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• The Internet of Things & Commerce: Part 2 -- Interview with Brian Celenza, Commerce Innovation Strategist

  - by Katrina Gosek, Director | Commerce Product Strategy-Oracle

  Internet of Things & Commerce Series: Part 2 (of 3) Welcome back to the second installation of my three part series on the Internet of Things & Commerce. A few weeks ago, I wrote “The Next 7,000 Days” about how we’ve become embedded in a digital architecture in the last 7,000 days since the birth of the internet – an architecture that everyday ties the massive expanse of the internet evermore closely with our physical lives. This blog series explores how this new blend of virtual and material will change how we shop and how businesses sell. Now enjoy reading my interview with Brian Celenza, one of the chief strategists in our Oracle Commerce innovation group. He comments on the past, present, and future of the how the growing Internet of Things relates and will relate to the buying and selling of goods on and offline. -------------------------------------------- QUESTION: You probably have one of the coolest jobs on our team, Brian – and frankly, one of the coolest jobs in our industry. As part of the innovation team for Oracle Commerce, you’re regularly working on bold features and groundbreaking commerce-focused experiences for our vision demos. As you look back over the past couple of years, what is the biggest trend (or trends) you’ve seen in digital commerce that started to bring us closer to this idea of what people are calling an “Internet of Things”? Brian: Well as you look back over the last couple of years, the speed at which change in our industry has moved looks like one of those blurred movement photos – you know the ones where the landscape blurs because the observer is moving so quickly your eye focus can’t keep up. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the biggest catalyst for that speed of change – especially over the last three years – has been mobile. Mobile technology changed everything. Over the last three years the entire thought process of how to sell on (and offline) has shifted because of mobile technology advances. Particularly for eCommerce professionals who have started to move past the notion of “channels” for selling goods to this notion of “Mobile First”… then the Web site. Or more accurately, that everything – smartphones, web, store, tablet – is just one channel or has to act like one singular access point to the same product catalog, information and content. The most innovative eCommerce professionals realized some time ago that it’s not ideal to build an eCommerce Web site and then build everything on top of or off of it. Rather, they want to build an eCommerce API and then integrate it will all other systems. To accomplish this, they are leveraging all the latest mobile technologies or possibilities mobile technology has opened up: 4G and LTE, GPS, bluetooth, touch screens, apps, html5… How has this all started to come together for shopping experiences on and offline? Well to give you a personal example, I remember visiting an Apple store a few years ago and being amazed that I didn’t have to wait in line because a store associate knew everything about me from my ID – right there on the sales floor – and could check me out anywhere. Then just a few months later (when like any good addict) I went back to get the latest and greatest new gadget, I felt like I was stealing it because I could check myself out with my smartphone. I didn’t even need to see a sales associate OR go to a cash register. Amazing. And since then, all sort sorts of companies across all different types of industries – from food service to apparel –  are starting to see mobile payments in the billions of dollars now thanks not only to the convenience factor but to smart loyalty rewards programs as well. These are just some really simple current examples that come to mind. So many different things have happened in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really absorb all of the quickly – because as soon as you do, everything changes again! Just like that blurry speed photo image. For eCommerce, however, this type of new environment underscores the importance of building an eCommerce API – a platform that has services you can tap in to and build on as the landscape changes at a fever pitch. It’s a mobile first perspective. A web service perspective – particularly if you are thinking of how to engage customers across digital and physical spaces. —— QUESTION: Thanks for bringing us into the present – some really great examples you gave there to put things into perspective. So what do you see as the biggest trend right now around the “Internet of Things” – and what’s coming next few years? Brian: Honestly, even sitting where I am in the innovation group – it’s hard to look out even 12 months because, well, I don’t even think we’ve fully caught up with what is possible now. But I can definitely say that in the last 12 months and in the coming 12 months, in the technology and eCommerce world it’s all about iBeacons. iBeacons are awesome tools we have right now to tie together physical and digital shopping experiences. They know exactly where you are as a shopper and can communicate that to businesses. Currently there seem to be two camps of thought