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• SQL Sentry First Impressions

  - by AjarnMark

  After struggling to defend my SQL Servers from a political attack recently, I realized that I needed better tools to back me up, and SQL Sentry is the leading candidate. A couple of weeks ago, seemingly from out of nowhere, complaints from the business users started coming in that one of the core internal applications was running dramatically slower than normal, and fingers were being pointed at the SQL Server.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a production DBA whose entire job is to monitor and maintain our SQL Servers.  The responsibility falls to me to do the best I can, investing only a small portion of my time, because there are so many other responsibilities to take care of, and our industry is still deep in recession.  I inherited these SQL Servers and have made significant improvements in process and procedure, but I had not yet made the time to take real baseline measurements or keep a really close eye on the performance.  Like many DBAs, I wrote several of my own tools and used the “built-in tools” like Profiler, PerfMon, and sp_who2 (did I mention most of our instances are SQL Server 2000?).  These have all served me well for in-the-moment troubleshooting and maintenance, but they really fell down on the job when I was called upon to “prove” that SQL Server performance was acceptable and more importantly had not degraded recently (i.e. historical comparisons).  I really didn’t have anything from a historical comparison perspective, but I was able to show that current performance was acceptable, and deflect attention back onto other components (which in fact turned out to be the real culprit). That experience dramatically illustrated the need for better monitoring tools.  Coincidentally, I had been talking recently to my boss about the mini nightmare of monitoring several critical and interdependent overnight jobs that operate on separate instances of SQL Server.  Among other tools, I had been using Idera’s SQL Job Manager which is a free tool and did a nice job of showing me job schedules and histories in a nice calendar view.  This worked fairly well, and for the money (did I mention it was free?) it couldn’t be beat.  But it is based on the stored job history in MSDB, and there were other performance problems that we ran into when we started changing the settings for how much job history to retain, in order to be able to look back a month or more in the calendar view.  Another coincidence (if you believe in such things) was that when we had some of those performance challenges, I posted a couple of questions to the #sqlhelp hashtag on Twitter and Greg Gonzalez (@SQLSensei) suggested I check out SQL Sentry’s Event Manager.  At the time, I just thought he worked there, but later found out that he founded the company.  When I took a quick look at the features & benefits, the one that really jumped out at me is Chaining and Queueing which sounded like it would really help with our “interdependent jobs on different servers” issue. I know that is a lot of background story and coincidences, but hopefully you have stuck with me so far, and now we have arrived at the point where last week I downloaded and installed the 30-day trial of the SQL Sentry Power Suite, which is Event Manager plus Performance Advisor.  And I must say that I really like what I see so far.  Here are a few highlights: Great Support.  I had two issues getting the trial setup and monitoring a handful of our servers.  One of which was entirely my fault (missed a security setting in SQL 2008) and the other was mostly my fault (late change to some config settings that were apparently cached and did not get refreshed properly).  In both cases, the support staff at SQL Sentry were very responsive and rather quickly figured out what the cause and fix was for each of them.  This left me with a great impression of the company.  Kudos to them! Chaining and Queueing.  While I have not yet activated this feature, I am very excited about the possibilities.  We have jobs on three different instances of SQL Server that have to be run in a certain order, and each has to finish before the next can successfully begin, and I believe this feature will ensure just that.  It has been a real pain in the backside when one of those jobs runs just a little too long and does not finish before the job on another instance starts, thus triggering a chain reaction of either outright job failures, or worse, successful completion of completely invalid processing. Calendar View.  I really, really like the Event Manager calendar view where I can see all jobs and events across all instances and identify potential resource contention as well as windows of opportunity for maintenance activity.  Very well done, and based on Event Manager’s own database of accumulated historical information rather than querying the source instances every time. Performance Advisor Dashboard History View.  This view let’s me quickly select a date and time range and it displays graphs of key SQL Server and Windows metrics.  This is exactly the thing I needed to answer the “has performance changed recently” question at the beginning of this post. Reporting Services Subscription Jobs with Report Name.  This was a big and VERY pleasant surprise.  If you have ever looked at the list of SQL Server jobs that SQL Server Reporting Services creates when you make a Subscription, you will notice that they all have some sort of GUID as the name of the job.  This is really ugly, and really annoying because when you are just looking at the SQL Agent and Job Activity Monitor, if you see that Job X failed, you really do not have any indication in the name or the properties of the Job itself, as to what Report that was for.  But with SQL Sentry Event Manager you do.  The Jobs list in the Navigator pane in SQL Sentry, amazingly, displays the name of the Report that the Subscription Job is for.  And when you open it to see more details, it shows you the full Reporting Services path to that Report, so you can immediately track it down in the Report Manager in case you want to identify/notify the owner or edit the Subscription information.  I did not expect this at all, but I sure do like it.  HOORAY! That is just my first impressions from using the tools for a few days.  And I haven’t even gotten into how it showed me where I was completely mistaken about one aspect of my SQL Server disk configurations.  I’ll share that lesson in another blog entry.  But I have to say it again, the combination of Event Manager and Performance Advisor working together have really made me a fan.

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• Spacewalk 2.0 provided to manage Oracle Linux systems

  - by wcoekaer

  Oracle Linux customers have a few options to manage and provision their servers. We provide a license to use Oracle Enterprise Manager's Linux OS management, monitoring and provisioning features without additional cost for every server that has an Oracle Linux support subscription. So there is no additional pack to license and no additional per server cost, it's all included in our Basic, Premier and Systems support subscriptions. The nice thing with Oracle Enterprise Manager is that you end up with a single management product that can manage all aspects of your software stack. You have complete insight into the applications running, you have roles and responsibilities, you have third party connectors for storage or other products and it makes it very easy and convenient to correlate data and events when something happens. If you use Oracle VM as well, you end up with a complete cloud portal with selfservice, chargeback, etc... Another, much simpler option, is just using yum. It is very easy to take a server and create directories and expose these through apache as repositories. You can have a simple yum config on each server pointing to a few specific repositories. It requires some manual effort in terms of creating directories, downloading packages and creating local repo files but it's easy to do and for many people a preferred solution. There are also a good number of customers that just connect their servers directly to ULN or to our free update server public-yum. Just to re-iterate, our public-yum servers have all the errata and updates available for free. Now we added another option. Many of our customers have switched from a competing Linux vendor and they had familiarity with their management tools. Switching to Oracle for support is very easy since we don't require changes to the installed servers but we also want to make sure there is a very easy and almost transparent switch for the management tools as well. While Oracle Enterprise Manager is our preferred way of managing systems, we now are offering Spacewalk 2.0 to our customers. The community project can be found here. We have made a few changes to ensure easy and complete support for Oracle Linux, tested it with public-yum, etc.. You can find the rpms in our public-yum repos at http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/. There are repositories for spacewalk server and then for each version (OL5,OL6) and architecture (x86 and x86-64) we have the client repositories as well. Spacewalk itself is only made available for OL6 x86-64. Documentation can be found here. I set it up myself and here are some quick steps on how you can get going in just a matter of minutes: Spacewalk Server Installation : 1) Installing an Oracle Database Use an existing Oracle Database or install a new Oracle Database (Standard or Enterprise Edition) [at this time use 11g, we will add support for 12c in the near future]. This database can be installed on the spacewalk server or on a separate remote server. While Oracle XE might work to create a small sample POC, we do not support the use of Oracle XE, spacewalk repositories can become large and create a significant database workload. Customers can use their existing database licenses, they can download the database with a trial licence from http://edelivery.oracle.com or Oracle Linux subscribers (customers) will be allowed to use the Oracle Database as a spacewalk repository as part of their Oracle Linux subscription at no additional cost. |NOTE : spacewalk requires the database to be configured with the UTF8 characterset. |Installation will fail if your database does not use UTF8. |To verify if your database is configured correctly, run the following command in sqlplus: | |select value from nls_database_parameters where parameter='NLS_CHARACTERSET'; |This should return 'AL32UTF8' 2) Configure the database schema for spacewalk Ideally, create a tablespace in the database to hold the spacewalk schema tables/data; create tablespace spacewalk datafile '/u01/app/oracle/oradata/orcl/spacewalk.dbf' size 10G autoextend on; Create the database user spacewalk (or use some other schema name) in sqlplus. example : create user spacewalk identified by spacewalk; grant connect, resource to spacewalk; grant create table, create trigger, create synonym, create view, alter session to spacewalk; grant unlimited tablespace to spacewalk; alter user spacewalk default tablespace spacewalk; 4) Spacewalk installation and configuration Spacewalk server requires an Oracle Linux 6 x86-64 system. Clients can be Oracle Linux 5 or 6, both 32- and 64bit. The server is only supported on OL6/64bit. The easiest way to get started is to do a 'Minimal' install of Oracle Linux on a server and configure the yum repository to include the spacewalk repo from public-yum. Once you have a system with a minimal install, modify your yum repo to include the spacewalk repo. Example : edit /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol.repo and add the following lines at the end of the file : [spacewalk] name=spacewalk baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/spacewalk20/server/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 Install the following pre-requisite packages on your spacewalk server : oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 oracle-instantclient11.2-sqlplus-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 rpm -ivh oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 rpm -ivh oracle-instantclient11.2-sqlplus-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 The above RPMs can be found on the Oracle Technology Network website : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/linuxx86-64soft-092277.html As the root user, configure the library path to include the Oracle Instant Client libraries : cd /etc/ld.so.conf.d echo /usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib oracle-instantclient11.2.conf ldconfig Install spacewalk : # yum install spacewalk-oracle The above yum command should download and install all required packages to run spacewalk on your local server. | NOTE : if you did a full, desktop or workstation installation, | you have to remove the JTA package | BEFORE installing spacewalk-oracle (rpm -e --nodeps jta) Once the installation completes, simply run the spacewalk configuration tool and you are all set. (make sure to run the command with the 2 arguments) spacewalk-setup --disconnected --external-db Answer the questions during the setup, ensure you provide the current database user (example : spacewalk) and password (example : spacewalk) and database server hostname (the standard hostname of the server on which you have deployed the Oracle database) At the end of the setup script, your spacewalk server should be fully configured and you can log into the web portal. Use your favorite browser to connect to the website : http://[spacewalkserverhostname] The very first action will be to create the main admin account.

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• Why you need to learn async in .NET

  - by PSteele

  I had an opportunity to teach a quick class yesterday about what’s new in .NET 4.0.  One of the topics was the TPL (Task Parallel Library) and how it can make async programming easier.  I also stressed that this is the direction Microsoft is going with for C# 5.0 and learning the TPL will greatly benefit their understanding of the new async stuff.  We had a little time left over and I was able to show some code that uses the Async CTP to accomplish some stuff, but it wasn’t a simple demo that you could jump in to and understand so I thought I’d thrown one together and put it in a blog post. The entire solution file with all of the sample projects is located here. A Simple Example Let’s start with a super-simple example (WindowsApplication01 in the solution). I’ve got a form that displays a label and a button.  When the user clicks the button, I want to start displaying the current time for 15 seconds and then stop. What I’d like to write is this: lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; for (var x = 0; x < 15; x++) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); Thread.Sleep(1000); } lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; (Note that I also changed the label’s color while counting – not quite an ILM-level effect, but it adds something to the demo!) As I’m sure most of my readers are aware, you can’t write WinForms code this way.  WinForms apps, by default, only have one thread running and it’s main job is to process messages from the windows message pump (for a more thorough explanation, see my Visual Studio Magazine article on multithreading in WinForms).  If you put a Thread.Sleep in the middle of that code, your UI will be locked up and unresponsive for those 15 seconds.  Not a good UX and something that needs to be fixed.  Sure, I could throw an “Application.DoEvents()” in there, but that’s hacky. The Windows Timer Then I think, “I can solve that.  I’ll use the Windows Timer to handle the timing in the background and simply notify me when the time has changed”.  Let’s see how I could accomplish this with a Windows timer (WindowsApplication02 in the solution): public partial class Form1 : Form { private readonly Timer clockTimer; private int counter;   public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); clockTimer = new Timer {Interval = 1000}; clockTimer.Tick += UpdateLabel; }   private void UpdateLabel(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); counter++; if (counter == 15) { clockTimer.Enabled = false; lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; } }   private void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; counter = 0; clockTimer.Start(); } } Holy cow – things got pretty complicated here.  I use the timer to fire off a Tick event every second.  Inside there, I can update the label.  Granted, I can’t use a simple for/loop and have to maintain a global counter for the number of iterations.  And my “end” code (when the loop is finished) is now buried inside the bottom of the Tick event (inside an “if” statement).  I do, however, get a responsive application that doesn’t hang or stop repainting while the 15 seconds are ticking away. But doesn’t .NET have something that makes background processing easier? The BackgroundWorker Next I try .NET’s BackgroundWorker component – it’s specifically designed to do processing in a background thread (leaving the UI thread free to process the windows message pump) and allows updates to be performed on the main UI thread (WindowsApplication03 in the solution): public partial class Form1 : Form { private readonly BackgroundWorker worker;   public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); worker = new BackgroundWorker {WorkerReportsProgress = true}; worker.DoWork += StartUpdating; worker.ProgressChanged += UpdateLabel; worker.RunWorkerCompleted += ResetLabelColor; }   private void StartUpdating(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) { var workerObject = (BackgroundWorker) sender; for (int x = 0; x < 15; x++) { workerObject.ReportProgress(0); Thread.Sleep(1000); } }   private void UpdateLabel(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); }   private void ResetLabelColor(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; }   private void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; worker.RunWorkerAsync(); } } Well, this got a little better (I think).  At least I now have my simple for/next loop back.  Unfortunately, I’m still dealing with event handlers spread throughout my code to co-ordinate all of this stuff in the right order. Time to look into the future. The async way Using the Async CTP, I can go back to much simpler code (WindowsApplication04 in the solution): private async void cmdStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { lblTime.ForeColor = Color.Red; for (var x = 0; x < 15; x++) { lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss"); await TaskEx.Delay(1000); } lblTime.ForeColor = SystemColors.ControlText; } This code will run just like the Timer or BackgroundWorker versions – fully responsive during the updates – yet is way easier to implement.  In fact, it’s almost a line-for-line copy of the original version of this code.  All of the async plumbing is handled by the compiler and the framework.  My code goes back to representing the “what” of what I want to do, not the “how”. I urge you to download the Async CTP.  All you need is .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 sp1 – no need to set up a virtual machine with the VS2011 beta (unless, of course, you want to dive right in to the C# 5.0 stuff!).  Starting playing around with this today and see how much easier it will be in the future to write async-enabled applications.

