ????????????? ???????/??????????? ???????????? ?? ?? ?????(imanh...Pulse: Pulse Beta 2: - Added new wallpapers provider http://wallbase.cc. Supports english search, multiple keywords* - Improved font rendering in Options window - Added "Set wallpaper as logon background" option* - Fixed crashes if there is no internet connection - Fixed: Rewalls downloads empty images sometimes - Added filters* Note 1: wallbase provider supports only english search. Rewalls provider supports only russian search but Pulse automatically translates your english keyword into russian using Google Tr...New Projects.NET Entities Framework Utils: Project for creating supporting code to work with .NET Entity Framework.A Simple Demo of Industrial Process Monitoring System based on .NET & Arduino: The demo show some key points of .NET 1 .NET WPF 2 WCF 3 Sinverlight 4 ADO.Net The demo is a good sample for learing .NET and developing process monitoring system. The demo get temperture from Arduinot It is also a good Arduin sample.AHtml Pad: AHtml Pad is a powerfull html and css editor. It's made for beginnners and experimented programmers. It's made in vb.net with visual studio 2010Allena la mente: Raccolta di minigames per migliorare Memoria, Riflessi, Logica e Matematica. Applicazione in silverlight per Windows Phone. Carousel TeamAnorexia World: Ich habe ein kleines Project geschrieben dass mit einen MDI Formular eine komplette Office Suite (noch in hartz4) in einen verheint!AutomaSolution - IT Automation made easy!: AutomaSolution is a console application written in C#. It takes a single .xml file as input, and processes each section to perform an automation task. AzureManagmentAPI.NET: .NET Wrapper for Microsoft Windows Azure Service Managment REST API. It's developed in C# and uses .NET 4.0 Framework. More Information about the Windows Azure Service Management REST API can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee460799.aspxCirrus: Projet en C# qui sert au recueillement de données multi-sites.Cruise Control .NET TV: Cruise Control .NET TV puts your project's integration status on a TV and adds coverage graphs generated through NCover.DBML Updater: External tool for Visual Studio which automatically updating DBML files, according to configuration files (XML). You can also specify rules for editing and deleting elements in DBML file. And supports source code generation on the end.EPiServer CMS Page Type Extensions: EPiServer PageTypeExtensions provide additional features related to page types in EPiServer CMS 6. They allow the developer to set restrictions on the number of pages that can be created under a page and also provide page type image preview functionality.Excel add-in library: Create Excel xll add-ins.Gendering Add-In for Microsoft Office Word 2010: Word Add-In that assists user by giving hints to write gender-neutral documents. The current function is a post-processing function to verify a written text against the rules of gender-neutral definition in German Language. The definitions are implemented in form of words and phrases and their gender-neutral replacement as a suggestion. The documentation is written in German. Word Add-In, das eine Unterstützung bietet, einen bereits geschriebenen Text zu überprüfen, nach einem definierten ...Kinductor: Kinductor puts you on the podium and in control of a full symphonic orchestra using just your hands and Kinect.LPFM Last.fm Scrobbler: LPFM Last.fm Scrobbler is a simple .NET API library for scrobbling to the Last.fm web service. It is designed for desktop, web and mobile applications that target the .NET 4 Framework. The library supports the Scrobble and Now Playing functionality of the Last.fm API version 2.0MDB RIA Service Generator: Auto-generates RIA service from a given mdb to create a lightswitch extension.mediaplayer-isen: super projet qui envoie du fat !!! ^^Metodología General Ajustada - MGA: Herramienta tecnológica que apoya la Metodología para la formulación y evaluación de Proyectos de Inversión Pública mejorada en Colombia. Metodología General Ajustada - MGA. Desarrollado en Visual C# 2008 y Base de datos SQL Server 2008.M-i-c-r-o-S-o-f-t-W-M-S: M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8t M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8t M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8tmim: TBAMinecraft data viewing tools: A little toolset for Minecraft server. Contains a basic NBT reader and ingame map viewer.PHPCSERP: PHPCS ERP ????????????????????，???????????PDF???。 ???????????，??，??。 PHPCS ERP ??????????????????。 PHPCS ERP ?????????????，??????????????????????IT?????????????。 ??????????????? PHPCS ERP。 ??????IT?????????，??????????。Rangers Build Customization Guide: Scenario based and hands-on guidance for the customization and deployment of TFS Builds activities such as versioning, code signing, branching. Rangers Lab Management Guide: Practical and scenario-based guidance, backed by custom VM Template automation for reference environments Snail-Blog: ??asp.net?????SSIS Extensions - SFTP Task, PGP Task, Zip Task: A set of custom tasks to extend SSIS. Includes a SFTP task, PGP encryption task and zip/unzip task.stage: asp.net opensource testprojectTimeBook: Project Description A simple asp.net mvc project to manage time. The main reason for the project is to learn asp.net mvc. The end product will have the following features. Multiple companies/individuals can sign up. Each company/individual can add/remove/update their clients. UMDH Tracer: Tool that generates & exploits UMDH Dump so that leaks detection is easier.