around iBeacons. First, many people are thinking of them like an “indoor GPS”, which to be fair they literally are. The use case this first camp envisions for iBeacons is primarily for advertising and marketing. So they use iBeacons to push location-based promotions to customers if they are close to a store or in a store. You may have seen these types of mobile promotions start to pop up occasionally on your smart phone as you pass by a store you’ve bought from in the past. That’s the work of iBeacons. But in my humble opinion, these promotions probably come too early in the customer journey and although they may be well timed and work to “convert” in some cases, I imagine in most they are just eroding customer trust because they are kind of a “one-size-fits-all” solution rather than one that is taking into account what exactly the customer might be looking for in that particular moment. Maybe they just want more information and a promotion is way too soon for that type of customer. The second camp is more in line with where my thinking falls. In this case, businesses take a more sensitive approach with iBeacons to customers’ needs. Instead of throwing out a “one-size-fits-all” to any passer by with iBeacons, the use case is more around looking at the physical proximity of a customer as an opportunity to provide a service: show expert reviews on a product they may be looking at in a particular aisle of a store, offer the opportunity to compare prices (and then offer a promotion), signal an in-store associate if a customer has been in the store for more than 10 minutes in one place. These are all less intrusive more value-driven uses of iBeacons. And they are more about building customer trust through service. To take this example a bit further into the future realm of “Big Data” and “Internet of Things” businesses could actually use the Oracle Commerce Platform and iBeacons to “silently” track customer movement w/in the store to provide higher quality service. And this doesn’t have to be creepy or intrusive. Simply if a customer has been in a particular department or aisle for more than a 5 or 10 minutes, an in-store associate could come over an offer some assistance already knowing customer preferences from their online profile and maybe even seeing the items in a shopping cart they started at home. None of this has to be revealed to the customer, but it certainly could boost the level of service an in-store sales associate could provide. Or, in another futuristic example, stores could use the digital footprint of the physical store transmitted by iBeacons to generate heat maps of the store that could be tracked over time. Imagine how much you could find out about which parts of the store are more busy during certain parts of the day or seasons. This could completely revolutionize how physical merchandising is deployed or where certain high value / new items are placed. And / or this use of iBeacons could also help businesses figure out if customers are getting held up in certain parts of the store during busy days like Black Friday. If long lines are causing customers to bounce from a physical store and leave those holiday gifts behind, maybe having employees with mobile check as an option could remove the cash register bottleneck. But going to back to my original statement, it’s all still very early in the story for iBeacons. The hardware manufacturers are still very new and there is still not one clear standard.  Honestly, it all goes back to building and maintaining an extensible and flexible platform for anywhere engagement. What you’re building today should allow you to rapidly take advantage of whatever unimaginable use cases wait around the corner. ------------------------------------------------------ I hope you enjoyed the brief interview with Brian. It’s really awesome to have such smart and innovation-minded individuals on our Oracle Commerce innovation team. Please join me again in a few weeks for Part 3 of this series where I interview one of the product managers on our team about how the blending of digital and in-store selling in influencing our product development and vision.

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• Experience your music in a whole new way with Zune for PC

  - by Matthew Guay

  Tired of the standard Media Player look and feel, and want something new and innovative?  Zune offers a fresh, new way to enjoy your music, videos, pictures, and podcasts, whether or not you own a Zune device. Microsoft started out on a new multimedia experience for PCs and mobile devices with the launch of the Zune several years ago.  The Zune devices have been well received and noted for their innovative UI, and the Zune HD’s fluid interface is the foundation for the widely anticipated Windows Phone 7.  But regardless of whether or not you have a Zune Device, you can still use the exciting new UI and services directly from your PC.  Zune for Windows is a very nice media player that offers a music and video store and wide support for multimedia formats including those used in Apple products.  And if you enjoy listening to a wide variety of music, it also offers the Zune Pass which lets you stream an unlimited number of songs to your computer and download 10 songs for keeps per month for $14.99/month. Or you can do a pre-paid music card as well.  