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• Knight movement.... " how to output all possible moves. "

  - by josh kant

  The following is the code i wrote.. I have to write it for nXn but for easyness i tried to test it for 5X5. It does not display my output... could anybody tell me whats wrong with the following code: { #include <iostream> #include <iomanip> using namespace std; void knight ( int startx, int starty, int n, int p[][5], int used [][5], int &count); int main ( ) { const int n = 5; // no. of cloumns and rows int startx = 0; int starty = 0; int p[5][5]; int used[5][5]; int count = 1; int i= 0; int j = 0; //initializing the array for ( i = 0; i < 5; i++) { for ( j = 0; j < 5; j++) { p[i][j] = 0; used [i][j] = 0; } } //outputting the initialized array.. i=0; while ( i< 5) { for ( j = 0; j < 5; j++) { cout << setw(3) << p[i][j]; } i++; cout << endl; } knight (startx,starty,n,p,used,count); return 0; } void knight ( int x, int y, int n, int p[][5], int used [][5], int &count) { int i = 0; //knight (x,y,n,p,used,count) for ( i = 0; i < n*n; i++) { if ( used [x][y] == 0 ) { used[x][y] = 1; // mark it used; p[x][y] += count; //inserting step no. into the solution //go for the next possible steps; //move 1 //2 squares up and 1 to the left if (x-1 < 0 && y+2 < n && p[x-1][y+2] == 0) { used[x-1][y+2] = 1; p[x-1][y+2] += count; knight (x-1,y+2,n,p,used,count); used[x-1][y+2] = 0; } //move 2 //2 squares up and 1 to the right if ( x+1 < n && y+2 < n && p[x+1][y+2] == 0 ) { used[x+1][y+2] = 1; p[x+1][y+2] += count; knight (x+1,y+2,n,p,used,count); used[x+1][y+2] = 0; } //move 3 //1 square up and 2 to the right if ( x+2 < n && y+1 < n && p[x+2][y+1] == 0 ) { used[x+2][y+1] = 1; p[x+2][y+1] += count; knight (x+2,y+1,n,p,used,count); used[x+2][y+1] = 0; } //move 4 //1 square down and 2 to the right if ( x+2 < n && y-1 < n && p[x+2][y-1] == 0 ) { used[x+2][y-1] = 1; p[x+2][y-1] += count; knight (x+2,y-1,n,p,used,count); used[x+2][y-1] = 0; } //move 5 //2 squares down and 1 to the right if ( x+1 < n && y-2 < n && p[x+1][y-2] == 0 ) { used[x+1][y-2] = 1; p[x+1][y-2] += count; knight (x+1,y-2,n,p,used,count); used[x+1][y-2] = 0; } //move 6 //2 squares down and 1 to the left if ( x-1 < n && y-2 < n && p[x-1][y-2] == 0 ) { used[x-1][y-2] = 1; p[x-1][y-2] += count; knight (x-1,y-2,n,p,used,count); used[x-1][y-2] = 0; } //move 7 //1 square down and 2 to the left if ( x-2 < n && y-1 < n && p[x-2][y-1] == 0 ) { used[x-2][y-1] = 1; p[x-2][y-1] += count; knight (x-2,y-1,n,p,used,count); used[x-2][y-1] = 0; } //move 8 //one square up and 2 to the left if ( x-2 < n && y+1< n && p[x-2][y+1] == 0 ) { used[x-2][y+1] = 1; p[x-2][y+1] += count; knight (x-2,y+1,n,p,used,count); used[x-2][y+1] = 0; } } } if ( x == n-1 && y == n-1) { while ( i != n) { for ( int j = 0; j < n; j++) cout << setw(3) << p[i][j]; i++; } } } Thank you!!

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• WordPress 'comment is awaiting moderation.' message not appearing when a comment is submitted?

  - by cs

  Everything is pretty standard from WP samples, with minor modifications. But when a comment is submitted, it does not show the "your comment is awaiting moderation" message. The comments.php: <div id="comment-block"> <h4><?php comments_number('No Responses', 'One Response', '% Responses' );?> to &#8220;<?php the_title(); ?>&#8221;</h4> <ul id="commentlist"> <?php wp_list_comments('type=comment&callback=mytheme_comment'); ?> </ul> <?php // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?> <?php if ('open' == $post->comment_status) : ?> <!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. --> <?php else : // comments are closed ?> <!-- If comments are closed. --> <p class="nocomments">Comments are closed.</p> <?php endif; ?> <?php if ('open' == $post->comment_status) : ?> <h4>Leave a reply</h4> <div class="cancel-comment-reply"> <small><?php cancel_comment_reply_link(); ?></small> </div> <?php if ( get_option('comment_registration') && !$user_ID ) : ?> <p>You must be <a href="<?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-login.php?redirect_to=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()); ?>">logged in</a> to post a comment.</p> <?php else : ?> <form action="<?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <?php if ( $user_ID ) : ?> <p class="loggedIn">Logged in as <a href="<?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-admin/profile.php"><?php echo $user_identity; ?></a>. <a href="<?php echo wp_logout_url(get_permalink()); ?>" title="Log out of this account">Log out &raquo;</a></p> <?php else : ?> <table width="675" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tr><td style="padding-right: 20px;"><label for="author">Name <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></label></td> <td style="padding-right: 20px;"><label for="email">Email <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></label> <small>(will not be published)</small></td> <td><label for="url">Website <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></label></td> </tr> <tr><td style="padding-right: 20px;"><input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="<?php echo $comment_author; ?>" class="text" tabindex="1" <?php if ($req) echo "aria-required='true'"; ?> /></td> <td style="padding-right: 20px;"><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="<?php echo $comment_author_email; ?>" class="text" tabindex="2" <?php if ($req) echo "aria-required='true'"; ?> /></td> <td><input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="<?php echo $comment_author_url; ?>" class="text" tabindex="3" /></td> </tr> </table> <?php endif; ?> <label for="comment">Comment <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></label><br /> <textarea name="comment" id="comment" rows="10" tabindex="4" class="text"></textarea> <input name="submit" type="image" src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/submit_button.png" width="130" height="24" alt="Submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" /> <?php comment_id_fields(); ?> <?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?> </form> <div class="clear"></div> <?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?> </div> <?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?> And the mytheme_comments function in functions.php function mytheme_comment($comment, $args, $depth) { $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?> <li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>"> <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>"> <span class="comment-author vcard"> <?php printf(__('<cite class="fn">%s</cite> <span class="says">says at</span>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?> </span> <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?> <em><?php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em> <br /> <?php endif; ?> <span class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( get_comment_link( $comment->comment_ID ) ) ?>"> <?php printf(__('%2$s, %1$s'), get_comment_date(), get_comment_time()) ?></a><?php edit_comment_link(__('(Edit)'),' ','') ?></span> <?php comment_text() ?> <div class="reply"> <?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?> </div> </div> <?php } ?>

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• Repaint window problems

  - by nXqd

  #include "stdafx.h" // Mario Headers #include "GameMain.h" #define MAX_LOADSTRING 100 // Global Variables: HINSTANCE hInst; // current instance TCHAR szTitle[MAX_LOADSTRING]; // The title bar text TCHAR szWindowClass[MAX_LOADSTRING]; // the main window class name // Mario global variables ================= CGameMain* gGameMain; HWND hWnd; PAINTSTRUCT ps; // ======================================== // Forward declarations of functions included in this code module: ATOM MyRegisterClass(HINSTANCE hInstance); BOOL InitInstance(HINSTANCE, int); LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM); INT_PTR CALLBACK About(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM); // My unprocess function ===================================== void OnCreate(HWND hWnd) { } void OnKeyUp(WPARAM wParam) { switch (wParam) { case VK_LEFT: gGameMain->KeyReleased(LEFT); break; case VK_UP: gGameMain->KeyReleased(UP); break; case VK_RIGHT: gGameMain->KeyReleased(RIGHT); break; case VK_DOWN: gGameMain->KeyReleased(DOWN); break; } } void OnKeyDown(HWND hWnd,WPARAM wParam) { switch (wParam) { case VK_LEFT: gGameMain->KeyPressed(LEFT); break; case VK_UP: gGameMain->KeyPressed(UP); break; case VK_RIGHT: gGameMain->KeyPressed(RIGHT); break; case VK_DOWN: gGameMain->KeyPressed(DOWN); break; } } void OnPaint(HWND hWnd) { HDC hdc = BeginPaint(hWnd,&ps); RECT rect; GetClientRect(hWnd,&rect); HDC hdcDouble = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); HBITMAP hdcBitmap = CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc,rect.right,rect.bottom); HBITMAP bmOld = (HBITMAP)SelectObject(hdcDouble, hdcBitmap); gGameMain->SetHDC(&hdcDouble); gGameMain->SendMessage(MESSAGE_PAINT); BitBlt(hdc,0,0,rect.right,rect.bottom,hdcDouble,0,0,SRCCOPY); SelectObject(hdcDouble,bmOld); DeleteDC(hdcDouble); DeleteObject(hdcBitmap); DeleteDC(hdc); } void OnDestroy() { gGameMain->isPlaying = false; EndPaint(hWnd,&ps); } // My unprocess function ===================================== ATOM MyRegisterClass(HINSTANCE hInstance) { WNDCLASSEX wcex; wcex.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX); wcex.style = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW; wcex.lpfnWndProc = WndProc; wcex.cbClsExtra = 0; wcex.cbWndExtra = 0; wcex.hInstance = hInstance; wcex.hIcon = LoadIcon(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_GDIMARIO)); wcex.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW); wcex.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)(COLOR_WINDOW+1); wcex.lpszMenuName = MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_GDIMARIO); wcex.lpszClassName = szWindowClass; wcex.hIconSm = LoadIcon(wcex.hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_SMALL)); return RegisterClassEx(&wcex); } BOOL InitInstance(HINSTANCE hInstance, int nCmdShow) { hInst = hInstance; // Store instance handle in our global variable hWnd = CreateWindow(szWindowClass, szTitle, WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, WIDTH, HEIGHT, 0, NULL, hInstance, NULL); if (!hWnd) { return FALSE; } // ---------------- Start gdiplus ------------------ GdiplusStartup(&gdiToken,&gdiStartInput,NULL); // ------------------------------------------------- // Init GameMain gGameMain = new CGameMain(); ShowWindow(hWnd, nCmdShow); UpdateWindow(hWnd); return TRUE; } LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) { int wmId, wmEvent; switch (message) { case WM_COMMAND: wmId = LOWORD(wParam); wmEvent = HIWORD(wParam); // Parse the menu selections: switch (wmId) { case IDM_ABOUT: DialogBox(hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_ABOUTBOX), hWnd, About); break; case IDM_EXIT: DestroyWindow(hWnd); break; default: return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam); } break; case WM_KEYDOWN: OnKeyDown(hWnd,wParam); break; case WM_KEYUP: OnKeyUp(wParam); break; case WM_CREATE: OnCreate(hWnd); break; case WM_PAINT: OnPaint(hWnd); break; case WM_DESTROY: OnDestroy(); PostQuitMessage(0); break; default: return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam); } return 0; } // Message handler for about box. INT_PTR CALLBACK About(HWND hDlg, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) { UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(lParam); switch (message) { case WM_INITDIALOG: return (INT_PTR)TRUE; case WM_COMMAND: if (LOWORD(wParam) == IDOK || LOWORD(wParam) == IDCANCEL) { EndDialog(hDlg, LOWORD(wParam)); return (INT_PTR)TRUE; } break; } return (INT_PTR)FALSE; } int APIENTRY _tWinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,LPTSTR lpCmdLine,int nCmdShow) { UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(hPrevInstance); UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(lpCmdLine); // TODO: Place code here. MSG msg; HACCEL hAccelTable; // Initialize global strings LoadString(hInstance, IDS_APP_TITLE, szTitle, MAX_LOADSTRING); LoadString(hInstance, IDC_GDIMARIO, szWindowClass, MAX_LOADSTRING); MyRegisterClass(hInstance); // Perform application initialization: if (!InitInstance (hInstance, nCmdShow)) { return FALSE; } hAccelTable = LoadAccelerators(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_GDIMARIO)); // Main message loop: // GameLoop PeekMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0,PM_NOREMOVE); while (gGameMain->isPlaying) { while (PeekMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0,PM_REMOVE)) { if (msg.message == WM_QUIT) break; TranslateMessage(&msg); DispatchMessage(&msg); } if (gGameMain->enterNextState) { gGameMain->SendMessage(MESSAGE_ENTER); gGameMain->enterNextState = false; } gGameMain->SendMessage(MESSAGE_UPDATE); InvalidateRect(hWnd,NULL,FALSE); /*if (gGameMain->exitCurrentState) { gGameMain->SendMessage(MESSAGE_EXIT); gGameMain->enterNextState = true; gGameMain->exitCurrentState = false; }*/ ::Sleep(gGameMain->timer); // Do your game stuff here } GdiplusShutdown(gdiToken); // Shut down gdiplus token return (int) msg.wParam; } I use InvalidateRect(hWnd,NULL,FALSE); for repaint window, but the problem I met is when I repaint without any changes in Game struct . First it paints my logo well, the second time ( just call InvalidateRect(hWnd,NULL,FALSE); without gGameMain-SendMessage(MESSAGE_ENTER); which is init some variables for painting . Thanks for reading this :)

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• How is font-size not working here?

  - by markvgti

  Following advice in The 6 Most Important CSS Techniques You Need To Know, I set my body's font-size to 62.5%, the container div's font-size to 1.4 em (slight variation from the article). p.tags and p.published's font-size is set to 1em. However, this doesn't work for me. Both the normal text and text in p.tags and p.published comes out to be the same size (16.8px as computed by Firebug). Can you explain why my code isn't working? I am testing in Firefox 3.6.3. The sample page shown by the author works just fine in the very same browser. I've reproduced the entire page below—apologies for the length of it, but I thought it better to not leave out anything. <html> <head> <title>Title</title> <style type="text/css"> body { font-family: Georgia, "Century Schoolbook", "Times New Roman", Serif; font-size: 62.5%; background-color: #2B3856; /* Dark slate blue */ } h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, "Sans Serif"; color: #2B3856; margin-top: 2px; } h1 a, h2 a, h3 a, h4 a, h5 a, h6 a { text-decoration: none; color: #2B3856; } h1 a:hover, h2 a:hover, h3 a:hover, h4 a:hover, h5 a:hover, h6 a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } div#container { width: 800px; font-size: 1.4em; margin: 5px auto; background-color: #E3E4FA; /* Lavender */ } #sidebar { width: 200px; float: right; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } #sidebar div { padding: 0 5px 5px; } #sidebar div.shadowbox { margin-right: 5px; } #content { width: 600px; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } #header { /*background-color: white;*/ background-color: #2B3856; /* #E3E4FA; Lavender */ margin-bottom: 5px; height: 100px; } #header h1 { color: #B93B8F; /* Plum */ line-height: 100px; text-align: center; font-size: 45px; } #description { color: #7D1B7E /* Dark Orchid */ } a { text-decoration: underline; color: #153E7E; } a:hover { text-decoration: none; } div#posts { padding: 0px; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px; } div#posts div.post { padding: 5px; margin: 0px 5px 15px 5px; } p.tags, p.published { font-size: 1em; } .shadowbox { background: repeat 0 0 url('http://www.jawsalgorhythmics.com/images/darkness-100x100-10pct.png'); } .justifycenter { text-align: center; } .floatright { float:right; } .floatleft { float: left; } .clearright { clear: right; } .clearleft { clear:left; } .clearboth { clear: both; } .halfsidebarwidth { width: 82px; } </style> </head> <body> <div id="container"> <div id="header"> <h1>Odds 'n Ends</h1> </div> <!-- header --> <div id="sidebar"> <div class="shadowbox"> <br /><p class="justifycenter"><img width="64" height="64" src="{PortraitURL-64}" /></p> <div class="floatleft halfsidebarwidth"><a href="/archive" class="archive">Archives</a></div> <div class="floatleft halfsidebarwidth"><a href="{RSS}" class="rss">RSS</a></div> <div class="clearboth"></div> </div> </div> <!-- sidebar --> <div id="content"> <div id="posts"> <div class="post shadowbox"> <span class="quote"> "It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop." <div class="source">Wisdom of <a href="#" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius">Confucius</a></div> </span> <p class="tags">Tags: #<a href="#" title="http://demo.tumblr.com/tagged/wisdom">wisdom</a>&nbsp; </p> <p class="published">Posted: Nov 08, 2006 at 2:27 pm &nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#" title="http://demo.tumblr.com/post/236/it-does-not-matter-how-slow-you-go-so-long-as-you">Permalink</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="#" title="http://tumblr.com/xr06k">Short URL</a></p> </div> </div> <!-- posts --> </div> <!-- content --> <div class="clearboth"></div> <div id="footer" style="text-align: justify;"> <h1>The footer</h1> </div> </div> <!-- container --> </body> </html>

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• when rendering the page on different browsers layout changes

