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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, November 27, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, November 27, 2012Popular ReleasesCodeGen Code Generator: CodeGen 4.2.6: IMPORTANT: If you are using CodeGen in conjunction with Symphony Framework then it is important that you do not upgrade to this version of CodeGen until you also upgrade to Symphony Framework V2.1.0.0. Changes in this release include: The CodeGen installation on Windows now supports upgrading from a previously installed version. We use Windows Installers "major upgrade" mechanism, which essentially performs an automatic uninstall of a previous version before installing the new version. The ea...SimpleRest Integrated Pipeline: Beta: Beta version of the integrated REST pipeline.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.3.0: New features: Dropdown/Radio/Checkbox Lists no longer references the userkey. Instead they refer to the UUID field for input value. You can now delete, export, import content from database in the site settings. Labels can now be imported and exported. You can now set the required password strength and maximum number of incorrect login attempts. Child sites can inherit plugins from its parent sites. The view parameter can be changed through the page_context.current value. Addition of c...Facebook Windows 8 Sample: Facebook Windows 8 Sample: The current drop holds two versions of the sample: A basic version that uses a Facebook application to list the content of facebook page. A full version including the use of Bing Maps sdk for positioning the restaurant in a map, and showing how to get there. See Developing a Windows Store App to learn how to use the Bing Maps AJAX Control to add Bing Maps to your Windows Store app.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.75: Fix over-aggressive removal of local-variable assignments in return statements. Can't remove them if there are any inner-scope references. add settings properties/switches for V3 source map source root value, and a flag to indicate whether to add an XSSI-busting header to the map file.Distributed Publish/Subscribe (Pub/Sub) Event System: Distributed Pub Sub Event System Version 3.0: Important Wsp 3.0 is NOT backward compatible with Wsp 2.1. Prerequisites You need to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package. You can find it at: x64 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=14632x86 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555 Wsp now uses Rx (Reactive Extensions) and .Net 4.0 3.0 Enhancements I changed the topology from a hierarchy to peer-to-peer groups. This should provide much greater scalability and more fault-resi...sb0t v.5: sb0t 500 alpha 5: Keep those bug reports coming. :)Redmine Reports: Redmine Reports V 1.0.7: added new sample report added new DateRange feature for report generation (see issue Tracker ID 15372) updated to latest MySql (6.6.4.0)datajs - JavaScript Library for data-centric web applications: datajs version 1.1.0: datajs is a cross-browser and UI agnostic JavaScript library that enables data-centric web applications with the following features: OData client that enables CRUD operations including batching and metadata support using both ATOM and JSON payloads. Single store abstraction that provides a common API on top of HTML5 local storage technologies. Data cache component that allows reading data ranges from a collection and storing them locally to reduce the number of network requests. Changes...Team Foundation Server Administration Tool: 2.2: TFS Administration Tool 2.2 supports the Team Foundation Server 2012 Object Model. Visual Studio 2012 or Team Explorer 2012 must be installed before you can install this tool. You can download and install Team Explorer 2012 from http://aka.ms/TeamExplorer2012. There are no functional changes between the previous release (2.1) and this release.Coding Guidelines for C# 3.0, C# 4.0 and C# 5.0: Coding Guidelines for CSharp 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0: See Change History for a detailed list of modifications.Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.3.0: Portable Library Build: Adds support for WP8 (.Net 4.0 and higher, SL5, WP8 and .NET for Windows Store apps) New: portable build also for F# extensions (.Net 4.5, SL5 and .NET for Windows Store apps) NuGet: portable builds are now included in the main packages, no more need for special portable packages Linear Algebra: Continued major storage rework, in this release focusing on vectors (previous release was on matrices) Thin QR decomposition (in addition to existing full QR) Static Cr...ExtJS based ASP.NET 2.0 Controls: FineUI v3.2.1: +2012-11-25 v3.2.1 +????????。 -MenuCheckBox?CheckedChanged??????，??????????。 -???????window.IDS??????????????。 -?????（??TabCollection，ControlBaseCollection）???，????????????????。 +Grid??。 -??SelectAllRows??。 -??PageItems??，?????????????，?????、??、?????。 -????grid/gridpageitems.aspx、grid/gridpageitemsrowexpander.aspx、grid/gridpageitems_pagesize.aspx。 -???????????????????。 -??ExpandAllRowExpanders??，?????????????????（grid/gridrowexpanderexpandall2.aspx）。 -??????ExpandRowExpande...VidCoder: 1.4.9 Beta: Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5079. Fixed crashes when encoding DVDs with title gaps.ZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.10.0.0: On the way to a release 1.0 the API should be stable now with this version. sync with rev. 2521 of the java version windows phone 8 assemblies improvements and fixesBlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.3: 2012.11.24 Ver5.7.3 (1)SMTP???????、?????????、??????????????????????? (2)?????????、?????????????????????????? (3)DNS???????CNAME????CNAME????????????????? (4)DNS????????????TTL???????? (5)???????????????????????、?????????????????? (6)???????????????????????????????Liberty: v3.4.3.0 Release 23rd November 2012: Change Log -Added -H4 A dialog which gives further instructions when attempting to open a "Halo 4 Data" file -H4 Added a short note to the weapon editor stating that dropping your weapons will cap their ammo -Reach Edit the world's gravity -Reach Fine invincibility controls in the object editor -Reach Edit object velocity -Reach Change the teams of AI bipeds and vehicles -Reach Enable/disable fall damage on the biped editor screen -Reach Make AIs deaf and/or blind in the objec...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.11.0: NugetNuGet BlogRead the release blog post for 4.11.0. Whats new50 bugfixes (see the issue tracker for a complete list) Read the documentation for the MVC bits. Breaking changesGetPropertyValue now returns an object, not a string (only affects upgrades from 4.10.x to 4.11.0) NoteIf you need Courier use the release candidate (as of build 26). The code editor has been greatly improved, but is sometimes problematic in Internet Explorer 9 and lower. Previously it was just disabled for IE and...Audio Pitch & Shift: Audio Pitch And Shift 5.1.0.3: Fixed supported files list on open dialog (added .pls and .m3u) Impulse Media Player splash message (can be disabled anyway)WiX Toolset: WiX v3.7 RC: WiX v3.7 RC (3.7.1119.0) provides feature complete Bundle update and reference tracking plus several bug fixes. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/11/20/WiX-v3.7-Release-Candidate-availableNew Projects20121126: ??????SVN????。AHMobe: Testing deployments to AppHarborArborium: A versatile, tree-based data structure to store or exchange data and metadata efficiently (in binary format). Written in pure C#.Ballenato: Mobile app salidas.Blend Assets Manager (Blasm): Blend Assets Manager (Blasm) is a simple application to allow users of Expression Blend adding custom and third-party controls to Blend Assets tab.Cornell Class Explorer: Cornell University Courses of Study Windows 8 AppCustom Cursor for Metro APP XAML Based: It's a porting program from Nielsen for win 8 Metro Style app XAML based. original: http://www.sharpgis.net/post/2011/05/09/Custom-Cursors-in-Silverlight.aspxDataAnalyzer: Application for analyzing protocols and other binary dataDebugWriterTextBox: This is modified TextBox which can catch up Debug.Write() and display log. Also it can write log data to file - all you need is to set up file name!Dewin: Solution th? nghi?m cho chuong trình Dewin, dùng d? th?c hi?n co b?n v? hu?ng d?i tu?ngEducação no Trânsito: Sistema para Educação para o Trânsito – Um Ambiente para o Aprendizado tem como principal função gerir conteúdos de educação no trânsitoEjemplos alabra: Ejemplos para el blog http://www.alejandrolabra.comEnterprise MVC Music Store: The Enterprise Music Store takes the MvcMusicStore sample from ASP.Net and adds Dependency Injection, Unit Tests and a more maintainable architecture. ERC - Easy Redirect Converter: Tool to convert websites using .htaccess to maintain redirects on sites that do not support it. Great for moving from Apache to IIS Facebook Windows 8 Sample: This sample shows a way to work with Facebook APIs by using the Open Graph API in a Windows Store App. Gruyas: Plataforma educativa online Os like.G's Syndication Pocket: G's Syndication Pocket is simple RSS Aggregate application. This is suitable for .NET Compact Framework. I checked it on Sharp's W-ZERO3.HTML to OpenXML (PHP Script): H2OXML : HTML to OpenXML Converter is a simple PHP script which take HTML code and transform it into OpenXML Code. (for Docx) Indexr: Indexr is an open source project, where I am trying to share how to build a web application with Strong Architecture, Manageable, High Performance, EffectivelyjQuery Expandable Menu for SharePoint 2010: Packaged as a site collection feature, this component transforms the SharePoint 2010 standard navigation menu into an expandable-collapsible menu, using jQuery.K-Vizinhos: K-VizinhosLa Ranisima: La Ranisima is an open source "Space Invaders" alike game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that uses keyboard. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Windows and others.lambdaCommandBuilderData: ???????????????????，????????????，???????。 ??????test??，?????????。LeyRay: Quick view and merge Doc and Pdf filesMessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: This is really simple lib project for use RTL in MessegeBox class. This just for short code and default option for RTL.MineFlagger: MineFlagger is a mine clearing game modeled after Microsoft’s Minesweeper. In addition to standard play, MineFlagger incorporates an AI for fun and training.MineSweeperChallenge: C# programming exercise. Simulates a given number of minesweeper games using a given ISweeper implementation (or use the step by step mode to study how the ISweeper implementations work). Create your own implementation and see how it compares to other implementations.MVVM Light Plus: Multiplatform MVVM Framework.Nethouse MVP: Nethouse MVP is a framework incorporating MVP base presenters, views and interfaces. Neznayka: Static Ruleset for VS2010 Database Edition. Noctl Library: Noctl is a C# library which contains tools to improve production time. It supports .net 4.5, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Store applications.Oridea.Data.Fetching: Oridea.Data.Fetching is a class library that consists of a few wrappers over the LINQ's IQueryable interface narrowing its scope to fetching, ordering, and paging operations. It is designed for use in the implementations of the Repository pattern.p301: Old project.PluggEd: To be continuedProject13241127: papaProject13271127: papareading control for windows phone: reading control for windows phoneRSUtility: RS Utility is a C# application that interacts with a SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) web service to manage items on a report server.sadd.practical.approach: SADD workshop is a project testorage to demonstrate practical approach of sadd while Lessons Learned site was developing. ?????? ???? ?????????? ??????????? ??? ?? ???????? ?????????? SADD ??? ???????? ????? "????????? ??????", ??????????? ????????? ??????????????? ?????? ?????.SimpleRest Integrated Pipeline: Simple light weight integrated extensible REST pipeline that developers can use to very quickly and reliably create REST services. Influenced by WebApi 0..6.0.0Substitute - Variable Substitution Utility for Config Management: Variable Substitution Utility for Configuration Management (FinalBuilder etc)Synq Placement Management Console: A client-service system for dynamic application deployment which integrates directly into active directory. This is the management console.Task Manager Student Project: Task manager or tmanager is a student ASP.NET MVC 4.0 project for Software Engineering classes. It is a web site, where you can planning your tasks.Tempus Fugate: YAFA for tracking music ratings and statistics. End state of these tools, utilities, plug-ins, and services will be to allow merging of statistic data between the various services and repositories in which users store their musical preferences. Examples of musical preferences include rating information and play history. Examples of services include last.fm, Facebook, iLike, Windows Media Player, and iTunes. tysyjsj: afaprojectWASM: Simple ASP.MVC windows azure storage manager with SQL Azure query window.Weather Slice: Use the German weather sevice Wetter.com for a weather forecast gadget Wettervorhersage von Wetter.comwwtfly: 111YBOT_Field_Control_2013: YBOT 2013 Field Control Software. Used to control the Youth BOT game field. Score the games and track field actions. The field currently uses 1-wire.??_iwtfly: ??_iwtfly

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• Yippy &ndash; the F# MVVM Pattern

  - by MarkPearl

  I did a recent post on implementing WPF with F#. Today I would like to expand on this posting to give a simple implementation of the MVVM pattern in F#. A good read about this topic can also be found on Dean Chalk’s blog although my example of the pattern is possibly simpler. With the MVVM pattern one typically has 3 segments, the view, viewmodel and model. With the beauty of WPF binding one is able to link the state based viewmodel to the view. In my implementation I have kept the same principles. I have a view (MainView.xaml), and and a ViewModel (MainViewModel.fs).     What I would really like to illustrate in this posting is the binding between the View and the ViewModel so I am going to jump to that… In Program.fs I have the following code… module Program open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Controls open System.Windows.Markup open myViewModels // Create the View and bind it to the View Model let myView = Application.LoadComponent(new System.Uri("/FSharpWPF;component/MainView.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative)) :?> Window myView.DataContext <- new MainViewModel() :> obj // Application Entry point [<STAThread>] [<EntryPoint>] let main(_) = (new Application()).Run(myView) You can see that I have simply created the view (myView) and then created an instance of my viewmodel (MainViewModel) and then bound it to the data context with the code… myView.DataContext <- new MainViewModel() :> obj If I have a look at my viewmodel (MainViewModel) it looks like this… module myViewModels open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Input open System.ComponentModel open ViewModelBase type MainViewModel() = // private variables let mutable _title = "Bound Data to Textbox" // public properties member x.Title with get() = _title and set(v) = _title <- v // public commands member x.MyCommand = new FuncCommand ( (fun d -> true), (fun e -> x.ShowMessage) ) // public methods member public x.ShowMessage = let msg = MessageBox.Show(x.Title) () I have exposed a few things, namely a property called Title that is mutable, a command and a method called ShowMessage that simply pops up a message box when called. If I then look at my view which I have created in xaml (MainView.xaml) it looks as follows… <Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="F# WPF MVVM" Height="350" Width="525"> <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Title, Mode=TwoWay}" Grid.Row="0"/> <Button Command="{Binding MyCommand}" Grid.Row="1"> <TextBlock Text="Click Me"/> </Button> </Grid> </Window>   It is also very simple. It has a button that’s command is bound to the MyCommand and a textbox that has its text bound to the Title property. One other module that I have created is my ViewModelBase. Right now it is used to store my commanding function but I would look to expand on it at a later stage to implement other commonly used functions… module ViewModelBase open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Input open System.ComponentModel type FuncCommand (canExec:(obj -> bool),doExec:(obj -> unit)) = let cecEvent = new DelegateEvent<EventHandler>() interface ICommand with [<CLIEvent>] member x.CanExecuteChanged = cecEvent.Publish member x.CanExecute arg = canExec(arg) member x.Execute arg = doExec(arg) Put this all together and you have a basic project that implements the MVVM pattern in F#. For me this is quite exciting as it turned out to be a lot simpler to do than I originally thought possible. Also because I have my view in XAML I can use the XAML designer to design forms in F# which I believe is a much cleaner way to go rather than implementing it all in code. Finally if I look at my viewmodel code, it is actually quite clean and compact…

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• Anyone succeeded at injecting Interfaces into Entity Framework 4 Entities, using T4?

  - by Ciel

  Hello: POCO sort of leaves me wanting: (how can I say I use DI/IoC, if the Repository is not the only place that is creating the entities?)...hence my desire to lock it down, get rid of the temptation of newing up POCOs or EntityObjects anywhere in the code, and just allowing entity interfaces above the Repository/Factory layer. For a second there, I nearly thought I had it...was editing EF4's T4 in order to inject in an Interface def. Was going swimmingly, compiled and worked, until I got to the Associations... I wrapped them with a ICollection, and renamed the underlying original collection with a prefix of Wrapped. Unfortunately, when run, throws an error: //The Member 'WrappedSubExamples' in the CLR type 'XAct.App.Data.Model.EF4.Example' is not present in the conceptual model type 'XAct.App.Data.Model.Entity.Example'. var examples = context2.CreateObjectSet(); My T4 segment I used was (this may not work, as it's the longest code snippet I've ever posted here...sorry): #region Generic Property Abstraction <# if (navProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many) {#> //XAct.App Generic Wrapper: <#=code.SpaceAfter(NewModifier(navProperty))#><#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)#> ICollection<I<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>> <#=code.Escape(navProperty)#> { get { if (_X<#=code.Escape(navProperty)# == null){ _X<#=code.Escape(navProperty)# = new WrappedCollection,<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#(this.<#=(navProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many)?"Wrapped":""#<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#); } return _X<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#; } } private ICollection _X<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#; <# } else { # <#=code.SpaceAfter(NewModifier(navProperty))#<#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)# I<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)# <#=code.Escape(navProperty)# { get { return (I<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#)this.Wrapped<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#; } set { this.Wrapped<#=code.Escape(navProperty)# = value as <#=code.Escape(navProperty)#; } } <# } # #endregion which then wraps the original collection, renamed with the prefix 'Wrapped': /// <summary> /// <#=SummaryComment(navProperty)#> /// </summary><#=LongDescriptionCommentElement(navProperty, region.CurrentIndentLevel) #> [XmlIgnoreAttribute()] [SoapIgnoreAttribute()] [DataMemberAttribute()] [EdmRelationshipNavigationPropertyAttribute("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.NamespaceName#>", "<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.Name#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>")] <# if (navProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many) { #> <#=code.SpaceAfter(NewModifier(navProperty))#><#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)#> EntityCollection<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>> Wrapped<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#> { <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navProperty))#>get { return ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedCollection<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>"); } <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navProperty))#>set { if ((value != null)) { ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.InitializeRelatedCollection<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>", value); } } } <# } else { #> <#=code.SpaceAfter(NewModifier(navProperty))#><#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)#> <#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#> Wrapped<#=code.Escape(navProperty)#> { <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navProperty))#>get { return ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>").Value; } <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navProperty))#>set { ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>").Value = value; } } <# string refPropertyName = navProperty.Name + "Reference"; if (entity.Members.Any(m => m.Name == refPropertyName)) { // 6017 is the same error number that EntityClassGenerator uses. Errors.Add(new System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerError(SourceCsdlPath, -1, -1, "6017", String.Format(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, GetResourceString("Template_ConflictingGeneratedNavPropName"), navProperty.Name, entity.FullName, refPropertyName))); } #> /// <summary> /// <#=SummaryComment(navProperty)#> /// </summary><#=LongDescriptionCommentElement(navProperty, region.CurrentIndentLevel)#> [BrowsableAttribute(false)] [DataMemberAttribute()] <#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)#> EntityReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>> <#=refPropertyName#> { <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navProperty))#>get { return ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>"); } <#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navProperty))#>set { if ((value != null)) { ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.InitializeRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>", value); } } } <# } The point is...it bugs out. I've tried various solutions...none worked. Any ideas -- or is this just a wild goose chase, and time to give it up?

