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  • C code won't compile

    - by cc
    Please help me to understand why the following code will not compile: #include <stdio.h> //#include <iostream> //using namespace std; int main(void){ int i,k,x,y,run,e,r,s,m,count=0; char numbers[19][19]; for(i=0;i<19;i++){ for (k=0;k<19;k++){ numbers[i][k]='.'; } } void drawB(){ printf(" 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 \n"); printf ("0 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[0][0],numbers[0][1],numbers[0][2],numbers[0][3],numbers[0][4], numbers[0][5],numbers[0][6],numbers[0][7],numbers[0][8],numbers[0][9], numbers[0][10],numbers[1][11],numbers[1][12],numbers[1][13],numbers[0][14] ,numbers[0][15],numbers[0][16],numbers[0][17],numbers[0][18]); printf ("1 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[1][0],numbers[1][1],numbers[1][2],numbers[1][3],numbers[1][4], numbers[1][5],numbers[1][6],numbers[1][7],numbers[1][8],numbers[1][9], numbers[1][10],numbers[1][11],numbers[1][12],numbers[1][13],numbers[1][14] ,numbers[1][15],numbers[1][16],numbers[1][17],numbers[1][18]); printf ("2 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" numbers[2][0],numbers[2][1],numbers[2][2],numbers[2][3],numbers[2][4], numbers[2][5],numbers[2][6],numbers[2][7],numbers[2][8],numbers[2][9], numbers[2][10],numbers[2][11],numbers[2][12],numbers[2][13],numbers[2][14] ,numbers[2][15],numbers[2][16],numbers[2][17],numbers[2][18]); printf ("3 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[3][0],numbers[3][1],numbers[3][2],numbers[3][3],numbers[3][4], numbers[3][5],numbers[3][6],numbers[3][7],numbers[3][8],numbers[3][9], numbers[3][10],numbers[3][11],numbers[3][12],numbers[3][13],numbers[3][14] ,numbers[3][15],numbers[3][16],numbers[3][17],numbers[3][18]); printf ("4 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[4][0],numbers[4][1],numbers[4][2],numbers[4][3],numbers[4][4], numbers[4][5],numbers[4][6],numbers[4][7],numbers[4][8],numbers[4][9], numbers[4][10],numbers[4][11],numbers[4][12],numbers[4][13],numbers[4][14] ,numbers[4][15],numbers[4][16],numbers[4][17],numbers[4][18]); printf ("5 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[5][0],numbers[5][1],numbers[5][2],numbers[5][3],numbers[5][4], numbers[5][5],numbers[5][6],numbers[5][7],numbers[5][8],numbers[5][9], numbers[5][10],numbers[5][11],numbers[5][12],numbers[5][13],numbers[5][14] ,numbers[5][15],numbers[5][16],numbers[5][17],numbers[5][18]); printf ("6 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[6][0],numbers[6][1],numbers[6][2],numbers[6][3],numbers[6][4], numbers[6][5],numbers[6][6],numbers[6][7],numbers[6][8],numbers[6][9], numbers[6][10],numbers[6][11],numbers[6][12],numbers[6][13],numbers[6][14] ,numbers[6][15],numbers[6][16],numbers[6][17],numbers[6][18]); printf ("7 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[7][0],numbers[7][1],numbers[7][2],numbers[7][3],numbers[7][4], numbers[7][5],numbers[7][6],numbers[7][7],numbers[7][8],numbers[7][9], numbers[7][10],numbers[7][11],numbers[7][12],numbers[7][13],numbers[7][14] ,numbers[7][15],numbers[7][16],numbers[7][17],numbers[7][18]); printf ("8 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[8][0],numbers[8][1],numbers[8][2],numbers[8][3],numbers[8][4], numbers[8][5],numbers[8][6],numbers[8][7],numbers[8][8],numbers[8][9], numbers[8][10],numbers[8][11],numbers[8][12],numbers[8][13],numbers[8][14] ,numbers[8][15],numbers[8][16],numbers[8][17],numbers[8][18]); printf ("9 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[9][0],numbers[9][1],numbers[9][2],numbers[9][3],numbers[9][4], numbers[9][5],numbers[9][6],numbers[9][7],numbers[9][8],numbers[9][9], numbers[9][10],numbers[9][11],numbers[9][12],numbers[9][13],numbers[9][14] ,numbers[9][15],numbers[9][16],numbers[9][17],numbers[9][18]); printf ("0 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[10][0],numbers[10][1],numbers[10][2],numbers[10][3],numbers[10][4], numbers[10][5],numbers[10][6],numbers[10][7],numbers[10][8],numbers[10][9], numbers[10][10],numbers[10][11],numbers[10][12],numbers[10][13],numbers[10][14] ,numbers[10][15],numbers[10][16],numbers[10][17],numbers[10][18]); printf ("1 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[11][0],numbers[11][1],numbers[11][2],numbers[11][3],numbers[11][4], numbers[11][5],numbers[11][6],numbers[11][7],numbers[11][8],numbers[11][9], numbers[11][10],numbers[11][11],numbers[11][12],numbers[11][13],numbers[11][14] ,numbers[11][15],numbers[11][16],numbers[11][17],numbers[11][18]); printf ("2 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[12][0],numbers[12][1],numbers[12][2],numbers[12][3],numbers[12][4], numbers[12][5],numbers[12][6],numbers[12][7],numbers[12][8],numbers[12][9], numbers[12][10],numbers[12][11],numbers[12][12],numbers[12][13],numbers[12][14] ,numbers[12][15],numbers[12][16],numbers[12][17],numbers[12][18]); printf ("3 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[13][0],numbers[13][1],numbers[13][2],numbers[13][3],numbers[13][4], numbers[13][5],numbers[13][6],numbers[13][7],numbers[13][8],numbers[13][9], numbers[13][10],numbers[13][11],numbers[13][12],numbers[13][13],numbers[13][14] ,numbers[13][15],numbers[13][16],numbers[13][17],numbers[13][18]); printf ("4 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[14][0],numbers[14][1],numbers[14][2],numbers[14][3],numbers[14][4], numbers[14][5],numbers[14][6],numbers[14][7],numbers[14][8],numbers[14][9], numbers[14][10],numbers[14][11],numbers[14][12],numbers[14][13],numbers[14][14] ,numbers[14][15],numbers[14][16],numbers[14][17],numbers[14][18]); printf ("5 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[15][0],numbers[15][1],numbers[15][2],numbers[15][3],numbers[15][4], numbers[15][5],numbers[15][6],numbers[15][7],numbers[15][8],numbers[15][9], numbers[15][10],numbers[15][11],numbers[15][12],numbers[15][13],numbers[15][14] ,numbers[15][15],numbers[15][16],numbers[15][17],numbers[15][18]); printf ("6 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[16][0],numbers[16][1],numbers[16][2],numbers[16][3],numbers[16][4], numbers[16][5],numbers[16][6],numbers[16][7],numbers[16][8],numbers[16][9], numbers[16][10],numbers[16][11],numbers[16][12],numbers[16][13],numbers[16][14] ,numbers[16][15],numbers[16][16],numbers[16][17],numbers[16][18]); printf ("7 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[17][0],numbers[17][1],numbers[17][2],numbers[17][3],numbers[17][4], numbers[17][5],numbers[17][6],numbers[17][7],numbers[17][8],numbers[17][9], numbers[17][10],numbers[17][11],numbers[17][12],numbers[17][13],numbers[17][14] ,numbers[17][15],numbers[17][16],numbers[17][17],numbers[17][18]); printf ("8 %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c %c \n\n" ,numbers[18][0],numbers[18][1],numbers[18][2],numbers[18][3],numbers[18][4], numbers[18][5],numbers[18][6],numbers[18][7],numbers[18][8],numbers[18][9], numbers[18][10],numbers[18][11],numbers[18][12],numbers[18][13],numbers[18][14] ,numbers[18][15],numbers[18][16],numbers[18][17],numbers[18][18]); } void checkSurrounded (int x,int y){ //numbers [x-1,y-1 ] , numbers [x-1,y ] , numbers [x-1,y+1 ] //numbers [x,y-1 ] , numbers [x,y ] , numbers [x,y+1 ] //numbers [x+1,y-1, ] , numbers [x+1,y ] , numbers [x+1,y+1 ] if(numbers[x][y]=='A'){ if((numbers[x-1][y-1]=='B') && (numbers[x-1][y]=='B') && (numbers[x-1][y+1]=='B') && (numbers[x][y-1]=='B') && (numbers[x][y+1]=='B') && (numbers[x+1][y-1]=='B') && (numbers[x+1][y]=='B')){ numbers[x][y]='B';} } if(numbers[x][y]=='B'){ if((numbers[x-1][y-1]=='A') && (numbers[x-1][y]=='A') && (numbers[x-1][y+1]=='A') && (numbers[x][y-1]=='A') && (numbers[x][y+1]=='A') && (numbers[x+1][y-1]=='A') && (numbers[x+1][y]=='A')){ numbers[x][y]='A'; } } } /** void checkArea(){ //detect enemy stone //store in array //find adjacent enemy stones // store the enemy stones in the array //keep on doing this until there are no more enemy stones that are adjacent for (s=0;s<19;s++) { for (m=0;m<19;m++) { if (numbers[s][m]=='A'){ count++; } } } }//end fn void checkAdjacent(int x, int y){ if (numbers [x][y]=='A'){ if((numbers[x][y-1]=='B' && numbers [x-1][y]=='B' && numbers[x][y+1]=='B' && numbers[x+1][y]=='B')){ } } } void getUserInput(){ int run=1; while(run){ printf("Enter x coordinate\n"); scanf("%d",&x); printf("Enter y coordinate\n"); scanf("%d",&y); if((x>18 || y>18 || x<0 || y<0) && !( numbers[x][y]=='.' )){ printf("invalid imput\n"); } else{ numbers[x][y]='B'; run=0; drawB(); } } } */ void getCupInput(){ //go through borad //starting from [0][0] //stop at first player stone //save as target x and target y //surround target x and target y //if already surrounded //start looking in borad again from last position //at end of board reset to [0][0] for(s=0;s<19;s++) { for(m=0;m<19;m++) { if (numbers[s][m]==0){ count++; } } } x=x-2; y=y+2; numbers[x][y]='A'; drawB(); } while(1){ //getUserInput(); getCupInput(); } system("pause"); return 0; }

