prepared statement - Page 235

Cisco AnyConnect VPN client - prevent connecting as work network

- by Opmet

From Windows 7 I'm using "Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client 3.0" to connect to our corporate network. Every time I establish the VPN connection Windows will set the type as "work network". I don't want this. So I go to "network and sharing center" and manually / interactively change it to "public network". But I have to repeat it for every new VPN connection. Is there any way to make Windows remember / persist this configuration? Can it be configured in the VPN client? Do our IT admins need to change something at server end? Motivation: A "work network" per default uses different firewall settings that allows for stuff like "network discovery" and "file shares". But I just need "remote desktop" (mstsc). Additional info: Our IT admins claimed this would be Windows default behaviour and there was nothing we could do about it: Windows would always initiate a VPN connection as "work network". Based on this statement I assume this is a "general" issue and went ahead posting here (at superuser.com).

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Mysql: create index on 1.4 billion records

- by SiLent SoNG

I have a table with 1.4 billion records. The table structure is as follows: CREATE TABLE text_page ( text VARCHAR(255), page_id INT UNSIGNED ) ENGINE=MYISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=ascii The requirement is to create an index over the column text. The table size is about 34G. I have tried to create the index by the following statement: ALTER TABLE text_page ADD KEY ix_text (text) After 10 hours' waiting I finally give up this approach. Is there any workable solution on this problem? UPDATE: the table is unlikely to be updated or inserted or deleted. The reason why to create index on the column text is because this kind of sql query would be frequently executed: SELECT page_id FROM text_page WHERE text = ? UPDATE: I have solved the problem by partitioning the table. The table is partitioned into 40 pieces on column text. Then creating index on the table takes about 1 hours to complete. It seems that MySQL index creation becomes very slow when the table size becomes very big. And partitioning reduces the table into smaller trunks.

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Isn't a hidden volume used when encrypting a drive with TrueCrypt detectable?

- by neurolysis

I don't purport to be an expert on encryption (or even TrueCrypt specifically), but I have used TrueCrypt for a number of years and have found it to be nothing short of invaluable for securing data. As relatively well known free, open-source software, I would have thought that TrueCrypt would not have fundamental flaws in the way it operates, but unless I'm reading it wrong, it has one in the area of hidden volume encryption. There is some documentation regarding encryption with a hidden volume here. The statement that concerns me is this (emphasis mine): TrueCrypt first attempts to decrypt the standard volume header using the entered password. If it fails, it loads the area of the volume where a hidden volume header can be stored (i.e. bytes 65536–131071, which contain solely random data when there is no hidden volume within the volume) to RAM and attempts to decrypt it using the entered password. Note that hidden volume headers cannot be identified, as they appear to consist entirely of random data. Whilst the hidden headers supposedly "cannot be identified", is it not possible to, on encountering an encrypted volume encrypted using TrueCrypt, determine at which offset the header was successfully decrypted, and from that determine if you have decrypted the header for a standard volume or a hidden volume? That seems like a fundamental flaw in the header decryption implementation, if I'm reading this right -- or am I reading it wrong?

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Unexpected behaviour in a Lotus Notes programmable table

- by Mark B

I'm designing a workflow database in Lotus Notes 6.0.3 (soon upgrading to 8.5), and my OS is Windows XP. I have recently tried converting a tabbed table into a programmable one. This was so that I could control which tab was displayed to the user when it was opened, so that they were presented with the most appropriate one for that document's progress through the workflow. That part of it works! One of the tabs features a radio button that controls visibility of the next tab, and a pair of cascading dialogue boxes. One contains the static list "Person":"Team", and the other has a formula based on the first: view:=@If(PeerReview = "Team"; "GroupNames"; "GroupMembers"); @Unique(@DbColumn(""; ""; view; 1)) The dialogue boxes have the property "Refresh fields on keyword change" selected. The behaviour that I wasn't expecting is this. If the radio button is set to "Yes" and a value is selected in one of the dialogue boxes, the table opens the next tab. If the radio button is set to "No" and a value is selected in one of the dialogue boxes, the entire table is hidden. I can duplicate the latter by switching off the "Refresh fields on keyword change" property on the dialogue boxes and instead pressing F9 after selecting a value. I have no idea why the former occurs, though. The table is called "RFCInfo", and I have a field on the form called "$RFCInfo" which is editable, hidden from all users who aren't me and initially set by a Postopen script, which I can post if necessary - it's essentially a Select Case statement that looks at a particular item value and returns the name of the table row relating to that value. Can anyone offer any pointers?

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Can a VM perform better when only two cores instead of four cores are presented to it?

- by arcain

We had a VMWare VM at work with two cores allocated to it that ran a pretty heinous process in IIS. Under load the process was maxing out the CPU usage on both cores, so we asked our system engineers to present the other two cores of the physical processor to the VM. The engineer immediately said that this would not improve performance at all, but would make the VM perform worse. That statement didn't make much sense to me, and I'm wondering how what the engineer said could be true. Are there actually cases where four cores presented to a VM would cause worse performance than two cores on the same physical hardware? Let's assume an ideal situation where there's only one VM on the host server, so nothing is being shared with other OS instances. I believe the physical server had a single quad core processor, and was most likely hosting multiple VMs. I don't really know what version of ESX was running on the host, nor do I know with certainty what the physical processor config was, but from within the VM I had access to, I saw two 3.33 GHz AMD processors. In the end, I never got to test the engineer's assertion out because (while we were trying to get the VM upgraded) we were able to optimize the process and reduce it's CPU consumption, and 2) we ended up migrating to a different VM on another ESX server which had four cores presented to it.

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EXCEL 2007 macro

- by Binay

I have a macro which connects to db and fetches data for me and makes it comma separated. But the problem is the comma is getting appended to the last row, which I don't want. I'm struggling here. Could you please help out? Here is the part from the code. If cn.State = adStateOpen Then Rec_set.Open "SELECT concat(trim(Columns_0.ColumnName), ' ','(', 'varchar(2000)' ,')') columnname FROM DBC.Columns Columns_0 WHERE (Columns_0.TableName= " & Chr(39) & Tablename & Chr(39) & "and Columns_0.Databasename=" & Chr(39) & db & Chr(39) & ")ORDER BY Columns_0.Columnid;", cn 'Issue SQL statement If Not Rec_set.EOF And Not Rec_set.EOF Then Do Until Rec_set.EOF For i = 0 To Rec_set.Fields.Count - 1 strString = strString & Rec_set(i) & "," Next strFile.WriteLine (strString) strString = "" Rec_set.MoveNext Loop Here is the result I am getting. EMPNO (varchar(2000)), ENAME (varchar(2000)), JOB (varchar(2000)), MGR (varchar(2000)), HIREDATE (varchar(2000)), SAL (varchar(2000)), COMM (varchar(2000)), DEPTNO (varchar(2000)), I don't want the last comma.

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Linux Has Become Very Slow Dealing With Large Data

- by Kohjah Breese

Last year I bought a computer, for around $1,800, so it is relatively high-end. When I first got it I was particularly pleased at how quick it dealt with large MySQL queries, imports and exports. But somewhere along the way something has gone wrong and I am not sure how to diagnose the problem. Any job that involves processing large amounts of data, e.g. gzipping file c. 1GB+, UPDATEs on large MySQL tables etc. have become very slow. I just performed an intensive alter statement on a 240,000,000 row table on a remote server, which is lower spec. This took about 10 minutes. However, performing the same query on a 167,000,000 row table on my computer went fine until it hit 860MB. Now it is only writing about 1MB every 15 seconds. Does anyone have any advice as to debugging what the issue is? I am using LinuxMint (based on Ubuntu 12.04.) The home partition is encrypted, which really slows down gzip. I have noticed the swap is barely used, but am not sure if that is because there is more than enough RAM. The filesystem is ext4. The MySQL server is on a separate hard drive, but it was fine when I first installed it. Other than the above issues, there are no other problems with it. I am going to install a fresh Ubuntu on the 4th hard drive to see if that is any different.

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Multiple if functions

- by user2948699

I have problem I'm hoping someone could help me with. I have five different text values in 5 cells. I am trying to combine these values into one cell with a comma in between each. However the trick is that if there is no value in (H6) then it must place the word "and" between the cell (F6) and (G6). If there is a value in (H6) then place the word "and" between (G6) and (H6). In the same statement I must also include If there is not value in (G6) then it must place the word "and" between the cell E6 and F6. Please see image attached. I am trying to get the highlighted statements into one cell. So multiple IF statements into one cell. Anyone? =IF(G8=0,(D8)&", "&(E8)&" and "&(F8),(D8)&", "&(E8)&", "&(F8)&" and "&(G8)=IF(H8=0,(D8)&", "&(E8)&", "&(F8)&" and "&(G8),(D8)&", "&(E8)&", "&(F8)&", "&(G8)&" and "&(H8))) I cant figure out the code. Many thanks. Alex Edit: The original image can be found here if size of the inlined is too small.

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Mulit-tenant ASP.NET MVC – Controllers

- by zowens

Part I – Introduction Part II – Foundation The time has come to talk about controllers in a multi-tenant ASP.NET MVC architecture. This is actually the most critical design decision you will make when dealing with multi-tenancy with MVC. In my design, I took into account the design goals I mentioned in the introduction about inversion of control and what a tenant is to my design. Be aware that this is only one way to achieve multi-tenant controllers. The Premise MvcEx (which is a sample written by Rob Ashton) utilizes dynamic controllers. Essentially a controller is “dynamic” in that multiple action results can be placed in different “controllers” with the same name. This approach is a bit too complicated for my design. I wanted to stick with plain old inheritance when dealing with controllers. The basic premise of my controller design is that my main host defines a set of universal controllers. It is the responsibility of the tenant to decide if the tenant would like to utilize these core controllers. This can be done either by straight usage of the controller or inheritance for extension of the functionality defined by the controller. The controller is resolved by a StructureMap container that is attached to the tenant, as discussed in Part II. Controller Resolution I have been thinking about two different ways to resolve controllers with StructureMap. One way is to use named instances. This is a really easy way to simply pull the controller right out of the container without a lot of fuss. I ultimately chose not to use this approach. The reason for this decision is to ensure that the controllers are named properly. If a controller has a different named instance that the controller type, then the resolution has a significant disconnect and there are no guarantees. The final approach, the one utilized by the sample, is to simply pull all controller types and correlate the type with a controller name. This has a bit of a application start performance disadvantage, but is significantly more approachable for maintainability. For example, if I wanted to go back and add a “ControllerName” attribute, I would just have to change the ControllerFactory to suit my needs. The Code The container factory that I have built is actually pretty simple. That’s really all we need. The most significant method is the GetControllersFor method. This method makes the model from the Container and determines all the concrete types for IController. The thing you might notice is that this doesn’t depend on tenants, but rather containers. You could easily use this controller factory for an application that doesn’t utilize multi-tenancy. public class ContainerControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { private readonly ThreadSafeDictionary<IContainer, IDictionary<string, Type>> typeCache; public ContainerControllerFactory(IContainerResolver resolver) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(resolver, "resolver"); this.ContainerResolver = resolver; this.typeCache = new ThreadSafeDictionary<IContainer, IDictionary<string, Type>>(); } public IContainerResolver ContainerResolver { get; private set; } public virtual IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { var controllerType = this.GetControllerType(requestContext, controllerName); if (controllerType == null) return null; var controller = this.ContainerResolver.Resolve(requestContext).GetInstance(controllerType) as IController; // ensure the action invoker is a ContainerControllerActionInvoker if (controller != null && controller is Controller && !((controller as Controller).ActionInvoker is ContainerControllerActionInvoker)) (controller as Controller).ActionInvoker = new ContainerControllerActionInvoker(this.ContainerResolver); return controller; } public void ReleaseController(IController controller) { if (controller != null && controller is IDisposable) ((IDisposable)controller).Dispose(); } internal static IEnumerable<Type> GetControllersFor(IContainer container) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(container); return container.Model.InstancesOf<IController>().Select(x => x.ConcreteType).Distinct(); } protected virtual Type GetControllerType(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(requestContext, "requestContext"); Ensure.Argument.NotNullOrEmpty(controllerName, "controllerName"); var container = this.ContainerResolver.Resolve(requestContext); var typeDictionary = this.typeCache.GetOrAdd(container, () => GetControllersFor(container).ToDictionary(x => ControllerFriendlyName(x.Name))); Type found = null; if (typeDictionary.TryGetValue(ControllerFriendlyName(controllerName), out found)) return found; return null; } private static string ControllerFriendlyName(string value) { return (value ?? string.Empty).ToLowerInvariant().Without("controller"); } } One thing to note about my implementation is that we do not use namespaces that can be utilized in the default ASP.NET MVC controller factory. This is something that I don’t use and have no desire to implement and test. The reason I am not using namespaces in this situation is because each tenant has its own namespaces and the routing would not make sense in this case. Because we are using IoC, dependencies are automatically injected into the constructor. For example, a tenant container could implement it’s own IRepository and a controller could be defined in the “main” project. The IRepository from the tenant would be injected into the main project’s controller. This is quite a useful feature. Again, the source code is on GitHub here. Up Next Up next is the view resolution. This is a complicated issue, so be prepared. I hope that you have found this series useful. If you have any questions about my implementation so far, send me an email or DM me on Twitter. I have had a lot of great conversations about multi-tenancy so far and I greatly appreciate the feedback!

