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• VS 2010 SP1 (Beta) and IIS Express

  - by ScottGu

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

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

  - by Matthew Guay

  Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of. Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of.  They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them. Internet Explorer 8 Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information.  Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer.  It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability.  It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative. Google Chrome 4 Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language. Opera 10.50 Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements. Apple Safari 4 Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility.  Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface.  It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools. Flock 2.5 Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out. Maxthon 2.5 Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6.  Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager. Avant Browser Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online. Sleipnir Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer.   FlashPeak SlimBrowser SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box.   K-meleon This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you.   GreenBrowser GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources.   Conclusion The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from.  If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it. Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE Windows Update KB976002 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Hidden Files and Folders in Ubuntu File BrowserSet the Default Browser and Email Client in UbuntuAccess Multiple Browsers from Firefox with Browser View Plus TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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• Analytic functions – they’re not aggregates

  - by Rob Farley

  SQL 2012 brings us a bunch of new analytic functions, together with enhancements to the OVER clause. People who have known me over the years will remember that I’m a big fan of the OVER clause and the types of things that it brings us when applied to aggregate functions, as well as the ranking functions that it enables. The OVER clause was introduced in SQL Server 2005, and remained frustratingly unchanged until SQL Server 2012. This post is going to look at a particular aspect of the analytic functions though (not the enhancements to the OVER clause). When I give presentations about the analytic functions around Australia as part of the tour of SQL Saturdays (starting in Brisbane this Thursday), and in Chicago next month, I’ll make sure it’s sufficiently well described. But for this post – I’m going to skip that and assume you get it. The analytic functions introduced in SQL 2012 seem to come in pairs – FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE, LAG and LEAD, CUME_DIST and PERCENT_RANK, PERCENTILE_CONT and PERCENTILE_DISC. Perhaps frustratingly, they take slightly different forms as well. The ones I want to look at now are FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE, and PERCENTILE_CONT and PERCENTILE_DISC. The reason I’m pulling this ones out is that they always produce the same result within their partitions (if you’re applying them to the whole partition). Consider the following query: SELECT     YEAR(OrderDate),     FIRST_VALUE(TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)               ORDER BY OrderDate, SalesOrderID               RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING                         AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING),     LAST_VALUE(TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)               ORDER BY OrderDate, SalesOrderID               RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING                         AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING),     PERCENTILE_CONT(0.95)         WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)),     PERCENTILE_DISC(0.95)         WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)) FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader ; This is designed to get the TotalDue for the first order of the year, the last order of the year, and also the 95% percentile, using both the continuous and discrete methods (‘discrete’ means it picks the closest one from the values available – ‘continuous’ means it will happily use something between, similar to what you would do for a traditional median of four values). I’m sure you can imagine the results – a different value for each field, but within each year, all the rows the same. Notice that I’m not grouping by the year. Nor am I filtering. This query gives us a result for every row in the SalesOrderHeader table – 31465 in this case (using the original AdventureWorks that dates back to the SQL 2005 days). The RANGE BETWEEN bit in FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE is needed to make sure that we’re considering all the rows available. If we don’t specify that, it assumes we only mean “RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW”, which means that LAST_VALUE ends up being the row we’re looking at. At this point you might think about other environments such as Access or Reporting Services, and remember aggregate functions like FIRST. We really should be able to do something like: SELECT     YEAR(OrderDate),     FIRST_VALUE(TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)               ORDER BY OrderDate, SalesOrderID               RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING                         AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader GROUP BY YEAR(OrderDate) ; But you can’t. You get that age-old error: Msg 8120, Level 16, State 1, Line 5 Column 'Sales.SalesOrderHeader.OrderDate' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause. Msg 8120, Level 16, State 1, Line 5 Column 'Sales.SalesOrderHeader.SalesOrderID' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause. Hmm. You see, FIRST_VALUE isn’t an aggregate function. None of these analytic functions are. There are too many things involved for SQL to realise that the values produced might be identical within the group. Furthermore, you can’t even surround it in a MAX. Then you get a different error, telling you that you can’t use windowed functions in the context of an aggregate. And so we end up grouping by doing a DISTINCT. SELECT DISTINCT     YEAR(OrderDate),         FIRST_VALUE(TotalDue)              OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)                   ORDER BY OrderDate, SalesOrderID                   RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING                             AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING),         LAST_VALUE(TotalDue)             OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)                   ORDER BY OrderDate, SalesOrderID                   RANGE BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING                             AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING),     PERCENTILE_CONT(0.95)          WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)),     PERCENTILE_DISC(0.95)         WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY TotalDue)         OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR(OrderDate)) FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader ; I’m sorry. It’s just the way it goes. Hopefully it’ll change the future, but for now, it’s what you’ll have to do. If we look in the execution plan, we see that it’s incredibly ugly, and actually works out the results of these analytic functions for all 31465 rows, finally performing the distinct operation to convert it into the four rows we get in the results. You might be able to achieve a better plan using things like TOP, or the kind of calculation that I used in http://sqlblog.com/blogs/rob_farley/archive/2011/08/23/t-sql-thoughts-about-the-95th-percentile.aspx (which is how PERCENTILE_CONT works), but it’s definitely convenient to use these functions, and in time, I’m sure we’ll see good improvements in the way that they are implemented. Oh, and this post should be good for fellow SQL Server MVP Nigel Sammy’s T-SQL Tuesday this month.

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• TFS, G.I. Joe and Under-doing

  If I were to rank the most consistently irritating parts of my work day, using TFS would come in first by a wide margin. Even repeated network outages this week seem like a pleasant reprieve from this monolithic beast. This is not a reflexive anti-Microsoft feeling, that attitude just wouldnt work for a consultant who does .NET development. It is also not an utter dismissal of TFS as worthless; Ive seen people use it effectively on several projects. So why? Ill start with a laundry list of shortcomings. An out of the box UI for work items that is insultingly bad, a source control system that is confoundingly fragile when handling merges, folder renames and long file names, the arcane XML wizardry necessary to customize a template and a build system that adds an extra layer of oddness on top of msbuild. Im sure my legion of readers will soon point out to me how I can work around all these issues, how this is fixed in TFS 2010 or with this add-in, and how once you have everything set up, youre fine. And theyd be right, any one of these problems could be worked around. If not dirty laundry, what else? I thought about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that TFS is so irritating to me because it represents a vision of software development that I find unappealing. To expand upon this, lets start with some wisdom from those great PSAs at the end of the G.I. Joe cartoons of the 80s: Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. In software development, Id go further and say knowing is more than half the battle. Understanding the dimensions of the problem you are trying to solve, the needs of the users, the value that your software can provide are more than half the battle. Implementation of this understanding is not easy, but it is not even possible without this knowledge. Assuming we have a fixed amount of time and mental energy for any project, why does this spell trouble for TFS? If you think about what TFS is doing, its offering you a huge array of options to track the day to day implementation of your project. From tasks, to code churn, to test coverage. All valuable metrics, but only in exchange for valuable time to get it all working. In addition, when you have a shiny toy like TFS, the temptation is to feel obligated to use it. So the push from TFS is to encourage a project manager and team to focus on process and metrics around process. You can get great visibility, and graphs to show your project stakeholders, but none of that is important if you are not implementing the right product. Not just unimportant, these activities can be harmful as they drain your time and sap your creativity away from the rest of the project. To be more concrete, lets suppose your organization has invested the time to create a template for your projects and trained people in how to use it, so there is no longer a big investment of time for each project to get up and running. First, Id challenge if that template could be specific enough to be full featured and still applicable for any project. Second, the very existence of this template would be a indication to a project manager that the success of their project was somehow directly related to fitting management of that project into this format. Again, while the capabilities are wonderful, the mirage is there; just get everything into TFS and your project will run smoothly. Ill close the loop on this first topic by proposing a thought experiment. Think of the projects youve worked on. How many times have you been chagrined to discover youve implemented the wrong feature, misunderstood how a feature should work or just plain spent too much time on a screen that nobody uses? That sounds like a really worthwhile area to invest time in improving. How about going back to these projects and thinking about how many times you wished you had optimized the state change flow of your tasks or been embarrassed to not have a code churn report linked back to the latest changeset? With thanks to the Real American Heroes, Ill move on to a more current influence, that of the developers at 37signals, and their philosophy towards software development. This philosophy, fully detailed in the books Getting Real and Rework, is a vision of software that under does the competition. This is software that is deliberately limited in functionality in order to concentrate fully on making sure ever feature that is there is awesome and needed. Why is this relevant? Well, in one of those fun seeming paradoxes in life, constraints can be a spark for creativity. Think Twitter, the small screen of an iPhone, the limitations of HTML for applications, the low memory limits of older or embedded system. As long as there is some freedom within those constraints, amazing things emerge. For project management, some of the most respected people in the industry recommend using just index cards, pens and tape. They argue that with change the constant in software development, your process should be as limited (yet rigorous) as possible. Looking at TFS, this is not a system designed to under do anybody. It is a big jumble of components and options, with every feature you could think of. Predictably this means many basic functions are hard to use. For task management, many people just use an Excel spreadsheet linked up to TFS. Not a stirring endorsement of the tooling there. TFS as a whole would be far more appealing to me if there was less of it, but better. Id cut 50% of the features to make the other half really amaze and inspire me. And thats really the heart of the matter. TFS has great promise and I want to believe it can work better. But ultimately it focuses your attention on a lot of stuff that doesnt really matter and then clamps down your creativity in a mess of forms and dialogs obscuring what does.   --- Relevant Links --- All those great G.I. Joe PSAs are on YouTube, including lots of mashed up versions. A simple Google search will get you on the right track.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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• Who IS Brian Solis?

  - by Michael Snow

  Q: Brian, Welcome to the WebCenter Blog. Can you tell our readers your current role and what career path brought you here? A: I’m proudly serving as a principal analyst at Altimeter Group, a research based advisory firm in Silicon Valley. My career path, well, let’s just say it’s a long and winding road. As a kid, I was fascinated with technology. I learned programming at an early age and found myself naturally drawn to all things tech. I started my career as a database programmer at a technology marketing agency in Southern California. When I saw the chance to work with tech companies and help them better market their capabilities to businesses and consumers, I switched focus from programming to marketing and advertising. As technologist, my approach to marketing was different. I didn’t believe in hype, fluff or buzz words. I believed in translating features into benefits and specifications and capabilities into solutions for real world problems and opportunities. In the mid 90’s I experimented with direct to consumer/customer engagement in dedicated technology forums and boards. I quickly realized that the entire approach to do so would need to change. Therefore, I learned and developed new methods for a more social and informed way of engaging people in ways that helped them, marketed the company, and also tied to tangible benefits for the company. This work would lead me to start an agency in 1999 dedicated to interactive marketing. As I continued to experiment with interactive platforms, I developed interesting methods for converting one-to-many forms of media into one-to-one-to-many programs. I ran that company until joining Altimeter Group. Along the way, in the early 2000s, I realized that everything was changing and that there were others like me finding success in what would become a more social form of media. I dedicated a significant amount of my time to sharing everything that I learned in the form of articles, blogs, and eventually books. My mission became to share my experience with anyone who’d listen. It would later become much bigger than marketing, this would lead to a decade of work, that still continues, in business transformation. Then and now, I find myself always assuming the role of a student. Q: As an industry analyst & technology change evangelist, what are you primarily focused on these days? A: As a digital analyst, I study how disruptive technology impacts business. As an aspiring social scientist, I study how technology affects human behavior. I explore both horizons professionally and personally to better understand the future of popular culture and also the opportunities that exist for organizations to improve relationships and experiences with customers and the people that are important to them. Q: People cite that the line between work and life is getting more and more blurred. Do you see your personal life influencing your professional work? A: The line between work and life isn’t blurred it’s been overtly crossed and erased. We live in an always on society. The digital lifestyle keeps us connected to one another it keeps us connected all the time. Whether your sending or checking email, trying to catch up, or simply trying to get ahead, people are spending the equivalent of an extra day at work in the time they spend out of work…working. That’s absurd. It’s a matter of survival. It’s also a matter of unintended, subconscious self-causation. We brought this on ourselves and continue to do so. Think about your day. You’re in meetings for the better part of each day. You probably spend evenings and weekends catching up on email and actually doing the work you couldn’t get to during the day. And, your co-workers and executives are doing the same thing. So if you try to slow down, you find yourself at a disadvantage as you’re willfully pulling yourself out of an unfortunate culture of whenever wherever business dynamics. If you’re unresponsive or unreachable, someone within your organization or on your team is accessible. Over time, this could contribute to unfavorable impressions. I choose to steer my life balance in ways that complement one another. But, I don’t pretend to have this figured out by any means. In fact, I find myself swimming upstream like those around me. It’s essentially a competition for relevance and at some point I’ll learn how to earn attention and relevance while redrawing the line between work and life. Q: How can people keep up with what you’re working on? A: The easy answer is that people can keep up with me at briansolis.com. But, I also try to reach people where their attention is focused. Whether it’s Facebook (facebook.com/briansolis), Twitter (@briansolis), Google+ (+briansolis), Youtube (briansolis.tv) or through books and conferences, people can usually find me in a place of their choosing. Q: Recently, you’ve been working with us here at Oracle on something exciting coming up later this week. What’s on the horizon? A: I spent some time with the Oracle team reviewing the idea of Digital Darwinism and how technology and society are evolving faster than many organizations can adapt. Digital Darwinism: How Brands Can Survive the Rapid Evolution of Society and Technology Thursday, December 13, 2012, 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Q: You’ve been very actively pursued for media interviews and conference and company speaking engagements – anything you’d like to share to give us a sneak peak of what to expect on Thursday’s webcast? A: We’re inviting guests to join us online as we dive into the future of business and how the convergence of technology and connected consumerism would ultimately impact how business is done. It’ll be an exciting and revealing conversation that explores just how much everything is changing. We’ll also review the importance of adapting to emergent trends and how to compete for the future. It’s important to recognize that change is not happening to us, it’s happening because of us. We are part of the revolution and therefore we need to help organizations adapt from the inside out. Watch the Entire Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast Series On-Demand and Stay Tuned for More to Come in 2013!