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  • Resizing video best practices (frame size)

    - by undefined
    I have read the following which is from Best Practices for Encoding Video with the VP6 Codec on the Adobe website here - http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/encoding_video_print.html. It is talking about common video ratios (320x240, 640x480) Although these ratios are standard, and should be used to avoid distorting the video, the size of the encoded video is not set in stone. The original web video sizes used heights and widths that were evenly divisible by 16. This was mandatory for many early codecs. Although this is not necessary for modern codecs, you should stick to even heights and widths. What do they mean by 'even heights and widths'. I am thinking about encoding my video at 400x300 to make it slightly bigger, this is still 4x3 format but should I just stick at 320x240 and resize it on the screen? Clearly there are benefits to this in terms of storage size and delivery costs. In some places on my site I want to show the video at 400x300 but in others I want it to play full screen so this is why I am wondering if a larger original size (400x300) will give better results when blown up. Any thoughts?

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  • Questions about the MVC architecture

    - by ah123
    I started coding a considerably complicated web application, and it became quite a mess. So I figured I'd try to organize it in a better way. MVC seemed appropriate. I've never used MVC before, and researching about it I'm trying to consolidate a better perception of it (and my questions obviously reflect what I think I've learned so far). My questions are slightly JavaScript oriented: What object should make "AJAX" requests? The Controller or the Model? (seperation -- should the Model just store/manipulate the data, should it not care/know where the data came from, or should it be the one fetching it?) Should the Model call View functions providing them with data as arguments or should the View query (reference) the Model within itself? (seperation principles in mind, "the View shouldn't care/know where it gets the data from" -- is that correct?) In general, should the View "know" of the Model's existance, and vice-versa? Is the Controller the only thing gluing them together or is that simply incorrect? (I really doubt that statement is generally correct) There's a good chance I'd want to port this into a desktop/mobile application, so I would like to seperate components in a way that will allow me to achieve that task, replacing the current source of the data, HTTP requests, with DB access, and replacing the View. Maybe every approach that I've asked about is still "valid" MVC and it's just up to me to choose. I understand that nothing is set in stone, I'm just trying to have a (better) general idea in my head.

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  • How do I get an overview and a methodology for programming in Python

    - by Peter Nielsen
    I've started to learn Python and programming from scratch. I have not programmed before so it's a new experience. I do seem to grasp most of the concepts, from variables to definitions and modules. I still need to learn a lot more about what the different libraries and modules do and also I lack knowledge on OOP and classes in Python. I see people who just program in Python like that's all they have ever done and I am still just coming to grips with it. Is there a way, some tools, a logical methodology that would give me an overview or a good hold of how to handle programming problems ? For instance, I'm trying to create a parser which we need at the office . I also need to create a spider that would collect links from various websites. Is there a formidable way of studying the various modules to see what is needed ? Or is it just nose to the grind stone and understand what the documentation says ? Sorry for the lengthy question..

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  • Debug NAudio MP3 reading difference?

    - by Conrad Albrecht
    My code using NAudio to read one particular MP3 gets different results than several other commercial apps. Specifically: My NAudio-based code finds ~1.4 sec of silence at the beginning of this MP3 before "audible audio" (a drum pickup) starts, whereas other apps (Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WavePad) show ~2.5 sec of silence before that same drum pickup. The particular MP3 is "Like A Rolling Stone" downloaded from Amazon.com. Tested several other MP3s and none show any similar difference between my code and other apps. Most MP3s don't start with such a long silence so I suspect that's the source of the difference. Debugging problems: I can't actually find a way to even prove that the other apps are right and NAudio/me is wrong, i.e. to compare block-by-block my code's results to a "known good reference implementation"; therefore I can't even precisely define the "error" I need to debug. Since my code reads thousands of samples during those 1.4 sec with no obvious errors, I can't think how to narrow down where/when in the input stream to look for a bug. The heart of the NAudio code is a P/Invoke call to acmStreamConvert(), which is a Windows "black box" call which I can't think how to error-check. Can anyone think of any tricks/techniques to debug this?

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  • How to delete sentences starting with a lower case letter?

    - by Ron
    Hello: In the example below the following regex (".*?") was used to remove all dialogue first. The next step is to remove all remaining sentences starting with a lower case letter. Only sentences starting with an upper case letter should remain. Example: exclaimed Wade. Indeed, below them were villages, of crude huts made of timber and stone and mud. Rubble work walls, for they needed little shelter here, and the people were but savages. asked Arcot, his voice a bit unsteady with suppressed excitement. replied Morey without turning from his station at the window. Below them now, less than half a mile down on the patchwork of the Nile valley, men were standing, staring up, collecting in little groups, gesticulating toward the strange thing that had materialized in the air above them. In the example above the following should be deleted only: exclaimed Wade. asked Arcot, his voice a bit unsteady with suppressed excitement. replied Morey without turning from his station at the window. A useful regex or simple Perl or python code is appreciated. I'm using version 7 of Textpipe. Thanks.

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  • Lucene setboost doesn't work

    - by Keven
    Hi all, OUr team just upgrade lucene from 2.3 to 3.0 and we are confused about the setboost and getboost of document. What we want is just set a boost for each document when add them into index, then when search it the documents in the response should have different order according to the boost I set. But it seems the order is not changed at all, even the boost of each document in the search response is still 1.0. Could some one give me some hit? Following is our code: String[] a = new String[] { "schindler", "spielberg", "shawshank", "solace", "sorcerer", "stone", "soap", "salesman", "save" }; List strings = Arrays.asList(a); AutoCompleteIndex index = new Index(); IndexWriter writer = new IndexWriter(index.getDirectory(), AnalyzerFactory.createAnalyzer("en_US"), true, MaxFieldLength.LIMITED); float i = 1f; for (String string : strings) { Document doc = new Document(); Field f = new Field(AutoCompleteIndexFactory.QUERYTEXTFIELD, string, Field.Store.YES, Field.Index.NOT_ANALYZED); doc.setBoost(i); doc.add(f); writer.addDocument(doc); i += 2f; } writer.close(); IndexReader reader2 = IndexReader.open(index.getDirectory()); for (int j = 0; j < reader2.maxDoc(); j++) { if (reader2.isDeleted(j)) { continue; } Document doc = reader2.document(j); Field f = doc.getField(AutoCompleteIndexFactory.QUERYTEXTFIELD); System.out.println(f.stringValue() + ":" + f.getBoost() + ", docBoost:" + doc.getBoost()); doc.setBoost(j); }

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  • Why is debugging better in an IDE?

    - by Bill Karwin
    I've been a software developer for over twenty years, programming in C, Perl, SQL, Java, PHP, JavaScript, and recently Python. I've never had a problem I could not debug using some careful thought, and well-placed debugging print statements. I respect that many people say that my techniques are primitive, and using a real debugger in an IDE is much better. Yet from my observation, IDE users don't appear to debug faster or more successfully than I can, using my stone knives and bear skins. I'm sincerely open to learning the right tools, I've just never been shown a compelling advantage to using visual debuggers. Moreover, I have never read a tutorial or book that showed how to debug effectively using an IDE, beyond the basics of how to set breakpoints and display the contents of variables. What am I missing? What makes IDE debugging tools so much more effective than thoughtful use of diagnostic print statements? Can you suggest resources (tutorials, books, screencasts) that show the finer techniques of IDE debugging? Sweet answers! Thanks much to everyone for taking the time. Very illuminating. I voted up many, and voted none down. Some notable points: Debuggers can help me do ad hoc inspection or alteration of variables, code, or any other aspect of the runtime environment, whereas manual debugging requires me to stop, edit, and re-execute the application (possibly requiring recompilation). Debuggers can attach to a running process or use a crash dump, whereas with manual debugging, "steps to reproduce" a defect are necessary. Debuggers can display complex data structures, multi-threaded environments, or full runtime stacks easily and in a more readable manner. Debuggers offer many ways to reduce the time and repetitive work to do almost any debugging tasks. Visual debuggers and console debuggers are both useful, and have many features in common. A visual debugger integrated into an IDE also gives you convenient access to smart editing and all the other features of the IDE, in a single integrated development environment (hence the name).