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• Not attending the LUGM mini-meetup - 05. Oct 2013

  Not attending a meeting of the LUGM can be fun, too. It's getting a bit of a habit that Ish is organising small gatherings, aka mini-meetups, of the Linux User Group Mauritius/Meta (LUGM) almost every Saturday. There they mainly discuss and talk about various elements of using Linux as ones main operating systems and the possibilities you are going to have. On top of course, some tips & tricks about mastering the command line and initial steps in scripting or even writing HTML. In general, sounds like a good portion of fun and great spirit of community. Unfortunately, I'm usually quite busy with private and family matters during the weekend and so I already signalised that I wouldn't be around. Well, at least not physically... But this Saturday a couple of things worked out faster than expected and so I was hanging out on my machine. I made virtual contact with one of Pawan's messages over on Facebook... And somehow that kicked off some kind of an online game fun on basic configuration of Apache HTTPd 2.2.x, PHP 5.x and how to improve the overall performance of a newly installed blog based on WordPress. Default configuration files Nitin's website finally came alive and despite the dark theme and the hidden Apple 'fanboy' advertisement I was more interested in the technical situation. As with any new installation there is usually quite some adjustment to be done. And Nitin's page was no exception. Unfortunately, out of the box installations of Apache httpd and PHP are too verbose and expose too much information under the hood. You might think that this isn't really a problem at all, well, think about it again after completely reading this article. First, I checked the HTTP response headers - using either Chrome Developer Tools or Firefox Web Developer extension - of Nitin's page and based on that I advised him to lower the noise levels a little bit. It's not really necessary that detailed information about web server software and scripting language has to be published in every response made. Quite a number of script kiddies and exploits actually check for version specifics prior to an attack. So, removing at least version details hardens the system a little bit. In particular, I'm talking about these response values: Server X-Powered-By How to achieve that? By tweaking the configuration files... Namely, we are going to look into the following ones: apache2.conf httpd.conf .htaccess php.ini The above list contains some additional files, I'm talking about in the next paragraphs. Anyway, those are the ones involved. Tweaking Apache Open your favourite text editor and start to modify the apache2.conf. Eventually, you might like to have a quick peak at the file to see whether it is necessary to adjust it or not. Following is a handy combination of commands to get an overview of your active directives: # sudo grep -v '#' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf | grep -v '^$' | less There you keep an eye on those two Apache directives: ServerSignature Off ServerTokens Prod If that's not the case, change them as highlighted above. In order to activate your modifications you have to restart Apache httpd server. On Debian and Ubuntu you might use apache2ctl for that, on other distributions you might have to use service or run the init-scripts again: # sudo apache2ctl configtestSyntax OK# sudo apache2ctl restart Refresh your website and check the HTTP response header. Tweaking PHP5 (a little bit) Next, check your php.ini file with the following statement: # sudo grep -v ';' /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini | grep -v '^$' | less And check the value of expose_php = Off Again, if it's not as highlighted, change it... Some more Apache love Okay, back to Apache it might also be interesting to improve the situation about browser caching and removing more obsolete information. When you run your website against the usual performance checks like Google Page Speed and Yahoo YSlow you might see those check points with bad grades on a standard, default configuration. Well, this can be done easily. Configure entity tags (ETags) ETags are only interesting when you run your websites on a farm of multiple web servers. Removing this data for your static resources is very simple in Apache. As we are going to deal with the HTTP response header information you have to ensure that Apache is capable to manipulate them. First, check your enabled modules: # sudo ls -al /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ | grep headers And in case that the 'headers' module is not listed, you have to enable it from the available ones: # sudo a2enmod headers Second, check your httpd.conf file (in case it exists): # sudo grep -v '#' /etc/apache2/httpd.conf | grep -v '^$' | less In newer (better said fresh) installations you might have to create a new configuration file below your conf.d folder with your favourite text editor like so: # sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf.d/headers.conf Then, in order to tweak your HTTP responses either check for those lines or add them: Header unset ETagFileETag None In case that your file doesn't exist or those lines are missing, feel free to create/add them. Afterwards, check your Apache configuration syntax and restart your running instances as already shown above: # sudo apache2ctl configtestSyntax OK# sudo apache2ctl restart Add Expires headers To improve the loading performance of your website, you should take some care into the proper configuration of how to leverage the browser's ability to cache certain resources and files. This is done by adding an Expires: value to the HTTP response header. Generally speaking it is advised that you specify a near-future, read: 1 week or a little bit more, for your static content like JavaScript files or Cascading Style Sheets. One solution to adjust this is to put some instructions into the .htaccess file in the root folder of your web site. Of course, this could also be placed into a more generic location of your Apache installation but honestly, I'd like to keep this at the web site level. Following some adjustments I'm currently using on this blog site: # Turn on Expires and set default to 0ExpiresActive OnExpiresDefault A0 # Set up caching on media files for 1 year (forever?)<FilesMatch "\.(flv|ico|pdf|avi|mov|ppt|doc|mp3|wmv|wav)$">ExpiresDefault A29030400Header append Cache-Control "public"</FilesMatch> # Set up caching on media files for 1 week<FilesMatch "\.(js|css)$">ExpiresDefault A604800Header append Cache-Control "public"</FilesMatch> # Set up caching on media files for 31 days<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|swf)$">ExpiresDefault A2678400Header append Cache-Control "public"</FilesMatch> As we are editing the .htaccess files, it is not necessary to restart Apache. In case that your web site doesn't load anymore or you're experiencing an error while trying to restart your httpd, check that the 'expires' module is actually an enabled module: # ls -al /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ | grep expires# sudo a2enmod expires Of course, the instructions above a re not feature complete but I hope that they might provide a better default configuration for your LAMP stack. Resume of the day Within a couple of hours, and while being occupied with an eLearning course on SQL Server 2012, I had some good fun in helping and assisting other LUGM members while they were some kilometers away at Bagatelle. According to other blog articles it seems that Nitin had quite some moments of desperation. Just for the records: At no time it was my intention to either kick his butt or pull a leg on him. Simply, providing some input based on the lessons I've learned over the last couple of years configuring Apache HTTPd and PHP. Check out the other blogs, too: LUGM mini-meetup... Epic! Superb Saturday Linux Meetup And last but not least, the man himself: The end of a new beginning Cheers, and happy community'ing! Updates Due to our weekly Code & Coffee sessions in the MSCC community, I had a chance to talk to Nitin directly and he showed me the problems directly on his machine. This led to update this article hence the paragraphs on enabling the modules 'headers' and 'expires'.

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• How to Identify Which Hardware Component is Failing in Your Computer

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Concluding that your computer has a hardware problem is just the first step. If you’re dealing with a hardware issue and not a software issue, the next step is determining what hardware problem you’re actually dealing with. If you purchased a laptop or pre-built desktop PC and it’s still under warranty, you don’t need to care about this. Have the manufacturer fix the PC for you — figuring it out is their problem. If you’ve built your own PC or you want to fix a computer that’s out of warranty, this is something you’ll need to do on your own. Blue Screen 101: Search for the Error Message This may seem like obvious advice, but searching for information about a blue screen’s error message can help immensely. Most blue screens of death you’ll encounter on modern versions of Windows will likely be caused by hardware failures. The blue screen of death often displays information about the driver that crashed or the type of error it encountered. For example, let’s say you encounter a blue screen that identified “NV4_disp.dll” as the driver that caused the blue screen. A quick Google search will reveal that this is the driver for NVIDIA graphics cards, so you now have somewhere to start. It’s possible that your graphics card is failing if you encounter such an error message. Check Hard Drive SMART Status Hard drives have a built in S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) feature. The idea is that the hard drive monitors itself and will notice if it starts to fail, providing you with some advance notice before the drive fails completely. This isn’t perfect, so your hard drive may fail even if SMART says everything is okay. If you see any sort of “SMART error” message, your hard drive is failing. You can use SMART analysis tools to view the SMART health status information your hard drives are reporting. Test Your RAM RAM failure can result in a variety of problems. If the computer writes data to RAM and the RAM returns different data because it’s malfunctioning, you may see application crashes, blue screens, and file system corruption. To test your memory and see if it’s working properly, use Windows’ built-in Memory Diagnostic tool. The Memory Diagnostic tool will write data to every sector of your RAM and read it back afterwards, ensuring that all your RAM is working properly. Check Heat Levels How hot is is inside your computer? Overheating can rsult in blue screens, crashes, and abrupt shut downs. Your computer may be overheating because you’re in a very hot location, it’s ventilated poorly, a fan has stopped inside your computer, or it’s full of dust. Your computer monitors its own internal temperatures and you can access this information. It’s generally available in your computer’s BIOS, but you can also view it with system information utilities such as SpeedFan or Speccy. Check your computer’s recommended temperature level and ensure it’s within the appropriate range. If your computer is overheating, you may see problems only when you’re doing something demanding, such as playing a game that stresses your CPU and graphics card. Be sure to keep an eye on how hot your computer gets when it performs these demanding tasks, not only when it’s idle. Stress Test Your CPU You can use a utility like Prime95 to stress test your CPU. Such a utility will fore your computer’s CPU to perform calculations without allowing it to rest, working it hard and generating heat. If your CPU is becoming too hot, you’ll start to see errors or system crashes. Overclockers use Prime95 to stress test their overclock settings — if Prime95 experiences errors, they throttle back on their overclocks to ensure the CPU runs cooler and more stable. It’s a good way to check if your CPU is stable under load. Stress Test Your Graphics Card Your graphics card can also be stress tested. For example, if your graphics driver crashes while playing games, the games themselves crash, or you see odd graphical corruption, you can run a graphics benchmark utility like 3DMark. The benchmark will stress your graphics card and, if it’s overheating or failing under load, you’ll see graphical problems, crashes, or blue screens while running the benchmark. If the benchmark seems to work fine but you have issues playing a certain game, it may just be a problem with that game. Swap it Out Not every hardware problem is easy to diagnose. If you have a bad motherboard or power supply, their problems may only manifest through occasional odd issues with other components. It’s hard to tell if these components are causing problems unless you replace them completely. Ultimately, the best way to determine whether a component is faulty is to swap it out. For example, if you think your graphics card may be causing your computer to blue screen, pull the graphics card out of your computer and swap in a new graphics card. If everything is working well, it’s likely that your previous graphics card was bad. This isn’t easy for people who don’t have boxes of components sitting around, but it’s the ideal way to troubleshoot. Troubleshooting is all about trial and error, and swapping components out allows you to pin down which component is actually causing the problem through a process of elimination. This isn’t a complete guide to everything that could likely go wrong and how to identify it — someone could write a full textbook on identifying failing components and still not cover everything. But the tips above should give you some places to start dealing with the more common problems. Image Credit: Justin Marty on Flickr     

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• How to create a virtual network with Azure Connect

  - by Herve Roggero

  If you are trying to establish a virtual network between machines located in disparate networks, you can either use VPN, Virtual Network or Azure Connect. If you want to establish a connection between machines located in Windows Azure, you should consider using the Virtual Network service. If you want to establish a connection between local machines and Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, you may be able to use your existing VPN device (assuming you have one), as long as the device is supported by Microsoft. If the VPN device you are using isn’t supported, or if you are trying to create a virtual network between machines from disparate networks (such as machines located in another cloud provider), you can use Azure Connect. This blog post explains how Azure Connect can help you create virtual networks between multiple servers in the cloud, various servers in different cloud environments, and on-premise. Note: Azure Connect is currently in Technical Preview. About Azure Connect Let’s do a quick review of Azure Connect. This technology implements an IPSec tunnel from machines to to a relay service located in the Microsoft cloud (Azure). So in essence, Azure Connect doesn’t provide a point-to-point connection between machines; the network communication is tunneled through the relay service. The relay service in turn offers a mechanism to enforce basic communication rules that you define through Groups. We will review this later. You could network two or more VMs in the Azure cloud (although you should consider using a Virtual Network if you go this route), or servers in the Azure cloud and other machines in the Amazon cloud for example, or even two or more on-premise servers located in different locations for which a direct network connection is not an option. You can place any number of machines in your topology. Azure Connect gives you great flexibility on how you want to build your virtual network across various environments. So Azure Connect makes sense when you want to: Connect machines located in different cloud providers Connect on-premise machines running in different locations Connect Azure VMs with on-premise (if you do not have a VPN device, or if your device is not supported) Connect Azure Roles (Worker Roles, Web Roles) with on-premise servers or in other cloud providers The diagram below shows you a high level network topology that involves machines in the Windows Azure cloud, other cloud providers and on-premise. You should note that the only required component in this diagram is the Relay itself. The other machines are optional (although your network is useful only if you have two or more machines involved). Relay agents are currently available in three geographic areas: US, Europe and Asia. You can change which region you want to use in the Windows Azure management portal. High Level Network Topology With Azure Connect Azure Connect Agent Azure Connect establishes a virtual network and creates virtual adapters on your machines; these virtual adapters communicate through the Relay using IPSec. This is achieved by installing an agent (the Azure Connect Agent) on all the machines you want in your network topology. However, you do not need to install the agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles; that’s because the agent is already installed for you. Any other machine, including Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, needs the agent installed.  To install the agent, simply go to your Windows Azure portal (http://windows.azure.com) and click on Networks on the bottom left panel. You will see a list of subscriptions under Connect. If you select a subscription, you will be able to click on the Install Local Endpoint icon on top. Clicking on this icon will begin the download and installation process for the agent. Activating Roles for Azure Connect As previously mentioned, you do not need to install the Azure Connect Agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles because it is already loaded. However, you do need to activate them if you want the roles to participate in your network topology. To do this, you will need to click on the Get Activation Token icon. The activation token must then be copied and placed in the configuration file of your roles. For more information on how to perform this step, visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432964.aspx. Firewall Rules Note that specific firewall rules must exist to allow the agent to communicate through the Relay. You will need to allow TCP 443 and ICMPv6. For additional information, please visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg433061.aspx. CA Certificates You can optionally require agents to sign their activation request with the Relay using a trusted certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Click on Activation Options to learn more. Groups To create your network topology you must first create a group. A group represents a logical container of endpoints (or machines) that can communicate through the Relay. You can create multiple groups allowing you to manage network communication differently. For example you could create a DEVELOPMENT group and a PRODUCTION group. To add an endpoint you must first install an agent that will create a virtual adapter on the machine on which it is installed (as discussed in the previous section). Once you have created a group and installed the agents, the machines will appear in the Windows Azure management portal and you can start assigning machines to groups. The next figure shows you that I created a group called LocalGroup and assigned two machines (both on-premise) to that group. Groups and Computers in Azure Connect As I mentioned previously you can allow these machines to establish a network connection. To do this, you must enable the Interconnected option in the group. The following diagram shows you the definition of the group. In this topology I chose to include local machines only, but I could also add worker roles and web roles in the Azure Roles section (you must first activate your roles, as discussed previously). You could also add other Groups, allowing you to manage inter-group communication. Defining a Group in Azure Connect Testing the Connection Now that my agents have been installed on my two machines, the group defined and the Interconnected option checked, I can test the connection between my machines. The next screenshot shows you that I sent a PING request to DEVLAP02 from DEVDSK02. The PING request was successful. Note however that the time is in the hundreds of milliseconds on average. That is to be expected because the machines are connecting through the Relay located in the cloud. Going through the Relay introduces an extra hop in the communication chain, so if your systems rely on high performance, you may want to conduct some basic performance tests. Sending a PING Request Through The Relay Conclusion As you can see, creating a network topology between machines using the Azure Connect service is simple. It took me less than five minutes to create the above configuration, including the time it took to install the Azure Connect agents on the two machines. The flexibility of Azure Connect allows you to create a virtual network between disparate environments, as long as your operating systems are supported by the agent. For more information on Azure Connect, visit the MSDN website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432997.aspx. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Windows Azure MVP, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting, a company specialized in cloud computing products and services. Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" from Apress and runs the Azure Florida Association (on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4177626). For more information on Blue Syntax Consulting, visit www.bluesyntax.net. Special Thanks I would like thank those that helped me figure out how Azure Connect works: Marcel Meijer - http://blogs.msmvps.com/marcelmeijer/ Michael Wood - Http://www.mvwood.com Glenn Block - http://www.codebetter.com/glennblock Yves Goeleven - http://cloudshaper.wordpress.com/ Sandrino Di Mattia - http://fabriccontroller.net/ Mike Martin - http://techmike2kx.wordpress.com

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• Developing Schema Compare for Oracle (Part 1)

