customer protection - Page 219

Forms Authentication logs out very quickly , locally works fine !!!

- by user319075

Hello to all, There's a problem that i am facing with my hosting company, I use a project that uses FormsAuthentication and the problem is that though it successfully logs in, it logs out VERY QUICKLY, and i don't know what could be the cause of that, so in my web.config file i added those lines: <authentication mode="Forms" > <forms name="Nadim" loginUrl="Login.aspx" defaultUrl="Default.aspx" protection="All" path="/" requireSSL="false"/> </authentication> <authorization> <deny users ="?" /> </authorization> <sessionState mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=localhost:42424" cookieless="false" timeout="1440"> </sessionState> and this is the code i use in my custom login page : protected void PasswordCustomValidator_ServerValidate(object source, ServerValidateEventArgs args) { try { UsersSqlDataSource.SelectParameters.Clear(); UsersSqlDataSource.SelectCommand = "Select * From Admins Where AdminID='" + IDTextBox.Text + "' and Password='" + PassTextBox.Text + "'"; UsersSqlDataSource.SelectCommandType = SqlDataSourceCommandType.Text; UsersSqlDataSource.DataSourceMode = SqlDataSourceMode.DataReader; reader = (SqlDataReader)UsersSqlDataSource.Select(DataSourceSelectArguments.Empty); if (reader.HasRows) { reader.Read(); if (RememberCheckBox.Checked == true) Page.Response.Cookies["Admin"].Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(5); args.IsValid = true; string userData = "ApplicationSpecific data for this user."; FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket1 = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, IDTextBox.Text, System.DateTime.Now, System.DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(30), true, userData, FormsAuthentication.FormsCookiePath); string encTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket1); Response.Cookies.Add(new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encTicket)); Response.Redirect(FormsAuthentication.GetRedirectUrl(IDTextBox.Text, RememberCheckBox.Checked)); //FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(IDTextBox.Text, RememberCheckBox.Checked); } else args.IsValid = false; } catch (SqlException ex) { ErrorLabel.Text = ex.Message; } catch (InvalidOperationException) { args.IsValid = false; } catch (Exception ex) { ErrorLabel.Text = ex.Message; } Also you will find that line of code: FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(IDTextBox.Text, RememberCheckBox.Checked); is commented because i thought there might be something wrong with the ticket when i log in , so i created it manually , every thing i know i tried but nothing worked, so does anyone have any idea what is the problem ? Thanks in advance, Baher.

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Doubt about adopting CI (Hudson) into an existing automated Build Process (phing, svn)

- by maraspin

OUR CURRENT BUILD PROCESS We're a small team of developers (2 to 4 people depending on project) who currently use Phing to deploy code to a staging environment, before going live. We keep our code in a SVN repo, where the trunk holds current active development and, at certain times, we do make branches that we test and then (if successful), tag and export to the staging env. If everything goes well there too, we finally deploy'em in production servers. Actions are highly automated, but always triggered by human intervention. THE DOUBT We'd now like to introduce Continuous Integration (with Hudson) in the process; unfortunately we have a few doubts about activity syncing, since we're afraid that CI could somewhat interfere with our build process and cause certain problems. Considering that an automated CI cycle has a certain frequency of automatically executed actions, we in fact only see 2 possible cases for "integration", each with its own problems: Case A: each CI cycle produces a new branch with its own name; we do use such a name to manually (through phing as it happens now) export the code from the SVN to the staging env. The problem I see here is that (unless specific countermeasures are taken) the number of branches we have can grow out of control (let's suppose we commit often, so that we have a fresh new build/branch every N minutes). Case B: each CI cycle creates a new branch named 'current', for instance, which is tagged with a unique name only when we manually decide to export it to staging; the current branch, at any case is then deleted, as soon as the next CI cycle starts up. The problem we see here is that a new cycle could kick in while someone is tagging/exporting the 'current' branch to staging thus creating an inconsistent build (but maybe here I'm just too pessimist, since I confess I don't know whether SVN offers some built-in protection against this). With all this being said, I was wondering if anyone with similar experiences could be so kind to give us some hints on the subject, since none of the approaches depicted above looks completely satisfing to us. Is there something important we just completely left off in the overall picture? Thanks for your attention &, in advance, for your help!

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Facebook Authentication Error when using apps.facebook.com as URL

- by Adi Mathur

I am trying to login on my website using Facebook Authentication and it works fine . How ever when i access the Application by using https://apps.facebook.com/myApp then i get an error The state does not match. You may be a victim of CSRF Here is the code that i am using from facebook , I think there is a problem in $my_url <?php $app_id = "YOUR_APP_ID"; $app_secret = "YOUR_APP_SECRET"; $my_url = "https://www.example.com/login.php"; session_start(); $code = $_REQUEST["code"]; if(empty($code)) { $_SESSION['state'] = md5(uniqid(rand(), TRUE)); //CSRF protection $dialog_url = "https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=" . $app_id . "&redirect_uri=" . urlencode($my_url) . "&state=" . $_SESSION['state']; echo("<script> top.location.href='" . $dialog_url . "'</script>"); } if($_REQUEST['state'] == $_SESSION['state']) { $token_url = "https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?" . "client_id=" . $app_id . "&redirect_uri=" . urlencode($my_url) . "&client_secret=" . $app_secret . "&code=" . $code; $response = file_get_contents($token_url); $params = null; parse_str($response, $params); $graph_url = "https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=" . $params['access_token']; $user = json_decode(file_get_contents($graph_url)); echo("Hello " . $user->name); } else { echo("The state does not match. You may be a victim of CSRF."); } ?>

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Which third party website thumbnailing services do you use?

- by Ben Delarre

I've got a requirement for showing thumbnails of arbitrary websites. I need to be able to show small thumbnails (120px by 90px), and larger thumbnails of around 480px wide. I'll need to specify the queue and invalid placeholder images and preferably have a pingback when the queued images are processed so I can respond appropriately. I'd also need a simple API I can use either directly embedded in my HTML, or from a simple web request to queue the images. I've been looking at various services ranging from low-fi services, to large scale ones - here's some examples: www.bitpixels.com Uses Google AppEngine, seems like a prototype or a toy. Free! www.websnapr.com Tried using this, made a free account and requested a thumbnail. Waited a few minutes and refreshed a couple of times, and ended up having the account banned. Free is tricky yes, but if I can't try it out successfully I'm disinclined to pay. www.shrinktheweb.com Free account seems to be very quick. Lots of documentation on the site, and even covers local caching of the images to your own server (documentation mostly in PHP). Quality of thumbnails look good, and there appear to be sufficient options for setting thumbnail placeholder images and parameters for altering how the thumbnailing is done. Also supports large 'screenshots' of URLs - very useful for me. Discovered the PRO pricing is an à la carte menu, allowing me to select just the features I want and keep the monthly cost low. Excellent stuff, have decided to use this service. www.thumbalizr.com Good coverage of thumbnail sizes and control options - even allowing specification for browser width when thumbnailing. No ping-back, but I can live without that. Supports local caching of images with PHP API, would prefer .NET, but can port it if necessary. Looks like a fairly professional service but seems fairly expensive for the number of thumbnails you get to generate. apologies for lack of proper linking - spam protection! I'm not entirely convinced by any of them, and since this will be a long term service I'd like some stability and support. I'm willing to pay for the service, but I'd want something that fulfills most if not all of my requirements for that. I should also mention that we're hosted on Windows under IIS, so local solutions involving Xvfb and the like sadly can't be used for this project. So my question is: what services do you use? How have they panned out, are you happy with them?