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SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services - The Word is But a Stage (T-SQL Tuesday #006)

- by smisner

Host Michael Coles (blog|twitter) has selected LOB data as the topic for this month's T-SQL Tuesday, so I'll take this opportunity to post an overview of reporting with spatial data types. As part of my work with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, I've been exploring the use of spatial data types in the new map data region. You can create a map using any of the following data sources: Map Gallery - a set of Shapefiles for the United States only that ships with Reporting Services ESRI Shapefile - a .shp file conforming to the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) shapefile spatial data format SQL Server spatial data - a query that includes SQLGeography or SQLGeometry data types Rob Farley (blog|twitter) points out today in his T-SQL Tuesday post that using the SQL geography field is a preferable alternative to ESRI shapefiles for storing spatial data in SQL Server. So how do you get spatial data? If you don't already have a GIS application in-house, you can find a variety of sources. Here are a few to get you started: US Census Bureau Website, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/ Global Administrative Areas Spatial Database, http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/gadm/ Digital Chart of the World Data Server, http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/ In a recent post by Pinal Dave (blog|twitter), you can find a link to free shapefiles for download and a tutorial for using Shape2SQL, a free tool to convert shapefiles into SQL Server data. In my post today, I'll show you how to use combine spatial data that describes boundaries with spatial data in AdventureWorks2008R2 that identifies stores locations to embed a map in a report. Preparing the spatial data First, I downloaded Shapefile data for the administrative boundaries in France and unzipped the data to a local folder. Then I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into a SQL Server database called Spatial. I'm not sure of the reason why, but I had to uncheck the option to create a spatial index to upload the data. Otherwise, the upload appeared to run successfully, but no table appeared in my database. The zip file that I downloaded contained three files, but I didn't know what was in them until I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into tables. Then I found that FRA_adm0 contains spatial data for the country of France, FRA_adm1 contains spatial data for each region, and FRA_adm2 contains spatial data for each department (a subdivision of region). Next I prepared my SQL query containing sales data for fictional stores selling Adventure Works products in France. The Person.Address table in the AdventureWorks2008R2 database (which you can download from Codeplex) contains a SpatialLocation column which I joined - along with several other tables - to the Sales.Customer and Sales.Store tables. I'll be able to superimpose this data on a map to see where these stores are located. I included the SQL script for this query (as well as the spatial data for France) in the downloadable project that I created for this post. Step 1: Using the Map Wizard to Create a Map of France You can build a map without using the wizard, but I find it's rather useful in this case. Whether you use Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) or Report Builder 3.0, the map wizard is the same. I used BIDS so that I could create a project that includes all the files related to this post. To get started, I added an empty report template to the project and named it France Stores. Then I opened the Toolbox window and dragged the Map item to the report body which starts the wizard. Here are the steps to perform to create a map of France: On the Choose a source of spatial data page of the wizard, select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. On the Choose a dataset with SQL Server spatial data page, select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data. On the Choose a connection to a SQL Server spatial data source page, select New. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the General page, add a connecton string like this (changing your server name if necessary): Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Spatial Click OK and then click Next. On the Design a query page, add a query for the country shape, like this: select * from fra_adm1 Click Next. The map wizard reads the spatial data and renders it for you on the Choose spatial data and map view options page, as shown below. You have the option to add a Bing Maps layer which shows surrounding countries. Depending on the type of Bing Maps layer that you choose to add (from Road, Aerial, or Hybrid) and the zoom percentage you select, you can view city names and roads and various boundaries. To keep from cluttering my map, I'm going to omit the Bing Maps layer in this example, but I do recommend that you experiment with this feature. It's a nice integration feature. Use the + or - button to rexize the map as needed. (I used the + button to increase the size of the map until its edges were just inside the boundaries of the visible map area (which is called the viewport). You can eliminate the color scale and distance scale boxes that appear in the map area later. Select the Embed map data in this report for faster rendering. The spatial data won't be changing, so there's no need to leave it in the database. However, it does increase the size of the RDL. Click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Map. We'll add data for visualization later. For now, we have just the outline of France to serve as the foundation layer for our map. Click Next, and then click Finish. Now click the color scale box in the lower left corner of the map, and press the Delete key to remove it. Then repeat to remove the distance scale box in the lower right corner of the map. Step 2: Add a Map Layer to an Existing Map The map data region allows you to add multiple layers. Each layer is associated with a different data set. Thus far, we have the spatial data that defines the regional boundaries in the first map layer. Now I'll add in another layer for the store locations by following these steps: If the Map Layers windows is not visible, click the report body, and then click twice anywhere on the map data region to display it. Click on the New Layer Wizard button in the Map layers window. And then we start over again with the process by choosing a spatial data source. Select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. Select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data, and click Next. Click New, add a connection string to the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, and click Next. Add a query with spatial data (like the one I included in the downloadable project), and click Next. The location data now appears as another layer on top of the regional map created earlier. Use the + button to resize the map again to fill as much of the viewport as possible without cutting off edges of the map. You might need to drag the map within the viewport to center it properly. Select Embed map data in this report, and click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Marker Map, and click Next. On the Choose color theme and data visualization page, in the Marker drop-down list, change the marker to diamond. There's no particular reason for a diamond; I think it stands out a little better than a circle on this map. Clear the Single color map checkbox as another way to distinguish the markers from the map. You can of course create an analytical map instead, which would change the size and/or color of the markers according to criteria that you specify, such as sales volume of each store, but I'll save that exploration for another post on another day. Click Finish and then click Preview to see the rendered report. Et voilà...c'est fini. Yes, it's a very simple map at this point, but there are many other things you can do to enhance the map. I'll create a series of posts to explore the possibilities. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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Upgrading Windows 8 boot to VHD to Windows 8.1–Step by step guide

- by Liam Westley

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/19/upgrading-windows-8-boot-to-vhd-to-windows-8.1ndashstep-by.aspxBoot to VHD – dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 8 became easy When Windows 8 arrived, quite a few people decided that they would still dual boot their machines, and instead of mucking about with resizing disk partitions to free up space for Windows 8 they decided to use the boot from VHD feature to create a huge hard disc image into which Windows 8 could be installed. Scott Hanselman wrote this installation guide, while I myself used the installation guide from Ed Bott of ZD net fame. Boot to VHD is a great solution, it achieves a dual boot, can be backed up easily and had virtually no effect on the original Windows 7 partition. As a developer who has dual booted Windows operating systems for years, hacking boot.ini files, the boot to VHD was a much easier solution. Upgrade to Windows 8.1 – ah, you can’t do that on a virtual disk installation (boot to VHD) Last week the final version of Windows 8.1 arrived, and I went into the Windows Store to upgrade. Luckily I’m on a fast download service, and use an SSD, because once the upgrade was downloaded and prepared Windows informed that This PC can’t run Windows 8.1, and provided the reason, You can’t install Windows on a virtual drive. You can see an image of the message and discussion that sparked my search for a solution in this Microsoft Technet forum post. I was determined not to have to resize partitions yet again and fiddle with VHD to disk utilities and back again, and in the end I did succeed in upgrading to a Windows 8.1 boot to VHD partition. It takes quite a bit of effort though … tldr; Simple steps of how you upgrade Boot into Windows 7 – make a copy of your Windows 8 VHD, to become Windows 8.1 Enable Hyper-V in your Windows 8 (the original boot to VHD partition) Create a new virtual machine, attaching the copy of your Windows 8 VHD Start the virtual machine, upgrade it via the Windows Store to Windows 8.1 Shutdown the virtual machine Boot into Windows 7 – use the bcedit tool to create a new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD option (pointing at the copy) Boot into the new Windows 8.1 option Reactivate Windows 8.1 (it will have become deactivated by running under Hyper-V) Remove the original Windows 8 VHD, and in Windows 7 use bcedit to remove it from the boot menu Things you’ll need A system that can run Hyper-V under Windows 8 (Intel i5, i7 class CPU) Enough space to have your original Windows 8 boot to VHD and a copy at the same time An ISO or DVD for Windows 8 to create a bootable Windows 8 partition Step by step guide Boot to your base o/s, the real one, Windows 7. Make a copy of the Windows 8 VHD file that you use to boot Windows 8 (via boot from VHD) – I copied it from a folder on C: called VHD-Win8 to VHD-Win8.1 on my N: drive. Reboot your system into Windows 8, and enable Hyper-V if not already present (this may require reboot) Use the Hyper-V manager , create a new Hyper-V machine, using half your system memory, and use the option to attach an existing VHD on the main IDE controller – this will be the new copy you made in Step 2. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and you’ll probably discover it cannot boot as there is no boot record If this is the case, go to Hyper-V manager, edit the Settings for the virtual machine to attach an ISO of a Windows 8 DVD to the second IDE controller. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and it should now attempt a fresh installation of Windows 8. You should select Advanced Options and choose Repair - this will make VHD bootable When the setup reboots your virtual machine, turn off the virtual machine, and remove the ISO of the Windows 8 DVD from the virtual machine settings. Start virtual machine, use Connect to view it. You will see the devices to be re-discovered (including your quad CPU becoming single CPU). Eventually you should see the Windows Login screen. You may notice that your desktop background (Win+D) will have turned black as your Windows installation has become deactivate due to the hardware changes between your real PC and Hyper-V. Fortunately becoming deactivated, does not stop you using the Windows Store, where you can select the update to Windows 8.1. You can now watch the progress joy of the Windows 8 update; downloading, preparing to update, checking compatibility, gathering info, preparing to restart, and finally, confirm restart - remember that you are restarting your virtual machine sitting on the copy of the VHD, not the Windows 8 boot to VHD you are currently using to run Hyper-V (confused yet?) After the reboot you get the real upgrade messages; setting up x%, xx%, (quite slow) After a while, Getting ready Applying PC Settings x%, xx% (really slow) Updating your system (fast) Setting up a few more things x%, (quite slow) Getting ready, again Accept license terms Express settings Confirmed previous password Next, I had to set up a Microsoft account – which is possibly now required, and not optional Using the Microsoft account required a 2 factor authorization, via text message, a 7 digit code for me Finalising settings Blank screen, HI .. We're setting up things for you (similar to original Windows 8 install) 'You can get new apps from the Store', below which is ’Installing your apps’ - I had Windows Media Center which is counts as an app from the Store ‘Taking care of a few things’, below which is ‘Installing your apps’ ‘Taking care of a few things’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Getting your apps ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Almost ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ … finally, we get the Windows 8.1 start menu, and a quick Win+D to check the desktop confirmed all the application icons I expected, pinned items on the taskbar, and one app moaning about a missing drive At this point the upgrade is complete – you can shutdown the virtual machine Reboot from the original Windows 8 and return to Windows 7 to configure booting to the Windows 8.1 copy of the VHD In an administrator command prompt do following use the bcdedit tool (from an MSDN blog about configuring VHD to boot in Windows 7) Type bcedit to list the current boot options, so you can copy the GUID (complete with brackets/braces) for the original Windows 8 boot to VHD Create a new menu option, copy of the Windows 8 option; bcdedit /copy {originalguid} /d "Windows 8.1" Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} device vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} osdevice vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Set autodetection of the HAL (may already be set); bcdedit /set {newguid} detecthal on Reboot from Windows 7 and select the new option 'Windows 8.1' on the boot menu, and you’ll have some messages to look at, as your hardware is redetected (as you are back from 1 CPU to 4 CPUs) ‘Getting devices ready, blank then %xx, with occasional blank screen, for the graphics driver, (fast-ish) Getting Ready message (fast) You will have to suffer one final reboots, choose 'Windows 8.1' and you can now login to a lovely Windows 8.1 start screen running on non virtualized hardware via boot to VHD After checking everything is running fine, you can now choose to Activate Windows, which for me was a toll free phone call to the automated system where you type in lots of numbers to be given a whole bunch of new activation codes. Once you’re happy with your new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD, and no longer need the Windows 8 boot to VHD, feel free to delete the old one. I do believe once you upgrade, you are no longer licensed to use it anyway. There, that was simple wasn’t it? Looking at the huge list of steps it took to perform this upgrade, you may wonder whether I think this is worth it. Well, I think it is worth booting to VHD. It makes backups a snap (go to Windows 7, copy the VHD, you backed up the o/s) and helps with disk management – want to move the o/s, you can move the VHD and repoint the boot menu to the new location. The downside is that Microsoft has complete neglected to support boot to VHD as an upgradable option. Quite a poor decision in my opinion, and if you read twitter and the forums quite a few people agree with that view. It’s a shame this got missed in the work on creating the upgrade packages for Windows 8.1.