  - by Simon Cooper

  SQL Compare is one of Red Gate's most successful SQL Server tools; it allows developers and DBAs to compare and synchronize the contents of their databases. Although similar tools exist for Oracle, they are quite noticeably lacking in the usability and stability that SQL Compare is known for in the SQL Server world. We could see a real need for a usable schema comparison tools for Oracle, and so the Schema Compare for Oracle project was born. Over the next few weeks, as we come up to release of v1, I'll be doing a series of posts on the development of Schema Compare for Oracle. For the first post, I thought I would start with the main pitfalls that we stumbled across when developing the product, especially from a SQL Server background. 1. Schemas and Databases The most obvious difference is that the concept of a 'database' is quite different between Oracle and SQL Server. On SQL Server, one server instance has multiple databases, each with separate schemas. There is typically little communication between separate databases, and most databases are no more than about 1000-2000 objects. This means SQL Compare can register an entire database in a reasonable amount of time, and cross-database dependencies probably won't be an issue. It is a quite different scene under Oracle, however. The terms 'database' and 'instance' are used interchangeably, (although technically 'database' refers to the datafiles on disk, and 'instance' the running Oracle process that reads & writes to the database), and a database is a single conceptual entity. This immediately presents problems, as it is infeasible to register an entire database as we do in SQL Compare; in my Oracle install, using the standard recommended options, there are 63975 system objects. If we tried to register all those, not only would it take hours, but the client would probably run out of memory before we finished. As a result, we had to allow people to specify what schemas they wanted to register. This decision had quite a few knock-on effects for the design, which I will cover in a future post. 2. Connecting to Oracle The next obvious difference is in actually connecting to Oracle – in SQL Server, you can specify a server and database, and off you go. On Oracle things are slightly more complicated. SIDs, Service Names, and TNS A database (the files on disk) must have a unique identifier for the databases on the system, called the SID. It also has a global database name, which consists of a name (which doesn't have to match the SID) and a domain. Alternatively, you can identify a database using a service name, which normally has a 1-to-1 relationship with instances, but may not if, for example, using RAC (Real Application Clusters) for redundancy and failover. You specify the computer and instance you want to connect to using TNS (Transparent Network Substrate). The user-visible parts are a config file (tnsnames.ora) on the client machine that specifies how to connect to an instance. For example, the entry for one of my test instances is: SC_11GDB1 = (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = simonctest)(PORT = 1521)) ) (CONNECT_DATA = (SID = 11gR1db1) ) ) This gives the hostname, port, and SID of the instance I want to connect to, and associates it with a name (SC_11GDB1). The tnsnames syntax also allows you to specify failover, multiple descriptions and address lists, and client load balancing. You can then specify this TNS identifier as the data source in a connection string. Although using ODP.NET (the .NET dlls provided by Oracle) was fine for internal prototype builds, once we released the EAP we discovered that this simply wasn't an acceptable solution for installs on other people's machines. Due to .NET assembly strong naming, users had to have installed on their machines the exact same version of the ODP.NET dlls as we had on our build server. We couldn't ship the ODP.NET dlls with our installer as the Oracle license agreement prohibited this, and we didn't want to force users to install another Oracle client just so they can run our program. To be able to list the TNS entries in the connection dialog, we also had to locate and parse the tnsnames.ora file, which was complicated by users with several Oracle client installs and intricate TNS entries. After much swearing at our computers, we eventually decided to use a third party Oracle connection library from Devart that we could ship with our program; this could use whatever client version was installed, parse the TNS entries for us, and also had the nice feature of being able to connect to an Oracle server without having any client installed at all. Unfortunately, their current license agreement prevents us from shipping an Oracle SDK, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it. 3. Running synchronization scripts The most important difference is that in Oracle, DDL is non-transactional; you cannot rollback DDL statements like you can on SQL Server. Although we considered various solutions to this, including using the flashback archive or recycle bin, or generating an undo script, no reliable method of completely undoing a half-executed sync script has yet been found; so in this case we simply have to trust that the DBA or developer will check and verify the script before running it. However, before we got to that stage, we had to get the scripts to run in the first place... To run a synchronization script from SQL Compare we essentially pass the script over to the SqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery method. However, when we tried to do the same for an OracleConnection we got a very strange error – 'ORA-00911: invalid character', even when running the most basic CREATE TABLE command. After much hair-pulling and Googling, we discovered that Oracle has got some very strange behaviour with semicolons at the end of statements. To understand what's going on, we need to take a quick foray into SQL and PL/SQL. PL/SQL is not T-SQL In SQL Server, T-SQL is the language used to interface with the database. It has DDL, DML, control flow, and many other nice features (like Turing-completeness) that you can mix and match in the same script. In Oracle, DDL SQL and PL/SQL are two completely separate languages, with different syntax, different datatypes and different execution engines within the instance. Oracle SQL is much more like 'pure' ANSI SQL, with no state, no control flow, and only the basic DML commands. PL/SQL is the Turing-complete language, but can only do DML and DCL (i.e. BEGIN TRANSATION commands). Any DDL or SQL commands that aren't recognised by the PL/SQL engine have to be passed back to the SQL engine via an EXECUTE IMMEDIATE command. In PL/SQL, a semicolons is a valid token used to delimit the end of a statement. In SQL, a semicolon is not a valid token (even though the Oracle documentation gives them at the end of the syntax diagrams) . When you execute the command CREATE TABLE table1 (COL1 NUMBER); in SQL*Plus the semicolon on the end is a command to SQL*Plus to execute the preceding statement on the server; it strips off the semicolon before passing it on. SQL Developer does a similar thing. When executing a PL/SQL block, however, the syntax is like so: BEGIN INSERT INTO table1 VALUES (1); INSERT INTO table1 VALUES (2); END; / In this case, the semicolon is accepted by the PL/SQL engine as a statement delimiter, and instead the / is the command to SQL*Plus to execute the current block. This explains the ORA-00911 error we got when trying to run the CREATE TABLE command – the server is complaining about the semicolon on the end. This also means that there is no SQL syntax to execute more than one DDL command in the same OracleCommand. Therefore, we would have to do a round-trip to the server for every command we want to execute. Obviously, this would cause lots of network traffic and be very slow on slow or congested networks. Our first attempt at a solution was to wrap every SQL statement (without semicolon) inside an EXECUTE IMMEDIATE command in a PL/SQL block and pass that to the server to execute. One downside of this solution is that we get no feedback as to how the script execution is going; we're currently evaluating better solutions to this thorny issue. Next up: Dependencies; how we solved the problem of being unable to register the entire database, and the knock-on effects to the whole product.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, July 15, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, July 15, 2013Popular ReleasesMVC Forum: MVC Forum v1.0: Finally version 1.0 is here! We have been fixing a few bugs, and making sure the release is as stable as possible. We have also changed the way configuration of the application works, mostly how to add your own code or replace some of the standard code with your own. If you download and use our software, please give us some sort of feedback, good or bad!SharePoint 2013 TypeScript Definitions: Release 1.1: TypeScript 0.9 support SharePoint TypeScript Definitions are now compliant with the new version of TypeScript TypeScript generics are now used for defining collection classes (derivatives of SP.ClientCollection object) Improved coverage Added mQuery definitions (m$) Added SPClientAutoFill definitions SP.Utilities namespace is now fully covered SP.UI modal dialog definitions improved CSR definitions improved, added some missing methods and context properties, mostly related to list ...GoAgent GUI: GoAgent GUI ??? 1.0.0: ????GoAgent GUI????，???????????.Net Framework 4.0 ???????: Windows 8 x64 Windows 8 x86 Windows 7 x64 Windows 7 x86 ???????： Windows 8.1 Preview (x86/x64) ???????： Windows XP ????： ????????GoAgent????，????????，?????????????，???????????????????，??????????，????。PiGraph: PiGraph 2.0.8.13: C?p nh?t:Các l?i dã s?a: S?a l?i không nh?p du?c s? âm. L?i tabindex trong giao di?n Thêm hàm Các l?i chua kh?c ph?c: L?i ghi chú nh?p nháy màu. L?i khung ghi chú vu?t ra kh?i biên khi luu file. Luu ý:N?u không kh?i d?ng duoc chuong trình, b?n nên c?p nh?t driver card d? h?a phiên b?n m?i nh?t: AMD Graphics Drivers NVIDIA Driver Xem yêu c?u h? th?ngD3D9Client: D3D9Client R12 for Orbiter Beta: D3D9Client release for orbiter BetaVidCoder: 1.4.23: New in 1.4.23 Added French translation. Fixed non-x264 video encoders not sticking in video tab. New in 1.4 Updated HandBrake core to 0.9.9 Blu-ray subtitle (PGS) support Additional framerates: 30, 50, 59.94, 60 Additional sample rates: 8, 11.025, 12 and 16 kHz Additional higher bitrates for audio Same as Source Constant Framerate 24-bit FLAC encoding Added Windows Phone 8 and Apple TV 3 presets Introduced process isolation for encodes. Now if HandBrake crashes, VidCoder will ...Project Server 2013 Event Handler Admin Tool: PSI Event Admin Tool: Download & exract the File. Use LoggerAdmin to upload the event handlers in project server 2013. PSIEventLogger\LoggerAdmin\bin\DebugGherkin editor: Gherkin Editor Beta 2: Fix issue #7 and add some refactoring and code cleanupNew-NuGetPackage PowerShell Script: New-NuGetPackage.ps1 PowerShell Script v1.2: Show nuget gallery to push to when prompting user if they want to push their package.Site Templates By Steve: SharePoint 2010 CORE Site Theme By Steve WSP: Great Site Theme to start with from Steve. See project home page for install instructions. This is a nice centered, mega-menu, fixed width masterpage with styles. Remember to update the mega menu lists.SharePoint Solution Installer: SharePoint Solution Installer V1.2.8: setup2013.exe now supports CompatibilityLevel to target specific hive Use setup.exe for SP2007 & SP2010. Use setup2013.exe for SP2013.TBox - tool to make developer's life easier.: TBox 1.021: 1)Add console unit tests runner, to run unit tests in parallel from console. Also this new sub tool can save valid xml nunit report. It can help you in continuous integration. 2)Fix build scripts.LifeInSharepoint Modern UI Update: Version 2: Some minor improvements, including Audience Targeting support for quick launch links. Also removing all NextDocs references.Virtual Photonics: VTS MATLAB Package 1.0.13 Beta: This is the beta release of the MATLAB package with examples of using the VTS libraries within MATLAB. Changes for this release: Added two new examples to vts_solver_demo.m that: 1) generates and plots R(lambda) at a given rho, and chromophore concentrations assuming a power law for scattering, and 2) solves inverse problem for R(lambda) at given rho. This example solves for concentrations of HbO2, Hb and H20 given simulated measurements created using Nurbs scaled Monte Carlo and inverted u...Advanced Resource Tab for Blend: Advanced Resource Tab: This is the first alpha release of the advanced resource tab for Blend for Visual Studio 2012.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.96: Fix for issue #19957: EXE should output the name of the file(s) being minified. Discussion #449181: throw a Sev-2 warning when trailing commas are detected on an Array literal. Perfectly legal to do so, but the behavior ends up working differently on different browsers, so throw a cross-browser warning. Add a few more known global names for improved ES6 compatibility update Nuget package to version 2.5 and automatically add the AjaxMin.targets to your project when you update the package...Outlook 2013 Add-In: Categories and Colors: This new version has a major change in the drawing of the list items: - Using owner drawn code to format the appointments using GDI (some flickering may occur, but it looks a little bit better IMHO, with separate sections). - Added category color support (if more than one category, only one color will be shown). Here, the colors Outlook uses are slightly different than the ones available in System.Drawing, so I did a first approach matching. ;-) - Added appointment status support (to show fr...Columbus Remote Desktop: 2.0 Sapphire: Added configuration settings Added update notifications Added ability to disable GPU acceleration Fixed connection bugsLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v2.1.07: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Windows Phone 8, Client Profile, Windows 8, and Windows Azure. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also supports Twitter API v1.1! Also on NuGet.DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.08: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the application throws an Unhandled Error and an HTTP Response Code of 200 when the connection to the database is lost. Security FixesNone Updated Modules/Providers ModulesNone ProvidersNoneNew Projects[.Net Intl] harroc_c;mallar_a;olouso_f: The goal of this project is to create a web crawler and a web front who allows you to search in your index. You will create a mini (or large!) search engine basButterfly Storage: Butterfly Storage is a data access technology based on object-oriented database model for Windows Store applications.KaveCompany: KaveCompleave that girl alone: a team project!MyClrProfiler: This project helps you learn about and develop your own CLR profiler.NETDeob: Deobfuscate obfuscated .NET files easilyProgram stomatologie: SummarySimple Graph Library: Simple portable class library for graphs data structures. .NET, Silverlight 4/5, Windows Phone, Windows RT, Xbox 360T6502 Emulator: T6502 is a 6502 emulator written in TypeScript using AngularJS. The goal is well-organized, readable code over performance.WP8 File Access Webserver: C# HTTP server and web application on Windows Phone 8. Implements file access, browsing and downloading.wpadk: wpadk????wp7?????? ?????????，?????、SDK、wpadk?????????????。??????????????????。??????????????????，????wpadk?????????????????????????????????????。xlmUnit: xlmUnit, Unit Testing

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• Lenovo V570 CPU fan running constantly, CPU core 1 running over 90%!

  - by Rabbit2190

  I have seen that a lot of people are having this same issue. I am running a Lenovo V570 i5 4 core, 6 gigs of ram, and am running 11.10 Onieric Ocelot. On my system monitor graph it shows CPU at 20%, when I open the monitor it shows core #1 at around 90%, the other cores fluctuate at or below 5-12% if even. Now this seems like a really terrible balance of power between the cores, especially with so much stress on one core only, when these things are designed to work with 4 cores and not at such high temps. My current readings say 64 degrees Celsius, this does not seem normal for any cpu, and I am seriously considering, working on my windows7 partition until I see a real solution to this issue or upgrading to 12.04 right away when it comes out... I have seen countless things saying it has something to do with the Kernel, the kernel on mine is the same as when I upgraded, I really do not like messing with it, as when I had 11.04, I did tinker with it due to the freeze issues I was having, and that just made worse issues. I like this version 11.10 and would like to keep it for a while, but without the fear that my core is going to fry! So any help would be much appreciated! I did try changing a couple things in ACPI, and restarting this did not help, and here I am. I tried one thing prior to that that was listed under a different computer brand, but it would not do a make on the file. I really need help with this, I rely on this computer for a lot of things, and love this OS! Please help so I do not need to resort to my Microsoft partition! PLEASE! Here is the fwts cpufrequ- output: rabbit@rabbit-Lenovo-V570:~$ sudo fwts cpufreq - 00001 fwts Results generated by fwts: Version V0.23.25 (Thu Oct 6 15 00002 fwts :12:31 BST 2011). 00003 fwts 00004 fwts Some of this work - Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010, Intel Corp. 00005 fwts All rights reserved. 00006 fwts Some of this work - Copyright (c) 2010 - 2011, Canonical. 00007 fwts 00008 fwts This test run on 02/04/12 at 17:23:22 on host Linux 00009 fwts rabbit-Lenovo-V570 3.0.0-17-generic-pae #30-Ubuntu SMP Thu 00010 fwts Mar 8 17:53:35 UTC 2012 i686. 00011 fwts 00012 fwts Running tests: cpufreq. 00014 cpufreq CPU frequency scaling tests (takes ~1-2 mins). 00015 cpufreq --------------------------------------------------------- 00016 cpufreq Test 1 of 1: CPU P-State Checks. 00017 cpufreq For each processor in the system, this test steps through 00018 cpufreq the various frequency states (P-states) that the BIOS 00019 cpufreq advertises for the processor. For each processor/frequency 00020 cpufreq combination, a quick performance value is measured. The 00021 cpufreq test then validates that: 00022 cpufreq 1) Each processor has the same number of frequency states 00023 cpufreq 2) Higher advertised frequencies have a higher performance 00024 cpufreq 3) No duplicate frequency values are reported by the BIOS 00025 cpufreq 4) Is BIOS wrongly doing Sw_All P-state coordination across cores 00026 cpufreq 5) Is BIOS wrongly doing Sw_Any P-state coordination across cores 00027 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00028 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00029 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00030 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.7 % 00031 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.2 % 00032 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.5 % 00033 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.2 % 00034 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.6 % 00035 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.8 % 00036 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.5 % 00037 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.6 % 00038 cpufreq 9 CPU frequency steps supported 00039 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00040 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00041 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 97.7 % 00042 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.7 % 00043 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.6 % 00044 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 63.3 % 00045 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.7 % 00046 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.7 % 00047 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.7 % 00048 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.5 % 00049 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.5 % 00050 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00051 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00052 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 97.7 % 00053 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 84.4 % 00054 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.6 % 00055 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.6 % 00056 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.9 % 00057 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.7 % 00058 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.7 % 00059 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.7 % 00060 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.8 % 00061 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00062 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00063 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00064 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.6 % 00065 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 67.8 % 00066 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.4 % 00067 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00068 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.3 % 00069 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00070 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.3 % 00071 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.4 % 00072 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00073 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00074 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.2 % 00075 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.5 % 00076 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.3 % 00077 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.7 % 00078 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.0 % 00079 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 47.4 % 00080 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00081 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.0 % 00082 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.2 % 00083 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00084 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00085 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.5 % 00086 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.6 % 00087 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.1 % 00088 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.7 % 00089 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00090 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00091 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00092 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00093 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.8 % 00094 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00095 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00096 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.4 % 00097 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.6 % 00098 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.8 % 00099 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 60.5 % 00100 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.4 % 00101 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.8 % 00102 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00103 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00104 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.4 % 00105 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00106 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00107 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 95.3 % 00108 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.5 % 00109 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 65.5 % 00110 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.8 % 00111 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.8 % 00112 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00113 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.2 % 00114 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00115 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.3 % 00116 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00117 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00118 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.3 % 00119 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.4 % 00120 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.3 % 00121 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.9 % 00122 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00123 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00124 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00125 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00126 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.3 % 00127 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00128 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00129 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00130 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 77.9 % 00131 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 64.6 % 00132 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 54.0 % 00133 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 51.7 % 00134 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.2 % 00135 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.0 % 00136 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 33.1 % 00137 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 25.5 % 00138 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00139 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00140 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 93.4 % 00141 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 75.7 % 00142 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 64.5 % 00143 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.1 % 00144 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 51.4 % 00145 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.9 % 00146 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.3 % 00147 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.7 % 00148 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 25.8 % 00149 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00150 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00151 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.1 % 00152 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 78.1 % 00153 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 65.7 % 00154 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 58.6 % 00155 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.5 % 00156 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.7 % 00157 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.3 % 00158 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.7 % 00159 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 24.3 % 00160 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00161 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00162 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 88.9 % 00163 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 79.8 % 00164 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 58.4 % 00165 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 52.6 % 00166 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 46.9 % 00167 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 41.0 % 00168 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 35.1 % 00169 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 29.1 % 00170 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 22.9 % 00171 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00172 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00173 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.8 % 00174 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 80.1 % 00175 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 66.2 % 00176 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.5 % 00177 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.9 % 00178 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 46.2 % 00179 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.5 % 00180 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.9 % 00181 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.3 % 00182 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00183 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00184 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.9 % 00185 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 79.5 % 00186 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 66.2 % 00187 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.6 % 00188 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.9 % 00189 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 46.7 % 00190 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.6 % 00191 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.9 % 00192 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.3 % 00193 cpufreq FAILED [MEDIUM] CPUFreqCPUsSetToSW_ANY: Test 1, Processors 00194 cpufreq are set to SW_ANY. 00195 cpufreq FAILED [MEDIUM] CPUFreqSW_ANY: Test 1, Firmware not 00196 cpufreq implementing hardware coordination cleanly. Firmware using 00197 cpufreq SW_ANY instead?. 00198 cpufreq 00199 cpufreq ========================================================= 00200 cpufreq 0 passed, 2 failed, 0 warnings, 0 aborted, 0 skipped, 0 00201 cpufreq info only. 00202 cpufreq ========================================================= 00204 summary 00205 summary 0 passed, 2 failed, 0 warnings, 0 aborted, 0 skipped, 0 00206 summary info only. 00207 summary 00208 summary Test Failure Summary 00209 summary ==================== 00210 summary 00211 summary Critical failures: NONE 00212 summary 00213 summary High failures: NONE 00214 summary 00215 summary Medium failures: 2 00216 summary cpufreq test, at 1 log line: 193 00217 summary "Processors are set to SW_ANY." 00218 summary cpufreq test, at 1 log line: 195 00219 summary "Firmware not implementing hardware coordination cleanly. Firmware using SW_ANY instead?." 00220 summary 00221 summary Low failures: NONE 00222 summary 00223 summary Other failures: NONE 00224 summary 00225 summary Test |Pass |Fail |Abort|Warn |Skip |Info | 00226 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 00227 summary cpufreq | | 2| | | | | 00228 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 00229 summary Total: | 0| 2| 0| 0| 0| 0| 00230 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ rabbit@rabbit-Lenovo-V570:~$