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realtime diagnostics

- by Ion Todirel

I have an application which has a loop, part of a "Scheduler", which runs at all time and is the heart of the application. Pretty much like a game loop, just that my application is a WPF application and it's not a game. Naturally the application does logging at many points, but the Scheduler does some sensitive monitoring, and sometimes it's impossible just from the logs to tell what may have gotten wrong (and by wrong I don't mean exceptions) or the current status. Because Scheduler's inner loop runs at short intervals, you can't do file I/O-based logging (or using the Event Viewer) in there. First, you need to watch it in real-time, and secondly the log file would grow in size very fast. So I was thinking of ways to show this data to the user in the realtime, some things I considered: Display the data in realtime in the UI Use AllocConsole/WriteConsole to display this information in a console Use a different console application which would display this information, communicate between the Scheduler and the console app using pipes or other IPC techniques Use Windows' Performance Monitor and somehow feed it with this information ETW Displaying in the UI would have its issues. First it doesn't integrate with the UI I had in mind for my application, and I don't want to complicate the UI just for this. This diagnostics would only happen rarely. Secondly, there is going to be some non-trivial data protection, as the Scheduler has it's own thread. A separate console window would work probably, but I'm still worried if it's not too much threshold. Allocating my own console, as this is a windows app, would probably be better than a different console application (3), as I don't need to worry about IPC communication, and non-blocking communication. However a user could close the console I allocated, and it would be problematic in that case. With a separate process you don't have to worry about it. Assuming there is an API for Performance Monitor, it wouldn't be integrated too well with my app or apparent to the users. Using ETW also doesn't solve anything, just a random idea, I still need to display this information somehow. What others think, would there be other ways I missed?

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Where is the method call in the EXE file?

- by Victor Hurdugaci

Introduction After watching this video from LIDNUG, about .NET code protection http://secureteam.net/lidnug_recording/Untitled.swf (especially from 46:30 to 57:30), I would to locate the call to a MessageBox.Show in an EXE I created. The only logic in my "TrialApp.exe" is: public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { MessageBox.Show("This is trial app"); } } Compiled on the Release configuration: http://rapidshare.com/files/392503054/TrialApp.exe.html What I do to locate the call Run the application in WinDBG and break after the message box appears. Get the CLR stack with !clrstack: 0040e840 5e21350b [InlinedCallFrame: 0040e840] System.Windows.Forms.SafeNativeMethods.MessageBox(System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef, System.String, System.String, Int32) 0040e894 5e21350b System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.ShowCore(System.Windows.Forms.IWin32Window, System.String, System.String, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxDefaultButton, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxOptions, Boolean) 0040e898 002701f0 [InlinedCallFrame: 0040e898] 0040e934 002701f0 TrialApp.Form1.Form1_Load(System.Object, System.EventArgs) Get the MethodDesc structure (using the address of Form1_Load) !ip2md 002701f0 MethodDesc: 001762f8 Method Name: TrialApp.Form1.Form1_Load(System.Object, System.EventArgs) Class: 00171678 MethodTable: 00176354 mdToken: 06000005 Module: 00172e9c IsJitted: yes CodeAddr: 002701d0 Transparency: Critical Source file: D:\temp\TrialApp\TrialApp\Form1.cs @ 22 Dump the IL of this method (by MethodDesc) !dumpil 001762f8 IL_0000: ldstr "This is trial app" IL_0005: call System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox::Show IL_000a: pop IL_000b: ret So, as the video mentioned, the call to to Show is 5 bytes from the beginning of the method implementation. Now I open CFFExplorer (just like in the video) and get the RVA of the Form1_Load method: 00002083. After this, I go to Address Converter (again in CFF Explorer) and navigate to offset 00002083. There we have: 32 72 01 00 00 70 28 16 00 00 0A 26 2A 7A 03 2C 13 02 7B 02 00 00 04 2C 0B 02 7B 02 00 00 04 6F 17 00 00 0A 02 03 28 18 00 00 0A 2A 00 03 30 04 00 67 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 28 19 00 00 0A 02 In the video is mentioned that the first 12 bytes are for the method header so I skip them 2A 7A 03 2C 13 02 7B 02 00 00 04 2C 0B 02 7B 02 00 00 04 6F 17 00 00 0A 02 03 28 18 00 00 0A 2A 00 03 30 04 00 67 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 28 19 00 00 0A 02 5 bytes from the beginning of the implementation should be the opcode for method call (28). Unfortunately, is not there. 02 7B 02 00 00 04 2C 0B 02 7B 02 00 00 04 6F 17 00 00 0A 02 03 28 18 00 00 0A 2A 00 03 30 04 00 67 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 28 19 00 00 0A 02 Questions: What am I doing wrong? Why there is no method call at that position in the file? Or maybe the video is missing some information... Why the guy in that video replaces the call with 9 zeros?

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FormsAuthentication redirecting to login page when visiting root of website

- by Ryan Lattimer

I wanted to use FormsAuthentication to secure my static files as well on my site, so I followed the instructions located here http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/244/how-to-take-advantage-of-the-iis7-integrated-pipeline/ under title "Enabling Forms Authentication for the Entire Application". Now though, when I try to visit the site by going directly to http://www.mysite.com I get redirected to http://www.mysite.com/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f instead of it using my DefaultDocument I have set. I can go to my default document by just visiting http://www.mysite.com/Home.aspx without any issues because it is set to allow anonymous access. Is there something I need to add into my web.config file to make iis7 allow anonymous access to the root? I tried adding with anonymous access but no such luck. Any help would be much appreciated. Both Home and the Login form allow anonymous. <location path="Home.aspx"> <system.web> <authorization> <allow users="*" /> </authorization> </system.web> </location> <location path="Login.aspx"> <system.web> <authorization> <allow users="*" /> </authorization> </system.web> </location> Login form is set as the loginUrl <authentication mode="Forms"> <forms protection="All" loginUrl="Login.aspx"> </forms> </authentication> Default document is set as Home.aspx <defaultDocument> <files> <add value="Home.aspx" /> </files> </defaultDocument> I have not removed any of the iis7 default documents. However, Home.aspx is first in the priority.