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• Abstracting functionality

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/08/22/abstracting-functionality.aspxWhat is more important than data? Functionality. Yes, I strongly believe we should switch to a functionality over data mindset in programming. Or actually switch back to it. Focus on functionality Functionality once was at the core of software development. Back when algorithms were the first thing you heard about in CS classes. Sure, data structures, too, were important - but always from the point of view of algorithms. (Niklaus Wirth gave one of his books the title “Algorithms + Data Structures” instead of “Data Structures + Algorithms” for a reason.) The reason for the focus on functionality? Firstly, because software was and is about doing stuff. Secondly because sufficient performance was hard to achieve, and only thirdly memory efficiency. But then hardware became more powerful. That gave rise to a new mindset: object orientation. And with it functionality was devalued. Data took over its place as the most important aspect. Now discussions revolved around structures motivated by data relationships. (John Beidler gave his book the title “Data Structures and Algorithms: An Object Oriented Approach” instead of the other way around for a reason.) Sure, this data could be embellished with functionality. But nevertheless functionality was second. When you look at (domain) object models what you mostly find is (domain) data object models. The common object oriented approach is: data aka structure over functionality. This is true even for the most modern modeling approaches like Domain Driven Design. Look at the literature and what you find is recommendations on how to get data structures right: aggregates, entities, value objects. I´m not saying this is what object orientation was invented for. But I´m saying that´s what I happen to see across many teams now some 25 years after object orientation became mainstream through C++, Delphi, and Java. But why should we switch back? Because software development cannot become truly agile with a data focus. The reason for that lies in what customers need first: functionality, behavior, operations. To be clear, that´s not why software is built. The purpose of software is to be more efficient than the alternative. Money mainly is spent to get a certain level of quality (e.g. performance, scalability, security etc.). But without functionality being present, there is nothing to work on the quality of. What customers want is functionality of a certain quality. ASAP. And tomorrow new functionality needs to be added, existing functionality needs to be changed, and quality needs to be increased. No customer ever wanted data or structures. Of course data should be processed. Data is there, data gets generated, transformed, stored. But how the data is structured for this to happen efficiently is of no concern to the customer. Ask a customer (or user) whether she likes the data structured this way or that way. She´ll say, “I don´t care.” But ask a customer (or user) whether he likes the functionality and its quality this way or that way. He´ll say, “I like it” (or “I don´t like it”). Build software incrementally From this very natural focus of customers and users on functionality and its quality follows we should develop software incrementally. That´s what Agility is about. Deliver small increments quickly and often to get frequent feedback. That way less waste is produced, and learning can take place much easier (on the side of the customer as well as on the side of developers). An increment is some added functionality or quality of functionality.[1] So as it turns out, Agility is about functionality over whatever. But software developers’ thinking is still stuck in the object oriented mindset of whatever over functionality. Bummer. I guess that (at least partly) explains why Agility always hits a glass ceiling in projects. It´s a clash of mindsets, of cultures. Driving software development by demanding small increases in functionality runs against thinking about software as growing (data) structures sprinkled with functionality. (Excuse me, if this sounds a bit broad-brush. But you get my point.) The need for abstraction In the end there need to be data structures. Of course. Small and large ones. The phrase functionality over data does not deny that. It´s not functionality instead of data or something. It´s just over, i.e. functionality should be thought of first. It´s a tad more important. It´s what the customer wants. That´s why we need a way to design functionality. Small and large. We need to be able to think about functionality before implementing it. We need to be able to reason about it among team members. We need to be able to communicate our mental models of functionality not just by speaking about them, but also on paper. Otherwise reasoning about it does not scale. We learned thinking about functionality in the small using flow charts, Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams, pseudo code, or UML sequence diagrams. That´s nice and well. But it does not scale. You can use these tools to describe manageable algorithms. But it does not work for the functionality triggered by pressing the “1-Click Order” on an amazon product page for example. There are several reasons for that, I´d say. Firstly, the level of abstraction over code is negligible. It´s essentially non-existent. Drawing a flow chart or writing pseudo code or writing actual code is very, very much alike. All these tools are about control flow like code is.