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• REST to Objects in C#

  RESTful interfaces for web services are all the rage for many Web 2.0 sites.  If you want to consume these in a very simple fashion, LINQ to XML can do the job pretty easily in C#.  If you go searching for help on this, youll find a lot of incomplete solutions and fairly large toolkits and frameworks (guess how I know this) this quick article is meant to be a no fluff just stuff approach to making this work. POCO Objects Lets assume you have a Model that you want to suck data into from a RESTful web service.  Ideally this is a Plain Old CLR Object, meaning it isnt infected with any persistence or serialization goop.  It might look something like this: public class Entry { public int Id; public int UserId; public DateTime Date; public float Hours; public string Notes; public bool Billable;   public override string ToString() { return String.Format("[{0}] User: {1} Date: {2} Hours: {3} Notes: {4} Billable {5}", Id, UserId, Date, Hours, Notes, Billable); } } Not that this isnt a completely trivial object.  Lets look at the API for the service.  RESTful HTTP Service In this case, its TickSpots API, with the following sample output: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <entries type="array"> <entry> <id type="integer">24</id> <task_id type="integer">14</task_id> <user_id type="integer">3</user_id> <date type="date">2008-03-08</date> <hours type="float">1.00</hours> <notes>Had trouble with tribbles.</notes> <billable>true</billable> # Billable is an attribute inherited from the task <billed>true</billed> # Billed is an attribute to track whether the entry has been invoiced <created_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</created_at> <updated_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</updated_at> # The following attributes are derived and provided for informational purposes: <user_email>[email protected]</user_email> <task_name>Remove converter assembly</task_name> <sum_hours type="float">2.00</sum_hours> <budget type="float">10.00</budget> <project_name>Realign dilithium crystals</project_name> <client_name>Starfleet Command</client_name> </entry> </entries> Im assuming in this case that I dont necessarily care about all of the data fields the service is returning I just need some of them for my applications purposes.  Thus, you can see there are more elements in the <entry> XML than I have in my Entry class. Get The XML with C# The next step is to get the XML.  The following snippet does the heavy lifting once you pass it the appropriate URL: protected XElement GetResponse(string uri) { var request = WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest; request.UserAgent = ".NET Sample"; request.KeepAlive = false;   request.Timeout = 15 * 1000;   var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;   if (request.HaveResponse == true && response != null) { var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()); return XElement.Parse(reader.ReadToEnd()); } throw new Exception("Error fetching data."); } This is adapted from the Yahoo Developer article on Web Service REST calls.  Once you have the XML, the last step is to get the data back as your POCO. Use LINQ-To-XML to Deserialize POCOs from XML This is done via the following code: public IEnumerable<Entry> List(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) { string additionalParameters = String.Format("start_date={0}&end_date={1}", startDate.ToShortDateString(), endDate.ToShortDateString()); string uri = BuildUrl("entries", additionalParameters);   XElement elements = GetResponse(uri);   var entries = from e in elements.Elements() where e.Name.LocalName == "entry" select new Entry { Id = int.Parse(e.Element("id").Value), UserId = int.Parse(e.Element("user_id").Value), Date = DateTime.Parse(e.Element("date").Value), Hours = float.Parse(e.Element("hours").Value), Notes = e.Element("notes").Value, Billable = bool.Parse(e.Element("billable").Value) }; return entries; }   For completeness, heres the BuildUrl method for my TickSpot API wrapper: // Change these to your settings protected const string projectDomain = "DOMAIN.tickspot.com"; private const string authParams = "[email protected]&password=MyTickSpotPassword";   protected string BuildUrl(string apiMethod, string additionalParams) { if (projectDomain.Contains("DOMAIN")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your domain in ProjectRepository.cs."); } if (authParams.Contains("MyTickSpotPassword")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your email and password in ProjectRepository.cs."); } return string.Format("https://{0}/api/{1}?{2}&{3}", projectDomain, apiMethod, authParams, additionalParams); } Thats it!  Now go forth and consume XML and map it to classes you actually want to work with.  Have fun! 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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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 26, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 26, 2014Popular ReleasesClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.71.1: More performance improvements. It's faster and consumes less memory.Role Based Views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Role Based Views in CRM 2011 and 2013 - 1.1.0.0: Issues fixed in this build: 1. Works for CRM 2013 2. Lookup view not getting blockedSimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.3.1.0: Main New Features: Fixed Importing of Instance Names (get rid of the Dutch translations) Added advanced editor for Decal Dictionaries Added possibility to import .PNG to generate new decals Added advanced editor for Path display entriesSimple Connect To Db: SimpleConnectToDb_v1: SimpleConnectToDb_v1CRM 2011 / CRM 2013 Form Helper: v2014.05.25: v2014.05.25 Added PhoneFormat & PhoneFormatAreaCode v2014.05.24 Initial ReleaseCreate Word documents without MS Word: Release 3.0: Add support for Sections, Sections Headers and Footers and right to left languages.Corporate News App for SharePoint 2013: CorporateNewsApp v1.6.2.0: Important note This version contains a major bug fix about the generic error "Request failed. Unexpected response data from server null" This error occurs on SharePoint Online only, following an update of the Javascript API after May 2014. If you have installed this application manually in your applications company catalog, you can download the CorporateNewsApp.app file in the zip archive and update it manually. If you have installed this application directly from the SharePoint Store, it ...DevOS: DevOS: Plugin-system added Including:DevOS.exe DevOS API.dll Files must be in the some folderTiny Deduplicator: Tiny Deduplicator 1.0.1.0: Increased version number to 1.0.1.0 Moved all options to a separate 'Options' dialog window. Allows the user to specify a selection strategy which will help when dealing with large numbers of duplicate files. Available options are "None," "Keep First," and "Keep Last"C64 Studio: 3.5: Add: BASIC renumber function Add: !PET pseudo op Add: elseif for !if, } else { pseudo op Add: !TRACE pseudo op Add: Watches are saved/restored with a solution Add: Ctrl-A works now in export assembly controls Add: Preliminary graphic import dialog (not fully functional yet) Add: range and block selection in sprite/charset editor (Shift-Click = range, Alt-Click = block) Fix: Expression evaluator could miscalculate when both division and multiplication were in an expression without parenthesisSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.031.009 Release 1: Added mirroring of ConveyorTubeCurved. Updated Ship cube rotation to rotate ship back to original location (cubes are reoriented but ship appears no different to outsider), and to rotate Grouped items. Repair now fixes the loss of Grouped controls due to changes in Space Engineers 01.030. Added export asteroids. Rejoin ships will merge grouping and conveyor systems (even though broken ships currently only maintain the Grouping on one part of the ship). Installation of this version wi...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP v2.0: Support for new Universal and Windows Phone 8.1 projects for both Xaml and JavaScript projects. See a detailed list of improvements, breaking changes and a general overview of version 2 ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applicat...TerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.6: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Added the ability to select multiple highlighted block types. Added a dynamic, interactive highlight opacity slider, making it easier to find highlighted tiles with dark colors (and fixed blurriness from 1.0.5 alpha). Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Fixed inst...DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 with Examples: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 Tested and adapted to the latest version of Highcharts 4.0.1 Added new chart type: Heatmap Added new type PointPlacement which represents enumeration or number for the padding of the X axis. Changed target framework from .NET Framework 4 to .NET Framework 4.5. Closed issues: 974: Add 'overflow' property to PlotOptionsColumnDataLabels class 997: Split container from JS 1006: Series/Categories with numeric names don't render DotNet.Highcharts.Samples Updated s...ConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu 140523 [Alpha]: ConEmu - developer build x86 and x64 versions. Written in C++, no additional packages required. Run "ConEmu.exe" or "ConEmu64.exe". Some useful information you may found: http://superuser.com/questions/tagged/conemu http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/ConEmuFAQ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/TableOfContents If you want to use ConEmu in portable mode, just create empty "ConEmu.xml" file near to "ConEmu.exe" Aspose for Apache POI: Missing Features of Apache POI SL - v 1.1: Release contain the Missing Features in Apache POI SL SDK in Comparison with Aspose.Slides for dealing with Microsoft Power Point. What's New ?Following Examples: Managing Slide Transitions Manage Smart Art Adding Media Player Adding Audio Frame to Slide Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are yet to come here. Keep visiting us. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit: PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit v3.1.3: Added CompressLogs option to the config file. Each Install / Uninstall creates a timestamped zip file with all MSI and PSAppDeployToolkit logs contained within Added variable expansion to all paths in the configuration file Added documentation for each of the Toolkit internal variables that can be used Changed Install-MSUpdates to continue if any errors are encountered when installing updates Implement /Force parameter on Update-GroupPolicy (ensure that any logoff message is ignored) ...WordMat: WordMat v. 1.07: A quick fix because scientific notation was broken in v. 1.06 read more at http://wordmat.blogspot.com????: 《????》: 《????》（c???）??“????”???????，???????????????C?????????。???????,???????????????????????. ??????????????????????????????????；????????????????????????????。Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query (1.0.72.457): Apologies for the previous update! FK issue fixed and also a template data cache issue.New ProjectsASP.Net MCV4 Simplified Code Samples: This project intended to simplify the same. In this project each task is implemented with minimum lines of code to reduces complicity.Calvin: net???CodeLatino by Latinosoft: A Modified version for codeShow -- Probably taking more than a month.freeasyBackup: A free and easy to use Backup Tool for everyone. Without any cloud restrictions. freeasyExplorer: A free and easy to use File Explorer for everyone.openPDFspeedreader: #spritz #pdfreader #speedreader PDF Editor to Edit PDF Files in your ASP.NET Applications: This sample application allows the users to edit PDF files online using Aspose.Pdf for .NET.SharePoint World Cup 2013: world cup 2014SSAS Long Running Query Performance Helper: This utility helps investigate long running multidimensional or mining queries in discovery, de-parameterization and re-parameterization back to source format.

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• Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets - Creating a ModifyJeOS VirtualBox

  - by The Old Toxophilist

  Following on from my previous blog entry "Modifying the Base Template" I decided to put together a quick blog to show how to create a small VirtualBox, guest, that can be used to execute the ModifyJeOS and hence edit you templates. One of the main advantages of this is that Templates can be created away from the Exalogic Environment. For the Guest OS I chose OEL 6u3 and decided to create it as a basic server because I did not require a graphical interface but it's a simple change to create it with a GUI. Required Software Virtual Box. Oracle Enterprise Linux. Creating the VM I'll assume that the reader is experienced with Virtual Box and installing OEL and hence will make this section brief. Create VirtualBox Guest Create a new VirtualBox Guest and select oracle Linux 64 bit. Follow through the create process and select Dynamic Disk Size and the default 12GB disk size. The actual image will be a lot smaller than this but the OEL install will fail with insufficient disk space if you attempt a smaller size. Once the guest has been created attach the previously downloaded OEL 6u3 iso to the cd drive and start the guest. Install OEL On starting the guest the system will boot off the associated OEL 6u3 iso and take you through the standard installation process. Select all the appropriate information but when you reach the installation type select Basic Server because we do not need that additional packages and only need to access through the command line interface. Complete the installation and reboot the Guest. At this point we now have a basic OEL server running. Installing Guest Add-ons Before we can easily access the Guest we will need to add the VirtualBox guest add-ons. These will provide better keyboard and mouse integration and allow access the shared folders on the host machine. Before we can do this we will need to do the following: Enable Networking. Install additional rpms.  To enable the networking (eth0), that appears to be disabled by default, we can execute: ifup eth0 This will start the eth0 connection but once the Guest is rebooted the network will be down again. To resolve this you will need to edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and change the ONBOOT parameter to "yes". Now we have enabled the network we will need to install a number of addition rpm. First we will need to configure the yum repository as follows: [ol6_latest] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Latest ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/latest/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 [ol6_ga_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever GA installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/0/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u1_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 1 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/1/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u2_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 2 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/2/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u3_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 3 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/3/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_UEK_latest] name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/latest/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 [ol6_UEK_base] name=Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 Once the repository has been edited we will need to execute the following yum commands: yum update yum install gcc yum install kernel-uek-devel yum install kernel-devel yum install createrepo At this point we now have all the additional packages required to install the VirtualBox Guest Add-ons. So select Devices->InstallGuest Additions on you running guest: This will simply place the VirtualBoxGuestAdditions.iso in the virtual cd and we will need to execute the following before we can run them. mkdir /media/cdrom mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom cd /media/cdrom/ ls ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run This will initiate the install and kernel rebuild. What you will notice is that during the installation a Failed will be displayed but this is simply because we have no graphical components. At this point we the installation will also have added the vboxsf group to the system and to access any shared folders we will create our user will need to be a member of this group an so the next stage is to add the root user to this group as follows: usermod -G vboxsf root cat /etc/group cat /etc/passwd init 0 Now simply shutdown the guest and add the Shared folder within your guests settings. Install ModifyJeOS Once the shared folder has been added restart the guest and change directory into the shared folder (/media/sf_<folder name>). For the next step I am assuming the ModifyJeOS rpms are located in the shared folder. We can simply execute: rpm -ivh ovm-modify-jeos-1.1.0-17.el5.noarch.rpm # Test with modifyjeos Using ModifyJeOS I have a modified MountSystemImg.sh script that should be copied into the /root/bin directory (you may need to create this) and from here it can be executed from any location: MountSystemImg.sh #!/bin/sh # The script assumes it's being run from the directory containing the System.img # Export for later i.e. during unmount export LOOP=`losetup -f` export SYSTEMIMG=/mnt/elsystem export TEMPLATEDIR=`pwd` # Make Temp Mount Directory mkdir -p $SYSTEMIMG # Create Loop for the System Image losetup $LOOP System.img kpartx -a $LOOP mount /dev/mapper/`basename $LOOP`p2 $SYSTEMIMG #Change Dir into mounted Image cd $SYSTEMIMG echo "######################################################################" echo "### ###" echo "### Starting Bash shell for editing. When completed log out to ###" echo "### Unmount the System.img file. ###" echo "### ###" echo "######################################################################" echo bash cd ~ cd $TEMPLATEDIR umount $SYSTEMIMG kpartx -d $LOOP losetup -d $LOOP rm -rf $SYSTEMIMG This script will simple create a mount directory, mount the System.img and then start a new shell in the mounted directory. On exiting the shell it will unmount the System.img. It only requires that you execute the script in the directory containing the System.img. These can be created under the mounted shared directory. In the example below I have extracted the Base template within the shared folder and then renamed it OEL_40GB_ROOT before changing into that directory and executing the script.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #031