  - by user1776590

  I have create a website using asp.net and when I render the the website on firefox and IE the website look the same and when rendering it on Chrome it move the button lower and changes the location of it this is my master page code <%@ Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="UMSite.master.cs" Inherits="WebApplication4.UMSiteMaster" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> <head runat="server"> <title></title> <link href="~/Styles/UM.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="HeadContent" runat="server"> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body> <form id="Form1" runat="server"> <div class="page"> <div class="header"> <div class="title"> <h1><img alt="" src="Styles/UMHeader.png" width= "950" height= "65" /></h1> <div class="clear hideSkiplink"> <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" CssClass="menu" EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal"> <Items> <asp:MenuItem NavigateUrl="~/Home.aspx" Text="Home"/> </Items> </asp:Menu> </div> </div> </div></h1> <div class="main" runat="server"> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="MainContent" runat="server"/> </div> </form> </body> </html> the below is the css /* DEFAULTS ----------------------------------------------------------*/ body { background: #b6b7bc; font-size: .80em; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Lucida Grande", "Segoe UI", Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #696969; height: 192px; } a:link, a:visited { color: #034af3; } a:hover { color: #1d60ff; text-decoration: none; } a:active { color: #034af3; } p { margin-bottom: 10px; line-height: 1.6em; } /* HEADINGS ----------------------------------------------------------*/ h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { font-size: 1.5em; color: #666666; font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: none; font-weight: 200; margin-bottom: 0px; } h1 { font-size: 1.6em; padding-bottom: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; } h2 { font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: 600; } h3 { font-size: 1.2em; } h4 { font-size: 1.1em; } h5, h6 { font-size: 1em; } /* this rule styles <h1> and <h2> tags that are the first child of the left and right table columns */ .rightColumn > h1, .rightColumn > h2, .leftColumn > h1, .leftColumn > h2 { margin-top: 0px; } /* PRIMARY LAYOUT ELEMENTS ----------------------------------------------------------*/ .page { width: 950px; height:auto; background-color: #fff; margin: 10px auto 5px auto; border: 1px solid #496077; } .header { position:relative; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: #E30613; width: 100%; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 90px; } .header h1 { font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; color: #E30613; border: none; line-height: 2em; font-size: 2em; } .main { padding: 0px 12px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; min-height: 630px; width:auto; background-image:url('UMBackground.png'); } .leftCol { padding: 6px 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; width: 200px; min-height: 200px; width:auto; } .footer { color: #4e5766; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; margin: 0px auto; text-align: center; line-height: normal; } /* TAB MENU ----------------------------------------------------------*/ div.hideSkiplink { background-color:#E30613; width: 950px; height: 35px; margin-top: 0px; } div.menu { padding: 1px 0px 1px 2px; } div.menu ul { list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 5px; width: auto; } div.menu ul li a, div.menu ul li a:visited { background-color: #E30613; border: 1.25px #00BFFF solid; color: #F5FFFA; display:inline; line-height: 1.35em; padding: 10px 30px; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; } div.menu ul li a:hover { background-color: #000000; color: #F5FFFA; text-decoration: none; } div.menu ul li a:active { background-color: #E30613; color: #cfdbe6; text-decoration: none; } /* FORM ELEMENTS ----------------------------------------------------------*/ fieldset { margin: 1em 0px; padding: 1em; border: 1px solid #ccc; } fieldset p { margin: 2px 12px 10px 10px; } fieldset.login label, fieldset.register label, fieldset.changePassword label { display: block; } fieldset label.inline { display: inline; } legend { font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: 600; padding: 2px 4px 8px 4px; } input.textEntry { width: 320px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } input.passwordEntry { width: 320px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } div.accountInfo { width: 42%; } /* MISC ----------------------------------------------------------*/ .clear { clear: both; } .title { display: block; float: left; text-align: left; width: 947px; height: 132px; } .loginDisplay { font-size: 1.1em; display: block; text-align: right; padding: 10px; color: White; } .loginDisplay a:link { color: white; } .loginDisplay a:visited { color: white; } .loginDisplay a:hover { color: white; } .failureNotification { font-size: 1.2em; color: Red; } .bold { font-weight: bold; } .submitButton { text-align: right; padding-right: 10px; }

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• how to count checked checkboxes in different divs

  - by KMKMAHESH

  <head><title>STUDENT WISE EXAM BACKLOGS DISPLAY FOR EXAM REGISTRATION</title> <style type="text/css"> th { font-family:Arial; color:black; border:1px solid #000; } thead { display:table-header-group; } tbody { display:table-row-group; } td { border:1px solid #000; } </style> <script type="text/javascript" > function check_value(year,sem){ ysem="ys"+year+sem; var reg=document.registration.regulation.value; subjectsys="subjects"+year+sem; amountsys="amount"+year+sem; if(year==1){ if(sem==1){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys11").getElementsByTagName('input'); } if(sem==2){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys12").getElementsByTagName('input'); } }elseif(year==2){ if(sem==1){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys21").getElementsByTagName('input'); } if(sem==2){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys22").getElementsByTagName('input'); } }elseif(year==3){ if(sem==1){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys31").getElementsByTagName('input'); } if(sem==2){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys32").getElementsByTagName('input'); } }elseif(year==4){ if(sem==1){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys41").getElementsByTagName('input'); } if(sem==2){ var value_list = document.getElementById("ys42").getElementsByTagName('input'); } } values = 0; for (var i=0; i<value_list.length; i++){ if (value_list[i].checked) { values=values+1; } } document.getElementById(subjectsys).value=values; if (values=="0") { document.getElementById(amountsys).innerHTML=""; return; } if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); } else {// code for IE6, IE5 xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() { if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200) { document.getElementById(amountsys).innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText; } } xmlhttp.open("GET","fee.php?year="+year+"&reg="+reg+"&sem="+sem+"&sub="+values,true); xmlhttp.send(); } </script> </head> <form id="registration" name="registration" action=subverify.php method=POST></br></br> <center> Backlog Subjects for <b>08KN1A1219</b> </br></br> <table border='1'><tr> <th width='40'>&nbsp;</th><th width='90'>Regulation</th><th width='40'>Year</th> <th width='40'>Sem</th><th width='350'>Subname</th> <th width='70'>Internals</th><th width='70'>Externals</th> </tr><div id="ys41"><tr> <td width='40'><center><input type="checkbox" name="sub[]" value="344" onclick="check_value(4,1)"></center></td> <td width='90'><center>R07</center></td><td width='40'><center>4</center></td><td width='40'><center>1</center></td> <td width='350'>EMBEDDED SYSTEMS</td><td width='70'><center>18</center></td> <td width='70'><center>17</center></td></tr><tr><td colspan=5 align=right><b>Subjects: </b><input size=2 type=textbox id=subjects41 name=subjects41 value=0 maxlength=2 readonly=readonly></td> <td align=right><b>Amount :</b></td> <input type='hidden' name='regulation' id=regulationsubjects41 value='R07'> <td><div id="amount41"><input type="textbox" name="amountval41" value="0" size="5" maxlength="5" readonly="readonly"></div></td></tr></div><div id="ys42"><tr> <td width='40'><center><input type="checkbox" name="sub[]" value="527" onclick="check_value(4,2)"></center></td> <td width='90'><center>R07</center></td><td width='40'><center>4</center></td><td width='40'><center>2</center></td> <td width='350'>DESIGN PATTERNS</td><td width='70'><center>12</center></td> <td width='70'><center>14</center></td></tr><tr><td colspan=5 align=right><b>Subjects: </b><input size=2 type=textbox id=subjects42 name=subjects42 value=0 maxlength=2 readonly=readonly></td> <td align=right><b>Amount :</b></td> <input type='hidden' name='regulation' id=regulationsubjects42 value='R07'> <td><div id="amount42"><input type="textbox" name="amountval42" value="0" size="5" maxlength="5" readonly="readonly"></div></td></tr></div><tr><td colspan=7><center><b><div id="maintotal"><input type="textbox" name="maintotal" value="0" size="5" maxlength="5" readonly="readonly"></div></center></b></td></tr><tr></tr></table></br></br> <center><input type='hidden' name='htno' value='08KN1A1219'> <input type='submit' value='Register'></center></form></br> this is a output of a php file with using dynamic data in the form i want to count only the checkboxes in the div and it has to display in that subjectsdiv like subjects41 and subjects42 can any one please help me to update this javascript it passes some ajax request for displaying the fee

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• Can't get the L2TP IPSEC up and running

  - by Maciej Swic

  i have an Ubuntu 11.10 (oneiric) server running on a ReadyNAS. Im planning to use this to accept ipsec+l2tp connections through a router. However, the connection is failing somewhere half through. Using Openswan IPsec U2.6.28/K3.0.0-12-generic and trying to connect with an iOS 5 iPhone 4S. This is how far i can get: auth.log: Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "PSK" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "L2TP-PSK-NAT" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "passthrough-for-non-l2tp" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: listening for IKE messages Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: Trying new style NAT-T Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: ESPINUDP(1) setup failed for new style NAT-T family IPv4 (errno=19) Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: Trying old style NAT-T Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 192.168.19.99:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 192.168.19.99:4500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo 127.0.0.1:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo 127.0.0.1:4500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo ::1:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 2001:470:28:81:a00:27ff:* Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: loading secrets from "/etc/ipsec.secrets" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: loading secrets from "/var/lib/openswan/ipsec.secrets.inc" Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [RFC 3947] method set to=109 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike] method set to=110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [8f8d83826d246b6fc7a8a6a428c11de8] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [439b59f8ba676c4c7737ae22eab8f582] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [4d1e0e136deafa34c4f3ea9f02ec7285] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [80d0bb3def54565ee84645d4c85ce3ee] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [9909b64eed937c6573de52ace952fa6b] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-03] meth=108, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02] meth=107, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02_n] meth=106, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [Dead Peer Detection] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: responding to Main Mode from unknown peer 95.*.*.233 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R0 to state STATE_MAIN_R1 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: STATE_MAIN_R1: sent MR1, expecting MI2 Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: NAT-Traversal: Result using draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike (MacOS X): both are NATed Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R1 to state STATE_MAIN_R2 Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: STATE_MAIN_R2: sent MR2, expecting MI3 Jan 19 14:05:03 ubuntu pluto[1990]: ERROR: asynchronous network error report on eth0 (sport=500) for message to 95.*.*.233 port 500, complainant 95.*.*.233: Connection refused [errno 111, origin ICMP type 3 code 3 (not authenticated)] Router config UDP 500, 1701 and 4500 forwarded to 192.168.19.99 (Ubuntu server for ipsec). Ipsec passthrough enabled. /etc/ipsec.conf # /etc/ipsec.conf - Openswan IPsec configuration file # This file: /usr/share/doc/openswan/ipsec.conf-sample # # Manual: ipsec.conf.5 version 2.0 # conforms to second version of ipsec.conf specification config setup nat_traversal=yes #charonstart=yes #plutostart=yes protostack=netkey conn PSK authby=secret forceencaps=yes pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 dpdtimeout=60 dpdaction=clear rekey=no left=192.168.19.99 leftnexthop=192.168.19.1 leftprotoport=17/1701 right=%any rightprotoport=17/%any rightsubnet=vhost:%priv,%no dpddelay=10 #dpdtimeout=10 #dpdaction=clear include /etc/ipsec.d/l2tp-psk.conf /etc/ipsec.d/l2tp-psk.conf conn L2TP-PSK-NAT rightsubnet=vhost:%priv also=L2TP-PSK-noNAT conn L2TP-PSK-noNAT # # PreSharedSecret needs to be specified in /etc/ipsec.secrets as # YourIPAddress %any: "sharedsecret" authby=secret pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 # we cannot rekey for %any, let client rekey rekey=no # Set ikelifetime and keylife to same defaults windows has ikelifetime=8h keylife=1h # l2tp-over-ipsec is transport mode type=transport # left=192.168.19.99 # # For updated Windows 2000/XP clients, # to support old clients as well, use leftprotoport=17/%any leftprotoport=17/1701 # # The remote user. # right=%any # Using the magic port of "0" means "any one single port". This is # a work around required for Apple OSX clients that use a randomly # high port, but propose "0" instead of their port. rightprotoport=17/%any dpddelay=10 dpdtimeout=10 dpdaction=clear conn passthrough-for-non-l2tp type=passthrough left=192.168.19.99 leftnexthop=192.168.19.1 right=0.0.0.0 rightsubnet=0.0.0.0/0 auto=route /etc/ipsec.secrets include /var/lib/openswan/ipsec.secrets.inc %any %any: PSK "my-key" 192.168.19.99 %any: PSK "my-key" /etc/xl2tpd/xl2tpd.conf [global] debug network = yes debug tunnel = yes ipsec saref = no listen-addr = 192.168.19.99 [lns default] ip range = 192.168.19.201-192.168.19.220 local ip = 192.168.19.99 require chap = yes refuse chap = no refuse pap = no require authentication = no ppp debug = yes pppoptfile = /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd length bit = yes /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd pcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote noccp auth crtscts idle 1800 mtu 1410 mru 1410 defaultroute debug lock proxyarp connect-delay 5000 ipcp-accept-local /etc/ppp/chap-secrets # Secrets for authentication using CHAP # client server secret IP addresses maciekish * my-secret * * maciekish my-secret * I can't seem to find the problem. Other ipsec connections to other hosts work from the network im currently at.

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• heimdal kerberos in openldap issue

  - by Brian

  I think I posted this on the wrong 'sister site', so here it is. I'm having a bit of trouble getting Kerberos (Heimdal version) to work nicely with OpenLDAP. The kerberos database is being stored in LDAP itself. The KDC uses SASL EXTERNAL authentication as root to access the container ou. I created the database in LDAP fine using kadmin -l, but it won't let me use kadmin without the -l flag: root@rds0:~# kadmin -l kadmin> list * krbtgt/REALM kadmin/changepw kadmin/admin changepw/kerberos kadmin/hprop WELLKNOWN/ANONYMOUS WELLKNOWN/org.h5l.fast-cookie@WELLKNOWN:ORG.H5L default brian.empson brian.empson/admin host/rds0.example.net ldap/rds0.example.net host/localhost kadmin> exit root@rds0:~# kadmin kadmin> list * brian.empson/admin@REALM's Password: <----- With right password kadmin: kadm5_get_principals: Key table entry not found kadmin> list * brian.empson/admin@REALM's Password: <------ With wrong password kadmin: kadm5_get_principals: Already tried ENC-TS-info, looping kadmin> I can get tickets without a problem: root@rds0:~# klist Credentials cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_0 Principal: brian.empson@REALM Issued Expires Principal Nov 11 14:14:40 2012 Nov 12 00:14:37 2012 krbtgt/REALM@REALM Nov 11 14:40:35 2012 Nov 12 00:14:37 2012 ldap/rds0.example.net@REALM But I can't seem to change my own password without kadmin -l: root@rds0:~# kpasswd brian.empson@REALM's Password: <---- Right password New password: Verify password - New password: Auth error : Authentication failed root@rds0:~# kpasswd brian.empson@REALM's Password: <---- Wrong password kpasswd: krb5_get_init_creds: Already tried ENC-TS-info, looping kadmin's logs are not helpful at all: 2012-11-11T13:48:33 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T13:51:18 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T13:53:02 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:16:34 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:20:24 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:20:44 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:21:29 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:21:46 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:23:09 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found 2012-11-11T14:45:39 krb5_recvauth: Key table entry not found The KDC reports that both accounts succeed in authenticating: 2012-11-11T14:48:03 AS-REQ brian.empson@REALM from IPv4:192.168.72.10 for kadmin/changepw@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Client sent patypes: REQ-ENC-PA-REP 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for PK-INIT(ietf) pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for PK-INIT(win2k) pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for ENC-TS pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Need to use PA-ENC-TIMESTAMP/PA-PK-AS-REQ 2012-11-11T14:48:03 sending 294 bytes to IPv4:192.168.72.10 2012-11-11T14:48:03 AS-REQ brian.empson@REALM from IPv4:192.168.72.10 for kadmin/changepw@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Client sent patypes: ENC-TS, REQ-ENC-PA-REP 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for PK-INIT(ietf) pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for PK-INIT(win2k) pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Looking for ENC-TS pa-data -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 ENC-TS Pre-authentication succeeded -- brian.empson@REALM using aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 2012-11-11T14:48:03 ENC-TS pre-authentication succeeded -- brian.empson@REALM 2012-11-11T14:48:03 AS-REQ authtime: 2012-11-11T14:48:03 starttime: unset endtime: 2012-11-11T14:53:00 renew till: unset 2012-11-11T14:48:03 Client supported enctypes: aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96, aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96, des3-cbc-sha1, arcfour-hmac-md5, using aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96/aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 2012-11-11T14:48:03 sending 704 bytes to IPv4:192.168.72.10 2012-11-11T14:45:39 AS-REQ brian.empson/admin@REALM from IPv4:192.168.72.10 for kadmin/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Client sent patypes: REQ-ENC-PA-REP 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for PK-INIT(ietf) pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for PK-INIT(win2k) pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for ENC-TS pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Need to use PA-ENC-TIMESTAMP/PA-PK-AS-REQ 2012-11-11T14:45:39 sending 303 bytes to IPv4:192.168.72.10 2012-11-11T14:45:39 AS-REQ brian.empson/admin@REALM from IPv4:192.168.72.10 for kadmin/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Client sent patypes: ENC-TS, REQ-ENC-PA-REP 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for PK-INIT(ietf) pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for PK-INIT(win2k) pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Looking for ENC-TS pa-data -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 ENC-TS Pre-authentication succeeded -- brian.empson/admin@REALM using aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 2012-11-11T14:45:39 ENC-TS pre-authentication succeeded -- brian.empson/admin@REALM 2012-11-11T14:45:39 AS-REQ authtime: 2012-11-11T14:45:39 starttime: unset endtime: 2012-11-11T15:45:39 renew till: unset 2012-11-11T14:45:39 Client supported enctypes: aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96, aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96, des3-cbc-sha1, arcfour-hmac-md5, using aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96/aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 2012-11-11T14:45:39 sending 717 bytes to IPv4:192.168.72.10 I wish I had more detailed logging messages, running kadmind in debug mode seems to almost work but it just kicks me back to the shell when I type in the correct password. GSSAPI via LDAP doesn't work either, but I suspect it's because some parts of kerberos aren't working either: root@rds0:~# ldapsearch -Y GSSAPI -H ldaps:/// -b "o=mybase" o=mybase SASL/GSSAPI authentication started ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Other (e.g., implementation specific) error (80) additional info: SASL(-1): generic failure: GSSAPI Error: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information () root@rds0:~# ldapsearch -Y EXTERNAL -H ldapi:/// -b "o=mybase" o=mybase SASL/EXTERNAL authentication started SASL username: gidNumber=0+uidNumber=0,cn=peercred,cn=external,cn=auth SASL SSF: 0 # extended LDIF <snip> Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction?

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• Unicast traffic between hosts on a switch leaving the switch by its uplink. Why?