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  • ASP.Net MVC - how can I easily serialize query results to a database?

    - by Mortanis
    I've been working on a little property search engine while I learn ASP.Net MVC. I've gotten the results from various property database tables and sorted them into a master generic property response. The search form is passed via Model Binding and works great. Now, I'd like to add pagination. I'm returning the chunk of properties for the current page with .Skip() and .Take(), and that's working great. I have a SearchResults model that has the paged result set and various other data like nextPage and prevPage. Except, I no longer have the original form of course to pass to /Results/2. Previously I'd have just hidden a copy of the form and done a POST each time, but it seems inelegant. I'd like to serialize the results to my MS SQL database and return a unique key for that results set - this also helps with a "Send this query to a friend!" link. Killing two birds with one stone. Is there an easy way to take an IQueryable result set that I have, serialize it, stick it into the DB, return a unique key and then reverse the process with said key? I'm using Linq to SQL currently on a MS SQL Express install, though in production it'll be on MS SQL 2008.

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  • Cross Platform C library for GUI Apps?

    - by Moshe
    Free of charge, simple to learn/use, Cross Platform C library for GUI Apps? Am I looking for Qt? Bonus question: Can I develop with the said library/toolkit on Mac then recompile on PC/Linux? Super Bonus Question: Link to tutorial and/or download of said library. (RE)EDIT: The truth is that I'm in the process of catching up on the C family (coming from web development - XHTML/PHP/MySQL) to learn iPhone development. I do understand that C is not C++ or ObjectiveC but I want to keep the learning curve as simple as possible. Not to get too off topic, but I am also on the lookout for good starter books and websites. I've found this so far. I'm trying to kill many birds with one stone here. I don understand that there are platform specific extensions, but I will try to avoid those for porting purposes The idea is that I want to write the code on one machine and just compile thrice. (Mac/Win/Linux) If Objective C will compile on Windows and Linux as well as OS X then that's good. If I must use C++, that's also fine. EDIT: Link to QT Please...

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  • Designing a different kind of tag cloud.

    - by animuson
    Rather than having a bunch of links that are all different sizes, I want all of my tags to be the same size. However, my goal is to minimize the amount of space required to make the cloud, aka minimizing the number of lines used. Take this example: Looks like any normal tag cloud. However, look at all that extra space around the 'roughdiamond' tag, which could be filled in by other tags like 'stone' down near the bottom, which could effectively eliminate an entire extra line from the cloud. How would I go about getting the words to fill in whatever space possible above them before starting a new line? I'm not talking about reorganizing them to find the absolute minimum number of lines required. If I was going through the list in the image, 'pendant', 'howlite', and 'igrice' would go to line 1 filling it up, 'roughdiamond' would go to line 2 because line 1 is full, 'tourmaline' would go to line 3 because it can't fit on lines 1 or 2, same with 'emberald', but 'pearl' would go to line 2 because it can fit there since there is extra space. I figure there would probably be some way of doing this in CSS that would simply cause the links to collapse into any fillable space it can fit in to.

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  • Anything like Heroku for PHP or .NET?

    - by Wayne M
    In my area PHP is very widespread, so is .NET. Ruby not so much; most places have never heard of it. For some personal things I am "forced" to choose Rails because I want to take advantage of Heroku - the ability to deploy and scale on the cloud very easily is the main reason. Also, they offer a small FREE plan that I can use for demo sites or, in this case, for my business' static page; as a totally bootstrapped startup I have maybe $50 or so in initial capital and cannot afford to pay monthly fees while I'm getting started. Are there any similar offerings for other languages? Specifically, I really like the small, 5MB site for free that Heroku offers - is there anything like that for PHP and/or .NET? I'm not even that concerned about the "cloud" part, but that would be a nice bonus. If there is, I might be able to kill two birds with one stone and pick up a useful skill as I'm doing my own thing instead of using something that nobody else knows or cares about. I should add I'm specifically interested in something that offers a free plan. As I said, Heroku has a 5mb plan that you can have as many as you want for free; I have yet to find anything similar for any other platform, and to be honest I'm not too thrilled about using Ruby on Rails for everything simply to take advantage of this.

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  • Highlighting a custom UIButton

    - by Dan Ray
    The app I'm building has LOTS of custom UIButtons laying over top of fairly precisely laid out images. Buttonish, controllish images and labels and what have you, but with a clear custom-style UIButton sitting over top of it to handle the tap. My client yesterday says, "I want that to highlight when you tap it". Never mind that it immediately pushes on a new uinavigationcontroller view... it didn't blink, and so he's confused. Oy. Here's what I've done to address it. I don't like it, but it's what I've done: I subclassed UIButton (naming it FlashingUIButton). For some reason I couldn't just configure it with a background image on control mode highlighted. It never seemed to hit the state "highlighted". Don't know why that is. So instead I wrote: -(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [self setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"grey_screen"] forState:UIControlStateNormal]; [self performSelector:@selector(resetImage) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.2]; [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event]; } -(void)resetImage { [self setBackgroundImage:nil forState:UIControlStateNormal]; } This happily lays my grey_screen.png (a 30% opaque black box) over the button when it's tapped and replaces it with happy emptyness .2 of a second later. This is fine, but it means I have to go through all my many nibs and change all my buttons from UIButtons to FlashingUIButtons. Which isn't the end of the world, but I'd really hoped to address this as a UIButton category, and hit all birds with one stone. Any suggestions for a better approach than this one?

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  • dm_exec_query_stats returning stale data?

    - by VoiceOfUnreason
    I've been testing my app on a SQL Server 2005 database, and am trying to establish a preliminary picture of the query performance using sys.dm_exec_query_stats. Problem: there's a particular query that I'm interested in, because total_elapsed_time and last_elapsed_time are both large numbers. When I tickle my app to invoke that query (this runs successfully), then refresh my view of the stats, I find that 1) execution_count has incremented (expected) 2) last_execution_time has updated to now (expected) 3) last_elapsed_time is still a large value (not expected - I anticipated a new value) 4) total_elapsed_time is unchanged (contradiction?) If last_elapsed_time refers to the execution that happened @ last_execution_time, then the total_elapsed_time should have increased? This documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189741(SQL.90).aspx tells me that last_execution_time is the last time the plan was executed, and last_elapsed_time comes from the "most recently executed plan", but doesn't tell me why those might be different. The query itself is uncomplicated (SELECT/WHERE/ORDER BY - parameters appearing in the where clause, but no clever operations), the table has maybe 25 rows in it right now. Questions: 1) What's the real relationship between execution_count, last_execution_time, and last_elapsed_time? 2) Where is the documentation of this relationship (manual, third party book, blog, bug ticket, stone tablets...) ?

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  • Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Classification design