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Monitor your Hard Drive’s Health with Acronis Drive Monitor

- by Matthew Guay

Are you worried that your computer’s hard drive could die without any warning? Here’s how you can keep tabs on it and get the first warning signs of potential problems before you actually lose your critical data. Hard drive failures are one of the most common ways people lose important data from their computers. As more of our memories and important documents are stored digitally, a hard drive failure can mean the loss of years of work. Acronis Drive Monitor helps you avert these disasters by warning you at the first signs your hard drive may be having trouble. It monitors many indicators, including heat, read/write errors, total lifespan, and more. It then notifies you via a taskbar popup or email that problems have been detected. This early warning lets you know ahead of time that you may need to purchase a new hard drive and migrate your data before it’s too late. Getting Started Head over to the Acronis site to download Drive Monitor (link below). You’ll need to enter your name and email, and then you can download this free tool. Also, note that the download page may ask if you want to include a trial of their for-pay backup program. If you wish to simply install the Drive Monitor utility, click Continue without adding. Run the installer when the download is finished. Follow the prompts and install as normal. Once it’s installed, you can quickly get an overview of your hard drives’ health. Note that it shows 3 categories: Disk problems, Acronis backup, and Critical Events. On our computer, we had Seagate DiskWizard, an image backup utility based on Acronis Backup, installed, and Acronis detected it. Drive Monitor stays running in your tray even when the application window is closed. It will keep monitoring your hard drives, and will alert you if there’s a problem. Find Detailed Information About Your Hard Drives Acronis’ simple interface lets you quickly see an overview of how the drives on your computer are performing. If you’d like more information, click the link under the description. Here we see that one of our drives have overheated, so click Show disks to get more information. Now you can select each of your drives and see more information about them. From the Disk overview tab that opens by default, we see that our drive is being monitored, has been running for a total of 368 days, and that it’s health is good. However, it is running at 113F, which is over the recommended max of 107F. The S.M.A.R.T. parameters tab gives us more detailed information about our drive. Most users wouldn’t know what an accepted value would be, so it also shows the status. If the value is within the accepted parameters, it will report OK; otherwise, it will show that has a problem in this area. One very interesting piece of information we can see is the total number of Power-On Hours, Start/Stop Count, and Power Cycle Count. These could be useful indicators to check if you’re considering purchasing a second hand computer. Simply load this program, and you’ll get a better view of how long it’s been in use. Finally, the Events tab shows each time the program gave a warning. We can see that our drive, which had been acting flaky already, is routinely overheating even when our other hard drive was running in normal temperature ranges. Monitor Acronis Backups And Critical Errors In addition to monitoring critical stats of your hard drives, Acronis Drive Monitor also keeps up with the status of your backup software and critical events reported by Windows. You can access these from the front page, or via the links on the left hand sidebar. If you have any edition of any Acronis Backup product installed, it will show that it was detected. Note that it can only monitor the backup status of the newest versions of Acronis Backup and True Image. If no Acronis backup software was installed, it will show a warning that the drive may be unprotected and will give you a link to download Acronis backup software. If you have another backup utility installed that you wish to monitor yourself, click Configure backup monitoring, and then disable monitoring on the drives you’re monitoring yourself. Finally, you can view any detected Critical events from the Critical events tab on the left. Get Emailed When There’s a Problem One of Drive Monitor’s best features is the ability to send you an email whenever there’s a problem. Since this program can run on any version of Windows, including the Server and Home Server editions, you can use this feature to stay on top of your hard drives’ health even when you’re not nearby. To set this up, click Options in the top left corner. Select Alerts on the left, and then click the Change settings link to setup your email account. Enter the email address which you wish to receive alerts, and a name for the program. Then, enter the outgoing mail server settings for your email. If you have a Gmail account, enter the following information: Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com Port: 587 Username and Password: Your gmail address and password Check the Use encryption box, and then select TLS from the encryption options. It will now send a test message to your email account, so check and make sure it sent ok. Now you can choose to have the program automatically email you when warnings and critical alerts appear, and also to have it send regular disk status reports. Conclusion Whether you’ve got a brand new hard drive or one that’s seen better days, knowing the real health of your it is one of the best ways to be prepared before disaster strikes. It’s no substitute for regular backups, but can help you avert problems. Acronis Drive Monitor is a nice tool for this, and although we wish it wasn’t so centered around their backup offerings, we still found it a nice tool. Link Download Acronis Drive Monitor (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Change Monitor Timeout From Command LineAnalyze and Manage Hard Drive Space with WinDirStatMonitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows 7 with Taskbar MetersDefrag Multiple Hard Drives At Once In WindowsFind Your Missing USB Drive on Windows XP 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer

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JMaghreb 2012 Trip Report

- by arungupta

JMaghreb is the inaugural Java conference organized by Morocco JUG. It is the biggest Java conference in Maghreb (5 countries in North West Africa). Oracle was the exclusive platinum sponsor with several others. The registrations had to be closed at 1412 for the free conference and several folks were already on the waiting list. Rabat with 531 registrations and Casablanca with 426 were the top cities. Some statistics ... 850+ attendees over 2 days, 500+ every day 30 sessions were delivered by 18 speakers from 10 different countries 10 sessions in French and 20 in English 6 of the speakers spoke at JavaOne 2012 8 will be at Devoxx Attendees from 5 different countries and 57 cities in Morocco 40.9% qualified them as professional and rest as students Topics ranged from HTML5, Java EE 7, ADF, JavaFX, MySQL, JCP, Vaadin, Android, Community, JCP Java EE 6 hands-on lab was sold out within 7 minutes and JavaFX in 12 minutes I gave the keynote along with Simon Ritter which was basically a recap of the Strategy and Technical keynotes presented at JavaOne 2012. An informal survey during the keynote showed the following numbers: 25% using NetBeans, 90% on Eclipse, 3 on JDeveloper, 1 on IntelliJ About 10 subscribers to free online Java magazine. This digital magazine is a comprehensive source of information for everything Java - subscribe for free!! About 10-15% using Java SE 7. Download JDK 7 and get started today! Even JDK 8 builds have been available for a while now. My second talk explained the core concepts of WebSocket and how JSR 356 is providing a standard API to build WebSocket-driven applications in Java EE 7. TOTD #183 explains how you can easily get started with WebSocket in GlassFish 4. The complete slide deck is available: Next day started with a community keynote by Sonya Barry. Some of us live the life of JCP, JSR, EG, EC, RI, etc every day, but not every body is. To address that, Sonya prepared an excellent introductory presentation providing an explanation of these terms and how java.net infrastructure supports Java development. The registration for the lab showed there is a definite demand for these technologies in this part of the world. I delivered the Java EE 6 hands-on lab to a packed room of about 120 attendees. Most of the attendees were able to progress and follow the lab instructions. Some of the attendees did not have a laptop but were taking extensive notes on paper notepads. Several attendees were already using Java EE 6 in their projects and typically they are the ones asking deep dive questions. Also gave out three copies of my recently released Java EE 6 Pocket Guide and new GlassFish t-shirts. Definitely feels happy to coach ~120 more Java developers learn standards-based enterprise Java programming. I also participated in a JCP BoF along with Werner, Sonya, and Badr. Adotp-a-JSR, java.net infrastructure, how to file a JSR, what is an RI, and other similar topics were discussed in a candid manner. You can follow @JMaghrebConf or check out their facebook page. java.net published a timely conversation with Badr El Houari - the fearless leader of the Morocco JUG team. Did you know that Morocco JUG stood for JCP EC elections (ADD LINK) ? Even though they did not get elected but did fairly well. Now some sample tweets from #JMaghreb ... #JMaghreb is over. Impressive for a first edition! Thanks @badrelhouari and all the @MoroccoJUG team ! Since you @speakjava : System.out.println("Thank you so much dear Tech Evangelist ! The JavaFX was pretty amazing !!! "); #JMaghreb @YounesVendetta @arungupta @JMaghrebConf Right ! hope he will be back to morocco again and again .. :) @Alji_ @arungupta @JMaghrebConf That dude is a genius ;) Put it on your wall :p @arungupta rocking Java EE 6 at @JMaghrebConf #Java #JavaEE #JMaghreb http://t.co/isl0Iq5p @sonyabarry you are an awesome speaker ;-) #JMaghreb rich more than 550 attendees in day one. Expecting more tomorrow! ongratulations @badrelhouari the organisation was great! The talks were pretty interesting, and the turnout was surprising at #JMaghreb! #JMaghreb is truly awesome... The speakers are unbelievable ! #JavaFX... Just amazing #JMaghreb Charmed by the talk about #javaFX ( nodes architecture, MVC, Lazy loading, binding... ) gotta start using it intead of SWT. #JMaghreb JavaFX is killing JFreeChart. It supports Charts a lot of kind of them ... #JMaghreb The british man is back #JMaghreb I do like him!! #JMaghreb @arungupta rocking @JMaghrebConf. pic.twitter.com/CNohA3PE @arungupta Great talk about the future of Java EE (JEE 7 & JEE 8) Thank you. #JMaghreb JEE7 more mooore power , leeess less code !! #JMaghreb They are simplifying the existing API for Java Message Service 2.0 #JMaghreb good to know , the more the code is simplified the better ! The Glassdoor guy #arungupta is doing it RIGHT ! #JMaghreb Great presentation of The Future of the Java Platform: Java EE 7, Java SE 8 & Beyond #jMaghreb @arungupta is a great Guy apparently #JMaghreb On a personal front, the hotel (Soiftel Jardin des Roses) was pretty nice and the location was perfect. There was a 1.8 mile loop dirt trail right next to it so I managed to squeeze some runs before my upcoming marathon. Also enjoyed some great Moroccan cuisine - Couscous, Tajine, mint tea, and moroccan salad. Visit to Kasbah of the Udayas, Hassan II (one of the tallest mosque in the world), and eating in a restaurant in a kasbah are some of the exciting local experiences. Now some pictures from the event (and around the city) ... And the complete album: Many thanks to Badr, Faisal, and rest of the team for organizing a great conference. They are already thinking about how to improve the content, logisitics, and flow for the next year. I'm certainly looking forward to JMaghreb 2.0 :-)

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MSCC: Scripting - Administrator's toolbox of magic...