  - by Rich Lafferty

  I have a weird thing happening on our network at my office which I can't quite get my head around. In particular I can't tell if it's a problem with a switch, or a problem with configuration. We have a Cisco SG300-52 switch (sw01) in the top of a rack in our server room, connected to another SG300-28 that acts as our core switch (core01). Both run layer 2 only, our firewalls do routing between VLANs. They have a dozen or so VLANs between them. Gi1 on sw01 is a trunk port connected to gi1 on core01. (Disclosure: There are other switches in our environment but I'm pretty sure I've isolated the problem down to these two. Happy to provide more info if necessary.) The behaviour I'm seeing is limited to one VLAN, vlan 12 -- or, at least, it's not happening on the other ones I checked (It's hard to guarantee the absence of packets), and it is: sw01 is forwarding, to core01, traffic which is between two hosts which are both plugged into sw01. (I noticed this because the IDS in our firewall gave a false positive on traffic which should not reach the firewall.) We noticed this mostly between our two dhcp/dns servers, net01 (10.12.0.10) and net02 (10.12.0.11). net01 is physical hardware and net02 is on a VMware ESX server. net01 is connected to gi44 on sw01 and net02's ESX server to gi11. [net01]----gi44-[sw01]-gi1----gi1-[core01] [net02]----gi11/ Let's see some interfaces! Remember, vlan 12 is the problem vlan. Of the others I explicitly verified that vlan 27 was not affected. Here's the two hosts' ports: esx01 contains net02. sw01#sh run int gi11 interface gigabitethernet11 description esx01 lldp med disable switchport trunk allowed vlan add 5-7,11-13,100 switchport trunk native vlan 27 ! sw01#sh run int gi44 interface gigabitethernet44 description net01-1 lldp med disable switchport mode access switchport access vlan 12 ! Here's the trunk on sw01. sw01#sh run int gi1 interface gigabitethernet1 description "trunk to core01" lldp med disable switchport trunk allowed vlan add 4-7,11-13,27,100 ! And the other end of the trunk on core01. interface gigabitethernet1 description sw01 macro description switch switchport trunk allowed vlan add 2-7,11-16,27,100 ! I have a monitor port on core01, thus: core01#sh run int gi12 interface gigabitethernet12 description "monitor port" port monitor GigabitEthernet 1 ! And the monitor port on core01 sees unicast traffic going between net01 and net02, both of which are on sw01! I've verified this with a monitor port on sw01 that sees the net01-net02 unicast traffic leaving via gi1 too. sw01 knows that both of those hosts are on ports that are not its trunk port: :) ratchet$ arp -a | grep net net02.2ndsiteinc.com (10.12.0.11) at 00:0C:29:1A:66:15 [ether] on eth0 net01.2ndsiteinc.com (10.12.0.10) at 00:11:43:D8:9F:94 [ether] on eth0 sw01#sh mac addr addr 00:0C:29:1A:66:15 Aging time is 300 sec Vlan Mac Address Port Type -------- --------------------- ---------- ---------- 12 00:0c:29:1a:66:15 gi11 dynamic sw01#sh mac addr addr 00:11:43:D8:9F:94 Aging time is 300 sec Vlan Mac Address Port Type -------- --------------------- ---------- ---------- 12 00:11:43:d8:9f:94 gi44 dynamic I also brought up an unused port on sw01 on vlan 12, but the unicast traffic was (as best as I could tell) not coming out that port. So it doesn't look like sw01 is pushing it out all its ports, just the right ports and also gi1! I've verified that sw01 is not filling up its address-table: sw01#sh mac addr count This may take some time. Capacity : 8192 Free : 7983 Used : 208 The full configs for both core01 and sw01 are available: core01, sw01. Finally, versions: sw01#sh ver SW version 1.1.2.0 ( date 12-Nov-2011 time 23:34:26 ) Boot version 1.0.0.4 ( date 08-Apr-2010 time 16:37:57 ) HW version V01 core01#sh ver SW version 1.1.2.0 ( date 12-Nov-2011 time 23:34:26 ) Boot version 1.1.0.6 ( date 11-May-2011 time 18:31:00 ) HW version V01 So my understanding is this: sw01 should take unicast traffic for net01 and send it only out net02's port, and vice versa; none of it should go out sw01's uplink. But core01, receiving traffic on gi1 for a host it knows is on gi1, is right in sending it out all of its ports. (That is: sw01 is misbehaving, but core01 is doing what it should given the circumstances.) My question is: Why is sw01 sending that unicast traffic out its uplink, gi1? (And pre-emptively: yes, I know SG300s leave much to be desired, and yes, we should have spanning-tree enabled, but that's where I'm at right now.)

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• Open source CMS for a university department

  - by Greg Kuperberg

  I realize that this type of question gets asked over and over again. Nonetheless, I want to ask a more specific version. I'm in a university math department. Long ago our sysadmins (or just one at the time) switched to a web content management system. At the time, Zope looked like an informed choice. We have used Zope for years, but at least in my opinion, it has always been a controversial decision. At the time I didn't understand why it was so important to have a web CMS. Now I see that it certainly is important, but I don't know that it should be Zope. The good (even necessary) features of Zope for us are: It's free and Linux-based. It is a true CMS and not something else (e.g. wiki or blog) It lets you write HTML and scripts. What I really don't like about Zope is that the outcome of using it is all-or-nothing in a lot of ways. At least in convenient use, it ends up dividing the enterprise into superusers who can do everything, and lusers who can't do anything (except write their own home pages in plain HTML). It has a huge user manual, which end users won't have time to read. Somehow with the access permissions, the simple thing to do is to let a few admins access all of the source and data and that's it. Since this is a math department, the user base varies from real novices to people who understand computers reasonably well. But as it stands, any change that involves Zope has to go through the sysadmins. When the sysadmins are in a hurry, sometimes they will also just add plain HTML pages to the web site instead of using the Zope framework. It doesn't help matters that Zope is fairly disk-intensive and fairly hype-intensive. Not to dwell on Zope too much, but I am wondering what is the right web CMS for a mixed user base of terminal novices, quick studies, and experienced users. Some users might want intermediate permissions, e.g. read permission but not write permission, or permission to change some subset of the pages or see some subset of the database tables. Also it should be Linux-based and open source and a little bit scalable, and of course widely used and well-supported is a good idea. I might guess that the answer is Drupal just because that was the general answer before, but I don't know if it is the right type of CMS for this purpose. (But note that Python is a relatively popular language in a math department, among other reasons because Sage is based on Python.) I can see that I didn't completely define the question and that people are guessing what type of site it is. It is the UC Davis Math Department. The main structure of the site is not suitable for a wiki and it is also not the same thing as a course environment like Moodle. Rather, the site is mostly structured as a generic medium-small enterprise. Some components of the site could be a wiki, Moodle, LaTeX plugin, Request Tracker, etc. However, the main issue is not these components. The main issue is that it would be better to decentralize management of the site. Right now, everything that is in the Zope CMS has to go through the sysadmins. Every other user in the department either has to put in a request to them, or write their own web pages with no help from Zope. There are two main reasons for this: (1) Other people in the department don't have time to read the Zope manual. (2) It's a hassle to set up intermediate permissions in Zope. However, there are other people in the department who know how to write computer programs and use markup languages. I wouldn't want a solution that assumes that users either can't be trusted with much more than drag-and-drop, or that they are IT professionals who sleep with documentation manuals. I'm wondering if Plone/Zope still has this quality, since certainly Zope by itself does. But I also wonder sometimes if common-sense flexibility is unfashionable these days, and that things in general have be either mindlessly easy or incredibly powerful.

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• Crossover LAN connection between Ubuntu And Windows 7 is not working

  - by brett

  my question is closely related to: How do I connect Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 with an Ethernet cable? What I am after is: Windows 7-------wireless-----\ Wifi router Ubuntu 10.04----wireless-----/ Windows 7-------wireless-----\ | cross_over_cable Wifi router | Ubuntu 10.04----wireless-----/ What I did was On Windows edit system32\drivers\etc\hosts Add the following line: 192.168.253.2 my_ubuntu_computer_name_&-wired //?not sure if this is right On Ubuntu: sudo gedit /etc/hosts Add the following line: 192.168.253.1 my_pc_computer_name&-wired //?not sure if this is right and then Ubuntu 12.04 as the host Right click on the Network Manager applet, click Edit Connections... In the Wired tab, click Auto eth0, then click Edit... In the IPv4 Settings tab, change Method: to Shared to other computers. Click Apply and enter your password when it asks you. Close everything and reboot. Plug the Ethernet cable into both computers. But, I can connect to my windows network folders from ubuntu via wifi I can't connect to my ubuntu network folders from windows via wifi(in fact this bit was working before - so my wifi connection is worse) my ubuntu Auto Ethernet seems to be on From Ubuntu eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2f:f3:43:8d inet addr:10.42.0.1 Bcast:10.42.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:fef3:438d/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:172 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:27279 (27.2 KB) Interrupt:19 Base address:0xe400 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:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:1147 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1147 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:94380 (94.3 KB) TX bytes:94380 (94.3 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:c9:e9:6f:bf inet addr:10.1.1.7 Bcast:10.1.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::203:c9ff:fee9:6fbf/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:13186 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:12187 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:1598882 (1.5 MB) TX bytes:1189555 (1.1 MB) From Windows: Windows IP Configuration Ethernet adapter Bluetooth Network Connection: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : BoB Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::ecf7:c445:3725:b9c1%12 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.1.4 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.1.1 Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 15: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:4137:9e76:1423:3ae3:f5fe:fefb Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::1423:3ae3:f5fe:fefb%23 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : :: Tunnel adapter isatap.BoB: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : BoB Tunnel adapter isatap.{D0C8EBA1-335D-4620-8570-6C36E8786D72}: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

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• A free standing ASP.NET Pager Web Control

  - by Rick Strahl

  Paging in ASP.NET has been relatively easy with stock controls supporting basic paging functionality. However, recently I built an MVC application and one of the things I ran into was that I HAD TO build manual paging support into a few of my pages. Dealing with list controls and rendering markup is easy enough, but doing paging is a little more involved. I ended up with a small but flexible component that can be dropped anywhere. As it turns out the task of creating a semi-generic Pager control for MVC was fairly easily. Now I’m back to working in Web Forms and thought to myself that the way I created the pager in MVC actually would also work in ASP.NET – in fact quite a bit easier since the whole thing can be conveniently wrapped up into an easily reusable control. A standalone pager would provider easier reuse in various pages and a more consistent pager display regardless of what kind of 'control’ the pager is associated with. Why a Pager Control? At first blush it might sound silly to create a new pager control – after all Web Forms has pretty decent paging support, doesn’t it? Well, sort of. Yes the GridView control has automatic paging built in and the ListView control has the related DataPager control. The built in ASP.NET paging has several issues though: Postback and JavaScript requirements If you look at paging links in ASP.NET they are always postback links with javascript:__doPostback() calls that go back to the server. While that works fine and actually has some benefit like the fact that paging saves changes to the page and post them back, it’s not very SEO friendly. Basically if you use javascript based navigation nosearch engine will follow the paging links which effectively cuts off list content on the first page. The DataPager control does support GET based links via the QueryStringParameter property, but the control is effectively tied to the ListView control (which is the only control that implements IPageableItemContainer). DataSource Controls required for Efficient Data Paging Retrieval The only way you can get paging to work efficiently where only the few records you display on the page are queried for and retrieved from the database you have to use a DataSource control - only the Linq and Entity DataSource controls  support this natively. While you can retrieve this data yourself manually, there’s no way to just assign the page number and render the pager based on this custom subset. Other than that default paging requires a full resultset for ASP.NET to filter the data and display only a subset which can be very resource intensive and wasteful if you’re dealing with largish resultsets (although I’m a firm believer in returning actually usable sets :-}). If you use your own business layer that doesn’t fit an ObjectDataSource you’re SOL. That’s a real shame too because with LINQ based querying it’s real easy to retrieve a subset of data that is just the data you want to display but the native Pager functionality doesn’t support just setting properties to display just the subset AFAIK. DataPager is not Free Standing The DataPager control is the closest thing to a decent Pager implementation that ASP.NET has, but alas it’s not a free standing component – it works off a related control and the only one that it effectively supports from the stock ASP.NET controls is the ListView control. This means you can’t use the same data pager formatting for a grid and a list view or vice versa and you’re always tied to the control. Paging Events In order to handle paging you have to deal with paging events. The events fire at specific time instances in the page pipeline and because of this you often have to handle data binding in a way to work around the paging events or else end up double binding your data sources based on paging. Yuk. Styling The GridView pager is a royal pain to beat into submission for styled rendering. The DataPager control has many more options and template layout and it renders somewhat cleaner, but it too is not exactly easy to get a decent display for. Not a Generic Solution The problem with the ASP.NET controls too is that it’s not generic. GridView, DataGrid use their own internal paging, ListView can use a DataPager and if you want to manually create data layout – well you’re on your own. IOW, depending on what you use you likely have very different looking Paging experiences. So, I figured I’ve struggled with this once too many and finally sat down and built a Pager control. The Pager Control My goal was to create a totally free standing control that has no dependencies on other controls and certainly no requirements for using DataSource controls. The idea is that you should be able to use this pager control without any sort of data requirements at all – you should just be able to set properties and be able to display a pager. The Pager control I ended up with has the following features: Completely free standing Pager control – no control or data dependencies Complete manual control – Pager can render without any data dependency Easy to use: Only need to set PageSize, ActivePage and TotalItems Supports optional filtering of IQueryable for efficient queries and Pager rendering Supports optional full set filtering of IEnumerable<T> and DataTable Page links are plain HTTP GET href Links Control automatically picks up Page links on the URL and assigns them (automatic page detection no page index changing events to hookup) Full CSS Styling support On the downside there’s no templating support for the control so the layout of the pager is relatively fixed. All elements however are stylable and there are options to control the text, and layout options such as whether to display first and last pages and the previous/next buttons and so on. To give you an idea what the pager looks like, here are two differently styled examples (all via CSS):   The markup for these two pagers looks like this: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager" PageSize="5" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PagesTextCssClass="gridpagertext" CssClass="gridpager" RenderContainerDiv="true" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" PagesText="Item Pages:" NextText="next" PreviousText="previous" /> <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager2" PageSize="5" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> The latter example uses default style settings so it there’s not much to set. The first example on the other hand explicitly assigns custom styles and overrides a few of the formatting options. Styling The styling is based on a number of CSS classes of which the the main pager, pagerbutton and pagerbutton-selected classes are the important ones. Other styles like pagerbutton-next/prev/first/last are based on the pagerbutton style. The default styling shown for the red outlined pager looks like this: .pagercontainer { margin: 20px 0; background: whitesmoke; padding: 5px; } .pager { float: right; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left; } .pagerbutton,.pagerbutton-selected,.pagertext { display: block; float: left; text-align: center; border: solid 2px maroon; min-width: 18px; margin-left: 3px; text-decoration: none; padding: 4px; } .pagerbutton-selected { font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold; color: maroon; border-width: 0px; background: khaki; } .pagerbutton-first { margin-right: 12px; } .pagerbutton-last,.pagerbutton-prev { margin-left: 12px; } .pagertext { border: none; margin-left: 30px; font-weight: bold; } .pagerbutton a { text-decoration: none; } .pagerbutton:hover { background-color: maroon; color: cornsilk; } .pagerbutton-prev { background-image: url(images/prev.png); background-position: 2px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-left: 20px; } .pagerbutton-next { background-image: url(images/next.png); background-position: 40px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 0px; } Yup that’s a lot of styling settings although not all of them are required. The key ones are pagerbutton, pager and pager selection. The others (which are implicitly created by the control based on the pagerbutton style) are for custom markup of the ‘special’ buttons. In my apps I tend to have two kinds of pages: Those that are associated with typical ‘grid’ displays that display purely tabular data and those that have a more looser list like layout. The two pagers shown above represent these two views and the pager and gridpager styles in my standard style sheet reflect these two styles. Configuring the Pager with Code Finally lets look at what it takes to hook up the pager. As mentioned in the highlights the Pager control is completely independent of other controls so if you just want to display a pager on its own it’s as simple as dropping the control and assigning the PageSize, ActivePage and either TotalPages or TotalItems. So for this markup: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPagerManual" PageSize="5" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> I can use code as simple as: ItemPagerManual.PageSize = 3; ItemPagerManual.ActivePage = 4;ItemPagerManual.TotalItems = 20; Note that ActivePage is not required - it will automatically use any Page=x query string value and assign it, although you can override it as I did above. TotalItems can be any value that you retrieve from a result set or manually assign as I did above. A more realistic scenario based on a LINQ to SQL IQueryable result is even easier. In this example, I have a UserControl that contains a ListView control that renders IQueryable data. I use a User Control here because there are different views the user can choose from with each view being a different user control. This incidentally also highlights one of the nice features of the pager: Because the pager is independent of the control I can put the pager on the host page instead of into each of the user controls. IOW, there’s only one Pager control, but there are potentially many user controls/listviews that hold the actual display data. The following code demonstrates how to use the Pager with an IQueryable that loads only the records it displays: protected voidPage_Load(objectsender, EventArgs e) {     Category = Request.Params["Category"] ?? string.Empty;     IQueryable<wws_Item> ItemList = ItemRepository.GetItemsByCategory(Category);     // Update the page and filter the list down     ItemList = ItemPager.FilterIQueryable<wws_Item>(ItemList); // Render user control with a list view Control ulItemList = LoadControl("~/usercontrols/" + App.Configuration.ItemListType + ".ascx"); ((IInventoryItemListControl)ulItemList).InventoryItemList = ItemList; phItemList.Controls.Add(ulItemList); // placeholder } The code uses a business object to retrieve Items by category as an IQueryable which means that the result is only an expression tree that hasn’t execute SQL yet and can be further filtered. I then pass this IQueryable to the FilterIQueryable() helper method of the control which does two main things: Filters the IQueryable to retrieve only the data displayed on the active page Sets the Totaltems property and calculates TotalPages on the Pager and that’s it! When the Pager renders it uses those values, plus the PageSize and ActivePage properties to render the Pager. In addition to IQueryable there are also filter methods for IEnumerable<T> and DataTable, but these versions just filter the data by removing rows/items from the entire already retrieved data. Output Generated and Paging Links The output generated creates pager links as plain href links. Here’s what the output looks like: <div id="ItemPager" class="pagercontainer"> <div class="pager"> <span class="pagertext">Pages: </span><a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=1" class="pagerbutton" />1</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=2" class="pagerbutton" />2</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton" />3</a> <span class="pagerbutton-selected">4</span> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton" />5</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=6" class="pagerbutton" />6</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=20" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-last" />20</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-prev" />Prev</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-next" />Next</a></div> <br clear="all" /> </div> </div> The links point back to the current page and simply append a Page= page link into the page. When the page gets reloaded with the new page number the pager automatically detects the page number and automatically assigns the ActivePage property which results in the appropriate page to be displayed. The code shown in the previous section is all that’s needed to handle paging. Note that HTTP GET based paging is different than the Postback paging ASP.NET uses by default. Postback paging preserves modified page content when clicking on pager buttons, but this control will simply load a new page – no page preservation at this time. The advantage of not using Postback paging is that the URLs generated are plain HTML links that a search engine can follow where __doPostback() links are not. Pager with a Grid The pager also works in combination with grid controls so it’s easy to bypass the grid control’s paging features if desired. In the following example I use a gridView control and binds it to a DataTable result which is also filterable by the Pager control. The very basic plain vanilla ASP.NET grid markup looks like this: <div style="width: 600px; margin: 0 auto;padding: 20px; "> <asp:DataGrid runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="True" ID="gdItems" CssClass="blackborder" style="width: 600px;"> <AlternatingItemStyle CssClass="gridalternate" /> <HeaderStyle CssClass="gridheader" /> </asp:DataGrid> <ww:Pager runat="server" ID="Pager" CssClass="gridpager" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PageSize="8" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> </div> and looks like this when rendered: using custom set of CSS styles. The code behind for this code is also very simple: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string category = Request.Params["category"] ?? ""; busItem itemRep = WebStoreFactory.GetItem(); var items = itemRep.GetItemsByCategory(category) .Select(itm => new {Sku = itm.Sku, Description = itm.Description}); // run query into a DataTable for demonstration DataTable dt = itemRep.Converter.ToDataTable(items,"TItems"); // Remove all items not on the current page dt = Pager.FilterDataTable(dt,0); // bind and display gdItems.DataSource = dt; gdItems.DataBind(); } A little contrived I suppose since the list could already be bound from the list of elements, but this is to demonstrate that you can also bind against a DataTable if your business layer returns those. Unfortunately there’s no way to filter a DataReader as it’s a one way forward only reader and the reader is required by the DataSource to perform the bindings.  However, you can still use a DataReader as long as your business logic filters the data prior to rendering and provides a total item count (most likely as a second query). Control Creation The control itself is a pretty brute force ASP.NET control. Nothing clever about this other than some basic rendering logic and some simple calculations and update routines to determine which buttons need to be shown. You can take a look at the full code from the West Wind Web Toolkit’s Repository (note there are a few dependencies). To give you an idea how the control works here is the Render() method: /// <summary> /// overridden to handle custom pager rendering for runtime and design time /// </summary> /// <param name="writer"></param> protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { base.Render(writer); if (TotalPages == 0 && TotalItems > 0) TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); if (DesignMode) TotalPages = 10; // don't render pager if there's only one page if (TotalPages < 2) return; if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(ContainerDivCssClass)) writer.AddAttribute("class", ContainerDivCssClass); writer.RenderBeginTag("div"); } // main pager wrapper writer.WriteBeginTag("div"); writer.AddAttribute("id", this.ClientID); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(CssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", this.CssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar + "\r\n"); // Pages Text writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PagesTextCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PagesTextCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(this.PagesText); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); // if the base url is empty use the current URL FixupBaseUrl(); // set _startPage and _endPage ConfigurePagesToRender(); // write out first page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _startPage != 1) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-first"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write("1"); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); writer.Write("&nbsp;"); } // write out all the page links for (int i = _startPage; i < _endPage + 1; i++) { if (i == ActivePage) { writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(SelectedPageCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", SelectedPageCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); } else { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, i.ToString()).TrimEnd('&'); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.Write("\r\n"); } // write out last page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _endPage < TotalPages) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-last"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Previous link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(PreviousText) && ActivePage > 1) { writer.Write("&nbsp;"); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage - 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-prev"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(PreviousText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Next link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(NextText) && ActivePage < TotalPages) { writer.Write("&nbsp;"); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage + 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-next"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(NextText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.WriteEndTag("div"); if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (RenderContainerDivBreak) writer.Write("<br clear=\"all\" />\r\n"); writer.WriteEndTag("div"); } } As I said pretty much brute force rendering based on the control’s property settings of which there are quite a few: You can also see the pager in the designer above. unfortunately the VS designer (both 2010 and 2008) fails to render the float: left CSS styles properly and starts wrapping after margins are applied in the special buttons. Not a big deal since VS does at least respect the spacing (the floated elements overlay). Then again I’m not using the designer anyway :-}. Filtering Data What makes the Pager easy to use is the filter methods built into the control. While this functionality is clearly not the most politically correct design choice as it violates separation of concerns, it’s very useful for typical pager operation. While I actually have filter methods that do something similar in my business layer, having it exposed on the control makes the control a lot more useful for typical databinding scenarios. Of course these methods are optional – if you have a business layer that can provide filtered page queries for you can use that instead and assign the TotalItems property manually. There are three filter method types available for IQueryable, IEnumerable and for DataTable which tend to be the most common use cases in my apps old and new. The IQueryable version is pretty simple as it can simply rely on on .Skip() and .Take() with LINQ: /// <summary> /// <summary> /// Queries the database for the ActivePage applied manually /// or from the Request["page"] variable. This routine /// figures out and sets TotalPages, ActivePage and /// returns a filtered subset IQueryable that contains /// only the items from the ActivePage. /// </summary> /// <param name="query"></param> /// <param name="activePage"> /// The page you want to display. Sets the ActivePage property when passed. /// Pass 0 or smaller to use ActivePage setting. /// </param> /// <returns></returns> public IQueryable<T> FilterIQueryable<T>(IQueryable<T> query, int activePage) where T : class, new() { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = query.Count(); if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return query; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) query = query.Skip(skip * PageSize); _TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); return query.Take(PageSize); } The IEnumerable<T> version simply  converts the IEnumerable to an IQuerable and calls back into this method for filtering. The DataTable version requires a little more work to manually parse and filter records (I didn’t want to add the Linq DataSetExtensions assembly just for this): /// <summary> /// Filters a data table for an ActivePage. /// /// Note: Modifies the data set permanently by remove DataRows /// </summary> /// <param name="dt">Full result DataTable</param> /// <param name="activePage">Page to display. 0 to use ActivePage property </param> /// <returns></returns> public DataTable FilterDataTable(DataTable dt, int activePage) { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = dt.Rows.Count; if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return dt; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) { for (int i = 0; i < skip * PageSize; i++ ) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(0); } while(dt.Rows.Count > PageSize) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(PageSize); return dt; } Using the Pager Control The pager as it is is a first cut I built a couple of weeks ago and since then have been tweaking a little as part of an internal project I’m working on. I’ve replaced a bunch of pagers on various older pages with this pager without any issues and have what now feels like a more consistent user interface where paging looks and feels the same across different controls. As a bonus I’m only loading the data from the database that I need to display a single page. With the preset class tags applied too adding a pager is now as easy as dropping the control and adding the style sheet for styling to be consistent – no fuss, no muss. Schweet. Hopefully some of you may find this as useful as I have or at least as a baseline to build ontop of… Resources The Pager is part of the West Wind Web & Ajax Toolkit Pager.cs Source Code (some toolkit dependencies) Westwind.css base stylesheet with .pager and .gridpager styles Pager Example Page © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• Version Assemblies with TFS 2010 Continuous Integration