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• ASP.NET Controls – CommunityServer Captcha ControlAdapter, a practical case

  - by nmgomes

  The ControlAdapter is available since .NET framework version 2.0 and his main goal is to adapt and customize a control render in order to achieve a specific behavior or layout. This customization is done without changing the base control. A ControlAdapter is commonly used to custom render for specific platforms like Mobile. In this particular case the ControlAdapter was used to add a specific behavior to a Control. In this  post I will use one adapter to add a Captcha to all WeblogPostCommentForm controls within pontonetpt.com CommunityServer instance. The Challenge The ControlAdapter complexity is usually associated with the complexity/structure of is base control. This case is precisely one of those since base control dynamically load his content (controls) thru several ITemplate. Those of you who already played with ITemplate knows that while it is an excellent option for control composition it also brings to the table a big issue: “Controls defined within a template are not available for manipulation until they are instantiated inside another control.” While analyzing the WeblogPostCommentForm control I found that he uses the ITemplate technique to compose it’s layout and unfortunately I also found that the template content vary from theme to theme. This could have been a problem but luckily WeblogPostCommentForm control template content always contains a submit button with a well known ID (at least I can assume that there are a well known set of IDs). Using this submit button as anchor it’s possible to add the Captcha controls in the correct place. Another important finding was that WeblogPostCommentForm control inherits from the WrappedFormBase control which is the base control for all CommunityServer input forms. Knowing this inheritance link the main goal has changed to became the creation of a base ControlAdapter that  could be extended and customized to allow adding Captcha to: post comments form contact form user creation form. And, with this mind set, I decided to used the following ControlAdapter base class signature :public abstract class WrappedFormBaseCaptchaAdapter<T> : ControlAdapter where T : WrappedFormBase { }Great, but there are still many to do … Captcha The Captcha will be assembled with: A dynamically generated image with a set of random numbers A TextBox control where the image number will be inserted A Validator control to validate whether TextBox numbers match the image numbers This is a common Captcha implementation, is not rocket science and don’t bring any additional problem. The main problem, as told before, is to find the correct anchor control to ensure a correct Captcha control injection. The anchor control can vary by: target control  theme Implementation To support this dynamic scenario I choose to use the following implementation:private List<string> _validAnchorIds = null; protected virtual List<string> ValidAnchorIds { get { if (this._validAnchorIds == null) { this._validAnchorIds = new List<string>(); this._validAnchorIds.Add("btnSubmit"); } return this._validAnchorIds; } } private Control GetAnchorControl(T wrapper) { if (this.ValidAnchorIds == null || this.ValidAnchorIds.Count == 0) { throw new ArgumentException("Cannot be null or empty", "validAnchorNames"); } var q = from anchorId in this.ValidAnchorIds let anchorControl = CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl(wrapper, anchorId) where anchorControl != null select anchorControl; return q.FirstOrDefault(); } I can now, using the ValidAnchorIds property, configure a set of valid anchor control  Ids. The GetAnchorControl method searches for a valid anchor control within the set of valid control Ids. Here, some of you may question why to use a LINQ To Objects expression, but the important here is to notice the usage of CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl CommunityServer method. I want to build on top of CommunityServer not to reinvent the wheel. Assuming that an anchor control was found, it’s now possible to inject the Captcha at the correct place. This not something new, we do this all the time when creating server controls or adding dynamic controls:protected sealed override void CreateChildControls() { base.CreateChildControls(); if (this.IsCaptchaRequired) { T wrapper = base.Control as T; if (wrapper != null) { Control anchorControl = GetAnchorControl(wrapper); if (anchorControl != null) { Panel phCaptcha = new Panel {CssClass = "CommonFormField", ID = "Captcha"}; int index = anchorControl.Parent.Controls.IndexOf(anchorControl); anchorControl.Parent.Controls.AddAt(index, phCaptcha); CaptchaConfiguration.DefaultProvider.AddCaptchaControls( phCaptcha, GetValidationGroup(wrapper, anchorControl)); } } } } Here you can see a new entity in action: a provider. This is a CaptchaProvider class instance and is only goal is to create the Captcha itself and do everything else is needed to ensure is correct operation.public abstract class CaptchaProvider : ProviderBase { public abstract void AddCaptchaControls(Panel captchaPanel, string validationGroup); } You can create your own specific CaptchaProvider class to use different Captcha strategies including the use of existing Captcha services  like ReCaptcha. Once the generic ControlAdapter was created became extremely easy to created a specific one. Here is the specific ControlAdapter for the WeblogPostCommentForm control:public class WeblogPostCommentFormCaptchaAdapter : WrappedFormBaseCaptchaAdapter<WrappedFormBase> { #region Overriden Methods protected override List<string> ValidAnchorIds { get { List<string> validAnchorNames = base.ValidAnchorIds; validAnchorNames.Add("CommentSubmit"); return validAnchorNames; } } protected override string DefaultValidationGroup { get { return "CreateCommentForm"; } } #endregion Overriden Methods } Configuration This is the magic step. Without changing the original pages and keeping the application original assemblies untouched we are going to add a new behavior to the CommunityServer application. To glue everything together you must follow this steps: Add the following configuration to default.browser file:<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <browsers> <browser refID="Default"> <controlAdapters> <!-- Adapter for the WeblogPostCommentForm control in order to add the Captcha and prevent SPAM comments --> <adapter controlType="CommunityServer.Blogs.Controls.WeblogPostCommentForm" adapterType="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Components.WeblogPostCommentFormCaptchaAdapter, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </controlAdapters> </browser> </browsers> Add the following configuration to web.config file:<configuration> <configSections> <!-- New section for Captcha providers configuration --> <section name="communityServer.Captcha" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Configuration.CaptchaSection" /> </configSections> <!-- Configuring a simple Captcha provider --> <communityServer.Captcha defaultProvider="simpleCaptcha"> <providers> <add name="simpleCaptcha" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProvider, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" imageUrl="~/captcha.ashx" enabled="true" passPhrase="_YourPassPhrase_" saltValue="_YourSaltValue_" hashAlgorithm="SHA1" passwordIterations="3" keySize="256" initVector="_YourInitVectorWithExactly_16_Bytes_" /> </providers> </communityServer.Captcha> <system.web> <httpHandlers> <!-- The Captcha Image handler used by the simple Captcha provider --> <add verb="GET" path="captcha.ashx" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProviderImageHandler, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </httpHandlers> </system.web> <system.webServer> <handlers accessPolicy="Read, Write, Script, Execute"> <!-- The Captcha Image handler used by the simple Captcha provider --> <add verb="GET" name="captcha" path="captcha.ashx" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProviderImageHandler, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </handlers> </system.webServer> </configuration> Conclusion Building a ControlAdapter can be complex but the reward is his ability to allows us, thru configuration changes, to modify an application render and/or behavior. You can see this ControlAdapter in action here and here (anonymous required). A complete solution is available in “CommunityServer Extensions” Codeplex project.

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• Class-Level Model Validation with EF Code First and ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by ScottGu

  Earlier this week the data team released the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code-First library.  In my blog post a few days ago I talked about a few of the improvements introduced with the new CTP5 build.  Automatic support for enforcing DataAnnotation validation attributes on models was one of the improvements I discussed.  It provides a pretty easy way to enable property-level validation logic within your model layer. You can apply validation attributes like [Required], [Range], and [RegularExpression] – all of which are built-into .NET 4 – to your model classes in order to enforce that the model properties are valid before they are persisted to a database.  You can also create your own custom validation attributes (like this cool [CreditCard] validator) and have them be automatically enforced by EF Code First as well.  This provides a really easy way to validate property values on your models.  I showed some code samples of this in action in my previous post. Class-Level Model Validation using IValidatableObject DataAnnotation attributes provides an easy way to validate individual property values on your model classes.  Several people have asked - “Does EF Code First also support a way to implement class-level validation methods on model objects, for validation rules than need to span multiple property values?”  It does – and one easy way you can enable this is by implementing the IValidatableObject interface on your model classes. IValidatableObject.Validate() Method Below is an example of using the IValidatableObject interface (which is built-into .NET 4 within the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace) to implement two custom validation rules on a Product model class.  The two rules ensure that: New units can’t be ordered if the Product is in a discontinued state New units can’t be ordered if there are already more than 100 units in stock We will enforce these business rules by implementing the IValidatableObject interface on our Product class, and by implementing its Validate() method like so: The IValidatableObject.Validate() method can apply validation rules that span across multiple properties, and can yield back multiple validation errors. Each ValidationResult returned can supply both an error message as well as an optional list of property names that caused the violation (which is useful when displaying error messages within UI). Automatic Validation Enforcement EF Code-First (starting with CTP5) now automatically invokes the Validate() method when a model object that implements the IValidatableObject interface is saved.  You do not need to write any code to cause this to happen – this support is now enabled by default. This new support means that the below code – which violates one of our above business rules – will automatically throw an exception (and abort the transaction) when we call the “SaveChanges()” method on our Northwind DbContext: In addition to reactively handling validation exceptions, EF Code First also allows you to proactively check for validation errors.  Starting with CTP5, you can call the “GetValidationErrors()” method on the DbContext base class to retrieve a list of validation errors within the model objects you are working with.  GetValidationErrors() will return a list of all validation errors – regardless of whether they are generated via DataAnnotation attributes or by an IValidatableObject.Validate() implementation.  Below is an example of proactively using the GetValidationErrors() method to check (and handle) errors before trying to call SaveChanges(): ASP.NET MVC 3 and IValidatableObject ASP.NET MVC 2 included support for automatically honoring and enforcing DataAnnotation attributes on model objects that are used with ASP.NET MVC’s model binding infrastructure.  ASP.NET MVC 3 goes further and also honors the IValidatableObject interface.  This combined support for model validation makes it easy to display appropriate error messages within forms when validation errors occur.  To see this in action, let’s consider a simple Create form that allows users to create a new Product: We can implement the above Create functionality using a ProductsController class that has two “Create” action methods like below: The first Create() method implements a version of the /Products/Create URL that handles HTTP-GET requests - and displays the HTML form to fill-out.  The second Create() method implements a version of the /Products/Create URL that handles HTTP-POST requests - and which takes the posted form data, ensures that is is valid, and if it is valid saves it in the database.  If there are validation issues it redisplays the form with the posted values.  The razor view template of our “Create” view (which renders the form) looks like below: One of the nice things about the above Controller + View implementation is that we did not write any validation logic within it.  The validation logic and business rules are instead implemented entirely within our model layer, and the ProductsController simply checks whether it is valid (by calling the ModelState.IsValid helper method) to determine whether to try and save the changes or redisplay the form with errors. The Html.ValidationMessageFor() helper method calls within our view simply display the error messages our Product model’s DataAnnotations and IValidatableObject.Validate() method returned.  We can see the above scenario in action by filling out invalid data within the form and attempting to submit it: Notice above how when we hit the “Create” button we got an error message.  This was because we ticked the “Discontinued” checkbox while also entering a value for the UnitsOnOrder (and so violated one of our business rules).  You might ask – how did ASP.NET MVC know to highlight and display the error message next to the UnitsOnOrder textbox?  It did this because ASP.NET MVC 3 now honors the IValidatableObject interface when performing model binding, and will retrieve the error messages from validation failures with it. The business rule within our Product model class indicated that the “UnitsOnOrder” property should be highlighted when the business rule we hit was violated: Our Html.ValidationMessageFor() helper method knew to display the business rule error message (next to the UnitsOnOrder edit box) because of the above property name hint we supplied: Keeping things DRY ASP.NET MVC and EF Code First enables you to keep your validation and business rules in one place (within your model layer), and avoid having it creep into your Controllers and Views.  Keeping the validation logic in the model layer helps ensure that you do not duplicate validation/business logic as you add more Controllers and Views to your application.  It allows you to quickly change your business rules/validation logic in one single place (within your model layer) – and have all controllers/views across your application immediately reflect it.  This help keep your application code clean and easily maintainable, and makes it much easier to evolve and update your application in the future. Summary EF Code First (starting with CTP5) now has built-in support for both DataAnnotations and the IValidatableObject interface.  This allows you to easily add validation and business rules to your models, and have EF automatically ensure that they are enforced anytime someone tries to persist changes of them to a database.  ASP.NET MVC 3 also now supports both DataAnnotations and IValidatableObject as well, which makes it even easier to use them with your EF Code First model layer – and then have the controllers/views within your web layer automatically honor and support them as well.  This makes it easy to build clean and highly maintainable applications. You don’t have to use DataAnnotations or IValidatableObject to perform your validation/business logic.  You can always roll your own custom validation architecture and/or use other more advanced validation frameworks/patterns if you want.  But for a lot of applications this built-in support will probably be sufficient – and provide a highly productive way to build solutions. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• The new workflow management of Oracle´s Hyperion Planning: Define more details with Planning Unit Hierarchies and Promotional Paths

  - by Alexandra Georgescu

  After having been almost unchanged for several years, starting with the 11.1.2 release of Oracle´s Hyperion Planning the Process Management has not only got a new name: “Approvals” now is offering the possibility to further split Planning Units (comprised of a unique Scenario-Version-Entity combination) into more detailed combinations along additional secondary dimensions, a so called Planning Unit Hierarchy, and also to pre-define a path of planners, reviewers and approvers, called Promotional Path. I´d like to introduce you to changes and enhancements in this new process management and arouse your curiosity for checking out more details on it. One reason of using the former process management in Planning was to limit data entry rights to one person at a time based on the assignment of a planning unit. So the lowest level of granularity for this assignment was, for a given Scenario-Version combination, the individual entity. Even if in many cases one person wasn´t responsible for all data being entered into that entity, but for only part of it, it was not possible to split the ownership along another additional dimension, for example by assigning ownership to different accounts at the same time. By defining a so called Planning Unit Hierarchy (PUH) in Approvals this gap is now closed. Complementing new Shared Services roles for Planning have been created in order to manage set up and use of Approvals: The Approvals Administrator consisting of the following roles: Approvals Ownership Assigner, who assigns owners and reviewers to planning units for which Write access is assigned (including Planner responsibilities). Approvals Supervisor, who stops and starts planning units and takes any action on planning units for which Write access is assigned. Approvals Process Designer, who can modify planning unit hierarchy secondary dimensions and entity members for which Write access is assigned, can also modify scenarios and versions that are assigned to planning unit hierarchies and can edit validation rules on data forms for which access is assigned. (this includes as well Planner and Ownership Assigner responsibilities) Set up of a Planning Unit Hierarchy is done under the Administration menu, by selecting Approvals, then Planning Unit Hierarchy. Here you create new PUH´s or edit existing ones. The following window displays: After providing a name and an optional description, a pre-selection of entities can be made for which the PUH will be defined. Available options are: All, which pre-selects all entities to be included for the definitions on the subsequent tabs None, manual entity selections will be made subsequently Custom, which offers the selection for an ancestor and the relative generations, that should be included for further definitions. Finally a pattern needs to be selected, which will determine the general flow of ownership: Free-form, uses the flow/assignment of ownerships according to Planning releases prior to 11.1.2 In Bottom-up, data input is done at the leaf member level. Ownership follows the hierarchy of approval along the entity dimension, including refinements using a secondary dimension in the PUH, amended by defined additional reviewers in the promotional path. Distributed, uses data input at the leaf level, while ownership starts at the top level and then is distributed down the organizational hierarchy (entities). After ownership reaches the lower levels, budgets are submitted back to the top through the approval process. Proceeding to the next step, now a secondary dimension and the respective members from that dimension might be selected, in order to create more detailed combinations underneath each entity. After selecting the Dimension and a Parent Member, the definition of a Relative Generation below this member assists in populating the field for Selected Members, while the Count column shows the number of selected members. For refining this list, you might click on the icon right beside the selected member field and use the check-boxes in the appearing list for deselecting members. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIP: In order to reduce maintenance of the PUH due to changes in the dimensions included (members added, moved or removed) you should consider to dynamically link those dimensions in the PUH with the dimension hierarchies in the planning application. For secondary dimensions this is done using the check-boxes in the Auto Include column. For the primary dimension, the respective selection criteria is applied by right-clicking the name of an entity activated as planning unit, then selecting an item of the shown list of include or exclude options (children, descendants, etc.). Anyway in order to apply dimension changes impacting the PUH a synchronization must be run. If this is really necessary or not is shown on the first screen after selecting from the menu Administration, then Approvals, then Planning Unit Hierarchy: under Synchronized you find the statuses Yes, No or Locked, where the last one indicates, that another user is just changing or synchronizing the PUH. Select one of the not synchronized PUH´s (status No) and click the Synchronize option in order to execute. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the next step owners and reviewers are assigned to the PUH. Using the icons with the magnifying glass right besides the columns for Owner and Reviewer the respective assignments can be made in the ordermthat you want them to review the planning unit. While it is possible to assign only one owner per entity or combination of entity+ member of the secondary dimension, the selection for reviewers might consist of more than one person. The complete Promotional Path, including the defined owners and reviewers for the entity parents, can be shown by clicking the icon. In addition optional users might be defined for being notified about promotions for a planning unit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIP: Reviewers cannot change data, but can only review data according to their data access permissions and reject or promote planning units. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In order to complete your PUH definitions click Finish - this saves the PUH and closes the window. As a final step, before starting the approvals process, you need to assign the PUH to the Scenario-Version combination for which it should be used. From the Administration menu select Approvals, then Scenario and Version Assignment. Expand the PUH in order to see already existing assignments. Under Actions click the add icon and select scenarios and versions to be assigned. If needed, click the remove icon in order to delete entries. After these steps, set up is completed for starting the approvals process. Start, stop and control of the approvals process is now done under the Tools menu, and then Manage Approvals. The new PUH feature is complemented by various additional settings and features; some of them at least should be mentioned here: Export/Import of PUHs: Out of Office agent: Validation Rules changing promotional/approval path if violated (including the use of User-defined Attributes (UDAs)): And various new and helpful reviewer actions with corresponding approval states. About the Author: Bernhard Kinkel started working for Hyperion Solutions as a Presales Consultant and Consultant in 1998 and moved to Hyperion Education Services in 1999. He joined Oracle University in 2007 where he is a Principal Education Consultant. Based on these many years of working with Hyperion products he has detailed product knowledge across several versions. He delivers both classroom and live virtual courses. His areas of expertise are Oracle/Hyperion Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Web Analysis.