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Can I create a custom class that inherits from a strongly typed DataRow?

- by Calvin Fisher

I'm working on a huge, old project with a lot of brittle code, some of which has been around since the .NET 1.0 era, and it has been and will be worked on by other people... so I'd like to change as little as possible. I have one project in my solution that contains DataSet.xsd. This project compiles to a separate assembly (Data.dll). The database schema includes several tables arranged more or less hierarchically, but the only way the tables are actually linked together is through joins. I can get, e.g. DepartmentRow and EmployeeRow objects from the autogenerated code. EmployeeRow contains information from the employee's corresponding DepartmentRow through a join. I'm making a new report to view multiple departments and all their employees. If I use the existing data access scheme, all I will be able to get is a spreadsheet-like output where each employee is represented on one line, with department information repeated over and over in its appropriate columns. E.g.: Department1...Employee1... Department1...Employee2... Department2...Employee3... But what the customer would like is to have each department render like a heading, with a list of employees beneath each. E.g.: - Department1... Employee1... Employee2... + Department2... I'm trying to do this by inheriting hierarchical objects from the autogenerated Row objects. E.g.: public class Department : DataSet.DepartmentRow { public List<Employee> Employees; } That way I could nest the data in the report by using a collection of Department objects as the DataSource, each of which will put its list of Employees in a subreport. The problem is that this gives me a The type Data.DataSet.DepartmentRow has no constructors defined error. And when I try to make a constructor, e.g. public class Department : DataSet.DepartmentRow { private Department() { } public List<Employee> Employees; } I get a 'Data.DataSet.DepartmentRow(System.Data.DataRowBuilder)' is inaccessible due to its protection level. error in addition to the first one. Is there a way to accomplish what I'm trying to do? Or is there something else I should be trying entirely?

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Need Help on OAuthException Code 2500

- by Deepak

I am trying to develop an Facebook application (apps.facebook.com/some_app) using PHP where I need to present some information based on user's music interests. I found that its under "user_likes games". My problems are as follows: To gain access, I have implemented the oauth dialog method as suggested in API in my index page. $auth_url = "http://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=" . $app_id . "&redirect_uri=" . urlencode($canvas_page) ."&scope=user_likes"; After successful authorization I come back to index page with "code" as parameters. http://MY_CANVAS_PAGE/?code=some base64 encoded letters Firstly I don't know if I need access_token just to read user's music interests but I have tried all the methods suggested. I couldn't move forward from this point I have a code like this (in my index page), which redirects for authorization if code parameters is not set. if(empty($code) && !isset($_REQUEST['error'])) { $_SESSION['state'] = md5(uniqid(rand(), TRUE)); //CSRF protection echo("<script> top.location.href='" . $auth_url . "'</script>"); } Currently I am just trying to get user's public information here but with no success. I have tried the signed_request method as suggested but no success $signed_request = $_REQUEST["signed_request"]; list($encoded_sig, $payload) = explode('.', $signed_request, 2); $data = json_decode(base64_decode(strtr($payload, '-_', '+/')), true); echo ("Welcome User: " . $data["user_id"]); Also tried the code found in http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/500/ but I am getting error when trying to get the debug info using print_r($decoded_response); stdClass Object ( [error] => stdClass Object ( [message] => An active access token must be used to query information about the current user. [type] => OAuthException [code] => 2500 ) ) To get user's public info, I have tried also the suggested example in PHP SDK $facebook = new Facebook(array( 'appId' => MY_APP_ID, //registered facebook APP ID 'secret' => MY_SECRET, //secret key for APP )); $fb_user = $facebook->getUser(); if($fb_user){ try { $user_profile = $facebook->api('/me'); echo $user_profile['email']; } catch(FacebookApiException $e) { $fb_user = null; } } But no success. Can somebody explain me why I am getting this error and how to access the user's music interest properly. Probably I misunderstood the API. Thanks Deepak

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ASP.NET 2.0 and 4.0 seem to treat the root url differently in Forms Authentication

- by Kev

If have the following web.config: <configuration> <system.web> <authentication mode="Forms"> <forms name="MembershipCookie" loginUrl="Login.aspx" protection="All" timeout="525600" slidingExpiration="true" enableCrossAppRedirects="true" path="/" /> </authentication> <authorization> <deny users="?" /> </authorization> </system.web> <location path="Default.aspx"> <system.web> <authorization> <allow users="*"/> </authorization> </system.web> </location> </configuration> The application is an ASP.NET 2.0 application running on Windows 2008R2/IIS7.5. If the site's application pool is configured to run ASP.NET 2.0 and I browse to http://example.com then Default.aspx is rendered as you'd expect from the rules above. However if the application pool is set to run ASP.NET 4.0 I am redirected to the login page. If I explicitly specify http://example.com/default.aspx then all is good and default.aspx renders. I've tried rewriting / -> /default.aspx (using IIS UrlRewriter 2.0) but the result is still the same, I get kicked to the login page. I've also tried this with an ASP.NET 4.0 application with the same result (which is where the problem initially arose). The reason I tried this with a 2.0 application was to see if there was a change in behaviour, and it seems that / is handled differently in 4.0. So to summarise, using the configuration above the following is observed: ASP.NET Version Url Behaviour ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 http://example.com Renders Default.aspx 2.0 http://example.com/Default.aspx Renders Default.aspx 4.0 http://example.com Redirects to Login.aspx 4.0 http://example.com/Default.aspx Renders Default.aspx Is this a bug/breaking change or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

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How to Sync CI (Hudson) Activity into an existing automated Build Process (phing, svn)?