  - by Steve Michelotti

  When I first heard that TFS 2010 had moved to Workflow Foundation for Team Build, I was *extremely* skeptical. I’ve loved MSBuild and didn’t quite understand the reasons for this change. In fact, given that I’ve been exclusively using Cruise Control for Continuous Integration (CI) for the last 5+ years of my career, I was skeptical of TFS for CI in general. However, after going through the learning process for TFS 2010 recently, I’m starting to become a believer. I’m also starting to see some of the benefits with Workflow Foundation for the overall processing because it gives you constructs not available in MSBuild such as parallel tasks, better control flow constructs, and a slightly better customization story. The first customization I had to make to the build process was to version the assemblies of my solution. This is not new. In fact, I’d recommend reading Mike Fourie’s well known post on Versioning Code in TFS before you get started. This post describes several foundational aspects of versioning assemblies regardless of your version of TFS. The main points are: 1) don’t use source control operations for your version file, 2) use a schema like <Major>.<Minor>.<IncrementalNumber>.0, and 3) do not keep AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion in sync. To do this in TFS 2010, the best post I’ve found has been Jim Lamb’s post of building a custom TFS 2010 workflow activity. Overall, this post is excellent but the primary issue I have with it is that the assembly version numbers produced are based in a date and look like this: “2010.5.15.1”. This is definitely not what I want. I want to be able to communicate to the developers and stakeholders that we are producing the “1.1 release” or “1.2 release” – which would have an assembly version number of “1.1.317.0” for example. In this post, I’ll walk through the process of customizing the assembly version number based on this method – customizing the concepts in Lamb’s post to suit my needs. I’ll also be combining this with the concepts of Fourie’s post – particularly with regards to the standards around how to version the assemblies. The first thing I’ll do is add a file called SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs to the root of my solution that looks like this: 1: using System; 2: using System.Reflection; 3: [assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.1.0.0")] 4: [assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.1.0.0")] I’ll then add that file as a Visual Studio link file to each project in my solution by right-clicking the project, “Add – Existing Item…” then when I click the SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs file, making sure I “Add As Link”: Now the Solution Explorer will show our file. We can see that it’s a “link” file because of the black arrow in the icon within all our projects. Of course you’ll need to remove the AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion attributes from the AssemblyInfo.cs files to avoid the duplicate attributes since they now leave in the SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs file. This is an extremely common technique so that all the projects in our solution can be versioned as a unit. At this point, we’re ready to write our custom activity. The primary consideration is that I want the developer and/or tech lead to be able to easily be in control of the Major.Minor and then I want the CI process to add the third number with a unique incremental number. We’ll leave the fourth position always “0” for now – it’s held in reserve in case the day ever comes where we need to do an emergency patch to Production based on a branched version.   Writing the Custom Workflow Activity Similar to Lamb’s post, I’m going to write two custom workflow activities. The “outer” activity (a xaml activity) will be pretty straight forward. It will check if the solution version file exists in the solution root and, if so, delegate the replacement of version to the AssemblyVersionInfo activity which is a CodeActivity highlighted in red below:   Notice that the arguments of this activity are the “solutionVersionFile” and “tfsBuildNumber” which will be passed in. The tfsBuildNumber passed in will look something like this: “CI_MyApplication.4” and we’ll need to grab the “4” (i.e., the incremental revision number) and put that in the third position. Then we’ll need to honor whatever was specified for Major.Minor in the SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs file. For example, if the SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs file had “1.1.0.0” for the AssemblyVersion (as shown in the first code block near the beginning of this post), then we want to resulting file to have “1.1.4.0”. Before we do anything, let’s put together a unit test for all this so we can know if we get it right: 1: [TestMethod] 2: public void Assembly_version_should_be_parsed_correctly_from_build_name() 3: { 4: // arrange 5: const string versionFile = "SolutionAssemblyVersionInfo.cs"; 6: WriteTestVersionFile(versionFile); 7: var activity = new VersionAssemblies(); 8: var arguments = new Dictionary<string, object> { 9: { "tfsBuildNumber", "CI_MyApplication.4"}, 10: { "solutionVersionFile", versionFile} 11: }; 12:   13: // act 14: var result = WorkflowInvoker.Invoke(activity, arguments); 15:   16: // assert 17: Assert.AreEqual("1.2.4.0", (string)result["newAssemblyFileVersion"]); 18: var lines = File.ReadAllLines(versionFile); 19: Assert.IsTrue(lines.Contains("[assembly: AssemblyVersion(\"1.2.0.0\")]")); 20: Assert.IsTrue(lines.Contains("[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(\"1.2.4.0\")]")); 21: } 22: 23: private void WriteTestVersionFile(string versionFile) 24: { 25: var fileContents = "using System.Reflection;\n" + 26: "[assembly: AssemblyVersion(\"1.2.0.0\")]\n" + 27: "[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(\"1.2.0.0\")]"; 28: File.WriteAllText(versionFile, fileContents); 29: }   At this point, the code for our AssemblyVersion activity is pretty straight forward: 1: [BuildActivity(HostEnvironmentOption.Agent)] 2: public class AssemblyVersionInfo : CodeActivity 3: { 4: [RequiredArgument] 5: public InArgument<string> FileName { get; set; } 6:   7: [RequiredArgument] 8: public InArgument<string> TfsBuildNumber { get; set; } 9:   10: public OutArgument<string> NewAssemblyFileVersion { get; set; } 11:   12: protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context) 13: { 14: var solutionVersionFile = this.FileName.Get(context); 15: 16: // Ensure that the file is writeable 17: var fileAttributes = File.GetAttributes(solutionVersionFile); 18: File.SetAttributes(solutionVersionFile, fileAttributes & ~FileAttributes.ReadOnly); 19:   20: // Prepare assembly versions 21: var majorMinor = GetAssemblyMajorMinorVersionBasedOnExisting(solutionVersionFile); 22: var newBuildNumber = GetNewBuildNumber(this.TfsBuildNumber.Get(context)); 23: var newAssemblyVersion = string.Format("{0}.{1}.0.0", majorMinor.Item1, majorMinor.Item2); 24: var newAssemblyFileVersion = string.Format("{0}.{1}.{2}.0", majorMinor.Item1, majorMinor.Item2, newBuildNumber); 25: this.NewAssemblyFileVersion.Set(context, newAssemblyFileVersion); 26:   27: // Perform the actual replacement 28: var contents = this.GetFileContents(newAssemblyVersion, newAssemblyFileVersion); 29: File.WriteAllText(solutionVersionFile, contents); 30:   31: // Restore the file's original attributes 32: File.SetAttributes(solutionVersionFile, fileAttributes); 33: } 34:   35: #region Private Methods 36:   37: private string GetFileContents(string newAssemblyVersion, string newAssemblyFileVersion) 38: { 39: var cs = new StringBuilder(); 40: cs.AppendLine("using System.Reflection;"); 41: cs.AppendFormat("[assembly: AssemblyVersion(\"{0}\")]", newAssemblyVersion); 42: cs.AppendLine(); 43: cs.AppendFormat("[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(\"{0}\")]", newAssemblyFileVersion); 44: return cs.ToString(); 45: } 46:   47: private Tuple<string, string> GetAssemblyMajorMinorVersionBasedOnExisting(string filePath) 48: { 49: var lines = File.ReadAllLines(filePath); 50: var versionLine = lines.Where(x => x.Contains("AssemblyVersion")).FirstOrDefault(); 51:   52: if (versionLine == null) 53: { 54: throw new InvalidOperationException("File does not contain [assembly: AssemblyVersion] attribute"); 55: } 56:   57: return ExtractMajorMinor(versionLine); 58: } 59:   60: private static Tuple<string, string> ExtractMajorMinor(string versionLine) 61: { 62: var firstQuote = versionLine.IndexOf('"') + 1; 63: var secondQuote = versionLine.IndexOf('"', firstQuote); 64: var version = versionLine.Substring(firstQuote, secondQuote - firstQuote); 65: var versionParts = version.Split('.'); 66: return new Tuple<string, string>(versionParts[0], versionParts[1]); 67: } 68:   69: private string GetNewBuildNumber(string buildName) 70: { 71: return buildName.Substring(buildName.LastIndexOf(".") + 1); 72: } 73:   74: #endregion 75: }   At this point the final step is to incorporate this activity into the overall build template. Make a copy of the DefaultTempate.xaml – we’ll call it DefaultTemplateWithVersioning.xaml. Before the build and labeling happens, drag the VersionAssemblies activity in. Then set the LabelName variable to “BuildDetail.BuildDefinition.Name + "-" + newAssemblyFileVersion since the newAssemblyFileVersion was produced by our activity.   Configuring CI Once you add your solution to source control, you can configure CI with the build definition window as shown here. The main difference is that we’ll change the Process tab to reflect a different build number format and choose our custom build process file:   When the build completes, we’ll see the name of our project with the unique revision number:   If we look at the detailed build log for the latest build, we’ll see the label being created with our custom task:     We can now look at the history labels in TFS and see the project name with the labels (the Assignment activity I added to the workflow):   Finally, if we look at the physical assemblies that are produced, we can right-click on any assembly in Windows Explorer and see the assembly version in its properties:   Full Traceability We now have full traceability for our code. There will never be a question of what code was deployed to Production. You can always see the assembly version in the properties of the physical assembly. That can be traced back to a label in TFS where the unique revision number matches. The label in TFS gives you the complete snapshot of the code in your source control repository at the time the code was built. This type of process for full traceability has been used for many years for CI – in fact, I’ve done similar things with CCNet and SVN for quite some time. This is simply the TFS implementation of that pattern. The new features that TFS 2010 give you to make these types of customizations in your build process are quite easy once you get over the initial curve.