It does all this using the new Metro UI which beautifully shows information using text in a whole new way.  Here’s a quick look at setting up and using Zune on your PC. Getting Started Download the installer (link below), and run it to begin setup.  Please note that Zune offers a separate version for computers running the 64 bit version of Windows Vista or 7, so choose it if your computer is running these. Once your download is finished, run the installer to setup Zune on your computer.  Accept the EULA when prompted. If there are any updates available, they will automatically download and install during the setup.  So, if you’re installing Zune from a disk (for example, one packaged with a Zune device), you don’t have to worry if you have the latest version.  Zune will proceed to install on your computer.   It may prompt you to restart your computer after installation; click Restart Now so you can proceed with your Zune setup.  The reboot appears to be for Zune device support, and the program ran fine otherwise without rebooting, so you could possibly skip this step if you’re not using a Zune device.  However, to be on the safe side, go ahead and reboot. After rebooting, launch Zune.  It will play a cute introduction video on first launch; press skip if you don’t want to watch it. Zune will now ask you if you want to keep the default settings or change them.  Choose Start to keep the defaults, or Settings to customize to your wishes.  Do note that the default settings will set Zune as your default media player, so click Settings if you wish to change this. If you choose to change the default settings, you can change how Zune finds and stores media on your computer.  In Windows 7, Zune will by default use your Windows 7 Libraries to manage your media, and will in fact add a new Podcasts library to Windows 7. If your media is stored on another location, such as on a server, then you can add this to the Library.  Please note that this adds the location to your system-wide library, not just the Zune player. There’s one last step.  Enter three of your favorite artists, and Zune will add Smart DJ mixes to your Quickplay list based on these.  Some less famous or popular artists may not be recognized, so you may have to try another if your choice isn’t available.  Or, you can click Skip if you don’t want to do this right now. Welcome to Zune!  This is the default first page, QuickPlay, where you can easily access your pinned and new items.   If you have a Zune account, or would like to create a new one, click Sign In on the top. Creating a new account is quick and simple, and if you’re new to Zune, you can try out a 14 day trial of Zune Pass for free if you want. Zune allows you to share your listening habits and favorites with friends or the world, but you can turn this off or change it if you like. Using Zune for Windows To access your media, click the Collection link on the top left.  Zune will show all the media you already have stored on your computer, organized by artist and album. Right-click on any album, and you choose to have Zune find album art or do a variety of other tasks with the media.   When playing media, you can view it in several unique ways.  First, the default Mix view will show related tracks to the music you’re playing from Smart DJ.  You can either play these fully if you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, or otherwise you can play 30 second previews. Then, for many popular artists, Zune will change the player background to show pictures and information in a unique way while the music is playing.  The information may range from history about the artist to the popularity of the song being played.   Zune also works as a nice viewer for the pictures on your computer. Start a slideshow, and Zune will play your pictures with nice transition effects and music from your library. Zune Store The Zune Store offers a wide variety of music, TV shows, and videos for purchase.  If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you can listen to or download any song without purchasing it; otherwise, you can preview a 30 second clip first. Zune also offers a wide selection of Podcasts you can subscribe to for free. Using Zune for PC with a Zune Device If you have a Zune device attached to your computer, you can easily add media files to it by simply dragging them to the Zune device icon in the left corner.  In the future, this will also work with Windows Phone 7 devices. If you have a Zune HD, you can also download and add apps to your device. Here’s the detailed information window for the weather app.  Click Download to add it to your device.   Mini Mode The Zune player generally takes up a large portion of your screen, and is actually most impressive when run maximized.  However, if you’re simply wanting to enjoy your tunes while you’re using your computer, you can use the Mini mode to still view music info and control Zune in a smaller mode.  Click the Mini Player button near the window control buttons in the top right to activate it. Now Zune will take up much less of your desktop.  This window will stay on top of other windows so you can still easily view and control it. Zune will display an image of the artist if one is available, and this shows up in Mini mode more often than it does in the full mode. And, in Windows 7, you could simply minimize Zune as you can control it directly from the taskbar thumbnail preview.   