    - by Simon Thorpe
    Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g indexThis is the final article in the quick guide to Oracle IRM. If you've followed everything prior you will now have a fully functional and tested Information Rights Management service. It doesn't matter if you've been following the 10g or 11g guide as this next article is common to both. ContentsWhy this is the most important part... Understanding the classification and standard rights model Identifying business use cases Creating an effective IRM classification modelOne single classification across the entire businessA context for each and every possible granular use caseWhat makes a good context? Deciding on the use of roles in the context Reviewing the features and security for context roles Summary Why this is the most important part...Now the real work begins, installing and getting an IRM system running is as simple as following instructions. However to actually have an IRM technology easily protecting your most sensitive information without interfering with your users existing daily work flows and be able to scale IRM across the entire business, requires thought into how confidential documents are created, used and distributed. This article is going to give you the information you need to ask the business the right questions so that you can deploy your IRM service successfully. The IRM team here at Oracle have over 10 years of experience in helping customers and it is important you understand the following to be successful in securing access to your most confidential information. Whatever you are trying to secure, be it mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, health care documentation or financial reports. No matter what type of user is going to access the information, be they employees, contractors or customers, there are common goals you are always trying to achieve.Securing the content at the earliest point possible and do it automatically. Removing the dependency on the user to decide to secure the content reduces the risk of mistakes significantly and therefore results a more secure deployment. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Reduce complexity in the rights/classification model. Oracle IRM lets you make changes to access to documents even after they are secured which allows you to start with a simple model and then introduce complexity once you've understood how the technology is going to be used in the business. After an initial learning period you can review your implementation and start to make informed decisions based on user feedback and administration experience. Clearly communicate to the user, when appropriate, any changes to their existing work practice. You must make every effort to make the transition to sealed content as simple as possible. For external users you must help them understand why you are securing the documents and inform them the value of the technology to both your business and them. Before getting into the detail, I must pay homage to Martin White, Vice President of client services in SealedMedia, the company Oracle acquired and who created Oracle IRM. In the SealedMedia years Martin was involved with every single customer and was key to the design of certain aspects of the IRM technology, specifically the context model we will be discussing here. Listening carefully to customers and understanding the flexibility of the IRM technology, Martin taught me all the skills of helping customers build scalable, effective and simple to use IRM deployments. No matter how well the engineering department designed the software, badly designed and poorly executed projects can result in difficult to use and manage, and ultimately insecure solutions. The advice and information that follows was born with Martin and he's still delivering IRM consulting with customers and can be found at www.thinkers.co.uk. It is from Martin and others that Oracle not only has the most advanced, scalable and usable document security solution on the market, but Oracle and their partners have the most experience in delivering successful document security solutions. Understanding the classification and standard rights model The goal of any successful IRM deployment is to balance the increase in security the technology brings without over complicating the way people use secured content and avoid a significant increase in administration and maintenance. With Oracle it is possible to automate the protection of content, deploy the desktop software transparently and use authentication methods such that users can open newly secured content initially unaware the document is any different to an insecure one. That is until of course they attempt to do something for which they don't have any rights, such as copy and paste to an insecure application or try and print. Central to achieving this objective is creating a classification model that is simple to understand and use but also provides the right level of complexity to meet the business needs. In Oracle IRM the term used for each classification is a "context". A context defines the relationship between.A group of related documents The people that use the documents The roles that these people perform The rights that these people need to perform their role The context is the key to the success of Oracle IRM. It provides the separation of the role and rights of a user from the content itself. Documents are sealed to contexts but none of the rights, user or group information is stored within the content itself. Sealing only places information about the location of the IRM server that sealed it, the context applied to the document and a few other pieces of metadata that pertain only to the document. This important separation of rights from content means that millions of documents can be secured against a single classification and a user needs only one right assigned to be able to access all documents. If you have followed all the previous articles in this guide, you will be ready to start defining contexts to which your sensitive information will be protected. But before you even start with IRM, you need to understand how your own business uses and creates sensitive documents and emails. Identifying business use cases Oracle is able to support multiple classification systems, but usually there is one single initial need for the technology which drives a deployment. This need might be to protect sensitive mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, financial documents. For this and every subsequent use case you must understand how users create and work with documents, to who they are distributed and how the recipients should interact with them. A successful IRM deployment should start with one well identified use case (we go through some examples towards the end of this article) and then after letting this use case play out in the business, you learn how your users work with content, how well your communication to the business worked and if the classification system you deployed delivered the right balance. It is at this point you can start rolling the technology out further. Creating an effective IRM classification model Once you have selected the initial use case you will address with IRM, you need to design a classification model that defines the access to secured documents within the use case. In Oracle IRM there is an inbuilt classification system called the "context" model. In Oracle IRM 11g it is possible to extend the server to support any rights classification model, but the majority of users who are not using an application integration (such as Oracle IRM within Oracle Beehive) are likely to be starting out with the built in context model. Before looking at creating a classification system with IRM, it is worth reviewing some recognized standards and methods for creating and implementing security policy. A very useful set of documents are the ISO 17799 guidelines and the SANS security policy templates. First task is to create a context against which documents are to be secured. A context consists of a group of related documents (all top secret engineering research), a list of roles (contributors and readers) which define how users can access documents and a list of users (research engineers) who have been given a role allowing them to interact with sealed content. Before even creating the first context it is wise to decide on a philosophy which will dictate the level of granularity, the question is, where do you start? At a department level? By project? By technology? First consider the two ends of the spectrum... One single classification across the entire business Imagine that instead of having separate contexts, one for engineering intellectual property, one for your financial data, one for human resources personally identifiable information, you create one context for all documents across the entire business. Whilst you may have immediate objections, there are some significant benefits in thinking about considering this. Document security classification decisions are simple. You only have one context to chose from! User provisioning is simple, just make sure everyone has a role in the only context in the business. Administration is very low, if you assign rights to groups from the business user repository you probably never have to touch IRM administration again. There are however some obvious downsides to this model.All users in have access to all IRM secured content. So potentially a sales person could access sensitive mergers and acquisition documents, if they can get their hands on a copy that is. You cannot delegate control of different documents to different parts of the business, this may not satisfy your regulatory requirements for the separation and delegation of duties. Changing a users role affects every single document ever secured. Even though it is very unlikely a business would ever use one single context to secure all their sensitive information, thinking about this scenario raises one very important point. Just having one single context and securing all confidential documents to it, whilst incurring some of the problems detailed above, has one huge value. Once secured, IRM protected content can ONLY be accessed by authorized users. Just think of all the sensitive documents in your business today, imagine if you could ensure that only everyone you trust could open them. Even if an employee lost a laptop or someone accidentally sent an email to the wrong recipient, only the right people could open that file. A context for each and every possible granular use case Now let's think about the total opposite of a single context design. What if you created a context for each and every single defined business need and created multiple contexts within this for each level of granularity? Let's take a use case where we need to protect engineering intellectual property. Imagine we have 6 different engineering groups, and in each we have a research department, a design department and manufacturing. The company information security policy defines 3 levels of information sensitivity... restricted, confidential and top secret. Then let's say that each group and department needs to define access to information from both internal and external users. Finally add into the mix that they want to review the rights model for each context every financial quarter. This would result in a huge amount of contexts. For example, lets just look at the resulting contexts for one engineering group. Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Restricted External- Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Now multiply the above by 6 for each engineering group, 18 contexts. You are then creating/reviewing another 18 every 3 months. After a year you've got 72 contexts. What would be the advantages of such a complex classification model? You can satisfy very granular rights requirements, for example only an authorized engineering group 1 researcher can create a top secret report for access internally, and his role will be reviewed on a very frequent basis. Your business may have very complex rights requirements and mapping this directly to IRM may be an obvious exercise. The disadvantages of such a classification model are significant...Huge administrative overhead. Someone in the business must manage, review and administrate each of these contexts. If the engineering group had a single administrator, they would have 72 classifications to reside over each year. From an end users perspective life will be very confusing. Imagine if a user has rights in just 6 of these contexts. They may be able to print content from one but not another, be able to edit content in 2 contexts but not the other 4. Such confusion at the end user level causes frustration and resistance to the use of the technology. Increased synchronization complexity. Imagine a user who after 3 years in the company ends up with over 300 rights in many different contexts across the business. This would result in long synchronization times as the client software updates all your offline rights. Hard to understand who can do what with what. Imagine being the VP of engineering and as part of an internal security audit you are asked the question, "What rights to researchers have to our top secret information?". In this complex model the answer is not simple, it would depend on many roles in many contexts. Of course this example is extreme, but it highlights that trying to build many barriers in your business can result in a nightmare of administration and confusion amongst users. In the real world what we need is a balance of the two. We need to seek an optimum number of contexts. Too many contexts are unmanageable and too few contexts does not give fine enough granularity. What makes a good context? Good context design derives mainly from how well you understand your business requirements to secure access to confidential information. Some customers I have worked with can tell me exactly the documents they wish to secure and know exactly who should be opening them. However there are some customers who know only of the government regulation that requires them to control access to certain types of information, they don't actually know where the documents are, how they are created or understand exactly who should have access. Therefore you need to know how to ask the business the right questions that lead to information which help you define a context. First ask these questions about a set of documentsWhat is the topic? Who are legitimate contributors on this topic? Who are the authorized readership? If the answer to any one of these is significantly different, then it probably merits a separate context. Remember that sealed documents are inherently secure and as such they cannot leak to your competitors, therefore it is better sealed to a broad context than not sealed at all. Simplicity is key here. Always revert to the first extreme example of a single classification, then work towards essential complexity. If there is any doubt, always prefer fewer contexts. Remember, Oracle IRM allows you to change your mind later on. You can implement a design now and continue to change and refine as you learn how the technology is used. It is easy to go from a simple model to a more complex one, it is much harder to take a complex model that is already embedded in the work practice of users and try to simplify it. It is also wise to take a single use case and address this first with the business. Don't try and tackle many different problems from the outset. Do one, learn from the process, refine it and then take what you have learned into the next use case, refine and continue. Once you have a good grasp of the technology and understand how your business will use it, you can then start rolling out the technology wider across the business. Deciding on the use of roles in the context Once you have decided on that first initial use case and a context to create let's look at the details you need to decide upon. For each context, identify; Administrative rolesBusiness owner, the person who makes decisions about who may or may not see content in this context. This is often the person who wanted to use IRM and drove the business purchase. They are the usually the person with the most at risk when sensitive information is lost. Point of contact, the person who will handle requests for access to content. Sometimes the same as the business owner, sometimes a trusted secretary or administrator. Context administrator, the person who will enact the decisions of the Business Owner. Sometimes the point of contact, sometimes a trusted IT person. Document related rolesContributors, the people who create and edit documents in this context. Reviewers, the people who are involved in reviewing documents but are not trusted to secure information to this classification. This role is not always necessary. (See later discussion on Published-work and Work-in-Progress) Readers, the people who read documents from this context. Some people may have several of the roles above, which is fine. What you are trying to do is understand and define how the business interacts with your sensitive information. These roles obviously map directly to roles available in Oracle IRM. Reviewing the features and security for context roles At this point we have decided on a classification of information, understand what roles people in the business will play when administrating this classification and how they will interact with content. The final piece of the puzzle in getting the information for our first context is to look at the permissions people will have to sealed documents. First think why are you protecting the documents in the first place? It is to prevent the loss of leaking of information to the wrong people. To control the information, making sure that people only access the latest versions of documents. You are not using Oracle IRM to prevent unauthorized people from doing legitimate work. This is an important point, with IRM you can erect many barriers to prevent access to content yet too many restrictions and authorized users will often find ways to circumvent using the technology and end up distributing unprotected originals. Because IRM is a security technology, it is easy to get carried away restricting different groups. However I would highly recommend starting with a simple solution with few restrictions. Ensure that everyone who reasonably needs to read documents can do so from the outset. Remember that with Oracle IRM you can change rights to content whenever you wish and tighten security. Always return to the fact that the greatest value IRM brings is that ONLY authorized users can access secured content, remember that simple "one context for the entire business" model. At the start of the deployment you really need to aim for user acceptance and therefore a simple model is more likely to succeed. As time passes and users understand how IRM works you can start to introduce more restrictions and complexity. Another key aspect to focus on is handling exceptions. If you decide on a context model where engineering can only access engineering information, and sales can only access sales data. Act quickly when a sales manager needs legitimate access to a set of engineering documents. Having a quick and effective process for permitting other people with legitimate needs to obtain appropriate access will be rewarded with acceptance from the user community. These use cases can often be satisfied by integrating IRM with a good Identity & Access Management technology which simplifies the process of assigning users the correct business roles. The big print issue... Printing is often an issue of contention, users love to print but the business wants to ensure sensitive information remains in the controlled digital world. There are many cases of physical document loss causing a business pain, it is often overlooked that IRM can help with this issue by limiting the ability to generate physical copies of digital content. However it can be hard to maintain a balance between security and usability when it comes to printing. Consider the following points when deciding about whether to give print rights. Oracle IRM sealed documents can contain watermarks that expose information about the user, time and location of access and the classification of the document. This information would reside in the printed copy making it easier to trace who printed it. Printed documents are slower to distribute in comparison to their digital counterparts, so time sensitive information in printed format may present a lower risk. Print activity is audited, therefore you can monitor and react to users abusing print rights. Summary In summary it is important to think carefully about the way you create your context model. As you ask the business these questions you may get a variety of different requirements. There may be special projects that require a context just for sensitive information created during the lifetime of the project. There may be a department that requires all information in the group is secured and you might have a few senior executives who wish to use IRM to exchange a small number of highly sensitive documents with a very small number of people. Oracle IRM, with its very flexible context classification system, can support all of these use cases. The trick is to introducing the complexity to deliver them at the right level. In another article i'm working on I will go through some examples of how Oracle IRM might map to existing business use cases. But for now, this article covers all the important questions you need to get your IRM service deployed and successfully protecting your most sensitive information.