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• Solution: Testing Web Services with MSTest on Team Build

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Guess what. About 20 minutes after I fixed the build, Allan broke it again! Update: 4th March 2010 – After having huge problems getting this working I read Billy Wang’s post which showed me the light. The problem here is that even though the test passes locally it will not during an Automated Build. When you send your tests to the build server it does not understand that you want to spin up the web site and run tests against that! When you run the test in Visual Studio it spins up the web site anyway, but would you expect your test to pass if you told the website not to spin up? Of course not. So, when you send the code to the build server you need to tell it what to spin up. First, the best way to get the parameters you need is to right click on the method you want to test and select “Create Unit Test”. This will detect wither you are running in IIS or ASP.NET Development Server or None, and create the relevant tags. Figure: Right clicking on “SaveDefaultProjectFile” will produce a context menu with “Create Unit tests…” on it. If you use this option it will AutoDetect most of the Attributes that are required. /// <summary> ///A test for SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web.Services.IProfileService.SaveDefaultProjectFile ///</summary> // TODO: Ensure that the UrlToTest attribute specifies a URL to an ASP.NET page (for example, // http://.../Default.aspx). This is necessary for the unit test to be executed on the web server, // whether you are testing a page, web service, or a WCF service. [TestMethod()] [HostType("ASP.NET")] [AspNetDevelopmentServerHost("D:\\Workspaces\\SSW\\SSW\\SqlDeploy\\DEV\\Main\\SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web", "/")] [UrlToTest("http://localhost:3100/")] [DeploymentItem("SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web.dll")] public void SaveDefaultProjectFileTest() { IProfileService target = new ProfileService(); // TODO: Initialize to an appropriate value string strComputerName = string.Empty; // TODO: Initialize to an appropriate value bool expected = false; // TODO: Initialize to an appropriate value bool actual; actual = target.SaveDefaultProjectFile(strComputerName); Assert.AreEqual(expected, actual); Assert.Inconclusive("Verify the correctness of this test method."); } Figure: Auto created code that shows the attributes required to run correctly in IIS or in this case ASP.NET Development Server If you are a purist and don’t like creating unit tests like this then you just need to add the three attributes manually. HostType – This attribute specified what host to use. Its an extensibility point, so you could write your own. Or you could just use “ASP.NET”. UrlToTest – This specifies the start URL. For most tests it does not matter which page you call, as long as it is a valid page otherwise your test may not run on the server, but may pass anyway. AspNetDevelopmentServerHost – This is a nasty one, it is only used if you are using ASP.NET Development Host and is unnecessary if you are using IIS. This sets the host settings and the first value MUST be the physical path to the root of your web application. OK, so all that was rubbish and I could not get anything working using the MSDN documentation. Google provided very little help until I ran into Billy Wang’s post  and I heard that heavenly music that all developers hear when understanding dawns that what they have been doing up until now is just plain stupid. I am sure that the above will work when I am doing Web Unit Tests, but there is a much easier way when doing web services. You need to add the AspNetDevelopmentServer attribute to your code. This will tell MSTest to spin up an ASP.NET Development server to host the service. Specify the path to the web application you want to use. [AspNetDevelopmentServer("WebApp1", "D:\\Workspaces\\SSW\\SSW\\SqlDeploy\\DEV\\Main\\SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web")] [DeploymentItem("SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web.dll")] [TestMethod] public void ProfileService_Integration_SaveDefaultProjectFile_Returns_True() { ProfileServiceClient target = new ProfileServiceClient(); bool isTrue = target.SaveDefaultProjectFile("Mav"); Assert.AreEqual(true, isTrue); } Figure: This AspNetDevelopmentServer will make sure that the specified web application is launched. Now we can run the test and have it pass, but if the dynamically assigned ASP.NET Development server port changes what happens to the details in your app.config that was generated when creating a reference to the web service? Well, it would be wrong and the test would fail. This is where Billy’s helper method comes in. Once you have created an instance of your service call, and it has loaded the config, but before you make any calls to it you need to go in and dynamically set the Endpoint address to the same address as your dynamically hosted Web Application. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting; using System.Reflection; using System.ServiceModel.Description; using System.ServiceModel; namespace SSW.SQLDeploy.Test { class WcfWebServiceHelper { public static bool TryUrlRedirection(object client, TestContext context, string identifier) { bool result = true; try { PropertyInfo property = client.GetType().GetProperty("Endpoint"); string webServer = context.Properties[string.Format("AspNetDevelopmentServer.{0}", identifier)].ToString(); Uri webServerUri = new Uri(webServer); ServiceEndpoint endpoint = (ServiceEndpoint)property.GetValue(client, null); EndpointAddressBuilder builder = new EndpointAddressBuilder(endpoint.Address); builder.Uri = new Uri(endpoint.Address.Uri.OriginalString.Replace(endpoint.Address.Uri.Authority, webServerUri.Authority)); endpoint.Address = builder.ToEndpointAddress(); } catch (Exception e) { context.WriteLine(e.Message); result = false; } return result; } } } Figure: This fixes a problem with the URL in your web.config not being the same as the dynamically hosted ASP.NET Development server port. We can now add a call to this method after we created the Proxy object and change the Endpoint for the Service to the correct one. This process is wrapped in an assert as if it fails there is no point in continuing. [AspNetDevelopmentServer("WebApp1", D:\\Workspaces\\SSW\\SSW\\SqlDeploy\\DEV\\Main\\SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web")] [DeploymentItem("SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web.dll")] [TestMethod] public void ProfileService_Integration_SaveDefaultProjectFile_Returns_True() { ProfileServiceClient target = new ProfileServiceClient(); Assert.IsTrue(WcfWebServiceHelper.TryUrlRedirection(target, TestContext, "WebApp1")); bool isTrue = target.SaveDefaultProjectFile("Mav"); Assert.AreEqual(true, isTrue); } Figure: Editing the Endpoint from the app.config on the fly to match the dynamically hosted ASP.NET Development Server URL and port is now easy. As you can imagine AspNetDevelopmentServer poses some problems of you have multiple developers. What are the chances of everyone using the same location to store the source? What about if you are using a build server, how do you tell MSTest where to look for the files? To the rescue is a property called" “%PathToWebRoot%” which is always right on the build server. It will always point to your build drop folder for your solutions web sites. Which will be “\\tfs.ssw.com.au\BuildDrop\[BuildName]\Debug\_PrecompiledWeb\” or whatever your build drop location is. So lets change the code above to add this. [AspNetDevelopmentServer("WebApp1", "%PathToWebRoot%\\SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web")] [DeploymentItem("SSW.SQLDeploy.SilverlightUI.Web.dll")] [TestMethod] public void ProfileService_Integration_SaveDefaultProjectFile_Returns_True() { ProfileServiceClient target = new ProfileServiceClient(); Assert.IsTrue(WcfWebServiceHelper.TryUrlRedirection(target, TestContext, "WebApp1")); bool isTrue = target.SaveDefaultProjectFile("Mav"); Assert.AreEqual(true, isTrue); } Figure: Adding %PathToWebRoot% to the AspNetDevelopmentServer path makes it work everywhere. Now we have another problem… this will ONLY run on the build server and will fail locally as %PathToWebRoot%’s default value is “C:\Users\[profile]\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects”. Well this sucks… How do we get the test to run on any build server and any developer laptop. Open “Tools | Options | Test Tools | Test Execution” in Visual Studio and you will see a field called “Web application root directory”. This is where you override that default above. Figure: You can override the default website location for tests. In my case I would put in “D:\Workspaces\SSW\SSW\SqlDeploy\DEV\Main” and all the developers working with this branch would put in the folder that they have mapped. Can you see a problem? What is I create a “$/SSW/SqlDeploy/DEV/34567” branch from Main and I want to run tests in there. Well… I would have to change the value above. This is not ideal, but as you can put your projects anywhere on a computer, it has to be done. Conclusion Although this looks convoluted and complicated there are real problems being solved here that mean that you have a test ANYWHERE solution. Any build server, any Developer workstation. Resources: http://billwg.blogspot.com/2009/06/testing-wcf-web-services.html http://tough-to-find.blogspot.com/2008/04/testing-asmx-web-services-in-visual.html http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms243399(VS.100).aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/dscruggs/archive/2008/09/29/web-tests-unit-tests-the-asp-net-development-server-and-code-coverage.aspx http://www.5z5.com/News/?543f8bc8b36b174f Technorati Tags: VS2010,MSTest,Team Build 2010,Team Build,Visual Studio,Visual Studio 2010,Visual Studio ALM,Team Test,Team Test 2010

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• How to Upgrade Your Netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like more features and flash in Windows on your netbook?  Here’s how you can easily upgrade your netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium the easy way. Most new netbooks today ship with Windows 7 Starter, which is the cheapest edition of Windows 7.  It is fine for many computing tasks, and will run all your favorite programs great, but it lacks many customization, multimedia, and business features found in higher editions.  Here we’ll show you how you can quickly upgrade your netbook to more full-featured edition of Windows 7 using Windows Anytime Upgrade.  Also, if you want to upgrade your laptop or desktop to another edition of Windows 7, say Professional, you can follow these same steps to upgrade it, too. Please note: This is only for computers already running Windows 7.  If your netbook is running XP or Vista, you will have to run a traditional upgrade to install Windows 7. Upgrade Advisor First, let’s make sure your netbook can support the extra features, such as Aero Glass, in Windows 7 Home Premium.  Most modern netbooks that ship with Windows 7 Starter can run the advanced features in Windows 7 Home Premium, but let’s check just in case.  Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (link below), and install as normal. Once it’s installed, run it and click Start Check.   Make sure you’re connected to the internet before you run the check, or otherwise you may see this error message.  If you see it, click Ok and then connect to the internet and start the check again. It will now scan all of your programs and hardware to make sure they’re compatible with Windows 7.  Since you’re already running Windows 7 Starter, it will also tell you if your computer will support the features in other editions of Windows 7. After a few moments, the Upgrade Advisor will show you want it found.  Here we see that our netbook, a Samsung N150, can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate. We also see that we had one issue, but this was because a driver we had installed was not recognized.  Click “See all system requirements” to see what your netbook can do with the new edition. This shows you which of the requirements, including support for Windows Aero, your netbook meets.  Here our netbook supports Aero, so we’re ready to go upgrade. For more, check out our article on how to make sure your computer can run Windows 7 with Upgrade Advisor. Upgrade with Anytime Upgrade Now, we’re ready to upgrade our netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium.  Enter “Anytime Upgrade” in the Start menu search,and select Windows Anytime Upgrade. Windows Anytime Upgrade lets you upgrade using product key you already have or one you purchase during the upgrade process.  And, it installs without any downloads or Windows disks, so it works great even for netbooks without DVD drives. Anytime Upgrades are cheaper than a standard upgrade, and for a limited time, select retailers in the US are offering Anytime Upgrades to Windows 7 Home Premium for only $49.99 if purchased with a new netbook.  If you already have a netbook running Windows 7 Starter, you can either purchase an Anytime Upgrade package at a retail store or purchase a key online during the upgrade process for $79.95.  Or, if you have a standard Windows 7 product key (full or upgrade), you can use it in Anytime upgrade.  This is especially nice if you can purchase Windows 7 cheaper through your school, university, or office. Purchase an upgrade online To purchase an upgrade online, click “Go online to choose the edition of Windows 7 that’s best for you”.   Here you can see a comparison of the features of each edition of Windows 7.  Note that you can upgrade to either Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate.  We chose home Premium because it has most of the features that home users want, including Media Center and Aero Glass effects.  Also note that the price of each upgrade is cheaper than the respective upgrade from Windows XP or Vista.  Click buy under the edition you want.   Enter your billing information, then your payment information.  Once you confirm your purchase, you will directly be taken to the Upgrade screen.  Make sure to save your receipt, as you will need the product key if you ever need to reinstall Windows on your computer. Upgrade with an existing product key If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit from a retailer, or already have a Full or Upgrade key for another edition of Windows 7, choose “Enter an upgrade key”. Enter your product key, and click Next.  If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit, the product key will be located on the inside of the case on a yellow sticker. The key will be verified as a valid key, and Anytime Upgrade will automatically choose the correct edition of Windows 7 based on your product key.  Click Next when this is finished. Continuing the Upgrade process Whether you entered a key or purchased a key online, the process is the same from here on.  Click “I accept” to accept the license agreement. Now, you’re ready to install your upgrade.  Make sure to save all open files and close any programs, and then click Upgrade. The upgrade only takes about 10 minutes in our experience but your mileage may vary.  Any available Microsoft updates, including ones for Office, Security Essentials, and other products, will be installed before the upgrade takes place. After a couple minutes, your computer will automatically reboot and finish the installation.  It will then reboot once more, and your computer will be ready to use!  Welcome to your new edition of Windows 7! Here’s a before and after shot of our desktop.  When you do an Anytime Upgrade, all of your programs, files, and settings will be just as they were before you upgraded.  The only change we noticed was that our pinned taskbar icons were slightly rearranged to the default order of Internet Explorer, Explorer, and Media Player.  Here’s a shot of our desktop before the upgrade.  Notice that all of our pinned programs and desktop icons are still there, as well as our taskbar customization (we are using small icons on the taskbar instead of the default large icons). Before, with the Windows 7 Starter background and the Aero Basic theme: And after, with Aero Glass and the more colorful default Windows 7 background.   All of the features of Windows 7 Home Premium are now ready to use.  The Aero theme was activate by default, but you can now customize your netbook theme, background, and more with the Personalization pane.  To open it, right-click on your desktop and select Personalize. You can also now use Windows Media Center, and can play-back DVD movies using an external drive. One of our favorite tools, the Snipping Tool, is also now available for easy screenshots and clips. Activating you new edition of Windows 7 You will still need to activate your new edition of Windows 7.  To do this right away, open the start menu, right-click on Computer, and select Properties.   Scroll to the bottom, and click “Activate Windows Now”. Make sure you’re connected to the internet, and then select “Activate Windows online now”. Activation may take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection speed. When it is done, the Activation wizard will let you know that Windows is activated and genuine.  Your upgrade is all finished! Conclusion Windows Anytime Upgrade makes it easy, and somewhat cheaper, to upgrade to another edition of Windows 7.  It’s useful for desktop and laptop owners who want to upgrade to Professional or Ultimate, but many more netbook owners will want to upgrade from Starter to Home Premium or another edition.  Links Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Windows Team Blog: Anytime Upgrade Special with new PC purchase Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium EditionAnother Blog You Should Subscribe ToMysticgeek Blog: Turn Vista Home Premium Into Ultimate (Part 3) – Shadow CopyUpgrade Ubuntu from Breezy to DapperHow to Upgrade the Windows 7 RC to RTM (Final Release) TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3 Yes, it’s Patch Tuesday

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• Complete Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to easily access folders and files from different folders without maintaining duplicate copies?  Here’s how you can use Symbolic Links to link anything in Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Ubuntu. So What Are Symbolic Links Anyway? Symbolic links, otherwise known as symlinks, are basically advanced shortcuts. You can create symbolic links to individual files or folders, and then these will appear like they are stored in the folder with the symbolic link even though the symbolic link only points to their real location. There are two types of symbolic links: hard and soft. Soft symbolic links work essentially the same as a standard shortcut.  When you open a soft link, you will be redirected to the folder where the files are stored.  However, a hard link makes it appear as though the file or folder actually exists at the location of the symbolic link, and your applications won’t know any different. Thus, hard links are of the most interest in this article. Why should I use Symbolic Links? There are many things we use symbolic links for, so here’s some of the top uses we can think of: Sync any folder with Dropbox – say, sync your Pidgin Profile Across Computers Move the settings folder for any program from its original location Store your Music/Pictures/Videos on a second hard drive, but make them show up in your standard Music/Pictures/Videos folders so they’ll be detected my your media programs (Windows 7 Libraries can also be good for this) Keep important files accessible from multiple locations And more! If you want to move files to a different drive or folder and then symbolically link them, follow these steps: Close any programs that may be accessing that file or folder Move the file or folder to the new desired location Follow the correct instructions below for your operating system to create the symbolic link. Caution: Make sure to never create a symbolic link inside of a symbolic link. For instance, don’t create a symbolic link to a file that’s contained in a symbolic linked folder. This can create a loop, which can cause millions of problems you don’t want to deal with. Seriously. Create Symlinks in Any Edition of Windows in Explorer Creating symlinks is usually difficult, but thanks to the free Link Shell Extension, you can create symbolic links in all modern version of Windows pain-free.  You need to download both Visual Studio 2005 redistributable, which contains the necessary prerequisites, and Link Shell Extension itself (links below).  Download the correct version (32 bit or 64 bit) for your computer. Run and install the Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable installer first. Then install the Link Shell Extension on your computer. Your taskbar will temporally disappear during the install, but will quickly come back. Now you’re ready to start creating symbolic links.  Browse to the folder or file you want to create a symbolic link from.  Right-click the folder or file and select Pick Link Source. To create your symlink, right-click in the folder you wish to save the symbolic link, select “Drop as…”, and then choose the type of link you want.  You can choose from several different options here; we chose the Hardlink Clone.  This will create a hard link to the file or folder we selected.  The Symbolic link option creates a soft link, while the smart copy will fully copy a folder containing symbolic links without breaking them.  These options can be useful as well.   Here’s our hard-linked folder on our desktop.  Notice that the folder looks like its contents are stored in Desktop\Downloads, when they are actually stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Downloads.  Also, when links are created with the Link Shell Extension, they have a red arrow on them so you can still differentiate them. And, this works the same way in XP as well. Symlinks via Command Prompt Or, for geeks who prefer working via command line, here’s how you can create symlinks in Command Prompt in Windows 7/Vista and XP. In Windows 7/Vista In Windows Vista and 7, we’ll use the mklink command to create symbolic links.  To use it, we have to open an administrator Command Prompt.  Enter “command” in your start menu search, right-click on Command Prompt, and select “Run as administrator”. To create a symbolic link, we need to enter the following in command prompt: mklink /prefix link_path file/folder_path First, choose the correct prefix.  Mklink can create several types of links, including the following: /D – creates a soft symbolic link, which is similar to a standard folder or file shortcut in Windows.  This is the default option, and mklink will use it if you do not enter a prefix. /H – creates a hard link to a file /J – creates a hard link to a directory or folder So, once you’ve chosen the correct prefix, you need to enter the path you want for the symbolic link, and the path to the original file or folder.  For example, if I wanted a folder in my Dropbox folder to appear like it was also stored in my desktop, I would enter the following: mklink /J C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Dropbox C:\Users\Matthew\Documents\Dropbox Note that the first path was to the symbolic folder I wanted to create, while the second path was to the real folder. Here, in this command prompt screenshot, you can see that I created a symbolic link of my Music folder to my desktop.   And here’s how it looks in Explorer.  Note that all of my music is “really” stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Music, but here it looks like it is stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Music. If your path has any spaces in it, you need to place quotes around it.  Note also that the link can have a different name than the file it links to.  For example, here I’m going to create a symbolic link to a document on my desktop: mklink /H “C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\ebook.pdf”  “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\Before You Call Tech Support.pdf” Don’t forget the syntax: mklink /prefix link_path Target_file/folder_path In Windows XP Windows XP doesn’t include built-in command prompt support for symbolic links, but we can use the free Junction tool instead.  Download Junction (link below), and unzip the folder.  Now open Command Prompt (click Start, select All Programs, then Accessories, and select Command Prompt), and enter cd followed by the path of the folder where you saved Junction. Junction only creates hard symbolic links, since you can use shortcuts for soft ones.  To create a hard symlink, we need to enter the following in command prompt: junction –s link_path file/folder_path As with mklink in Windows 7 or Vista, if your file/folder path has spaces in it make sure to put quotes around your paths.  Also, as usual, your symlink can have a different name that the file/folder it points to. Here, we’re going to create a symbolic link to our My Music folder on the desktop.  We entered: junction -s “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Music” “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music” And here’s the contents of our symlink.  Note that the path looks like these files are stored in a Music folder directly on the Desktop, when they are actually stored in My Documents\My Music.  Once again, this works with both folders and individual files. Please Note: Junction would work the same in Windows 7 or Vista, but since they include a built-in symbolic link tool we found it better to use it on those versions of Windows. Symlinks in Ubuntu Unix-based operating systems have supported symbolic links since their inception, so it is straightforward to create symbolic links in Linux distros such as Ubuntu.  There’s no graphical way to create them like the Link Shell Extension for Windows, so we’ll just do it in Terminal. Open terminal (open the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then click Terminal), and enter the following: ln –s file/folder_path link_path Note that this is opposite of the Windows commands; you put the source for the link first, and then the path second. For example, let’s create a symbolic link of our Pictures folder in our Desktop.  To do this, we entered: ln -s /home/maguay/Pictures /home/maguay/Desktop   Once again, here is the contents of our symlink folder.  The pictures look as if they’re stored directly in a Pictures folder on the Desktop, but they are actually stored in maguay\Pictures. Delete Symlinks Removing symbolic links is very simple – just delete the link!  Most of the command line utilities offer a way to delete a symbolic link via command prompt, but you don’t need to go to the trouble.   Conclusion Symbolic links can be very handy, and we use them constantly to help us stay organized and keep our hard drives from overflowing.  Let us know how you use symbolic links on your computers! Download Link Shell Extension for Windows 7, Vista, and XP Download Junction for XP Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Symlinks in Windows VistaHow To Figure Out Your PC’s Host Name From the Command PromptInstall IceWM on Ubuntu LinuxAdd Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideSync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs with Dropbox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow

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• What You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 is available to everyone starting today, October 19. The latest version of Windows improves on Windows 8 in every way. It’s a big upgrade, whether you use the desktop or new touch-optimized interface. The latest version of Windows has been dubbed “an apology” by some — it’s definitely more at home on a desktop PC than Windows 8 was. However, it also offers a more fleshed out and mature tablet experience. How to Get Windows 8.1 For Windows 8 users, Windows 8.1 is completely free. It will be available as a download from the Windows Store — that’s the “Store” app in the Modern, tiled interface. Assuming upgrading to the final version will be just like upgrading to the preview version, you’ll likely see a “Get Windows 8.1″ pop-up that will take you to the Windows Store and guide you through the download process. You’ll also be able to download ISO images of Windows 8.1, so can perform a clean install to upgrade. On any new computer, you can just install Windows 8.1 without going through Windows 8. New computers will start to ship with Windows 8.1 and boxed copies of Windows 8 will be replaced by boxed copies of Windows 8.1. If you’re using Windows 7 or a previous version of Windows, the update won’t be free. Getting Windows 8.1 will cost you the same amount as a full copy of Windows 8 — $120 for the standard version. If you’re an average Windows 7 user, you’re likely better off waiting until you buy a new PC with Windows 8.1 included rather than spend this amount of money to upgrade. Improvements for Desktop Users Some have dubbed Windows 8.1 “an apology” from Microsoft, although you certainly won’t see Microsoft referring to it this way. Either way, Steven Sinofsky, who presided over Windows 8′s development, left the company shortly after Windows 8 was released. Coincidentally, Windows 8.1 contains many features that Steven Sinofsky and Microsoft refused to implement. Windows 8.1 offers the following big improvements for desktop users: Boot to Desktop: You can now log in directly to the desktop, skipping the tiled interface entirely. Disable Top-Left and Top-Right Hot Corners: The app switcher and charms bar won’t appear when you move your mouse to the top-left or top-right corners of the screen if you enable this option. No more intrusions into the desktop. The Start Button Returns: Windows 8.1 brings back an always-present Start button on the desktop taskbar, dramatically improving discoverability for new Windows 8 users and providing a bigger mouse target for remote desktops and virtual machines. Crucially, the Start menu isn’t back — clicking this button will open the full-screen Modern interface. Start menu replacements will continue to function on Windows 8.1, offering more traditional Start menus. Show All Apps By Default: Luckily, you can hide the Start screen and its tiles almost entirely. Windows 8.1 can be configured to show a full-screen list of all your installed apps when you click the Start button, with desktop apps prioritized. The only real difference is that the Start menu is now a full-screen interface. Shut Down or Restart From Start Button: You can now right-click the Start button to access Shut down, Restart, and other power options in just as many clicks as you could on Windows 7. Shared Start Screen and Desktop Backgrounds; Windows 8 limited you to just a few Steven Sinofsky-approved background images for your Start screen, but Windows 8.1 allows you to use your desktop background on the Start screen. This can make the transition between the Start screen and desktop much less jarring. The tiles or shortcuts appear to be floating above the desktop rather than off in their own separate universe. Unified Search: Unified search is back, so you can start typing and search your programs, settings, and files all at once — no more awkwardly clicking between different categories when trying to open a Control Panel screen or search for a file. These all add up to a big improvement when using Windows 8.1 on the desktop. Microsoft is being much more flexible — the Start menu is full screen, but Microsoft has relented on so many other things and you’d never have to see a tile if you didn’t want to. For more information, read our guide to optimizing Windows 8.1 for a desktop PC. These are just the improvements specifically for desktop users. Windows 8.1 includes other useful features for everyone, such as deep SkyDrive integration that allows you to store your files in the cloud without installing any additional sync programs. Improvements for Touch Users If you have a Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet or another touch-based device you use the interface formerly known as Metro on, you’ll see many other noticeable improvements. Windows 8′s new interface was half-baked when it launched, but it’s now much more capable and mature. App Updates: Windows 8′s included apps were extremely limited in many cases. For example, Internet Explorer 10 could only display ten tabs at a time and the Mail app was a barren experience devoid of features. In Windows 8.1, some apps — like Xbox Music — have been redesigned from scratch, Internet Explorer allows you to display a tab bar on-screen all the time, while apps like Mail have accumulated quite a few useful features. The Windows Store app has been entirely redesigned and is less awkward to browse. Snap Improvements: Windows 8′s Snap feature was a toy, allowing you to snap one app to a small sidebar at one side of your screen while another app consumed most of your screen. Windows 8.1 allows you to snap two apps side-by-side, seeing each app’s full interface at once. On larger displays, you can even snap three or four apps at once. Windows 8′s ability to use multiple apps at once on a tablet is compelling and unmatched by iPads and Android tablets. You can also snap two of the same apps side-by-side — to view two web pages at once, for example. More Comprehensive PC Settings: Windows 8.1 offers a more comprehensive PC settings app, allowing you to change most system settings in a touch-optimized interface. You shouldn’t have to use the desktop Control Panel on a tablet anymore — or at least not as often. Touch-Optimized File Browsing: Microsoft’s SkyDrive app allows you to browse files on your local PC, finally offering a built-in, touch-optimized way to manage files without using the desktop. Help & Tips: Windows 8.1 includes a Help+Tips app that will help guide new users through its new interface, something Microsoft stubbornly refused to add during development. There’s still no “Modern” version of Microsoft Office apps (aside from OneNote), so you’ll still have to head to use desktop Office apps on tablets. It’s not perfect, but the Modern interface doesn’t feel anywhere near as immature anymore. Read our in-depth look at the ways Microsoft’s Modern interface, formerly known as Metro, is improved in Windows 8.1 for more information. In summary, Windows 8.1 is what Windows 8 should have been. All of these improvements are on top of the many great desktop features, security improvements, and all-around battery life and performance optimizations that appeared in Windows 8. If you’re still using Windows 7 and are happy with it, there’s probably no reason to race out and buy a copy of Windows 8.1 at the rather high price of $120. But, if you’re using Windows 8, it’s a big upgrade no matter what you’re doing. If you buy a new PC and it comes with Windows 8.1, you’re getting a much more flexible and comfortable experience. If you’re holding off on buying a new computer because you don’t want Windows 8, give Windows 8.1 a try — yes, it’s different, but Microsoft has compromised on the desktop while making a lot of improvements to the new interface. You just might find that Windows 8.1 is now a worthwhile upgrade, even if you only want to use the desktop.     

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• Integrate Bing Search API into ASP.Net application

  - by sreejukg

  Couple of months back, I wrote an article about how to integrate Bing Search engine (API 2.0) with ASP.Net website. You can refer the article here http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2012/04/07/integrate-bing-api-for-search-inside-asp-net-web-application.aspx Things are changing rapidly in the tech world and Bing has also changed! The Bing Search API 2.0 will work until August 1, 2012, after that it will not return results. Shocked? Don’t worry the API has moved to Windows Azure market place and available for you to sign up and continue using it and there is a free version available based on your usage. In this article, I am going to explain how you can integrate the new Bing API that is available in the Windows Azure market place with your website. You can access the Windows Azure market place from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/ There is lot of applications available for you to subscribe and use. Bing is one of them. You can find the new Bing Search API from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5BA839F1-12CE-4CCE-BF57-A49D98D29A44 To get access to Bing Search API, first you need to register an account with Windows Azure market place. Sign in to the Windows Azure market place site using your windows live account. Once you sign in with your windows live account, you need to register to Windows Azure Market place account. From the Windows Azure market place, you will see the sign in button it the top right of the page. Clicking on the sign in button will take you to the Windows live ID authentication page. You can enter a windows live ID here to login. Once logged in you will see the Registration page for the Windows Azure market place as follows. You can agree or disagree for the email address usage by Microsoft. I believe selecting the check box means you will get email about what is happening in Windows Azure market place. Click on continue button once you are done. In the next page, you should accept the terms of use, it is not optional, you must agree to terms and conditions. Scroll down to the page and select the I agree checkbox and click on Register Button. Now you are a registered member of Windows Azure market place. You can subscribe to data applications. In order to use BING API in your application, you must obtain your account Key, in the previous version of Bing you were required an API key, the current version uses Account Key instead. Once you logged in to the Windows Azure market place, you can see “My Account” in the top menu, from the Top menu; go to “My Account” Section. From the My Account section, you can manage your subscriptions and Account Keys. Account Keys will be used by your applications to access the subscriptions from the market place. Click on My Account link, you can see Account Keys in the left menu and then Add an account key or you can use the default Account key available. Creating account key is very simple process. Also you can remove the account keys you create if necessary. The next step is to subscribe to BING Search API. At this moment, Bing Offers 2 APIs for search. The available options are as follows. 1. Bing Search API - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5ba839f1-12ce-4cce-bf57-a49d98d29a44 2. Bing Search API – Web Results only - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65 The difference is that the later will give you only web results where the other you can specify the source type such as image, video, web, news etc. Carefully choose the API based on your application requirements. In this article, I am going to use Web Results Only API, but the steps will be similar to both. Go to the API page https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65, you can see the subscription options in the right side. And in the bottom of the page you can see the free option Since I am going to use the free options, just Click the Sign Up link for that. Just select I agree check box and click on the Sign Up button. You will get a recipt pagethat detail your subscription. Now you are ready Bing Search API – Web results. The next step is to integrate the API into your ASP.Net application. Now if you go to the Search API page (as well as in the Receipt page), you can see a .Net C# Class Library link, click on the link, you will get a code file named “BingSearchContainer.cs”. In the following sections I am going to demonstrate the use of Bing Search API from an ASP.Net application. Create an empty ASP.Net web application. In the solution explorer, the application will looks as follows. Now add the downloaded code file (“BingSearchContainer.cs”) to the project. Right click your project in solution explorer, Add -> existing item, then browse to the downloaded location, select the “BingSearchContainer.cs” file and add it to the project. To build the code file you need to add reference to the following library. System.Data.Services.Client You can find the library in the .Net tab, when you select Add -> Reference Try to build your project now; it should build without any errors. Add an ASP.Net page to the project. I have included a text box and a button, then a Grid View to the page. The idea is to Search the text entered and display the results in the gridview. The page will look in the Visual Studio Designer as follows. The markup of the page is as follows. In the button click event handler for the search button, I have used the following code. Now run your project and enter some text in the text box and click the Search button, you will see the results coming from Bing, cool. I entered the text “Microsoft” in the textbox and clicked on the button and I got the following results. Searching Specific Websites If you want to search a particular website, you pass the site url with site:<site url name> and if you have more sites, use pipe (|). e.g. The following search query site:microsoft.com | site:adobe.com design will search the word design and return the results from Microsoft.com and Adobe.com See the sample code that search only Microsoft.com for the text entered for the above sample. var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:www.Microsoft.com " + txtSearch.Text, null, null, null, null, null, null); Paging the results returned by the API By default the BING API will return 100 results based on your query. The default code file that you downloaded from BING doesn’t include any option for this. You can modify the downloaded code to perform this paging. The BING API supports two parameters $top (for number of results to return) and $skip (for number of records to skip). So if you want 3rd page of results with page size = 10, you need to pass $top = 10 and $skip=20. Open the BingSearchContainer.cs in the editor. You can see the Web method in it as follows. public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options) {  In the method signature, I have added two more parameters public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options, int resultCount, int pageNo) { and in the method, you need to pass the parameters to the query variable. query = query.AddQueryOption("$top", resultCount); query = query.AddQueryOption("$skip", (pageNo -1)*resultCount); return query; Note that I didn’t perform any validation, but you need to check conditions such as resultCount and pageCount should be greater than or equal to 1. If the parameters are not valid, the Bing Search API will throw the error. The modified method is as follows. The changes are highlighted. Now see the following code in the SearchPage.aspx.cs file protected void btnSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {     var bingContainer = new Bing.BingSearchContainer(new Uri(https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/SearchWeb/));     // replace this value with your account key     var accountKey = "your key";     // the next line configures the bingContainer to use your credentials.     bingContainer.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey);     var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:microsoft.com" +txtSearch.Text , null, null, null, null, null, null,3,2);     lstResults.DataSource = webResults;     lstResults.DataBind(); } The following code will return 3 results starting from second page (by skipping first 3 results). See the result page as follows. Bing provides complete integration to its offerings. When you develop search based applications, you can use the power of Bing to perform the search. Integrating Bing Search API to ASP.Net application is a simple process and without investing much time, you can develop a good search based application. Make sure you read the terms of use before designing the application and decide which API usage is suitable for you. Further readings BING API Migration Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=248077 Bing API FAQ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252146 Bing API Schema Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252151

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• Pluralsight Meet the Author Podcast on Structuring JavaScript Code