[2] In addition all tools are computationally complete. They are about logic which is expressions and especially control statements. Whatever you code in Java you can fully (!) describe using a flow chart. And then there is no data. They are about control flow and leave out the data altogether. Thus data mostly is assumed to be global. That´s shooting yourself in the foot, as I hope you agree. Even if it´s functionality over data that does not mean “don´t think about data”. Right to the contrary! Functionality only makes sense with regard to data. So data needs to be in the picture right from the start - but it must not dominate the thinking. The above tools fail on this. Bottom line: So far we´re unable to reason in a scalable and abstract manner about functionality. That´s why programmers are so driven to start coding once they are presented with a problem. Programming languages are the only tool they´ve learned to use to reason about functional solutions. Or, well, there might be exceptions. Mathematical notation and SQL may have come to your mind already. Indeed they are tools on a higher level of abstraction than flow charts etc. That´s because they are declarative and not computationally complete. They leave out details - in order to deliver higher efficiency in devising overall solutions. We can easily reason about functionality using mathematics and SQL. That´s great. Except for that they are domain specific languages. They are not general purpose. (And they don´t scale either, I´d say.) Bummer. So to be more precise we need a scalable general purpose tool on a higher than code level of abstraction not neglecting data. Enter: Flow Design. Abstracting functionality using data flows I believe the solution to the problem of abstracting functionality lies in switching from control flow to data flow. Data flow very naturally is not about logic details anymore. There are no expressions and no control statements anymore. There are not even statements anymore. Data flow is declarative by nature. With data flow we get rid of all the limiting traits of former approaches to modeling functionality. In addition, nomen est omen, data flows include data in the functionality picture. With data flows, data is visibly flowing from processing step to processing step. Control is not flowing. Control is wherever it´s needed to process data coming in. That´s a crucial difference and needs some rewiring in your head to be fully appreciated.[2] Since data flows are declarative they are not the right tool to describe algorithms, though, I´d say. With them you don´t design functionality on a low level. During design data flow processing steps are black boxes. They get fleshed out during coding. Data flow design thus is more coarse grained than flow chart design. It starts on a higher level of abstraction - but then is not limited. By nesting data flows indefinitely you can design functionality of any size, without losing sight of your data. Data flows scale very well during design. They can be used on any level of granularity. And they can easily be depicted. Communicating designs using data flows is easy and scales well, too. The result of functional design using data flows is not algorithms (too low level), but processes. Think of data flows as descriptions of industrial production lines. Data as material runs through a number of processing steps to be analyzed, enhances, transformed. On the top level of a data flow design might be just one processing step, e.g. “execute 1-click order”. But below that are arbitrary levels of flows with smaller and smaller steps. That´s not layering as in “layered architecture”, though. Rather it´s a stratified design à la Abelson/Sussman. Refining data flows is not your grandpa´s functional decomposition. That was rooted in control flows. Refining data flows does not suffer from the limits of functional decomposition against which object orientation was supposed to be an antidote. Summary I´ve been working exclusively with data flows for functional design for the past 4 years. It has changed my life as a programmer. What once was difficult is now easy. And, no, I´m not using Clojure or F#. And I´m not a async/parallel execution buff. Designing the functionality of increments using data flows works great with teams. It produces design documentation which can easily be translated into code - in which then the smallest data flow processing steps have to be fleshed out - which is comparatively easy. Using a systematic translation approach code can mirror the data flow design. That way later on the design can easily be reproduced from the code if need be. And finally, data flow designs play well with object orientation. They are a great starting point for class design. But that´s a story for another day. To me data flow design simply is one of the missing links of systematic lightweight software design. There are also other artifacts software development can produce to get feedback, e.g. process descriptions, test cases. But customers can be delighted more easily with code based increments in functionality. ? No, I´m not talking about the endless possibilities this opens for parallel processing. Data flows are useful independently of multi-core processors and Actor-based designs. That´s my whole point here. Data flows are good for reasoning and evolvability. So forget about any special frameworks you might need to reap benefits from data flows. None are necessary. Translating data flow designs even into plain of Java is possible. ?

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