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Find Table without Clustered Index – Find Table with no Primary Key Clustered index is very important concept for any table. They impact the performance very heavily. Here is a quick script to find tables without a clustered index. Replace TEXT with VARCHAR(MAX) – Stop using TEXT, NTEXT, IMAGE Data Types Question: “Is VARCHAR (MAX) big enough to store the TEXT field?” Answer: “Yes, VARCHAR(MAX) is big enough to accommodate TEXT field. TEXT, NTEXT and IMAGE data types of SQL Server 2000 will be deprecated in a future version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2005 provides backward compatibility to data types but it is recommended to use new data types which are VARHCAR (MAX), NVARCHAR (MAX) and VARBINARY (MAX).” Limiting Result Sets by Using TABLESAMPLE – Examples Introduced in SQL Server 2005, TABLESAMPLE allows you to extract a sampling of rows from a table in the FROM clause. The rows retrieved are random and they are are not in any order. This sampling can be based on a percentage of number of rows. You can use TABLESAMPLE when only a sampling of rows is necessary for the application instead of a full result set. User Defined Functions (UDF) Limitations UDF have its own advantage and usage but in this article we will see the limitation of UDF. Things UDF can not do and why Stored Procedure are considered as more flexible then UDFs. Stored Procedure are more flexibility then User Defined Functions(UDF). However, this blog post is a good read to know what are the limitations of UDF. Change Database Compatible Level – Backward Compatibility For a long time SQL Server stayed on the compatibility level of 80 which is of SQL Server 2000. However, as soon as SQL Server 2005 introduced the issue of compatibility was quite a major issue. Since that time MS has been releasing the versions at every 2-3 years, changing compatibility is a ever popular topic. In this blog post, we learn how we can do the same using T-SQL. We can also do the same using SSMS and here is the blog post for the same: Change Database Compatible Level – Backward Compatibility – Part 2 – Management Studio. Constraint on VARCHAR(MAX) Field To Limit It Certain Length How can I limit the VARCHAR(MAX) field with maximum length of 12500 characters only. His Question was valid as our application was allowed 12500 characters. First of all – this requirement is bit strange but if someone wants to do the same, they can do it as described in this blog post. 2008 UNPIVOT Table Example Understanding UNPIVOT can be very complicated at times. In this blog post, I have attempted to explain the same concept in very simple words. Create Default Constraint Over Table Column A simple straight to script blog post – I still use this blog quite many times for my own reference. UDF – Get the Day of the Week Function It took me 4 iteration to find this very simple function which can immediately get the day of the week in a single line. 2009 Find Hostname and Current Logged In User Name There are two tricks listed in this blog post where users can find out the hostname and current logged user name immediately and very easily. Interesting Observation of Logon Trigger On All Servers When I was doing a project, I made an interesting observation of executing a logon trigger multiple times. It was absolutely unexpected for me! As I was logging only once, naturally, I was expecting the entry only once. However, it did it multiple times on different threads – indeed an eccentric phenomenon at first sight! Difference Between Candidate Keys and Primary Key One needs to be very careful in selecting the Primary Key as an incorrect selection can adversely impact the database architect and future normalization. For a Candidate Key to qualify as a Primary Key, it should be Non-NULL and unique in any domain. I have observed quite often that Primary Keys are seldom changed. I would like to have your feedback on not changing a Primary Key. Create Multiple Filegroup For Single Database Why should one create multiple file group for any database and what are the advantages of the same. In this blog post, I explain the same in detail. List All Objects Created on All Filegroups in Database In this blog post we discuss the essential question – “How can I find which object belongs to which filegroup. Is there any way to know this?” 2010 DATE and TIME in SQL Server 2008 When DATE is converted to DATETIME it adds the of midnight. When TIME is converted to DATETIME it adds the date of 1900 and it is something one wants to consider if you are going to run scripts from SQL Server 2008 to earlier version with CONVERT. Disabled Index and Update Statistics If you do not need a nonclustered index, I suggest you to drop it as keeping them disabled is an overhead on your system. This is because every time the statistics are updated for system all the statistics for disabled indexes are also updated. Precision of SMALLDATETIME – A 1 Minute Precision The precision of the datatype SMALLDATETIME is 1 minute. It discards the seconds by rounding up or rounding down any seconds greater than zero. 2011 Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON SET FMTONLY ON returns only metadata to the client. It can be used to test the format of the response without actually running the query. When this setting is ON the resultset only have headers of the results but no data. Copy Database from Instance to Another Instance – Copy Paste in SQL Server SQL Server has a feature which copy database from one database to another database and it can be automated as well using SSIS. Make sure you have SQL Server Agent Turned on as this feature will create a job. Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) If you have ever wondered SELECT * gives error when executed alone but SELECT COUNT(*) does not. Why? in that case, you should read this blog post. Creating All New Database with Full Recovery Model This blog post is very based on very interesting story where the user wants to do something by default for every single new database created. Model database is a secret weapon which should be used very carefully and with proper evalution. If used carefully this can be a very much beneficiary when we need a newly created database behave in certain fashion. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Can anyone remember their final day of schooling?  This is probably a silly question because – of course you can!  Many people mark this as the most exciting, happiest day of their life.  It marks the end of testing, the end of following rules set by teachers, and the beginning of finally being able to earn money and work in your chosen field. Read five part series on developer training subject Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• elffile: ELF Specific File Identification Utility

  - by user9154181

  Solaris 11 has a new standard user level command, /usr/bin/elffile. elffile is a variant of the file utility that is focused exclusively on linker related files: ELF objects, archives, and runtime linker configuration files. All other files are simply identified as "non-ELF". The primary advantage of elffile over the existing file utility is in the area of archives — elffile examines the archive members and can produce a summary of the contents, or per-member details. The impetus to add elffile to Solaris came from the effort to extend the format of Solaris archives so that they could grow beyond their previous 32-bit file limits. That work introduced a new archive symbol table format. Now that there was more than one possible format, I thought it would be useful if the file utility could identify which format a given archive is using, leading me to extend the file utility: % cc -c ~/hello.c % ar r foo.a hello.o % file foo.a foo.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table % ar r -S foo.a hello.o % file foo.a foo.a: current ar archive, 64-bit symbol table In turn, this caused me to think about all the things that I would like the file utility to be able to tell me about an archive. In particular, I'd like to be able to know what's inside without having to unpack it. The end result of that train of thought was elffile. Much of the discussion in this article is adapted from the PSARC case I filed for elffile in December 2010: PSARC 2010/432 elffile Why file Is No Good For Archives And Yet Should Not Be Fixed The standard /usr/bin/file utility is not very useful when applied to archives. When identifying an archive, a user typically wants to know 2 things: Is this an archive? Presupposing that the archive contains objects, which is by far the most common use for archives, what platform are the objects for? Are they for sparc or x86? 32 or 64-bit? Some confusing combination from varying platforms? The file utility provides a quick answer to question (1), as it identifies all archives as "current ar archive". It does nothing to answer the more interesting question (2). To answer that question, requires a multi-step process: Extract all archive members Use the file utility on the extracted files, examine the output for each file in turn, and compare the results to generate a suitable summary description. Remove the extracted files It should be easier and more efficient to answer such an obvious question. It would be reasonable to extend the file utility to examine archive contents in place and produce a description. However, there are several reasons why I decided not to do so: The correct design for this feature within the file utility would have file examine each archive member in turn, applying its full abilities to each member. This would be elegant, but also represents a rather dramatic redesign and re-implementation of file. Archives nearly always contain nothing but ELF objects for a single platform, so such generality in the file utility would be of little practical benefit. It is best to avoid adding new options to standard utilities for which other implementations of interest exist. In the case of the file utility, one concern is that we might add an option which later appears in the GNU version of file with a different and incompatible meaning. Indeed, there have been discussions about replacing the Solaris file with the GNU version in the past. This may or may not be desirable, and may or may not ever happen. Either way, I don't want to preclude it. Examining archive members is an O(n) operation, and can be relatively slow with large archives. The file utility is supposed to be a very fast operation. I decided that extending file in this way is overkill, and that an investment in the file utility for better archive support would not be worth the cost. A solution that is more narrowly focused on ELF and other linker related files is really all that we need. The necessary code for doing this already exists within libelf. All that is missing is a small user-level wrapper to make that functionality available at the command line. In that vein, I considered adding an option for this to the elfdump utility. I examined elfdump carefully, and even wrote a prototype implementation. The added code is small and simple, but the conceptual fit with the rest of elfdump is poor. The result complicates elfdump syntax and documentation, definite signs that this functionality does not belong there. And so, I added this functionality as a new user level command. The elffile Command The syntax for this new command is elffile [-s basic | detail | summary] filename... Please see the elffile(1) manpage for additional details. To demonstrate how output from elffile looks, I will use the following files: FileDescription configA runtime linker configuration file produced with crle dwarf.oAn ELF object /etc/passwdA text file mixed.aArchive containing a mixture of ELF and non-ELF members mixed_elf.aArchive containing ELF objects for different machines not_elf.aArchive containing no ELF objects same_elf.aArchive containing a collection of ELF objects for the same machine. This is the most common type of archive. The file utility identifies these files as follows: % file config dwarf.o /etc/passwd mixed.a mixed_elf.a not_elf.a same_elf.a config: Runtime Linking Configuration 64-bit MSB SPARCV9 dwarf.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 /etc/passwd: ascii text mixed.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table mixed_elf.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table not_elf.a: current ar archive same_elf.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table By default, elffile uses its "summary" output style. This output differs from the output from the file utility in 2 significant ways: Files that are not an ELF object, archive, or runtime linker configuration file are identified as "non-ELF", whereas the file utility attempts further identification for such files. When applied to an archive, the elffile output includes a description of the archive's contents, without requiring member extraction or other additional steps. Applying elffile to the above files: % elffile config dwarf.o /etc/passwd mixed.a mixed_elf.a not_elf.a same_elf.a config: Runtime Linking Configuration 64-bit MSB SPARCV9 dwarf.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 /etc/passwd: non-ELF mixed.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table, mixed ELF and non-ELF content mixed_elf.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table, mixed ELF content not_elf.a: current ar archive, non-ELF content same_elf.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table, ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 The output for same_elf.a is of particular interest: The vast majority of archives contain only ELF objects for a single platform, and in this case, the default output from elffile answers both of the questions about archives posed at the beginning of this discussion, in a single efficient step. This makes elffile considerably more useful than file, within the realm of linker-related files. elffile can produce output in two other styles, "basic", and "detail". The basic style produces output that is the same as that from 'file', for linker-related files. The detail style produces per-member identification of archive contents. This can be useful when the archive contents are not homogeneous ELF object, and more information is desired than the summary output provides: % elffile -s detail mixed.a mixed.a: current ar archive, 32-bit symbol table mixed.a(dwarf.o): ELF 32-bit LSB relocatable 80386 Version 1 mixed.a(main.c): non-ELF content mixed.a(main.o): ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable AMD64 Version 1 [SSE]

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• General Purpose ASP.NET Data Source Control

  - by Ricardo Peres

  OK, you already know about the ObjectDataSource control, so what’s wrong with it? Well, for once, it doesn’t pass any context to the SelectMethod, you only get the parameters supplied on the SelectParameters plus the desired ordering, starting page and maximum number of rows to display. Also, you must have two separate methods, one for actually retrieving the data, and the other for getting the total number of records (SelectCountMethod). Finally, you don’t get a chance to alter the supplied data before you bind it to the target control. I wanted something simple to use, and more similar to ASP.NET 4.5, where you can have the select method on the page itself, so I came up with CustomDataSource. Here’s how to use it (I chose a GridView, but it works equally well with any regular data-bound control): 1: <web:CustomDataSourceControl runat="server" ID="datasource" PageSize="10" OnData="OnData" /> 2: <asp:GridView runat="server" ID="grid" DataSourceID="datasource" DataKeyNames="Id" PageSize="10" AllowPaging="true" AllowSorting="true" /> The OnData event handler receives a DataEventArgs instance, which contains some properties that describe the desired paging location and size, and it’s where you return the data plus the total record count. Here’s a quick example: 1: protected void OnData(object sender, DataEventArgs e) 2: { 3: //just return some data 4: var data = Enumerable.Range(e.StartRowIndex, e.PageSize).Select(x => new { Id = x, Value = x.ToString(), IsPair = ((x % 2) == 0) }); 5: e.Data = data; 6: //the total number of records 7: e.TotalRowCount = 100; 8: } Here’s the code for the DataEventArgs: 1: [Serializable] 2: public class DataEventArgs : EventArgs 3: { 4: public DataEventArgs(Int32 pageSize, Int32 startRowIndex, String sortExpression, IOrderedDictionary parameters) 5: { 6: this.PageSize = pageSize; 7: this.StartRowIndex = startRowIndex; 8: this.SortExpression = sortExpression; 9: this.Parameters = parameters; 10: } 11:  12: public IEnumerable Data 13: { 14: get; 15: set; 16: } 17:  18: public IOrderedDictionary Parameters 19: { 20: get; 21: private set; 22: } 23:  24: public String SortExpression 25: { 26: get; 27: private set; 28: } 29:  30: public Int32 StartRowIndex 31: { 32: get; 33: private set; 34: } 35:  36: public Int32 PageSize 37: { 38: get; 39: private set; 40: } 41:  42: public Int32 TotalRowCount 43: { 44: get; 45: set; 46: } 47: } As you can guess, the StartRowIndex and PageSize receive the starting row and the desired page size, where the page size comes from the PageSize property on the markup. There’s also a SortExpression, which gets passed the sorted-by column and direction (if descending) and a dictionary containing all the values coming from the SelectParameters collection, if any. All of these are read only, and it is your responsibility to fill in the Data and TotalRowCount. The code for the CustomDataSource is very simple: 1: [NonVisualControl] 2: public class CustomDataSourceControl : DataSourceControl 3: { 4: public CustomDataSourceControl() 5: { 6: this.SelectParameters = new ParameterCollection(); 7: } 8:  9: protected override DataSourceView GetView(String viewName) 10: { 11: return (new CustomDataSourceView(this, viewName)); 12: } 13:  14: internal void GetData(DataEventArgs args) 15: { 16: this.OnData(args); 17: } 18:  19: protected virtual void OnData(DataEventArgs args) 20: { 21: EventHandler<DataEventArgs> data = this.Data; 22:  23: if (data != null) 24: { 25: data(this, args); 26: } 27: } 28:  29: [Browsable(false)] 30: [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)] 31: [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)] 32: public ParameterCollection SelectParameters 33: { 34: get; 35: private set; 36: } 37:  38: public event EventHandler<DataEventArgs> Data; 39:  40: public Int32 PageSize 41: { 42: get; 43: set; 44: } 45: } Also, the code for the accompanying internal – as there is no need to use it from outside of its declaring assembly - data source view: 1: sealed class CustomDataSourceView : DataSourceView 2: { 3: private readonly CustomDataSourceControl dataSourceControl = null; 4:  5: public CustomDataSourceView(CustomDataSourceControl dataSourceControl, String viewName) : base(dataSourceControl, viewName) 6: { 7: this.dataSourceControl = dataSourceControl; 8: } 9:  10: public override Boolean CanPage 11: { 12: get 13: { 14: return (true); 15: } 16: } 17:  18: public override Boolean CanRetrieveTotalRowCount 19: { 20: get 21: { 22: return (true); 23: } 24: } 25:  26: public override Boolean CanSort 27: { 28: get 29: { 30: return (true); 31: } 32: } 33:  34: protected override IEnumerable ExecuteSelect(DataSourceSelectArguments arguments) 35: { 36: IOrderedDictionary parameters = this.dataSourceControl.SelectParameters.GetValues(HttpContext.Current, this.dataSourceControl); 37: DataEventArgs args = new DataEventArgs(this.dataSourceControl.PageSize, arguments.StartRowIndex, arguments.SortExpression, parameters); 38:  39: this.dataSourceControl.GetData(args); 40:  41: arguments.TotalRowCount = args.TotalRowCount; 42: arguments.MaximumRows = this.dataSourceControl.PageSize; 43: arguments.AddSupportedCapabilities(DataSourceCapabilities.Page | DataSourceCapabilities.Sort | DataSourceCapabilities.RetrieveTotalRowCount); 44: arguments.RetrieveTotalRowCount = true; 45:  46: if (!(args.Data is ICollection)) 47: { 48: return (args.Data.OfType<Object>().ToList()); 49: } 50: else 51: { 52: return (args.Data); 53: } 54: } 55: } As always, looking forward to hearing from you!