Finally, we made it to have our April meetup - in May. The most obvious explanation is the increased amount of open source and IT activities that either the MSCC, the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM), or the University of Mauritius Student's Computer Club is organising. It's absolutely incredible to see the recent hype of events here on the island. And I'm loving it! Unfortunately, we also had to deal with arranging for a location this time. It was kind of an odyssey as my requests (and phone calls) haven't been answered, even though I tried it several times - well, kind of disappointing and I have to look into that for future gatherings. In my opinion, it is essential that two parameters of a community meeting are fixed as early as possible: Location, and Date and time You can't just change one or both on the very last minute. Well, this time we had to do it due to unforeseen reasons, and I apologise to any MSCC member which couldn't make it to our April meetup. Okay, lesson learned but now back to the actual meetup report ... Shortly after the meeting I placed the following statement as my first impression: "Spontaneous and improvised :) No, seriously, Ish and Dan had well prepared presentations on shell scripting, mainly focused towards Bourne Again Shell (bash), and the pros and cons of scripting versus actually writing something in a decent programming language. I thought that I could cut myself out of the equation but the demand for information about PowerShell was higher than expected..." Well, it turned out that the interest in Windows PowerShell was high, as I even got a couple of questions on it via social media networks during the evening. I also like to mention that the number of attendees went back to what I would call a "standard" number of participation. This time there were 12 craftsmen, but again a good number of First Timers. Reactions of other attendees Here are some impressions and feedback from our participants: "Enjoyed the bash and powershell (linux / windows) presentations ..." -- Nadim on event comments "He [Daniel] also showed us some syntax loopholes in Bash that could leave someone with bad code." -- Ish on MSCC – Let's talk about Scripting Glad to see a couple of first time attendees, especially students from the university itself. Some details on the presentations MSCC: First time visit at the University of Mauritius - Phase II Engineering Tower, room 2.9 Gimme some love ... bash and other shells Ish gave a great introduction into shell scripting as he spoke about existing shell environments and a little bit about their history. Furthermore, he talked about various built-in commands, the use of coreutils, the ability to daisy-chain multiple commands using pipes, the importance of the standard I/O streams and their file descriptors in advanced scripting techniques. Combined with a couple of sample statements in the Linux terminal on Ubuntu 14.04 machine it was a solid presentation. Have a closer look at his slides - published on his blog on MSCC – Let's talk about Scripting. Oddities of scripting After the brief introduction into bash it was Daniel's turn to highlight a good number of oddities when working with shell scripts. First of all, it should be clear that scripting is not supposed for any kind of implementations in terms of software but simply to automate administrative procedures and to simplify routine jobs on a system. One of the cool oddities that he mentioned is that everything (!) in a shell is represented by strings; there are no other types like integer, float, date-time, etc. that you'd like to use in a full-fledged programming language. Let's have a look at his sample: more to come... What's the output? As a conclusion, Daniel suggests that shell scripting should be limited but not restricted to automatic repetitive command stacks and batch jobs, startup wrapper for applications in order to set up the execution environment, and other not too sophisticated jobs. But as soon as it might involve a little bit more logic or you might rely on performance it's better to write an application in Ruby, Python, or Perl (among others of course). This is also enables the possibility to test your code properly. MSCC: Ish talking about Bourne Again Shell (bash) and shell scripting to automate regular tasks MSCC: Daniel gives an overview about the pros and cons of shell scripting versus programming MSCC: PowerShell as your scripting solution on Windows operating systems The path of the Enlightened is long ... and tough. Honestly, even though PowerShell was mentioned without any further details on the meetup's agenda, I didn't expect that there would be demand to give a presentation on Microsoft PowerShell after all. I already took this topic out of the announcement but the audience wanted to have some information. Okay, then let's see what I could do - improvised style. While my machine booted and got hooked up to the projector, I started to talk about the beginnings of PowerShell from back in 2006, and its predecessors MS DOS and Command Prompt. A throwback in history... always good for young people. As usual, Microsoft didn't get it at that time. Instead of listening to their client's needs and demands they ignored the feasibility to administrate Windows server farms without any UI tools. PowerShell is actually a result of this, and seeing that shell scripting is a common, reliable and fast way in an administrator's toolbox for decades, Microsoft had to adapt from their Microsoft Management Console (MMC) to a broader approach. It's not like shell scripting was something new; it is in daily use by alternative operating systems like AIX, HP UX, Solaris, and last but not least Linux. Most interestingly, Microsoft is very good at renovating existing architectures, and over the years PowerShell not only replaced their own combination of Command Prompt and Scripting Hosts (VBScript and CScript) but really turned into a challenging competitor on the market. The shell is easy to extend with cmdlets, and open to other Microsoft products like SQL Server, SharePoint, as well as Third-party software applications. Similar to MMC PowerShell also offers the ability to administer other machine remotely - only without a graphical user interface and therefore it's easier to automate and schedule regular tasks. Following is a sample of a PowerShell script file (extension .ps1): $strComputer = "." $colItems = get-wmiobject -class Win32_BIOS -namespace root\CIMV2 -comp $strComputer foreach ($objItem in $colItems) {write-host "BIOS Characteristics: " $objItem.BiosCharacteristicswrite-host "BIOS Version: " $objItem.BIOSVersionwrite-host "Build Number: " $objItem.BuildNumberwrite-host "Caption: " $objItem.Captionwrite-host "Code Set: " $objItem.CodeSetwrite-host "Current Language: " $objItem.CurrentLanguagewrite-host "Description: " $objItem.Descriptionwrite-host "Identification Code: " $objItem.IdentificationCodewrite-host "Installable Languages: " $objItem.InstallableLanguageswrite-host "Installation Date: " $objItem.InstallDatewrite-host "Language Edition: " $objItem.LanguageEditionwrite-host "List Of Languages: " $objItem.ListOfLanguageswrite-host "Manufacturer: " $objItem.Manufacturerwrite-host "Name: " $objItem.Namewrite-host "Other Target Operating System: " $objItem.OtherTargetOSwrite-host "Primary BIOS: " $objItem.PrimaryBIOSwrite-host "Release Date: " $objItem.ReleaseDatewrite-host "Serial Number: " $objItem.SerialNumberwrite-host "SMBIOS BIOS Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSBIOSVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Major Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSMajorVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Minor Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSMinorVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Present: " $objItem.SMBIOSPresentwrite-host "Software Element ID: " $objItem.SoftwareElementIDwrite-host "Software Element State: " $objItem.SoftwareElementStatewrite-host "Status: " $objItem.Statuswrite-host "Target Operating System: " $objItem.TargetOperatingSystemwrite-host "Version: " $objItem.Versionwrite-host} Which gives you information about your BIOS and Windows OS. Then change the computer name to another one on your network (NetBIOS based) and run the script again. There lots of samples and tutorials at the Microsoft Script Center, and I would advise you to pay a visit over there if you are more interested in PowerShell. The Script Center provides the download links, too. Upcoming Events What are the upcoming events here in Mauritius? So far, we have the following ones (incomplete list as usual) in chronological order: Hacking Defence (14. May 2014) WebCup Maurice (7. & 8. June 2014) Developers Conference (TBA ~ July 2014) Linuxfest 2014 (TBA ~ November 2014) Hopefully, there will be more announcements during the next couple of weeks and months. If you know about any other event, like a bootcamp, a code challenge or hackathon here in Mauritius, please drop me a note in the comment section below this article. Thanks! My resume of the day Spontaneous and improvised :) The new location at the University of Mauritius turned out very well, there is plenty of space, and it could be a good choice for future meetings. Especially, having the ability to get more and more students into our IT community sounds like a great opportunity. Later during the day, I got some promising mails from Nadim regarding future sessions at the local branch of the Middlesex University. Well, we will see in the future... But for now this will be on hold until approximately October when students resume their regular studies. Anyway, it was a good experience at the university, and thanks again to the UoM Student's Computer Club that made the necessary arrangements for the MSCC!

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WP7 Tips–Part I– Media File Coding Techniques to help pass the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace Certification Requirements

- by seaniannuzzi

Overview Developing an application that plays media files on a Windows Phone 7 Device seems fairly straight forward. However, what can make this a bit frustrating are the necessary requirements in order to pass the WP7 marketplace requirements so that your application can be published. If you are new to this development, be aware of these common challenges that are likely to be made. Below are some techniques and recommendations on how optimize your application to handle playing MP3 and/or WMA files that needs to adhere to the marketplace requirements. Windows Phone 7 Certification Requirements Windows Phone 7 Developers Blog Some common challenges are: Not prompting the user if another media file is playing in the background before playing your media file Not allowing the user to control the volume Not allowing the user to mute the sound Not allowing the media to be interrupted by a phone call To keep this as simple as possible I am only going to focus on what “not to do” and what “to do” in order to implement a simple media solution. Things you will need or may be useful to you before you begin: Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2010 Feature Packs Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone Windows Phone Emulator Resources Silverlight 4 Tools For Visual Studio XNA Game Studio 4.0 Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone Note: Please keep in mind you do not need all of these downloaded and installed, it is just easier to have all that you need now rather than add them on later. Objective Summary Create a Windows Phone 7 – Windows Media Sample Application. The application will implement many of the required features in order to pass the WP7 marketplace certification requirements in order to publish an application to WP7’s marketplace. (Disclaimer: I am not trying to indicate that this application will always pass as the requirements may change or be updated) Step 1: – Create a New Windows Phone 7 Project Step 2: – Update the Title and Application Name of your WP7 Application For this example I changed: the Title to: “DOTNETNUZZI WP7 MEDIA SAMPLE - v1.00” and the Page Title to: “media magic”. Note: I also updated the background. Step 3: – XAML - Media Element Preparation and Best Practice Before we begin the next step I just wanted to point out a few things that you should not do as a best practice when developing an application for WP7 that is playing music. Please keep in mind that these requirements are not the same if you are playing Sound Effects and are geared towards playing media in the background. If you have coded this – be prepared to change it: To avoid a failure from the market place remove all of your media source elements from your XAML or simply create them dynamically. To keep this simple we will remove the source and set the AutoPlay property to false to ensure that there are no media elements are active when the application is started. Proper example of the media element with No Source: Some Additional Settings - Add XAML Support for a Mute Button Step 4: – Boolean to handle toggle of Mute Feature Step 5: – Add Event Handler for Main Page Load Step 6: – Add Reference to the XNA Framework Step 7: – Add two Using Statements to Resolve the Namespace of Media and the Application Bar using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; using Microsoft.Phone.Shell; Step 8: – Add the Method to Check the Media State as Shown Below Step 9: – Add Code to Mute the Media File Step 10: – Add Code to Play the Media File //if the state of the media has been checked you are good to go. media_sample.Play(); Note: If we tried to perform this operation at this point you will receive the following error: System.InvalidOperationException was unhandled Message=FrameworkDispatcher.Update has not been called. Regular FrameworkDispatcher.Update calls are necessary for fire and forget sound effects and framework events to function correctly. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=193853 for details. StackTrace: at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.FrameworkDispatcher.AddNewPendingCall(ManagedCallType callType, UInt32 arg) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.UserAsyncDispatcher.HandleManagedCallback(ManagedCallType managedCallType, UInt32 managedCallArgs) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.UserAsyncDispatcher.AsyncDispatcherThreadFunction() It is not recommended that you just add the FrameworkDispatcher.Update(); call before playing the media file. It is recommended that you implement the following class to your solution and implement this class in the app.xaml.cs file. Step 11: – Add FrameworkDispatcher Features I recommend creating a class named XNAAsyncDispatcher and adding the following code: After you have added the code accordingly, you can now implement this into your app.xaml.cs file as highlighted below. Note: If you application sound file is not playing make sure you have the proper “Build Action” set such as Content. Running the Sample Now that we have some of the foundation created you should be able to run the application successfully. When the application launches your sound options should be set accordingly when the “checkMediaState” method is called. As a result the application will properly setup the media options and/or alert the user accordinglyper the certification requirements. In addition, the sample also shows a quick way to mute the sound in your application by simply removing the URI source of the media file. If everything successfully compiled the application should look similar to below. <sound playing> Summary At this point we have a fully functional application that provides techniques on how to avoid some common challenges when working with media files and developing applications for Windows Phone 7. The techniques mentioned above should make things a little easier and helpful in getting your WP7 application approved and published on the Marketplace. The next blog post will be titled: WP7 Tips–Part II - How to write code that will pass the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace Requirements for Themes (light and dark). If anyone has any questions or comments please comment on this blog.

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Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

- by Chris Hoffman

Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.” (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.

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How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop

- by Eric Z Goodnight

You might think that it’s a complicated process to remove objects from photographs. But really Photoshop makes it quite simple, even when removing all traces of a person from digital photographs. Read on to see just how easy it is. Photoshop was originally created to be an image editing program, and it excels at it. With hardly any Photoshop experience, any beginner can begin removing objects or people from their photos. Have some friends that photobombed an otherwise great pic? Tell them to say their farewells, because here’s how to get rid of them with Photoshop! Tools for Removing Objects Removing an object is not really “magical” work. Your goal is basically to cover up the information you don’t want in an image with information you do want. In this sample image, we want to remove the cigar smoking man, and leave the geisha. Here’s a couple of the tools that can be useful to work with when attempting this kind of task. Clone Stamp and Pattern Stamp Tool: Samples parts of your image from your background, and allows you to paint into your image with your mouse or stylus. Eraser and Brush Tools: Paint flat colors and shapes, and erase cloned layers of image information. Basic, down and dirty photo editing tools. Pen, Quick Selection, Lasso, and Crop tools: Select, isolate, and remove parts of your image with these selection tools. All useful in their own way. Some, like the pen tool, are nightmarishly tough on beginners. Remove a Person with the Clone Stamp Tool (Video) The video above uses the Clone Stamp tool to sample and paint with the background texture. It’s a simple tool to use, although it can be confusing, possibly counter-intuitive. Here’s some pointers, in addition to the video above. Select shortcut key to choose the Clone tool stamp from the Tools Panel. Always create a copy of your background layer before doing heavy edits by right clicking on the background in your Layers Panel and selecting “Duplicate.” Hold with the Clone Tool selected, and click anywhere in your image to sample that area. When you’re sampling an area, your cursor is “Aligned” with your sample area. When you paint, your sample area moves. You can turn the “Aligned” setting off by clicking the in the Options Panel at the top of your screen if you want. Change your brush size and hardness as shown in the video by right-clicking in your image. Use your lasso to copy and paste pieces of your image in order to cover up any parts that seem appropriate. Photoshop Magic with the “Content-Aware Fill” One of the hallmark features of CS5 is the “Content-Aware Fill.” Content aware fill can be an excellent shortcut to removing objects and even people in Photoshop, but it is somewhat limited, and can get confused. Here’s a basic rundown on how it works. Select an object using your Lasso tool, shortcut key . The Lasso works fine as this selection can be rough. Navigate to Edit > Fill, and select “Content-Aware,” as illustrated above, from the pull-down menu. It’s surprisingly simple. After some processing, Photoshop has done the work of removing the object for you. It takes a few moments, and it is not perfect, so be prepared to touch it up with some Copy-Paste, or some Clone stamp action. Content Aware Fill Has Its Limits Keep in mind that the Content Aware Fill is meant to be used with other techniques in mind. It doesn’t always perform perfectly, but can give you a great starting point. Take this image for instance. It is actually plausible to hide this figure and make this image look like he was never there at all. With a selection made with the Lasso tool, navigate to Edit > Fill and select “Content Aware” again. The result is surprisingly good, but as you can see, worthy of some touch up. With a result like this one, you’ll have to get your hands dirty with copy-paste to create believable lines in the background. With many photographs, Content Aware Fill will simply get confused and give you results you won’t be happy with. Additional Touch Up for Bad Background Textures with the Pattern Stamp Tool For the perfectionist, cleaning up the lumpy looking textures that the Clone Stamp can leave is fairly simple using the Pattern Stamp Tool. Sample an piece of your image with your Marquee Tool, shortcut key . Navigate to Edit > Define Pattern to create a new Pattern from your selection. Click OK to continue. Click and hold down on the Clone Stamp tool in your Tools Panel until you can select the Pattern Stamp Tool. Pick your new pattern from the Options at the top of your screen, in the Options Panel. Then simply right click in your image in order to pick as soft a brush as possible to paint with. Paint into your image until your background is as smooth as you want it to be, making your painted out object more and more invisible. If you get lines from your repeated texture, experiment turning the on and off and paint over them. In addition to this, simple use of the Crop Tool, shortcut , can recompose an image, making it look as if it never had another object in it at all. Combine these techniques to find a method that works best for your images. Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to [email protected], and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: Geisha Kyoto Gion by Todd Laracuenta via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Moai Rano raraku by Aurbina, in Public Domain. Chris Young visits Wrigley by TonyTheTiger, via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate MyPaint is an Open-Source Graphics App for Digital Painters Can the Birds and Pigs Really Be Friends in the End? [Angry Birds Video] Add the 2D Version of the New Unity Interface to Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 MightyMintyBoost Is a 3-in-1 Gadget Charger Watson Ties Against Human Jeopardy Opponents