  - by dwahlin

  I had the opportunity to talk with Fritz Onion from Pluralsight about one of my recent courses titled Structuring JavaScript Code for one of their Meet the Author podcasts. We talked about why JavaScript patterns are important for building more re-useable and maintainable apps, pros and cons of different patterns, and how to go about picking a pattern as a project is started. The course provides a solid walk-through of converting what I call “Function Spaghetti Code” into more modular code that’s easier to maintain, more re-useable, and less susceptible to naming conflicts. Patterns covered in the course include the Prototype Pattern, Revealing Module Pattern, and Revealing Prototype Pattern along with several other tips and techniques that can be used. Meet the Author:  Dan Wahlin on Structuring JavaScript Code   The transcript from the podcast is shown below: [Fritz]  Hello, this is Fritz Onion with another Pluralsight author interview. Today we’re talking with Dan Wahlin about his new course, Structuring JavaScript Code. Hi, Dan, it’s good to have you with us today. [Dan]  Thanks for having me, Fritz. [Fritz]  So, Dan, your new course, which came out in December of 2011 called Structuring JavaScript Code, goes into several patterns of usage in JavaScript as well as ways of organizing your code and what struck me about it was all the different techniques you described for encapsulating your code. I was wondering if you could give us just a little insight into what your motivation was for creating this course and sort of why you decided to write it and record it. [Dan]  Sure. So, I got started with JavaScript back in the mid 90s. In fact, back in the days when browsers that most people haven’t heard of were out and we had JavaScript but it wasn’t great. I was on a project in the late 90s that was heavy, heavy JavaScript and we pretty much did what I call in the course function spaghetti code where you just have function after function, there’s no rhyme or reason to how those functions are structured, they just kind of flow and it’s a little bit hard to do maintenance on it, you really don’t get a lot of reuse as far as from an object perspective. And so coming from an object-oriented background in JAVA and C#, I wanted to put something together that highlighted kind of the new way if you will of writing JavaScript because most people start out just writing functions and there’s nothing with that, it works, but it’s definitely not a real reusable solution. So the course is really all about how to move from just kind of function after function after function to the world of more encapsulated code and more reusable and hopefully better maintenance in the process. [Fritz]  So I am sure a lot of people have had similar experiences with their JavaScript code and will be looking forward to seeing what types of patterns you’ve put forth. Now, a couple I noticed in your course one is you start off with the prototype pattern. Do you want to describe sort of what problem that solves and how you go about using it within JavaScript? [Dan]  Sure. So, the patterns that are covered such as the prototype pattern and the revealing module pattern just as two examples, you know, show these kind of three things that I harp on throughout the course of encapsulation, better maintenance, reuse, those types of things. The prototype pattern specifically though has a couple kind of pros over some of the other patterns and that is the ability to extend your code without touching source code and what I mean by that is let’s say you’re writing a library that you know either other teammates or other people just out there on the Internet in general are going to be using. With the prototype pattern, you can actually write your code in such a way that we’re leveraging the JavaScript property and by doing that now you can extend my code that I wrote without touching my source code script or you can even override my code and perform some new functionality. Again, without touching my code.  And so you get kind of the benefit of the almost like inheritance or overriding in object oriented languages with this prototype pattern and it makes it kind of attractive that way definitely from a maintenance standpoint because, you know, you don’t want to modify a script I wrote because I might roll out version 2 and now you’d have to track where you change things and it gets a little tricky. So with this you just override those pieces or extend them and get that functionality and that’s kind of some of the benefits that that pattern offers out of the box. [Fritz]  And then the revealing module pattern, how does that differ from the prototype pattern and what problem does that solve differently? [Dan]  Yeah, so the prototype pattern and there’s another one that’s kind of really closely lined with revealing module pattern called the revealing prototype pattern and it also uses the prototype key word but it’s very similar to the one you just asked about the revealing module pattern. [Fritz]  Okay. [Dan]  This is a really popular one out there. In fact, we did a project for Microsoft that was very, very heavy JavaScript. It was an HMTL5 jQuery type app and we use this pattern for most of the structure if you will for the JavaScript code and what it does in a nutshell is allows you to get that encapsulation so you have really a single function wrapper that wraps all your other child functions but it gives you the ability to do public versus private members and this is kind of a sort of debate out there on the web. Some people feel that all JavaScript code should just be directly accessible and others kind of like to be able to hide their, truly their private stuff and a lot of people do that. You just put an underscore in front of your field or your variable name or your function name and that kind of is the defacto way to say hey, this is private. With the revealing module pattern you can do the equivalent of what objective oriented languages do and actually have private members that you literally can’t get to as an external consumer of the JavaScript code and then you can expose only those members that you want to be public. Now, you don’t get the benefit though of the prototype feature, which is I can’t easily extend the revealing module pattern type code if you don’t like something I’m doing, chances are you’re probably going to have to tweak my code to fix that because we’re not leveraging prototyping but in situations where you’re writing apps that are very specific to a given target app, you know, it’s not a library, it’s not going to be used in other apps all over the place, it’s a pattern I actually like a lot, it’s very simple to get going and then if you do like that public/private feature, it’s available to you. [Fritz]  Yeah, that’s interesting. So it’s almost, you can either go private by convention just by using a standard naming convention or you can actually enforce it by using the prototype pattern. [Dan]  Yeah, that’s exactly right. [Fritz]  So one of the things that I know I run across in JavaScript and I’m curious to get your take on is we do have all these different techniques of encapsulation and each one is really quite different when you’re using closures versus simply, you know, referencing member variables and adding them to your objects that the syntax changes with each pattern and the usage changes. So what would you recommend for people starting out in a brand new JavaScript project? Should they all sort of decide beforehand on what patterns they’re going to stick to or do you change it based on what part of the library you’re working on? I know that’s one of the points of confusion in this space. [Dan]  Yeah, it’s a great question. In fact, I just had a company ask me about that. So which one do I pick and, of course, there’s not one answer fits all. [Fritz]  Right. [Dan]  So it really depends what you just said is absolutely in my opinion correct, which is I think as a, especially if you’re on a team or even if you’re just an individual a team of one, you should go through and pick out which pattern for this particular project you think is best. Now if it were me, here’s kind of the way I think of it. If I were writing a let’s say base library that several web apps are going to use or even one, but I know that there’s going to be some pieces that I’m not really sure on right now as I’m writing I and I know people might want to hook in that and have some better extension points, then I would look at either the prototype pattern or the revealing prototype. Now, really just a real quick summation between the two the revealing prototype also gives you that public/private stuff like the revealing module pattern does whereas the prototype pattern does not but both of the prototype patterns do give you the benefit of that extension or that hook capability. So, if I were writing a library that I need people to override things or I’m not even sure what I need them to override, I want them to have that option, I’d probably pick a prototype, one of the prototype patterns. If I’m writing some code that is very unique to the app and it’s kind of a one off for this app which is what I think a lot of people are kind of in that mode as writing custom apps for customers, then my personal preference is the revealing module pattern you could always go with the module pattern as well which is very close but I think the revealing module patterns a little bit cleaner and we go through that in the course and explain kind of the syntax there and the differences. [Fritz]  Great, that makes a lot of sense. [Fritz]  I appreciate you taking the time, Dan, and I hope everyone takes a chance to look at your course and sort of make these decisions for themselves in their next JavaScript project. Dan’s course is, Structuring JavaScript Code and it’s available now in the Pluralsight Library. So, thank you very much, Dan. [Dan]  Thanks for having me again.

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• Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

  - by dapostolov

  So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that.  Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen.  Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject  may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going!   D.

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• Calling Web Service Functions Asynchronously from a Web Page

  - by SGWellens

  Over on the Asp.Net forums where I moderate, a user had a problem calling a Web Service from a web page asynchronously. I tried his code on my machine and was able to reproduce the problem. I was able to solve his problem, but only after taking the long scenic route through some of the more perplexing nuances of Web Services and Proxies. Here is the fascinating story of that journey. Start with a simple Web Service     public class Service1 : System.Web.Services.WebService    {        [WebMethod]        public string HelloWorld()        {            // sleep 10 seconds            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10 * 1000);            return "Hello World";        }    } The 10 second delay is added to make calling an asynchronous function more apparent. If you don't call the function asynchronously, it takes about 10 seconds for the page to be rendered back to the client. If the call is made from a Windows Forms application, the application freezes for about 10 seconds. Add the web service to a web site. Right-click the project and select "Add Web Reference…" Next, create a web page to call the Web Service. Note: An asp.net web page that calls an 'Async' method must have the Async property set to true in the page's header: <%@ Page Language="C#"          AutoEventWireup="true"          CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs"          Inherits="_Default"           Async='true'  %> Here is the code to create the Web Service proxy and connect the event handler. Shrewdly, we make the proxy object a member of the Page class so it remains instantiated between the various events. public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page {    localhost.Service1 MyService;  // web service proxy     // ---- Page_Load ---------------------------------     protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)    {        MyService = new localhost.Service1();        MyService.HelloWorldCompleted += EventHandler;          } Here is the code to invoke the web service and handle the event:     // ---- Async and EventHandler (delayed render) --------------------------     protected void ButtonHelloWorldAsync_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)    {        // blocks        ODS("Pre HelloWorldAsync...");        MyService.HelloWorldAsync();        ODS("Post HelloWorldAsync");    }    public void EventHandler(object sender, localhost.HelloWorldCompletedEventArgs e)    {        ODS("EventHandler");        ODS("    " + e.Result);    }     // ---- ODS ------------------------------------------------    //    // Helper function: Output Debug String     public static void ODS(string Msg)    {        String Out = String.Format("{0}  {1}", DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss.ff"), Msg);        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(Out);    } I added a utility function I use a lot: ODS (Output Debug String). Rather than include the library it is part of, I included it in the source file to keep this example simple. Fire up the project, open up a debug output window, press the button and we get this in the debug output window: 11:29:37.94 Pre HelloWorldAsync... 11:29:37.94 Post HelloWorldAsync 11:29:48.94 EventHandler 11:29:48.94 Hello World   Sweet. The asynchronous call was made and returned immediately. About 10 seconds later, the event handler fires and we get the result. Perfect….right? Not so fast cowboy. Watch the browser during the call: What the heck? The page is waiting for 10 seconds. Even though the asynchronous call returned immediately, Asp.Net is waiting for the event to fire before it renders the page. This is NOT what we wanted. I experimented with several techniques to work around this issue. Some may erroneously describe my behavior as 'hacking' but, since no ingesting of Twinkies was involved, I do not believe hacking is the appropriate term. If you examine the proxy that was automatically created, you will find a synchronous call to HelloWorld along with an additional set of methods to make asynchronous calls. I tried the other asynchronous method supplied in the proxy:     // ---- Begin and CallBack ----------------------------------     protected void ButtonBeginHelloWorld_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)    {        ODS("Pre BeginHelloWorld...");        MyService.BeginHelloWorld(AsyncCallback, null);        ODS("Post BeginHelloWorld");    }    public void AsyncCallback(IAsyncResult ar)    {        String Result = MyService.EndHelloWorld(ar);         ODS("AsyncCallback");        ODS("    " + Result);    } The BeginHelloWorld function in the proxy requires a callback function as a parameter. I tested it and the debug output window looked like this: 04:40:58.57 Pre BeginHelloWorld... 04:40:58.57 Post BeginHelloWorld 04:41:08.58 AsyncCallback 04:41:08.58 Hello World It works the same as before except for one critical difference: The page rendered immediately after the function call. I was worried the page object would be disposed after rendering the page but the system was smart enough to keep the page object in memory to handle the callback. Both techniques have a use: Delayed Render: Say you want to verify a credit card, look up shipping costs and confirm if an item is in stock. You could have three web service calls running in parallel and not render the page until all were finished. Nice. You can send information back to the client as part of the rendered page when all the services are finished. Immediate Render: Say you just want to start a service running and return to the client. You can do that too. However, the page gets sent to the client before the service has finished running so you will not be able to update parts of the page when the service finishes running. Summary: YourFunctionAsync() and an EventHandler will not render the page until the handler fires. BeginYourFunction() and a CallBack function will render the page as soon as possible. I found all this to be quite interesting and did a lot of searching and researching for documentation on this subject….but there isn't a lot out there. The biggest clues are the parameters that can be sent to the WSDL.exe program: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7h3ystb6(VS.100).aspx Two parameters are oldAsync and newAsync. OldAsync will create the Begin/End functions; newAsync will create the Async/Event functions. Caveat: I haven't tried this but it was stated in this article. I'll leave confirming this as an exercise for the student J. Included Code: I'm including the complete test project I created to verify the findings. The project was created with VS 2008 SP1. There is a solution file with 3 projects, the 3 projects are: Web Service Asp.Net Application Windows Forms Application To decide which program runs, you right-click a project and select "Set as Startup Project". I created and played with the Windows Forms application to see if it would reveal any secrets. I found that in the Windows Forms application, the generated proxy did NOT include the Begin/Callback functions. Those functions are only generated for Asp.Net pages. Probably for the reasons discussed earlier. Maybe those Microsoft boys and girls know what they are doing. I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens

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• Add Free Google Apps to Your Website or Blog

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to have an email address from your own domain, but prefer Gmail’s interface and integration with Google Docs?  Here’s how you can add the free Google Apps Standard to your site and get the best of both worlds. Note: To signup for Google Apps and get it setup on your domain, you will need to be able to add info to your WordPress blog or change Domain settings manually. Getting Started Head to the Google Apps signup page (link below), and click the Get Started button on the right.  Note that we are signing up for the free Google Apps which allows a max of 50 users; if you need more than 50 email addresses for your domain, you can choose Premiere Edition instead for $50/year. Select that you are the Administrator of the domain, and enter the domain or subdomain you want to use with Google Apps.  Here we’re adding Google Apps to the techinch.com site, but we could instead add Apps to mail.techinch.com if needed…click Get Started. Enter your name, phone number, an existing email address, and other Administrator information.  The Apps signup page also includes some survey questions about your organization, but you only have to fill in the required fields. On the next page, enter a username and password for the administrator account.  Note that the user name will also be the administrative email address as [email protected]. Now you’re ready to authenticate your Google Apps account with your domain.  The steps are slightly different depending on whether your site is on WordPress.com or on your own hosting service or server, so we’ll show how to do it both ways.   Authenticate and Integrate Google Apps with WordPress.com To add Google Apps to a domain you have linked to your WordPress.com blog, select Change yourdomain.com CNAME record and click Continue. Copy the code under #2, which should be something like googleabcdefg123456.  Do not click the button at the bottom; wait until we’ve completed the next step.   Now, in a separate browser window or tab, open your WordPress Dashboard.  Click the arrow beside Upgrades, and select Domains from the menu. Click the Edit DNS link beside the domain name you’re adding to Google Apps. Scroll down to the Google Apps section, and paste your code from Google Apps into the verification code field.  Click Generate DNS records when you’re done. This will add the needed DNS settings to your records in the box above the Google Apps section.  Click Save DNS records. Now, go back to the Google Apps signup page, and click I’ve completed the steps above. Authenticate Google Apps on Your Own Server If your website is hosted on your own server or hosting account, you’ll need to take a few more steps to add Google Apps to your domain.  You can add a CNAME record to your domain host using the same information that you would use with a WordPress account, or you can upload an HTML file to your site’s main directory.  In this test we’re going to upload an HTML file to our site for verification. Copy the code under #1, which should be something like googleabcdefg123456.  Do not click the button at the bottom; wait until we’ve completed the next step first. Create a new HTML file and paste the code in it.  You can do this easily in Notepad: create a new document, paste the code, and then save as googlehostedservice.html.  Make sure to select the type as All Files or otherwise the file will have a .txt extension. Upload this file to your web server via FTP or a web dashboard for your site.  Make sure it is in the top level of your site’s directory structure, and try visiting it at yoursite.com/googlehostedservice.html. Now, go back to the Google Apps signup page, and click I’ve completed the steps above. Setup Your Email on Google Apps When this is done, your Google Apps account should be activated and ready to finish setting up.  Google Apps will offer to launch a guide to step you through the rest of the process; you can click Launch guide if you want, or click Skip this guide to continue on your own and go directly to the Apps dashboard.   If you choose to open the guide, you’ll be able to easily learn the ropes of Google Apps administration.  Once you’ve completed the tutorial, you’ll be taken to the Google Apps dashboard. Most of the Google Apps will be available for immediate use, but Email may take a bit more setup.  Click Activate email to get your Gmail-powered email running on your domain.    Add Google MX Records to Your Server You will need to add Google MX records to your domain registrar in order to have your mail routed to Google.  If your domain is hosted on WordPress.com, you’ve already made these changes so simply click I have completed these steps.  Otherwise, you’ll need to manually add these records before clicking that button.   Adding MX Entries is fairly easy, but the steps may depend on your hosting company or registrar.  With some hosts, you may have to contact support to have them add the MX records for you.  Our site’s host uses the popular cPanel for website administration, so here’s how we added the MX Entries through cPanel. Add MX Entries through cPanel Login to your site’s cPanel, and click the MX Entry link under Mail. Delete any existing MX Records for your domain or subdomain first to avoid any complications or interactions with Google Apps.  If you think you may want to revert to your old email service in the future, save a copy of the records so you can switch back if you need. Now, enter the MX Records that Google listed.  Here’s our account after we added all of the entries to our account. Finally, return to your Google Apps Dashboard and click the I have completed these steps button at the bottom of the page. Activating Service You’re now officially finished activating and setting up your Google Apps account.  Google will first have to check the MX records for your domain; this only took around an hour in our test, but Google warns it can take up to 48 hours in some cases. You may then see that Google is updating its servers with your account information.  Once again, this took much less time than Google’s estimate. When everything’s finished, you can click the link to access the inbox of your new Administrator email account in Google Apps. Welcome to Gmail … at your own domain!  All of the Google Apps work just the same in this version as they do in the public @gmail.com version, so you should feel right at home. You can return to the Google Apps dashboard from the Administrative email account by clicking the Manage this domain at the top right. In the Dashboard, you can easily add new users and email accounts, as well as change settings in your Google Apps account and add your site’s branding to your Apps. Your Google Apps will work just like their standard @gmail.com counterparts.  Here’s an example of an inbox customized with the techinch logo and a Gmail theme. Links to Remember Here are the common links to your Google Apps online.  Substitute your domain or subdomain for yourdomain.com. Dashboard https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com Email https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Calendar https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/yourdomain.com Docs https://docs.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Sites https://sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com Conclusion Google Apps offers you great webapps and webmail for your domain, and let’s you take advantage of Google’s services while still maintaining the professional look of your own domain.  Setting up your account can be slightly complicated, but once it’s finished, it will run seamlessly and you’ll never have to worry about email or collaboration with your team again. Signup for the free Google Apps Standard Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mysticgeek Blog: Create Your Own Simple iGoogle GadgetAccess Your Favorite Google Services in Chrome the Easy WayRevo Uninstaller Pro [REVIEW]Mysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPFind Similar Websites in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox

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• Quotas - Using quotas on ZFSSA shares and projects and users