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• We've completed the first iteration

  - by CliveT

  There are a lot of features in C# that are implemented by the compiler and not by the underlying platform. One such feature is a lambda expression. Since local variables cannot be accessed once the current method activation finishes, the compiler has to go out of its way to generate a new class which acts as a home for any variable whose lifetime needs to be extended past the activation of the procedure. Take the following example:     Random generator = new Random();     Func func = () = generator.Next(10); In this case, the compiler generates a new class called c_DisplayClass1 which is marked with the CompilerGenerated attribute. [CompilerGenerated] private sealed class c__DisplayClass1 {     // Fields     public Random generator;     // Methods     public int b__0()     {         return this.generator.Next(10);     } } Two quick comments on this: (i)    A display was the means that compilers for languages like Algol recorded the various lexical contours of the nested procedure activations on the stack. I imagine that this is what has led to the name. (ii)    It is a shame that the same attribute is used to mark all compiler generated classes as it makes it hard to figure out what they are being used for. Indeed, you could imagine optimisations that the runtime could perform if it knew that classes corresponded to certain high level concepts. We can see that the local variable generator has been turned into a field in the class, and the body of the lambda expression has been turned into a method of the new class. The code that builds the Func object simply constructs an instance of this class and initialises the fields to their initial values.     c__DisplayClass1 class2 = new c__DisplayClass1();     class2.generator = new Random();     Func func = new Func(class2.b__0); Reflector already contains code to spot this pattern of code and reproduce the form containing the lambda expression, so this is example is correctly decompiled. The use of compiler generated code is even more spectacular in the case of iterators. C# introduced the idea of a method that could automatically store its state between calls, so that it can pick up where it left off. The code can express the logical flow with yield return and yield break denoting places where the method should return a particular value and be prepared to resume.         {             yield return 1;             yield return 2;             yield return 3;         } Of course, there was already a .NET pattern for expressing the idea of returning a sequence of values with the computation proceeding lazily (in the sense that the work for the next value is executed on demand). This is expressed by the IEnumerable interface with its Current property for fetching the current value and the MoveNext method for forcing the computation of the next value. The sequence is terminated when this method returns false. The C# compiler links these two ideas together so that an IEnumerator returning method using the yield keyword causes the compiler to produce the implementation of an Iterator. Take the following piece of code.         IEnumerable GetItems()         {             yield return 1;             yield return 2;             yield return 3;         } The compiler implements this by defining a new class that implements a state machine. This has an integer state that records which yield point we should go to if we are resumed. It also has a field that records the Current value of the enumerator and a field for recording the thread. This latter value is used for optimising the creation of iterator instances. [CompilerGenerated] private sealed class d__0 : IEnumerable, IEnumerable, IEnumerator, IEnumerator, IDisposable {     // Fields     private int 1__state;     private int 2__current;     public Program 4__this;     private int l__initialThreadId; The body gets converted into the code to construct and initialize this new class. private IEnumerable GetItems() {     d__0 d__ = new d__0(-2);     d__.4__this = this;     return d__; } When the class is constructed we set the state, which was passed through as -2 and the current thread. public d__0(int 1__state) {     this.1__state = 1__state;     this.l__initialThreadId = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId; } The state needs to be set to 0 to represent a valid enumerator and this is done in the GetEnumerator method which optimises for the usual case where the returned enumerator is only used once. IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() {     if ((Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId == this.l__initialThreadId)               && (this.1__state == -2))     {         this.1__state = 0;         return this;     } The state machine itself is implemented inside the MoveNext method. private bool MoveNext() {     switch (this.1__state)     {         case 0:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 1;             this.1__state = 1;             return true;         case 1:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 2;             this.1__state = 2;             return true;         case 2:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 3;             this.1__state = 3;             return true;         case 3:             this.1__state = -1;             break;     }     return false; } At each stage, the current value of the state is used to determine how far we got, and then we generate the next value which we return after recording the next state. Finally we return false from the MoveNext to signify the end of the sequence. Of course, that example was really simple. The original method body didn't have any local variables. Any local variables need to live between the calls to MoveNext and so they need to be transformed into fields in much the same way that we did in the case of the lambda expression. More complicated MoveNext methods are required to deal with resources that need to be disposed when the iterator finishes, and sometimes the compiler uses a temporary variable to hold the return value. Why all of this explanation? We've implemented the de-compilation of iterators in the current EAP version of Reflector (7). This contrasts with previous version where all you could do was look at the MoveNext method and try to figure out the control flow. There's a fair amount of things we have to do. We have to spot the use of a CompilerGenerated class which implements the Enumerator pattern. We need to go to the class and figure out the fields corresponding to the local variables. We then need to go to the MoveNext method and try to break it into the various possible states and spot the state transitions. We can then take these pieces and put them back together into an object model that uses yield return to show the transition points. After that Reflector can carry on optimising using its usual optimisations. The pattern matching is currently a little too sensitive to changes in the code generation, and we only do a limited analysis of the MoveNext method to determine use of the compiler generated fields. In some ways, it is a pity that iterators are compiled away and there is no metadata that reflects the original intent. Without it, we are always going to dependent on our knowledge of the compiler's implementation. For example, we have noticed that the Async CTP changes the way that iterators are code generated, so we'll have to do some more work to support that. However, with that warning in place, we seem to do a reasonable job of decompiling the iterators that are built into the framework. Hopefully, the EAP will give us a chance to find examples where we don't spot the pattern correctly or regenerate the wrong code, and we can improve things. Please give it a go, and report any problems.

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• Secure Your Wireless Router: 8 Things You Can Do Right Now

  - by Chris Hoffman

  A security researcher recently discovered a backdoor in many D-Link routers, allowing anyone to access the router without knowing the username or password. This isn’t the first router security issue and won’t be the last. To protect yourself, you should ensure that your router is configured securely. This is about more than just enabling Wi-Fi encryption and not hosting an open Wi-Fi network. Disable Remote Access Routers offer a web interface, allowing you to configure them through a browser. The router runs a web server and makes this web page available when you’re on the router’s local network. However, most routers offer a “remote access” feature that allows you to access this web interface from anywhere in the world. Even if you set a username and password, if you have a D-Link router affected by this vulnerability, anyone would be able to log in without any credentials. If you have remote access disabled, you’d be safe from people remotely accessing your router and tampering with it. To do this, open your router’s web interface and look for the “Remote Access,” “Remote Administration,” or “Remote Management” feature. Ensure it’s disabled — it should be disabled by default on most routers, but it’s good to check. Update the Firmware Like our operating systems, web browsers, and every other piece of software we use, router software isn’t perfect. The router’s firmware — essentially the software running on the router — may have security flaws. Router manufacturers may release firmware updates that fix such security holes, although they quickly discontinue support for most routers and move on to the next models. Unfortunately, most routers don’t have an auto-update feature like Windows and our web browsers do — you have to check your router manufacturer’s website for a firmware update and install it manually via the router’s web interface. Check to be sure your router has the latest available firmware installed. Change Default Login Credentials Many routers have default login credentials that are fairly obvious, such as the password “admin”. If someone gained access to your router’s web interface through some sort of vulnerability or just by logging onto your Wi-Fi network, it would be easy to log in and tamper with the router’s settings. To avoid this, change the router’s password to a non-default password that an attacker couldn’t easily guess. Some routers even allow you to change the username you use to log into your router. Lock Down Wi-Fi Access If someone gains access to your Wi-Fi network, they could attempt to tamper with your router — or just do other bad things like snoop on your local file shares or use your connection to downloaded copyrighted content and get you in trouble. Running an open Wi-Fi network can be dangerous. To prevent this, ensure your router’s Wi-Fi is secure. This is pretty simple: Set it to use WPA2 encryption and use a reasonably secure passphrase. Don’t use the weaker WEP encryption or set an obvious passphrase like “password”. Disable UPnP A variety of UPnP flaws have been found in consumer routers. Tens of millions of consumer routers respond to UPnP requests from the Internet, allowing attackers on the Internet to remotely configure your router. Flash applets in your browser could use UPnP to open ports, making your computer more vulnerable. UPnP is fairly insecure for a variety of reasons. To avoid UPnP-based problems, disable UPnP on your router via its web interface. If you use software that needs ports forwarded — such as a BitTorrent client, game server, or communications program — you’ll have to forward ports on your router without relying on UPnP. Log Out of the Router’s Web Interface When You’re Done Configuring It Cross site scripting (XSS) flaws have been found in some routers. A router with such an XSS flaw could be controlled by a malicious web page, allowing the web page to configure settings while you’re logged in. If your router is using its default username and password, it would be easy for the malicious web page to gain access. Even if you changed your router’s password, it would be theoretically possible for a website to use your logged-in session to access your router and modify its settings. To prevent this, just log out of your router when you’re done configuring it — if you can’t do that, you may want to clear your browser cookies. This isn’t something to be too paranoid about, but logging out of your router when you’re done using it is a quick and easy thing to do. Change the Router’s Local IP Address If you’re really paranoid, you may be able to change your router’s local IP address. For example, if its default address is 192.168.0.1, you could change it to 192.168.0.150. If the router itself were vulnerable and some sort of malicious script in your web browser attempted to exploit a cross site scripting vulnerability, accessing known-vulnerable routers at their local IP address and tampering with them, the attack would fail. This step isn’t completely necessary, especially since it wouldn’t protect against local attackers — if someone were on your network or software was running on your PC, they’d be able to determine your router’s IP address and connect to it. Install Third-Party Firmwares If you’re really worried about security, you could also install a third-party firmware such as DD-WRT or OpenWRT. You won’t find obscure back doors added by the router’s manufacturer in these alternative firmwares. Consumer routers are shaping up to be a perfect storm of security problems — they’re not automatically updated with new security patches, they’re connected directly to the Internet, manufacturers quickly stop supporting them, and many consumer routers seem to be full of bad code that leads to UPnP exploits and easy-to-exploit backdoors. It’s smart to take some basic precautions. Image Credit: Nuscreen on Flickr     

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• Online ALTER TABLE in MySQL 5.6

  - by Marko Mäkelä

  This is the low-level view of data dictionary language (DDL) operations in the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL 5.6. John Russell gave a more high-level view in his blog post April 2012 Labs Release – Online DDL Improvements. MySQL before the InnoDB Plugin Traditionally, the MySQL storage engine interface has taken a minimalistic approach to data definition language. The only natively supported operations were CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE and RENAME TABLE. Consider the following example: CREATE TABLE t(a INT); INSERT INTO t VALUES (1),(2),(3); CREATE INDEX a ON t(a); DROP TABLE t; The CREATE INDEX statement would be executed roughly as follows: CREATE TABLE temp(a INT, INDEX(a)); INSERT INTO temp SELECT * FROM t; RENAME TABLE t TO temp2; RENAME TABLE temp TO t; DROP TABLE temp2; You could imagine that the database could crash when copying all rows from the original table to the new one. For example, it could run out of file space. Then, on restart, InnoDB would roll back the huge INSERT transaction. To fix things a little, a hack was added to ha_innobase::write_row for committing the transaction every 10,000 rows. Still, it was frustrating that even a simple DROP INDEX would make the table unavailable for modifications for a long time. Fast Index Creation in the InnoDB Plugin of MySQL 5.1 MySQL 5.1 introduced a new interface for CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX. The old table-copying approach can still be forced by SET old_alter_table=0. This interface is used in MySQL 5.5 and in the InnoDB Plugin for MySQL 5.1. Apart from the ability to do a quick DROP INDEX, the main advantage is that InnoDB will execute a merge-sort algorithm before inserting the index records into each index that is being created. This should speed up the insert into the secondary index B-trees and potentially result in a better B-tree fill factor. The 5.1 ALTER TABLE interface was not perfect. For example, DROP FOREIGN KEY still invoked the table copy. Renaming columns could conflict with InnoDB foreign key constraints. Combining ADD KEY and DROP KEY in ALTER TABLE was problematic and not atomic inside the storage engine. The ALTER TABLE interface in MySQL 5.6 The ALTER TABLE storage engine interface was completely rewritten in MySQL 5.6. Instead of introducing a method call for every conceivable operation, MySQL 5.6 introduced a handful of methods, and data structures that keep track of the requested changes. In MySQL 5.6, online ALTER TABLE operation can be requested by specifying LOCK=NONE. Also LOCK=SHARED and LOCK=EXCLUSIVE are available. The old-style table copying can be requested by ALGORITHM=COPY. That one will require at least LOCK=SHARED. From the InnoDB point of view, anything that is possible with LOCK=EXCLUSIVE is also possible with LOCK=SHARED. Most ALGORITHM=INPLACE operations inside InnoDB can be executed online (LOCK=NONE). InnoDB will always require an exclusive table lock in two phases of the operation. The execution phases are tied to a number of methods: handler::check_if_supported_inplace_alter Checks if the storage engine can perform all requested operations, and if so, what kind of locking is needed. handler::prepare_inplace_alter_table InnoDB uses this method to set up the data dictionary cache for upcoming CREATE INDEX operation. We need stubs for the new indexes, so that we can keep track of changes to the table during online index creation. Also, crash recovery would drop any indexes that were incomplete at the time of the crash. handler::inplace_alter_table In InnoDB, this method is used for creating secondary indexes or for rebuilding the table. This is the ‘main’ phase that can be executed online (with concurrent writes to the table). handler::commit_inplace_alter_table This is where the operation is committed or rolled back. Here, InnoDB would drop any indexes, rename any columns, drop or add foreign keys, and finalize a table rebuild or index creation. It would also discard any logs that were set up for online index creation or table rebuild. The prepare and commit phases require an exclusive lock, blocking all access to the table. If MySQL times out while upgrading the table meta-data lock for the commit phase, it will roll back the ALTER TABLE operation. In MySQL 5.6, data definition language operations are still not fully atomic, because the data dictionary is split. Part of it is inside InnoDB data dictionary tables. Part of the information is only available in the *.frm file, which is not covered by any crash recovery log. But, there is a single commit phase inside the storage engine. Online Secondary Index Creation It may occur that an index needs to be created on a new column to speed up queries. But, it may be unacceptable to block modifications on the table while creating the index. It turns out that it is conceptually not so hard to support online index creation. All we need is some more execution phases: Set up a stub for the index, for logging changes. Scan the table for index records. Sort the index records. Bulk load the index records. Apply the logged changes. Replace the stub with the actual index. Threads that modify the table will log the operations to the logs of each index that is being created. Errors, such as log overflow or uniqueness violations, will only be flagged by the ALTER TABLE thread. The log is conceptually similar to the InnoDB change buffer. The bulk load of index records will bypass record locking. We still generate redo log for writing the index pages. It would suffice to log page allocations only, and to flush the index pages from the buffer pool to the file system upon completion. Native ALTER TABLE Starting with MySQL 5.6, InnoDB supports most ALTER TABLE operations natively. The notable exceptions are changes to the column type, ADD FOREIGN KEY except when foreign_key_checks=0, and changes to tables that contain FULLTEXT indexes. The keyword ALGORITHM=INPLACE is somewhat misleading, because certain operations cannot be performed in-place. For example, changing the ROW_FORMAT of a table requires a rebuild. Online operation (LOCK=NONE) is not allowed in the following cases: when adding an AUTO_INCREMENT column, when the table contains FULLTEXT indexes or a hidden FTS_DOC_ID column, or when there are FOREIGN KEY constraints referring to the table, with ON…CASCADE or ON…SET NULL option. The FOREIGN KEY limitations are needed, because MySQL does not acquire meta-data locks on the child or parent tables when executing SQL statements. Theoretically, InnoDB could support operations like ADD COLUMN and DROP COLUMN in-place, by lazily converting the table to a newer format. This would require that the data dictionary keep multiple versions of the table definition. For simplicity, we will copy the entire table, even for DROP COLUMN. The bulk copying of the table will bypass record locking and undo logging. For facilitating online operation, a temporary log will be associated with the clustered index of table. Threads that modify the table will also write the changes to the log. When altering the table, we skip all records that have been marked for deletion. In this way, we can simply discard any undo log records that were not yet purged from the original table. Off-page columns, or BLOBs, are an important consideration. We suspend the purge of delete-marked records if it would free any off-page columns from the old table. This is because the BLOBs can be needed when applying changes from the log. We have special logging for handling the ROLLBACK of an INSERT that inserted new off-page columns. This is because the columns will be freed at rollback.