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DTracing a PHPUnit Test: Looking at Functional Programming

- by cj

Here's a quick example of using DTrace Dynamic Tracing to work out what a PHP code base does. I was reading the article Functional Programming in PHP by Patkos Csaba and wondering how efficient this stype of programming is. I thought this would be a good time to fire up DTrace and see what is going on. Since DTrace is "always available" even in production machines (once PHP is compiled with --enable-dtrace), this was easy to do. I have Oracle Linux with the UEK3 kernel and PHP 5.5 with DTrace static probes enabled, as described in DTrace PHP Using Oracle Linux 'playground' Pre-Built Packages I installed the Functional Programming sample code and Sebastian Bergmann's PHPUnit. Although PHPUnit is included in the Functional Programming example, I found it easier to separately download and use its phar file: cd ~/Desktop wget -O master.zip https://github.com/tutsplus/functional-programming-in-php/archive/master.zip wget https://phar.phpunit.de/phpunit.phar unzip master.zip I created a DTrace D script functree.d: #pragma D option quiet self int indent; BEGIN { topfunc = $1; } php$target:::function-entry /copyinstr(arg0) == topfunc/ { self->follow = 1; } php$target:::function-entry /self->follow/ { self->indent += 2; printf("%*s %s%s%s\n", self->indent, "->", arg3?copyinstr(arg3):"", arg4?copyinstr(arg4):"", copyinstr(arg0)); } php$target:::function-return /self->follow/ { printf("%*s %s%s%s\n", self->indent, "<-", arg3?copyinstr(arg3):"", arg4?copyinstr(arg4):"", copyinstr(arg0)); self->indent -= 2; } php$target:::function-return /copyinstr(arg0) == topfunc/ { self->follow = 0; } This prints a PHP script function call tree starting from a given PHP function name. This name is passed as a parameter to DTrace, and assigned to the variable topfunc when the DTrace script starts. With this D script, choose a PHP function that isn't recursive, or modify the script to set self->follow = 0 only when all calls to that function have unwound. From looking at the sample FunSets.php code and its PHPUnit test driver FunSetsTest.php, I settled on one test function to trace: function testUnionContainsAllElements() { ... } I invoked DTrace to trace function calls invoked by this test with # dtrace -s ./functree.d -c 'php phpunit.phar \ /home/cjones/Desktop/functional-programming-in-php-master/FunSets/Tests/FunSetsTest.php' \ '"testUnionContainsAllElements"' The core of this command is a call to PHP to run PHPUnit on the FunSetsTest.php script. Outside that, DTrace is called and the PID of PHP is passed to the D script $target variable so the probes fire just for this invocation of PHP. Note the quoting around the PHP function name passed to DTrace. The parameter must have double quotes included so DTrace knows it is a string. The output is: PHPUnit 3.7.28 by Sebastian Bergmann. ......-> FunSetsTest::testUnionContainsAllElements -> FunSets::singletonSet <- FunSets::singletonSet -> FunSets::singletonSet <- FunSets::singletonSet -> FunSets::union <- FunSets::union -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertTrue -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isTrue <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isTrue -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsTrue::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsTrue::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertTrue -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertTrue -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isTrue <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isTrue -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsTrue::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsTrue::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertTrue -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains -> FunSets::contains -> FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains <- FunSets::{closure} <- FunSets::contains -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertFalse -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isFalse -> {closure} -> main <- main <- {closure} <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::isFalse -> PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::count -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate -> PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsFalse::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint_IsFalse::matches <- PHPUnit_Framework_Constraint::evaluate <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertThat <- PHPUnit_Framework_Assert::assertFalse <- FunSetsTest::testUnionContainsAllElements ... Time: 1.85 seconds, Memory: 3.75Mb OK (9 tests, 23 assertions) The periods correspond to the successful tests before and after (and from) the test I was tracing. You can see the function entry ("->") and return ("<-") points. Cross checking with the testUnionContainsAllElements() source code confirms the two singletonSet() calls, one union() call, two assertTrue() calls and finally an assertFalse() call. These assertions have a contains() call as a parameter, so contains() is called before the PHPUnit assertion functions are run. You can see contains() being called recursively, and how the closures are invoked. If you want to focus on the application logic and suppress the PHPUnit function trace, you could turn off tracing when assertions are being checked by adding D clauses checking the entry and exit of assertFalse() and assertTrue(). But if you want to see all of PHPUnit's code flow, you can modify the functree.d code that sets and unsets self-follow, and instead change it to toggle the variable in request-startup and request-shutdown probes: php$target:::request-startup { self->follow = 1 } php$target:::request-shutdown { self->follow = 0 } Be prepared for a large amount of output!

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SQL SERVER – Thinking about Deprecated, Discontinued Features and Breaking Changes while Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 – Guest Post by Nakul Vachhrajani

- by pinaldave

Nakul Vachhrajani is a Technical Specialist and systems development professional with iGATE having a total IT experience of more than 7 years. Nakul is an active blogger with BeyondRelational.com (150+ blogs), and can also be found on forums at SQLServerCentral and BeyondRelational.com. Nakul has also been a guest columnist for SQLAuthority.com and SQLServerCentral.com. Nakul presented a webcast on the “Underappreciated Features of Microsoft SQL Server” at the Microsoft Virtual Tech Days Exclusive Webcast series (May 02-06, 2011) on May 06, 2011. He is also the author of a research paper on Database upgrade methodologies, which was published in a CSI journal, published nationwide. In addition to his passion about SQL Server, Nakul also contributes to the academia out of personal interest. He visits various colleges and universities as an external faculty to judge project activities being carried out by the students. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are his own personal opinions and do not represent his employer’s view in anyway. Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ Let us hear the thoughts of Nakul in first person - Those who have been following my blogs would be aware that I am recently running a series on the database engine features that have been deprecated in Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Based on the response that I have received, I was quite surprised to know that most of the audience found these to be breaking changes, when in fact, they were not! It was then that I decided to write a little piece on how to plan your database upgrade such that it works with the next version of Microsoft SQL Server. Please note that the recommendations made in this article are high-level markers and are intended to help you think over the specific steps that you would need to take to upgrade your database. Refer the documentation – Understand the terms Change is the only constant in this world. Therefore, whenever customer requirements, newer architectures and designs require software vendors to make a change to the keywords, functions, etc; they ensure that they provide their end users sufficient time to migrate over to the new standards before dropping off the old ones. Microsoft does that too with it’s Microsoft SQL Server product. Whenever a new SQL Server release is announced, it comes with a list of the following features: Breaking changes These are changes that would break your currently running applications, scripts or functionalities that are based on earlier version of Microsoft SQL Server These are mostly features whose behavior has been changed keeping in mind the newer architectures and designs Lesson: These are the changes that you need to be most worried about! Discontinued features These features are no longer available in the associated version of Microsoft SQL Server These features used to be “deprecated” in the prior release Lesson: Without these changes, your database would not be compliant/may not work with the version of Microsoft SQL Server under consideration Deprecated features These features are those that are still available in the current version of Microsoft SQL Server, but are scheduled for removal in a future version. These may be removed in either the next version or any other future version of Microsoft SQL Server The features listed for deprecation will compose the list of discontinued features in the next version of SQL Server Lesson: Plan to make necessary changes required to remove/replace usage of the deprecated features with the latest recommended replacements Once a feature appears on the list, it moves from bottom to the top, i.e. it is first marked as “Deprecated” and then “Discontinued”. We know of “Breaking change” comes later on in the product life cycle. What this means is that if you want to know what features would not work with SQL Server 2012 (and you are currently using SQL Server 2008 R2), you need to refer the list of breaking changes and discontinued features in SQL Server 2012. Use the tools! There are a lot of tools and technologies around us, but it is rarely that I find teams using these tools religiously and to the best of their potential. Below are the top two tools, from Microsoft, that I use every time I plan a database upgrade. The SQL Server Upgrade Advisor Ever since SQL Server 2005 was announced, Microsoft provides a small, very light-weight tool called the “SQL Server upgrade advisor”. The upgrade advisor analyzes installed components from earlier versions of SQL Server, and then generates a report that identifies issues to fix either before or after you upgrade. The analysis examines objects that can be accessed, such as scripts, stored procedures, triggers, and trace files. Upgrade Advisor cannot analyze desktop applications or encrypted stored procedures. Refer the links towards the end of the post to know how to get the Upgrade Advisor. The SQL Server Profiler Another great tool that you can use is the one most SQL Server developers & administrators use often – the SQL Server profiler. SQL Server Profiler provides functionality to monitor the “Deprecation” event, which contains: Deprecation announcement – equivalent to features to be deprecated in a future release of SQL Server Deprecation final support – equivalent to features to be deprecated in the next release of SQL Server You can learn more using the links towards the end of the post. A basic checklist There are a lot of finer points that need to be taken care of when upgrading your database. But, it would be worth-while to identify a few basic steps in order to make your database compliant with the next version of SQL Server: Monitor the current application workload (on a test bed) via the Profiler in order to identify usage of features marked as Deprecated If none appear, you are all set! (This almost never happens) Note down all the offending queries and feature usages Run analysis sessions using the SQL Server upgrade advisor on your database Based on the inputs from the analysis report and Profiler trace sessions, Incorporate solutions for the breaking changes first Next, incorporate solutions for the discontinued features Revisit and document the upgrade strategy for your deployment scenarios Revisit the fall-back, i.e. rollback strategies in case the upgrades fail Because some programming changes are dependent upon the SQL server version, this may need to be done in consultation with the development teams Before any other enhancements are incorporated by the development team, send out the database changes into QA QA strategy should involve a comparison between an environment running the old version of SQL Server against the new one Because minimal application changes have gone in (essential changes for SQL Server version compliance only), this would be possible As an ongoing activity, keep incorporating changes recommended as per the deprecated features list As a DBA, update your coding standards to ensure that the developers are using ANSI compliant code – this code will require a change only if the ANSI standard changes Remember this: Change management is a continuous process. Keep revisiting the product release notes and incorporate recommended changes to stay prepared for the next release of SQL Server. May the power of SQL Server be with you! Links Referenced in this post Breaking changes in SQL Server 2012: Link Discontinued features in SQL Server 2012: Link Get the upgrade advisor from the Microsoft Download Center at: Link Upgrade Advisor page on MSDN: Link Profiler: Review T-SQL code to identify objects no longer supported by Microsoft: Link Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 by Vinod Kumar: Link Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Upgrade

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Microsoft and the open source community