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• Ransomware: Why This New Malware is So Dangerous and How to Protect Yourself

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Ransomware is a type of malware that tries to extort money from you. One of the nastiest examples, CryptoLocker, takes your files hostage and holds them for ransom, forcing you to pay hundreds of dollars to regain access. Most malware is no longer created by bored teenagers looking to cause some chaos. Much of the current malware is now produced by organized crime for profit and is becoming increasingly sophisticated. How Ransomware Works Not all ransomware is identical. The key thing that makes a piece of malware “ransomware” is that it attempts to extort a direct payment from you. Some ransomware may be disguised. It may function as “scareware,” displaying a pop-up that says something like “Your computer is infected, purchase this product to fix the infection” or “Your computer has been used to download illegal files, pay a fine to continue using your computer.” In other situations, ransomware may be more up-front. It may hook deep into your system, displaying a message saying that it will only go away when you pay money to the ransomware’s creators. This type of malware could be bypassed via malware removal tools or just by reinstalling Windows. Unfortunately, Ransomware is becoming more and more sophisticated. One of the latest examples, CryptoLocker, starts encrypting your personal files as soon as it gains access to your system, preventing access to the files without knowing the encryption key. CryptoLocker then displays a message informing you that your files have been locked with encryption and that you have just a few days to pay up. If you pay them $300, they’ll hand you the encryption key and you can recover your files. CryptoLocker helpfully walks you through choosing a payment method and, after paying, the criminals seem to actually give you a key that you can use to restore your files. You can never be sure that the criminals will keep their end of the deal, of course. It’s not a good idea to pay up when you’re extorted by criminals. On the other hand, businesses that lose their only copy of business-critical data may be tempted to take the risk — and it’s hard to blame them. Protecting Your Files From Ransomware This type of malware is another good example of why backups are essential. You should regularly back up files to an external hard drive or a remote file storage server. If all your copies of your files are on your computer, malware that infects your computer could encrypt them all and restrict access — or even delete them entirely. When backing up files, be sure to back up your personal files to a location where they can’t be written to or erased. For example, place them on a removable hard drive or upload them to a remote backup service like CrashPlan that would allow you to revert to previous versions of files. Don’t just store your backups on an internal hard drive or network share you have write access to. The ransomware could encrypt the files on your connected backup drive or on your network share if you have full write access. Frequent backups are also important. You wouldn’t want to lose a week’s worth of work because you only back up your files every week. This is part of the reason why automated back-up solutions are so convenient. If your files do become locked by ransomware and you don’t have the appropriate backups, you can try recovering them with ShadowExplorer. This tool accesses “Shadow Copies,” which Windows uses for System Restore — they will often contain some personal files. How to Avoid Ransomware Aside from using a proper backup strategy, you can avoid ransomware in the same way you avoid other forms of malware. CryptoLocker has been verified to arrive through email attachments, via the Java plug-in, and installed on computers that are part of the Zeus botnet. Use a good antivirus product that will attempt to stop ransomware in its tracks. Antivirus programs are never perfect and you could be infected even if you run one, but it’s an important layer of defense. Avoid running suspicious files. Ransomware can arrive in .exe files attached to emails, from illicit websites containing pirated software, or anywhere else that malware comes from. Be alert and exercise caution over the files you download and run. Keep your software updated. Using an old version of your web browser, operating system, or a browser plugin can allow malware in through open security holes. If you have Java installed, you should probably uninstall it. For more tips, read our list of important security practices you should be following. Ransomware — CryptoLocker in particular — is brutally efficient and smart. It just wants to get down to business and take your money. Holding your files hostage is an effective way to prevent removal by antivirus programs after it’s taken root, but CryptoLocker is much less scary if you have good backups. This sort of malware demonstrates the importance of backups as well as proper security practices. Unfortunately, CryptoLocker is probably a sign of things to come — it’s the kind of malware we’ll likely be seeing more of in the future.     

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• Training a 'replacement', how to enforce standards?

  - by Mohgeroth

  Not sure that this is the right stack exchange site to ask this of, but here goes... Scope I work for a small company that employs a few hundred people. The development team for the company is small and works out of visual foxpro. A specific department in the company hired me in as a 'lone gunman' to fix and enhance a pre-existing invoicing system. I've successfully taken an Access application that suffered from a lot of risks and limitations and converted it into a C# application driven off of a SQL server backend. I have recently obtained my undergraduate and am no expert by any means. To help make up for that I've felt that earning microsoft certifications will force me to understand more about .net and how it functions. So, after giving my notice with 9 months in advance, 3 months ago a replacement finally showed up. Their role is to learn what I have been designing to an attempt to support the applications designed in C#. The Replacement Fresh out of college with no real-world work experience, the first instinct for anything involving data was and still is listboxes... any time data is mentioned the list box is the control of choice for the replacement. This has gotten to the point, no matter how many times I discuss other controls, where I've seen 5 listboxes on a single form. Classroom experience was almost all C++ console development. So, an example of where I have concern is in a winforms application: Users need to key Reasons into a table to select from later. Given that I know that a strongly typed data set exists, I can just drag the data source from the toolbox and it would create all of this for me. I realize this is a simple example but using databinding is the key. For the past few months now we have been talking about the strongly typed dataset, how to use it and where it interacts with other controls. Data sets, how they work in relation to binding sources, adapters and data grid views. After handing this project off I expected questions about how to implement these since for me this is the way to do it. What happened next simply floors me: An instance of an adapter from the strongly typed dataset was created in the activate event of the form, a table was created and filled with data. Then, a loop was made to manually add rows to a listbox from this table. Finally, a variable was kept to do lookups to figure out what ID the record was for updates if required. How do they modify records you ask? That was my first question too. You won't believe how simple it is, all you do it double click and they type into a pop-up prompt the new value to change it to. As a data entry operator, all the modal popups would drive me absolutely insane. The final solution exceeds 100 lines of code that must be maintained. So my concern is that none of this is sinking in... the department is only allowed 20 hours a week of their time. Up until last week, we've only been given 4-5 hours a week if I'm lucky. The past week or so, I've been lucky to get 10. Question WHAT DO I DO?! I have 4 weeks left until I leave and they fully 'support' this application. I love this job and the opportunity it has given me but it's time for me to spread my wings and find something new. I am in no way, shape or form convinced that they are ready to take over. I do feel that the replacement has the technical ability to 'figure it out' but instead of learning they just write code to do all of this stuff manually. If the replacement wants to code differently in the end, as long as it works I'm fine with that as horrifiying at it looks. However to support what I have designed they MUST to understand how it works and how I have used controls and the framework to make 'magic' happen. This project has about 40 forms, a database with over 30 some odd tables, triggers and stored procedures. It relates labor to invoices to contracts to projections... it's not as simple as it was three years ago when I began this project and the department is now in a position where they cannot survive without it. How in the world can I accomplish any of the following?: Enforce standards or understanding in constent design when the department manager keeps telling them they can do it however they want to Find a way to engage the replacement in active learning of the framework and system design that support must be given for Gracefully inform sr. management that 5-9 hours a week is simply not enough time to learn about the department, pre-existing processes, applications that need to be supported AND determine where potential enhancements to the system go... Yes I know this is a wall of text, thanks for reading through me but I simply don't know what I should be doing. For me, this job is a monster of a reference and things would look extremely bad if I left and things fell apart. How do I handle this?

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• Problems with my slotgame

  - by Raiden2k

  I'm coding a slot game for learning. Here's the source code. My questions are below. unit Unit1; {$mode objfpc}{$H+} interface uses Classes, SysUtils, Windows, FileUtil, Forms, Controls, Graphics, Dialogs, StdCtrls, ExtCtrls, ComCtrls, Menus, ActnList, Spin, FileCtrl; type { TForm1 } TForm1 = class(TForm) FloatSpinEdit1: TFloatSpinEdit; Guthabenlb: TLabel; s4: TLabel; s5: TLabel; s6: TLabel; s7: TLabel; s8: TLabel; s9: TLabel; Timer3: TTimer; Winlb: TLabel; Loselb: TLabel; slotbn: TButton; s1: TLabel; s2: TLabel; s3: TLabel; Timer1: TTimer; Timer2: TTimer; procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject); procedure slotbnClick(Sender: TObject); procedure Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject); procedure Timer2Timer(Sender: TObject); procedure Timer3Timer(Sender: TObject); private { private declarations } FRollen : array [0..2, 0..9] of String; public { public declarations } end; var Form1: TForm1; wins,loses : Integer; guthaben : Double = 10; implementation {$R *.lfm} { TForm1 } procedure TForm1.slotbnClick(Sender: TObject); begin Guthaben := Guthaben - 1.00; Guthabenlb.Caption := FloatToStr(guthaben) + (' €'); Timer1.Enabled := True; Timer2.Enabled := True; slotbn.Enabled := false; end; procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject); var i: integer; j: integer; n: integer; digits: TStringlist; begin Digits := TStringList.Create; try for i := low(FRollen) to high(FRollen) do begin for j := low(FRollen[i]) to high(FRollen[i]) do Digits.Add(IntToStr(j)); for j := low(FRollen[i]) to high(FRollen[i]) do begin n := Random(Digits.Count); FRollen[i, j] := Digits[n]; Digits.Delete(n); end; end finally Digits.Free; end; for i:=low(FRollen) to high(FRollen) do begin end; end; //==================================================================================================\\ // Drehen der Slots im Zufallsmodus //==================================================================================================// procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject); begin s1.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s2.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s3.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s4.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s5.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s6.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s7.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s8.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); s9.Caption := IntToStr(Random(9)); end; //==================================================================================================// //===================================================================================================\\ // Gewonnen / Verloren abfrage //===================================================================================================// procedure TForm1.Timer2Timer(Sender: TObject); begin Timer1.Enabled := False; Timer2.Enabled := false; if (s1.Caption = s5.Caption) and (s1.Caption = s9.Caption) then begin Guthaben := Guthaben + 5.00; Inc(wins); end else if (s1.Caption = s4.Caption) and (s1.Caption = s7.Caption) then begin Guthaben := Guthaben + 5.00; Inc(wins); end else if (s2.Caption = s5.Caption) and (s2.Caption = s8.Caption) then begin Guthaben := Guthaben + 5.00; Inc(wins); end else if (s3.Caption = s6.Caption) and (s3.Caption = s9.Caption) then begin Guthaben := Guthaben + 5.00; Inc(wins); end else if (s3.Caption = s5.Caption) and (s3.Caption = s7.Caption) then begin Guthaben := Guthaben + 5.00; Inc(wins); end else Inc(loses); slotbn.Enabled := True; Loselb.Caption := 'Loses: ' + IntToStr(loses); Winlb.Caption := 'Wins: ' + IntTostr(Wins); end; procedure TForm1.Timer3Timer(Sender: TObject); begin if (guthaben = 0) or (guthaben < 0) then begin Timer3.Enabled := False; MessageBox(handle,'Du hast verloren!','Verlierer!',MB_OK); close(); end; end; //======================================================================================================\\ end. How can I replace the labels through icons 16 x 16 pixels? How can I adjust the winning sum according to the icons? (for example 3 crowns give you 40 € and 3 apples only 10 €) How can I adjust the winning sum with a sum for every round?

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• Remote Workers...We're Not That Bad!

  - by user12601034

  I work from home a lot – my team is located in different cities and countries, my manager is in a different city, and most of our work is done via conference calls, email and collaboration through Oracle Social Network. We’ve figured out how to be effective and involve team members, regardless of where we are all located. When I mention that I work from home, a lot of my friends will laugh, roll their eyes or use their fingers to make quotation marks around “work from home.” Their belief is that I’m sitting at home, eating bon-bons and watching television. The attempts at humor only multiply when they know that my husband also mostly works from home. So, it was with great joy that I read the Lifehacker article Why Remote Workers Are More (Yes, More) Engaged. I’m not going to re-write the article for you, but four highlights from the article include: Proximity breeds complacency –because communicating with employees sitting next to you is so easy, you may not do it well. Absence makes people try harder to connect – because you have to make an effort to connect to your team, you tend to pay better attention when you do connect Leaders of virtual team make better use of tools – when working remotely, you will use technology (many different forms of it) to connect with your team. This daily use of the tools makes you more proficient with those tools Leaders of far-flung teams maximize the time spent together – getting together takes effort, time and money, so leaders tend to filter out distractions when teams do get together. These points made me happy because I’ve seen the same things play out in my team located around the world. And I’m not saying that a virtual team is more effective than a co-located team – but my virtual team doesn’t have the option of filing into a conference room for a face-to-face meeting whenever we want. Instead, we have to figure out how to work effectively without meeting face-to-face. Am I more engaged as a remote worker? I’d like to think that I am. I’ve been on calls with colleagues at 3am – this would never happen if my only option was to be in the office. I can leave my “office” to pick up my kids from school…and I’m willingly back online after kids are in bed to finish up anything I need to. Oracle Social Network lets me use my iPad to engage with my teammates when I’m waiting at music lessons, the doctor’s office or any place else with a network connection. I feel like I’m more connected with my team, and I feel like I’m more connected with my family life. So yes, I am a remote worker, and I am engaged. If you lead a virtual team, I challenge you to increase the ways that you communicate to effectively engage your team. If you are on a virtual team, I challenge you to think about how you might interact with team members to keep both them and yourself engaged in your work. And if you have some great ideas on how to make virtual teams (and workers) effective and engaged, please share those ideas in the comments! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get a bon-bon...   :) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 Again ! Ubuntu 13.04 x64

  - by vafa

  First I have to say that I tried everything written about this concept. The problem is that it stops working randomly in 3 main forms : 1 - sometimes it disconnect from wireless network and reconnect automatically 2 - sometimes it disconnect and wont connect no matter what (needs reboot) 3 - some times it's still connected but cannot ping or surf or whatever. I already tried disabling N mod using these commands : sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1 (or 0, whatever) it didn't help . these are the results of lspci, sudo lshw -C network, ifconfig, iwconfig, rfkill list when it disconnected and didn't connect till reboot : ifconfig : eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr c8:0a:a9:34:65:77 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1563213476557380 errors:9379306629148050 dropped:3126435543049350 overruns:1563217771524675 frame:7816088857623375 TX packets:1563217771524675 errors:6252871086098700 dropped:0 overruns:1563217771524675 carrier:3126435543049350 collisions:7816088857623375 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:1563217771524675 (1.5 PB) TX bytes:1563217771524675 (1.5 PB) ham0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 7a:79:19:a5:e4:93 inet addr:25.165.228.147 Bcast:25.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: fe80::7879:19ff:fea5:e493/64 Scope:Link inet6 addr: 2620:9b::19a5:e493/96 Scope:Global UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1404 Metric:1 RX packets:7743 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1250 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:500 RX bytes:665642 (665.6 KB) TX bytes:204056 (204.0 KB) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:41138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:41138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:6420962 (6.4 MB) TX bytes:6420962 (6.4 MB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:64:45:fb:70 inet6 addr: fe80::21e:64ff:fe45:fb70/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:286999 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:226966 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:324386887 (324.3 MB) TX bytes:30674804 (30.6 MB) iwconfig : ham0 no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. lo no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=14 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off sudo lshw -C network: *-network description: Wireless interface product: Centrino Wireless-N 1000 [Condor Peak] vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 00 serial: 00:1e:64:45:fb:70 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=3.8.0-30-generic firmware=39.31.5.1 build 35138 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg resources: irq:46 memory:c0400000-c0401fff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Qualcomm Atheros physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: c0 serial: c8:0a:a9:34:65:77 capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vpd cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=atl1c driverversion=1.0.1.1-NAPI latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:47 memory:c0900000-c093ffff ioport:5000(size=128) *-network description: Ethernet interface physical id: 2 logical name: ham0 serial: 7a:79:19:a5:e4:93 size: 10Mbit/s capabilities: ethernet physical configuration: autonegotiation=off broadcast=yes driver=tun driverversion=1.6 duplex=full ip=25.165.228.147 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=10Mbit/s lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) 00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) 00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03) 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) 00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G98M [GeForce G 105M] (rev a1) 07:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000 [Condor Peak] 09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet (rev c0) rfkill list : 1: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no 2: acer-bluetooth: Bluetooth Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: no 9: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no any help will be REALLLYYYY appreciated