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• REST to Objects in C#

  RESTful interfaces for web services are all the rage for many Web 2.0 sites.  If you want to consume these in a very simple fashion, LINQ to XML can do the job pretty easily in C#.  If you go searching for help on this, youll find a lot of incomplete solutions and fairly large toolkits and frameworks (guess how I know this) this quick article is meant to be a no fluff just stuff approach to making this work. POCO Objects Lets assume you have a Model that you want to suck data into from a RESTful web service.  Ideally this is a Plain Old CLR Object, meaning it isnt infected with any persistence or serialization goop.  It might look something like this: public class Entry { public int Id; public int UserId; public DateTime Date; public float Hours; public string Notes; public bool Billable;   public override string ToString() { return String.Format("[{0}] User: {1} Date: {2} Hours: {3} Notes: {4} Billable {5}", Id, UserId, Date, Hours, Notes, Billable); } } Not that this isnt a completely trivial object.  Lets look at the API for the service.  RESTful HTTP Service In this case, its TickSpots API, with the following sample output: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <entries type="array"> <entry> <id type="integer">24</id> <task_id type="integer">14</task_id> <user_id type="integer">3</user_id> <date type="date">2008-03-08</date> <hours type="float">1.00</hours> <notes>Had trouble with tribbles.</notes> <billable>true</billable> # Billable is an attribute inherited from the task <billed>true</billed> # Billed is an attribute to track whether the entry has been invoiced <created_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</created_at> <updated_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</updated_at> # The following attributes are derived and provided for informational purposes: <user_email>[email protected]</user_email> <task_name>Remove converter assembly</task_name> <sum_hours type="float">2.00</sum_hours> <budget type="float">10.00</budget> <project_name>Realign dilithium crystals</project_name> <client_name>Starfleet Command</client_name> </entry> </entries> Im assuming in this case that I dont necessarily care about all of the data fields the service is returning I just need some of them for my applications purposes.  Thus, you can see there are more elements in the <entry> XML than I have in my Entry class. Get The XML with C# The next step is to get the XML.  The following snippet does the heavy lifting once you pass it the appropriate URL: protected XElement GetResponse(string uri) { var request = WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest; request.UserAgent = ".NET Sample"; request.KeepAlive = false;   request.Timeout = 15 * 1000;   var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;   if (request.HaveResponse == true && response != null) { var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()); return XElement.Parse(reader.ReadToEnd()); } throw new Exception("Error fetching data."); } This is adapted from the Yahoo Developer article on Web Service REST calls.  Once you have the XML, the last step is to get the data back as your POCO. Use LINQ-To-XML to Deserialize POCOs from XML This is done via the following code: public IEnumerable<Entry> List(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) { string additionalParameters = String.Format("start_date={0}&end_date={1}", startDate.ToShortDateString(), endDate.ToShortDateString()); string uri = BuildUrl("entries", additionalParameters);   XElement elements = GetResponse(uri);   var entries = from e in elements.Elements() where e.Name.LocalName == "entry" select new Entry { Id = int.Parse(e.Element("id").Value), UserId = int.Parse(e.Element("user_id").Value), Date = DateTime.Parse(e.Element("date").Value), Hours = float.Parse(e.Element("hours").Value), Notes = e.Element("notes").Value, Billable = bool.Parse(e.Element("billable").Value) }; return entries; }   For completeness, heres the BuildUrl method for my TickSpot API wrapper: // Change these to your settings protected const string projectDomain = "DOMAIN.tickspot.com"; private const string authParams = "[email protected]&password=MyTickSpotPassword";   protected string BuildUrl(string apiMethod, string additionalParams) { if (projectDomain.Contains("DOMAIN")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your domain in ProjectRepository.cs."); } if (authParams.Contains("MyTickSpotPassword")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your email and password in ProjectRepository.cs."); } return string.Format("https://{0}/api/{1}?{2}&{3}", projectDomain, apiMethod, authParams, additionalParams); } Thats it!  Now go forth and consume XML and map it to classes you actually want to work with.  Have fun! 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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• Resolving data redundancy up front

  - by okeofs

  Introduction As all of us do when confronted with a problem, the resource of choice is to ‘Google it’. This is where the plot thickens. Recently I was asked to stage data from numerous databases which were to be loaded into a data warehouse. To make a long story short, I was looking for a manner in which to obtain the table names from each database, to ascertain potential overlap.   As the source data comes from a SQL database created from dumps of a third party product,  one could say that there were +/- 95 tables for each database.   Yes I know that first instinct is to use the system stored procedure “exec sp_msforeachdb 'select "?" AS db, * from [?].sys.tables'”. However, if one stops to think about this, it would be nice to have all the results in a temporary or disc based  table; which in itself , implies additional labour. This said,  I decided to ‘re-invent’ the wheel. The full code sample may be found at the bottom of this article.   Define a few temporary tables and variables   declare @SQL varchar(max); declare @databasename varchar(75) /* drop table ##rawdata3 drop table #rawdata1 drop table #rawdata11 */ -- A temp table to hold the names of my databases CREATE TABLE #rawdata1 (    database_name varchar(50) ,    database_size varchar(50),    remarks Varchar(50) )     --A temp table with the same database names as above, HOWEVER using an --Identity number (recNO) as a loop variable. --You will note below that I loop through until I reach 25 (see below) as at --that point the system databases, the reporting server database etc begin. --1- 24 are user databases. These are really what I was looking for. --Whilst NOT the best solution,it works and the code was meant as a quick --and dirty. CREATE TABLE #rawdata11 (    recNo int identity(1,1),    database_name varchar(50) ,    database_size varchar(50),    remarks Varchar(50) )   --My output table showing the database name and table name CREATE TABLE ##rawdata3 (    database_name varchar(75) ,    table_name varchar(75), )   Insert the database names into a temporary table I pull the database names using the system stored procedure sp_databases   INSERT INTO #rawdata1 EXEC sp_databases Go   Insert the results from #rawdata1 into a table containing a record number  #rawdata11 so that I can LOOP through the extract   INSERT into #rawdata11 select * from  #rawdata1   We now declare 3 more variables:  @kounter is used to keep track of our position within the loop. @databasename is used to keep track of the’ current ‘ database name being used in the current pass of the loop;  as inorder to obtain the tables for that database we  need to issue a ‘USE’ statement, an insert command and other related code parts. This is the challenging part. @sql is a varchar(max) variable used to contain the ‘USE’ statement PLUS the’ insert ‘ code statements. We now initalize @kounter to 1 .   declare @kounter int; declare @databasename varchar(75); declare @sql varchar(max); set @kounter = 1   The Loop The astute reader will remember that the temporary table #rawdata11 contains our  database names  and each ‘database row’ has a record number (recNo). I am only interested in record numbers under 25. I now set the value of the temporary variable @DatabaseName (see below) .Note that I used the row number as a part of the predicate. Now, knowing the database name, I can create dynamic T-SQL to be executed using the sp_sqlexec stored procedure (see the code in red below). Finally, after all the tables for that given database have been placed in temporary table ##rawdata3, I increment the counter and continue on. Note that I used a global temporary table to ensure that the result set persists after the termination of the run. At some stage, I plan to redo this part of the code, as global temporary tables are not really an ideal solution.    WHILE (@kounter < 25)  BEGIN  select @DatabaseName = database_name from #rawdata11 where recNo = @kounter  set @SQL = 'Use ' + @DatabaseName + ' Insert into ##rawdata3 ' + + ' SELECT table_catalog,Table_name FROM information_schema.tables' exec sp_sqlexec  @Sql  SET @kounter  = @kounter + 1  END   The full code extract   Here is the full code sample.   declare @SQL varchar(max); declare @databasename varchar(75) /* drop table ##rawdata3 drop table #rawdata1 drop table #rawdata11 */ CREATE TABLE #rawdata1 (    database_name varchar(50) ,    database_size varchar(50),    remarks Varchar(50) ) CREATE TABLE #rawdata11 (    recNo int identity(1,1),    database_name varchar(50) ,    database_size varchar(50),    remarks Varchar(50) ) CREATE TABLE ##rawdata3 (    database_name varchar(75) ,    table_name varchar(75), )   INSERT INTO #rawdata1 EXEC sp_databases go INSERT into #rawdata11 select * from  #rawdata1 declare @kounter int; declare @databasename varchar(75); declare @sql varchar(max); set @kounter = 1 WHILE (@kounter < 25)  BEGIN  select @databasename = database_name from #rawdata11 where recNo = @kounter  set @SQL = 'Use ' + @DatabaseName + ' Insert into ##rawdata3 ' + + ' SELECT table_catalog,Table_name FROM information_schema.tables' exec sp_sqlexec  @Sql  SET @kounter  = @kounter + 1  END    select * from ##rawdata3  where table_name like '%SalesOrderHeader%'

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• Webcast Q&A: ING on How to Scale Role Management and Compliance

  - by Tanu Sood

  Thanks to all who attended the live webcast we hosted on ING: Scaling Role Management and Access Certifications to Thousands of Applications on Wed, April 11th. Those of you who couldn’t join us, the webcast replay is now available. Many thanks to our guest speaker, Mark Robison, Enterprise Architect at ING for walking us through ING’s drivers and rationale for the platform approach, the phased implementation strategy, results & metrics, roadmap and recommendations. We greatly appreciate the insight he shared with us all on the deployment synergies between Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) and Oracle Identity Analytics (OIA) to enforce streamlined user and role management and scalable compliance. Mark was also kind enough to walk us through specific solutions features that helped ING manage the problem of role explosion and implement closed loop remediation. Our host speaker, Neil Gandhi, Principal Product Manager, Oracle rounded off the presentation by discussing common use cases and deployment scenarios we see organizations implement to automate user/identity administration and enforce closed-loop scalable compliance. Neil also called out the specific features in Oracle Identity Analytics 11gR1 that cater to expediting and streamlining compliance processes such as access certifications. While we tackled a few questions during the webcast, we have captured the responses to those that we weren’t able to get to here; our sincere thanks to Mark Robison for taking the time to respond to questions specific to ING’s implementation and strategy. Q. Did you include business friendly entitlment descriptions, or is the business seeing application descriptors A. We include very business friendly descriptions.  The OIA tool has the facility to allow this. Q. When doing attestation on job change, who is in the workflow to review and confirm that the employee should continue to have access? Is that a best practice?   A. The new and old manager  are in the workflow.  The tool can check for any Separation of Duties (SOD) violations with both having similiar accesses.  It may not be a best practice, but it is a reality of doing your old and new job for a transition period on a transfer. Q. What versions of OIM and OIA are being used at ING?   A. OIM 11gR1 and OIA 11gR1; the very latest versions available. Q. Are you using an entitlements / role catalog?   A. Yes. We use both roles and entitlements. Q. What specific unexpected benefits did the Identity Warehouse provide ING?   A. The most unanticipated was to help Legal Hold identify user ID's in the various applications.   Other benefits included providing a one stop shop for all aggregated ID information. Q. How fine grained are your application and entitlements? Did OIA, OIM support that level of granularity?   A. We have some very fine grained entitlements, but we role this up into approved Roles to allow for easier management.   For managing very fine grained entitlements, Oracle offers the Oracle Entitlement Server.  We currently do not own this software but are considering it. Q. Do you allow any individual access or is everything truly role based?   A. We are a hybrid environment with roles and individual positive and negative entitlements Q. Did you use an Agile methodology like scrum to deliver functionality during your project? A. We started with waterfall, but used an agile approach to provide benefits after the initial implementation Q. How did you handle rolling out the standard ID format to existing users? A. We just used the standard IDs for new users.  We have not taken on a project to address the existing nonstandard IDs. Q. To avoid role explosion, how do you deal with apps that require more than a couple of entitlement TYPES? For example, an app may have different levels of access and it may need to know the user's country/state to associate them with particular customers.   A. We focus on the functional user and craft the role around their daily job requirements.  The role captures the required application entitlements.  To keep role explosion down, we use role mining in OIA and also meet and interview the business.  It is an iterative process to get role consensus. Q. Great presentation! How many rounds of Certifications has ING performed so far?  A. Around 7 quarters and constant certifications on transfer. Q. Did you have executive support from the top down   A. Yes  The executive support was key to our success. Q. For your cloud instance are you using OIA or OIM as SaaS?  A. No.  We are just provisioning and deprovisioning to various Cloud providers.  (Service Now is an example) Q. How do you ensure a role owner does not get more priviliges as are intended and thus violates another role, e,g, a DBA Roles should not get tor rigt to run somethings as root, as this would affect the root role? A. We have SOD  checks.  Also all Roles are initially approved by external audit and the role owners have to certify the roles and any changes Q. What is your ratio of employees to roles?   A. We are still in process going through our various lines of business, so I do not have a final ratio.  From what we have seen, the ratio varies greatly depending on the Line of Business and the diversity of Job Functions.  For standardized lines of business such as call centers, the ratio is very good where we can have a single role that covers many employees.  For specialized lines of business like treasury, it can be one or two people per role. Q. Is ING using Oracle On Demand service ?   A. No Q. Do you have to implement or migrate to OIM in order to get the Identity Warehouse, or can OIA provide the identity warehouse as well if you haven't reached OIM yet? A. No, OIM deployment is not required to implement OIA’s Identity Warehouse but as you heard during the webcast, there are tremendous deployment synergies in deploying both OIA and OIM together. Q. When is the Security Governor product coming out? A. Oracle Security Governor for Healthcare is available today. Hope you enjoyed the webcast and we look forward to having you join us for the next webcast in the Customers Talk: Identity as a Platform webcast series: Toyota: Putting Customers First – Identity Platform as a Business Enabler Wednesday, May 16th at 10 am PST/ 1 pm EST Register Today You can also register for a live event at a city near you where Aberdeen’s Derek Brink will discuss the survey results from the recently published report “Analyzing Platform vs. Point Solution Approach in Identity”. And, you can do a quick (& free)  online assessment of your identity programs by benchmarking it against the 160 organizations surveyed  in the Aberdeen report, compliments of Oracle. Here’s the slide deck from our ING webcast: ING webcast platform View more presentations from OracleIDM

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• Azure Task Scheduling Options

  - by charlie.mott

  Currently, the Azure PaaS does not offer a distributed\resilient task scheduling service.  If you do want to host a task scheduling product\solution off-premise (and ideally use Azure), what are your options? PaaS Option 1: Worker Roles Use a worker role to schedule and execute actions at specific time periods.  There are a few frameworks available to assist with this: http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com https://github.com/Lokad/lokad-cloud/wiki/TaskScheduler http://blog.smarx.com/posts/building-a-task-scheduler-in-windows-azure - This addresses a slightly different set of requirements. It’s a more dynamic approach for queuing up tasks, but not repeatable tasks (e.g. daily). I found the Azure Toolkit option the most simple to implement.  Step 1 : Create a domain entity implementing IJob for each job to schedule.  In this sample, I asynchronously call a WCF service method. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole.Jobs 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit; 4: using ScheduledTasksService; 5: 6: public class UploadEmployeesJob : IJob 7: { 8: public void Run() 9: { 10: // Call Tasks Service 11: var client = new ScheduledTasksServiceClient("BasicHttpBinding_IScheduledTasksService"); 12: client.UploadEmployees(); 13: client.Close(); 14: } 15: } 16: } Step 2 : In the worker role run method, add the jobs to the toolkit engine. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit.Engine; 4: using Jobs; 5:   6: public class WorkerRole : WorkerRoleEntryPoint 7: { 8: public override void Run() 9: { 10: var engine = new CloudEngine(); 11:   12: // Add Scheduled Jobs (using CronJob syntax - see http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference). 13:   14: // 1. Upload Employee job - 8.00 PM every weekday (Mon-Fri) 15: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<UploadEmployeesJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 20 * * 1-5"; }); 16: // 2. Purge Data job - 10 AM every Saturday 17: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<PurgeDataJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 10 * * 6"; }); 18: // 3. Process Exceptions job - Every 5 minutes 19: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<ProcessExceptionsJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "*/5 * * * *"; }); 20:   21: engine.Run(); 22: base.Run(); 23: } 24: } 25: } Pros Cons Azure Toolkit option is simple to implement. For the AzureToolkit option, you are limited to a single worker role.  Otherwise, the jobs will be executed multiple times, once for each worker role instance.   Paying for a continuously running worker role, even if it just processes a single job once a week.  If you only have a few scheduled tasks to run calling asynchronous services hosted in different web roles, an extra small worker role likely to be sufficient.  However, for an extra small worker role this still costs $14.40/month (03/09/2012). Option 2: Use Scheduled Task on Azure Web Role calling a console app Setup a Windows Scheduled Task on the Azure Web Role. This calls a console application that calls the WCF service methods that run the task actions. This design is described here: http://www.ronaldwidha.net/2011/02/23/cron-job-on-azure-using-scheduled-task-on-a-web-role-to-replace-azure-worker-role-for-background-job/ http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2011/07/windows-azure-task-scheduler/ http://devlicio.us/blogs/vinull/archive/2011/10/23/moving-to-azure-worker-roles-for-nothing-and-tasks-for-free.aspx Pros Cons Fairly easy to implement. Supportability - I RDC’ed onto the Azure server and stopped the scheduled task. I then rebooted the machine and the task was re-started. I also tried deleting the task and rebooting, the same thing occurred. The only way to permanently guarantee that a task is disabled is to do a fresh deployment. I think this is a major supportability concern.   Saleability - multiple instances would trigger multiple tasks. You can only have one instance for the scheduled task web role. The guidance implements setup of the scheduled task as part of a web role instance. But if you have more than one instance in a web role, the task will be triggered multiple times for each scheduled action (once per machine). Workaround: If we wanted to use scheduled tasks for another client with a saleable WCF service, then we could include the console & tasks scripts in a separate web role (e.g. a empty WCF service with no real purpose to it). SaaS Option 3: Azure Marketplace I thought that someone might be offering this type of service via the Azure marketplace. At the point of writing this blog post, I did not find anyone doing so. https://datamarket.azure.com/ Pros Cons   Nobody currently offers this on the Azure Marketplace. Option 4: Online Job Scheduling Service Provider There are plenty of online providers that offer this type of service on a pay-as-you-go approach.  Some of these are free for small usage.   Many of these providers are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webcron Pros Cons No bespoke development for scheduler. Reliance on third party. IaaS Option 5: Setup Scheduling Software on Azure IaaS VM’s One of job scheduling software offerings could be installed and configured on Azure VM’s.  A list of software options is listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_job_scheduler_software Pros Cons Enterprise distributed\resilient task scheduling service VM Setup and maintenance   Software Licence Costs Option 6: VM Gallery A the time of writing this blog post, I did not spot a VM in the gallery that included pre-installation of any of the above software options. Pros Cons   No current VM template. Summary For my current project that had a small handful of tasks to schedule with a limited project budget I chose option 1 (a worker role using the Azure Toolkit to schedule tasks).  If I was building an enterprise scale solution for the future, options 4 and 5 are currently worthy of consideration. Hopefully, Microsoft will include tasks scheduling in the future as part of their PaaS offerings.