- by Charles Young

For the last decade, I have repeatedly, in my imitable Microsoft fan boy style, offered an alternative view to commonly held beliefs about Microsoft's stance on open source licensing. In earlier times, leading figures in Microsoft were very vocal in resisting the idea that commercial licensing is outmoded or morally reprehensible. Many people interpreted this as all-out corporate opposition to open source licensing. I never read it that way. It is true that I've met individual employees of Microsoft who are antagonistic towards FOSS (free and open source software), but I've met more who are supportive or at least neutral on the subject. In any case, individual attitudes of employees don't necessarily reflect a corporate stance. The strongest opposition I've encountered has actually come from outside the company. It's not a charitable thought, but I sometimes wonder if there are people in the .NET community who are opposed to FOSS simply because they believe, erroneously, that Microsoft is opposed. Here, for what it is worth, are the points I've repeated endlessly over the years and which have often been received with quizzical scepticism. a) A decade ago, Microsoft's big problem was not FOSS per se, or even with copyleft. The thing which really kept them awake at night was the fear that one day, someone might find, deep in the heart of the Windows code base, some code that should not be there and which was published under GPL. The likelihood of this ever happening has long since faded away, but there was a time when MS was running scared. I suspect this is why they held out for a while from making Windows source code open to inspection. Nowadays, as an MVP, I am positively encouraged to ask to see Windows source. b) Microsoft has never opposed the open source community. They have had problems with specific people and organisations in the FOSS community. Back in the 1990s, Richard Stallman gave time and energy to a successful campaign to launch antitrust proceedings against Microsoft. In more recent times, the negative attitude of certain people to Microsoft's submission of two FOSS licences to the OSI (both of which have long since been accepted), and the mad scramble to try to find any argument, however tenuous, to block their submission was not, let us say, edifying. c) Microsoft has never, to my knowledge, written off the FOSS model. They certainly don't agree that more traditional forms of licensing are inappropriate or immoral, and they've always been prepared to say so. One reason why it was so hard to convince people that Microsoft is not rabidly antagonistic towards FOSS licensing is that so many people think they have no involvement in open source. A decade ago, there was virtually no evidence of any such involvement. However, that was a long time ago. Quietly over the years, Microsoft has got on with the job of working out how to make use of FOSS licensing and how to support the FOSS community. For example, as well as making increasingly extensive use of Github, they run an important FOSS forge (CodePlex) on which they, themselves, host many hundreds of distinct projects. The total count may even be in the thousands now. I suspect there is a limit of about 500 records on CodePlex searches because, for the past few years, whenever I search for Microsoft-specific projects on CodePlex, I always get approx. 500 hits. Admittedly, a large volume of the stuff they publish under FOSS licences amounts to code samples, but many of those 'samples' have grown into useful and fully featured frameworks, libraries and tools. All this is leading up to the observation that yesterday's announcement by Scott Guthrie marks a significant milestone and should not go unnoticed. If you missed it, let me summarise. From the first release of .NET, Microsoft has offered a web development framework called ASP.NET. The core libraries are included in the .NET framework which is released free of charge, but which is not open source. However, in recent years, the number of libraries that constitute ASP.NET have grown considerably. Today, most professional ASP.NET web development exploits the ASP.NET MVC framework. This, together with several other important parts of the ASP.NET technology stack, is released on CodePlex under the Apache 2.0 licence. Hence, today, a huge swathe of web development on the .NET/Azure platform relies four-square on the use of FOSS frameworks and libraries. Yesterday, Scott Guthrie announced the next stage of ASP.NET's journey towards FOSS nirvana. This involves extending ASP.NET's FOSS stack to include Web API and the MVC Razor view engine which is rapidly becoming the de facto 'standard' for building web pages in ASP.NET. However, perhaps the more important announcement is that the ASP.NET team will now accept and review contributions from the community. Scott points out that this model is already in place elsewhere in Microsoft, and specifically draws attention to development of the Windows Azure SDKs. These SDKs are central to Azure development. The .NET and Java SDKs are published under Apache 2.0 on Github and Microsoft is open to community contributions. Accepting contributions is a more profound move than simply releasing code under FOSS licensing. It means that Microsoft is wholeheartedly moving towards a full-blooded open source approach for future evolution of some of their central and most widely used .NET and Azure frameworks and libraries. In conjunction with Scott's announcement, Microsoft has also released Git support for CodePlex (at long last!) and, perhaps more importantly, announced significant new investment in their own FOSS forge. Here at Solidsoft we have several reasons to be very interested in Scott's announcement. I'll draw attention to one of them. Earlier this year we wrote the initial version of a new UK Government web application called CloudStore. CloudStore provides a way for local and central government to discover and purchase applications and services. We wrote the web site using ASP.NET MVC which is FOSS. However, this point has been lost on the ladies and gentlemen of the press and, I suspect, on some of the decision makers on the government side. They announced a few weeks ago that future versions of CloudStore will move to a FOSS framework, clearly oblivious of the fact that it is already built on a FOSS framework. We are, it is fair to say, mildly irked by the uninformed and badly out-of-date assumption that “if it is Microsoft, it can't be FOSS”. Old prejudices live on.

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Converting projects to use Automatic NuGet restore

- by terje

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/terje/archive/2014/06/11/converting-projects-to-use-automatic-nuget-restore.aspxDownload tool In version 2.7 of NuGet automatic nuget restore was introduced, meaning you no longer need to distort your msbuild project files with nuget target information. Visual Studio and TFS 2013 build have this enabled by default. However, if your project was created before this was introduced, and/or if you have used the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” afterwards, you now have a series of unwanted things in your projects, and a series of project files that have been modified – and – you no longer neither want nor need this ! You might also get into some unwanted issues due to these modifications. This is a MSBuild modification that was needed only before NuGet 2.7 ! So: DON’T USE THIS FUNCTION !!! There is an issue https://nuget.codeplex.com/workitem/4019 on this on the NuGet project site to get this function removed, renamed or at least moved farther away from the top level (please help vote it up!). The response seems to be that it WILL BE removed, around version 3.0. This function does nothing you need after the introduction of NuGet 2.7. What is also unfortunate is the naming of it – it implies that it is needed, it is not, and what is worse, there is no corresponding function to remove what it does ! So to fix this use the tool named IFix, that will fix this issue for you - all free of course, and the code is open source. Also report issues there: https://github.com/OsirisTerje/IFix IFix information DOWNLOAD HERE This command line tool installs using an MSI, and add itself to the system path. If you work in a team, you will probably need to use the tool multiple times. Anyone in the team may at any time use the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” function and mess up your project again. The IFix program can be run either in a check modus, where it does not write anything back – it only checks if you have any issues, or in a Fix mode, where it will also perform the necessary fixes for you. The IFix program is used like this: IFix <command> [-c/--check] [-f/--fix] [-v/--verbose] The command in this case is “nugetrestore”. It will do a check from the location where it is being called, and run through all subfolders from that location. So “IFix nugetrestore --check” , will do the check , and “IFix nugetrestore --fix” will perform the changes, for all files and folders below the current working directory. (Note that --check can be replaced with only –c, and --fix with –f, and so on. ) BEWARE: When you run the fix option, all solutions to be affected must be closed in Visual Studio ! So, if you just want to DO it, then: IFix nugetrestore --check to see if you have issues then IFix nugetrestore --fix to fix them. How does it work IFix nugetrestore checks and optionally fixes four issues that the older enabling of nuget restore did. The issues are related to the MSBuild projess, and are: Deleting the nuget.targets file. Deleting the nuget.exe that is located under the .nuget folder Removing all references to nuget.targets in the solution file Removing all properties and target imports of nuget.targets inside the csproj files. IFix fixes these issues in the same sequence. The first step, removing the nuget.targets file is the most critical one, and all instances of the nuget.targets file within the scope of a solution has to be removed, and in addition it has to be done with the solution closed in Visual Studio. If Visual Studio finds a nuget.targets file, the csproj files will be automatically messed up again. This means the removal process above might need to be done multiple times, specially when you’re working with a team, and that solution context menu still has the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” function. Someone on the team might inadvertently do this at any time. It can be a good idea to add this check to a checkin policy – if you run TFS standard version control, but that will have no effect if you use TFS Git version control of course. So, better be prepared to run the IFix check from time to time. Or, even better, install IFix on your build servers, and add a call to IFix nugetrestore --check in the TFS Build script. How does it look As a first example I have run the IFix program from the top of a set of git repositories, so it spans multiple repositories with multiple solutions. The result from the check option is as follows: We see the four red lines, there is one for each of the four checks we talked about in the previous section. The fact that they are red, means we have that particular issue. The first section (above the first red text line) is the nuget targets section. Notice No.1, it says it has found no paths to copy. What IFix does here is to check if there are any defined paths to other nuget galleries. If there are, then those are copied over to the nuget.config file, where is where it should be in version 2.7 and above. No.2 says it has found the particular nuget.targets file, No.3 states it HAS found some other nuget galleries defines in the targets file, which then it would like to copy to the config.file. No.4 is the section for nuget.exe files, and list those it has found, and which it would like to delete. No 5 states it has found a reference to nuget.targets in the solution file. This reference comes from the fact that the .nuget folder is a solution folder, and the items within are described in the solution file. It then checks the csproj files, and as can be seen from the last red line, it ha found issues in 96 out of 198 csproj files. There are two possible issues in a csproj files. No.6 is the first one, and the most common and most important one, an “Import project” section. This is the section that calls the nuget.targets files. No.7 is another issue, which seems to sometimes be there, sometimes not, it is a RestorePackages property, which also should go away. Now, if we run the IFix nugetrestore –fix command, and then the check again after that, the result is: All green !

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WhatsApp & Tasker for Android – Read & Write messages

- by Shaurya Anand

So, I finally gave up on all my previous the Microsoft Mobile/Phone OS devices and made my switch to Android this year. I am using my Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000 with CyanogenMod 9.1.0 (http://get.cm/get/jenkins/7086/cm-9.1.0-n7000.zip) and ClockworkMod 6.0.1.2 (http://download2.clockworkmod.com/recoveries/recovery-clockwork-6.0.1.2-n7000.zip) since August this year and I am so happy with the performance and the flexibility it offers me. As a software developer by profession, I would expect most of my gadget to be highly customizable and programmable (one time or at intervals) to suit my needs as close as it can. I was introduced to Automation for Android – Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en) via reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker) and the word ‘automation’ was enough for me to dive right into this app. Only automation that I did earlier was switching profiles depending on location on there phones. And now, just imagine a complete set of possibilities that can be automate on the phone or via the phone. I did my research and found a couple of other tools that do the same/as close as what Tasker can do and few of them are even free. There’s one even by Microsoft called on{X} (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.onx.app&hl=en). Microsoft’s on{X} really caught my eye. You can write code for your phone on the web application by them, deploy it on your phone and even trace the flow all using your PC. Really brilliant, I love the fact that it’s all JavaScript. Here comes the but, it is still very very young and it’s policy of accessing my News Feed on Facebook is not something that I can not digest. On{X} is good, but as I said earlier, the API is not very mature and hence, I gave up on it. I bought Tasker, the best 5,00 € I spent in ages and I want to talk about it in this post. I am still a “noob” while operating this tool, but I tried my shot at automating WhatsApp (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp&hl=en), a popular messenger for various platform. The requirement for the automation is that, if I send a WhatsApp ‘wru’ message to the phone, it should respond back giving the location and battery level of my phone. It could be useful, if you like to locate your misplaced phone or automatically reply to your partner/friend, honestly, I don’t know what you will use it - through this post, I am just introducing automating WhatsApp using Tasker. Before we begin, the following script only works when your phone is rooted as we will be accessing the WhatsApp database and type some special characters like ‘:’. Let’s follow the code line by line: Profile: Location request from XYZ. (12) // Name of your profile. Event: Notification [ Owner Application:WhatsApp Title:* ] // When a new notification comes from WhatsApp, this event is fired. Read the end note, if you face problems with Chrome app after enabling Tasker accessibility. Enter: A1: Run Shell [ Command:sqlite3 // We will access the WhatsApp database and check if the message comes from designated phone number or not. We mustn’t reply to every message. /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db "SELECT _id, data FROM messages WHERE key_from_me='0' AND key_remote_jid LIKE '%XXXXXXXXXXX%' // Replace XXXXXXXXXXX with the phone number of your message sender. ORDER BY _id DESC LIMIT 1;" Timeout (Seconds):10 Use Root:On Store // I made a timeout for 10 seconds, if in case WhatsApp is busy accessing the database. Result In:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ] // Store the read Id and the last message on to the variable %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ A2: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ~R .*[wW][rR][uU].* ] // Check if the pattern of the message is correct and we are all set to send the location. A3: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ !~ %WHATSAPP_LASTREQ ] // Verify that the message is different from the last request. Remember every message has a unique Id. A4: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request... Text:Sending location // Just a notification that the location message is being prepared. to Krati Gupta... Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:On Priority:3 ] // Make a note it is a permanent notification, we will clear it later. A5: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Disabled // I am disabling the pattern lock, that I use using the plugin Secure Settings. Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure // You can download the plugin from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin&hl=en Settings ] A6: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Disabled // Disable the keygaurd, it is useful, when your phone is on lock and you want to automate everything, even the typing. Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A7: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Enabled // Pretty clear, turn on the GPS and get location at A8 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A8: AutoShortcut [ Configuration:WhatsApp: Some One // I am using AutoShortcut plugin (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut) to start WhatsApp with the indented recipient. Package:com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut Name:AutoShortcut ] // Replace Some One, actually choose it from the plugin, the right recipient. A9: Get Location [ Source:Any Timeout (Seconds):30 Continue Task // I am getting the location, timeout is 30 seconds, adjust it accordingly. Immediately:Off Keep Tracking:Off ] A10: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Screen Dim // Now, this extension of the plugin Secure Settings, wakes your device so that you can type out the string on the WhatsApp app. 5 Seconds Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A11: Run Shell [ Command:input text // Now, I am using the shell script to type the text to the window, because the ‘:’ while not be typed from the Type task in Tasker. LOCATION:maps.google.com/maps?q=%LOC Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On // And also, this is way faster, but remember you need root for this, not for the other way of typing. Store Result In: ] A12: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ] // Focus the Send button A13: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ] // And press it. A14: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ] // Get back to the typing box. A15: Run Shell [ Command:input text LOCATION_ACCURACY:%LOCACC Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ] A16: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ] A17: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ] A18: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ] A19: Run Shell [ Command:input text BATTERY_LEVEL:%BATT% Timeout // I am adding Battery level in my case as well. (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ] A20: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ] A21: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ] A22: Variable Set [ Name:%WHATSAPP_LASTREQ To:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ Do // And now, we say, request is done. Maths:Off Append:Off ] A23: Button [ Button:Back ] // I am exiting the WhatsApp nicely and not killing it. If you are the murderer kind, kill it, just know, you don’t have any place in the heaven. A24: Button [ Button:Back ] A25: Notify Cancel [ Title: Warn Not Exist:Off ] // Remove the permanent notification. A26: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request Text:Location sent // Make a temporary notification, and say, location is sent. successfully. Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:Off Priority:3 ] A27: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Disabled // Disable all the horrible things we turned on earlier. Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A28: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Enabled Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A29: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Enabled Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure Settings ] A30: End If A31: End If Download this Task from here: http://db.tt/9vRmbhyb That’s it in the above small example – you can read/write messages from/to WhatsApp app. I am using n7000-cm9.1-cwr6. Oh yea, and if you are having the Talkback auto enabled for Chrome browser, you need to turn Off the Web scripts to run. Tasker is amazing, I have automated a lot of tasks using this tool. I will share a few none generic ones with you in my coming post here.