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• SharePoint – The Most Important Feature

  - by Bil Simser

  Watching twitter and doing a search for SharePoint and you see a lot (almost one every few minutes) of tweets about the top 10 new features in SharePoint. What answer do you get when you ask the question, “What’s the most important feature in SharePoint?”. Chances are the answer will vary. Some will say it’s the collaboration aspect, others might say it’s the new ribbon interface, multi-item editing, external content types, faceted search, large list support, document versioning, Silverlight, etc. The list goes on. However I think most people might be missing the most important feature that’s sitting right under their noses all this time. The most important feature of SharePoint? It’s called User Empowerment. Huh? What? Is that something I find in the Site Actions menu? Nope. It’s something that’s always been there in SharePoint, you just need to get the word out and support it. How many times have you had a team ask you for a team site (assuming you had SharePoint up and running). Or to create them a contact list. Or how long have you employed that guy in the corner who’s been copying and pasting content from Corporate Communications into the web from a Word document. Let’s stop the insanity. It doesn’t have to be this way. SharePoint’s strongest feature isn’t anything you can find in the Site Settings screen or Central Admin. It’s all about empowering your users and letting them take control of their content. After all, SharePoint really is a bunch of tools to allow users to collaborate on content isn’t it? So why are you stepping in as IT and helping the user every moment along the way. It’s like having to ask users to fill out a help desk ticket or call up the Windows team to create a folder on their desktop or rearrange their Start menu. This isn’t something IT should be spending their time doing nor is it something the users should be burdened with having to wait until their friendly neighborhood tech-guy (or gal) shows up to help them sort the icons on their desktop. SharePoint IS all about empowerment. Site owners can create whatever lists and libraries they need for their team, and if the template isn’t there they can always turn to my friend and yours, the Custom List. From that can spew forth approval tracking systems, new hire checklists, and server inventory. You’re only limited by your imagination and needs. Users should be able to create new sites as they need. Want a blog to let everyone know what your team is up to? Go create one, here’s how. What’s a blog you ask? Here’s what it is and why you would use one. SharePoint is the shift in the balance of power and you need, and an IT group, let go of certain responsibilities and let your users run with the tools. A power user who knows how to create sites and what features are available to them can help a team go from the forming stage to the storming stage overnight. Again, this all hinges on you as an IT organization and what you can and empower your users with as far as features go. Running with tools is great if you know how to use them, running with scissors not recommended unless you enjoy trips to the hospital. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility so don’t go out on Monday and send out a memo to the organization saying “This Bil guy says you peeps can do anything so here it is, knock yourself out” (for one, they’ll have *no* idea who this Bil guy is). This advice comes with the task of getting your users ready for empowerment. Whether it’s through some kind of internal training sessions, in-house documentation; videos; blog posts; on how to accomplish things in SharePoint, or full blown one-on-one sit downs with teams or individuals to help them through their problems. The work is up to you. Helping them along also should be part of your governance (you do have one don’t you?). Just because you have InfoPath client deployed with your Office suite, doesn’t mean users should just start publishing forms all over your SharePoint farm. There should be some governance behind that in what you’ll support and what is possible. The other caveat to all this is that SharePoint is not everything for everyone. It can’t cook you breakfast and impregnate your cat or solve world hunger. It also isn’t suited for every IT solution out there. It’s a horrible source control system (even though some people try to use it as such) and really can’t do financials worth a darn. Again, governance is key here and part of that governance and your responsibility in setting up and unleashing SharePoint into your organization is to provide users guidance on what should be in SharePoint and (more importantly) what should not be in SharePoint. There are boundaries you have to set where you don’t want your end users going as they might be treading into trouble. Again, this is up to you to set these constraints and help users understand why these pylons are there. If someone understands why they can’t do something they might have a better understanding and respect for those that put them there in the first place. Of course you’ll always have the power-users who want to go skiing down dead mans curve so this doesn’t work for everyone, but you can catch the majority of the newbs who don’t wander aimlessly off the beaten path. At the end of the day when all things are going swimmingly your end users should be empowered to solve the needs they have on a day to day basis and not having to keep bugging the IT department to help them create a view to show only approved documents. I wouldn’t go as far as business users building out full blown solutions and handing the keys to SharePoint Designer or (worse) Visual Studio to power-users might not be a path you want to go down but you also don’t have to lock up the SharePoint system in a tight box where users can’t use what’s there. So stop focusing on the shiny things in SharePoint and maybe consider making a shift to what’s really important. Making your day job easier and letting users get the most our of your technology investment.

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• Globally Handling Request Validation In ASP.NET MVC

  - by imran_ku07

     Introduction:           Cross Site Scripting(XSS) and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks are one of dangerous attacks on web.  They are among the most famous security issues affecting web applications. OWASP regards XSS is the number one security issue on the Web. Both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC paid very much attention to make applications build with ASP.NET as secure as possible. So by default they will throw an exception 'A potentially dangerous XXX value was detected from the client', when they see, < followed by an exclamation(like <!) or < followed by the letters a through z(like <s) or & followed by a pound sign(like &#123) as a part of querystring, posted form and cookie collection. This is good for lot of applications. But this is not always the case. Many applications need to allow users to enter html tags, for example applications which uses  Rich Text Editor. You can allow user to enter these tags by just setting validateRequest="false" in your Web.config application configuration file inside <pages> element if you are using Web Form. This will globally disable request validation. But in ASP.NET MVC request handling is different than ASP.NET Web Form. Therefore for disabling request validation globally in ASP.NET MVC you have to put ValidateInputAttribute in your every controller. This become pain full for you if you have hundred of controllers. Therefore in this article i will present a very simple way to handle request validation globally through web.config.   Description:           Before starting how to do this it is worth to see why validateRequest in Page directive and web.config not work in ASP.NET MVC. Actually request handling in ASP.NET Web Form and ASP.NET MVC is different. In Web Form mostly the HttpHandler is the page handler which checks the posted form, query string and cookie collection during the Page ProcessRequest method, while in MVC request validation occur when ActionInvoker calling the action. Just see the stack trace of both framework.   ASP.NET MVC Stack Trace:     System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String s, String valueName, String collectionName) +8723114   System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, String collectionName) +111   System.Web.HttpRequest.get_Form() +129   System.Web.HttpRequestWrapper.get_Form() +11   System.Web.Mvc.ValueProviderDictionary.PopulateDictionary() +145   System.Web.Mvc.ValueProviderDictionary..ctor(ControllerContext controllerContext) +74   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.get_ValueProvider() +31   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ParameterDescriptor parameterDescriptor) +53   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValues(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) +109   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +399   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +126   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +27   ASP.NET Web Form Stack Trace:    System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String s, String valueName, String collectionName) +3213202   System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, String collectionName) +108   System.Web.HttpRequest.get_QueryString() +119   System.Web.UI.Page.GetCollectionBasedOnMethod(Boolean dontReturnNull) +2022776   System.Web.UI.Page.DeterminePostBackMode() +60   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +6953   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +154   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() +86                        Since the first responder of request in ASP.NET MVC is the controller action therefore it will check the posted values during calling the action. That's why web.config's requestValidate not work in ASP.NET MVC.            So let's see how to handle this globally in ASP.NET MVC. First of all you need to add an appSettings in web.config. <appSettings>    <add key="validateRequest" value="true"/>  </appSettings>              I am using the same key used in disable request validation in Web Form. Next just create a new ControllerFactory by derving the class from DefaultControllerFactory.     public class MyAppControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory    {        protected override IController GetControllerInstance(Type controllerType)        {            var controller = base.GetControllerInstance(controllerType);            string validateRequest=System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["validateRequest"];            bool b;            if (validateRequest != null && bool.TryParse(validateRequest,out b))                ((ControllerBase)controller).ValidateRequest = bool.Parse(validateRequest);            return controller;        }    }                         Next just register your controller factory in global.asax.        protected void Application_Start()        {            //............................................................................................            ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new MyAppControllerFactory());        }              This will prevent the above exception to occur in the context of ASP.NET MVC. But if you are using the Default WebFormViewEngine then you need also to set validateRequest="false" in your web.config file inside <pages> element            Now when you run your application you see the effect of validateRequest appsetting. One thing also note that the ValidateInputAttribute placed inside action or controller will always override this setting.    Summary:          Request validation is great security feature in ASP.NET but some times there is a need to disable this entirely. So in this article i just showed you how to disable this globally in ASP.NET MVC. I also explained the difference between request validation in Web Form and ASP.NET MVC. Hopefully you will enjoy this.

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• Top tweets SOA Partner Community – October 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity SOA Community Deploying Fusion Order Demo on 11.1.1.6 by Antony Reynolds http://wp.me/p10C8u-vA leonsmiers ?Cant wait to test it >> 't waiRT @OracleSOA: Case Management patterns, session coverage from #OOW #OracleBPM #ACM #BPM http://bit.ly/OdcZL6 Danilo Schmiedel Bye bye San Francisco. #oow was a great conference in a wonderful city! Thanks! @soacommunity pic.twitter.com/lcYSe9xC OPITZ CONSULTING ?The Journey towards #Oracle #BPM @OpenWorld 2012 - Slides by @t_winterberg & H. Normann: http://ow.ly/edkWE #oow demed Full house at the SOA Customer Advisory Board! #oow12 http://instagr.am/p/QX9B8eLMLS/ Danilo Schmiedel "@whitehorsesnl: Had some great talks with the BPM guys at the DEMOgrounds. It is one of the best things at #oow" -> I agree!! @soacommunity Mark Simpson ?Fusion Middleware Global Innovation Awards: nice to pick up a soa and bpm with our customer. #oow Mark Simpson ?RT @SOASimone: #oraclesoa #oow hands on lab fully booked pic.twitter.com/pwI94Ew7 <--quick, provision some more compute power on the cloud! Oracle SOA ?Join us for BPM and Analytics: Process Dashboards. BAM, and Intelligent OptimizationMoscone South - 308#OracleBPM #OOW Oracle SOA ?Real-time public safety demo! License plate recognition and processing in London via Oracle Event Processing. #oow pic.twitter.com/WufesDBq Marc ?Nice session on customer success stories on #SOA11g on with @SOASimone Pro and cons and architectural overview. #oow pic.twitter.com/bzuhsujm Lucas Jellema Full length Keynote on Middleware #oow : http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/1873556035001 … #oow_amis OracleBlogs ?Why Fusion Middleware matters to Oracle Applications and Fusion Applications customers? http://ow.ly/2stVQ0 OracleBlogs ?Open World Session - BPM, SOA and ADF Combined:Patterns learned from Fusion Applications http://ow.ly/2suhzf Ronald Luttikhuizen ?VENNSTER BLOG | Presentations at OpenWorld 2012 | http://blog.vennster.nl/2012/10/presentations-at-openworld-2012.html … Andrejus Baranovskis @dschmied @soacommunity next OOW for sure, and may be SOA community event ! @soacommunity Danilo Schmiedel ?@andrejusb Thanks Andrejus - I really enjoyed having a session with you at #oow. When is next time :-) ? @soacommunity Lionel Dubreuil ?@soacommunity #oow12 Today-1:15pm-Marriott Marquis Salon 7 Jump-starting Integration with Oracle Foundation Pack http://bit.ly/QKKJzF Ronald Luttikhuizen ?Impression from our fault handling session in OSB and SOA Suite from the audience @soacommunity @gschmutz #oow pic.twitter.com/WSg1Z89E Marc Nice session on Oracle Virtual Assembly for #SOA11g, @soacommunity Works with #exalogic but not required SOA Community ?Send your #soacommunity #oow pictures and blog posts @soacommunity or http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity Enjoy OOW ;-) Jon petter hjulstad Oracle BPM- Big leap forward in 11.1.1.7 ! Whitehorses ?Common BPM Use Cases from Oracle #bpm #oow pic.twitter.com/ofOv04EF Whitehorses ?Oracle BPM 11.1.1.7 top new features. Interesting #oow #oowbenelux pic.twitter.com/HY9QN5un SOA Community Industrialized SOA - topic of Business Technology Magazine http://wp.me/p10C8u-vi orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: The curious case of SOA Human tasks' automatic completion http://ow.ly/1mq6YU Simone Geib Look for this sign #oow #oraclesoa pic.twitter.com/MJsPV4PO Lucas Jellema My summary of Larry Ellison's keynote at #oow on the AMIS Blog: http://technology.amis.nl/2012/10/01/oow-2012-larry-ellisons-keynote-announcements-exa-cloud-database/ … #oow_amis gschmutz ?Join my #oow session "Five Cool Use Cases for the Spring Component" to see the power of Spring and SOA Suite combined! Moscone 310 - 3:15 PM Ronald Luttikhuizen Thanks to @soacommunity for great SOA/BPM dinner event yesterday night! #oow pic.twitter.com/v7x3i0DC OracleBlogs ?OSB, Service Callouts and OQL http://ow.ly/2sq6B2 OracleBlogs ?Cloud and On-Premises Applications Integration using Oracle Integration Adapters http://ow.ly/2sqiDy OracleBlogs ?Adapters, SOA Suite and More @Openworld 2012 http://ow.ly/2srdTg Eric Elzinga ?OSB, Service Callouts and OQL - Part 3, http://see.sc/JodzEx #oracleservicebus Donatas Valys interesting articles about soa industrialization to read #soa #industrialization http://it-republik.de/business-technology/bt-magazin-ausgaben/Industrialized-SOA-000516.html … gschmutz ?“@techsymp: 2012 Symposium Presentation Download Page Now Available! 75% of presentations published. http://www.servicetechsymposium.com ” find mine there.. Oracle BPM Customer Experience and BPM – From Efficiency to Engagement #bpm #oraclebpm #processmanagement #socialbpm http://pub.vitrue.com/Tahi SOA Community ?@soacommunity SOA Community Newsletter September 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-wa SOA Community again again again.... it is Oracle Open World 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-wk OracleBlogs ?SOA Proactive support http://ow.ly/2smrSJ demed ?@gschmutz on NoSQL at @techsymp http://lockerz.com/s/247601661 demed ?Just finished "#BigData and its impact on #SOA" talk @techsymp. Really enjoyed getting out of beaten path. #london #oep http://lockerz.com/s/247636974 OTNArchBeat ?Need help selling SOA to business stakeholders? Give them this free eBook. #soasuite http://pub.vitrue.com/hsQY SOA Community top Tweets SOA Partner Community &ndash; September 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-vc SOA Community Move Data into the grid for scalable, predictable response times http://wp.me/p10C8u-vv ServiceTechSymposium ?The September issue of the Service Technology Magazine is now published with six new items! Read them at http://www.servicetechmag.com Marc ?Reviewed @Packt_OracleFMW new book on SOA11g administration! Very good ! http://tinyurl.com/8pzd5ww SOA Community ?BPM Solution Catalogue&ndash;promote your process templates http://wp.me/p10C8u-vt OTNArchBeat ?BPM ADF Task forms: Checking whether the current user is in a BPM Swimlane | @ChrisKarlChan http://pub.vitrue.com/aPMG OTNArchBeat ?Cloud, automation drive new growth in SOA governance market | @JoeMcKendrick http://pub.vitrue.com/hNPv Simon Haslam ?Looking for "oak style"(!) advanced content but you're a middleware specialist? See #ukoug2012 #middlewaresunday http://2012.ukoug.org/default.asp?p=9355 … Simon Haslam ?The #ukoug2012 agenda is "go, go, go!" (as Murray would say!) http://2012.ukoug.org/agendagrid Germán Gazzoni SOA Spezial II verfügbar – Industralized SOA: Die überarbeitete und ergänzte Neuauflage des SOA Spezial Sonderhe... http://bit.ly/PAWwN9 Oracle SOA ?Flip thru new interactive "Oracle SOA Suite eBook-In the Customers Words" #middleware #soa #oraclesoa http://pub.vitrue.com/NzFZ SOA Community Follow SOA Community on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity #soacommunity #opn SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community twitter,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• C#/.NET Little Pitfalls: The Dangers of Casting Boxed Values