Even more controls are available from Zune’s jumplist in Windows 7.  You can directly access your Quickplay links or choose to shuffle all music without leaving the taskbar. Settings Although Zune is designed to be used without confusing menus and settings, you can tweak the program to your liking from the settings panel.  Click Settings near the top left of the window. Here you can change file storage, types, burn, metadata, and many more settings.  You can also setup Zune to stream media to your XBOX 360 if you have one.   You can also customize Zune’s look with a variety of modern backgrounds and gradients. Conclusion If you’re ready for a fresh way to enjoy your media, Zune is designed for you.  It’s innovative UI definitely sets it apart from standard media players, and is very pleasing to use.  Zune is especially nice if your computer is using XP, Vista Home Basic, or 7 Starter as these versions of Windows don’t include Media Center.  Additionally, the mini player mode is a nice touch that brings a feature of Windows 7’s Media Player to XP and Vista.  Zune is definitely one of our favorite music apps.  Try it out, and get a fresh view of your music today! Link Download Zune for Windows Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Redeem Pre-paid Zune Card Points for Zune Marketplace MediaUpdate Your Zune Player SoftwaredoubleTwist is an iTunes Alternative that Supports Several DevicesFind Free or Cheap Indie Music at Amie StreetAmie Street Downloader Makes Purchasing Music Easier 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 The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 13, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 13, 2012Popular ReleasesArduino Installer For Atmel Studio 6: Arduino Installer - Version 1.01 Beta2: Bug Fixes - Handling spaces in avrdude path - Handling spaces in avrdude config path - Handling spaces in project names - Handling spaces in project path - hard coded directories pointing to my space has been removed New Features - Total of 7 project templates included - C program - C library - C++ program - C++ library - Arduino Unit Tests - Arduino library - Arduino program (sketch) - Group all supporting scripts under a script directory in the solution - Support for calling multiple pre-...AcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v4.2: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???，????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???，????????Mono?? ??2...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.8: See Change Log for details of the new features and bugfixes included in this release, and methods that are now deprecated. Note changes to the PDF Writer: tcPDF is no longer bundled with PHPExcel, but should be installed separately if you wish to use that 3rd-Party library with PHPExcel. Alternatively, you can choose to use mPDF or DomPDF as PDF Rendering libraries instead: PHPExcel now provides a configurable wrapper allowing you a choice of PDF renderer. See the documentation, or the PDF s...DirectX Tool Kit: October 12, 2012: October 12, 2012 Added PrimitiveBatch for drawing user primitives Debug object names for all D3D resources (for PIX and debug layer leak reporting)Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.70: Fixed issue described in discussion #399087: variable references within case values weren't getting resolved.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.1: Some important bug fixes and couple of new features were added. There are no major changes to the sample website. Source code could be downloaded from the Source Code section selecting branch release-6.1. Thus just builds of GoogleMap Control are issued here in this release. NuGet Package GoogleMap Control 6.1 NuGet Package FeaturesBounds property to provide ability to create a map by center and bounds as well; Setting in markup <artem:GoogleMap ID="GoogleMap1" runat="server" MapType="HY...mojoPortal: 2.3.9.3: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2393-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0, but we recommend you to use .NET 4, we will probably drop support for .NET 3.5 once .NET 4.5 is available The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code and are not intended for use in Visual Studio. To download the source code see getting the lates...OstrivDB: OstrivDB 0.1: - Storage configuration: objects serialization (Xml, Json), storage file compressing, data block size. - Caching for Select queries. - Indexing. - Batch of queries. - No special query language (LINQ used). - Integrated sorting and paging. - Multithreaded data processing.D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial captcha. Now you can easily customize the layout, s...