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• .NET Code Evolution

  - by Alois Kraus

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2013/07/24/153504.aspxAt my day job I do look at a lot of code written by other people. Most of the code is quite good and some is even a masterpiece. And there is also code which makes you think WTF… oh it was written by me. Hm not so bad after all. There are many excuses reasons for bad code. Most often it is time pressure followed by not enough ambition (who cares) or insufficient training. Normally I do care about code quality quite a lot which makes me a (perceived) slow worker who does write many tests and refines the code quite a lot because of the design deficiencies. Most of the deficiencies I do find by putting my design under stress while checking for invariants. It does also help a lot to step into the code with a debugger (sometimes also Windbg). I do this much more often when my tests are red. That way I do get a much better understanding what my code really does and not what I think it should be doing. This time I do want to show you how code can evolve over the years with different .NET Framework versions. Once there was  time where .NET 1.1 was new and many C++ programmers did switch over to get rid of not initialized pointers and memory leaks. There were also nice new data structures available such as the Hashtable which is fast lookup table with O(1) time complexity. All was good and much code was written since then. At 2005 a new version of the .NET Framework did arrive which did bring many new things like generics and new data structures. The “old” fashioned way of Hashtable were coming to an end and everyone used the new Dictionary<xx,xx> type instead which was type safe and faster because the object to type conversion (aka boxing) was no longer necessary. I think 95% of all Hashtables and dictionaries use string as key. Often it is convenient to ignore casing to make it easy to look up values which the user did enter. An often followed route is to convert the string to upper case before putting it into the Hashtable. Hashtable Table = new Hashtable(); void Add(string key, string value) { Table.Add(key.ToUpper(), value); } This is valid and working code but it has problems. First we can pass to the Hashtable a custom IEqualityComparer to do the string matching case insensitive. Second we can switch over to the now also old Dictionary type to become a little faster and we can keep the the original keys (not upper cased) in the dictionary. Dictionary<string, string> DictTable = new Dictionary<string, string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase); void AddDict(string key, string value) { DictTable.Add(key, value); } Many people do not user the other ctors of Dictionary because they do shy away from the overhead of writing their own comparer. They do not know that .NET has for strings already predefined comparers at hand which you can directly use. Today in the many core area we do use threads all over the place. Sometimes things break in subtle ways but most of the time it is sufficient to place a lock around the offender. Threading has become so mainstream that it may sound weird that in the year 2000 some guy got a huge incentive for the idea to reduce the time to process calibration data from 12 hours to 6 hours by using two threads on a dual core machine. Threading does make it easy to become faster at the expense of correctness. Correct and scalable multithreading can be arbitrarily hard to achieve depending on the problem you are trying to solve. Lets suppose we want to process millions of items with two threads and count the processed items processed by all threads. A typical beginners code might look like this: int Counter; void IJustLearnedToUseThreads() { var t1 = new Thread(ThreadWorkMethod); t1.Start(); var t2 = new Thread(ThreadWorkMethod); t2.Start(); t1.Join(); t2.Join(); if (Counter != 2 * Increments) throw new Exception("Hmm " + Counter + " != " + 2 * Increments); } const int Increments = 10 * 1000 * 1000; void ThreadWorkMethod() { for (int i = 0; i < Increments; i++) { Counter++; } } It does throw an exception with the message e.g. “Hmm 10.222.287 != 20.000.000” and does never finish. The code does fail because the assumption that Counter++ is an atomic operation is wrong. The ++ operator is just a shortcut for Counter = Counter + 1 This does involve reading the counter from a memory location into the CPU, incrementing value on the CPU and writing the new value back to the memory location. When we do look at the generated assembly code we will see only inc dword ptr [ecx+10h] which is only one instruction. Yes it is one instruction but it is not atomic. All modern CPUs have several layers of caches (L1,L2,L3) which try to hide the fact how slow actual main memory accesses are. Since cache is just another word for redundant copy it can happen that one CPU does read a value from main memory into the cache, modifies it and write it back to the main memory. The problem is that at least the L1 cache is not shared between CPUs so it can happen that one CPU does make changes to values which did change in meantime in the main memory. From the exception you can see we did increment the value 20 million times but half of the changes were lost because we did overwrite the already changed value from the other thread. This is a very common case and people do learn to protect their  data with proper locking.   void Intermediate() { var time = Stopwatch.StartNew(); Action acc = ThreadWorkMethod_Intermediate; var ar1 = acc.BeginInvoke(null, null); var ar2 = acc.BeginInvoke(null, null); ar1.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(); ar2.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(); if (Counter != 2 * Increments) throw new Exception(String.Format("Hmm {0:N0} != {1:N0}", Counter, 2 * Increments)); Console.WriteLine("Intermediate did take: {0:F1}s", time.Elapsed.TotalSeconds); } void ThreadWorkMethod_Intermediate() { for (int i = 0; i < Increments; i++) { lock (this) { Counter++; } } } This is better and does use the .NET Threadpool to get rid of manual thread management. It does give the expected result but it can result in deadlocks because you do lock on this. This is in general a bad idea since it can lead to deadlocks when other threads use your class instance as lock object. It is therefore recommended to create a private object as lock object to ensure that nobody else can lock your lock object. When you read more about threading you will read about lock free algorithms. They are nice and can improve performance quite a lot but you need to pay close attention to the CLR memory model. It does make quite weak guarantees in general but it can still work because your CPU architecture does give you more invariants than the CLR memory model. For a simple counter there is an easy lock free alternative present with the Interlocked class in .NET. As a general rule you should not try to write lock free algos since most likely you will fail to get it right on all CPU architectures. void Experienced() { var time = Stopwatch.StartNew(); Task t1 = Task.Factory.StartNew(ThreadWorkMethod_Experienced); Task t2 = Task.Factory.StartNew(ThreadWorkMethod_Experienced); t1.Wait(); t2.Wait(); if (Counter != 2 * Increments) throw new Exception(String.Format("Hmm {0:N0} != {1:N0}", Counter, 2 * Increments)); Console.WriteLine("Experienced did take: {0:F1}s", time.Elapsed.TotalSeconds); } void ThreadWorkMethod_Experienced() { for (int i = 0; i < Increments; i++) { Interlocked.Increment(ref Counter); } } Since time does move forward we do not use threads explicitly anymore but the much nicer Task abstraction which was introduced with .NET 4 at 2010. It is educational to look at the generated assembly code. The Interlocked.Increment method must be called which does wondrous things right? Lets see: lock inc dword ptr [eax] The first thing to note that there is no method call at all. Why? Because the JIT compiler does know very well about CPU intrinsic functions. Atomic operations which do lock the memory bus to prevent other processors to read stale values are such things. Second: This is the same increment call prefixed with a lock instruction. The only reason for the existence of the Interlocked class is that the JIT compiler can compile it to the matching CPU intrinsic functions which can not only increment by one but can also do an add, exchange and a combined compare and exchange operation. But be warned that the correct usage of its methods can be tricky. If you try to be clever and look a the generated IL code and try to reason about its efficiency you will fail. Only the generated machine code counts. Is this the best code we can write? Perhaps. It is nice and clean. But can we make it any faster? Lets see how good we are doing currently. Level Time in s IJustLearnedToUseThreads Flawed Code Intermediate 1,5 (lock) Experienced 0,3 (Interlocked.Increment) Master 0,1 (1,0 for int[2]) That lock free thing is really a nice thing. But if you read more about CPU cache, cache coherency, false sharing you can do even better. int[] Counters = new int[12]; // Cache line size is 64 bytes on my machine with an 8 way associative cache try for yourself e.g. 64 on more modern CPUs void Master() { var time = Stopwatch.StartNew(); Task t1 = Task.Factory.StartNew(ThreadWorkMethod_Master, 0); Task t2 = Task.Factory.StartNew(ThreadWorkMethod_Master, Counters.Length - 1); t1.Wait(); t2.Wait(); Counter = Counters[0] + Counters[Counters.Length - 1]; if (Counter != 2 * Increments) throw new Exception(String.Format("Hmm {0:N0} != {1:N0}", Counter, 2 * Increments)); Console.WriteLine("Master did take: {0:F1}s", time.Elapsed.TotalSeconds); } void ThreadWorkMethod_Master(object number) { int index = (int) number; for (int i = 0; i < Increments; i++) { Counters[index]++; } } The key insight here is to use for each core its own value. But if you simply use simply an integer array of two items, one for each core and add the items at the end you will be much slower than the lock free version (factor 3). Each CPU core has its own cache line size which is something in the range of 16-256 bytes. When you do access a value from one location the CPU does not only fetch one value from main memory but a complete cache line (e.g. 16 bytes). This means that you do not pay for the next 15 bytes when you access them. This can lead to dramatic performance improvements and non obvious code which is faster although it does have many more memory reads than another algorithm. So what have we done here? We have started with correct code but it was lacking knowledge how to use the .NET Base Class Libraries optimally. Then we did try to get fancy and used threads for the first time and failed. Our next try was better but it still had non obvious issues (lock object exposed to the outside). Knowledge has increased further and we have found a lock free version of our counter which is a nice and clean way which is a perfectly valid solution. The last example is only here to show you how you can get most out of threading by paying close attention to your used data structures and CPU cache coherency. Although we are working in a virtual execution environment in a high level language with automatic memory management it does pay off to know the details down to the assembly level. Only if you continue to learn and to dig deeper you can come up with solutions no one else was even considering. I have studied particle physics which does help at the digging deeper part. Have you ever tried to solve Quantum Chromodynamics equations? Compared to that the rest must be easy ;-). Although I am no longer working in the Science field I take pride in discovering non obvious things. This can be a very hard to find bug or a new way to restructure data to make something 10 times faster. Now I need to get some sleep ….

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• How to Implement Single Sign-On between Websites

  - by hmloo

  Introduction Single sign-on (SSO) is a way to control access to multiple related but independent systems, a user only needs to log in once and gains access to all other systems. a lot of commercial systems that provide Single sign-on solution and you can also choose some open source solutions like Opensso, CAS etc. both of them use centralized authentication and provide more robust authentication mechanism, but if each system has its own authentication mechanism, how do we provide a seamless transition between them. Here I will show you the case. How it Works The method we’ll use is based on a secret key shared between the sites. Origin site has a method to build up a hashed authentication token with some other parameters and redirect the user to the target site. variables Status Description ssoEncode required hash(ssoSharedSecret + , + ssoTime + , + ssoUserName) ssoTime required timestamp with format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS used to prevent playback attacks ssoUserName required unique username; required when a user is logged in Note : The variables will be sent via POST for security reasons Building a Single Sign-On Solution Origin Site has function to 1. Create the URL for your Request. 2. Generate required authentication parameters 3. Redirect to target site. using System; using System.Web.Security; using System.Text; public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string postbackUrl = "http://www.targetsite.com/sso.aspx"; string ssoTime = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss"); string ssoUserName = User.Identity.Name; string ssoSharedSecret = "58ag;ai76"; // get this from config or similar string ssoHash = FormsAuthentication.HashPasswordForStoringInConfigFile(string.Format("{0},{1},{2}", ssoSharedSecret, ssoTime, ssoUserName), "md5"); string value = string.Format("{0}:{1},{2}", ssoHash,ssoTime, ssoUserName); Response.Clear(); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.Append("<html>"); sb.AppendFormat(@"<body onload='document.forms[""form""].submit()'>"); sb.AppendFormat("<form name='form' action='{0}' method='post'>", postbackUrl); sb.AppendFormat("<input type='hidden' name='t' value='{0}'>", value); sb.Append("</form>"); sb.Append("</body>"); sb.Append("</html>"); Response.Write(sb.ToString()); Response.End(); } } Target Site has function to 1. Get authentication parameters. 2. Validate the parameters with shared secret. 3. If the user is valid, then do authenticate and redirect to target page. 4. If the user is invalid, then show errors and return. using System; using System.Web.Security; using System.Text; public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!IsPostBack) { if (User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) { Response.Redirect("~/Default.aspx"); } } if (Request.Params.Get("t") != null) { string ticket = Request.Params.Get("t"); char[] delimiters = new char[] { ':', ',' }; string[] ssoVariable = ticket.Split(delimiters, StringSplitOptions.None); string ssoHash = ssoVariable[0]; string ssoTime = ssoVariable[1]; string ssoUserName = ssoVariable[2]; DateTime appTime = DateTime.MinValue; int offsetTime = 60; // get this from config or similar try { appTime = DateTime.ParseExact(ssoTime, "yyyyMMddHHmmss", null); } catch { //show error return; } if (Math.Abs(appTime.Subtract(DateTime.Now).TotalSeconds) > offsetTime) { //show error return; } bool isValid = false; string ssoSharedSecret = "58ag;ai76"; // get this from config or similar string hash = FormsAuthentication.HashPasswordForStoringInConfigFile(string.Format("{0},{1},{2}", ssoSharedSecret, ssoTime, ssoUserName), "md5"); if (string.Compare(ssoHash, hash, true) == 0) { if (Math.Abs(appTime.Subtract(DateTime.Now).TotalSeconds) > offsetTime) { //show error return; } else { isValid = true; } } if (isValid) { //Do authenticate; } else { //show error return; } } else { //show error } } } Summary This is a very simple and basic SSO solution, and its main advantage is its simplicity, only needs to add a single page to do SSO authentication, do not need to modify the existing system infrastructure.

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• Rebuilding CoasterBuzz, Part II: Hot data objects

  - by Jeff

  This is the second post, originally from my personal blog, in a series about rebuilding one of my Web sites, which has been around for 12 years. More: Part I: Evolution, and death to WCF After the rush to get moving on stuff, I temporarily lost interest. I went almost two weeks without touching the project, in part because the next thing on my backlog was doing up a bunch of administrative pages. So boring. Unfortunately, because most of the site's content is user-generated, you need some facilities for editing data. CoasterBuzz has a database full of amusement parks and roller coasters. The entities enjoy the relationships that you would expect, though they're further defined by "instances" of a coaster, to define one that has moved between parks as one, with different names and operational dates. And of course, there are pictures and news items, too. It's not horribly complex, except when you have to account for a name change and display just the newest name. In all previous versions, data access was straight SQL. As so much of the old code was rooted in 2003, with some changes in 2008, there wasn't much in the way of ORM frameworks going on then. Let me rephrase that, I mostly wasn't interested in ORM's. Since that time, I used a little LINQ to SQL in some projects, and a whole bunch of nHibernate while at Microsoft. Through all of that experience, I have to admit that these frameworks are often a bigger pain in the ass than not. They're great for basic crud operations, but when you start having all kinds of exotic relationships, they get difficult, and generate all kinds of weird SQL under the covers. The black box can quickly turn into a black hole. Sometimes you end up having to build all kinds of new expertise to do things "right" with a framework. Still, despite my reservations, I used the newer version of Entity Framework, with the "code first" modeling, in a science project and I really liked it. Since it's just a right-click away with NuGet, I figured I'd give it a shot here. My initial effort was spent defining the context class, which requires a bit of work because I deviate quite a bit from the conventions that EF uses, starting with table names. Then throw some partial querying of certain tables (where you'll find image data), and you're splitting tables across several objects (navigation properties). I won't go into the details, because these are all things that are well documented around the Internet, but there was a minor learning curve there. The basics of reading data using EF are fantastic. For example, a roller coaster object has a park associated with it, as well as a number of instances (if it was ever relocated), and there also might be a big banner image for it. This is stupid easy to use because it takes one line of code in your repository class, and by the time you pass it to the view, you have a rich object graph that has everything you need to display stuff. Likewise, editing simple data is also, well, simple. For this goodness, thank the ASP.NET MVC framework. The UpdateModel() method on the controllers is very elegant. Remember the old days of assigning all kinds of properties to objects in your Webforms code-behind? What a time consuming mess that used to be. Even if you're not using an ORM tool, having hydrated objects come off the wire is such a time saver. Not everything is easy, though. When you have to persist a complex graph of objects, particularly if they were composed in the user interface with all kinds of AJAX elements and list boxes, it's not just a simple matter of submitting the form. There were a few instances where I ended up going back to "old-fashioned" SQL just in the interest of time. It's not that I couldn't do what I needed with EF, it's just that the efficiency, both my own and that of the generated SQL, wasn't good. Since EF context objects expose a database connection object, you can use that to do the old school ADO.NET stuff you've done for a decade. Using various extension methods from POP Forums' data project, it was a breeze. You just have to stick to your decision, in this case. When you start messing with SQL directly, you can't go back in the same code to messing with entities because EF doesn't know what you're changing. Not really a big deal. There are a number of take-aways from using EF. The first is that you write a lot less code, which has always been a desired outcome of ORM's. The other lesson, and I particularly learned this the hard way working on the MSDN forums back in the day, is that trying to retrofit an ORM framework into an existing schema isn't fun at all. The CoasterBuzz database isn't bad, but there are design decisions I'd make differently if I were starting from scratch. Now that I have some of this stuff done, I feel like I can start to move on to the more interesting things on the backlog. There's a lot to do, but at least it's fun stuff, and not more forms that will be used infrequently.