- by maraspin

OUR CURRENT BUILD PROCESS We're a small team of developers (2 to 4 people depending on project) who currently use Phing to deploy code to a staging environment, before going live. We keep our code in a SVN repo, where the trunk holds current active development and, at certain times, we do make branches that we test and then (if successful), tag and export to the staging env. If everything goes well there too, we finally deploy'em in production servers. Actions are highly automated, but always triggered by human intervention. THE DOUBT We'd now like to introduce Continuous Integration (with Hudson) in the process; unfortunately we have a few doubts about activity syncing, since we're afraid that CI could somewhat interfere with our build process and cause certain problems. Considering that an automated CI cycle has a certain frequency of automatically executed actions, we see 2 possible cases for "integration", each with its own problems: Case A: each CI cycle produces a new branch with its own name; we do use such a name to manually (through phing as it happens now) export the code from the SVN to the staging env. The problem I see here is that (unless specific countermeasures are taken - IE deletion) the number of branches we have can easily grow out of control (let's suppose we commit often, so that we have a fresh new build/branch every N minutes). Case B: each CI cycle creates a new branch named 'current', which is then tagged with a unique name only when we manually decide to export it to staging; the current branch, at any case is then deleted, as soon as the next CI cycle starts up. The problem we see here is that a new cycle could kick in while someone is tagging/exporting the 'current' branch to staging thus creating an inconsistent build (but maybe here I'm just too pessimist, since I confess I don't know whether SVN offers some built-in protection against this). With all this being said, I was wondering if anyone with similar experiences could be so kind to give us some hints on the subject, since none of the approaches depicted above looks completely satisfing to us. Is there something important we just completely left off in the overall picture? Thanks for your attention & (in advance) for your help!

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MVC 3 ModelView passing parameters between view & controller

- by Tobias Vandenbempt

I've been playing with MVC 3 in a test project and have the following issue. I have Group & Subscriber entities and those are coupled through a SubscriberGroup table. Using the DetailView of Group I open a view of SubscriberGroup containing all subscribers. This list has the option to filter. So far it all works, however when I call the AddToGroup method on the controller it fails. Specifically it goes into the method but doesn't pass the subscriberCheckedModels list. Am I doing something wrong? View: SubscriberGroup Index.aspx <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Mail.Models.SubscriberCheckedListViewModel>" %> … <h2 class="common-box-title"> Add Subscribers to Group</h2> <p> <% using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "SubscriberGroup")) { %> <input name="filter" id="filter" type="text" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" /> <%} %> </p> <% using (Html.BeginForm("AddToGroup", "SubscriberGroup", Model,FormMethod.Get, null)) { %> <fieldset> <div style="display: inline-block; width: 70%; vertical-align: top;"> <% if (Model.subscribers.Count() != 0) { %> <table class="hor-minimalist-b"> <tr> <th> Add To Group </th> <th> Full Name </th> <th> Email </th> <th> Customer </th> </tr> <% foreach (var item in Model.subscribers) { %> <tr> <td> <%= Html.CheckBoxFor(modelItem => item.AddToGroup)%> </td> <td> <%= Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.subscriber.LastName)%> <%= Html.ActionLink(item.subscriber.FirstName + " " + item.subscriber.LastName, "Details", new { id = item.subscriber.SubscriberID })%> </td> <td> <%: Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.subscriber.Email)%> </td> <td> <%: Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.subscriber.Customer.Company)%> <%= Html.HiddenFor(modelItem => item.subscriber) %> </td> </tr> <% } %> <% ViewBag.subscribers = Model.subscribers; %> probeersel <%= Html.HiddenFor(model => model.subscribers) %> probeersel </table> <%} %> <%else { %> <p> No subscribers found.</p> <%} %> <input type="submit" value="Add Subscribers" /> </div> </fieldset> <%} %> Controller: SubscriberGroupController using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Web.Mvc; using System.Web.Security; using Mail.Models; namespace Mail.Controllers { public class SubscriberGroupController : Controller { private int groupID; private MailDBEntities db = new MailDBEntities(); // // GET: /SubscriberGroup/ public ActionResult Index(int id) { groupID = id; MembershipUser myObject = Membership.GetUser(); Guid UserID = Guid.Parse(myObject.ProviderUserKey.ToString()); UserCustomer usercustomer = db.UserCustomers.Single(s => s.UserID == UserID); var subscribers = from subscriber in db.Subscribers where (subscriber.CustomerID == usercustomer.CustomerID) | (subscriber.CustomerID == 0) select new SubscriberCheckedModel { subscriber = subscriber, AddToGroup = false }; SubscriberCheckedListViewModel test = new SubscriberCheckedListViewModel(); test.subscribers = subscribers; return View(test); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Index(string filter) { MembershipUser myObject = Membership.GetUser(); Guid UserID = Guid.Parse(myObject.ProviderUserKey.ToString()); UserCustomer usercustomer = db.UserCustomers.Single(s => s.UserID == UserID); var subscribers2 = from subscriber in db.Subscribers where ((subscriber.FirstName.Contains(filter)|| subscriber.LastName.Contains(filter)) && (subscriber.CustomerID == usercustomer.CustomerID || subscriber.CustomerID == 0)) select new SubscriberCheckedModel { subscriber = subscriber, AddToGroup = false }; SubscriberCheckedListViewModel test = new SubscriberCheckedListViewModel(); test.subscribers = subscribers2.ToList(); return View(test); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult AddToGroup(SubscriberCheckedListViewModel test) { //test is null return RedirectToAction("Details", "Group", new { id = groupID }); } } } ViewModel: SubscriberGroupModel using System.Collections.Generic; using Mail; namespace Mail.Models { public class SubscriberCheckedModel { public Subscriber subscriber { get; set; } public bool AddToGroup { get; set; } } public class SubscriberCheckedListViewModel { public IEnumerable<SubscriberCheckedModel> subscribers { get; set; } } }

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safe dereferencing and deletion

- by serejko

Hi, I'm relatively new to C++ and OOP in general and currently trying to make such a class that allows to dereference and delete a dead or invalid pointer without any care of having undefined behavior or program fault in result, and I want to ask you is it a good idea and is there something similar which is already implemented by someone else? or maybe I'm doing something completely wrong? I've just started making it and here is the code I currently have: template<class T> class SafeDeref { public: T& operator *() { hash_set<T*>::iterator it = theStore.find(reinterpret_cast<T*>(ptr)); if (it != theStore.end()) return *this; return theDefaultObject; } T* operator ->() { hash_set<T*>::iterator it = theStore.find(reinterpret_cast<T*>(ptr)); if (it != theStore.end()) return this; return &theDefaultObject; } void* operator new(size_t size) { void* ptr = malloc(size * sizeof(T)); if (ptr != 0) theStore.insert(reinterpret_cast<T*>(ptr)); return ptr; } void operator delete(void* ptr) { hash_set<T*>::iterator it = theStore.find(reinterpret_cast<T*>(ptr)); if (it != theStore.end()) { theStore.erase(it); free(ptr); } } protected: static bool isInStore(T* ptr) { return theStore.find(ptr) != theStore.end(); } private: static T theDefaultObject; static hash_set<T*> theStore; }; The idea is that each class with the safe dereference should be inherited from it like this: class Foo : public SafeDeref<Foo> { void doSomething(); }; So... Any advices? Thanks in advance. P.S. If you're wondering why I need this... well, I'm creating a set of native functions for some scripting environment, and all of them use pointers to internally allocated objects as handles to them and they're able to delete them as well (input data can be wrong), so this is kinda protection from damaging host application's memory And I really sorry for my bad English