  - by James Michael Hare

  Starting a new series to parallel the Little Wonders series.  In this series, I will examine some of the small pitfalls that can occasionally trip up developers. Introduction: Of Casts and Conversions What happens when we try to assign from an int and a double and vice-versa? 1: double pi = 3.14; 2: int theAnswer = 42; 3:  4: // implicit widening conversion, compiles! 5: double doubleAnswer = theAnswer; 6:  7: // implicit narrowing conversion, compiler error! 8: int intPi = pi; As you can see from the comments above, a conversion from a value type where there is no potential data loss is can be done with an implicit conversion.  However, when converting from one value type to another may result in a loss of data, you must make the conversion explicit so the compiler knows you accept this risk.  That is why the conversion from double to int will not compile with an implicit conversion, we can make the conversion explicit by adding a cast: 1: // explicit narrowing conversion using a cast, compiler 2: // succeeds, but results may have data loss: 3: int intPi = (int)pi; So for value types, the conversions (implicit and explicit) both convert the original value to a new value of the given type.  With widening and narrowing references, however, this is not the case.  Converting reference types is a bit different from converting value types.  First of all when you perform a widening or narrowing you don’t really convert the instance of the object, you just convert the reference itself to the wider or narrower reference type, but both the original and new reference type both refer back to the same object. Secondly, widening and narrowing for reference types refers the going down and up the class hierarchy instead of referring to precision as in value types.  That is, a narrowing conversion for a reference type means you are going down the class hierarchy (for example from Shape to Square) whereas a widening conversion means you are going up the class hierarchy (from Square to Shape).  1: var square = new Square(); 2:  3: // implicitly convers because all squares are shapes 4: // (that is, all subclasses can be referenced by a superclass reference) 5: Shape myShape = square; 6:  7: // implicit conversion not possible, not all shapes are squares! 8: // (that is, not all superclasses can be referenced by a subclass reference) 9: Square mySquare = (Square) myShape; So we had to cast the Shape back to Square because at that point the compiler has no way of knowing until runtime whether the Shape in question is truly a Square.  But, because the compiler knows that it’s possible for a Shape to be a Square, it will compile.  However, if the object referenced by myShape is not truly a Square at runtime, you will get an invalid cast exception. Of course, there are other forms of conversions as well such as user-specified conversions and helper class conversions which are beyond the scope of this post.  The main thing we want to focus on is this seemingly innocuous casting method of widening and narrowing conversions that we come to depend on every day and, in some cases, can bite us if we don’t fully understand what is going on!  The Pitfall: Conversions on Boxed Value Types Can Fail What if you saw the following code and – knowing nothing else – you were asked if it was legal or not, what would you think: 1: // assuming x is defined above this and this 2: // assignment is syntactically legal. 3: x = 3.14; 4:  5: // convert 3.14 to int. 6: int truncated = (int)x; You may think that since x is obviously a double (can’t be a float) because 3.14 is a double literal, but this is inaccurate.  Our x could also be dynamic and this would work as well, or there could be user-defined conversions in play.  But there is another, even simpler option that can often bite us: what if x is object? 1: object x; 2:  3: x = 3.14; 4:  5: int truncated = (int) x; On the surface, this seems fine.  We have a double and we place it into an object which can be done implicitly through boxing (no cast) because all types inherit from object.  Then we cast it to int.  This theoretically should be possible because we know we can explicitly convert a double to an int through a conversion process which involves truncation. But here’s the pitfall: when casting an object to another type, we are casting a reference type, not a value type!  This means that it will attempt to see at runtime if the value boxed and referred to by x is of type int or derived from type int.  Since it obviously isn’t (it’s a double after all) we get an invalid cast exception! Now, you may say this looks awfully contrived, but in truth we can run into this a lot if we’re not careful.  Consider using an IDataReader to read from a database, and then attempting to select a result row of a particular column type: 1: using (var connection = new SqlConnection("some connection string")) 2: using (var command = new SqlCommand("select * from employee", connection)) 3: using (var reader = command.ExecuteReader()) 4: { 5: while (reader.Read()) 6: { 7: // if the salary is not an int32 in the SQL database, this is an error! 8: // doesn't matter if short, long, double, float, reader [] returns object! 9: total += (int) reader["annual_salary"]; 10: } 11: } Notice that since the reader indexer returns object, if we attempt to convert using a cast to a type, we have to make darn sure we use the true, actual type or this will fail!  If the SQL database column is a double, float, short, etc this will fail at runtime with an invalid cast exception because it attempts to convert the object reference! So, how do you get around this?  There are two ways, you could first cast the object to its actual type (double), and then do a narrowing cast to on the value to int.  Or you could use a helper class like Convert which analyzes the actual run-time type and will perform a conversion as long as the type implements IConvertible. 1: object x; 2:  3: x = 3.14; 4:  5: // if you want to cast, must cast out of object to double, then 6: // cast convert. 7: int truncated = (int)(double) x; 8:  9: // or you can call a helper class like Convert which examines runtime 10: // type of the value being converted 11: int anotherTruncated = Convert.ToInt32(x); Summary You should always be careful when performing a conversion cast from values boxed in object that you are actually casting to the true type (or a sub-type). Since casting from object is a widening of the reference, be careful that you either know the exact, explicit type you expect to be held in the object, or instead avoid the cast and use a helper class to perform a safe conversion to the type you desire. Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Pitfalls,Little Pitfalls,BlackRabbitCoder

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• Guide to Downloading Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Products

  - by Daniel Mortimer

  IntroductionThe idea of writing a blog about downloading software seems a bit strange .. right? After all, surely just give me the web download link and away I go!? Unfortunately, life is not so simple if you are a DBA or Systems Administrator tasked with staging Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g products for your chosen business technology stack. Here are the challenges: Oracle Fusion Middleware is not a single product, it is a family of products - a media pack with many many "disks" - which ones do I pick? Are the products I pick certified / supported on my chosen platform? Which download site do I use? I need to be on the latest and greatest - how do I get hold of the latest product patch set? The purpose of this blog is to give you a roadmap to get you through these challenges. Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g - A Product SuiteThe first thing to appreciate is that Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is not a single product. It is a product suite, an umbrella label for many products. Typically you don't download the whole media pack - well not unless you want to stage 124 Parts - a total of 68 Gig  - instead you pick the pieces that are required for your chosen Middleware solution. Therefore, you need to research / understand which products are required to build your solution. In this respect, before you go looking for the software pick and persue the product guide from the table below which matches your situation:  Installing a New / Vanilla FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide 11g  Upgrading Oracle Application Server 10g to FMW 11g Oracle Fusion Middleware Upgrade Planning Guide 11g  Patching an existing FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Certification Information Ok, so now you have an idea of what Fusion Middleware products you need. It's time to check whether these products are certified against your chosen platform. There are two places to find this information:My Oracle Support Certification Tab PageFigure 1.1 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "Search on SOA Suite" Figure 1.2 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "SOA Suite Search Result" The FMW 11g Certification Central Hub (in the format of xls spreadsheet)Figure 2: Screenshot of FMW 11g Release 1 Certification xls spreadsheet Hints / Tips: Fusion Middleware 11g certification information has only recently been added into the Certification Tab page and I think it is the more friendly way to access the information. However, due to some restrictions with the Certification Tab page interface some of the more, let's say obscure certification information, is still to be only found in the Certification spreadsheet. Be aware that to find certification information via the My Oracle Support Certification Tab page you must enter the FMW 11g product name e.g. "Oracle SOA Suite". Do NOT enter "Oracle Fusion Middleware". The certification information does not exist at this product suite level.  For example, if you are building a solution which includes Oracle SOA Suite Oracle WebCenter then you will have to look up the certification information for each product in turn.After choosing the product name, select the latest patch set version. This will not only tell you whether your chosen product is available at that patch set version but provide the certification information relevant to that version.  If the product is not available under the latest patch set version, seek the information under previous patch set versions. Important: Make a careful note of the Oracle WebLogic Server version which is certified with your chosen product and patch set version. Oracle WebLogic Server is the core component of a Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g home. It is important therefore to ensure later on that you download the version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible and certified with your chosen product and patch set version.Also - sorry to state the obvious, but please do not take certification information from the screenshots above. The screenshots are only good for the time they were entered into the blog. To ensure you have the latest information, interactively look up the certification details. For more information about finding certification information, bookmark and readMy Oracle Support Certification Tool for Oracle Fusion Middleware Products [Doc ID 1368736.1]How to Find Certification Details for Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g [Doc ID 431578.1] Downloading the Software Now you should be ready to download the software. There are two download locations Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (formerly known as E-Delivery)Figure 3 - Screenshot of Fusion Middleware Download from Delivery CloudOracle Fusion Middleware Download Page on Oracle Technology NetworkFigure 4 - Screenshot of OTN Product Download Screen Hints / Tips: Your choice of download location should be primarily driven by your licensing needs. Take note of the wording on the OTN site - to quote:"The downloads below are provided for evaluators under the OTN License Agreement. Licensed customers should download their software via our Oracle Software Delivery Cloud site, which offers different license terms."However, it has to be said that the presentation of the most of the product download pages on OTN does make the job easier. The Software Delivery Cloud provides you with a flat list of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g media pack. You have to know what you are looking for and pick out the right pieces :-( The OTN product download pages present not only the download for the product you want but also its dependencies such as WebLogic Server and Repository Creation Utility. So, even if your licensing requirements drive you towards the cloud, it is still worthwhile checking the OTN pages if only as a guide to what you need to pick out from the flat list found on the cloud site. Latest Patch Set This is an area which may cause you confusion - especially if you are more familiar with the Oracle Application Server 10g patching story. From Patch Set 11.1.1.6 and higher, the majority of FMW 11g products (N.B there are exceptions) provide installers which can be used both to update existing FMW 11g product installs or build brand new ones. This is good news because, unless you are dealing with one of the exceptions, it means you do not have to download base software and a patch set. At the time of the writing, the two significant exceptions are: Portal/Forms/Reports/Discoverer 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) Identity Access Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) The other key message here is ensure you are grabbing a version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible with your chosen product patch set version. Get this wrong and you will hit errors / problems at AS Instance Configuration Time.The go to place is this document - Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme FilesIn fact, this README document pretty much takes you through what I have blogged above. The only thing is you need to know which README to choose, and that's why planning your FMW 11g technology stack and viewing certification information comes into play beforehand. And Finally As the Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme Files states don't forget to check FMW 11g System Requirements FMW 11g Product Interoperability