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Girl's Day 2012 in Potsdam

- by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com

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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Every year in April 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} , technical enterprises and other organisations are invited to organise an open day for girls – called Girl´s Day. It has become a tradition for Oracle for more than 6 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} years, to participate in this special day and to encourage girls to discover technical work environments. On the 26th of April 2012, 27 pupils aged 12 to 15 came to Oracle’s office in Potsdam in order to obtain interesting insights about Oracle´s business practices. An interactive 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} four-hour program was specifically organized for all participants. At first, all pupils got to know Oracle as an enterprise with it’s different departments and it’s particular „business language“. What is hardware and software? Why do companies need a database? Questions as such were tailored and simply illustrated by 13 colleagues from the areas of Sales, Sales Consulting, Support and Recruitment. Followed by a short introduction about career paths from our female colleagues and their respective departments, the girls decided, according to their interests, which business area they would like to get more insights from. Based on their decision the groups were set up and the girls than discovered the work places. This helped everyone to dive deep into the everyday work life, how the offices are structured and how communication with clients is done via web conferences. All girls were encouraged to take part in the conference together with their Oracle advisor. 12 o´clock – lunch time. Besides a well-prepared buffet 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} , all girls had now the opportunity to get all open questions clarified or to ask questions they did not dare to ask in front of a big group. After the lunch break, Anja Raack from the Graduate Recruitment team presented more about recruitment topics and gave useful advice on how to write professional emails. After a short group assignment, where all participants had to identify common mistakes done in an email, a quiz completed this special day. All 5 groups showed a lot of enthusiasm during this game but no one had to worry as every single participant was rewarded with a prize and certificate. To sum it up, we were very proud to host the girls for half a day and were impressed by their dedication. Hopefully, sooner or later, we will see some of them coming back to Oracle – either for the next Girl´s Day or one of our entry level positions. This day has shown that everyone can start a challenging career within an exciting industry. What matters is dedication and commitment to strive for the best. Do you want to find out more about our job opportunities? Follow us on http://campus.oracle.com.

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Know More About Oracle Row Lock

- by Liu Maclean(???)

??????Oracle??????????row lock,??ORACLE????????????????????,row lock???????????????????????????????,??Server Process?pin????block buffer????????? ????????,?process A ??update???????? Z?????????, ???????rollback???commit;??Process B??????DML??, ???????rowid???? Z???, ???????????process A????????ITL???,????????cleanout??,????????row???????????commit, ???????Process B????”enq: TX – row lock contention”??????? ????Process B????????????? ?????????Process A???????row,??Process B???????”enq: TX – row lock contention”???? ???????? ????????: SESSION A: SQL> select * from v$version; BANNER ---------------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bi PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production CORE 10.2.0.5.0 Production TNS for Linux: Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production SQL> select * from global_name; GLOBAL_NAME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.oracledatabase12g.com SQL> create table maclean_lock(t1 int); Table created. SQL> insert into maclean_lock values (1); 1 row created. SQL> commit; Commit complete. SQL> select dbms_rowid.rowid_block_number(rowid),dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno(rowid) from maclean_lock; DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_BLOCK_NUMBER(ROWID) DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_RELATIVE_FNO(ROWID) ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ 67642 1 SQL> select distinct sid from v$mystat; SID ---------- 142 SQL> select pid,spid from v$process where addr = ( select paddr from v$session where sid=(select distinct sid from v$mystat)); PID SPID ---------- ------------ 17 15636 ??SESSION A ????savepoint ,?update ????????? SQL> savepoint NONLOCK; Savepoint created. SQL> select * From v$Lock where sid=142; no rows selected SQL> set linesize 140 pagesize 1400 SQL> update maclean_lock set t1=t1+2; 1 row updated. SQL> select * From v$Lock where sid=142; ADDR KADDR SID TY ID1 ID2 LMODE REQUEST CTIME BLOCK ---------------- ---------------- ---------- -- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 0000000091FC69F0 0000000091FC6A18 142 TM 55829 0 3 0 6 0 00000000914B4008 00000000914B4040 142 TX 393232 609 6 0 6 0 SQL> select dump(3,16) from dual; DUMP(3,16) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typ=2 Len=2: c1,4 ALTER SYSTEM DUMP DATAFILE 1 BLOCK 67642; Object id on Block? Y seg/obj: 0xda16 csc: 0x00.234718 itc: 2 flg: O typ: 1 - DATA fsl: 0 fnx: 0x0 ver: 0x01 Itl Xid Uba Flag Lck Scn/Fsc 0x01 0x000a.00f.000001e0 0x00800075.02a6.29 C--- 0 scn 0x0000.00234711 0x02 0x0007.018.000001fe 0x0080065c.017a.02 ---- 1 fsc 0x0000.00000000 data_block_dump,data header at 0x81d185c =============== tsiz: 0x1fa0 hsiz: 0x14 pbl: 0x081d185c bdba: 0x0041083a 76543210 flag=-------- ntab=1 nrow=1 frre=-1 fsbo=0x14 fseo=0x1f9a avsp=0x1f83 tosp=0x1f83 0xe:pti[0] nrow=1 offs=0 0x12:pri[0] offs=0x1f9a block_row_dump: tab 0, row 0, @0x1f9a tl: 6 fb: --H-FL-- lb: 0x2 cc: 1 col 0: [ 2] c1 04 end_of_block_dump ?? BLOCK DUMP ???? ??????XID=0x0007.018.000001fe ?transaction?? lb:0x1 ??SESSION B ,?????UPDATE?? ???enq: TX - row lock contention ?? SQL> select distinct sid from v$mystat; SID ---------- 140 SQL> select pid,spid from v$process where addr = ( select paddr from v$session where sid=(select distinct sid from v$mystat)); PID SPID ---------- ------------ 24 15652 SQL> alter system set "_trace_events"='10000-10999:255:24'; System altered. SQL> update maclean_lock set t1=t1+2; select * From v$Lock where sid=142 or sid=140 order by sid; SESSION C: SQL> select * From v$Lock where sid=142 or sid=140 order by sid; ADDR KADDR SID TY ID1 ID2 LMODE REQUEST CTIME BLOCK ---------------- ---------------- ---------- -- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 0000000091FC6B10 0000000091FC6B38 140 TM 55829 0 3 0 84 0 00000000924F4A58 00000000924F4A78 140 TX 458776 510 0 6 84 0 00000000914B51E8 00000000914B5220 142 TX 458776 510 6 0 312 1 0000000091FC69F0 0000000091FC6A18 142 TM 55829 0 3 0 312 0 ???? SESSION B SID=140 ?SESSION A ?TX ENQUEUE ?X mode?REQUEST SQL> oradebug dump systemstate 266; Statement processed. SESSION B waiter's enqueue lock SO: 0x924f4a58, type: 5, owner: 0x92bb8dc8, flag: INIT/-/-/0x00 (enqueue) TX-00070018-000001FE DID: 0001-0018-00000022 lv: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 res_flag: 0x6 req: X, lock_flag: 0x0, lock: 0x924f4a78, res: 0x925617c0 own: 0x92b76be0, sess: 0x92b76be0, proc: 0x92a737a0, prv: 0x925617e0 TX-00070018-000001FE=> TX 458776 510 SESSION A owner's enqueue lock SO: 0x914b51e8, type: 40, owner: 0x92b796d0, flag: INIT/-/-/0x00 (trans) flg = 0x1e03, flg2 = 0xc0000, prx = 0x0, ros = 2147483647 bsn = 0xed5 bndsn = 0xee7 spn = 0xef7 efd = 3 file:xct.c lineno:1179 DID: 0001-0011-000000C2 parent xid: 0x0000.000.00000000 env: (scn: 0x0000.00234718 xid: 0x0007.018.000001fe uba: 0x0080065c.017a.02 statement num=0 parent xid: xid: 0x0000.000.00000000 scn: 0x00 00.00234718 0sch: scn: 0x0000.00000000) cev: (spc = 7818 arsp = 914e8310 ubk tsn: 1 rdba: 0x0080065c useg tsn: 1 rdba: 0x00800069 hwm uba: 0x0080065c.017a.02 col uba: 0x00000000.0000.00 num bl: 1 bk list: 0x91435070) cr opc: 0x0 spc: 7818 uba: 0x0080065c.017a.02 (enqueue) TX-00070018-000001FE DID: 0001-0011-000000C2 lv: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 res_flag: 0x6 mode: X, lock_flag: 0x0, lock: 0x914b5220, res: 0x925617c0 own: 0x92b796d0, sess: 0x92b796d0, proc: 0x92a6ffd8, prv: 0x925617d0 xga: 0x8b7c6d40, heap: UGA Trans IMU st: 2 Pool index 65535, Redo pool 0x914b58d0, Undo pool 0x914b59b8 Redo pool range [0x86de640 0x86de640 0x86e0e40] Undo pool range [0x86dbe40 0x86dbe40 0x86de640] ---------------------------------------- SO: 0x91435070, type: 39, owner: 0x914b51e8, flag: -/-/-/0x00 (List of Blocks) next index = 1 index itli buffer hint rdba savepoint ----------------------------------------------------------- 0 2 0x647f1fc8 0x41083a 0xee7 ?SESSION A? ROLLBACK ?savepoint: SQL> rollback to NONLOCK; Rollback complete. ????savepoint ??update??????? ??UPDATE???????? ROLLBACK: SQL> select * From v$Lock where sid=142 or sid=140; ADDR KADDR SID TY ID1 ID2 LMODE REQUEST CTIME BLOCK ---------------- ---------------- ---------- -- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 00000000924F4A58 00000000924F4A78 140 TX 458776 510 0 6 822 0 0000000091FC6B10 0000000091FC6B38 140 TM 55829 0 3 0 822 0 00000000914B51E8 00000000914B5220 142 TX 458776 510 6 0 1050 1 ???? SESSION A 142 ???SAVEPOINT ???????TM LOCK ????? ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT?????SESSION???TX LOCK!!!! ??????SESSION 142???TX ID1=458776 ID2=510, ????ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT?????????ABORT TRANSACTION ?? SESSION B SID=140?? SESSION A ?? , ?????????SESSION B? update???HANG?? ?????????CACHE?????: Object id on Block? Y seg/obj: 0xda16 csc: 0x00.2347b7 itc: 2 flg: O typ: 1 - DATA fsl: 0 fnx: 0x0 ver: 0x01 Itl Xid Uba Flag Lck Scn/Fsc 0x01 0x000a.00f.000001e0 0x00800075.02a6.29 C--- 0 scn 0x0000.00234711 0x02 0x0000.000.00000000 0x00000000.0000.00 ---- 0 fsc 0x0000.00000000 data_block_dump,data header at 0x745d85c =============== tsiz: 0x1fa0 hsiz: 0x14 pbl: 0x0745d85c bdba: 0x0041083a 76543210 flag=-------- ntab=1 nrow=1 frre=-1 fsbo=0x14 fseo=0x1f9a avsp=0x1f83 tosp=0x1f83 0xe:pti[0] nrow=1 offs=0 0x12:pri[0] offs=0x1f9a block_row_dump: tab 0, row 0, @0x1f9a tl: 6 fb: --H-FL-- lb: 0x0 cc: 1 col 0: [ 2] c1 02 end_of_block_dump ???? ITL=0x02? ?????????,col 0: [ 2] c1 02 ????????? ?????????SESSION D ,??????row lock?? ?UPDATE???????? SESSION D: SQL> update maclean_lock set t1=t1+2; 1 row updated. SQL> rollback; Rollback complete. ??SESSION B ??????????? ?????ORACLE????????, ??????????? TX lock?? row lock , ????????2??? row lock?????????, ?TX lock????????ENQUEUE LOCK???? ?????????PROCESS K?DML???????????????????????,??????????TX LOCK, ????PROCESS Z?????????????????????????ROW LOCK????????, ???????OLTP?????????????????????? ??ROW LOCK?Release ??????TX?ENQUEUE LOCK,?????????Process J ????????????, Process K??????????? ,Process K?????????,???row piece?lb??0x0 ,?????ITL, Process Z???ITL???????Process J????XID,?????Process J?????TX lock, PROCESS K ???TX resource?Enqueue Waiter Linked List?????X mode(exclusive)?enqueue lock? ???Process J??TX lock?,Process J?????TX resource?Enqueue Waiter Linked List ???Process K??????,??POST?????Process K? TX lock??????, ???????row lock???????,????????? ?????????? ?????: SESSION A ???PID =17 ?????????????????? SESSION B ???PID =24 ??????? "_trace_events"='10000-10999:255:24'; KST trace ??????? Server Process??? SESSION A PID=17 ?? acqure?SX mode???TM Lock ,?? ????Transaction?????UNDO SEGMENT 7,???XID 7.24.510, ?acquire ?X mode? TX-00070018-000001fe ? ?????? 00070018-000001fe ???? 7- 24 - 510? XID ? 781F4B8A:007A569C 17 142 10704 83 ksqgtl: acquire TM-0000da15-00000000 mode=SX flags=GLOBAL|XACT why="contention" 781F4B92:007A569D 17 142 10704 19 ksqgtl: SUCCESS 781F4BB3:007A569E 17 142 10812 2 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000234717 781F4BBA:007A569F 17 142 10812 3 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 781F4BC0:007A56A0 17 142 10812 4 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 781F4BD3:007A56A1 17 142 10812 5 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 781F4BFE:007A56A2 17 142 10811 1 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000234711 0x0000000000000002 781F4C06:007A56A3 17 142 10811 2 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000234718 0x00007FA074EDA560 781F4C26:007A56A4 17 142 10813 1 ktubnd: Bind usn 7 nax 1 nbx 0 lng 0 par 0 781F4C43:007A56A5 17 142 10813 2 ktubnd: Txn Bound xid: 7.24.510 781F4C4A:007A56A6 17 142 10704 83 ksqgtl: acquire TX-00070018-000001fe mode=X flags=GLOBAL|XACT why="contention" 781F4C51:007A56A7 17 142 10704 19 ksqgtl: SUCCESS ?????????? ???????? 781F4CBF:007A56A8 17 142 10005 1 KSL WAIT BEG [SQL*Net message to client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 781F4CCC:007A56A9 17 142 10005 2 KSL WAIT END [SQL*Net message to client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 time=13 781F4CDE:007A56AA 17 142 10005 1 KSL WAIT BEG [SQL*Net message from client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 786BD85D:007A57E0 17 142 10005 2 KSL WAIT END [SQL*Net message from client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 time=5016447 786BD966:007A57E1 17 142 10005 1 KSL WAIT BEG [SQL*Net message to client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 786BD96E:007A57E2 17 142 10005 2 KSL WAIT END [SQL*Net message to client] 1650815232/0x62657100 1/0x1 0/0x0 time=8 SESSION B ???PID =24 ,??????? SX mode? TM lock,??row lock? acquire X mode?TX-00070018-000001fe ksqgtl: acquire TM-0000da15-00000000 mode=SX flags=GLOBAL|XACT why="contention" ksqgtl: SUCCESS 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x00000000002354F8 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x00000000002354F8 0x0000000000000001 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x00000000002354F8 0x0000000008A63780 0x0000000000000001 0x0000000000800861 0x0000000000000241 0x0000000000000001 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000001 0x0000000000000001 0x000000000041083A 0x0000000000000000 0x00000000002354F9 0x0000000000000002 ksqgtl: acquire TX-00070018-000001fe mode=X flags=GLOBAL|LONG why="row lock contention" C4048EBD:007F52B6 24 140 10005 2 KSL WAIT END [enq: TX - row lock contention] 1415053318/0x54580006 458776/0x70018 510/0x1fe time=2929879 C4048ED4:007F52B7 24 140 10005 1 KSL WAIT BEG [enq: TX - row lock contention] 1415053318/0x54580006 458776/0x70018 510/0x1fe C43146CA:007F535E 24 140 10005 2 KSL WAIT END [enq: TX - row lock contention] 1415053318/0x54580006 458776/0x70018 510/0x1fe time=2930676 ????????? ,PID=24 ??????ksqcmi???????? deadlock C43146D9:007F535F 24 140 10704 134 ksqcmi: performing local deadlock detection on TX-00070018-000001fe C43146F8:007F5360 24 140 10704 150 ksqcmi: deadlock not detected on TX-00070018-000001fe ?? ??? PID 17 ??ROLLBACK ???? ,????????: PID 17 ROLLBACK; D7A495BB:007F9D3E 17 142 10005 4 KSL POST SENT postee=24 loc='ksqrcl' id1=0 id2=0 name= type=0 D7A495D8:007F9D3F 17 142 10444 12 ABORT TRANSACTION - xid: 0x0007.018.000001fe ?? PID 17 ??? TX resource?Enqueue Waiter linked List ???PID 24???,????KSL POST SENT ?? PID 24, ???ksqrcl???ENQUEUE LOCK ?PID 24??????KSL POST (KSL POST RCVD poster=17), ?ksqgtl???? TX-00070018-000001fe ?? ksqrcl??, ??PID 24???????? TX lock?USN ,??????? USN 3 XID 3.11.582 ,???acquire TX-0003000b-00000246 D7A49616:007F9D41 24 140 10005 3 KSL POST RCVD poster=17 loc='ksqrcl' id1=0 id2=0 name= type=0 fac#=0 facpost=1 D7A4961C:007F9D42 24 140 10704 19 ksqgtl: SUCCESS D7A4967D:007F9D43 24 140 10704 117 ksqrcl: release TX-00070018-000001fe mode=X D7A496A5:007F9D44 24 140 10813 1 ktubnd: Bind usn 3 nax 1 nbx 0 lng 0 par 0 D7A496C2:007F9D45 24 140 10813 2 ktubnd: Txn Bound xid: 3.11.582 D7A496C7:007F9D46 24 140 10704 83 ksqgtl: acquire TX-0003000b-00000246 mode=X flags=GLOBAL|XACT why="contention" D7A496E4:007F9D47 24 140 10704 19 ksqgtl: SUCCESS ROW LOCK?Release ??????TX?ENQUEUE LOCK,?????????Process J ????????????, Process K??????????? ,Process K?????????,???row piece?lb??0×0 ,?????ITL,Process Z???ITL???????Process J????XID,?????Process J?????TX lock,PROCESS K ???TX resource?Enqueue Waiter Linked List?????X mode(exclusive)?enqueue lock? ???Process J??TX lock?,Process J?????TX resource?Enqueue Waiter Linked List ???Process K??????,??POST?????Process K? TX lock??????,???????row lock???????,?????????