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Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

- by Asian Angel

This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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CascadingDropDown jQuery Plugin for ASP.NET MVC

- by rajbk

CascadingDropDown is a jQuery plugin that can be used by a select list to get automatic population using AJAX. A sample ASP.NET MVC project is attached at the bottom of this post. Usage The code below shows two select lists : <select id="customerID" name="customerID"> <option value="ALFKI">Maria Anders</option> <option value="ANATR">Ana Trujillo</option> <option value="ANTON">Antonio Moreno</option> </select> <select id="orderID" name="orderID"> </select> When a customer is selected in the first select list, the second list will auto populate itself with the following code: $("#orderID").CascadingDropDown("#customerID", '/Sales/AsyncOrders'); Internally, an AJAX post is made to ‘/Sales/AsyncOrders’ with the post body containing customerID=[selectedCustomerID]. This executes the action AsyncOrders on the SalesController with signature AsyncOrders(string customerID). The AsyncOrders method returns JSON which is then used to populate the select list. The JSON format expected is shown below : [{ "Text": "John", "Value": "10326" }, { "Text": "Jane", "Value": "10801" }] Details $(targetID).CascadingDropDown(sourceID, url, settings) targetID The ID of the select list that will auto populate. sourceID The ID of the select list, which, on change, causes the targetID to auto populate. url The url to post to Options promptText Text for the first item in the select list Default : -- Select -- loadingText Optional text to display in the select list while it is being loaded. Default : Loading.. errorText Optional text to display if an error occurs while populating the list Default: Error loading data. postData Data you want posted to the url in place of the default Example : { postData : { customerID : $(‘#custID’), orderID : $(‘#orderID’) }} will cause customerID=ALFKI&orderID=2343 to be sent as the POST body. Default: A text string obtained by calling serialize on the sourceID onLoading (event) Raised before the list is populated. onLoaded (event) Raised after the list is populated, The code below shows how to “animate” the select list after load. Example using custom options: $("#orderID").CascadingDropDown("#customerID", '/Sales/AsyncOrders', { promptText: '-- Pick an Order--', onLoading: function () { $(this).css("background-color", "#ff3"); }, onLoaded: function () { $(this).animate({ backgroundColor: '#ffffff' }, 300); } }); To return JSON from our action method, we use the Json ActionResult passing in an IEnumerable<SelectListItem>. public ActionResult AsyncOrders(string customerID) { var orders = repository.GetOrders(customerID).ToList().Select(a => new SelectListItem() { Text = a.OrderDate.HasValue ? a.OrderDate.Value.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") : "[ No Date ]", Value = a.OrderID.ToString(), }); return Json(orders); } Sample Project using VS 2010 RTM NorthwindCascading.zip

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

- by Asian Angel

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

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Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group - How SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services could change yo

- by dmccollough

Bio: Corey Roth is a consultant at Stonebridge specializing in SharePoint solutions in the Oil & Gas Industry. He has ten plus years of experience delivering solutions in the energy, travel, advertising and consumer electronics verticals. Corey has always focused on rapid adoption of new Microsoft technologies including Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, LINQ, and SilverLight. He also contributed greatly to the beta phases of Visual Studio 2005. For his contributions, he was awarded the Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE). Corey is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Corey is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia.com) where he blogs about the latest technology and SharePoint. Abstract: How SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services could change your life - The New BDC How many hours have your wasted building simple ASP.NET applications to do nothing more than simple CRUD operations against a database. Many tools have made this easier, but now it's so easy, you'll be up and running in minutes. This session will show you hot easy it is to get started integrating external data from your line of business systems in SharePoint 2010. You will learn how to register an external content type using SharePoint Designer based upon a database table or web service and then build an external list. With external lists, you will see how you can perform CRUD operations on your line of business directly from SharePoint without ever having to do manual configuration in XML files. Finally, we will walk through how to create custom edit forms for your list using InfoPath 2010. Agenda: 6pm - 6:30 Pizza and Mingle - Sponsored by TekSystems 6:30 - 6:45 Announcements 6:45 - 7:45 Presentation! 7:45 - 8:00 Drawings and Door Prizes Location: TCC (Tulsa Community College) Northeast Campus 3727 East Apache Tulsa, OK 74115 918-594-8000 Campus Map | Live | Yahoo | Google | MapQuest Door Prizes: We will be giving away one of each of these: XBox 360 - Halo 3 ODST Telerik Premium Collection ($1300.00 value) ReSharper ($199.00 value) SQLSets ($149.00 value) 64 bit Windows 7 Introducing Windows 7 for Developers Developing Service-Oriented AJAX Applications on the Microsoft Platform Sponsors: Thanks to our sponsors: TekSystems - Thanks for purchasing the Pizza for our meetings. ISOCentric - Thanks for providing us hosting for the groups web site. Tulsa Community College - Thanks for providing us a place to have our meetings. NEVRON - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. INETA.org - For allowing us to be a Charter Member and providing awesome Speakers! PERPETUUM Software - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. Telerik - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. GrapeCity - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. SQLSets - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. K2 - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. Microsoft - For providing us with a lot of support and product giveaways! Orielly books - For providing us with books and discounts. Wrox books - For providing us with books and discounts. Have any special requests? Let us know at this link: http://tinyurl.com/lg5o38. RSVP for this month's meeting by responding to this thread: http://tinyurl.com/yafkzel . (Must be logged in to the site) Be SURE to RSVP no later than Noon on April 12th and you will get an extra entry for the prize drawings! So, do it now, before you forget and miss out! Show up for the first time or bring a new buddy and you both get TWO extra entries!

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The Windows Browser Ballot Screen Offers Web Browser Choice to European Users

- by Matthew Guay

Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of. Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of. They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them. Internet Explorer 8 Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information. Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer. It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability. It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative. Google Chrome 4 Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language. Opera 10.50 Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements. Apple Safari 4 Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility. Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface. It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools. Flock 2.5 Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out. Maxthon 2.5 Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6. Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager. Avant Browser Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online. Sleipnir Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer. FlashPeak SlimBrowser SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box. K-meleon This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you. GreenBrowser GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources. Conclusion The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from. If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it. Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE Windows Update KB976002 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Hidden Files and Folders in Ubuntu File BrowserSet the Default Browser and Email Client in UbuntuAccess Multiple Browsers from Firefox with Browser View Plus 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 Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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Implementing Release Notes in TFS Team Build 2010