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...VidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...The GLMET Project: Shutdown Manager: Shutdown, Log off and Restart Timer Set time for shutdown, log off and restartClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.New ProjectsAaron.Core: It's a special core be used to help your project become standardization. It provides the standard platform, including core systems, data flows,...AFSSignarlRServer: Server ready tryAgileFramework: Agile Framework in order to build easily application based on WCF, NHibernate , WPF, and multithreadingala, A Programming Language: ala, A Programming LanguageBaseSRS (Basic Service Request System): BaseSRS is a basic "Service Request System" or "SRS" which can be adapted and used by anyone. ContainerVariations: ContainerVariations is a collection of similar unit tests projects, each applied to a different Inversion of Control container. If successful, it will provide a consistent and comprehensive set of examples for popular .NET IoC containers. It is developed in C#.COST Policies - ART Work: COST Policies: ART Work ? ??????? ?????? ?? ??????? ?? ??????????: -baceCP -guideCPCS Script Runner: Provide users an easy way of executing C# programs (scripts) that are compiled on the fly.DbUtility: DbUtility is a free utility to display databases info like, size, backup date, instance name, database name, last backup log date, with export to excel feature.EchoLink Monitor: EchoLink Monitor is a management tool for EchoLink sysops maintaining remote EchoLink nodes.NextUI: We are on the way...Notas Alexandre: Apenas teste ainda...será modificado depois...Orchard CMS Amba.HtmlBlocks: Amba.HtmlBlocks module for Orchard CMS 1.5.1Portable Basemap Server: multiple map data source<--PBS-->multiple map apiRonYee: ??????????????。 ????（viewer）???????????????????，???????????????。 ????（customer）?????????????????，???????，?????????????????。 ??????（user）??????????????????。ShangWu: ????，???StoreIpAddress: Examine different means to store IP addressesSummon for Umbraco: Summon for Umbraco is a .NET solution for Summon API, provided by Serials Solutions.teasingg: this is for testing code plexWeb Scripting and Content Creation assignment: A stub project.WriteableBitmapEx for Windows Embedded: WriteableBitmapEx for Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Silverlight for Windows Embedded. Requires XAML In The Hand for managed code development.X.Web.Sitemap: X.Web.Sitemap is a part of X-Framework library. X.Web.Sitemap allows quickly and easily generate a Google-compatible filesZeropaste: A pastebin with minimal features.??: ?????EPUB????。

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• VSNewFile: A Visual Studio Addin to More Easily Add New Items to a Project

  - by InfinitiesLoop

  My first Visual Studio Add-in! Creating add-ins is pretty simple, once you get used to the CommandBar model it is using, which is apparently a general Office suite extensibility mechanism. Anyway, let me first explain my motivation for this. It started out as an academic exercise, as I have always wanted to dip my feet in a little VS extensibility. But I thought of a legitimate need for an add-in, at least in my personal experience, so it took on new life. But I figured I can’t be the only one who has felt this way, so I decided to publish the add-in, and host it on GitHub (VSNewFile on GitHub) hoping to spur contributions. Adding Files the Built-in Way Here’s the problem I wanted to solve. You’re working on a project, and it’s time to add a new file to the project. Whatever it is – a class, script, html page, aspx page, or what-have-you, you go through a menu or keyboard shortcut to get to the “Add New Item” dialog. Typically, you do it by right-clicking the location where you want the file (the project or a folder of it): This brings up a dialog the contains, well, every conceivable type of item you might want to add. It’s all the available item templates, which can result in anywhere from a ton to a veritable sea of choices. To be fair, this dialog has been revamped in Visual Studio 2010, which organizes it a little better than Visual Studio 2008, and adds a search box. It also loads noticeably faster.   To me, this dialog is just getting in my way. If I want to add a JavaScript script to my project, I don’t want to have to hunt for the script template item in this dialog. Yes, it is categorized, and yes, it now has a search box. But still, all this UI to swim through when all I need is a new file in the project. I will name it. I will provide the content, I don’t even need a ‘template’. VS kind of realizes this. In the add menu in a class library project, for example, there is a “Add Class…” choice. But all this really does is select that project item from the dialog by default. You still must wait for the dialog, see it, and type in a name for the file. How is that really any different than hitting F2 on an existing item? It isn’t. Adding Files the Hack Way What I often find myself doing, just to avoid going through this dialog, is to copy and paste an existing file, rename it, then “CTRL-A, DEL” the content. In a few short keystrokes I’ve got my new file. Even if the original file wasn’t the right type, it doesn’t matter – I will rename it anyway, including the extension. It works well enough if the place I am adding the file to doesn’t have much in it already. But if there are a lot of files at that level, it sucks, because the new file will have the name “Copy of xyz”, causing it to be moved into the ‘C’ section of the alphabetically sorted items, which might be far, far away from the original file (and so I tend to try and copy a file that starts with ‘C’ *evil grin*). Using ‘Export Template’ To be completely fair I should at least mention this feature. I’m not even sure if this is new in VS 2010 or not (I think so). But it allows you to export a project item or items, including potential project references required by it. Then it becomes a new item in the available ‘installed templates’. No doubt this is useful to help bootstrap new projects. But that still requires you to go through the ‘New Item’ dialog. Adding Files with VSNewFile So hopefully I have sufficiently defined the problem and got a few of you to think, “Yeah, me too!”