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  • Development processes, the use of version control, and unit-testing

    - by ct01
    Preface I've worked at quite a few "flat" organizations in my time. Most of the version control policy/process has been "only commit after it's been tested". We were constantly committing at each place to "trunk" (cvs/svn). The same was true with unit-testing - it's always been a "we need to do this" mentality but it never really materializes in a substantive form b/c there is no institutional knowledge base to do it - no mentorship. Version Control The emphasis for version control management at one place was a very strict protocol for commit messages (format & content). The other places let employees just do "whatever". The branching, tagging, committing, rolling back, and merging aspect of things was always ill defined and almost never used. This sort of seems to leave the version control system in the position of being a fancy file-storage mechanism with a meta-data component that never really gets accessed/utilized. (The same was true for unit testing and committing code to the source tree) Unit tests It seems there's a prevailing "we must/should do this" mentality in most places I've worked. As a policy or standard operating procedure it never gets implemented because there seems to be a very ill-defined understanding about what that means, what is going to be tested, and how to do it. Summary It seems most places I've been to think version control and unit testing is "important" b/c the trendy trade journals say it is but, if there's very little mentorship to use these tools or any real business policies, then the full power of version control/unit testing is never really expressed. So grunts, like myself, never really have a complete understanding of the point beyond that "it's a good thing" and "we should do it". Question I was wondering if there are blogs, books, white-papers, or online journals about what one could call the business process or "standard operating procedures" or uses cases for version control and unit testing? I want to know more than the trade journals tell me and get serious about doing these things. PS: @Henrik Hansen had a great comment about the lack of definition for the question. I'm not interested in a specific unit-testing/versioning product or methodology (like, XP) - my interest is more about work-flow at the individual team/developer level than evangelism. This is more-or-less a by product of the management situation I've operated under more than a lack of reading software engineering books or magazines about development processes. A lot of what I've seen/read is more marketing oriented material than any specifically enumerated description of "well, this is how our shop operates".

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  • Silverlight Cream for December 31, 2010 -- #1019

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Michael Washington, Thomas Martinsen, Mike Ormond, William E. Burrows(-2-), Vangos Pterneas, Jesse Liberty, Diptimaya Patra, and Jeff Blankenburg(-2-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Drag from Multiple Source In Silverlight 4" Diptimaya Patra WP7: "What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 12" Jeff Blankenburg Shoutouts: Paul Thurrott posted a great phone comparison chart: Great Windows Phone comparison chart Kunal Chowdhury announced his new Silverlight Site: Welcome to Silverlight-Zone - Site is Live Now ... Good Luck, Kunal! From SilverlightCream.com: MyStudioServer goes Open Source Michael Washington decided to put his "MyStudioServer" on CodePlex... I saw this last spring and it's pretty darn cool... check out the post and examples. UriMapping for WP7 Thomas Martinsen discusses UriMapping in WP7, details the steps you need to follow and has sample code to demonstrate. More Monitoring Web Requests on Windows Phone Mike Ormond revisits a post about monitoring WP7 web requests, and shows how to get the data via Fiddler. New Tutorial – Windows Phone 7 (Getting Started) William E. Burrows has 2 parts of a video tutorial series on WP7 development up. This first gets things rolling, explains what is going on, and gets far enough to display golf courses stored in the database. WP7 Tutorial – Part 2: Managing Courses William E. Burrows's 2nd video tutorial is on building out the app to provide features to manage the gold courses for this gold handicap application. Face detection in Windows Phone 7 Vangos Pterneas has a post up about a WP7 app he did using René Schulte's Facelight to do facial recognition. Source available and also on CodePlex. Windows Phone From Scratch – Navigation II Jesse Liberty has up his latest WP7 from Scratch and is the 2nd post in the Navigation series, which is combining the previous navigation with the animation from the one before to produce a better navigation experience. Drag from Multiple Source In Silverlight 4 Diptimaya Patra has a post up at dotnetslackers on dragging into a drop area from multiple sources of different data templates and contexts. What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 12 Jeff Blankenburg's number 12 is up and he's got all the RGB colors on WP7 charted out, name, HEX, RGB, and visual... looks like a good one to bookmark What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 13 Jeff Blankenburg's number 13 is the chart I have listed in the Shoutout above... a complete phone comparison chart. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Upgrade ASP.NET MVC 2 Project to ASP.NET MVC 3

    - by mbridge
    ASP.NET MVC 3 can be installed side by side with ASP.NET MVC 2 on the same computer, which gives you flexibility in choosing when to upgrade an ASP.NET MVC 2 application to ASP.NET MVC 3. The simplest way to upgrade is to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 project and copy all the views, controllers, code, and content files from the existing MVC 2 project to the new project and then to update the assembly references in the new project to match the old project. If you have made changes to the Web.config file in the MVC 2 project, you must also merge those changes with the Web.config file in the MVC 3 project. To manually upgrade an existing ASP.NET MVC 2 application to version 3, do the following: 1. In both Web.config files in the MVC 3 project, globally search and replace the MVC version. Find the following: System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0 Replace it with the following System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0 There are three changes in the root Web.config and four in the Views\Web.config file. 2. In Solution Explorer, delete the reference to System.Web.Mvc (which points to the version 2 DLL). Then add a reference to System.Web.Mvc (v3.0.0.0). 3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project name and then select Unload Project. Then right-click again and select Edit ProjectName.csproj. 4. Locate the ProjectTypeGuids element and replace {F85E285D-A4E0-4152-9332-AB1D724D3325} with {E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401}. 5. Save the changes and then right-click the project and select Reload Project. 6. If the project references any third-party libraries that are compiled using ASP.NET MVC 2, add the following highlighted bindingRedirect element to the Web.config file in the application root under the configuration section: <runtime>   <assemblyBinding >     <dependentAssembly>       <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc"           publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>       <bindingRedirect oldVersion="2.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0"/>     </dependentAssembly>   </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Another ASP.NET MVC 3 article: - Rolling with Razor in MVC v3 Preview - Deploying ASP.NET MVC 3 web application to server where ASP.NET MVC 3 is not installed - RenderAction with ASP.NET MVC 3 Sessionless Controllers