- by Jakob Ehn

In TFS Team Build (all versions), each build is associated with changesets and work items. To determine which changesets that should be associated with the current build, Team Build finds the label of the “Last Good Build” an then aggregates all changesets up unitl the label for the current build. Basically this means that if your build is failing, every changeset that is checked in will be accumulated in this list until the build is successful. All well, but there uis a dimension missing here, regarding to releases. Often you can run several release builds until you actually deploy the result of the build to a test or production system. When you do this, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to send the customer a nice release note that contain all work items and changeset since the previously deployed version? At our company, we have developed a Release Repository, which basically is a siple web site with a SQL database as storage. Every time we run a Release Build, the resulting installers, zip-files, sql scripts etc, gets pushed into the release repositor together with the relevant build information. This information contains things such as start time, who triggered the build etc. Also, it contains the associated changesets and work items. When deploying the MSI’s for a new version, we mark the build as Deployed in the release repository. The depoyed status is stored in the release repository database, but it could also have been implemented by setting the Build Quality for that build to Deployed. When generating the release notes, the web site simple runs through each release build back to the previous build that was marked as Deplyed, and aggregates the work items and changesets: Here is a sample screenshot on how this looks for a sample build/application The web site is available both for us and also for the customers and testers, which means that they can easily get the latest version of a particular application and at the same time see what changes are included in this version. There is a lot going on in the Release Build Process that drives this in our TFS 2010 server, but in this post I will show how you can access and read the changeset and work item information in a custom activity. Since Team Build associates changesets and work items for each build, this information is (partially) available inside the build process template. The Associate Changesets and Work Items for non-Shelveset Builds activity (located inside the Try Compile, Test, and Associate Changesets and Work Items activity) defines and populates a variable called associatedWorkItems You can see that this variable is an IList containing instances of the Changeset class (from the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client namespace). Now, if you want to access this variable later on in the build process template, you need to declare a new variable in the corresponding scope and the assign the value to this variable. In this sample, I declared a variable called assocChangesets in the RunAgent sequence, which basically covers the whol compile, test and drop part of the build process: Now, you need to assign the value from the AssociatedChangesets to this variable. This is done using the Assign workflow activity: Now you can add a custom activity any where inside the RunAgent sequence and use this variable. NB: Of course your activity must place somewhere after the variable has been poplated. To finish off, here is code snippet that shows how you can read the changeset and work item information from the variable. First you add an InArgumet on your activity where you can pass i the variable that we defined. [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IList<Changeset>> AssociatedChangesets { get; set; } Then you can traverse all the changesets in the list, and for each changeset use the WorkItems property to get the work items that were associated in that changeset: foreach (Changeset ch in associatedChangesets) { // Add change theChangesets.Add( new AssociatedChangeset(ch.ChangesetId, ch.ArtifactUri, ch.Committer, ch.Comment, ch.ChangesetId)); foreach (var wi in ch.WorkItems) { theWorkItems.Add( new AssociatedWorkItem(wi["System.AssignedTo"].ToString(), wi.Id, wi["System.State"].ToString(), wi.Title, wi.Type.Name, wi.Id, wi.Uri)); } } NB: AssociatedChangeset and AssociatedWorkItem are custom classes that we use internally for storing this information that is eventually pushed to the release repository.

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Windows CE: Using IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID

- by Bruce Eitman

A customer approached me recently to ask if I had any code that demonstrated how to use STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION, which is the data structure used to get the Storage ID from a disk. I didn’t have anything, which of course sends me off writing code and blogging about it. Simple enough, right? Go read the documentation for STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION which lead me to IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID. Except that the documentation for IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID seems to have a problem. The most obvious problem is that it shows how to call CreateFile() to get the handle to use with DeviceIoControl(), but doesn’t show how to call DeviceIoControl(). That is odd, but not really a problem. But, the call to CreateFile() seems to be wrong, or at least it was in my testing. The documentation shows the call to be: hVolume = CreateFile(TEXT("\Storage Card\Vol:"), GENERIC_READ|GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL); I tried that, but my testing with an SD card mounted as Storage Card failed on the call to CreateFile(). I tried several variations of this, but none worked. Then I remembered that some time ago I wrote an article about enumerating the disks (Windows CE: Displaying Disk Information). I pulled up that code and tried again with both the disk device name and the partition volume name. The disk device name worked. The device names are DSKx:, where x is the disk number. I created the following function to output the Manufacturer ID and Serial Number returned from IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID: #include "windows.h" #include "Diskio.h" BOOL DisplayDiskID( TCHAR *Disk ) { STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION *StoreID = NULL; STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION GetSizeStoreID; DWORD dwSize; HANDLE hVol; TCHAR VolumeName[MAX_PATH]; TCHAR *ManfID; TCHAR *SerialNumber; BOOL RetVal = FALSE; DWORD GLE; // Note that either of the following works //_stprintf(VolumeName, _T("\\%s\\Vol:"), Disk); _stprintf(VolumeName, _T("\\%s"), Disk); hVol = CreateFile( Disk, GENERIC_READ|GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL); if( hVol != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE ) { if(DeviceIoControl(hVol, IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID, (LPVOID)NULL, 0, &GetSizeStoreID, sizeof(STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION), &dwSize, NULL) == FALSE) { GLE = GetLastError(); if( GLE == ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER ) { StoreID = (STORAGE_IDENTIFICATION *)malloc( GetSizeStoreID.dwSize ); if(DeviceIoControl(hVol, IOCTL_DISK_GET_STORAGEID, (LPVOID)NULL, 0, StoreID, GetSizeStoreID.dwSize, &dwSize, NULL) != FALSE) { RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: Flags %X\r\n"), StoreID->dwFlags )); if( !(StoreID->dwFlags & MANUFACTUREID_INVALID) ) { ManfID = (TCHAR *)((DWORD)StoreID + StoreID->dwManufactureIDOffset); RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: Manufacture ID %s\r\n"), ManfID )); } if( !(StoreID->dwFlags & SERIALNUM_INVALID) ) { SerialNumber = (TCHAR *)((DWORD)StoreID + StoreID->dwSerialNumOffset); RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: Serial Number %s\r\n"), SerialNumber )); } RetVal = TRUE; } else RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: DeviceIoControl failed (%d)\r\n"), GLE)); free(StoreID); } else RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("No Disk Identifcation available for %s\r\n"), VolumeName )); } else RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: DeviceIoControl succeeded (and shouldn't have)\r\n"))); CloseHandle (hVol); } else RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DisplayDiskID: Failed to open volume (%s)\r\n"), VolumeName )); return RetVal; } Further testing showed that both \DSKx: and \DSKx:\Vol: work when calling CreateFile(); Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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MSMQ messages using HTTP just won't get delivered