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• Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture (EA)

  - by TedMcLaughlan

  Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture A taxonomy of subject areas, from which to develop a prioritized marketing and communications plan to evangelize EA activities within and among US Federal Government organizations and constituents. Any and all feedback is appreciated, particularly in developing and extending this discussion as a tool for use – more information and details are also available. "Selling" the discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in the Federal Government (particularly in non-DoD agencies) is difficult, notwithstanding the general availability and use of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) for some time now, and the relatively mature use of the reference models in the OMB Capital Planning and Investment (CPIC) cycles. EA in the Federal Government also tends to be a very esoteric and hard to decipher conversation – early apologies to those who agree to continue reading this somewhat lengthy article. Alignment to the FEAF and OMB compliance mandates is long underway across the Federal Departments and Agencies (and visible via tools like PortfolioStat and ITDashboard.gov – but there is still a gap between the top-down compliance directives and enablement programs, and the bottom-up awareness and effective use of EA for either IT investment management or actual mission effectiveness. "EA isn't getting deep enough penetration into programs, components, sub-agencies, etc.", verified a panelist at the most recent EA Government Conference in DC. Newer guidance from OMB may be especially difficult to handle, where bottom-up input can't be accurately aligned, analyzed and reported via standardized EA discipline at the Agency level – for example in addressing the new (for FY13) Exhibit 53D "Agency IT Reductions and Reinvestments" and the information required for "Cloud Computing Alternatives Evaluation" (supporting the new Exhibit 53C, "Agency Cloud Computing Portfolio"). Therefore, EA must be "sold" directly to the communities that matter, from a coordinated, proactive messaging perspective that takes BOTH the Program-level value drivers AND the broader Agency mission and IT maturity context into consideration. Selling EA means persuading others to take additional time and possibly assign additional resources, for a mix of direct and indirect benefits – many of which aren't likely to be realized in the short-term. This means there's probably little current, allocated budget to work with; ergo the challenge of trying to sell an "unfunded mandate". Also, the concept of "Enterprise" in large Departments like Homeland Security tends to cross all kinds of organizational boundaries – as Richard Spires recently indicated by commenting that "...organizational boundaries still trump functional similarities. Most people understand what we're trying to do internally, and at a high level they get it. The problem, of course, is when you get down to them and their system and the fact that you're going to be touching them...there's always that fear factor," Spires said. It is quite clear to the Federal IT Investment community that for EA to meet its objective, understandable, relevant value must be measured and reported using a repeatable method – as described by GAO's recent report "Enterprise Architecture Value Needs To Be Measured and Reported". What's not clear is the method or guidance to sell this value. In fact, the current GAO "Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 2.0)", a.k.a. the "EAMMF", does not include words like "sell", "persuade", "market", etc., except in reference ("within Core Element 19: Organization business owner and CXO representatives are actively engaged in architecture development") to a brief section in the CIO Council's 2001 "Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture", entitled "3.3.1. Develop an EA Marketing Strategy and Communications Plan." Furthermore, Core Element 19 of the EAMMF is advised to be applied in "Stage 3: Developing Initial EA Versions". This kind of EA sales campaign truly should start much earlier in the maturity progress, i.e. in Stages 0 or 1. So, what are the understandable, relevant benefits (or value) to sell, that can find an agreeable, participatory audience, and can pave the way towards success of a longer-term, funded set of EA mechanisms that can be methodically measured and reported? Pragmatic benefits from a useful EA that can help overcome the fear of change? And how should they be sold? Following is a brief taxonomy (it's a taxonomy, to help organize SME support) of benefit-related subjects that might make the most sense, in creating the messages and organizing an initial "engagement plan" for evangelizing EA "from within". An EA "Sales Taxonomy" of sorts. We're not boiling the ocean here; the subjects that are included are ones that currently appear to be urgently relevant to the current Federal IT Investment landscape. Note that successful dialogue in these topics is directly usable as input or guidance for actually developing early-stage, "Fit-for-Purpose" (a DoDAF term) Enterprise Architecture artifacts, as prescribed by common methods found in most EA methodologies, including FEAF, TOGAF, DoDAF and our own Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework (OEAF). The taxonomy below is organized by (1) Target Community, (2) Benefit or Value, and (3) EA Program Facet - as in: "Let's talk to (1: Community Member) about how and why (3: EA Facet) the EA program can help with (2: Benefit/Value)". Once the initial discussion targets and subjects are approved (that can be measured and reported), a "marketing and communications plan" can be created. A working example follows the Taxonomy. Enterprise Architecture Sales Taxonomy Draft, Summary Version 1. Community 1.1. Budgeted Programs or Portfolios Communities of Purpose (CoPR) 1.1.1. Program/System Owners (Senior Execs) Creating or Executing Acquisition Plans 1.1.2. Program/System Owners Facing Strategic Change 1.1.2.1. Mandated 1.1.2.2. Expected/Anticipated 1.1.3. Program Managers - Creating Employee Performance Plans 1.1.4. CO/COTRs – Creating Contractor Performance Plans, or evaluating Value Engineering Change Proposals (VECP) 1.2. Governance & Communications Communities of Practice (CoP) 1.2.1. Policy Owners 1.2.1.1. OCFO 1.2.1.1.1. Budget/Procurement Office 1.2.1.1.2. Strategic Planning 1.2.1.2. OCIO 1.2.1.2.1. IT Management 1.2.1.2.2. IT Operations 1.2.1.2.3. Information Assurance (Cyber Security) 1.2.1.2.4. IT Innovation 1.2.1.3. Information-Sharing/ Process Collaboration (i.e. policies and procedures regarding Partners, Agreements) 1.2.2. Governing IT Council/SME Peers (i.e. an "Architects Council") 1.2.2.1. Enterprise Architects (assumes others exist; also assumes EA participants aren't buried solely within the CIO shop) 1.2.2.2. Domain, Enclave, Segment Architects – i.e. the right affinity group for a "shared services" EA structure (per the EAMMF), which may be classified as Federated, Segmented, Service-Oriented, or Extended 1.2.2.3. External Oversight/Constraints 1.2.2.3.1. GAO/OIG & Legal 1.2.2.3.2. Industry Standards 1.2.2.3.3. Official public notification, response 1.2.3. Mission Constituents Participant & Analyst Community of Interest (CoI) 1.2.3.1. Mission Operators/Users 1.2.3.2. Public Constituents 1.2.3.3. Industry Advisory Groups, Stakeholders 1.2.3.4. Media 2. Benefit/Value (Note the actual benefits may not be discretely attributable to EA alone; EA is a very collaborative, cross-cutting discipline.) 2.1. Program Costs – EA enables sound decisions regarding... 2.1.1. Cost Avoidance – a TCO theme 2.1.2. Sequencing – alignment of capability delivery 2.1.3. Budget Instability – a Federal reality 2.2. Investment Capital – EA illuminates new investment resources via... 2.2.1. Value Engineering – contractor-driven cost savings on existing budgets, direct or collateral 2.2.2. Reuse – reuse of investments between programs can result in savings, chargeback models; avoiding duplication 2.2.3. License Refactoring – IT license & support models may not reflect actual or intended usage 2.3. Contextual Knowledge – EA enables informed decisions by revealing... 2.3.1. Common Operating Picture (COP) – i.e. cross-program impacts and synergy, relative to context 2.3.2. Expertise & Skill – who truly should be involved in architectural decisions, both business and IT 2.3.3. Influence – the impact of politics and relationships can be examined 2.3.4. Disruptive Technologies – new technologies may reduce costs or mitigate risk in unanticipated ways 2.3.5. What-If Scenarios – can become much more refined, current, verifiable; basis for Target Architectures 2.4. Mission Performance – EA enables beneficial decision results regarding... 2.4.1. IT Performance and Optimization – towards 100% effective, available resource utilization 2.4.2. IT Stability – towards 100%, real-time uptime 2.4.3. Agility – responding to rapid changes in mission 2.4.4. Outcomes –measures of mission success, KPIs – vs. only "Outputs" 2.4.5. Constraints – appropriate response to constraints 2.4.6. Personnel Performance – better line-of-sight through performance plans to mission outcome 2.5. Mission Risk Mitigation – EA mitigates decision risks in terms of... 2.5.1. Compliance – all the right boxes are checked 2.5.2. Dependencies –cross-agency, segment, government 2.5.3. Transparency – risks, impact and resource utilization are illuminated quickly, comprehensively 2.5.4. Threats and Vulnerabilities – current, realistic awareness and profiles 2.5.5. Consequences – realization of risk can be mapped as a series of consequences, from earlier decisions or new decisions required for current issues 2.5.5.1. Unanticipated – illuminating signals of future or non-symmetric risk; helping to "future-proof" 2.5.5.2. Anticipated – discovering the level of impact that matters 3. EA Program Facet (What parts of the EA can and should be communicated, using business or mission terms?) 3.1. Architecture Models – the visual tools to be created and used 3.1.1. Operating Architecture – the Business Operating Model/Architecture elements of the EA truly drive all other elements, plus expose communication channels 3.1.2. Use Of – how can the EA models be used, and how are they populated, from a reasonable, pragmatic yet compliant perspective? What are the core/minimal models required? What's the relationship of these models, with existing system models? 3.1.3. Scope – what level of granularity within the models, and what level of abstraction across the models, is likely to be most effective and useful? 3.2. Traceability – the maturity, status, completeness of the tools 3.2.1. Status – what in fact is the degree of maturity across the integrated EA model and other relevant governance models, and who may already be benefiting from it? 3.2.2. Visibility – how does the EA visibly and effectively prove IT investment performance goals are being reached, with positive mission outcome? 3.3. Governance – what's the interaction, participation method; how are the tools used? 3.3.1. Contributions – how is the EA program informed, accept submissions, collect data? Who are the experts? 3.3.2. Review – how is the EA validated, against what criteria?  Taxonomy Usage Example:   1. To speak with: a. ...a particular set of System Owners Facing Strategic Change, via mandate (like the "Cloud First" mandate); about... b. ...how the EA program's visible and easily accessible Infrastructure Reference Model (i.e. "IRM" or "TRM"), if updated more completely with current system data, can... c. ...help shed light on ways to mitigate risks and avoid future costs associated with NOT leveraging potentially-available shared services across the enterprise... 2. ....the following Marketing & Communications (Sales) Plan can be constructed: a. Create an easy-to-read "Consequence Model" that illustrates how adoption of a cloud capability (like elastic operational storage) can enable rapid and durable compliance with the mandate – using EA traceability. Traceability might be from the IRM to the ARM (that identifies reusable services invoking the elastic storage), and then to the PRM with performance measures (such as % utilization of purchased storage allocation) included in the OMB Exhibits; and b. Schedule a meeting with the Program Owners, timed during their Acquisition Strategy meetings in response to the mandate, to use the "Consequence Model" for advising them to organize a rapid and relevant RFI solicitation for this cloud capability (regarding alternatives for sourcing elastic operational storage); and c. Schedule a series of short "Discovery" meetings with the system architecture leads (as agreed by the Program Owners), to further populate/validate the "As-Is" models and frame the "To Be" models (via scenarios), to better inform the RFI, obtain the best feedback from the vendor community, and provide potential value for and avoid impact to all other programs and systems. --end example -- Note that communications with the intended audience should take a page out of the standard "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO) playbook, using keywords and phrases relating to "value" and "outcome" vs. "compliance" and "output". Searches in email boxes, internal and external search engines for phrases like "cost avoidance strategies", "mission performance metrics" and "innovation funding" should yield messages and content from the EA team. This targeted, informed, practical sales approach should result in additional buy-in and participation, additional EA information contribution and model validation, development of more SMEs and quick "proof points" (with real-life testing) to bolster the case for EA. The proof point here is a successful, timely procurement that satisfies not only the external mandate and external oversight review, but also meets internal EA compliance/conformance goals and therefore is more transparently useful across the community. In short, if sold effectively, the EA will perform and be recognized. EA won’t therefore be used only for compliance, but also (according to a validated, stated purpose) to directly influence decisions and outcomes. The opinions, views and analysis expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

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• Summit reflections

  - by Rob Farley

  So far, my three PASS Summit experiences have been notably different to each other. My first, I wasn’t on the board and I gave two regular sessions and a Lightning Talk in which I told jokes. My second, I was a board advisor, and I delivered a precon, a spotlight and a Lightning Talk in which I sang. My third (last week), I was a full board director, and I didn’t present at all. Let’s not talk about next year. I’m not sure there are many options left. This year, I noticed that a lot more people recognised me and said hello. I guess that’s potentially because of the singing last year, but could also be because board elections can bring a fair bit of attention, and because of the effort I’ve put in through things like 24HOP... Yeah, ok. It’d be the singing. My approach was very different though. I was watching things through different eyes. I looked for the things that seemed to be working and the things that didn’t. I had staff there again, and was curious to know how their things were working out. I knew a lot more about what was going on behind the scenes to make various things happen, and although very little about the Summit was actually my responsibility (based on not having that portfolio), my perspective had moved considerably. Before the Summit started, Board Members had been given notebooks – an idea Tom (who heads up PASS’ marketing) had come up with after being inspired by seeing Bill walk around with a notebook. The plan was to take notes about feedback we got from people. It was a good thing, and the notebook forms a nice pair with the SQLBits one I got a couple of years ago when I last spoke there. I think one of the biggest impacts of this was that during the first keynote, Bill told everyone present about the notebooks. This set a tone of “we’re listening”, and a number of people were definitely keen to tell us things that would cause us to pull out our notebooks. PASSTV was a new thing this year. Justin, the host, featured on the couch and talked a lot of people about a lot of things, including me (he talked to me about a lot of things, I don’t think he talked to a lot people about me). Reaching people through online methods is something which interests me a lot – it has huge potential, and I love the idea of being able to broadcast to people who are unable to attend in person. I’m keen to see how this medium can be developed over time. People who know me will know that I’m a keen advocate of certification – I've been SQL certified since version 6.5, and have even been involved in creating exams. However, I don’t believe in studying for exams. I think training is worthwhile for learning new skills, but the goal should be on learning those skills, not on passing an exam. Exams should be for proving that the skills are there, not a goal in themselves. The PASS Summit is an excellent place to take exams though, and with an attitude of professional development throughout the event, why not? So I did. I wasn’t expecting to take one, but I was persuaded and took the MCM Knowledge Exam. I hadn’t even looked at the syllabus, but tried it anyway. I was very tired, and even fell asleep at one point during it. I’ll find out my result at some point in the future – the Prometric site just says “Tested” at the moment. As I said, it wasn’t something I was expecting to do, but it was good to have something unexpected during the week. Of course it was good to catch up with old friends and make new ones. I feel like every time I’m in the US I see things develop a bit more, with more and more people knowing who I am, who my staff are, and recognising the LobsterPot brand. I missed being a presenter, but I definitely enjoyed seeing many friends on the list of presenters. I won’t try to list them, because there are so many these days that people might feel sad if I don’t mention them. For those that I managed to see, I was pleased to see that the majority of them have lifted their presentation skills since I last saw them, and I happily told them as much. One person who I will mention was Paul White, who travelled from New Zealand to his first PASS Summit. He gave two sessions (a regular session and a half-day), packed large rooms of people, and had everyone buzzing with enthusiasm. I spoke to him after the event, and he told me that his expectations were blown away. Paul isn’t normally a fan of crowds, and the thought of 4000 people would have been scary. But he told me he had no idea that people would welcome him so well, be so friendly and so down to earth. He’s seen the significance of the SQL Server community, and says he’ll be back. It’ll be good to see him there. Will you be there too?