  - by Steve Tunstall

  So you don't want your users to fill up your entire storage pool with their MP3 files, right? Good idea to make some quotas. There's some good tips and tricks here, including a helpful workflow (a script) that will allow you to set a default quota on all of the users of a share at once. Let's start with some basics. I mad a project called "small" and inside it I made a share called "Share1". You can set quotas on the project level, which will affect all of the shares in it, or you can do it on the share level like I am here. Go the the share's General property page. First, I'm using a Windows client, so I need to make sure I have my SMB mountpoint. Do you know this trick yet? Go to the Protocol page of the share. See the SMB section? It needs a resource name to make the UNC path for the SMB (Windows) users. You do NOT have to type this name in for every share you make! Do this at the Project level. Before you make any shares, go to the Protocol properties of the Project, and set the SMB Resource name to "On". This special code will automatically make the SMB resource name of every share in the project the same as the share name. Note the UNC path name I got below. Since I did this at the Project level, I didn't have to lift a finger for it to work on every share I make in this project. Simple. So I have now mapped my Windows "Z:" drive to this Share1. I logged in as the user "Joe". Note that my computer shows my Z: drive as 34GB, which is the entire size of my Pool that this share is in. Right now, Joe could fill this drive up and it would fill up my pool.  Now, go back to the General properties of Share1. In the "Space Usage" area, over on the right, click on the "Show All" text under the Users & Groups section. Sure enough, Joe and some other users are in here and have some data. Note this is also a handy window to use just to see how much space your users are using in any given share.  Ok, Joe owes us money from lunch last week, so we want to give him a quota of 100MB. Type his name in the Users box. Notice how it now shows you how much data he's currently using. Go ahead and give him a 100M quota and hit the Apply button. If I go back to "Show All", I can see that Joe now has a quota, and no one else does. Sure enough, as soon as I refresh my screen back on Joe's client, he sees that his Z: drive is now only 100MB, and he's more than half way full.  That was easy enough, but what if you wanted to make the whole share have a quota, so that the share itself, no matter who uses it, can only grow to a certain size? That's even easier. Just use the Quota box on the left hand side. Here, I use a Quota on the share of 300MB.  So now I log off as Joe, and log in as Steve. Even though Steve does NOT have a quota, it is showing my Z: drive as 300MB. This would effect anyone, INCLUDING the ROOT user, becuase you specified the Quota to be on the SHARE, not on a person.  Note that back in the Share, if you click the "Show All" text, the window does NOT show Steve, or anyone else, to have a quota of 300MB. Yet we do, because it's on the share itself, not on any user, so this panel does not see that. Ok, here is where it gets FUN.... Let's say you do NOT want a quota on the SHARE, because you want SOME people, like Root and yourself, to have FULL access to it and you want the ability to fill the whole thing up if you darn well feel like it. HOWEVER, you want to give the other users a quota. HOWEVER you have, say, 200 users, and you do NOT feel like typing in each of their names and giving them each a quota, and they are not all members of a AD global group you could use or anything like that.  Hmmmmmm.... No worries, mate. We have a handy-dandy script that can do this for us. Now, this script was written a few years back by Tim Graves, one of our ZFSSA engineers out of the UK. This is not my script. It is NOT supported by Oracle support in any way. It does work fine with the 2011.1.4 code as best as I can tell, but Oracle, and I, are NOT responsible for ANYTHING that you do with this script. Furthermore, I will NOT give you this script, so do not ask me for it. You need to get this from your local Oracle storage SC. I will give it to them. I want this only going to my fellow SCs, who can then work with you to have it and show you how it works.  Here's what it does...Once you add this workflow to the Maintenance-->Workflows section, you click it once to run it. Nothing seems to happen at this point, but something did.   Go back to any share or project. You will see that you now have four new, custom properties on the bottom.  Do NOT touch the bottom two properties, EVER. Only touch the top two. Here, I'm going to give my users a default quota of about 40MB each. The beauty of this script is that it will only effect users that do NOT already have any kind of personal quota. It will only change people who have no quota at all. It does not effect the Root user.  After I hit Apply on the Share screen. Nothing will happen until I go back and run the script again. The first time you run it, it creates the custom properties. The second and all subsequent times you run it, it checks the shares for any users, and applies your quota number to each one of them, UNLESS they already have one set. Notice in the readout below how it did NOT apply to my Joe user, since Joe had a quota set.  Sure enough, when I go back to the "Show All" in the share properties, all of the users who did not have a quota, now have one for 39.1MB. Hmmm... I did my math wrong, didn't I?    That's OK, I'll just change the number of the Custom Default quota again. Here, I am adding a zero on the end.  After I click Apply, and then run the script again, all of my users, except Joe, now have a quota of 391MB  You can customize a person at any time. Here, I took the Steve user, and specifically gave him a Quota of zero. Now when I run the script again, he is different from the rest, so he is no longer effected by the script. Under Show All, I see that Joe is at 100, and Steve has no Quota at all. I can do this all day long. es, you will have to re-run the script every time new users get added. The script only applies the default quota to users that are present at the time the script is ran. However, it would be a simple thing to schedule the script to run each night, or to make an alert to run the script when certain events occur.  For you power users, if you ever want to delete these custom properties and remove the script completely, you will find these properties under the "Schema" section under the Shares section. You can remove them here. There's no need to, however, they don't hurt a thing if you just don't use them.  I hope these tips have helped you out there. Quotas can be fun. 

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Server installation

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g index This is the first of a set of articles designed to assist with the successful installation, configuration and deployment of a document security solution using Oracle IRM. This article goes through a set of simple instructions which detail how to download, install and configure the IRM server, the starting point for building a document security solution. This article contains a subset of information from the official documentation and is focused on installing the server on Oracle Enterprise Linux. If you are planning to deploy on a non-Linux platform, you will need to reference the documentation for platform specific information. Contents Introduction Downloading the software Preparing a database Creating the schema WebLogic Server installation Installing Oracle IRM Introduction Because we are using Oracle Enterprise Linux in this guide, and before we get into the detail of IRM, i'd like to share some tips with Linux to make life a bit easier.Use a 64bit platform, IRM 11g runs just fine on a 32bit server but with 64bit you will build a more future proof service. Download and install the latest Java JDK package. Make sure you get the 64bit version if you are on a 64bit server. Configure Linux to use a good Yum server to simplify installing packages. For Oracle Enterprise Linux we maintain a great public Yum here. Have at least 20GB of free disk space on the partition you intend to install the IRM server. The downloads are big, then you extract them and then install. This quickly consumes disk space which you can easily recover by deleting the downloaded and extracted files after wards. But it's nice to have the disk space spare to keep these around in case you need to restart any part of the installation process again. Downloading the software OK, so before you can do anything, you need the software install kits. Luckily Oracle allows you to freely download every technology we create. You'll need to get the following; Oracle WebLogic Server Oracle Database Oracle Repository Creation Utility (rcu) Oracle IRM server You can use Microsoft SQL server 2005 or 2008, in this guide i've used Oracle RDBMS 11gR2 for Linux. Preparing the database I'm not going to go through the finer points of installing the database. There are many very good guides on installing the Oracle Database. However one thing I would suggest you think about is enabling TDE, network encryption and using Database Vault. These Oracle database security technologies are excellent for creating a complete end to end security solution. No point in going to all the effort to secure document access with IRM when someone can go directly to the database and assign themselves rights to documents. To understand this further, you can see a video of the IRM service using these database security technologies here. With a database up and running we need to create a schema to hold the IRM data. This schema contains the rights model, cryptographic keys, user account id's and associated rights etc. Creating the IRM database schema Oracle uses the Repository Creation Tool which builds your schema, extract the files from the rcu zip. Then in a terminal window; cd /oracle/install/rcu/bin ./rcu This will launch the Repository Creation Tool and you will be presented with the image to the right. Hit next and continue onto the next dialog. You are asked if you are going to be creating a new schema or wish to drop an existing one, you obviously just need to click next at this point to create a new schema. The RCU next needs to know where your database is so you'll need the following details of your database instance. Below, for reference, is the information for my installation. Hostname: irm.oracle.demo Port: 1521 (This is the default TCP port for the Oracle Database) Service Name: irm.oracle.demo. Note this is not the SID, but the service name. Username: sys Password: ******** Role: SYSDBA And then select next. Because the RCU contains schemas for many of the Oracle Technologies, you now need to select to just deploy the Oracle IRM schema. Open the section under "Enterprise Content Management" and tick the "Oracle Information Rights Management" component. Note that you also get the chance to select a prefix which defaults to "DEV" (for development). I usually change this to something that reflects my own install. PROD for a production system, INT for internal only etc. The next step asks for the passwords for the schema users. We are only creating one schema here so you just enter one password. Some brave souls store this password in an Excel spreadsheet which is then secure against the IRM server you're about to install in this guide. Nearing the end of the schema creation is the mapping of the tablespaces to the schema. Note I had setup a table space already that was encrypted using TDE and at this point I was able to select that tablespace by clicking in the "Default Tablespace" column. The next dialog confirms your actions and clicking on next causes it to create the schema and default data. After this you are presented with the completion summary. WebLogic Server installation The database is now ready and the next step is to install the application server. Oracle IRM 11g is a JEE application and currently only supported in Oracle WebLogic Server. So the next step is get WebLogic Server installed, which is pretty easy. Depending on the version you download, you either run the binary or for a 64 bit platform (like mine) run the following command. java -d64 -jar wls1033_generic.jar And in the resulting dialog hit next to start walking through the install. Next choose a directory into which you will install WebLogic Server. I like to change from the default and install into /oracle/. Then all my software goes into this one folder, all owned by the "oracle" user. The next dialog asks for your Oracle support information to ensure you are kept up to date. If you have an Oracle support account, enter your details but for most evaluation systems I leave these fields blank. Again, for evaluation or development systems, I usually stick with the "Typical" install type which you are next asked for. Next you are asked for the JDK which will be used for the server. When installing from the generic jar on a 64bit platform like in this guide, no JDK is bundled with the installer. But as you can see in the image on the right, that it does a good job of detecting the one you've got installed. Defaults for the install directories are usually taken, no changes here, just click next. And finally we are ready to install, hit next, sit back and relax. Typically this takes about 10 minutes. After the install, do not run the quick start, we need to deploy the IRM install itself from which we will create a new WebLogic domain. For now just hit done and lets move to the final step of the installation process. Installing Oracle IRM The last piece of the puzzle to getting your environment ready is to deploy the IRM files themselves. Unzip the Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g zip file and it will create a Disk1 directory. Switch to this folder and in the console run ./runInstaller. This will launch the installer which will also ask for the location of the JDK. Look at the image on the right for the detail. You should now see the first stage of the IRM installation. The dialog warns you need to have a WebLogic server installed and have created the schema's, but you've just done all that above (I hope) so we are ready to go. The installer now checks that you have all the required libraries installed and other system parameters are correct. Because nearly all of my development and evaluation installations have the database server on the same system, the installer passes these checks without issue... Next... Now chose where to install the IRM files, you must install into the same Middleware Home as the WebLogic Server installation you just performed. Usually the installer already defaults to this location anyway. I also tend to change the Oracle Home Directory to Oracle_IRM so it's clear this is just an IRM install. The summary page tells you about space needed to deploy the files. Unfortunately the IRM install comes with all of the other Oracle ECM software, you can't just select the IRM files, everything gets deployed to disk and uses 1.6GB of space! Not fun, but Oracle has to package up similar technologies otherwise we would have a very large number of installers to QA and manage, again, not fun. Hit Install, time for another drink, maybe a piece of cake or a donut... on a half decent system this part of the install took under 10 minutes. Finally the installation of your IRM server is complete, click on finish and the next phase is to create the WebLogic domain and start configuring your server. Now move onto the next article in this guide... configuring your IRM server ready to seal your first document.

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• When Your Boss Doesn't Want you to Succeed

  - by Phil Factor

  You're working hard to get an application finished. You are programming long into the evenings sometimes, and eating sandwiches at your desk instead of taking a lunch break. Then one day you glance up at the IT manager, serene in his mysterious round of meetings, and think 'Does he actually care whether this project succeeds or not?'. The question may seem absurd. Of course the project must succeed. The truth, as always, is often far more complex. Your manager may even be doing his best to make sure you don't succeed. Why? There have always been rich pickings for the unscrupulous in IT.  In extreme cases, where administrators struggle with scarcely-comprehended technical issues, huge sums of money can be lost and gained without any perceptible results. In a very few cases can fraud be proven: most of the time, the intricacies of the 'game' are such that one can do little more than harbor suspicion.  Where does over-enthusiastic salesmanship end and fraud begin? The Business of Information Technology provides rich opportunities for White-collar crime. The poor developer has his, or her, hands full with the task of wrestling with the sheer complexity of building an application. He, or she, has no time for following the complexities of the chicanery of the management that is directing affairs.  Most likely, the developers wouldn't even suspect that their company management had ulterior motives. I'll illustrate what I mean with an entirely fictional, hypothetical, example. The Opportunist and the Aged Charities often do good, unexciting work that is funded by the income from a bequest that dates back maybe hundreds of years.  In our example, it isn't exciting work, for it involves the welfare of elderly people who have fallen on hard times.  Volunteers visit, giving a smile and a chat, and check that they are all right, but are able to spend a little money on their discretion to ameliorate any pressing needs for these old folk.  The money is made to work very hard and the charity averts a great deal of suffering and eases the burden on the state. Daisy hears the garden gate creak as Mrs Rainer comes up the path. She looks forward to her twice-weekly visit from the nice lady from the trust. She always asked ‘is everything all right, Love’. Cheeky but nice. She likes her cheery manner. She seems interested in hearing her memories, and talking about her far-away family. She helps her with those chores in the house that she couldn’t manage and once even paid to fill the back-shed with coke, the other year. Nice, Mrs. Rainer is, she thought as she goes to open the door. The trustees are getting on in years themselves, and worry about the long-term future of the charity: is it relevant to modern society? Is it likely to attract a new generation of workers to take it on. They are instantly attracted by the arrival to the board of a smartly dressed University lecturer with the ear of the present Government. Alain 'Stalin' Jones is earnest, persuasive and energetic. The trustees welcome him to the board and quickly forgive his humorless political-correctness. He talks of 'diversity', 'relevance', 'social change', 'equality' and 'communities', but his eye is on that huge bequest. Alain first came to notice as a Trotskyite union official, who insinuated himself into one of the duller Trades Unions and turned it, through his passionate leadership, into a radical, headline-grabbing organization.  Middle age, and the rise of European federal socialism, had brought him quiet prosperity and charcoal suits, an ear in the current government, and a wide influence as a member of various Quangos (government bodies staffed by well-paid unelected courtiers).  He was employed as a 'consultant' by several organizations that relied on government contracts. After gaining the confidence of the trustees, and showing a surprising knowledge of mundane processes and the regulatory framework of charities, Alain launches his plan.  The trust will expand their work by means of a bold IT initiative that will coordinate the interventions of several 'caring agencies', and provide  emergency cover, a special Website so anxious relatives can see how their elderly charges are doing, and a vastly more efficient way of coordinating the work of the volunteer carers. It will also provide a special-purpose site that gives 'social networking' facilities, rather like Facebook, to the few elderly folk on the lists with access to the internet. The trustees perk up. Their own experience of the internet is restricted to the occasional scanning of railway timetables, but they can see that it is 'relevant'. In his next report to the other trustees, Alain proudly announces that all this glamorous and exciting technology can be paid for by a grant from the government. He admits darkly that he has influence. True to his word, the government promises a grant of a size that is an order of magnitude greater than any budget that the trustees had ever handled. There was the understandable proviso that the company that would actually do the IT work would have to be one of the government's preferred suppliers and the work would need to be tendered under EU competition rules. The only company that tenders, a multinational IT company with a long track record of government work, quotes ten million pounds for the work. A trustee questions the figure as it seems enormous for the reasonably trivial internet facilities being built, but the IT Salesmen dazzle them with presentations and three-letter acronyms until they subside into quiescent acceptance. After all, they can’t stay locked in the Twentieth century practices can they? The work is put in hand with a large project team, in a splendid glass building near west London. The trustees see rooms of programmers working diligently at screens, and who talk with enthusiasm of the project. Paul, the project manager, looked through his resource schedule with growing unease. His initial excitement at being given his first major project hadn’t lasted. He’d been allocated a lackluster team of developers whose skills didn’t seem right, and he was allowed only a couple of contractors to make good the deficit. Strangely, the presentation he’d given to his management, where he’d saved time and resources with a OTS solution to a great deal of the development work, and a sound conservative architecture, hadn’t gone down nearly as big as he’d hoped. He almost got the feeling they wanted a more radical and ambitious solution. The project starts slipping its dates. The costs build rapidly. There are certain uncomfortable extra charges that appear, such as the £600-a-day charge by the 'Business Manager' appointed to act as a point of liaison between the charity and the IT Company.  When he appeared, his face permanently split by a 'Mr Sincerity' smile, they'd thought he was provided at the cost of the IT Company. Derek, the DBA, didn’t have to go to the server room quite some much as he did: but It got him away from the poisonous despair of the development group. Wave after wave of events had conspired to delay the project.  Why the management had imposed hideous extra bureaucracy to cover ISO 9000 and 9001:2008 accreditation just as the project was struggling to get back on-schedule was  beyond belief.  Then  the Business manager was coming back with endless changes in scope, sorrowing saying that the Trustees were very insistent, though hopelessly out in touch with the reality of technical challenges. Suddenly, the costs mount to the point of consuming the government grant in its entirety. The project remains tantalizingly just out of reach. Alain Jones gives an emotional rallying speech at the trustees review meeting, urging them not to lose their nerve. Sadly, the trustees dip into the accumulated capital of the trust, the seed-corn of all their revenues, in order to save the IT project. A few months later it is all over. The IT project is never delivered, even though it had seemed so incredibly close.  With the trust's capital all gone, the activities it funded have to be terminated and the trust becomes just a shell. There aren't even the funds to mount a legal challenge against the IT company, even had the trust's solicitor advised such a foolish thing. Alain leaves as suddenly as he had arrived, only to pop up a few months later, bronzed and rested, at another charity. The IT workers who were permanent employees are dispersed to other projects, and the contractors leave to other contracts. Within months the entire project is but a vague memory. One or two developers remain  puzzled that their managers had been so obstructive when they should have welcomed progress toward completion of the project, but they put it down to incompetence and testosterone. Few suspected that they were actively preventing the project from getting finished. The relationships between the IT consultancy, and the government of the day are intricate, and made more complex by the Private Finance initiatives and political patronage.  The losers in this case were the taxpayers, and the beneficiaries of the trust, and, perhaps the soul of the original benefactor of the trust, whose bid to give his name some immortality had been scuppered by smooth-talking white-collar political apparatniks.  Even now, nobody is certain whether a crime was ever committed. The perfect heist, I guess. Where’s the victim? "I hear that Daisy’s cottage is up for sale. She’s had to go into a care home.  She didn’t want to at all, but then there is nobody to keep an eye on her since she had that minor stroke a while back.  A charity used to help out. The ‘social’ don’t have the funding, evidently for community care. Yes, her old cat was put down. There was a good clearout, and now the house is all scrubbed and cleared ready for sale. The skip was full of old photos and letters, memories. No room in her new ‘home’."

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