… What VSNewFile does is let you skip the dialog entirely by adding project items directly to the context menu. But it does a bit more than that, so do read on. For example, to add a new class, you can right-click the location and pick that option. A new .cs file is instantly added to the project, and the new item is selected and put into the ‘rename’ mode immediately. The default items available are shown here. But you can customize them. You can also customize the content of each template. To do so, you create a directory in your documents folder, ‘VSNewFile Templates’. In there, you drop the templates you want to use, but you name them in a particular way. For example, here’s a template that will add a new item named “Add TITLE”. It will add a project item named “SOMEFILE.foo” (or ‘SOMEFILE1.foo’ if that exists, etc). The format of the file name is: <ORDER>_<KEY>_<BASE FILENAME>_<ICON ID>_<TITLE>.<EXTENTION> Where: <ORDER> is a number that lets you determine the order of the items in the menu (relative to each other). <KEY> is a case sensitive identifier different for each template item. More on that later. <BASE FILENAME> is the default name of the file, which doesn’t matter that much, since they will be renaming it anyway. <ICON ID> is a number the dictates the icon used for the menu item. There are a huge number of built-in choices. More on that later. <TITLE> is the string that will appear in the menu. And, the contents of the file are the default content for the item (the ‘template’). The content of the file can contain anything you want, of course. But it also supports two tokens: %NAMESPACE% and %FILENAME%, which will be replaced with the corresponding values. Here is the content of this sample: testing Namespace = %NAMESPACE% Filename = %FILENAME% I kind went back and forth on this. I could have made it so there’d be an XML or JSON file that defines the templates, instead of cramming all this data into the filename itself. I like the simplicity of this better. It makes it easy to customize since you can literally just throw these files around, copy them from someone else, etc, without worrying about merge data into a central description file, in whatever format. Here’s our new item showing up: Practical Use One immediate thing I am using this for is to make it easier to add very commonly used scripts to my web projects. For example, uh, say, jQuery? :) All I need to do is drop jQuery-1.4.2.js and jQuery-1.4.2.min.js into the templates folder, provide the order, title, etc, and then instantly, I can now add jQuery to any project I have without even thinking about “where is jQuery? Can I copy it from that other project?”   Using the KEY There are two reasons for the ‘key’ portion of the item. First, it allows you to turn off the built-in, default templates, which are: FILE = Add File (generic, empty file) VB = Add VB Class CS = Add C# Class (includes some basic usings) HTML = Add HTML page (includes basic structure, doctype, etc) JS = Add Script (includes an immediately-invoking function closure) To turn one off, just include a file with the name “_<KEY>”. For example, to turn off all the items except our custom one, you do this: The other reason for the key is that there are new Visual Studio Commands created for each one. This makes it possible to bind a keyboard shortcut to one of them. So you could, for example, have a keyboard combination that adds a new web page to your website, or a new CS class to your class library, etc. Here is our sample item showing up in the keyboard bindings option. Even though the contents of the template directory may change from one launch of Visual Studio to the next, the bindings will remain attached to any item with a particular key, thanks to it taking care not to lose keyboard bindings even though the commands are completely recreated each time. The Icon Face ID Visual Studio uses a Microsoft Office style add-in mechanism, I gather. There are a predetermined set of built-in icons available. You can use your own icons when developing add-ins, of course, but I’m no designer. I just wanted to find appropriate-ish icons for the built-in templates, and allow you to choose from an existing built-in icon for your own. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot out there on the interwebs that helps you figure out what the built-in types are. There’s an MSDN article that describes at length a way to create a program that lists all the icons. But I don’t want to write a program to figure them out! Just show them to me! Sheesh :) Thankfully, someone out there felt the same way, and uses a novel hack to get the icons to show up in an outlook toolbar. He then painstakingly took screenshots of them, one group at a time. It isn’t complete though – there are tens of thousands of icons. But it’s good enough. If anyone has an exhaustive list, please let me, and the rest of the add-in community know. Icon Face ID Reference Installing the Add-in It will work with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010. Just unzip the release into your Documents\Visual Studio 20xx\Addins folder. It contains the binary and the Visual Studio “.addin” file. For example, the path to mine is: C:\Users\InfinitiesLoop\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins Conclusion So that’s it! I hope you find it as useful as I have. It’s on GitHub, so if you’re into this kind of thing, please do fork it and improve it! Reference: VSNewFile on GitHub VSNewFile release on GitHub Icon Face ID Reference