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• Eloqua Experience 2013: Mystique, Modern Marketing and Masterful Engagement

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is a guest post from Erick Mott, a social business leader at Oracle Eloqua. There’s a growing gap between 20th century marketing and a modern marketing way of doing business. I can’t think of a better example of modern marketing in action than what more than 2,000 people experienced in San Francisco at #EE13; customer-obsession, multichannel content, and real-time engagement all coming together at one extraordinary event. This was my first Eloqua Experience as a new Oracle Eloqua employee. In weeks prior, I heard about the mystique but didn’t know what to expect. What I’ve come to understand with more clarity is everything we do revolves around customer success, and we operate and educate at all times with these five tenets in mind: 1. Targeting: Really Know Your Buyer 2. Engagement: Create a 1:1 Relationship 3. Conversion: Visualize Guided Thinking 4. Analysis: Learn What’s Working 5. Marketing Technology: Enable and Extend the Cloud Product News from Eloqua Experience 2013 We made some announcements that John Stetic, VP of Products, Oracle Eloqua covers in this brief ‘Modern Marketing Minute’ video recorded after Wednesday’s keynote; summarized below, too: Oracle Eloqua AdFocus: While understanding the impact of a specific marketing channel was formerly relegated to marketers’ wish lists, the channels we now focus on are digital, social, and mobile. AdFocus gives marketers a single platform to dynamically create, manage and measure display ads alongside owned and earned media. AdFocus enables marketers to target only key accounts or prospects you want to reach with display ads, as well as provide creative content or personalized ad copy based on their persona and activities. Oracle Eloqua Profiler: The details of what we now know about customers have expanded into a universal customer profile, which can be used to create highly targeted segments. Marketers now can take data that’s not even stored in Eloqua to help targeted and score prospects for a complete, multichannel view of the customer. Profiler gives sales reps one, detailed view of the prospect to extend views beyond Oracle Eloqua asset activity (emails, forms, page views) to any external assets stored in Oracle Eloqua. Marketing Resource Management: New capabilities create more secure and controlled access to marketing resources and data. New integrations provide greater insight into campaign resources and management through a central marketing calendar and simplify resource management. Integrated Sales and Marketing Funnel: An integrated sales and marketing funnel view gives marketing and sales users, cross-functional teams, and executive management a consistent and clear view of pipeline performance. It also quickly provides users with historical metrics across different time spans and conditions. Eloqua AppCloud: More than 20 new AppCloud partners have been added to the community, which now includes 100+ apps. Eloqua AppCloud now provides modern marketers with an even broader range of marketing applications that help expand and enrich sales and marketing efforts; easily accessible in the Topliners Community. Social Capabilities: Recent integration between Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) deliver a comprehensive, scalable and integrated modern marketing solution. New capabilities include better tracking of social activities for a more complete customer profile. Engage Facebook custom audiences with AdFocus to deliver ads and meaningful experiences through trusted social networks. Biggest and Best Eloqua Experience. There’s a lot of talk in the industry about the Marketing Cloud. At Oracle Eloqua, we have been on a mission of delivering the most advanced and integrated modern marketing technology on the planet. It’s not just a concept but reality with proven execution, as seen first-hand this week in San Francisco. In this video, Kevin Akeroyd, SVP of Oracle Eloqua, provides some highlights of what made this year’s Eloqua Experience, exceptional, including Steve Woods’ presentation about the journey of modern marketers and Andrea Ward’s conversation with Vince Gilligan, creator of the Breaking Bad television series. The 2013 Markie Awards The Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud was best exemplified for me as 19 Markies were awarded to customers for their exceptional creativity and results as modern marketers. Wow, what a night to remember with so many committed and talented people working to create an extraordinary experience! To learn more about how to become a modern marketer, check out these resources. We look forward to seeing you next year at Eloqua Experience. More on Erick: 20 years experience at Oracle, Ektron, Sitecore, Lyris, Habeas, Nokia, creatorbase, Mark Monitor, Cisco Systems, GlobalFluency, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS TV. Patent holder with agency, Fortune 500, media, and startup company expertise. @mikestiles

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• Solaris 11.1 changes building of code past the point of __NORETURN

  - by alanc

  While Solaris 11.1 was under development, we started seeing some errors in the builds of the upstream X.Org git master sources, such as: "Display.c", line 65: Function has no return statement : x_io_error_handler "hostx.c", line 341: Function has no return statement : x_io_error_handler from functions that were defined to match a specific callback definition that declared them as returning an int if they did return, but these were calling exit() instead of returning so hadn't listed a return value. These had been generating warnings for years which we'd been ignoring, but X.Org has made enough progress in cleaning up code for compiler warnings and static analysis issues lately, that the community turned up the default error levels, including the gcc flag -Werror=return-type and the equivalent Solaris Studio cc flags -v -errwarn=E_FUNC_HAS_NO_RETURN_STMT, so now these became errors that stopped the build. Yet on Solaris, gcc built this code fine, while Studio errored out. Investigation showed this was due to the Solaris headers, which during Solaris 10 development added a number of annotations to the headers when gcc was being used for the amd64 kernel bringup before the Studio amd64 port was ready. Since Studio did not support the inline form of these annotations at the time, but instead used #pragma for them, the definitions were only present for gcc. To resolve this, I fixed both sides of the problem, so that it would work for building new X.Org sources on older Solaris releases or with older Studio compilers, as well as fixing the general problem before it broke more software building on Solaris. To the X.Org sources, I added the traditional Studio #pragma does_not_return to recognize that functions like exit() don't ever return, in patches such as this Xserver patch. Adding a dummy return statement was ruled out as that introduced unreachable code errors from compilers and analyzers that correctly realized you couldn't reach that code after a return statement. And on the Solaris 11.1 side, I updated the annotation definitions in <sys/ccompile.h> to enable for Studio 12.0 and later compilers the annotations already existing in a number of system headers for functions like exit() and abort(). If you look in that file you'll see the annotations we currently use, though the forms there haven't gone through review to become a Committed interface, so may change in the future. Actually getting this integrated into Solaris though took a bit more work than just editing one header file. Our ELF binary build comparison tool, wsdiff, actually showed a large number of differences in the resulting binaries due to the compiler using this information for branch prediction, code path analysis, and other possible optimizations, so after comparing enough of the disassembly output to be comfortable with the changes, we also made sure to get this in early enough in the release cycle so that it would get plenty of test exposure before the release. It also required updating quite a bit of code to avoid introducing new lint or compiler warnings or errors, and people building applications on top of Solaris 11.1 and later may need to make similar changes if they want to keep their build logs similarly clean. Previously, if you had a function that was declared with a non-void return type, lint and cc would warn if you didn't return a value, even if you called a function like exit() or panic() that ended execution. For instance: #include <stdlib.h> int callback(int status) { if (status == 0) return status; exit(status); } would previously require a never executed return 0; after the exit() to avoid lint warning "function falls off bottom without returning value". Now the compiler & lint will both issue "statement not reached" warnings for a return 0; after the final exit(), allowing (or in some cases, requiring) it to be removed. However, if there is no return statement anywhere in the function, lint will warn that you've declared a function returning a value that never does so, suggesting you can declare it as void. Unfortunately, if your function signature is required to match a certain form, such as in a callback, you not be able to do so, and will need to add a /* LINTED */ to the end of the function. If you need your code to build on both a newer and an older release, then you will either need to #ifdef these unreachable statements, or, to keep your sources common across releases, add to your sources the corresponding #pragma recognized by both current and older compiler versions, such as: #pragma does_not_return(exit) #pragma does_not_return(panic) Hopefully this little extra work is paid for by the compilers & code analyzers being able to better understand your code paths, giving you better optimizations and more accurate errors & warning messages.

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• Understanding implementation of glu.PickMatrix()

  - by stoney78us

  I am working on an OpenGL project which requires object selection feature. I use OpenTK framework to do this; however OpenTK doesn't support glu.PickMatrix() method to define the picking region. I ended up googling its implementation and here is what i got: void GluPickMatrix(double x, double y, double deltax, double deltay, int[] viewport) { if (deltax <= 0 || deltay <= 0) { return; } GL.Translate((viewport[2] - 2 * (x - viewport[0])) / deltax, (viewport[3] - 2 * (y - viewport[1])) / deltay, 0); GL.Scale(viewport[2] / deltax, viewport[3] / deltay, 1.0); } I totally fail to understand this piece of code. Moreover, this doesn't work with my following code sample: //selectbuffer private int[] _selectBuffer = new int[512]; private void Init() { float[] triangleVertices = new float[] { 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f }; float[] _triangleColors = new float[] { 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f }; GL.GenBuffers(2, _vBO); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, _vBO[0]); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, new IntPtr(sizeof(float) * _triangleVertices.Length), _triangleVertices, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Float, 0, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, _vBO[1]); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, new IntPtr(sizeof(float) * _triangleColors.Length), _triangleColors, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.ColorPointer(3, ColorPointerType.Float, 0, 0); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.ColorArray); //Selectbuffer set up GL.SelectBuffer(512, _selectBuffer); } private void glControlWindow_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e) { GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.DepthBufferBit); float[] eyes = { 0.0f, 0.0f, -10.0f }; float[] target = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f }; Matrix4 projection = Matrix4.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(0.785398163f, 4.0f / 3.0f, 0.1f, 100f); //45 degree = 0.785398163 rads Matrix4 view = Matrix4.LookAt(eyes[0], eyes[1], eyes[2], target[0], target[1], target[2], 0, 1, 0); Matrix4 model = Matrix4.Identity; Matrix4 MV = view * model; //First Clear Buffers GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.DepthBufferBit); GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Projection); GL.LoadIdentity(); GL.LoadMatrix(ref projection); GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Modelview); GL.LoadIdentity(); GL.LoadMatrix(ref MV); GL.Viewport(0, 0, glControlWindow.Width, glControlWindow.Height); GL.Enable(EnableCap.DepthTest); //Enable correct Z Drawings GL.DepthFunc(DepthFunction.Less); //Enable correct Z Drawings GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Modelview); GL.PushMatrix(); GL.Translate(3.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); DrawTriangle(); GL.PopMatrix(); GL.PushMatrix(); GL.Translate(-3.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); DrawTriangle(); GL.PopMatrix(); //Finally... GraphicsContext.CurrentContext.VSync = true; //Caps frame rate as to not over run GPU glControlWindow.SwapBuffers(); //Takes from the 'GL' and puts into control } private void DrawTriangle() { GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, _vBO[0]); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Float, 0, 0); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.DrawArrays(BeginMode.Triangles, 0, 3); GL.DisableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); } //mouse click event implementation private void glControlWindow_MouseClick(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e) { //Enter Select mode. Pretend drawing. GL.RenderMode(RenderingMode.Select); int[] viewport = new int[4]; GL.GetInteger(GetPName.Viewport, viewport); GL.PushMatrix(); GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Projection); GL.LoadIdentity(); GluPickMatrix(e.X, e.Y, 5, 5, viewport); Matrix4 projection = Matrix4.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(0.785398163f, 4.0f / 3.0f, 0.1f, 100f); // this projection matrix is the same as one in glControlWindow_Paint method. GL.LoadMatrix(ref projection); GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Modelview); int i = 0; int hits; GL.PushMatrix(); GL.Translate(3.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); GL.PushName(i); DrawTriangle(); GL.PopName(); GL.PopMatrix(); i++; GL.PushMatrix(); GL.Translate(-3.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); GL.PushName(i); DrawTriangle(); GL.PopName(); GL.PopMatrix(); hits = GL.RenderMode(RenderingMode.Render); .....hits processing code goes here... GL.PopMatrix(); glControlWindow.Invalidate(); } I expect to get only one hit everytime i click inside a triangle, but i always get 2 no matter where i click. I suspect there is something wrong with the implementation of the GluPickMatrix, I haven't figured out yet.

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• ASP.NET: Including JavaScript libraries conditionally from CDN

  - by DigiMortal

  When developing cloud applications it is still useful to build them so they can run also on local machine without network connection. One thing you use from CDN when in cloud and from app folder when not connected are common JavaScript libraries. In this posting I will show you how to add support for local and CDN script stores to your ASP.NET MVC web application. Our solution is simple. We will add new configuration setting to our web.config file (including cloud transform file of it) and new property to our web application. In master page where scripts are included we will include scripts from CDN conditionally. There is nothing complex, all changes we make are simple ones. 1. Adding new property to web application Although I am using ASP.NET MVC web application these modifications work also very well with ASP.NET Forms. Open Global.asax and add new static property to your application class. public static bool UseCdn {     get     {         var valueString = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["useCdn"];         bool useCdn;           bool.TryParse(valueString, out useCdn);         return useCdn;     } } If you want less round-trips to configuration data you can keep some nullable boolean in your application class scope and load CDN setting first time it is asked. 2. Adding new configuration setting to web.config By default my application uses local scripts. Although my application runs on cloud I can do a lot of stuff without staging environment in cloud. So by default I don’t have costs on traffic when including scripts from application folders. <appSettings>   <add key="UseCdn" value="false" /> </appSettings> You can also set UseCdn value to true and change it to false when you are not connected to network. 3. Modifying web.config cloud transform I have special configuration for my solution that I use when deploying my web application to cloud. This configuration is called Cloud and transform for this configuration is located in web.cloud.config. To make application using CDN when deployed to cloud we need the following transform. <appSettings>   <add key="UseCdn"        value="true"        xdt:Transform="SetAttributes"        xdt:Locator="Match(key)" /> </appSettings> Now when you publish your application to cloud it uses CDN by default. 4. Including scripts in master pages The last thing we need to change is our master page. My solution is simple. I check if I have to include scripts from CDN and if it is true then I include scripts from there. Otherwise my scripts will be included from application folder. @if (MyWeb.MvcApplication.UseCdn) {     <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> } else {     <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> } Although here is only one script shown you can add all your scripts that are also available in some CDN in this if-else block. You are free to include scripts from different CDN services if you need. Conclusion As we saw it was very easy to modify our application to make it use CDN for JavaScript libraries in cloud and local scripts when run on local machine. We made only small changes to our application code, configuration and master pages to get different script sources supported. Our application is now more independent from external sources when we are working on it.

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• c# display DB table structure

  - by user3529643

  I have a question. My code is the following : public partial class Form1 : Form { public OleDbConnection datCon; public string MyDataFile; public ArrayList tblArray; public ArrayList fldArray; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); lvData.Clear(); lvData.View = View.Details; lvData.LabelEdit = false; lvData.FullRowSelect = true; lvData.GridLines = true; } private void DataConnection() { MyDataFile = Application.StartupPath + @"\studenti.mdb"; string MyCon = @"provider=microsoft.jet.oledb.4.0;data source=" + MyDataFile; try { datCon = new OleDbConnection(MyCon); } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); } FillTreeView(); } private void GetTables(OleDbConnection cnn) { try { cnn.Open(); DataTable schTable = cnn.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, new Object[] { null, null, null, "TABLE" }); tblArray = new ArrayList(); foreach (DataRow datrow in schTable.Rows) { tblArray.Add(datrow["TABLE_NAME"].ToString()); } cnn.Close(); } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); } } private void GetFields(OleDbConnection cnn, string tabNode) { string tabName; try { tabName = tabNode; cnn.Open(); DataTable schTable = cnn.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Columns, new Object[] { null, null, tabName }); fldArray = new ArrayList(); foreach (DataRow datRow in schTable.Rows) { fldArray.Add(datRow["COLUMN_NAME"].ToString()); } cnn.Close(); } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); } } private void FillTreeView() { tvData.Nodes.Clear(); tvData.Nodes.Add("Database"); tvData.Nodes[0].Tag = "RootDB"; GetTables(datCon); // add table node for (int i = 0; i < tblArray.Count; i++) { tvData.Nodes[0].Nodes.Add(tblArray[i].ToString()); tvData.Nodes[0].Nodes[i].Tag = "Tables"; } // add field node for (int i = 0; i < tblArray.Count; i++) { GetFields(datCon, tblArray[i].ToString()); for (int j = 0; j < fldArray.Count; j++) { tvData.Nodes[0].Nodes[i].Nodes.Add(fldArray[j].ToString()); tvData.Nodes[0].Nodes[i].Nodes[j].Tag = "Fields"; } } this.tvData.ContextMenuStrip = contextMenuStrip1; contextMenuStrip1.ItemClicked +=contextMenuStrip1_ItemClicked; } public void FillListView(OleDbConnection cnn, string tabName) { OleDbCommand cmdRead; OleDbDataReader datReader; string strField; lblTableName.Text = tabName; strField = "SELECT * FROM [" + tabName + "]"; // Initi cmdRead obiect cmdRead = new OleDbCommand(strField, cnn); cnn.Open(); datReader = cmdRead.ExecuteReader(); // fill ListView while (datReader.Read()) { ListViewItem objListItem = new ListViewItem(datReader.GetValue(0).ToString()); for (int c = 1; c < datReader.FieldCount; c++) { objListItem.SubItems.Add(datReader.GetValue(c).ToString()); } lvData.Items.Add(objListItem); } datReader.Close(); cnn.Close(); } private void ViewToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { DataConnection(); } public void tvData_AfterExpand(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.TreeViewEventArgs e) { string tabName; int fldCount; if (e.Node.Tag.ToString() == "Tables") { fldCount = e.Node.GetNodeCount(false); //column headers. int n = lvData.Width; double wid = n / fldCount; // width columnn for (int c = 0; c < fldCount; c++) { lvData.Columns.Add(e.Node.Nodes[c].Text, (int)wid, HorizontalAlignment.Left); } // gett table name tabName = e.Node.Text; FillListView(datCon, tabName); } } public void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { //TO DO?? } } I have a treeview populated with tables (nodes) from my database, and a listview which is populated with the data from my tables when I click on a table. As you can see I have a button1 on my form. When I click it I want it to display to me the structure of the table I selected in my treeview (a treeview node). Not too many details, just the name of the columns in my table, type of columns, primary keys. I've tried to follow many tutorials but I can t seem to manage it.

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• Object oriented n-tier design. Am I abstracting too much? Or not enough?