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The Presentation Isn't Over Until It's Over

- by Phil Factor

The senior corporate dignitaries settled into their seats looking important in a blue-suited sort of way. The lights dimmed as I strode out in front to give my presentation. I had ten vital minutes to make my pitch. I was about to dazzle the top management of a large software company who were considering the purchase of my software product. I would present them with a dazzling synthesis of diagrams, graphs, followed by a live demonstration of my software projected from my laptop. My preparation had been meticulous: It had to be: A year’s hard work was at stake, so I’d prepared it to perfection. I stood up and took them all in, with a gaze of sublime confidence. Then the laptop expired. There are several possible alternative plans of action when this happens A. Stare at the smoking laptop vacuously, flapping ones mouth slowly up and down B. Stand frozen like a statue, locked in indecision between fright and flight. C. Run out of the room, weeping D. Pretend that this was all planned E. Abandon the presentation in favour of a stilted and tedious dissertation about the software F. Shake your fist at the sky, and curse the sense of humour of your preferred deity I started for a few seconds on plan B, normally referred to as the ‘Rabbit in the headlamps of the car’ technique. Suddenly, a little voice inside my head spoke. It spoke the famous inane words of Yogi Berra; ‘The game isn't over until it's over.’ ‘Too right’, I thought. What to do? I ran through the alternatives A-F inclusive in my mind but none appealed to me. I was completely unprepared for this. Nowadays, longevity has since taught me more than I wanted to know about the wacky sense of humour of fate, and I would have taken two laptops. I hadn’t, but decided to do the presentation anyway as planned. I started out ignoring the dead laptop, but pretending, instead that it was still working. The audience looked startled. They were expecting plan B to be succeeded by plan C, I suspect. They weren’t used to denial on this scale. After my introductory talk, which didn’t require any visuals, I came to the diagram that described the application I’d written. I’d taken ages over it and it was hot stuff. Well, it would have been had it been projected onto the screen. It wasn’t. Before I describe what happened then, I must explain that I have thespian tendencies. My triumph as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady at the local operatic society is now long forgotten, but I remember at the time of my finest performance, the moment that, glancing up over the vast audience of moist-eyed faces at the during the poignant scene between Eliza and Higgins at the end, I realised that I had a talent that one day could possibly be harnessed for commercial use I just talked about the diagram as if it was there, but throwing in some extra description. The audience nodded helpfully when I’d done enough. Emboldened, I began a sort of mime, well, more of a ballet, to represent each slide as I came to it. Heaven knows I’d done my preparation and, in my mind’s eye, I could see every detail, but I had to somehow project the reality of that vision to the audience, much the same way any actor playing Macbeth should do the ghost of Banquo. My desperation gave me a manic energy. If you’ve ever demonstrated a windows application entirely by mime, gesture and florid description, you’ll understand the scale of the challenge, but then I had nothing to lose. With a brief sentence of description here and there, and arms flailing whilst outlining the size and shape of graphs and diagrams, I used the many tricks of mime, gesture and body-language learned from playing Captain Hook, or the Sheriff of Nottingham in pantomime. I set out determinedly on my desperate venture. There wasn’t time to do anything but focus on the challenge of the task: the world around me narrowed down to ten faces and my presentation: ten souls who had to be hypnotized into seeing a Windows application: one that was slick, well organized and functional I don’t remember the details. Eight minutes of my life are gone completely. I was a thespian berserker. I know however that I followed the basic plan of building the presentation in a carefully controlled crescendo until the dazzling finale where the results were displayed on-screen. ‘And here you see the results, neatly formatted and grouped carefully to enhance the significance of the figures, together with running trend-graphs!’ I waved a mime to signify an animated window-opening, and looked up, in my first pause, to gaze defiantly at the audience. It was a sight I’ll never forget. Ten pairs of eyes were gazing in rapt attention at the imaginary window, and several pairs of eyes were glancing at the imaginary graphs and figures. I hadn’t had an audience like that since my starring role in Beauty and the Beast. At that moment, I realized that my desperate ploy might work. I sat down, slightly winded, when my ten minutes were up. For the first and last time in my life, the audience of a ‘PowerPoint’ presentation burst into spontaneous applause. ‘Any questions?’ ‘Yes, Have you got an agent?’ Yes, in case you’re wondering, I got the deal. They bought the software product from me there and then. However, it was a life-changing experience for me and I have never ever again trusted technology as part of a presentation. Even if things can’t go wrong, they’ll go wrong and they’ll kill the flow of what you’re presenting. if you can’t do something without the techno-props, then you shouldn’t do it. The greatest lesson of all is that great presentations require preparation and ‘stage-presence’ rather than fancy graphics. They’re a great supporting aid, but they should never dominate to the point that you’re lost without them.

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