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• Clouds Everywhere But not a Drop of Rain – Part 3

  - by sxkumar

  I was sharing with you how a broad-based transformation such as cloud will increase agility and efficiency of an organization if process re-engineering is part of the plan.  I have also stressed on the key enterprise requirements such as “broad and deep solutions, “running your mission critical applications” and “automated and integrated set of capabilities”. Let me walk you through some key cloud attributes such as “elasticity” and “self-service” and what they mean for an enterprise class cloud. I will also talk about how we at Oracle have taken a very enterprise centric view to developing cloud solutions and how our products have been specifically engineered to address enterprise cloud needs. Cloud Elasticity and Enterprise Applications Requirements Easy and quick scalability for a short-period of time is the signature of cloud based solutions. It is this elasticity that allows you to dynamically redistribute your resources according to business priorities, helps increase your overall resource utilization, and reduces operational costs by allowing you to get the most out of your existing investment. Most public clouds are offering a instant provisioning mechanism of compute power (CPU, RAM, Disk), customer pay for the instance-hours(and bandwidth) they use, adding computing resources at peak times and removing them when they are no longer needed. This type of “just-in-time” serving of compute resources is well known for mid-tiers “state less” servers such as web application servers and web servers that just need another machine to start and run on it but what does it really mean for an enterprise application and its underlying data? Most enterprise applications are not as quite as “state less” and justifiably so. As such, how do you take advantage of cloud elasticity and make it relevant for your enterprise apps? This is where Cloud meets Grid Computing. At Oracle, we have invested enormous amount of time, energy and resources in creating enterprise grid solutions. All our technology products offer built-in elasticity via clustering and dynamic scaling. With products like Real Application Clusters (RAC), Automatic Storage Management, WebLogic Clustering, and Coherence In-Memory Grid, we allow all your enterprise applications to benefit from Cloud elasticity –both vertically and horizontally - without requiring any application changes. A number of technology vendors take a rather simplistic route of starting up additional or removing unneeded VM as the "Cloud Scale-Out" solution. While this may work for stateless mid-tier servers where load balancers can handle the addition and remove of instances transparently but following a similar approach for the database tier - often called as "database sharding" - requires significant application modification and typically does not work with off the shelf packaged applications. Technologies like Oracle Database Real Application Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, etc. on the other hand bring the benefits of incremental scalability and on-demand elasticity to ANY application by providing a simplified abstraction layers where the application does not need deal with data spread over multiple database instances. Rather they just talk to a single database and the database software takes care of aggregating resources across multiple hardware components. It is the technologies like these that truly make a cloud solution relevant for enterprises.  For customers who are looking for a next generation hardware consolidation platform, our engineered systems (e.g. Exadata, Exalogic) not only provide incredible amount of performance and capacity, they also reduce the data center complexity and simplify operations. Assemble, Deploy and Manage Enterprise Applications for Cloud Products like Oracle Virtual assembly builder (OVAB) resolve the complex problem of bringing the cloud speed to complex multi-tier applications. With assemblies, you can not only provision all components of a multi-tier application and wire them together by push of a button, other aspects of application lifecycle, such as real-time application testing, scale-up/scale-down, performance and availability monitoring, etc., are also automated using Oracle Enterprise Manager.  An essential criteria for an enterprise cloud to succeed is the ability to ensure business service levels especially when business users have either full visibility on the usage cost with a “show back” or a “charge back”. With Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, we have created the most comprehensive cloud management solution in the industry that is capable of managing business service levels “applications-to-disk” in a enterprise private cloud – all from a single console. It is the only cloud management platform in the industry that allows you to deliver infrastructure, platform and application cloud services out of the box. Moreover, it offers integrated and complete lifecycle management of the cloud - including planning and set up, service delivery, operations management, metering and chargeback, etc .  Sounds unbelievable? Well, just watch this space for more details on how Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is the nerve center of Oracle Cloud! Our cloud solution portfolio is also the broadest and most deep in the industry  - covering public, private, hybrid, Infrastructure, platform and applications clouds. It is no coincidence therefore that the Oracle Cloud today offers the most comprehensive set of public cloud services in the industry.  And to a large part, this has been made possible thanks to our years on investment in creating cloud enabling technologies.  Summary  But the intent of this blog post isn't to dwell on how great our solutions are (these are just some examples to illustrate how we at Oracle have approached this problem space). Rather it is to help you ask the right questions before you embark on your cloud journey.  So to summarize, here are the key takeaways.       It is critical that you are clear on why you are building the cloud. Successful organizations keep business benefits as the first and foremost cloud objective. On the other hand, those who approach this purely as a technology project are more likely to fail. Think about where you want to be in 3-5 years before you get started. Your long terms objectives should determine what your first step ought to be. As obvious as it may seem, more people than not make the first move without knowing where they are headed.  Don’t make the mistake of equating cloud to virtualization and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Spinning a VM on-demand will give some short term relief to your IT staff but is unlikely to solve your larger business problems. As such, even if IaaS is your first step towards a more comprehensive cloud, plan the roadmap around those higher level services before you begin. And ask your vendors on how they are going to be your partners in this journey. Capabilities like self-service access and chargeback/showback are absolutely critical if you really expect your cloud to be transformational. Your business won't see the full benefits of the cloud until it empowers them with same kind of control and transparency that they are used to while using a public cloud service.  Evaluate the benefits of integration, as opposed to blindly following the best-of-breed strategy. Integration is a huge challenge and more so in a cloud environment. There are enormous costs associated with stitching a solution out of disparate components and even more in maintaining it. Hope you found these ideas helpful. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences.

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• Screenshot Tour: Ubuntu Touch 14.04 on a Nexus 7

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will “form the basis of the first commercially available Ubuntu tablets,” according to Canonical. We installed Ubuntu Touch 14.04 on our own hardware to see what those tablets will be like. We don’t recommend installing this yourself, as it’s still not a polished, complete experience. We’re using “Ubuntu Touch” as shorthand here — apparently this project’s new name is “Ubuntu For Devices.” The Welcome Screen Ubuntu’s touch interface is all about edge swipes and hidden interface elements — it has a lot in common with Windows 8, actually. You’ll see the welcome screen when you boot up or unlock a Ubuntu tablet or phone. If you have new emails, text messages, or other information, it will appear on this screen along with the time and date. If you don’t, you’ll just see a message saying “No data sources available.” The Dash Swipe in from the right edge of the welcome screen to access the Dash, or home screen. This is actually very similar to the Dash on Ubuntu’s Unity desktop. This isn’t a surprise — Canonical wants the desktop and touch versions of Ubuntu to use the same code. In the future, the desktop and touch versions of Ubuntu will use the same version of Unity and Unity will adjust its interface depending on what type of device your’e using. Here you’ll find apps you have installed and apps available to install. Tap an installed app to launch it or tap an available app to view more details and install it. Tap the My apps or Available headings to view a complete list of apps you have installed or apps you can install. Tap the Search box at the top of the screen to start searching — this is how you’d search for new apps to install. As you’d expect, a touch keyboard appears when you tap in the Search field or any other text field. The launcher isn’t just for apps. Tap the Apps heading at the top of the screen and you’ll see hidden text appear — Music, Video, and Scopes. This hidden navigation is used throughout Ubuntu’s different apps and can be easy to miss at first. Swipe to the left or right to move between these screens. These screens are also similar to the different panels in Unity on the desktop. The Scopes section allows you to view different search scopes you have installed. These are used to search different sources when you start a search from the Dash. Search from the Music or Videos scopes to search for local media files on your device or media files online. For example, searching in the Music scope will show you music results from Grooveshark by default. Navigating Ubuntu Touch Swipe in from the left edge anywhere on the system to open the launcher, a bar with shortcuts to apps. This launcher is very similar to the launcher on the left of Ubuntu’s Unity desktop — that’s the whole idea, after all. Once you’ve opened an app, you can leave the app by swiping in from the left. The launcher will appear — keep moving your finger towards the right edge of teh screen. This will swipe the current app off the screen, taking you back to the Dash. Once back on the Dash, you’ll see your open apps represented as thumbnails under Recent. Tap a thumbnail here to go back to a running app. To remove an app from here, long-press it and tap the X button that appears. Swipe in from the right edge in any app to quickly switch between recent apps. Swipe in from the right edge and hold your finger down to reveal an application switcher that shows all your recent apps and lets you choose between them. Swipe down from the top of the screen to access the indicator panel. Here you can connect to Wi-Fi networks, view upcoming events, control GPS and Bluetooth hardware, adjust sound settings, see incoming messages, and more. This panel is for quick access to hardware settings and notifications, just like the indicators on Ubuntu’s Unity desktop. The Apps System settings not included in the pull-down panel are available in the System Settings app. To access it, tap My apps on the Dash and tap System Settings, search for the System Settings app, or open the launcher bar and tap the settings icon. The settings here a bit limited compared to other operating systems, but many of the important options are available here. You can add Evernote, Ubuntu One, Twitter, Facebook, and Google accounts from here. A free Ubuntu One account is mandatory for downloading and updating apps. A Google account can be used to sync contacts and calendar events. Some apps on Ubuntu are native apps, while many are web apps. For example, the Twitter, Gmail, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay apps included by default are all web apps that open each service’s mobile website as an app. Other applications, such as the Weather, Calendar, Dialer, Calculator, and Notes apps are native applications. Theoretically, both types of apps will be able to scale to different screen resolutions. Ubuntu Touch and Ubuntu desktop may one day share the same apps, which will adapt to different display sizes and input methods. Like Windows 8 apps, Ubuntu apps hide interface elements by default, providing you with a full-screen view of the content. Swipe up from the bottom of an app’s screen to view its interface elements. For example, swiping up from the bottom of the Web Browser app reveals Back, Forward, and Refresh buttons, along with an address bar and Activity button so you can view current and recent web pages. Swipe up even more from the bottom and you’ll see a button hovering in the middle of the app. Tap the button and you’ll see many more settings. This is an overflow area for application options and functions that can’t fit on the navigation bar. The Terminal app has a few surprising Easter eggs in this panel, including a “Hack into the NSA” option. Tap it and the following text will appear in the terminal: That’s not very nice, now tracing your location . . . . . . . . . . . .Trace failed You got away this time, but don’t try again. We’d expect to see such Easter eggs disappear before Ubuntu Touch actually ships on real devices. Ubuntu Touch has come a long way, but it’s still not something you want to use today. For example, it doesn’t even have a built-in email client — you’ll have to us your email service’s mobile website. Few apps are available, and many of the ones that are are just mobile websites. It’s not a polished operating system intended for normal users yet — it’s more of a preview for developers and device manufacturers. If you really want to try it yourself, you can install it on a Wi-Fi Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 10, or Nexus 4 device. Follow Ubuntu’s installation instructions here.

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• Entity Framework 6: Alpha2 Now Available

  - by ScottGu

  The Entity Framework team recently announced the 2nd alpha release of EF6.   The alpha 2 package is available for download from NuGet. Since this is a pre-release package make sure to select “Include Prereleases” in the NuGet package manager, or execute the following from the package manager console to install it: PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Pre This week’s alpha release includes a bunch of great improvements in the following areas: Async language support is now available for queries and updates when running on .NET 4.5. Custom conventions now provide the ability to override the default conventions that Code First uses for mapping types, properties, etc. to your database. Multi-tenant migrations allow the same database to be used by multiple contexts with full Code First Migrations support for independently evolving the model backing each context. Using Enumerable.Contains in a LINQ query is now handled much more efficiently by EF and the SQL Server provider resulting greatly improved performance. All features of EF6 (except async) are available on both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5. This includes support for enums and spatial types and the performance improvements that were previously only available when using .NET 4.5. Start-up time for many large models has been dramatically improved thanks to improved view generation performance. Below are some additional details about a few of the improvements above: Async Support .NET 4.5 introduced the Task-Based Asynchronous Pattern that uses the async and await keywords to help make writing asynchronous code easier. EF 6 now supports this pattern. This is great for ASP.NET applications as database calls made through EF can now be processed asynchronously – avoiding any blocking of worker threads. This can increase scalability on the server by allowing more requests to be processed while waiting for the database to respond. The following code shows an MVC controller that is querying a database for a list of location entities:     public class HomeController : Controller     {         LocationContext db = new LocationContext();           public async Task<ActionResult> Index()         {             var locations = await db.Locations.ToListAsync();               return View(locations);         }     } Notice above the call to the new ToListAsync method with the await keyword. When the web server reaches this code it initiates the database request, but rather than blocking while waiting for the results to come back, the thread that is processing the request returns to the thread pool, allowing ASP.NET to process another incoming request with the same thread. In other words, a thread is only consumed when there is actual processing work to do, allowing the web server to handle more concurrent requests with the same resources. A more detailed walkthrough covering async in EF is available with additional information and examples. Also a walkthrough is available showing how to use async in an ASP.NET MVC application. Custom Conventions When working with EF Code First, the default behavior is to map .NET classes to tables using a set of conventions baked into EF. For example, Code First will detect properties that end with “ID” and configure them automatically as primary keys. However, sometimes you cannot or do not want to follow those conventions and would rather provide your own. For example, maybe your primary key properties all end in “Key” instead of “Id”. Custom conventions allow the default conventions to be overridden or new conventions to be added so that Code First can map by convention using whatever rules make sense for your project. The following code demonstrates using custom conventions to set the precision of all decimals to 5. As with other Code First configuration, this code is placed in the OnModelCreating method which is overridden on your derived DbContext class:         protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)         {             modelBuilder.Properties<decimal>()                 .Configure(x => x.HasPrecision(5));           } But what if there are a couple of places where a decimal property should have a different precision? Just as with all the existing Code First conventions, this new convention can be overridden for a particular property simply by explicitly configuring that property using either the fluent API or a data annotation. A more detailed description of custom code first conventions is available here. Community Involvement I blogged a while ago about EF being released under an open source license.  Since then a number of community members have made contributions and these are included in EF6 alpha 2. Two examples of community contributions are: AlirezaHaghshenas contributed a change that increases the startup performance of EF for larger models by improving the performance of view generation. The change means that it is less often necessary to use of pre-generated views. UnaiZorrilla contributed the first community feature to EF: the ability to load all Code First configuration classes in an assembly with a single method call like the following: protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) {        modelBuilder.Configurations            .AddFromAssembly(typeof(LocationContext).Assembly); } This code will find and load all the classes that inherit from EntityTypeConfiguration<T> or ComplexTypeConfiguration<T> in the assembly where LocationContext is defined. This reduces the amount of coupling between the context and Code First configuration classes, and is also a very convenient shortcut for large models. Other upcoming features coming in EF 6 Lots of information about the development of EF6 can be found on the EF CodePlex site, including a roadmap showing the other features that are planned for EF6. One of of the nice upcoming features is connection resiliency, which will automate the process of retying database operations on transient failures common in cloud environments and with databases such as the Windows Azure SQL Database. Another often requested feature that will be included in EF6 is the ability to map stored procedures to query and update operations on entities when using Code First. Summary EF6 is the first open source release of Entity Framework being developed in CodePlex. The alpha 2 preview release of EF6 is now available on NuGet, and contains some really great features for you to try. The EF team are always looking for feedback from developers - especially on the new features such as custom Code First conventions and async support. To provide feedback you can post a comment on the EF6 alpha 2 announcement post, start a discussion or file a bug on the CodePlex site. 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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