  - by max

  Hi guys, I'm building my first enterprise grade solution (at least I'm attempting to make it enterprise grade). I'm trying to follow best practice design patterns but am starting to worry that I might be going too far with abstraction. I'm trying to build my asp.net webforms (in C#) app as an n-tier application. I've created a Data Access Layer using an XSD strongly-typed dataset that interfaces with a SQL server backend. I access the DAL through some Business Layer Objects that I've created on a 1:1 basis to the datatables in the dataset (eg, a UsersBLL class for the Users datatable in the dataset). I'm doing checks inside the BLL to make sure that data passed to DAL is following the business rules of the application. That's all well and good. Where I'm getting stuck though is the point at which I connect the BLL to the presentation layer. For example, my UsersBLL class deals mostly with whole datatables, as it's interfacing with the DAL. Should I now create a separate "User" (Singular) class that maps out the properties of a single user, rather than multiple users? This way I don't have to do any searching through datatables in the presentation layer, as I could use the properties created in the User class. Or would it be better to somehow try to handle this inside the UsersBLL? Sorry if this sounds a little complicated... Below is the code from the UsersBLL: using System; using System.Data; using PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSetTableAdapters; [System.ComponentModel.DataObject] public class UsersBLL { private UsersTableAdapter _UsersAdapter = null; protected UsersTableAdapter Adapter { get { if (_UsersAdapter == null) _UsersAdapter = new UsersTableAdapter(); return _UsersAdapter; } } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Select, true)] public PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable GetUsers() { return Adapter.GetUsers(); } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Select, false)] public PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable GetUserByUserID(int userID) { return Adapter.GetUserByUserID(userID); } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Select, false)] public PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable GetUsersByTeamID(int teamID) { return Adapter.GetUsersByTeamID(teamID); } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Select, false)] public PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable GetUsersByEmail(string Email) { return Adapter.GetUserByEmail(Email); } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Insert, true)] public bool AddUser(int? teamID, string FirstName, string LastName, string Email, string Role, int LocationID) { // Create a new UsersRow instance PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable Users = new PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable(); PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersRow user = Users.NewUsersRow(); if (UserExists(Users, Email) == true) return false; if (teamID == null) user.SetTeamIDNull(); else user.TeamID = teamID.Value; user.FirstName = FirstName; user.LastName = LastName; user.Email = Email; user.Role = Role; user.LocationID = LocationID; // Add the new user Users.AddUsersRow(user); int rowsAffected = Adapter.Update(Users); // Return true if precisely one row was inserted, // otherwise false return rowsAffected == 1; } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Update, true)] public bool UpdateUser(int userID, int? teamID, string FirstName, string LastName, string Email, string Role, int LocationID) { PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable Users = Adapter.GetUserByUserID(userID); if (Users.Count == 0) // no matching record found, return false return false; PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersRow user = Users[0]; if (teamID == null) user.SetTeamIDNull(); else user.TeamID = teamID.Value; user.FirstName = FirstName; user.LastName = LastName; user.Email = Email; user.Role = Role; user.LocationID = LocationID; // Update the product record int rowsAffected = Adapter.Update(user); // Return true if precisely one row was updated, // otherwise false return rowsAffected == 1; } [System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodAttribute (System.ComponentModel.DataObjectMethodType.Delete, true)] public bool DeleteUser(int userID) { int rowsAffected = Adapter.Delete(userID); // Return true if precisely one row was deleted, // otherwise false return rowsAffected == 1; } private bool UserExists(PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersDataTable users, string email) { // Check if user email already exists foreach (PedChallenge.DAL.PedDataSet.UsersRow userRow in users) { if (userRow.Email == email) return true; } return false; } } Some guidance in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks all! Max

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• YouTube SEO: Video Optimization

  - by Mike Stiles

  SEO optimization is still regarded as one of the primary tools in the digital marketing kit. However and wherever a potential customer is conducting a search, brands want their content to surface in the top results. Makes sense. But without a regular flow of good, relevant content, your SEO opportunities run shallow. We know from several studies video is one of the most engaging forms of content, so why not make sure that in addition to being cool, your videos are helping you win the SEO game? Keywords:-Decide what search phrases make the most sense for your video. Don’t dare use phrases that have nothing to do with the content. You’ll make people mad.-Research those keywords to see how competitive they are. Adjust them so there are still lots of people searching for it, but there are not as many links showing up for it.-Search your potential keywords and phrases to see what comes up. It’s amazing how many people forget to do that. Video Title: -Try to start and/or end with your keyword.-When you search on YouTube, visual action words tend to come up as suggested searches. So try to use action words. Video Description: -Lead with a link to your site (include http://). -Don’t stuff this with your keyword. It leads to bad writing and it won’t work anyway. This is where you convince people to watch, so write for humans. Use some showmanship. -At the end, do a call to action (subscribe, see the whole playlist, visit our social channels, etc.) Video Tags:-Don’t over-tag. 5-10 tags per video is plenty. -If you’re compelled to have more than 10, that means you should probably make more videos specifically targeting all those keywords. Find Linking Pals:-45% of videos are discovered on video sites. But 44% are found through links on blogs and sites.-Write a blog about your video’s content, then link to the video in it. -A good site for finding places to guest blog is myblogguest.com-Once you find good linking partners, they’ll link to your future videos (as long as they’re good and you’re returning the favor). Tap the Power of Similar Videos:-Use Video Reply to associate your video with other topic-related videos. That’s when you make a video responding to or referencing a video made by someone else. Content:-Again, build up a portfolio of videos, not just one that goes after 30 keywords.-Create shorter, sequential videos that pull them deeper into the content and closer to a desired final action.-Organize your video topics separately using Playlists. Playlists show up as a whole in search results like individual videos, so optimize playlists the same as you would for a video. Meta Data:-Too much importance is placed on it. It accounts for only 15% of search success.-YouTube reads Captions or Transcripts to determine what a video is about. If you’re not using them, you’re missing out.-You get the SEO benefit of captions and transcripts whether the viewers has them toggled on or not. Promotion:-This accounts for 25% of search success.-Promote the daylights out of your videos using your social channels and digital assets. Don’t assume it’s going to magically get discovered. -You can pay to promote your video. This could surface it on the YouTube home page, YouTube search results, YouTube related videos, and across the Google content network. Community:-Accounts for 10% of search success.-Make sure your YouTube home page is a fun place to spend time. Carefully pick your featured video, and make sure your Playlists are featured. -Participate in discussions so users will see you’re present. The volume of ratings/comments is as important as the number of views when it comes to where you surface on search. Video Sitemaps:-As with a web site, a video sitemap helps Google quickly index your video.-Google wants to know title, description, play page URL, the URL of the thumbnail image you want, and raw video file location.-Sitemaps are xml files you host or dynamically generate on your site. Once you’ve made your sitemap, sign in and submit it using Google webmaster tools. Just as with the broadcast and cable TV channels, putting a video out there is only step one. You also have to make sure everybody knows it’s there so the largest audience possible can see it. Here’s hoping you get great ratings. @mikestiles

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• Many-to-one relation exception due to closed session after loading

  - by Nick Thissen

  Hi, I am using NHibernate (version 1.2.1) for the first time so I wrote a simple test application (an ASP.NET project) that uses it. In my database I have two tables: Persons and Categories. Each person gets one category, seems easy enough. | Persons | | Categories | |--------------| |--------------| | Id (PK) | | Id (PK) | | Firstname | | CategoryName | | Lastname | | CreatedTime | | CategoryId | | UpdatedTime | | CreatedTime | | Deleted | | UpdatedTime | | Deleted | The Id, CreatedTime, UpdatedTime and Deleted attributes are a convention I use in all my tables, so I have tried to bring this fact into an additional abstraction layer. I have a project DatabaseFramework which has three important classes: Entity: an abstract class that defines these four properties. All 'entity objects' (in this case Person and Category) must inherit Entity. IEntityManager: a generic interface (type parameter as Entity) that defines methods like Load, Insert, Update, etc. NHibernateEntityManager: an implementation of this interface using NHibernate to do the loading, saving, etc. Now, the Person and Category classes are straightforward, they just define the attributes of the tables of course (keeping in mind that four of them are in the base Entity class). Since the Persons table is related to the Categories table via the CategoryId attribute, the Person class has a Category property that holds the related category. However, in my webpage, I will also need the name of this category (CategoryName), for databinding purposes for example. So I created an additional property CategoryName that returns the CategoryName property of the current Category property, or an empty string if the Category is null: Namespace Database Public Class Person Inherits DatabaseFramework.Entity Public Overridable Property Firstname As String Public Overridable Property Lastname As String Public Overridable Property Category As Category Public Overridable ReadOnly Property CategoryName As String Get Return If(Me.Category Is Nothing, _ String.Empty, _ Me.Category.CategoryName) End Get End Property End Class End Namespace I am mapping the Person class using this mapping file. The many-to-one relation was suggested by Yads in another thread: <id name="Id" column="Id" type="int" unsaved-value="0"> <generator class="identity" /> </id> <property name="CreatedTime" type="DateTime" not-null="true" /> <property name="UpdatedTime" type="DateTime" not-null="true" /> <property name="Deleted" type="Boolean" not-null="true" /> <property name="Firstname" type="String" /> <property name="Lastname" type="String" /> <many-to-one name="Category" column="CategoryId" class="NHibernateWebTest.Database.Category, NHibernateWebTest" /> (I can't get it to show the root node, this forum hides it, I don't know how to escape the html-like tags...) The final important detail is the Load method of the NHibernateEntityManager implementation. (This is in C# as it's in a different project, sorry about that). I simply open a new ISession (ISessionFactory.OpenSession) in the GetSession method and then use that to fill an EntityCollection(Of TEntity) which is just a collection inheriting System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection(Of T). public virtual EntityCollection< TEntity Load() { using (ISession session = this.GetSession()) { var entities = session .CreateCriteria(typeof (TEntity)) .Add(Expression.Eq("Deleted", false)) .List< TEntity (); return new EntityCollection< TEntity (entities); } } (Again, I can't get it to format the code correctly, it hides the generic type parameters, probably because it reads the angled symbols as a HTML tag..? If you know how to let me do that, let me know!) Now, the idea of this Load method is that I get a fully functional collection of Persons, all their properties set to the correct values (including the Category property, and thus, the CategoryName property should return the correct name). However, it seems that is not the case. When I try to data-bind the result of this Load method to a GridView in ASP.NET, it tells me this: Property accessor 'CategoryName' on object 'NHibernateWebTest.Database.Person' threw the following exception:'Could not initialize proxy - the owning Session was closed.' The exception occurs on the DataBind method call here: public virtual void LoadGrid() { if (this.Grid == null) return; this.Grid.DataSource = this.Manager.Load(); this.Grid.DataBind(); } Well, of course the session is closed, I closed it via the using block. Isn't that the correct approach, should I keep the session open? And for how long? Can I close it after the DataBind method has been run? In each case, I'd really like my Load method to just return a functional collection of items. It seems to me that it is now only getting the Category when it is required (eg, when the GridView wants to read the CategoryName, which wants to read the Category property), but at that time the session is closed. Is that reasoning correct? How do I stop this behavior? Or shouldn't I? And what should I do otherwise? Thanks!

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• Web optimization

  - by hmloo

  1. CSS Optimization Organize your CSS code Good CSS organization helps with future maintainability of the site, it helps you and your team member understand the CSS more quickly and jump to specific styles. Structure CSS code For small project, you can break your CSS code in separate blocks according to the structure of the page or page content. for example you can break your CSS document according the content of your web page(e.g. Header, Main Content, Footer) Structure CSS file For large project, you may feel having too much CSS code in one place, so it's the best to structure your CSS into more CSS files, and use a master style sheet to import these style sheets. this solution can not only organize style structure, but also reduce server request./*--------------Master style sheet--------------*/ @import "Reset.css"; @import "Structure.css"; @import "Typography.css"; @import "Forms.css"; Create index for your CSS Another important thing is to create index at the beginning of your CSS file, index can help you quickly understand the whole CSS structure./*---------------------------------------- 1. Header 2. Navigation 3. Main Content 4. Sidebar 5. Footer ------------------------------------------*/ Writing efficient CSS selectors keep in mind that browsers match CSS selectors from right to left and the order of efficiency for selectors 1. id (#myid) 2. class (.myclass) 3. tag (div, h1, p) 4. adjacent sibling (h1 + p) 5. child (ul > li) 6. descendent (li a) 7. universal (*) 8. attribute (a[rel="external"]) 9. pseudo-class and pseudo element (a:hover, li:first) the rightmost selector is called "key selector", so when you write your CSS code, you should choose more efficient key selector. Here are some best practice: Don't tag-qualify Never do this:div#myid div.myclass .myclass#myid IDs are unique, classes are more unique than a tag so they don't need a tag. Doing so makes the selector less efficient. Avoid overqualifying selectors for example#nav a is more efficient thanul#nav li a Don't repeat declarationExample: body {font-size:12px;}h1 {font-size:12px;font-weight:bold;} since h1 is already inherited from body, so you don't need to repeate atrribute. Using 0 instead of 0px Always using #selector { margin: 0; } There’s no need to include the px after 0, removing all those superfluous px can reduce the size of your CSS file. Group declaration Example: h1 { font-size: 16pt; } h1 { color: #fff; } h1 { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } it’s much better to combine them:h1 { font-size: 16pt; color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } Group selectorsExample: h1 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } h2 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } it would be much better if setup as:h1, h2 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } Group attributeExample: h1 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } h2 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; } you can set different rules for specific elements after setting a rule for a grouph1, h2 { color: #fff; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; } h2 { font-size: 16pt; } Using Shorthand PropertiesExample: #selector { margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 4px; }Better: #selector { margin: 8px 4px 8px 4px; }Best: #selector { margin: 8px 4px; } a good diagram illustrated how shorthand declarations are interpreted depending on how many values are specified for margin and padding property. instead of using:#selector { background-image: url(”logo.png”); background-position: top left; background-repeat: no-repeat; } is used:#selector { background: url(logo.png) no-repeat top left; } 2. Image Optimization Image Optimizer Image Optimizer is a free Visual Studio2010 extension that optimizes PNG, GIF and JPG file sizes without quality loss. It uses SmushIt and PunyPNG for the optimization. Just right click on any folder or images in Solution Explorer and choose optimize images, then it will automatically optimize all PNG, GIF and JPEG files in that folder. CSS Image Sprites CSS Image Sprites are a way to combine a collection of images to a single image, then use CSS background-position property to shift the visible area to show the required image, many images can take a long time to load and generates multiple server requests, so Image Sprite can reduce the number of server requests and improve site performance. You can use many online tools to generate your image sprite and CSS, and you can also try the Sprite and Image Optimization framework released by The ASP.NET team.

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• "Mega Menus" for SEO [duplicate]

  - by Thought Space Designs

  This question already has an answer here: How do I handle having to many links on a webpage because of my menu 4 answers I'm using the term "Mega Menus" loosely here. I'm redesigning my WordPress site (it's going to be responsive), and as part of the redesign, I was debating incorporating some sort of descriptive menu setup. For example, normal navigation drop down menus come in the form of unordered lists of links like so: <nav> <ul> <li> <a href="#">Link1</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Link2</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Link3</a> <ul> <li> <a href="#">Sub Link1</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Sub Link2</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Sub Link3</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="#">Link4</a> </li> </ul> </nav> What I'm looking to do is build my drop down menus with more information than your standard menu. For example, I have a top level link named "Team", and under that link, I want to make a large drop down that contains head shots, headers (in the form of styled p tags) and brief (<100 words) descriptions of each team member (only 2 currently). I want to accompany this with a "Read More" link that takes you to their actual team page. This is just one example, of course, and the other top level links would also have descriptive drop downs in the same fashion. On mobile, I was planning on hiding the "mega menu", and delivering a standard unordered list of links. Here's what I was thinking for overall structure and syntax: <nav> <ul> <li> <a href="#">Home</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">About</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Team</a> <ul> <!-- DESKTOP --> <li class="mega-menu row"> <a class="col-sm-6" href="#"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-4"> <img src="#" alt="Team Member 1" /> </div> <div class="col-sm-8"> <p class="header">Team Member 1</p> <p>Short description goes here.</p> </div> </div> </a> <a class="col-sm-6" href="#"> <!-- OTHER TEAM MEMBER INFO --> </a> </li> <!-- END DESKTOP --> <!-- MOBILE --> <li> <a href="#">Team Member 1</a> </li> <li> <a href="#">Team Member 2</a> </li> <!-- END MOBILE --> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="#">Contact</a> </li> </ul> </nav> Can anybody think of any potential SEO ramifications of doing this? I'm not going to be loading these menus full of links, so it shouldn't hurt page rank, but what are the effects of having a good bit of text and maybe even forms within nav elements? Is there such a thing as overloading nav with HTML? EDIT: Here's an example of what the menu would look like rendered on desktop. I'm currently hovering the "Team" menu, but you can't see because my mouse went away when I took the screenshot. EDIT 2: This question is not a duplicate. I'm not going to have "too many" links in my menus. I'm wondering how having images and text inside of header navigation will affect my menus. Also, I don't just want "yes, this is bad" answers. Please cite your sources and be specific with reasoning.