- by John Breakwell

I'm starting off the blog with a discussion of an unusual problem that has hit a couple of my customers this month. It's not a problem you'd expect to bump into and the solution is potentially painful. Scenario You want to make use of the HTTP protocol to send MSMQ messages from one machine to another. You have installed HTTP support for MSMQ and have addressed your messages correctly but they will not leave the outgoing queue. There is no configuration for HTTP support - setup has already done all that for you (although you may want to check the most recent "Installation of the MSMQ HTTP Support Subcomponent" section of MSMQINST.LOG to see if anything DID go wrong) - so you can't tweak anything. Restarting services and servers makes no difference - the messages just will not get delivered. The problem is documented and resolved by Knowledgebase article 916699 "The message may not be delivered when you use the HTTP protocol to send a message to a server that is running Message Queuing 3.0". It is unlikely that you would be able to resolve the problem without the assistance of PSS because there are no messages that can be seen to assist you and only access to the source code exposes the root cause. As this communication is over HTTP, the IIS logs would be a good place to start. POST entries are logged which show that connectivity is working and message delivery is being attempted: #Software: Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 #Version: 1.0 #Date: 2006-09-12 12:11:29 #Fields: date time s-sitename s-ip cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query s-port cs-username c-ip cs(User-Agent) sc-status sc-substatus sc-win32-status 2006-09-12 12:12:12 W3SVC1 10.1.17.219 POST /msmq/private$/test - 80 - 10.2.200.3 - 200 0 0 If you capture the traffic with Network Monitor you can see the POST being sent to the server but you also see a response being returned to the client: HTTP: Response to Client; HTTP/1.1; Status Code = 500 - Internal Server Error "Internal Server Error" means we can probably stop looking at IIS and instead focus on the Message Queuing ISAPI extension (Mqise.dll). MSMQ 3.0 (Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) comes with error logging enabled by default but the log files are in binary format - MSMQ 2.0 generated logging in plain text. The symbolic information needed for formatting the files is not currently publicly available so log files have to be sent in to Microsoft PSS. Although this does mean raising a support case, formatting the log files to text and returning them to the customer shouldn't take long. Obviously the engineer analyses them for you - I just want to point out that you can see the logging output in text format if you want it. The important entries in the log for this problem are: [7]b48.928 09/12/2006-13:20:44.552 [mqise GetNetBiosNameFromIPAddr] ERROR:Failed to get the NetBios name from the DNS name, error = 0xea [7]b48.928 09/12/2006-13:20:44.552 [mqise RPCToServer] ERROR:RPC call R_ProcessHTTPRequest failed, error code = 1702(RPC_S_INVALID_BINDING) which allow a Microsoft escalation engineer to check the MQISE source code to see what is going wrong. This problem according to the article occurs when the extension tries to bind to the local MSMQ service after the extension receives a POST request that contains an MSMQ message. MSMQ resolves the server name by using the DNS host name but the extension cannot bind to the service because the buffer that MSMQ uses to resolve the server name is too small - server names that are exactly 15 characters long will not fit. RPC exception 0x6a6 (RPC_S_INVALID_BINDING) occurs in the W3wp.exe process but the exception is handled and so you do not receive an error message. The workaround is to rename the MSMQ server to something less than 15 characters. If the problem has only just been noticed in a production environment - an application may have been modified to get through a newly-implemented firewall, for example - then renaming is going to be an issue. Other applications may need to be reinstalled or modified if server names are hard-coded or stored in the registry. The renaming may also break a company naming convention where the name is built up from something like location+department+number. If you want to learn more about MSMQ logging then check out Chapter 15 of the MSMQ FAQ. In fact, even if you DON'T want to learn anything about MSMQ logging you should read the FAQ anyway as there is a huge amount of useful information on known issues and the like.

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SBS 2008 SP2 Backup - Volume Shadow Copy Operation Failed

- by Robert Ortisi

Server Setup Exchange 2007 Version: 08.03.0192.001 (Rollup 4) Windows Small Business Server 2008 SP2 (Rollup 5) Exchange set up on D: drive (449 GB / 698 GB Free) 80 GB / 148 GB Free on OS drive. Issue Backup Failure (VSS related) Backup Software Windows Server Backup (ver 1.0) Simplified Error Creation of the shared protection point timed out. Unknown error (0x81000101) The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. What I've tried Server Reboot. Updated Server and Exchange. ReConfigured Sharepoint (Helped resolve last vss error I encountered). registered VSS Dll's (Backups will sometimes work afterwards but VSS writers fail soon after). Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956136 Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972135 I left it for a few days and a few backups came through but then began to fail again. Detailed Information Log Name: Application Source: VSS Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 12341 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Event Xml: 12341 3 0 0x80000000000000 1651049 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 43 \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ ================================================================================= Log Name: System Source: volsnap Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 8 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Event Xml: 8 2 0 0x80000000000000 987135 System SERVER.DOMAIN.local ================================================================================== Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Backup Date: 16/11/2011 8:11:18 PM Event ID: 521 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Backup started at '16/11/2011 9:00:35 AM' failed as Volume Shadow copy operation failed for backup volumes with following error code '2155348001'. Please rerun backup once issue is resolved. Event Xml: 521 0 2 0 0 0x8000000000000000 1651065 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 2011-11-16T09:00:35.446Z 2155348001 %%2155348001 ================================================================================== Writer name: 'FRS Writer' Writer Id: {d76f5a28-3092-4589-ba48-2958fb88ce29} Writer Instance Id: {ba047fc6-9ce8-44ba-b59f-f2f8c07708aa} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error Writer name: 'ASR Writer' Writer Id: {be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4} Writer Instance Id: {0aace3e2-c840-4572-bf49-7fcc3fbcf56d} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer' Writer Id: {4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f} Writer Instance Id: {054593e2-2086-4480-92e5-30386509ed1b} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Registry Writer' Writer Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485} Writer Instance Id: {840e6f5f-f35a-4b65-bb20-060cf2ee892a} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'COM+ REGDB Writer' Writer Id: {542da469-d3e1-473c-9f4f-7847f01fc64f} Writer Instance Id: {9486bedc-f6e8-424b-b563-8b849d51b1e1} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'BITS Writer' Writer Id: {4969d978-be47-48b0-b100-f328f07ac1e0} Writer Instance Id: {29368bb3-e04b-4404-8fc9-e62dae18da91} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Dhcp Jet Writer' Writer Id: {be9ac81e-3619-421f-920f-4c6fea9e93ad} Writer Instance Id: {cfb58c78-9609-4133-8fc8-f66b0d25e12d} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error ==================================================================================

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Apply Skins to Add Some Flair to Windows Media Player 12