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 30, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 30, 2010New ProjectsAviva Solutions C# Coding Guidelines: A set of C# coding guidelines, coding standards, layout rules, FxCop rulesets and (upcoming) custom FxCop and StyleCop rules for improving the over...BKWork: private project.classbook: du an trong vong 10 ngay. Nhom (Do Bao Linh, Phan Thanh Tai, Nguyen Dang Loc)Du an - 01: Du an mon thay LuongEndNote助手: EndNote Helper is a assistant tool for EndNote, which make your task of reference management more convinent. EndNote 助手是一个用于辅助EndNote进行文献管理的小工具，它可...Evoucher: Simple Evoucher Sales SystemFiddler Delayed Responses Extension: A fiddler extension that help developers delay the delivery of HTML Responses to applications. Some delay user stories: - Delivery of css to HTML ...Generic Entity Model 2: GEM2 is lightweight entity framework for building custom business solutions. It enables rapid approach to entity logic design, while offering out o...GY06: 这个是长大工院于2009年发起的项目，因为种种原因没有完成。JoshDOS: JoshDOS is a command line operating system kernel based off COSMOS. It can be booted from actual hardware and built in Visual Studio using .NET la...PhysicsFMUDeluxe.NET: Este projeto é desenvolvido com o intuíto de treinar o desenvolvimento de aplicações em C#. Ele contém ferramentas para cálculos de física e matemá...Reactor Services Platform: Reactor is a service composition and deployment grid that streamlines developing, composing, deploying and managing services. Reactor Services are ...SerafinApartment: Simple MVC 2 application for apartment rental. It is multingual booking system, that allows users to register, book and subscribe for notifications...Silverlight Audio Effect Box: This is a C# Silverlight 4 sample application which process audio sample in near real time. It allows to capture the default audio input device and...Smart Voice: Smart Voice let's you control Skype using your voice. It allows you to write messages, issue phone calls, etc. This application was developed think...WebDotNet - The minimalist web framework inspired by web.py: WebDotNet is an experiment in web frameworks. Inspired by the python web framework, web.py, it is an exercise in extreme minimalism in a framework...New ReleasesAcies: Acies - Alpha Build 0.0.7: Alpha release. Requires Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 3.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=53867a2a-e249-4560-...AdventureWorksLT 2008 Sample Database Script: AdventureWorksLT 2008 R2 DB Script: This script is based on latest download from the Sample database for SQL Server 2008 R2. The original download from the sample is approx 84 MB and ...ASP.NET Wiki Control: Release 1.3.1: - Removed ASP.NET Session dependency. BreadCrumbs will now work with sessions disabled. Can now also share a URL and have the breadcrumb appropriat...Aviva Solutions C# Coding Guidelines: Visual Studio 2010 Rule Sets: Rule Sets targetting different styles of projects.bvcms - Bellevue Church Management System: Source: This source was used to build the latest {church}.bvcms.comCC.Yacht: CC.Yacht 1.0.10.529: This is the initial release of CC.Yacht. Marked as beta since I don't have any testing/feedback beyond that of myself and my wife.Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V14: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V15: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...Coronasoft Cryostasis scripting engine: CCSE v0.0.1.0 BETA: This is the 0.0.1.0 Beta Release. If you find any bugs Post them as a comment or in the Discussions tabEndNote助手: EndNote助手2.1.0..0: 去除了注册验证机制。Fiddler Delayed Responses Extension: v0.1: Version 0.1 of Fiddler Delayed Responses Extension. See ChangeLog for more information.Generic Entity Model 2: GEM2 build 52510: This is first BETA release of GEM2! Following implementation is still missing from initial plan: Detailed documentation MySQL operational databa...JoshDOS: JoshDOS Souce: This is the souce for the JoshDOS 1.0 OS kernel. You need the COSMOS user kit to use.JoshDOS: Shell Version 1.0: Whats in this download *JoshDOS user kit *JoshDOS VStudio starter kit *JoshDOS documentation Note: You will need the COSMOS user kit to start deve...miniTodo: mini Todo version 0.3: Todo完了時に音が出なかったのを修正Model Virtual Casting - ASPItalia.com: Model Virtual Casting 0.2: Model Virtual Casting 0.2Questa seconda release di ModelVC è corrispondente a quella mostrata in occasione della Real Code Conference 4.0 tenutasi ...PhysicsFMUDeluxe.NET: PhysicsFMUDeluxe.NET - Setup: Primeira versão pública do PhysicsFMUDeluxe.NETSilverlight Audio Effect Box: Echo Box 1.0: First realease - zip contains : web page + xap file :Smart Voice: Smart Voice 0.1: Here is the first alpha release of Smart Voice. Please remember this was done for a curricular unit project at my university and i understand that ...StyleCop Contrib: Custom rules v0.2: This release of the custom rules target StyleCop 4.3.3. Included rules are: Spacing Rules - NoTrailingWhiteSpace - IndentUsingTabs Ordering Rules ...System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations Contrib: 0.2.46280.0: Built with Visual Studio 2010/.Net 4.0. Compiled from source code changeset 46280.VB Styler: VB Styler Suite V 1.3.0.0: This is the newest version of the VB Styler. Here are the new features. New Imaging ColorPicker A template for getting colors via sliders ColorR...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30529.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 1.0.0.90 RC: Version: 1.0.0.90 (Release Candidate): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. ...XNA Collision Detection: XNA Collision Detection Sample Program: I have coded a compact program which shows the collision detection working, and provides a camera class for rendering and moving the "player." Agai...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active ProjectsAStar.netpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeBlogEngine.NETGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterRawrCustomer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRMFacebook Developer ToolkitPAP

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010New ProjectsBare Bones Email Trace Listener: Bare Bones Email Trace Listener is about the simplest email trace listener you can have. No bells, no whistles, and no good if you need authenticat...Cartellino: Scopo del progetto è la realizzazione di un software in grado di rilevare i dati dai rilevatori 3Tec (www.3tec.it) e stampare i cartellini presenza...Castle Windsor app.config Properties: The Castle Windsor app.config Properties library makes it possible for users of Castle Windsor to reference appSettings values in Windsor's XML pro...DeskD: This is a simple desktop dictionary application(something like WordWeb) created in Java using Netbeans IDE. Since i am new to codeplex all updates ...FunPokerMakerOnline: It is a play of poker online with a game editor. It is done with .net 4 and WPF and SOAP or WCF. KLOCS Team GIN Project: This is a Master's Degree program group project. It may have academic interest, but won't be maintained after June 2010KNN: This is KNN projectProject Santa: Program to organize teams using mysql databases and c# in a clean and robust task and group system. For more information see my blog post at http:/...ProjetoIntegradoJuridico: Sistema Integrado de Acompanhamento JurídicoRSSR for Windows Phone 7: This is a simple RSS reader application, the project aims to show people that it is easy to build application for windows phones. The applicatio...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon is a simple lightweight rcon client for HL1/HL2 Servers. It is developed in C# and WPFTAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: TABMETHODSQL makes it easier for data/information workers to document their work. Create a data governance solution that maps sql data process, inc...TM BF Tournament: WPF software to manage Trackmania tournament with Battle France RulesviBlog: visinia plugin, this plugin is used to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: visinia plugin, this plugin can be used to create a news portal like cnn.com nytimeVolumeMaster: VolumeMaster is an On Screen Display (OSD) that gets activated whenever the volume changes. It's written in WPF and uses Vista Core Audio API by Ra...WiiCIS.NET: This is a managed port of WiiCIS, which is a Nintendo Wiimote library originally created by TheOboeNerd and posted on Sourceforge.New ReleasesCastle Windsor app.config Properties: Version 1.0: Initial release.Code for Rapid C# Windows Development eBook: Enumerable Debugger Visualizer Version 1.1: Second release of the Enumerable Debugger Visualizer. There are more classes registered and it is more robust. The list of classes I have register...Convection Game Engine (Basic Edition): Convection Basic (40223): Compiled version of Convection Basic change set 40223.CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.59: See Source Code tab for recent change history.DbEntry.Net (Lephone Framework): DbEntry.Net 3.9: DbEntry.Net is a lightweight Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database access compnent for .Net 3.5. It has clearly and easily programing interface ...Hash Calculator: HashCalculator 2.0: Upgraded to .NET Framework 4.0 Added support to calculate CRC32 hash function Added "Cancel" button in the Windows 7 taskbar thumbnailHKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201004172120): New features: Added jump links at top of page of message. Bug fix: Fixed page count bug. Improvements: HKGolden Express now uses DocumentBuild...HTML Ruby: 6.21.4: Styles added to override those on some sites for better rendering of ruby Fix regression on complex ruby annotation rendering Better spacingHTML Ruby: 6.21.5: Removed debug code in preference handling Status bar indicator now resets for each action Replace ruby in place without using document fragment...IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 EXE Update: This is simply an update to the main IceChat program files and DLL. Simpply overwrite the ones in the place where IceChat 2009 is installed.IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 Full Install: Build Alpha 12.4 - April 17 2010 Added IceChatScript.dll , needs to be added in same folder with EXE and IPluginIceChat.dll Added Self Notice in ...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x64: With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release candidate of PokeIn. Cheers!PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x86: PokeIn Library version 0.5 (x86) With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release c...Project Santa: Project Santa V1.0: The first initial release of my project manager program, for more information see http://coderplex.blogspot.com/2010/04/project-manager-using-mysq...Salient: TestingWithVSDevServer v1: Using code from Salient, I have assembled a few strategies for programmatic contol of the Visual Studio Development Server (WebDev.WebServer.exe). ...SharePoint Navigation Menu: spNavigationMenu 1.1: Changed the CAML query so it will order by Link Order, then Title. Added the ability to override the On Hover event on the parent menu to use On ...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon Version 1: Version 1TAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: RELEASE 1: TESTING THE RELEASE SYSTEMTribe.Cache: Tribe.Cache Beta 0.1: Beta release of Tribe.Cache - Now with cache expiration serviceviBlog: viBlog_beta: visinia plugin to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: viNews_beta: visinia plugin.visinia: visinia_beta2: visinia beta 2 released with many new feature.Visual Studio DSite: Visual C++ 2008 Login Form: A simple login form made in visual c 2008. Source code only.WiiCIS.NET: WiiCIS.NET v0.11: 0.11 Removed an unnecessary function from the Wiimote class, and improved the demo. You will need the latest version of SlimDX to compile the sourc...WinControls TreeListView: TreeListView 1.5.1: -fixes issue #5837 -Preliminary feature #5874WoW Character Viewer: Viewer Setup: Finally, I've brought out the next setup of WoW Viewer. Most loose ends have been tied up. Loading and Saving of character files has been fixed.Most Popular ProjectsRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseMicrosoft SQL Server Community & Samplespatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelFacebook Developer ToolkitBlogEngine.NETMvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation projectIronPythonMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIndustrial DashboardFarseer Physics EnginejQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationProxi [Proxy Interface]BlogEngine.NETCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Integration With Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g

  - by Scott Elvington

  In a blog entry earlier this year, we announced the availability of the Ops Center 11g plug-in for Enterprise Manager 12c. In this article I will walk you through the process of deploying the plug-in on your existing Enterprise Manager agents and show you some of the capabilities the plug-in provides. We'll also look at the integration from the Ops Center perspective. I will show you how to set up the connection to Enterprise Manager and give an overview of the information that is available. Installing and Configuring the Ops Center Plug-in The plug-in is available for download from the Self Update page (Setup ? Extensibility ? Self Update). The plug-in name is “Ops Center Infrastructure stack”. Once you have downloaded the plug-in you can navigate to the Plug-In management page (Setup ? Extensibility ? Plug-ins) to begin deployment. The plug-in must first be deployed on the Management Server. You will need to provide the repository password of the SYS user in order to deploy the plug-in to the Management Server. There are a few pre-requisites that need to be completed on the Ops Center side before the plug-in can be deployed and configured on the desired Enterprise Manager agents. Any servers, whether physical or virtual, for which you wish to see metrics and alerts need to be managed by Ops Center. This means that the Operating System needs to have an Ops Center management agent installed as a minimum. The plug-in can provide even more value when Ops Center is also managing the other “layers of the stack”, for example the service processor, the blade chassis or the XSCF of an M-Series server. The more information that Ops Center has about the stack, the more information that will be visible within Enterprise Manager via the plug-in. In order to access the information within Ops Center, the plug-in requires a user to connect as. This user does not require any particular Ops Center permissions or roles, it simply needs to exist. You can create a specific “EMPlugin” user within Ops Center or use an existing user. Oracle recommends creating a specific, non-privileged user account within Ops Center for this purpose. From the Ops Center Administration section, select Enterprise Controller, click the Users tab and finally click the Add User icon to create the desired user account. For the purpose of this article I have discovered and managed the OS and service processor of the server where my Enterprise Manager 12c installation is hosted. With the plug-in deployed to the Management Server and the setup done within Ops Center, we're now ready to deploy the plug-in to the agents and configure the targets to communicate with the Ops Center Enterprise Controller. From the Setup menu select Add Targets then Add Targets Manually. Select the bottom radio button “Add Targets Manually by Specifying Target Monitoring Properties”, select Infrastructure Stack from the Target Type dropdown and finally, select the Monitoring Agent where you wish to deploy the plug-in. Click the Add Manually.... button and fill in the details for the new target using the appropriate hostname for your Enterprise Controller and the user and password details for the plug-in access user. After the target has been added to the agent you will need to allow a few minutes for the initial data collection to complete. Once completed you can see the new target in the All Targets list. All metric collections are enabled by default except one. To enable Infrastructure Stack Alarms collection, navigate to the newly added target and then to Target ? Monitoring ? Metric and Collection Settings. There you can click the “Disabled” link under Collection Schedule to enable collection and set your desired collection frequency. By default, a Warning level alert in Ops Center will equate to a Warning level event in Enterprise Manager and a Critical alert will equate to a Critical event. This mapping can be altered in the Metric and Collection Settings also. The default incident rules in Enterprise Manager only create incidents from Critical events so keep this in mind in case you want to see incidents generated for Warning or Info level alerts from Ops Center. Also, because Enterprise Manager already monitors the OS through it's Host target type, the plug-in does not pull OS alerts from Ops Center so as to prevent duplication. In addition to alert propagation, the plug-in also provides data for several reports detailing the topology and configuration of the stack as well as any hardware sensor data that is available. These are available from the Information Publisher Reports. Navigate there from the Enterprise ? Reports menu or directly from the Infrastructure Stack target of interest. As an example, here is a sample of the Hardware Sensors report showing some of the available sensor data. The report can also be exported to a CSV file format if desired. Connecting Ops Center to Enterprise Manager Repository For an Enterprise Manager user, the plug-in provides a deeper visibility to the state of the infrastructure underlying the databases and middleware. On the Ops Center side, there is also a greater visibility to the targets running on the infrastructure. To set up the Ops Center data collection, just navigate to the Administration section and select the Grid Control link. Select the Configure/Connect action from the right-hand menu and complete the wizard forms to enable the connection to the Enterprise Manager repository and UI. Be sure to use the sysman account when configuring the database connection. Once the job completes and the initial data synchronization is done you will see new Target tabs on your OS assets. The new tab lists all the Enterprise Manager targets and any alerts, availability and performance data specific to the selected target. It is also possible to use the GoTo icon to launch the Enterprise Manager BUI in context of the specific target or alert to drill into more detail. Hopefully this brief overview of the integration between Enterprise Manager and Ops Center has provided a jumpstart to getting a more complete view of the full stack of your enterprise systems.

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• Career development as a Software Developer without becoming a manager.