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• Integrating JavaScript Unit Tests with Visual Studio

  - by Stephen Walther

  Modern ASP.NET web applications take full advantage of client-side JavaScript to provide better interactivity and responsiveness. If you are building an ASP.NET application in the right way, you quickly end up with lots and lots of JavaScript code. When writing server code, you should be writing unit tests. One big advantage of unit tests is that they provide you with a safety net that enable you to safely modify your existing code – for example, fix bugs, add new features, and make performance enhancements -- without breaking your existing code. Every time you modify your code, you can execute your unit tests to verify that you have not broken anything. For the same reason that you should write unit tests for your server code, you should write unit tests for your client code. JavaScript is just as susceptible to bugs as C#. There is no shortage of unit testing frameworks for JavaScript. Each of the major JavaScript libraries has its own unit testing framework. For example, jQuery has QUnit, Prototype has UnitTestJS, YUI has YUI Test, and Dojo has Dojo Objective Harness (DOH). The challenge is integrating a JavaScript unit testing framework with Visual Studio. Visual Studio and Visual Studio ALM provide fantastic support for server-side unit tests. You can easily view the results of running your unit tests in the Visual Studio Test Results window. You can set up a check-in policy which requires that all unit tests pass before your source code can be committed to the source code repository. In addition, you can set up Team Build to execute your unit tests automatically. Unfortunately, Visual Studio does not provide “out-of-the-box” support for JavaScript unit tests. MS Test, the unit testing framework included in Visual Studio, does not support JavaScript unit tests. As soon as you leave the server world, you are left on your own. The goal of this blog entry is to describe one approach to integrating JavaScript unit tests with MS Test so that you can execute your JavaScript unit tests side-by-side with your C# unit tests. The goal is to enable you to execute JavaScript unit tests in exactly the same way as server-side unit tests. You can download the source code described by this project by scrolling to the end of this blog entry. Rejected Approach: Browser Launchers One popular approach to executing JavaScript unit tests is to use a browser as a test-driver. When you use a browser as a test-driver, you open up a browser window to execute and view the results of executing your JavaScript unit tests. For example, QUnit – the unit testing framework for jQuery – takes this approach. The following HTML page illustrates how you can use QUnit to create a unit test for a function named addNumbers(). <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Using QUnit</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://github.com/jquery/qunit/raw/master/qunit/qunit.css" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <h1 id="qunit-header">QUnit example</h1> <h2 id="qunit-banner"></h2> <div id="qunit-testrunner-toolbar"></div> <h2 id="qunit-userAgent"></h2> <ol id="qunit-tests"></ol> <div id="qunit-fixture">test markup, will be hidden</div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://github.com/jquery/qunit/raw/master/qunit/qunit.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // The function to test function addNumbers(a, b) { return a+b; } // The unit test test("Test of addNumbers", function () { equals(4, addNumbers(1,3), "1+3 should be 4"); }); </script> </body> </html> This test verifies that calling addNumbers(1,3) returns the expected value 4. When you open this page in a browser, you can see that this test does, in fact, pass. The idea is that you can quickly refresh this QUnit HTML JavaScript test driver page in your browser whenever you modify your JavaScript code. In other words, you can keep a browser window open and keep refreshing it over and over while you are developing your application. That way, you can know very quickly whenever you have broken your JavaScript code. While easy to setup, there are several big disadvantages to this approach to executing JavaScript unit tests: You must view your JavaScript unit test results in a different location than your server unit test results. The JavaScript unit test results appear in the browser and the server unit test results appear in the Visual Studio Test Results window. Because all of your unit test results don’t appear in a single location, you are more likely to introduce bugs into your code without noticing it. Because your unit tests are not integrated with Visual Studio – in particular, MS Test -- you cannot easily include your JavaScript unit tests when setting up check-in policies or when performing automated builds with Team Build. A more sophisticated approach to using a browser as a test-driver is to automate the web browser. Instead of launching the browser and loading the test code yourself, you use a framework to automate this process. There are several different testing frameworks that support this approach: · Selenium – Selenium is a very powerful framework for automating browser tests. You can create your tests by recording a Firefox session or by writing the test driver code in server code such as C#. You can learn more about Selenium at http://seleniumhq.org/. LTAF – The ASP.NET team uses the Lightweight Test Automation Framework to test JavaScript code in the ASP.NET framework. You can learn more about LTAF by visiting the project home at CodePlex: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/35501 jsTestDriver – This framework uses Java to automate the browser. jsTestDriver creates a server which can be used to automate multiple browsers simultaneously. This project is located at http://code.google.com/p/js-test-driver/ TestSwam – This framework, created by John Resig, uses PHP to automate the browser. Like jsTestDriver, the framework creates a test server. You can open multiple browsers that are automated by the test server. Learn more about TestSwarm by visiting the following address: https://github.com/jeresig/testswarm/wiki Yeti – This is the framework introduced by Yahoo for automating browser tests. Yeti uses server-side JavaScript and depends on Node.js. Learn more about Yeti at http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/08/25/introducing-yeti-the-yui-easy-testing-interface/ All of these frameworks are great for integration tests – however, they are not the best frameworks to use for unit tests. In one way or another, all of these frameworks depend on executing tests within the context of a “living and breathing” browser. If you create an ASP.NET Unit Test then Visual Studio will launch a web server before executing the unit test. Why is launching a web server so bad? It is not the worst thing in the world. However, it does introduce dependencies that prevent your code from being tested in isolation. One of the defining features of a unit test -- versus an integration test – is that a unit test tests code in isolation. Another problem with launching a web server when performing unit tests is that launching a web server can be slow. If you cannot execute your unit tests quickly, you are less likely to execute your unit tests each and every time you make a code change. You are much more likely to fall into the pit of failure. Launching a browser when performing a JavaScript unit test has all of the same disadvantages as launching a web server when performing an ASP.NET unit test. Instead of testing a unit of JavaScript code in isolation, you are testing JavaScript code within the context of a particular browser. Using the frameworks listed above for integration tests makes perfect sense. However, I want to consider a different approach for creating unit tests for JavaScript code. Using Server-Side JavaScript for JavaScript Unit Tests A completely different approach to executing JavaScript unit tests is to perform the tests outside of any browser. If you really want to test JavaScript then you should test JavaScript and leave the browser out of the testing process. There are several ways that you can execute JavaScript on the server outside the context of any browser: Rhino – Rhino is an implementation of JavaScript written in Java. The Rhino project is maintained by the Mozilla project. Learn more about Rhino at http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/ V8 – V8 is the open-source Google JavaScript engine written in C++. This is the JavaScript engine used by the Chrome web browser. You can download V8 and embed it in your project by visiting http://code.google.com/p/v8/ JScript – JScript is the JavaScript Script Engine used by Internet Explorer (up to but not including Internet Explorer 9), Windows Script Host, and Active Server Pages. Internet Explorer is still the most popular web browser. Therefore, I decided to focus on using the JScript Script Engine to execute JavaScript unit tests. Using the Microsoft Script Control There are two basic ways that you can pass JavaScript to the JScript Script Engine and execute the code: use the Microsoft Windows Script Interfaces or use the Microsoft Script Control. The difficult and proper way to execute JavaScript using the JScript Script Engine is to use the Microsoft Windows Script Interfaces. You can learn more about the Script Interfaces by visiting http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t9d4xf28(VS.85).aspx The main disadvantage of using the Script Interfaces is that they are difficult to use from .NET. There is a great series of articles on using the Script Interfaces from C# located at http://www.drdobbs.com/184406028. I picked the easier alternative and used the Microsoft Script Control. The Microsoft Script Control is an ActiveX control that provides a higher level abstraction over the Window Script Interfaces. You can download the Microsoft Script Control from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=d7e31492-2595-49e6-8c02-1426fec693ac After you download the Microsoft Script Control, you need to add a reference to it to your project. Select the Visual Studio menu option Project, Add Reference to open the Add Reference dialog. Select the COM tab and add the Microsoft Script Control 1.0. Using the Script Control is easy. You call the Script Control AddCode() method to add JavaScript code to the Script Engine. Next, you call the Script Control Run() method to run a particular JavaScript function. The reference documentation for the Microsoft Script Control is located at the MSDN website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa227633%28v=vs.60%29.aspx Creating the JavaScript Code to Test To keep things simple, let’s imagine that you want to test the following JavaScript function named addNumbers() which simply adds two numbers together: MvcApplication1\Scripts\Math.js function addNumbers(a, b) { return 5; } Notice that the addNumbers() method always returns the value 5. Right-now, it will not pass a good unit test. Create this file and save it in your project with the name Math.js in your MVC project’s Scripts folder (Save the file in your actual MVC application and not your MVC test application). Creating the JavaScript Test Helper Class To make it easier to use the Microsoft Script Control in unit tests, we can create a helper class. This class contains two methods: LoadFile() – Loads a JavaScript file. Use this method to load the JavaScript file being tested or the JavaScript file containing the unit tests. ExecuteTest() – Executes the JavaScript code. Use this method to execute a JavaScript unit test. Here’s the code for the JavaScriptTestHelper class: JavaScriptTestHelper.cs   using System; using System.IO; using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting; using MSScriptControl; namespace MvcApplication1.Tests { public class JavaScriptTestHelper : IDisposable { private ScriptControl _sc; private TestContext _context; /// <summary> /// You need to use this helper with Unit Tests and not /// Basic Unit Tests because you need a Test Context /// </summary> /// <param name="testContext">Unit Test Test Context</param> public JavaScriptTestHelper(TestContext testContext) { if (testContext == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("TestContext"); } _context = testContext; _sc = new ScriptControl(); _sc.Language = "JScript"; _sc.AllowUI = false; } /// <summary> /// Load the contents of a JavaScript file into the /// Script Engine. /// </summary> /// <param name="path">Path to JavaScript file</param> public void LoadFile(string path) { var fileContents = File.ReadAllText(path); _sc.AddCode(fileContents); } /// <summary> /// Pass the path of the test that you want to execute. /// </summary> /// <param name="testMethodName">JavaScript function name</param> public void ExecuteTest(string testMethodName) { dynamic result = null; try { result = _sc.Run(testMethodName, new object[] { }); } catch { var error = ((IScriptControl)_sc).Error; if (error != null) { var description = error.Description; var line = error.Line; var column = error.Column; var text = error.Text; var source = error.Source; if (_context != null) { var details = String.Format("{0} \r\nLine: {1} Column: {2}", source, line, column); _context.WriteLine(details); } } throw new AssertFailedException(error.Description); } } public void Dispose() { _sc = null; } } }     Notice that the JavaScriptTestHelper class requires a Test Context to be instantiated. For this reason, you can use the JavaScriptTestHelper only with a Visual Studio Unit Test and not a Basic Unit Test (These are two different types of Visual Studio project items). Add the JavaScriptTestHelper file to your MVC test application (for example, MvcApplication1.Tests). Creating the JavaScript Unit Test Next, we need to create the JavaScript unit test function that we will use to test the addNumbers() function. Create a folder in your MVC test project named JavaScriptTests and add the following JavaScript file to this folder: MvcApplication1.Tests\JavaScriptTests\MathTest.js /// <reference path="JavaScriptUnitTestFramework.js"/> function testAddNumbers() { // Act var result = addNumbers(1, 3); // Assert assert.areEqual(4, result, "addNumbers did not return right value!"); }   The testAddNumbers() function takes advantage of another JavaScript library named JavaScriptUnitTestFramework.js. This library contains all of the code necessary to make assertions. Add the following JavaScriptnitTestFramework.js to the same folder as the MathTest.js file: MvcApplication1.Tests\JavaScriptTests\JavaScriptUnitTestFramework.js var assert = { areEqual: function (expected, actual, message) { if (expected !== actual) { throw new Error("Expected value " + expected + " is not equal to " + actual + ". " + message); } } }; There is only one type of assertion supported by this file: the areEqual() assertion. Most likely, you would want to add additional types of assertions to this file to make it easier to write your JavaScript unit tests. Deploying the JavaScript Test Files This step is non-intuitive. When you use Visual Studio to run unit tests, Visual Studio creates a new folder and executes a copy of the files in your project. After you run your unit tests, your Visual Studio Solution will contain a new folder named TestResults that includes a subfolder for each test run. You need to configure Visual Studio to deploy your JavaScript files to the test run folder or Visual Studio won’t be able to find your JavaScript files when you execute your unit tests. You will get an error that looks something like this when you attempt to execute your unit tests: You can configure Visual Studio to deploy your JavaScript files by adding a Test Settings file to your Visual Studio Solution. It is important to understand that you need to add this file to your Visual Studio Solution and not a particular Visual Studio project. Right-click your Solution in the Solution Explorer window and select the menu option Add, New Item. Select the Test Settings item and click the Add button. After you create a Test Settings file for your solution, you can indicate that you want a particular folder to be deployed whenever you perform a test run. Select the menu option Test, Edit Test Settings to edit your test configuration file. Select the Deployment tab and select your MVC test project’s JavaScriptTest folder to deploy. Click the Apply button and the Close button to save the changes and close the dialog. Creating the Visual Studio Unit Test The very last step is to create the Visual Studio unit test (the MS Test unit test). Add a new unit test to your MVC test project by selecting the menu option Add New Item and selecting the Unit Test project item (Do not select the Basic Unit Test project item): The difference between a Basic Unit Test and a Unit Test is that a Unit Test includes a Test Context. We need this Test Context to use the JavaScriptTestHelper class that we created earlier. Enter the following test method for the new unit test: [TestMethod] public void TestAddNumbers() { var jsHelper = new JavaScriptTestHelper(this.TestContext); // Load JavaScript files jsHelper.LoadFile("JavaScriptUnitTestFramework.js"); jsHelper.LoadFile(@"..\..\..\MvcApplication1\Scripts\Math.js"); jsHelper.LoadFile("MathTest.js"); // Execute JavaScript Test jsHelper.ExecuteTest("testAddNumbers"); } This code uses the JavaScriptTestHelper to load three files: JavaScripUnitTestFramework.js – Contains the assert functions. Math.js – Contains the addNumbers() function from your MVC application which is being tested. MathTest.js – Contains the JavaScript unit test function. Next, the test method calls the JavaScriptTestHelper ExecuteTest() method to execute the testAddNumbers() JavaScript function. Running the Visual Studio JavaScript Unit Test After you complete all of the steps described above, you can execute the JavaScript unit test just like any other unit test. You can use the keyboard combination CTRL-R, CTRL-A to run all of the tests in the current Visual Studio Solution. Alternatively, you can use the buttons in the Visual Studio toolbar to run the tests: (Unfortunately, the Run All Impacted Tests button won’t work correctly because Visual Studio won’t detect that your JavaScript code has changed. Therefore, you should use either the Run Tests in Current Context or Run All Tests in Solution options instead.) The results of running the JavaScript tests appear side-by-side with the results of running the server tests in the Test Results window. For example, if you Run All Tests in Solution then you will get the following results: Notice that the TestAddNumbers() JavaScript test has failed. That is good because our addNumbers() function is hard-coded to always return the value 5. If you double-click the failing JavaScript test, you can view additional details such as the JavaScript error message and the line number of the JavaScript code that failed: Summary The goal of this blog entry was to explain an approach to creating JavaScript unit tests that can be easily integrated with Visual Studio and Visual Studio ALM. I described how you can use the Microsoft Script Control to execute JavaScript on the server. By taking advantage of the Microsoft Script Control, we were able to execute our JavaScript unit tests side-by-side with all of our other unit tests and view the results in the standard Visual Studio Test Results window. You can download the code discussed in this blog entry from here: http://StephenWalther.com/downloads/Blog/JavaScriptUnitTesting/JavaScriptUnitTests.zip Before running this code, you need to first install the Microsoft Script Control which you can download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=d7e31492-2595-49e6-8c02-1426fec693ac