- by DigitalGeekery

Tired of the same look and feel of Windows Media Player in Windows 7? We’ll show you how to inject new life into your media experience by applying skins in WMP 12. Adding Skins In Library view, click on View from the Menu and select Skin Chooser. By default, WMP 12 comes with only a couple of modest skins. When you select a skin from the left pane, a preview will be displayed to the right. To apply one of the skins, simply select it from the pane on the left and click Apply Skin. You can also switch to the currently selected skin in the Skin chooser by selecting Skin from the View menu, or by pressing Crtl + 2. Media Player will open in Now Playing mode. Click on the Switch to Library button at the top left to return to Library view. Ok, so the included skins are a little boring. You can find additional skins by selecting Tools > Download > Skins. Or, by clicking on More Skins from within the Skin chooser. You will be taken the the Microsoft website where you can choose from dozens of skins to download and install. Select a skin you’d like to try and click the link to download. If prompted with a warning message about files containing scripts that access your library, click Yes. Note: These warning boxes may look a bit different depending on your browser. We are using Chrome for this example. Click on View Now. Your new skin will be on display. To get back to the Library mode, find and click the Return to Full Mode button. Some skins may launch video in a separate window. If you want to delete one of the skins, select it from the list within the Skin chooser and click the red “X.” You can also press the delete key on your keyboard. Then click Yes to confirm. Conclusion Using skins is a quick and easy way to add some style to Windows Media Player and switching back and forth between skins is a breeze. Regardless of your interests, you are sure to find a skin that fits your tastes. You may find WMP skins on other sites, but sticking with Microsoft’s website will ensure maximum compatibility. Skins for Windows Media Player Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 10Make VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 11Make VLC Player Look like Winamp 5 (Kinda)Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesInstall and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu Linux 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative

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EVENT RECAP: Oracle Day & Product Fair - Ft. Lauderdale

- by cwarticki

Are you attending any of the Oracle Days and other Events? They are fantastic! Keep track of the Oracle Events by following @OracleEvents on Twitter. Also, stay in the know by subscribing to one of the several Oracle Newsletters. Those will also keep you posted of upcoming in-person and webcast events. From the Oracle Events website, simply navigate to your geography and refine your options to locate what interests you. You can also perform keyword searches. Today, I had the opportunity to participate in the Oracle Day & Product Fair in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Thanks to those who stopped by to ask your support questions and watched me demo My Oracle Support features and best practices. (Bob Stanoch, Sales Consulting Manager giving the 2nd keynote address on Exadata below) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} It was a pleasant surprise to run into my former Oracle colleague Josh Tieso. Josh (pictured right) is Sr. Oracle DBA at United Healthcare. He used to work for Oracle Support years ago but for the last 6 years at UHC. Josh is a member of the ERP DBA team, working with Exalogic, Oracle ERP R12, & RAC. Along the exhibit/vendor row, I met with Marco Gangano, National Sales Manager at Mythics. It was great getting to meet Marco and I look forward to working with his company with regards to Support Best Practices. In addition, Lissette Paez (left) was representing TAM Training. TAM Training is an Oracle University, award-winning training partner. They cover training across the scope of Oracle products with 7 facilities in the U.S. Lissette and I have done a couple of these Oracle Days before. It's great to see familiar faces. A little while ago, I was down in this area to work with Citrix with an onsite session on Support Best Practices. Pablo Leon and Alberto Gonzalez (right)came to chat with me over at the Support booth. They wanted to know when I was giving my session. Unfortunately, not this time guys. I'm on booth duty only. Keep in touch. Many thanks to our sponsors: BIAS, Cloudera, Intel and TekStream Solutions.Come attend one of the many Oracle Days & other events planned for you. -Chris WartickiGlobal Customer Management

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What if “Microsoft” were in our shoes? About Windows Phone

- by Vijaya Malla

This is what I think about Microsoft Windows Phone. If Microsoft were in our shoes looking at various phones available their configurations, memory, front facing cameras etc. Microsoft disappointed the USA customer base again by not getting Nokia Lumia 800. The Past: If we talk few years ago, few business people were on their Blackberry’s and few Gadget lovers were on crappy Windows OS devices. The world was all going right till Apple came with a revolutionary device iPhone, which completely changed our perception towards phone and how great a smartphone can be. It’s not just phone but the whole technology industry. The romantic appealing of the phone and smooth touch and feel of it made everyone to get one of those bad boys. The sales went up for not just Apple for AT&T too. Even though everyone complained about the signal strength of AT&T, everyone wanted to be on it because they have iPhones. All world wanted iPhone back then except Microsoft with few comments on how it is not going to be in market. But it did great and rocked the industry. A few years later with iPhone and Android taking over the smartphone market Microsoft realized that it should be in the game too. Worked on the design of it, and gave us the best Mobile OS ever. Everyone thinks that iOS is a great OS for phones but if you have touched a Windows Phone and use it for real then you will realize the strengths of it. so last year we welcomed Windows Phone 7 The Present : Windows Phone 7 has the fastest growing market. The phones are cheap, you can buy from any carrier out there. The phone became smarter and smarter with the recent update “Mango (7.5)” and with the collaboration with Nokia, Microsoft created a new eco-system for smartphones with the best smartphone hardware and best smartphone software. Everyone in the world was excited about the collaboration. As we fly over cloud 9 imagining about Nokia made Windows Phones we all heard a good news from Nokia “Nokia World”. Nokia showed the world what a best hardware making company can do with Windows Phone 7.5 OS. Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 took the spotlight. Everyone here in USA and all over the world wanted to own a Nokia Lumia 800 because of the design, software, proprietary apps from Nokia (maps, ESPN, drive and music). If USA market had Nokia Lumia 800, then it would have been the best step Microsoft and Nokia had ever made in their history of smartphone market. With all the numbers going to Android and IPhone, its not clear on why Microsoft/Nokia did not release Lumia 800 here in USA. Its unclear if Microsoft had learnt the lesson or not. if it had learnt the lesson I guess Microsoft needs to get the Nokia Lumia 800 to the USA. The Future: This is where we hope we get the best form Microsoft. I was an iPhone user, I used 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and then moved to Windows Phone and never felt so happy with my iPhones’. From the day when Nokia announced the partnership with Microsoft and said that they going to come up with a new Nokia windows phone, I was dreaming for my Nokia Phone. but looks like it is not going to happen any time soon. My thoughts about the Market : Nokia has the biggest market base in the world. Even though people moved to Android or iPhone over the years in other parts of the world like India and China, people still love to use Nokia. Everyone who uses a Windows Phone now will wait for that day when Nokia Lumia comes to the USA but what either or both of the companies should do for a better market share is to make a very aggressive move with the hardware and bet on the devices. I am pretty sure that it will work. everyone here in the USA will like to have a dual core windows phone with front facing camera and all other crazy things that android/apple phones offer. I think we just have to wait for that day and hope that day comes soon. Love Microsoft and Nokia Thank you for reading.

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