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  • Binary on the Coat of Arms of the Governor General of Canada

    - by user132636
    Can you help me further this investigation? Here is about 10% of the work I have done on it. I present it only to see if there are any truly curious people among you. I made a video a few weeks ago showing some strange things about the Governor General's Coat of Arms and the binary on it. Today, I noticed something kinda cool and thought I would share. Here is the binary as it appears on the COA: 110010111001001010100100111010011 As DEC: 6830770643 (this is easily found on the web) Take a close look at that number. What do you notice about it? It has a few interesting features, but here is the one no one has pointed out... Split it down the middle and you have 68307 70643. The first digit is double the value of the last digit. The second digit is double the second last digit. The third digit is half of the third to last digit. And the middle ones are even or neutral. At first, I thought of it as energy. ++-nnnn+-- But actually you can create something else with it using the values. 221000211. See how that works. You may be asking why that is significant. Bare with me. I know 99% are rolling their eyes. 221000211 as base3 gives you this as binary: 100011101000111 100011101000111 as HEX is 4747, which converts to "GG". Initials of Governor General. GG.ca is his website. When you convert to base 33 (there are 33 digits in the original code) you get "GOV" Interesting? :D There is a lot more to it. I'll continue to show some strange coincidences if anyone is interested. Sorry if I am not explaining this correctly. By now you have probably figured out that I have no background in this. Which is why I am here. Thank you.

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  • Dynamically loading Assemblies to reduce Runtime Depencies