  - by albertpascual

  I’m a developer, I like to write new exciting code everyday, my perfect day at work is a day that when I wake up, I know that I have to write some code that I haven’t done before or to use a new framework/language/platform that is unknown to me. The best days in the office is when a project is waiting for me to architect or write. In my 15 years in the development field, I had to in order to get a better salary to manage people, not just to lead developers, to actually manage people. Something that I found out when I get into a management position is that I’m not that good at managing people, and not afraid to say it. I do not enjoy that part of the job, the worse one, takes time away from what I really like. Leading developers and managing people are very different things. I do like teaching and leading developers in a project. Yet most people believe, and is true in most companies, the way to get a better salary is to be promoted to a manager position. In order to advance in your career you need to let go of the everyday writing code and become a supervisor or manager. This is the path for developers after they become senior developers. As you get older and your family grows, the only way to hit your salary requirements is to advance your career to become a manager and get that manager salary. That path is the common in most companies, the most intelligent companies out there, have learned that promoting good developers mean getting a crappy manager and losing a good resource. Now scratch everything I said, because as I previously stated, I don’t see myself going to the office everyday and just managing people until is time to go home. I like to spend hours working in some code to accomplish a task, learning new platforms and languages or patterns to existing languages. Being interrupted every 15 minutes by emails or people stopping by my office to resolve their problems, is not something I could enjoy. All the sudden riding my motorcycle to work one cold morning over the Redlands Canyon and listening to .NET Rocks podcast, Michael “Doc” Norton explaining how to take control of your development career without necessary going to the manager’s track. I know, I should not have headphones under my helmet when riding a motorcycle in California. His conversation with Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell was just confirming everything I have ever did with actually more details and assuring that there are other paths. His method was simple yet most of us, already do many of those steps, Mr. Michael “Doc” Norton believe that it pays off on the long run, that finally companies prefer to pay higher salaries to those developers, yet I would actually think that many companies do not see developers that way, this is not true for bigger companies. However I do believe the value of those developers increase and most of the time, changing companies could increase their salary instead of staying in the same one. In short without even trying to get into the shadow of Mr. Norton and without following the steps in the order; you should love to learn new technologies, and then teach them to other geeks. I personally have learn many technologies and I haven’t stop doing that, I am a professor at UCR where I teach ASP.NET and Silverlight. Mr Norton continues that after than, you want to be involve in the development community, user groups, online forums, open source projects. I personally talk to user groups, I’m very active in forums asking and answering questions as well as for those I got awarded the Microsoft MVP for ASP.NET. After you accomplish all those, you should also expose yourself for what you know and what you do not know, learning a new language will make you humble again as well as extremely happy. There is no better feeling that learning a new language or pattern in your daily job. If you love your job everyday and what you do, I really recommend you to follow Michael’s presentation that he kindly share it on the link below. His confirmation is a refreshing, knowing that my future is not behind a desk where the computer screen is on my right hand side instead of in front of me. Where I don’t have to spent the days filling up performance forms for people and the new platforms that I haven’t been using yet are just at my fingertips. Presentation here. http://www.slideshare.net/LeanDog/take-control-of-your-development-career-michael-doc-norton?from=share_email_logout3 Take Control of Your Development Career Welcome! Michael “Doc” Norton @DocOnDev http://docondev.blogspot.com/ [email protected] Recovering Post Technical I love to learn I love to teach I love to work in teams I love to write code I really love to write code What about YOU? Do you love your job? Do you love your Employer? Do you love your Boss? What do you love? What do you really love? Take Control Take Control • Get Noticed • Get Together • Get Your Mojo • Get Naked • Get Schooled Get Noticed Get Noticed Know Your Business Get Noticed Get Noticed Understand Management Get Noticed Get Noticed Do Your Existing Job Get Noticed Get Noticed Make Yourself Expendable Get Together Get Together Join a User Group Get Together Help Run a User Group Get Together Start a User Group Get Your Mojo Get Your Mojo Kata Get Your Mojo Koans Get Your Mojo Breakable Toys Get Your Mojo Open Source Get Naked Get Naked Run with Group A Get Naked Do Something Different Get Naked Own Your Mistakes Get Naked Admit You Don’t Know Get Schooled Get Schooled Choose a Mentor Get Schooled Attend Conferences Get Schooled Teach a New Subject Get Started Read These (Again) Take Control of Your Development Career Thank You! Michael “Doc” Norton @DocOnDev http://docondev.blogspot.com/ [email protected] In a short summary, I recommend any developer to check his blog and more important his presentation, I haven’t been lucky enough to watch him live, I’m looking forward the day I have the opportunity. He is giving us hope in the future of developers, when I see some of my geek friends moving to position that in short years they begin to regret, I get more unsure of my future doing what I love. I would say that now is looking at the spectrum of companies that understand and appreciate developers. There are a few there, hopefully with time code sweat shops will start disappearing and being a developer will feed a family of 4. Cheers Al tweetmeme_url = 'http://weblogs.asp.net/albertpascual/archive/2010/12/07/career-development-as-a-software-developer-without-becoming-a-manager.aspx'; tweetmeme_source = 'alpascual';

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• Speaker at the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2004

  The following is an excerpt from the UniversalThread conference coverage of the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2004 written by Hans-Otto Lochmann, Armin Neudert and myself. TRACK Active FoxPro Pages Back in 1996 Peter Herzog invented a FoxPro based solution to provide intranet capabilities for one of his customers. Nearly at the same time Rick Strahl had the same task and created WestWind Web Connection (WWWC). The aspect that developers have to have a full Visual FoxPro development environment to create WWWC solutions was the starting point of a "personal sportive competition" of Peter to write his own solution. But the main aspect has to be that it doesn't rely on a full VFP version in order to run. The VFP runtime should enough and the source code has to be compiled and interpreted on the fly. So, as Microsoft released Active Server Pages a name for Peter's solution was found: Active FoxPro Pages (AFP). During the years many drawbacks, design aspects as well as technological hassles forced ProLib Software to refactor the product. This way many limits like DCOM configuration, file-based information transfer between Web server and AFP, missing features (like upload forms or other Web servers than IIS) and extensibility were eliminated. As a consequence ProLib Software decided to rewrite Active FoxPro Pages in mid of 2002 completely. Christof Wollenhaupt, before his marriage known as Christof Lange, and Jochen Kirstätter had to solve this task. AFP 3.0 was officially released at German Devcon in November 2002. Today AFP has six distributors world-wide and there is a lot more information available online than before version 3.0. Directly after a short welcome speech by Rainer Becker, Jochen Kirstätter - aka JoKi - opened today's AFP track and introduced the basic concepts how Active FoxPro Pages works in general, explained the AFP terminilogy and every single component, and presented a small Walk-Through about how to write an AFP-based Web solution. Actually his presentation slides themselves were an AFP Web application. This way it was easy to integrate accompanying AFP samples on the fly. Additionally it was shown that no Visual FoxPro development environment is needed to create a Web application. A simple text editor like NotePad or any WYSIWYG editor on the market is usable to fullfil customer's requirements.Welcome at least two new speakers - Nina Schwanzer and Bernhard Reiter. Both are working at ProLib Software and this year's conference is their first time as speakers. And they did their job very well. The whole session was kind of a "ping pong" game and those two complemented each other to keep the audience in tension. First, they described typical requirements a modern desktop application should fullfil - online registration and activation, auto-update capabilities, or even frontend to administer a Web application on a remote system via internet, and explained how possible solutions like Web Services (using the SOAP interface), DCOM, and even .NET might solve those requirements. But any of those ways has different drawbacks like complicated installation or configuration, or extraordinary download sizes. Next, they introduced a technology they developed and used in a customer's project: Active FoxPro Pages Remote Procedure Call (AFP RPC). [...]   In the next session JoKi described how to extend Active FoxPro Pages. On the one hand AFP provides a plugin interface, and on the other hand any addon for Visual FoxPro might be usable as well. During the first half he spoke about the plugin interface and wrote live a new AFP extension - the Devcon plugin. Later he questioned any former step and showed that a single AFP document may solve the problem as well. So, developing extensions is only interesting if they are re-usable and generic. At the end he talked about multiple interfaces for the same business logic. For instance plain VFP class, COM server and .NET integration. Currently there are several specialized AFP extensions for sending mail, for using cryptographic routines (ie. based on .NET classes), or enhanced methods to handle HTML/XML strings.Rainer Becker and Peter Herzog introduced a new development for Visual Extend (VFX) - an AFP form builder. With this builder creating an AFP Web form designed with Visual FoxPro's form designer was a matter of seconds. The builder itself is currently in pre-release status and will be part of the VFX framework in the future. It was very impressive to see that the whole design of a form as well as most parts of its functionality were exported to a combination of HTML, JavaScript and Active FoxPro Pages. At half-time Jürgen "wOOdy" Wondzinski and JoKi changed places with Rainer and Peter, and presented some Web solutions in AFP. [...] Visual FoxPro 9.0 und Linux Is Linux still a topic for Visual FoxPro developers based on the activities during this year? In his session Jochen Kirstätter - aka JoKi - went not through the technical steps and requirements on how to setup and run FoxPro on a Linux client. Instead, he explained what Linux actually is, and talked about the high variety of distributions. In fact there are a lot of distributions around but since some several years there are some specialized ones available: Live Distributions (aka LiveCDs).The intension of LiveCDs is to run a full-featured Linux operating system on any personal computer directly from a bootable medium, like CD, DVD, or even USB memory stick, without installation on a hard disk. One of the first Linux LiveCDs was made by Klaus Knopper and is well-known as Knoppix. Today, many other LiveCDs are based on the concepts of Knoppix. During the session Jochen booted Morphix, a very light-weighted LiveCD, on his notebook, and actually showed the attendees that testing and playing around with Linux is absolutely easy. Running a text processing application swept away most of the contrary aspects the audience had. Okay, where is the part about FoxPro? Well, there are several scenarios a customer might require usage of Linux, and actually with all of them FoxPro could deal with. I guess that one of the more common ones is the situation that a customer has a heterogeneous intranet with Windows clients and Linux servers, i.e. Windows XP Professional and any Linux distribution on their servers. Even in this scenario there are two variants hidden! Why? Well, on the one hand there is a software package called Samba, that provides Windows server capabilities to a Linux system, and on the other hand there are several SQL servers for Linux, like PostgreSQL, DB2 and MySQL. Either way, FoxPro is able to deal with these scenarios, but you as developer have to know what you are talking about with your customers. And even if there's no Windows operating system, you are able to provide a FoxPro-based solution. Using the wine library - wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator - you are able to run your VFP applications on Linux clients, too; but not without reading VFP's EULA. Licenses were also part the session, and Jochen discussed the meaning of Open Source and its misunderstanding throughout most developers. Open Source does not mean that it's without a fee. Instead, it stands for access to the source code of an application or tool. And, VFP itself is one of the best samples to explain Open Source due to fact that since years, VFP is shipped with the xSource.zip archive. [...]

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• Brighton Rocks: UA Europe 2011

  - by ultan o'broin

  User Assistance Europe 2011 was held in Brighton, UK. Having seen Quadrophenia a dozen times, I just had to go along (OK, I wanted to talk about messages in enterprise applications). Sadly, it rained a lot, though that was still eminently more tolerable than being stuck home in Dublin during Bloomsday. So, here are my somewhat selective highlights and observations from the conference, massively skewed towards my own interests, as usual. Enjoyed Leah Guren's (Cow TC) great start ‘keynote’ on the Cultural Dimensions of Software Help Usage. Starting out by revisiting Hofstede's and Hall's work on culture (how many times I have done this for Multilingual magazine?) and then Neilsen’s findings on age as an indicator of performance, Leah showed how it is the expertise of the user that user assistance (UA) needs to be designed for (especially for high-end users), with some considerations made for age, while the gender and culture of users are not major factors. Help also needs to be contextual and concise, embedded close to the action. That users are saying things like “If I want help on Office, I go to Google ” isn't all that profound at this stage, but it is always worth reiterating how search can be optimized to return better results for users. Interestingly, regardless of user education level, the issue of information quality--hinging on the lynchpin of terminology reflecting that of the user--is critical. Major takeaway for me there. Matthew Ellison’s sessions on embedded help and demos were also impressive. Embedded help that is concise and contextual is definitely a powerful UX enabler, and I’m pleased to say that in Oracle Fusion Applications we have embraced the concept fully. Matthew also mentioned in his session about successful software demos that the principle of modality with demos is a must. Look no further than Oracle User Productivity Kit demos See It!, Try It!, Know It, and Do It! modes, for example. I also found some key takeaways in the presentation by Marie-Louise Flacke on notes and warnings. Here, legal considerations seemed to take precedence over providing any real information to users. I was delighted when Marie-Louise called out the Oracle JDeveloper documentation as an exemplar of how to use notes and instructions instead of trying to scare the bejaysus out of people and not providing them with any real information they’d find useful instead. My own session on designing messages for enterprise applications was well attended. Knowing your user profiles (remember user expertise is the king maker for UA so write for each audience involved), how users really work, the required application business and UI rules, what your application technology supports, and how messages integrate with the enterprise help desk and support policies and you will go much further than relying solely on the guideline of "writing messages in plain language". And, remember the value in warnings and confirmation messages too, and how you can use them smartly. I hope y’all got something from my presentation and from my answers to questions afterwards. Ellis Pratt stole the show with his presentation on applying game theory to software UA, using plenty of colorful, relevant examples (check out the Atlassian and DropBox approaches, for example), and striking just the right balance between theory and practice. Completely agree that the approach to take here is not to make UA itself a game, but to invoke UA as part of a bigger game dynamic (time-to-task completion, personal and communal goals, personal achievement and status, and so on). Sure there are gotchas and limitations to gamification, and we need to do more research. However, we'll hear a lot more about this subject in coming years, particularly in the enterprise space. I hope. I also heard good things about the different sessions about DITA usage (including one by Sonja Fuga that clearly opens the door for major innovation in the community content space using WordPress), the progressive disclosure of information (Cerys Willoughby), an overview of controlled language (or "information quality", as I like to position it) solutions and rationale by Dave Gash, and others. I also spent time chatting with Mike Hamilton of MadCap Software, who showed me a cool demo of their Flare product, and the Lingo translation solution. I liked the idea of their licensing model for workers-on-the-go; that’s smart UX-awareness in itself. Also chatted with Julian Murfitt of Mekon about uptake of DITA in the enterprise space. In all, it's worth attending UA Europe. I was surprised, however, not to see conference topics about mobile UA, community conversation and content, and search in its own right. These are unstoppable forces now, and the latter is pretty central to providing assistance now to all but the most irredentist of hard-copy fetishists or advanced technical or functional users working away on the back end of applications and systems. Only saw one iPad too (says the guy who carries three laptops). Tweeting during the conference was pretty much nonexistent during the event, so no community energy there. Perhaps all this can be addressed next year. I would love to see the next UA Europe event come to Dublin (despite Bloomsday, it's not a bad place place, really) now that hotels are so cheap and all. So, what is my overall impression of the state of user assistance in Europe? Clearly, there are still many people in the industry who feel there is something broken with the traditional forms of user assistance (particularly printed doc) and something needs to be done about it. I would suggest they move on and try and embrace change, instead. Many others see new possibilities, offered by UX and technology, as well as the reality of online user behavior in an increasingly connected world and that is encouraging. Such thought leaders need to be listened to. As Ellis Pratt says in his great book, Trends in Technical Communication - Rethinking Help: “To stay relevant means taking a new perspective on the role (of technical writer), and delivering “products” over and above the traditional manual and online Help file... there are a number of new trends in this field - some complementary, some conflicting. Whatever trends emerge as the norm, it’s likely the status quo will change.” It already has, IMO. I hear similar debates in the professional translation world about the onset of translation crowd sourcing (the Facebook model) and machine translation (trust me, that battle is over). Neither of these initiatives has put anyone out of a job and probably won't, though the nature of the work might change. If anything, such innovations have increased the overall need for professional translators as user expectations rise, new audiences emerge, and organizations need to collate and curate user-generated content, combining it with their own. Perhaps user assistance professionals can learn from other professions and grow accordingly.