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• Microsoft and jQuery

  - by Rick Strahl

  The jQuery JavaScript library has been steadily getting more popular and with recent developments from Microsoft, jQuery is also getting ever more exposure on the ASP.NET platform including now directly from Microsoft. jQuery is a light weight, open source DOM manipulation library for JavaScript that has changed how many developers think about JavaScript. You can download it and find more information on jQuery on www.jquery.com. For me jQuery has had a huge impact on how I develop Web applications and was probably the main reason I went from dreading to do JavaScript development to actually looking forward to implementing client side JavaScript functionality. It has also had a profound impact on my JavaScript skill level for me by seeing how the library accomplishes things (and often reviewing the terse but excellent source code). jQuery made an uncomfortable development platform (JavaScript + DOM) a joy to work on. Although jQuery is by no means the only JavaScript library out there, its ease of use, small size, huge community of plug-ins and pure usefulness has made it easily the most popular JavaScript library available today. As a long time jQuery user, I’ve been excited to see the developments from Microsoft that are bringing jQuery to more ASP.NET developers and providing more integration with jQuery for ASP.NET’s core features rather than relying on the ASP.NET AJAX library. Microsoft and jQuery – making Friends jQuery is an open source project but in the last couple of years Microsoft has really thrown its weight behind supporting this open source library as a supported component on the Microsoft platform. When I say supported I literally mean supported: Microsoft now offers actual tech support for jQuery as part of their Product Support Services (PSS) as jQuery integration has become part of several of the ASP.NET toolkits and ships in several of the default Web project templates in Visual Studio 2010. The ASP.NET MVC 3 framework (still in Beta) also uses jQuery for a variety of client side support features including client side validation and we can look forward toward more integration of client side functionality via jQuery in both MVC and WebForms in the future. In other words jQuery is becoming an optional but included component of the ASP.NET platform. PSS support means that support staff will answer jQuery related support questions as part of any support incidents related to ASP.NET which provides some piece of mind to some corporate development shops that require end to end support from Microsoft. In addition to including jQuery and supporting it, Microsoft has also been getting involved in providing development resources for extending jQuery’s functionality via plug-ins. Microsoft’s last version of the Microsoft Ajax Library – which is the successor to the native ASP.NET AJAX Library – included some really cool functionality for client templates, databinding and localization. As it turns out Microsoft has rebuilt most of that functionality using jQuery as the base API and provided jQuery plug-ins of these components. Very recently these three plug-ins were submitted and have been approved for inclusion in the official jQuery plug-in repository and been taken over by the jQuery team for further improvements and maintenance. Even more surprising: The jQuery-templates component has actually been approved for inclusion in the next major update of the jQuery core in jQuery V1.5, which means it will become a native feature that doesn’t require additional script files to be loaded. Imagine this – an open source contribution from Microsoft that has been accepted into a major open source project for a core feature improvement. Microsoft has come a long way indeed! What the Microsoft Involvement with jQuery means to you For Microsoft jQuery support is a strategic decision that affects their direction in client side development, but nothing stopped you from using jQuery in your applications prior to Microsoft’s official backing and in fact a large chunk of developers did so readily prior to Microsoft’s announcement. Official support from Microsoft brings a few benefits to developers however. jQuery support in Visual Studio 2010 means built-in support for jQuery IntelliSense, automatically added jQuery scripts in many projects types and a common base for client side functionality that actually uses what most developers are already using. If you have already been using jQuery and were worried about straying from the Microsoft line and their internal Microsoft Ajax Library – worry no more. With official support and the change in direction towards jQuery Microsoft is now following along what most in the ASP.NET community had already been doing by using jQuery, which is likely the reason for Microsoft’s shift in direction in the first place. ASP.NET AJAX and the Microsoft AJAX Library weren’t bad technology – there was tons of useful functionality buried in these libraries. However, these libraries never got off the ground, mainly because early incarnations were squarely aimed at control/component developers rather than application developers. For all the functionality that these controls provided for control developers they lacked in useful and easily usable application developer functionality that was easily accessible in day to day client side development. The result was that even though Microsoft shipped support for these tools in the box (in .NET 3.5 and 4.0), other than for the internal support in ASP.NET for things like the UpdatePanel and the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit as well as some third party vendors, the Microsoft client libraries were largely ignored by the developer community opening the door for other client side solutions. Microsoft seems to be acknowledging developer choice in this case: Many more developers were going down the jQuery path rather than using the Microsoft built libraries and there seems to be little sense in continuing development of a technology that largely goes unused by the majority of developers. Kudos for Microsoft for recognizing this and gracefully changing directions. Note that even though there will be no further development in the Microsoft client libraries they will continue to be supported so if you’re using them in your applications there’s no reason to start running for the exit in a panic and start re-writing everything with jQuery. Although that might be a reasonable choice in some cases, jQuery and the Microsoft libraries work well side by side so that you can leave existing solutions untouched even as you enhance them with jQuery. The Microsoft jQuery Plug-ins – Solid Core Features One of the most interesting developments in Microsoft’s embracing of jQuery is that Microsoft has started contributing to jQuery via standard mechanism set for jQuery developers: By submitting plug-ins. Microsoft took some of the nicest new features of the unpublished Microsoft Ajax Client Library and re-wrote these components for jQuery and then submitted them as plug-ins to the jQuery plug-in repository. Accepted plug-ins get taken over by the jQuery team and that’s exactly what happened with the three plug-ins submitted by Microsoft with the templating plug-in even getting slated to be published as part of the jQuery core in the next major release (1.5). The following plug-ins are provided by Microsoft: jQuery Templates – a client side template rendering engine jQuery Data Link – a client side databinder that can synchronize changes without code jQuery Globalization – provides formatting and conversion features for dates and numbers The first two are ports of functionality that was slated for the Microsoft Ajax Library while functionality for the globalization library provides functionality that was already found in the original ASP.NET AJAX library. To me all three plug-ins address a pressing need in client side applications and provide functionality I’ve previously used in other incarnations, but with more complete implementations. Let’s take a close look at these plug-ins. jQuery Templates http://api.jquery.com/category/plugins/templates/ Client side templating is a key component for building rich JavaScript applications in the browser. Templating on the client lets you avoid from manually creating markup by creating DOM nodes and injecting them individually into the document via code. Rather you can create markup templates – similar to the way you create classic ASP server markup – and merge data into these templates to render HTML which you can then inject into the document or replace existing content with. Output from templates are rendered as a jQuery matched set and can then be easily inserted into the document as needed. Templating is key to minimize client side code and reduce repeated code for rendering logic. Instead a single template can be used in many places for updating and adding content to existing pages. Further if you build pure AJAX interfaces that rely entirely on client rendering of the initial page content, templates allow you to a use a single markup template to handle all rendering of each specific HTML section/element. I’ve used a number of different client rendering template engines with jQuery in the past including jTemplates (a PHP style templating engine) and a modified version of John Resig’s MicroTemplating engine which I built into my own set of libraries because it’s such a commonly used feature in my client side applications. jQuery templates adds a much richer templating model that allows for sub-templates and access to the data items. Like John Resig’s original Micro Template engine, the core basics of the templating engine create JavaScript code which means that templates can include JavaScript code. To give you a basic idea of how templates work imagine I have an application that downloads a set of stock quotes based on a symbol list then displays them in the document. To do this you can create an ‘item’ template that describes how each of the quotes is renderd as a template inside of the document: <script id="stockTemplate" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <div id="divStockQuote" class="errordisplay" style="width: 500px;"> <div class="label">Company:</div><div><b>${Company}(${Symbol})</b></div> <div class="label">Last Price:</div><div>${LastPrice}</div> <div class="label">Net Change:</div><div> {{if NetChange > 0}} <b style="color:green" >${NetChange}</b> {{else}} <b style="color:red" >${NetChange}</b> {{/if}} </div> <div class="label">Last Update:</div><div>${LastQuoteTimeString}</div> </div> </script> The ‘template’ is little more than HTML with some markup expressions inside of it that define the template language. Notice the embedded ${} expressions which reference data from the quote objects returned from an AJAX call on the server. You can embed any JavaScript or value expression in these template expressions. There are also a number of structural commands like {{if}} and {{each}} that provide for rudimentary logic inside of your templates as well as commands ({{tmpl}} and {{wrap}}) for nesting templates. You can find more about the full set of markup expressions available in the documentation. To load up this data you can use code like the following: <script type="text/javascript"> //var Proxy = new ServiceProxy("../PageMethods/PageMethodsService.asmx/"); $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnGetQuotes").click(GetQuotes); }); function GetQuotes() { var symbols = $("#txtSymbols").val().split(","); $.ajax({ url: "../PageMethods/PageMethodsService.asmx/GetStockQuotes", data: JSON.stringify({ symbols: symbols }), // parameter map type: "POST", // data has to be POSTed contentType: "application/json", timeout: 10000, dataType: "json", success: function (result) { var quotes = result.d; var jEl = $("#stockTemplate").tmpl(quotes); $("#quoteDisplay").empty().append(jEl); }, error: function (xhr, status) { alert(status + "\r\n" + xhr.responseText); } }); }; </script> In this case an ASMX AJAX service is called to retrieve the stock quotes. The service returns an array of quote objects. The result is returned as an object with the .d property (in Microsoft service style) that returns the actual array of quotes. The template is applied with: var jEl = $("#stockTemplate").tmpl(quotes); which selects the template script tag and uses the .tmpl() function to apply the data to it. The result is a jQuery matched set of elements that can then be appended to the quote display element in the page. The template is merged against an array in this example. When the result is an array the template is automatically applied to each each array item. If you pass a single data item – like say a stock quote – the template works exactly the same way but is applied only once. Templates also have access to a $data item which provides the current data item and information about the tempalte that is currently executing. This makes it possible to keep context within the context of the template itself and also to pass context from a parent template to a child template which is very powerful. Templates can be evaluated by using the template selector and calling the .tmpl() function on the jQuery matched set as shown above or you can use the static $.tmpl() function to provide a template as a string. This allows you to dynamically create templates in code or – more likely – to load templates from the server via AJAX calls. In short there are options The above shows off some of the basics, but there’s much for functionality available in the template engine. Check the documentation link for more information and links to additional examples. The plug-in download also comes with a number of examples that demonstrate functionality. jQuery templates will become a native component in jQuery Core 1.5, so it’s definitely worthwhile checking out the engine today and get familiar with this interface. As much as I’m stoked about templating becoming part of the jQuery core because it’s such an integral part of many applications, there are also a couple shortcomings in the current incarnation: Lack of Error Handling Currently if you embed an expression that is invalid it’s simply not rendered. There’s no error rendered into the template nor do the various  template functions throw errors which leaves finding of bugs as a runtime exercise. I would like some mechanism – optional if possible – to be able to get error info of what is failing in a template when it’s rendered. No String Output Templates are always rendered into a jQuery matched set and there’s no way that I can see to directly render to a string. String output can be useful for debugging as well as opening up templating for creating non-HTML string output. Limited JavaScript Access Unlike John Resig’s original MicroTemplating Engine which was entirely based on JavaScript code generation these templates are limited to a few structured commands that can ‘execute’. There’s no code execution inside of script code which means you’re limited to calling expressions available in global objects or the data item passed in. This may or may not be a big deal depending on the complexity of your template logic. Error handling has been discussed quite a bit and it’s likely there will be some solution to that particualar issue by the time jQuery templates ship. The others are relatively minor issues but something to think about anyway. jQuery Data Link http://api.jquery.com/category/plugins/data-link/ jQuery Data Link provides the ability to do two-way data binding between input controls and an underlying object’s properties. The typical scenario is linking a textbox to a property of an object and have the object updated when the text in the textbox is changed and have the textbox change when the value in the object or the entire object changes. The plug-in also supports converter functions that can be applied to provide the conversion logic from string to some other value typically necessary for mapping things like textbox string input to say a number property and potentially applying additional formatting and calculations. In theory this sounds great, however in reality this plug-in has some serious usability issues. Using the plug-in you can do things like the following to bind data: person = { firstName: "rick", lastName: "strahl"}; $(document).ready( function() { // provide for two-way linking of inputs $("form").link(person); // bind to non-input elements explicitly $("#objFirst").link(person, { firstName: { name: "objFirst", convertBack: function (value, source, target) { $(target).text(value); } } }); $("#objLast").link(person, { lastName: { name: "objLast", convertBack: function (value, source, target) { $(target).text(value); } } }); }); This code hooks up two-way linking between a couple of textboxes on the page and the person object. The first line in the .ready() handler provides mapping of object to form field with the same field names as properties on the object. Note that .link() does NOT bind items into the textboxes when you call .link() – changes are mapped only when values change and you move out of the field. Strike one. The two following commands allow manual binding of values to specific DOM elements which is effectively a one-way bind. You specify the object and a then an explicit mapping where name is an ID in the document. The converter is required to explicitly assign the value to the element. Strike two. You can also detect changes to the underlying object and cause updates to the input elements bound. Unfortunately the syntax to do this is not very natural as you have to rely on the jQuery data object. To update an object’s properties and get change notification looks like this: function updateFirstName() { $(person).data("firstName", person.firstName + " (code updated)"); } This works fine in causing any linked fields to be updated. In the bindings above both the firstName input field and objFirst DOM element gets updated. But the syntax requires you to use a jQuery .data() call for each property change to ensure that the changes are tracked properly. Really? Sure you’re binding through multiple layers of abstraction now but how is that better than just manually assigning values? The code savings (if any) are going to be minimal. As much as I would like to have a WPF/Silverlight/Observable-like binding mechanism in client script, this plug-in doesn’t help much towards that goal in its current incarnation. While you can bind values, the ‘binder’ is too limited to be really useful. If initial values can’t be assigned from the mappings you’re going to end up duplicating work loading the data using some other mechanism. There’s no easy way to re-bind data with a different object altogether since updates trigger only through the .data members. Finally, any non-input elements have to be bound via code that’s fairly verbose and frankly may be more voluminous than what you might write by hand for manual binding and unbinding. Two way binding can be very useful but it has to be easy and most importantly natural. If it’s more work to hook up a binding than writing a couple of lines to do binding/unbinding this sort of thing helps very little in most scenarios. In talking to some of the developers the feature set for Data Link is not complete and they are still soliciting input for features and functionality. If you have ideas on how you want this feature to be more useful get involved and post your recommendations. As it stands, it looks to me like this component needs a lot of love to become useful. For this component to really provide value, bindings need to be able to be refreshed easily and work at the object level, not just the property level. It seems to me we would be much better served by a model binder object that can perform these binding/unbinding tasks in bulk rather than a tool where each link has to be mapped first. I also find the choice of creating a jQuery plug-in questionable – it seems a standalone object – albeit one that relies on the jQuery library – would provide a more intuitive interface than the current forcing of options onto a plug-in style interface. Out of the three Microsoft created components this is by far the least useful and least polished implementation at this point. jQuery Globalization http://github.com/jquery/jquery-global Globalization in JavaScript applications often gets short shrift and part of the reason for this is that natively in JavaScript there’s little support for formatting and parsing of numbers and dates. There are a number of JavaScript libraries out there that provide some support for globalization, but most are limited to a particular portion of globalization. As .NET developers we’re fairly spoiled by the richness of APIs provided in the framework and when dealing with client development one really notices the lack of these features. While you may not necessarily need to localize your application the globalization plug-in also helps with some basic tasks for non-localized applications: Dealing with formatting and parsing of dates and time values. Dates in particular are problematic in JavaScript as there are no formatters whatsoever except the .toString() method which outputs a verbose and next to useless long string. With the globalization plug-in you get a good chunk of the formatting and parsing functionality that the .NET framework provides on the server. You can write code like the following for example to format numbers and dates: var date = new Date(); var output = $.format(date, "MMM. dd, yy") + "\r\n" + $.format(date, "d") + "\r\n" + // 10/25/2010 $.format(1222.32213, "N2") + "\r\n" + $.format(1222.33, "c") + "\r\n"; alert(output); This becomes even more useful if you combine it with templates which can also include any JavaScript expressions. Assuming the globalization plug-in is loaded you can create template expressions that use the $.format function. Here’s the template I used earlier for the stock quote again with a couple of formats applied: <script id="stockTemplate" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <div id="divStockQuote" class="errordisplay" style="width: 500px;"> <div class="label">Company:</div><div><b>${Company}(${Symbol})</b></div> <div class="label">Last Price:</div> <div>${$.format(LastPrice,"N2")}</div> <div class="label">Net Change:</div><div> {{if NetChange > 0}} <b style="color:green" >${NetChange}</b> {{else}} <b style="color:red" >${NetChange}</b> {{/if}} </div> <div class="label">Last Update:</div> <div>${$.format(LastQuoteTime,"MMM dd, yyyy")}</div> </div> </script> There are also parsing methods that can parse dates and numbers from strings into numbers easily: alert($.parseDate("25.10.2010")); alert($.parseInt("12.222")); // de-DE uses . for thousands separators As you can see culture specific options are taken into account when parsing. The globalization plugin provides rich support for a variety of locales: Get a list of all available cultures Query cultures for culture items (like currency symbol, separators etc.) Localized string names for all calendar related items (days of week, months) Generated off of .NET’s supported locales In short you get much of the same functionality that you already might be using in .NET on the server side. The plugin includes a huge number of locales and an Globalization.all.min.js file that contains the text defaults for each of these locales as well as small locale specific script files that define each of the locale specific settings. It’s highly recommended that you NOT use the huge globalization file that includes all locales, but rather add script references to only those languages you explicitly care about. Overall this plug-in is a welcome helper. Even if you use it with a single locale (like en-US) and do no other localization, you’ll gain solid support for number and date formatting which is a vital feature of many applications. Changes for Microsoft It’s good to see Microsoft coming out of its shell and away from the ‘not-built-here’ mentality that has been so pervasive in the past. It’s especially good to see it applied to jQuery – a technology that has stood in drastic contrast to Microsoft’s own internal efforts in terms of design, usage model and… popularity. It’s great to see that Microsoft is paying attention to what customers prefer to use and supporting the customer sentiment – even if it meant drastically changing course of policy and moving into a more open and sharing environment in the process. The additional jQuery support that has been introduced in the last two years certainly has made lives easier for many developers on the ASP.NET platform. It’s also nice to see Microsoft submitting proposals through the standard jQuery process of plug-ins and getting accepted for various very useful projects. Certainly the jQuery Templates plug-in is going to be very useful to many especially since it will be baked into the jQuery core in jQuery 1.5. I hope we see more of this type of involvement from Microsoft in the future. Kudos!© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in jQuery  ASP.NET  

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