    - by Rick Strahl
    I've been working on a request to the West Wind Application Configuration library to add JSON support. The config library is a very easy to use code-first approach to configuration: You create a class that holds the configuration data that inherits from a base configuration class, and then assign a persistence provider at runtime that determines where and how the configuration data is store. Currently the library supports .NET Configuration stores (web.config/app.config), XML files, SQL records and string storage.About once a week somebody asks me about JSON support and I've deflected this question for the longest time because frankly I think that JSON as a configuration store doesn't really buy a heck of a lot over XML. Both formats require the user to perform some fixup of the plain configuration data - in XML into XML tags, with JSON using JSON delimiters for properties and property formatting rules. Sure JSON is a little less verbose and maybe a little easier to read if you have hierarchical data, but overall the differences are pretty minor in my opinion. And yet - the requests keep rolling in.Hard Link Issues in a Component LibraryAnother reason I've been hesitant is that I really didn't want to pull in a dependency on an external JSON library - in this case JSON.NET - into the core library. If you're not using JSON.NET elsewhere I don't want a user to have to require a hard dependency on JSON.NET unless they want to use the JSON feature. JSON.NET is also sensitive to versions and doesn't play nice with multiple versions when hard linked. For example, when you have a reference to V4.4 in your project but the host application has a reference to version 4.5 you can run into assembly load problems. NuGet's Update-Package can solve some of this *if* you can recompile, but that's not ideal for a component that's supposed to be just plug and play. This is no criticism of JSON.NET - this really applies to any dependency that might change.  So hard linking the DLL can be problematic for a number reasons, but the primary reason is to not force loading of JSON.NET unless you actually need it when you use the JSON configuration features of the library.Enter Dynamic LoadingSo rather than adding an assembly reference to the project, I decided that it would be better to dynamically load the DLL at runtime and then use dynamic typing to access various classes. This allows me to run without a hard assembly reference and allows more flexibility with version number differences now and in the future.But there are also a couple of downsides:No assembly reference means only dynamic access - no compiler type checking or IntellisenseRequirement for the host application to have reference to JSON.NET or else get runtime errorsThe former is minor, but the latter can be problematic. Runtime errors are always painful, but in this case I'm willing to live with this. If you want to use JSON configuration settings JSON.NET needs to be loaded in the project. If this is a Web project, it'll likely be there already.So there are a few things that are needed to make this work:Dynamically create an instance and optionally attempt to load an Assembly (if not loaded)Load types into dynamic variablesUse Reflection for a few tasks like statics/enumsThe dynamic keyword in C# makes the formerly most difficult Reflection part - method calls and property assignments - fairly painless. But as cool as dynamic is it doesn't handle all aspects of Reflection. Specifically it doesn't deal with object activation, truly dynamic (string based) member activation or accessing of non instance members, so there's still a little bit of work left to do with Reflection.Dynamic Object InstantiationThe first step in getting the process rolling is to instantiate the type you need to work with. This might be a two step process - loading the instance from a string value, since we don't have a hard type reference and potentially having to load the assembly. Although the host project might have a reference to JSON.NET, that instance might have not been loaded yet since it hasn't been accessed yet. In ASP.NET this won't be a problem, since ASP.NET preloads all referenced assemblies on AppDomain startup, but in other executable project, assemblies are just in time loaded only when they are accessed.Instantiating a type is a two step process: Finding the type reference and then activating it. Here's the generic code out of my ReflectionUtils library I use for this:/// <summary> /// Creates an instance of a type based on a string. Assumes that the type's /// </summary> /// <param name="typeName">Common name of the type</param> /// <param name="args">Any constructor parameters</param> /// <returns></returns> public static object CreateInstanceFromString(string typeName, params object[] args) { object instance = null; Type type = null; try { type = GetTypeFromName(typeName); if (type == null) return null; instance = Activator.CreateInstance(type, args); } catch { return null; } return instance; } /// <summary> /// Helper routine that looks up a type name and tries to retrieve the /// full type reference in the actively executing assemblies. /// </summary> /// <param name="typeName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Type GetTypeFromName(string typeName) { Type type = null; // Let default name binding find it type = Type.GetType(typeName, false); if (type != null) return type; // look through assembly list var assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies(); // try to find manually foreach (Assembly asm in assemblies) { type = asm.GetType(typeName, false); if (type != null) break; } return type; } To use this for loading JSON.NET I have a small factory function that instantiates JSON.NET and sets a bunch of configuration settings on the generated object. The startup code also looks for failure and tries loading up the assembly when it fails since that's the main reason the load would fail. Finally it also caches the loaded instance for reuse (according to James the JSON.NET instance is thread safe and quite a bit faster when cached). Here's what the factory function looks like in JsonSerializationUtils:/// <summary> /// Dynamically creates an instance of JSON.NET /// </summary> /// <param name="throwExceptions">If true throws exceptions otherwise returns null</param> /// <returns>Dynamic JsonSerializer instance</returns> public static dynamic CreateJsonNet(bool throwExceptions = true) { if (JsonNet != null) return JsonNet; lock (SyncLock) { if (JsonNet != null) return JsonNet; // Try to create instance dynamic json = ReflectionUtils.CreateInstanceFromString("Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer"); if (json == null) { try { var ass = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.Load("Newtonsoft.Json"); json = ReflectionUtils.CreateInstanceFromString("Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer"); } catch (Exception ex) { if (throwExceptions) throw; return null; } } if (json == null) return null; json.ReferenceLoopHandling = (dynamic) ReflectionUtils.GetStaticProperty("Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling", "Ignore"); // Enums as strings in JSON dynamic enumConverter = ReflectionUtils.CreateInstanceFromString("Newtonsoft.Json.Converters.StringEnumConverter"); json.Converters.Add(enumConverter); JsonNet = json; } return JsonNet; }This code's purpose is to return a fully configured JsonSerializer instance. As you can see the code tries to create an instance and when it fails tries to load the assembly, and then re-tries loading.Once the instance is loaded some configuration occurs on it. Specifically I set the ReferenceLoopHandling option to not blow up immediately when circular references are encountered. There are a host of other small config setting that might be useful to set, but the default seem to be good enough in recent versions. Note that I'm setting ReferenceLoopHandling which requires an Enum value to be set. There's no real easy way (short of using the cardinal numeric value) to set a property or pass parameters from static values or enums. This means I still need to use Reflection to make this work. I'm using the same ReflectionUtils class I previously used to handle this for me. The function looks up the type and then uses Type.InvokeMember() to read the static property.Another feature I need is have Enum values serialized as strings rather than numeric values which is the default. To do this I can use the StringEnumConverter to convert enums to strings by adding it to the Converters collection.As you can see there's still a bit of Reflection to be done even in C# 4+ with dynamic, but with a few helpers this process is relatively painless.Doing the actual JSON ConversionFinally I need to actually do my JSON conversions. For the Utility class I need serialization that works for both strings and files so I created four methods that handle these tasks two each for serialization and deserialization for string and file.Here's what the File Serialization looks like:/// <summary> /// Serializes an object instance to a JSON file. /// </summary> /// <param name="value">the value to serialize</param> /// <param name="fileName">Full path to the file to write out with JSON.</param> /// <param name="throwExceptions">Determines whether exceptions are thrown or false is returned</param> /// <param name="formatJsonOutput">if true pretty-formats the JSON with line breaks</param> /// <returns>true or false</returns> public static bool SerializeToFile(object value, string fileName, bool throwExceptions = false, bool formatJsonOutput = false) { dynamic writer = null; FileStream fs = null; try { Type type = value.GetType(); var json = CreateJsonNet(throwExceptions); if (json == null) return false; fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create); var sw = new StreamWriter(fs, Encoding.UTF8); writer = Activator.CreateInstance(JsonTextWriterType, sw); if (formatJsonOutput) writer.Formatting = (dynamic)Enum.Parse(FormattingType, "Indented"); writer.QuoteChar = '"'; json.Serialize(writer, value); } catch (Exception ex) { Debug.WriteLine("JsonSerializer Serialize error: " + ex.Message); if (throwExceptions) throw; return false; } finally { if (writer != null) writer.Close(); if (fs != null) fs.Close(); } return true; }You can see more of the dynamic invocation in this code. First I grab the dynamic JsonSerializer instance using the CreateJsonNet() method shown earlier which returns a dynamic. I then create a JsonTextWriter and configure a couple of enum settings on it, and then call Serialize() on the serializer instance with the JsonTextWriter that writes the output to disk. Although this code is dynamic it's still fairly short and readable.For full circle operation here's the DeserializeFromFile() version:/// <summary> /// Deserializes an object from file and returns a reference. /// </summary> /// <param name="fileName">name of the file to serialize to</param> /// <param name="objectType">The Type of the object. Use typeof(yourobject class)</param> /// <param name="binarySerialization">determines whether we use Xml or Binary serialization</param> /// <param name="throwExceptions">determines whether failure will throw rather than return null on failure</param> /// <returns>Instance of the deserialized object or null. Must be cast to your object type</returns> public static object DeserializeFromFile(string fileName, Type objectType, bool throwExceptions = false) { dynamic json = CreateJsonNet(throwExceptions); if (json == null) return null; object result = null; dynamic reader = null; FileStream fs = null; try { fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read); var sr = new StreamReader(fs, Encoding.UTF8); reader = Activator.CreateInstance(JsonTextReaderType, sr); result = json.Deserialize(reader, objectType); reader.Close(); } catch (Exception ex) { Debug.WriteLine("JsonNetSerialization Deserialization Error: " + ex.Message); if (throwExceptions) throw; return null; } finally { if (reader != null) reader.Close(); if (fs != null) fs.Close(); } return result; }This code is a little more compact since there are no prettifying options to set. Here JsonTextReader is created dynamically and it receives the output from the Deserialize() operation on the serializer.You can take a look at the full JsonSerializationUtils.cs file on GitHub to see the rest of the operations, but the string operations are very similar - the code is fairly repetitive.These generic serialization utilities isolate the dynamic serialization logic that has to deal with the dynamic nature of JSON.NET, and any code that uses these functions is none the wiser that JSON.NET is dynamically loaded.Using the JsonSerializationUtils WrapperThe final consumer of the SerializationUtils wrapper is an actual ConfigurationProvider, that is responsible for handling reading and writing JSON values to and from files. The provider is simple a small wrapper around the SerializationUtils component and there's very little code to make this work now:The whole provider looks like this:/// <summary> /// Reads and Writes configuration settings in .NET config files and /// sections. Allows reading and writing to default or external files /// and specification of the configuration section that settings are /// applied to. /// </summary> public class JsonFileConfigurationProvider<TAppConfiguration> : ConfigurationProviderBase<TAppConfiguration> where TAppConfiguration: AppConfiguration, new() { /// <summary> /// Optional - the Configuration file where configuration settings are /// stored in. If not specified uses the default Configuration Manager /// and its default store. /// </summary> public string JsonConfigurationFile { get { return _JsonConfigurationFile; } set { _JsonConfigurationFile = value; } } private string _JsonConfigurationFile = string.Empty; public override bool Read(AppConfiguration config) { var newConfig = JsonSerializationUtils.DeserializeFromFile(JsonConfigurationFile, typeof(TAppConfiguration)) as TAppConfiguration; if (newConfig == null) { if(Write(config)) return true; return false; } DecryptFields(newConfig); DataUtils.CopyObjectData(newConfig, config, "Provider,ErrorMessage"); return true; } /// <summary> /// Return /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TAppConfig"></typeparam> /// <returns></returns> public override TAppConfig Read<TAppConfig>() { var result = JsonSerializationUtils.DeserializeFromFile(JsonConfigurationFile, typeof(TAppConfig)) as TAppConfig; if (result != null) DecryptFields(result); return result; } /// <summary> /// Write configuration to XmlConfigurationFile location /// </summary> /// <param name="config"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool Write(AppConfiguration config) { EncryptFields(config); bool result = JsonSerializationUtils.SerializeToFile(config, JsonConfigurationFile,false,true); // Have to decrypt again to make sure the properties are readable afterwards DecryptFields(config); return result; } }This incidentally demonstrates how easy it is to create a new provider for the West Wind Application Configuration component. Simply implementing 3 methods will do in most cases.Note this code doesn't have any dynamic dependencies - all that's abstracted away in the JsonSerializationUtils(). From here on, serializing JSON is just a matter of calling the static methods on the SerializationUtils class.Already, there are several other places in some other tools where I use JSON serialization this is coming in very handy. With a couple of lines of code I was able to add JSON.NET support to an older AJAX library that I use replacing quite a bit of code that was previously in use. And for any other manual JSON operations (in a couple of apps I use JSON Serialization for 'blob' like document storage) this is also going to be handy.Performance?Some of you might be thinking that using dynamic and Reflection can't be good for performance. And you'd be right… In performing some informal testing it looks like the performance of the native code is nearly twice as fast as the dynamic code. Most of the slowness is attributable to type lookups. To test I created a native class that uses an actual reference to JSON.NET and performance was consistently around 85-90% faster with the referenced code. That being said though - I serialized 10,000 objects in 80ms vs. 45ms so this isn't hardly slouchy. For the configuration component speed is not that important because both read and write operations typically happen once on first access and then every once in a while. But for other operations - say a serializer trying to handle AJAX requests on a Web Server one would be well served to create a hard dependency.Dynamic Loading - Worth it?On occasion dynamic loading makes sense. But there's a price to be paid in added code complexity and a performance hit. But for some operations that are not pivotal to a component or application and only used under certain circumstances dynamic loading can be beneficial to avoid having to ship extra files and loading down distributions. These days when you create new projects in Visual Studio with 30 assemblies before you even add your own code, trying to keep file counts under control seems a good idea. It's not the kind of thing you do on a regular basis, but when needed it can be a useful tool. Hopefully some of you find this information useful…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in .NET  C#   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Commit Review Questions

    - by Wes McClure
    Note: in this article when I refer to a commit, I mean the commit you plan to share with the rest of the team, if you have local commits that you plan to amend/combine, I am referring to the final result. In time you will find these easier to do as you develop, however, all of these are valuable before checking in!  The pre commit review is a nice time to polish what might have been several hours of intense work, during which these things were the last things on your mind!  If you are concerned about losing your work in the process of responding to these questions, first do a check-in and amend it as you go (assuming you are using a tool such as git that supports this), rolling the result into one nice commit for everyone else.  Did you review your commit, change by change, with a diff utility? If not, this is a list of reasons why you might want to start! Did you test your changes? If the test is valuable to be automated, is it? If it’s a manual testing scenario, did you at least try the basics manually? Are the additions/changes formatted consistently with the rest of the project? Lots of automated tools can help here, don’t try to manually format the code, that’s a waste of time and as a human you will fail repeatedly. Are these consistent: tabs versus spaces, indentation, spacing, braces, line breaks, etc Resharper is a great example of a tool that can automate this for you (.net) Are naming conventions respected? Did you accidently use abbreviations, unless you have a good reason to use them? Does capitalization match the conventions in the project/language? Are files partitioned? Sometimes we add new code in existing files in a pinch, it’s a good idea to split these out if they don’t belong ie: are new classes defined in new files, if this is something your project values? Is there commented out code? If you are removing an existing feature, get rid of it, that is why we have VCS If it’s not done yet, then why are you checking it in? Perhaps a stash commit (git)? Did you leave debug or unnecessary changes? Do you understand all of the changes? http://geekswithblogs.net/wesm/archive/2012/04/11/programming-doesnrsquot-have-to-be-magic.aspx Are there spelling mistakes? Including your commit message! Is your commit message concise? Is there follow up work? Are there tasks you didn’t write down that you need to follow up with? Are readability or reorganization changes needed? This might be amended into the final commit, or it might be future work that needs added to the backlog. Are there other things your team values that you should review?