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• API Message Localization

  - by Jesse Taber

  In my post, “Keep Localizable Strings Close To Your Users” I talked about the internationalization and localization difficulties that can arise when you sprinkle static localizable strings throughout the different logical layers of an application. The main point of that post is that you should have your localizable strings reside as close to the user-facing modules of your application as possible. For example, if you’re developing an ASP .NET web forms application all of the localizable strings should be kept in .resx files that are associated with the .aspx views of the application. In this post I want to talk about how this same concept can be applied when designing and developing APIs. An API Facilitates Machine-to-Machine Interaction You can typically think about a web, desktop, or mobile application as a collection “views” or “screens” through which users interact with the underlying logic and data. The application can be designed based on the assumption that there will be a human being on the other end of the screen working the controls. You are designing a machine-to-person interaction and the application should be built in a way that facilitates the user’s clear understanding of what is going on. Dates should be be formatted in a way that the user will be familiar with, messages should be presented in the user’s preferred language, etc. When building an API, however, there are no screens and you can’t make assumptions about who or what is on the other end of each call. An API is, by definition, a machine-to-machine interaction. A machine-to-machine interaction should be built in a way that facilitates a clear and unambiguous understanding of what is going on. Dates and numbers should be formatted in predictable and standard ways (e.g. ISO 8601 dates) and messages should be presented in machine-parseable formats. For example, consider an API for a time tracking system that exposes a resource for creating a new time entry. The JSON for creating a new time entry for a user might look like: 1: { 2: "userId": 4532, 3: "startDateUtc": "2012-10-22T14:01:54.98432Z", 4: "endDateUtc": "2012-10-22T11:34:45.29321Z" 5: }   Note how the parameters for start and end date are both expressed as ISO 8601 compliant dates in UTC. Using a date format like this in our API leaves little room for ambiguity. It’s also important to note that using ISO 8601 dates is a much, much saner thing than the \/Date(<milliseconds since epoch>)\/ nonsense that is sometimes used in JSON serialization. Probably the most important thing to note about the JSON snippet above is the fact that the end date comes before the start date! The API should recognize that and disallow the time entry from being created, returning an error to the caller. You might inclined to send a response that looks something like this: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"message" : "The end date must come after the start date"}] 3: }   While this may seem like an appropriate thing to do there are a few problems with this approach: What if there is a user somewhere on the other end of the API call that doesn’t speak English?  What if the message provided here won’t fit properly within the UI of the application that made the API call? What if the verbiage of the message isn’t consistent with the rest of the application that made the API call? What if there is no user directly on the other end of the API call (e.g. this is a batch job uploading time entries once per night unattended)? The API knows nothing about the context from which the call was made. There are steps you could take to given the API some context (e.g.allow the caller to send along a language code indicating the language that the end user speaks), but that will only get you so far. As the designer of the API you could make some assumptions about how the API will be called, but if we start making assumptions we could very easily make the wrong assumptions. In this situation it’s best to make no assumptions and simply design the API in such a way that the caller has the responsibility to convey error messages in a manner that is appropriate for the context in which the error was raised. You would work around some of these problems by allowing callers to add metadata to each request describing the context from which the call is being made (e.g. accepting a ‘locale’ parameter denoting the desired language), but that will add needless clutter and complexity. It’s better to keep the API simple and push those context-specific concerns down to the caller whenever possible. For our very simple time entry example, this can be done by simply changing our error message response to look like this: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"code": 100}] 3: }   By changing our error error from exposing a string to a numeric code that is easily parseable by another application, we’ve placed all of the responsibility for conveying the actual meaning of the error message on the caller. It’s best to have the caller be responsible for conveying this meaning because the caller understands the context much better than the API does. Now the caller can see error code 100, know that it means that the end date submitted falls before the start date and take appropriate action. Now all of the problems listed out above are non-issues because the caller can simply translate the error code of ‘100’ into the proper action and message for the current context. The numeric code representation of the error is a much better way to facilitate the machine-to-machine interaction that the API is meant to facilitate. An API Does Have Human Users While APIs should be built for machine-to-machine interaction, people still need to wire these interactions together. As a programmer building a client application that will consume the time entry API I would find it frustrating to have to go dig through the API documentation every time I encounter a new error code (assuming the documentation exists and is accurate). The numeric error code approach hurts the discoverability of the API and makes it painful to integrate with. We can help ease this pain by merging our two approaches: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"code": 100, "message" : "The end date must come after the start date"}] 3: }   Now we have an easily parseable numeric error code for the machine-to-machine interaction that the API is meant to facilitate and a human-readable message for programmers working with the API. The human-readable message here is not intended to be viewed by end-users of the API and as such is not really a “localizable string” in my opinion. We could opt to expose a locale parameter for all API methods and store translations for all error messages, but that’s a lot of extra effort and overhead that doesn’t add a lot real value to the API. I might be a bit of an “ugly American”, but I think it’s probably fine to have the API return English messages when the target for those messages is a programmer. When resources are limited (which they always are), I’d argue that you’re better off hard-coding these messages in English and putting more effort into building more useful features, improving security, tweaking performance, etc.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010New ProjectsApplication Logging Repository (ALR): The ALR is a light-weight logging framework that allows applications to log events and exceptions to a central repository.Arkane.FileProperties.DSS: Arkane.FileProperties.Dss is a library for parsing the file header of a .DSS file (as used by Olympus digital dictaphone systems) to obtain time, v...B in conTrol project: This project enables controling log-in and locking your workstation automatically, identifyng you bluetooth.DarkBook: DarkBook is a personal library project.Direct2D for Microsoft .Net: Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging wrappers for .Net. This library allows to access Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging Windows API f...DJ Ware: DJ Ware is an extensible music player with plugin support and innovative features to organize and explore music files. It is developed with C#, WPF...gpsMe: gpsMe is a Windows Mobile 6.x mapping solution allowing to place the user on a personnalized map. The screen requirements are VGA or WVGA but, you ...jErrorLog: jErrorLog is an error logging component for use in DotNet 2.0 or later applications. It can log error messages to any of the following: database, e...KEMET_API: Java Library (open - source). This library is a help to study egyptian hieroglyphs.Meadow: A web site project for a Swedish floorball team called Slackers. Home page built with ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX and SQL Server 2005.Mustang Math: Mustang Math makes it easier for young children to practice basic math facts on the computer. No keyboard or mouse required - just say the answer!...Net.Formats.oEmbed: oEmbed format implementation in c#. oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows...Normlize O/R Mapper: Open source O/RM tool that participates with traditional inheritance object models as well as Hibernate/nHibernate style class shells. As I have t...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: Proyecto de cliente twitter hecho con la libreria TwitterVB2 y hecho en VB.net 2008.SIQM: Spatial Information Quality Management Toolset TIMETABLEASY Web: Under developmentTweetSharp: TweetSharp is a complete .NET library for micro-blogging platforms that allows you to write short and sweet expressions that fly to Twitter, Yammer...UISandbox: UISandbox is a sample C# source code showing how to deal with plugins requiring sandbox, when those plugins must interact with WPF application inte...WinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: The SharePoint Web Part Manager is a WinForm tool using the SharePoint object model that enables developers and power users to add, update, delete,...WoW Character Viewer: View your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's character), using this application. Written using Visual Basic Express 2008, then ported t...Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod converts from Renoise format (xrns) to mod or xm, which are more compatible formats playable from xmplay or vlc.New ReleasesArkane.FileProperties.DSS: 1.0 stable release: Executables and merge module for 1.0. (See documentation.)Bluetooth Radar: Version 2.0: Add IrDA reference for Bluetooth sending using Obex Add Project icon Add Bluetooth detection mode (Auto close application is there is no blueto...BUtil: BUtil 5.0 Alpha: Backup tasks adding.... in progressChronos WPF: Chronos v1.0 RC 1: Chronos v1.0 RC 1. Development will be feature frozen after this release, only bug fixes will be allowed. Updated nRoute assembly to v0.4 (http:...clipShow: Version 2.5: Release that addresses the canonical syntax issues in search discoverd by Tschachim (thanks again!). Also, the play list and play all menu items s...DarkBook: DarkBook alpha: Hi, here comes the alpha version of Darkbook. It has all the functions already but is still in developing. I hope it's helpful for you, at least it...DirectQ: Release 1.8.3a: Improvements to 1.8.2, which will be shortly be removed. This replaces the original 1.8.3 release from earlier today which had some late-breaking ...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool v1.1: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.3: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.3), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...gpsMe: gpsMe v0.3: Required Hardware Windows Mobile 6 .Net Compact Framework 3.5 integrated gps device VGA or WVGA screen (normally works on others)IST435: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNuke: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNukeThis is the "starter kit" that you must base your Lab 4 on. This lab must be completed in-class.Mouse Jiggler: MouseJiggle-1.1: 1.1 release of Mouse Jiggler, now with x64 compatibility and the ability to start jiggling on run with the --jiggle or -j command-line switch.Mustang Math: MustangMath.exe: This is a quick and dirty "0.1" prototype to demonstrate the speech recognition idea. It starts asking you questions automatically on launch and k...MvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation project: 2.0.36.0 for MVC2 (RTW): Please see the Change Log for a complete list of changes. MVC BootCamp Description of the releases: MvcContrib.Release.zip MvcContrib.dll MvcC...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.3): New features for this release: Several new supported platforms (see below). PDBs that are source-indexed to the appropriate CodePlex changeset. ...OpenIdPortableArea: 0.1.0.2 OpenIdPortableArea: OpenIdPortableArea.Release: DotNetOpenAuth.dll DotNetOpenAuth.xml MvcContrib.dll MvcContrib.xml OpenIdPortableArea.dll OpenIdPortableAre...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample with Library v0.2: New version of PokeIn library with sample. v0.2 There are new features in this release and no bug detected yet.Project Tru Tiên: Elements-test V1-fix (v2): Là EL test được fix tiếp theo bản fix V1, tạm gọi đây là bản fix V2 của ELtest Trong bản fix này EL được fix thêm vụ Quest, Quest chỉnh sửa đúng t...Rule 18 - Love your clipboard: Rule 18: This is the third public beta for the first version of Rule 18. This version has been updated to support Visual Studio 2010 RTM and .NET 4.0 RTM. ...SevenZipSharp: SevenZipSharp 0.62: Added: Extraction from SFX archives. Now it is possible to unrar RAR self-extractors, unzip ZIP self-extractors, etc. Extraction from DOC, XLS, (...SharePoint Labs: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200 This SharePoint Lab will teach the persistence object layer that SharePoint uses to centraly store configuration data and o...TTXPathNavigator: TTXPathNavigator for VS2010: Version for Visual Studio 2010turing machine simulator: SDS: SDS documentVecDraw: VecDraw_0.2.25: Alpha release for test purposesWinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: Beta 1: First release of the WinForm SharePoitn web part manager toolXrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 0.5.1: Mod and XM conversion format - No sample data conversion at momentZip Solution: ZipSolution 5.3: Features: 1. Added WaitMsec for visual studio support with getting access to files in post build event; 2. Added ShowTextInToolbars to app.config ...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDotRasFacebook Developer Toolkit

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• New OFM versions released SOA Suite 11.1.1.4 &amp; BPM 11.1.1.4 &amp; JDeveloper 11.1.1.4 WebLogic on JRockit 10.3.4 feedback from the community

  - by Jürgen Kress

  Oracle SOA Suite 11g Installations This is the latest release of the Oracle SOA Suite 11g. Please see the Documentation tab for Release Notes, Installation Guides and other release specific information. Please also see the List of New Features and Samples provided for this release. Release 11gR1 (11.1.1.4.0) Microsoft Windows (32-bit JVM) Linux (32-bit JVM) Generic Oracle JDeveloper 11g Rel 1 (11.1.1.x) (JDeveloper + ADF) Integrated development environment certified on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. License is free (read the Pricing FAQ). Studio Edition for Windows (1.2 GB) | Studio Edition for Linux (1.3 GB) | See All See Additional Development Tools Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Rel 1 (10.3.4) Installers The WebLogic Server installers include Oracle Coherence and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse and supports development with other Fusion Middleware products . The zip includes WebLogic Server only and is intended for WebLogic Server development only. Linux x86 (1.1 GB) | Windows x86 (1 GB) Zip for Windows x86, Linux x86, Mac OS X (316 MB) | See All Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 (10.3.4) on JRockit Virtual Edition Download For additional downloads please visit the Oracle Fusion Middleware Products Update Center Share your feedback with the @soacommunity on twitter SOASimone Simone Geib SOA Suite 11gR1 (11.1.1.4.0) has just been released: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/downloads/index.html gschmutz gschmutz My new blog post: WebLogic Server, JDev, SOA, BPM, OSB and CEP 11.1.1.4 (PS3) available! - http://tinyurl.com/4negnpn simon_haslam Simon Haslam I'm very pleased to see WLS 10.3.4 for JRockit VE launched at the same time as the rest of PS3 http://j.mp/gl1nQm (32bit anyway) lucasjellema Lucas Jellema See http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/@otn/documents/webcontent/156082.xml for PS3 extension downloads BPM, SOA Editor, WebCenter demed demed List of new features in @OracleSOA 11gR1 PS3: http://bit.ly/fVRwsP is not extremely long but huge release by # of bugs fixed. Go! biemond Edwin Biemond WebLogic 10.3.4 new features http://bit.ly/f7L1Eu Exalogic Elastic Cloud , JPA2 , Maven plugin, OWSM policies on WebLogic SCA applications JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF JDeveloper and Oracle ADF 11g Release 1 Patch Set 3 (11.1.1.4.0): New Features and Bug Fixes http://bit.ly/feghnY simon_haslam Simon Haslam WebLogic Server 10.3.4 (i.e. 11gR1 PS3) available now too http://bit.ly/eeysZ2 JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Share your impressions on the new JDeveloper 11g Patchset 3 release that came out today! Download it here: http://bit.ly/dogRN8 VikasAatOracle Vikas Anand SOA Suite 11gR1PS3 is Hotpluggable ...see list of features that @Demed posted..#soa #soacommunity   New versions of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.x)  include: Oracle WebLogic Server 11g R1 (10.3.4) Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Business Process Management 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Complex Event Processing 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Service Bus 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Enterprise Repository 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Identity Management 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle WebCenter 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) - coming soon Oracle Forms, Reports, Portal & Discoverer 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle Repository Creation Utility 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Oracle JDeveloper & Application Development Runtime 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) Resources Download  (OTN) Certification Documentation   New Features in Oracle SOA Suite 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.4.0) Updated: January, 2011 Go to Oracle SOA Suite 11g Doc Introduction Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1 (11.1.1.4.0) includes both bug fixes as well as new features listed below - click on the title of each feature for more details. Downloads, documentation links and more information on the Oracle SOA Suite available on the SOA Suite OTN page and as always, we welcome your feedback on the SOA OTN forum. New in Oracle SOA Suite in this release BPEL Component BPEL 2.0 support in JDeveloper The BPEL editor in JDeveloper now generates BPEL 2.0 code and introduces several new activities. Augmented XML variables auto-initialization capabilities The XML variable auto-initialization capabilities have been enhanced to support two need additional use cases: to initialize the to-spec node if it doesn't exist during the rule and to initialize array elements. New Assign Activity dialog The new Assign Activity supports the same drag & drop paradigm used for the XSLT mapper, greatly streamlining the task of assigning multiple variables. Mediator Component Time window parameter for the resequencer This new parameter lets users initiate a best-effort resequencing based on a time window rather than a number of messages. Support for attachments in the Mediator assign dialog The Mediator assign dialog now supports attachment, enabling usage of the Mediator to transmit attachments even if source and target schemas are different. Adapters & Bindings ChunkSize property added to the File Adapter header properties The ChunkSize property of the File Adapter is now available as a header property, allowing in-process modification of the value for this property. Improved support for distributed WLS JMS topics though automatic rebalancing of listeners The JMS Adapter has been enhanced to subscribe to administrative events from WLS JMS. Based on these events, it dynamically rebalances listeners when there are changes to the members of a local or remote WLS JMS distributed destination. JDeveloper configuration wizard for custom JCA adapters A new wizard is available in JDeveloper to configure custom-built adapters Administration & Enterprise Manager Enhanced purging capabilities to manage database growth Historical instance data can now be purged using three different strategies: batch script, scheduled batch script or data partitioning. Asynchronous bulk instance deletion in Enterprise Manager Bulk deletion of instances in Enterprise Manager now executes as an asynchronous operation in Enterprise Manager, returning control to the user as soon as the action has been submitted and acknowledged. B2B Ability to schedule partner downtime This feature allows trading partners to notify each other about planned downtime and to delay delivery of messages during that period. Message sequencing B2B now supports both inbound and outbound message sequencing. Simplified BAM integration with B2B B2B ships with various pre-configured artifacts to simplify monitoring in BAM. Instance Message Java API for B2B The new instance message Java API supports programmatic access to B2B instance message data. Oracle Service Bus (OSB) Certification of the File and FTP JCA Adapters The File and FTP JCA adapters are now certified for use with Oracle Service Bus (in addition to the native transports). Security enhancements Oracle Service Bus now supports SAML 2.0 as well as the OWSM authorization policies. Check the Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.4 Release Notes for a complete list of new features. Installation, Hot-Pluggability & Certifications Ability to run Oracle SOA Suite on IBM WebSphere Application Server Oracle SOA Suite can now be deployed on IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment (ND) 7.0.11 and IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.0.11. Single JVM developer installation template Oracle SOA Suite can now be targeted to the WebLogic admin server - there is no requirement to also have a managed server. This topology is intended to minimize the memory foorprint of development environments. This is in addition to the list of supported browsers, operating systems and databases already certified in prior releases. Complex Event Processing (CEP) IDE enhancements This release introduces several enhancements to the development IDE, such as adapter wizards and event-type repository. CQL enhancements CQL enhancements include JDBC data cartridges and parametrized queries. Tracing and injecting events in the Event Processing Network (EPN) In the development environment you can now trace and inject events. Check the Oracle CEP 11.1.1.4 Release Notes for a complete list of new features. SOA Suite page on OTN For more information on SOA Specialization and the SOA Partner Community please feel free to register at www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Website Technorati Tags: SOA Suite 11.1.1.4,JDeveloper 11.1.1.4,WebLogic 10.3.4,JRockit 10.3.4,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,SOA,Simone Geib,Guido Schmutz,Edwin Biemond,Lucas Jellema,Simon Haslam,Demed,Vikas Anand,Jürgen Kress

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• Quartz.Net Windows Service Configure Logging

  - by Tarun Arora

  In this blog post I’ll be covering, Logging for Quartz.Net Windows Service 01 – Why doesn’t Quartz.Net Windows Service log by default 02 – Configuring Quartz.Net windows service for logging to eventlog, file, console, etc 03 – Results: Logging in action If you are new to Quartz.Net I would recommend going through, A brief Introduction to Quartz.net Walkthrough of Installing & Testing Quartz.Net as a Windows Service Writing & Scheduling your First HelloWorld job with Quartz.Net   01 – Why doesn’t Quartz.Net Windows Service log by default If you are trying to figure out why… The Quartz.Net windows service isn’t logging The Quartz.Net windows service isn’t writing anything to the event log The Quartz.Net windows service isn’t writing anything to a file How do I configure Quartz.Net windows service to use log4Net How do I change the level of logging for Quartz.Net Look no further, This blog post should help you answer these questions. Quartz.NET uses the Common.Logging framework for all of its logging needs. If you navigate to the directory where Quartz.Net Windows Service is installed (I have the service installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Quartz.net, you can find out the location by looking at the properties of the service) and open ‘Quartz.Server.exe.config’ you’ll see that the Quartz.Net is already set up for logging to ConsoleAppender and EventLogAppender, but only ‘ConsoleAppender’ is set up as active. So, unless you have the console associated to the Quartz.Net service you won’t be able to see any logging. <log4net> <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender"> <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> <conversionPattern value="%d [%t] %-5p %l - %m%n" /> </layout> </appender> <appender name="EventLogAppender" type="log4net.Appender.EventLogAppender"> <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> <conversionPattern value="%d [%t] %-5p %l - %m%n" /> </layout> </appender> <root> <level value="INFO" /> <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender" /> <!-- uncomment to enable event log appending --> <!-- <appender-ref ref="EventLogAppender" /> --> </root> </log4net> Problem: In the configuration above Quartz.Net Windows Service only has ConsoleAppender active. So, no logging will be done to EventLog. More over the RollingFileAppender isn’t setup at all. So, Quartz.Net will not log to an application trace log file. 02 – Configuring Quartz.Net windows service for logging to eventlog, file, console, etc Let’s change this behaviour by changing the config file… In the below config file, I have added the RollingFileAppender. This will configure Quartz.Net service to write to a log file. (<appender name="GeneralLog" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">) I have specified the location for the log file (<arg key="configFile" value="Trace/application.log.txt"/>) I have enabled the EventLogAppender and RollingFileAppender to be written to by Quartz. Net windows service Changed the default level of logging from ‘Info’ to ‘All’. This means all activity performed by Quartz.Net Windows service will be logged. You might want to tune this back to ‘Debug’ or ‘Info’ later as logging ‘All’ will produce too much data to the logs. (<level value="ALL"/>) Since I have changed the logging level to ‘All’, I have added applicationSetting to remove logging log4Net internal debugging. (<add key="log4net.Internal.Debug" value="false"/>) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="quartz" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler, System, Version=1.0.5000.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" /> <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net" /> <sectionGroup name="common"> <section name="logging" type="Common.Logging.ConfigurationSectionHandler, Common.Logging" /> </sectionGroup> </configSections> <common> <logging> <factoryAdapter type="Common.Logging.Log4Net.Log4NetLoggerFactoryAdapter, Common.Logging.Log4net"> <arg key="configType" value="INLINE" /> <arg key="configFile" value="Trace/application.log.txt"/> <arg key="level" value="ALL" /> </factoryAdapter> </logging> </common> <appSettings> <add key="log4net.Internal.Debug" value="false"/> </appSettings> <log4net> <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender"> <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> <conversionPattern value="%d [%t] %-5p %l - %m%n" /> </layout> </appender> <appender name="EventLogAppender" type="log4net.Appender.EventLogAppender"> <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> <conversionPattern value="%d [%t] %-5p %l - %m%n" /> </layout> </appender> <appender name="GeneralLog" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender"> <file value="Trace/application.log.txt"/> <appendToFile value="true"/> <maximumFileSize value="1024KB"/> <rollingStyle value="Size"/> <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> <conversionPattern value="%d{HH:mm:ss} [%t] %-5p %c - %m%n"/> </layout> </appender> <root> <level value="ALL" /> <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender" /> <appender-ref ref="EventLogAppender" /> <appender-ref ref="GeneralLog"/> </root> </log4net> </configuration>   Note – Please ensure you restart the Quartz.Net Windows service for the config changes to be picked up by the service   03 – Results: Logging in action Once you start the Quartz.Net Windows Service up, the logging should be initiated to write all activities in the Console, EventLog and File… See screen shots below… Figure – Quartz.Net Windows Service logging all activity to the event log Figure – Quartz.Net Windows Service logging all activity to the application log file Where is the output from log4Net ConsoleAppender? As a default behaviour, the console isn't available in windows services, web services, windows forms. The output will simply be dismissed. Unless you are running the process interactively. Which you can do by firing up Quartz.Server.exe –i to see the output   This was fourth in the series of posts on enterprise scheduling using Quartz.net, in the next post I’ll be covering troubleshooting why a scheduled task hasn’t fired on Quartz.net windows service. All Quartz.Net specific blog posts can listed here. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

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• Who is Jeremiah Owyang?

  - by Michael Hylton

  12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: What’s your current role and what career path brought you here? J.O.: I'm currently a partner and one of the founding team members at Altimeter Group.  I'm currently the Research Director, as well as wear the hat of Industry Analyst. Prior to joining Altimeter, I was an Industry Analyst at Forrester covering Social Computing, and before that, deployed and managed the social media program at Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara.  Around that time, I started a career blog called Web Strategy which focused on how companies were using the web to connect with customers --and never looked back. Q: As an industry analyst, what are you focused on these days? J.O.: There are three trends that I'm focused my research on at this time:  1) The Dynamic Customer Journey:  Individuals (both b2c and b2b) are given so many options in their sources of data, channels to choose from and screens to consume them on that we've found that at each given touchpoint there are 75 potential permutations.  Companies that can map this, then deliver information to individuals when they need it will have a competitive advantage and we want to find out who's doing this.  2) One of the sub themes that supports this trend is Social Performance.  Yesterday's social web was disparate engagement of humans, but the next phase will be data driven, and soon new technologies will emerge to help all those that are consuming, publishing, and engaging on the social web to be more efficient with their time through forms of automation.  As you might expect, this comes with upsides and downsides.  3) The Sentient World is our research theme that looks out the furthest as the world around us (even inanimate objects) become 'self aware' and are able to talk back to us via digital devices and beyond.  Big data, internet of things, mobile devices will all be this next set. Q: People cite that the line between work and life is getting more and more blurred. Do you see your personal life influencing your professional work? J.O.: The lines between our work and personal lives are dissolving, and this leads to a greater upside of being always connected and have deeper relationships with those that are not.  It also means a downside of society expectations that we're always around and available for colleagues, customers, and beyond.  In the future, a balance will be sought as we seek to achieve the goals of family, friends, work, and our own personal desires.  All of this is being ironically written at 430 am on a Sunday am.  Q: How can people keep up with what you’re working on? J.O.: A great question, thanks.  There are a few sources of information to find out, I'll lead with the first which is my blog at web-strategist.com.  A few times a week I'll publish my industry insights (hires, trends, forces, funding, M&A, business needs) as well as on twitter where I'll point to all the news that's fit to print @jowyang.  As my research reports go live (we publish them for all to read --called Open Research-- at no cost) they'll emerge on my blog, or checkout the research tab to find out more now.  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/research/ Q: Recently, you’ve been working with us here at Oracle on something exciting coming up later this week. What’s on the horizon?  J.O.: Absolutely! This coming Thursday, September 13th, I’m doing a webcast with Oracle on “Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise”. This is going to be a great discussion with Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Oracle and Christian Finn, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. I’m looking forward to a great discussion around all those issues that so many companies are struggling with these days as they realize how much social media is impacting their business. It’s changing the way your customers and employees interact with your brand. Today it’s no longer a matter of when to become a social-enabled enterprise, but how to become a successful one. 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: You’ve been very actively pursued for media interviews and conference and company speaking engagements – anything you’d like to share to give us a sneak peak of what to expect on Thursday’s webcast?  J.O.: Below is a 15 minute video which encapsulates Altimeter’s themes on the Dynamic Customer Journey and the Sentient World. I’m really proud to have taken an active role in the first ever LeWeb outside of Paris. This one, which was featured in downtown London across the street from Westminster Abbey was sold out. If you’ve not heard of LeWeb, this is a global Internet conference hosted by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur, a power couple that stem from Paris but are also living in Silicon Valley, this is one of my favorite conferences to connect with brands, technology innovators, investors and friends. Altimeter was able to play a minor role in suggesting the theme for the event “Faster Than Real Time” which stems off previous LeWebs that focused on the “Real time web”. In this radical state, companies are able to anticipate the needs of their customers by using data, technology, and devices and deliver meaningful experiences before customers even know they need it. I explore two of three of Altimeter’s research themes, the Dynamic Customer Journey, and the Sentient World in my speech, but due to time, did not focus on Adaptive Organization.

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• Who is Jeremiah Owyang?

  - by Michael Snow

  12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: What’s your current role and what career path brought you here? J.O.: I'm currently a partner and one of the founding team members at Altimeter Group.  I'm currently the Research Director, as well as wear the hat of Industry Analyst. Prior to joining Altimeter, I was an Industry Analyst at Forrester covering Social Computing, and before that, deployed and managed the social media program at Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara.  Around that time, I started a career blog called Web Strategy which focused on how companies were using the web to connect with customers --and never looked back. Q: As an industry analyst, what are you focused on these days? J.O.: There are three trends that I'm focused my research on at this time:  1) The Dynamic Customer Journey:  Individuals (both b2c and b2b) are given so many options in their sources of data, channels to choose from and screens to consume them on that we've found that at each given touchpoint there are 75 potential permutations.  Companies that can map this, then deliver information to individuals when they need it will have a competitive advantage and we want to find out who's doing this.  2) One of the sub themes that supports this trend is Social Performance.  Yesterday's social web was disparate engagement of humans, but the next phase will be data driven, and soon new technologies will emerge to help all those that are consuming, publishing, and engaging on the social web to be more efficient with their time through forms of automation.  As you might expect, this comes with upsides and downsides.  3) The Sentient World is our research theme that looks out the furthest as the world around us (even inanimate objects) become 'self aware' and are able to talk back to us via digital devices and beyond.  Big data, internet of things, mobile devices will all be this next set. Q: People cite that the line between work and life is getting more and more blurred. Do you see your personal life influencing your professional work? J.O.: The lines between our work and personal lives are dissolving, and this leads to a greater upside of being always connected and have deeper relationships with those that are not.  It also means a downside of society expectations that we're always around and available for colleagues, customers, and beyond.  In the future, a balance will be sought as we seek to achieve the goals of family, friends, work, and our own personal desires.  All of this is being ironically written at 430 am on a Sunday am.  Q: How can people keep up with what you’re working on? J.O.: A great question, thanks.  There are a few sources of information to find out, I'll lead with the first which is my blog at web-strategist.com.  A few times a week I'll publish my industry insights (hires, trends, forces, funding, M&A, business needs) as well as on twitter where I'll point to all the news that's fit to print @jowyang.  As my research reports go live (we publish them for all to read --called Open Research-- at no cost) they'll emerge on my blog, or checkout the research tab to find out more now.  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/research/ Q: Recently, you’ve been working with us here at Oracle on something exciting coming up later this week. What’s on the horizon?  J.O.: Absolutely! This coming Thursday, September 13th, I’m doing a webcast with Oracle on “Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise”. This is going to be a great discussion with Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Oracle and Christian Finn, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. I’m looking forward to a great discussion around all those issues that so many companies are struggling with these days as they realize how much social media is impacting their business. It’s changing the way your customers and employees interact with your brand. Today it’s no longer a matter of when to become a social-enabled enterprise, but how to become a successful one. 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: You’ve been very actively pursued for media interviews and conference and company speaking engagements – anything you’d like to share to give us a sneak peak of what to expect on Thursday’s webcast?  J.O.: Below is a 15 minute video which encapsulates Altimeter’s themes on the Dynamic Customer Journey and the Sentient World. I’m really proud to have taken an active role in the first ever LeWeb outside of Paris. This one, which was featured in downtown London across the street from Westminster Abbey was sold out. If you’ve not heard of LeWeb, this is a global Internet conference hosted by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur, a power couple that stem from Paris but are also living in Silicon Valley, this is one of my favorite conferences to connect with brands, technology innovators, investors and friends. Altimeter was able to play a minor role in suggesting the theme for the event “Faster Than Real Time” which stems off previous LeWebs that focused on the “Real time web”. In this radical state, companies are able to anticipate the needs of their customers by using data, technology, and devices and deliver meaningful experiences before customers even know they need it. I explore two of three of Altimeter’s research themes, the Dynamic Customer Journey, and the Sentient World in my speech, but due to time, did not focus on Adaptive Organization.

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