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  • AdventureWorks 2014 Sample Databases Are Now Available

    - by aspiringgeek
      Where in the World is AdventureWorks? Recently, SQL Community feedback from twitter prompted me to look in vain for SQL Server 2014 versions of the AdventureWorks sample databases we’ve all grown to know & love. I searched Codeplex, then used the bing & even the google in an effort to locate them, yet all I could find were samples on different sites highlighting specific technologies, an incomplete collection inconsistent with the experience we users had learned to expect.  I began pinging internally & learned that an update to AdventureWorks wasn’t even on the road map.  Fortunately, SQL Marketing manager Luis Daniel Soto Maldonado (t) lent a sympathetic ear & got the update ball rolling; his direct report Darmodi Komo recently announced the release of the shiny new sample databases for OLTP, DW, Tabular, and Multidimensional models to supplement the extant In-Memory OLTP sample DB.  What Success Looks Like In my correspondence with the team, here’s how I defined success: 1. Sample AdventureWorks DBs hosted on Codeplex showcasing SQL Server 2014’s latest-&-greatest features, including:  In-Memory OLTP (aka Hekaton) Clustered Columnstore Online Operations Resource Governor IO 2. Where it makes sense to do so, consolidate the DBs (e.g., showcasing Columnstore likely involves a separate DW DB) 3. Documentation to support experimenting with these features As Microsoft Senior SDE Bonnie Feinberg (b) stated, “I think it would be great to see an AdventureWorks for SQL 2014.  It would be super helpful for third-party book authors and trainers.  It also provides a common way to share examples in blog posts and forum discussions, for example.”  Exactly.  We’ve established a rich & robust tradition of sample databases on Codeplex.  This is what our community & our customers expect.  The prompt response achieves what we all aim to do, i.e., manifests the Service Design Engineering mantra of “delighting the customer”.  Kudos to Luis’s team in SQL Server Marketing & Kevin Liu’s team in SQL Server Engineering for doing so. Download AdventureWorks 2014 Download your copies of SQL Server 2014 AdventureWorks sample databases here.

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  • Mixing It Up with BluesMix

    - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team
    By Karen Shamban At home base in London prior to making a swing on the US west coast later this month, BluesMix took a few minutes to answer some musical questions. Q: What are the top three things people should know about your music? A: We focus on original material and blend funk with blues. We're big on songwriting but also performance, groove, and feel of the music. It's music you can dance to! We're from London, England and have been labeled 'one of the UK's leading blues/funk bands'. Oh - that's four things! :) Q: Do you prefer smaller, intimate venues or larger, louder ones? A: Actually both, for different reasons. We play many intimate club shows in London at prestigious venues such as the 100 Club. There's lots of musical history with these types of clubs where the likes of the Rolling Stones used to play week-in week-out in the '60s. Usually these shows generally have a fantastic atmosphere, with a close connection to the audience, who are packed close to the stage. They often turn up surprises too…for example, we've had artists such as Amy Winehouse and Mick Abrahams in the crowd enjoying the show and then asking to come onstage and play with the band. Lots of fun! The larger venues are great too, in a different way. We've played to 3,000-person+ crowds and the atmosphere with so many people enjoying the show is a real buzz. It's also nice to play outdoor venues, especially in places with nice weather like California! Q: What's new and different in the music you are playing today, versus a year or two ago? A: Well, we released a new album earlier this year. It's called Flat Nine; it's on the Proper Records label. Whilst our music has always been a blend of blues and vintage funk, this album in particular has evolved our funk side even further. We've received some really great reviews from the music press in the UK and had generous comparisons to the likes of The Meters, Dr. John, The Average White Band, Howlin' Wolf. The album has generated lots of interest, which is fantastic. We're playing to regular sellout shows in the UK and are also opening for some legends of the funk music scene, such as The New Mastersounds. BluesMix are headlining the Oracle OpenWorld Welcome Reception in Yerba Buena Gardens on Sunday, September 30 and are playing at the Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival at Slim's on Tuesday, October 2. More on the music: Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival BluesMix  >>

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  • New channels for Exadata 11.2.3.1.1

    - by Rene Kundersma
    With the release of Exadata 11.2.3.1.0 back in April 2012 Oracle has deprecated the minimal pack for the Exadata Database Servers (compute nodes). From that release the Linux Database Server updates will be done using ULN and YUM. For the 11.2.3.1.0 release the ULN exadata_dbserver_11.2.3.1.0_x86_64_base channel was made available and Exadata operators could subscribe their system to it via linux.oracle.com. With the new 11.2.3.1.1 release two additional channels are added: a 'latest' channel (exadata_dbserver_11.2_x86_64_latest) a 'patch' channel (exadata_dbserver_11.2_x86_64_patch) The patch channel has the new or updated packages updated in 11.2.3.1.1 from the base channel. The latest channel has all the packages from 11.2.3.1.0 base and patch channels combined.  From here there are three possible situations a Database Server can be in before it can be updated to 11.2.3.1.1: Database Server is on Exadata release < 11.2.3.1.0 Database Server is patched to 11.2.3.1.0 Database Server is freshly imaged to 11.2.3.1.0 In order to bring a Database Server to 11.2.3.1.1 for all three cases the same approach for updating can be used (using YUM), but there are some minor differences: For Database Servers on a release < 11.2.3.1.0 the following high-level steps need to be performed: Subscribe to el5_x86_64_addons, ol5_x86_64_latest and  exadata_dbserver_11.2_x86_64_latest Create local repository Point Database Server to the local repository* install the update * during this process a one-time action needs to be done (details in the README) For Database Servers patched to 11.2.3.1.0: Subscribe to patch channel  exadata_dbserver_11.2_x86_64_patch Create local repository Point Database Server to the local repository Update the system For Database Servers freshly imaged to 11.2.3.1.0: Subscribe to patch channel  exadata_dbserver_11.2_x86_64_patch Create local  repository Point Database Server to the local repository Update the system The difference between 'situation 2' (Database Server is patched to 11.2.3.1.0) and 'situation 3' (Database Server is freshly imaged to 11.2.3.1.0) is that in situation 2 the existing Exadata-computenode.repo file needs to be edited while in situation 3 this file is not existing  and needs to be created or copied. Another difference is that you will end up with more OFA packages installed in situation 2. This is because none are removed during the updating process.  The YUM update functionality with the new channels is a great enhancements to the Database Server update procedure. As usual, the updates can be done in a rolling fashion so no database service downtime is required.  For detailed and up-to-date instructions always see the patch README's 1466459.1 patch 13998727 888828.1 Rene Kundersma

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  • More Maintenance Plan Weirdness

    - by AjarnMark
    I’m not a big fan of the built-in Maintenance Plan functionality in SQL Server.  I like the interface in SQL 2005 better than 2000 (it looks more like building an SSIS package) but it’s still a bit of a black box.  You don’t really know what commands are being run based on the selections you have made, and you can easily make some unwise choices without realizing it, such as shrinking your database on a regular basis.  I really prefer to know exactly what commands and with which options are being run on my servers. Recently I had another very strange thing happen with a Maintenance Plan, this time in SQL 2005, SP3.  I inherited this server and have done a bit of cleanup on it, but had not yet gotten around to replacing the Maintenance Plans with all my own scripts.  However, one of the maintenance plans which was just responsible for doing LOG backups was running more frequently than that system needed, and I thought I would just tweak the schedule a bit.  So I opened the Maintenance Plan and edited the properties of the Subplan, setting a new schedule, saved it and figured all was good to go.  But the next execution of the Scheduled Job that triggers the Maintenance Plan code failed with an error about the Owner of the job.  Specifically the error was, “Unable to determine if the owner (OldDomain\OldDBAUserID) of job MaintenancePlanName.Subplan has server access (reason: Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user 'OldDomain\OldDBAUserID’..”  I was really confused because I had previously updated all of the jobs to have current accounts as the owners.  At first I thought it was just a fluke, but it happened on the next scheduled cycle so I investigated further and sure enough, that job had the old DBA’s account listed as the owner.  I fixed it and the job successfully ran to completion. Now, I don’t really like mysteries like that, so I did some more testing and verified that, sure enough, just editing the Subplan schedule and saving the Maintenance Job caused the Scheduled Job to be recreated with the old credentials.  I don’t know where it is getting those credentials, but I can only assume that it is the same as the original creator of the Maintenance Plan, and for some reason it insists on using that ID for the job owner.  I looked through the options in SSMA and could not find anything would let me easily set the value that I wanted it to use.  I suspect that if I did something like executing sp_changeobjectowner against the Maintenance Plan that it would use that new ID instead.  I’m sure that there is good reason that it works this way, but rather than mess around with it much more, I’m just going to spend my time rolling out my replacement scripts instead. Chalk this little hidden oddity up as yet one more reason I’m not a fan of Maintenance Plans.

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