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• Craftsmanship is ALL that Matters

  - by Wayne Molina

  Today, I'm going to talk about a touchy subject: the notion of working in a company that doesn't use the prescribed "best practices" in its software development endeavours.  Over the years I have, using a variety of pseudonyms, asked this question on popular programming forums.  Although I always add in some minor variation of the story to avoid suspicion that it's the same person posting, the crux of the tale remains the same: A Programmer’s Tale A junior software developer has just started a new job at an average company, creating average line-of-business applications for internal use (the most typical scenario programmers find themselves in).  This hypothetical newbie has spent a lot of time reading up on the "theory" of software development, devouring books, blogs and screencasts from well-known and respected software developers in the community in order to broaden his knowledge and "do what the pros do".  He begins his new job, eager to apply what he's learned on a real-world project only to discover that his new teammates doesn't use any of those concepts and techniques.  They hack their way through development, or in a best-case scenario use some homebrew, thrown-together semblance of a framework for their applications that follows not one of the best practices suggested by the “elite” in the software community - things like TDD (TDD as a "best practice" is the only subjective part of this post, but it's included here due to a very large following of respected developers who consider it one), the SOLID principles, well-known and venerable tools, even version control in a worst case and truly nightmarish scenario.  Our protagonist is frustrated that he isn't doing things the "proper" way - a way he's spent personal time digesting and learning about and, more importantly, a way that some of the top developers in the industry advocate - and turns to a forum to ask the advice of his peers. Invariably the answer I, in the guise of the concerned newbie, will receive is that A) I don't know anything and should just shut my mouth and sling code the bad way like everybody else on the team, and B) These "best practices" are fade or a joke, and the only thing that matters is shipping software to your customers. I am here today to say that anyone who says this, or anything like it, is not only full of crap but indicative of exactly the type of “developer” that has helped to give our industry a bad name.  Here is why: One Who Knows Nothing, Understands Nothing On one hand, you have the cognoscenti of the .NET development world.  Guys like James Avery, Jeremy Miller, Ayende Rahien and Rob Conery; all well-respected and noted programmers that are pretty much our version of celebrities.  These guys write blogs, books, and post videos outlining the "correct" way of writing software to make sure it not only works but is maintainable and extensible and a joy to work with.  They tout the virtues of the SOLID principles, or of using TDD/BDD, or using a mature ORM like NHibernate, Subsonic or even Entity Framework. On the other hand, you have Joe Everyman, Lead Software Developer at Initrode Corporation - in our hypothetical story Joe is the junior developer's new boss.  Joe's been with Initrode for 10 years, starting as the company’s very first programmer and over the years building up a little fiefdom of his own until at the present he’s in charge of all Initrode’s software development.  Joe writes code the same way he always has, without bothering to learn much, if anything.  He looked at NHibernate once and found it was "too hard", so he uses a primitive implementation of the TableDataGateway pattern as a wrapper around SqlClient.SqlConnection and SqlClient.SqlCommand instead of an actual ORM (or, in a better case scenario, has created his own ORM); the thought of using LINQ or Entity Framework or really anything other than his own hastily homebrew solution has never occurred to him.  He doesn't understand TDD and considers “testing” to be using the .NET debugger to step through code, or simply loading up an app and entering some values to see if it works.  He doesn't really understand SOLID, and he doesn't care to.  He's worked as a programmer for years, and that's all that counts.  Right?  WRONG. Who would you rather trust?  Someone with years of experience and who writes books, creates well-known software and is akin to a celebrity, or someone with no credibility outside their own minute environment who throws around their clout and company seniority as the "proof" of their ability?  Joe Everyman may have years of experience at Initrode as a programmer, and says to do things "his way" but someone like Jeremy Miller or Ayende Rahien have years of experience at companies just like Initrode, THEY know ten times more than Joe Everyman knows or could ever hope to know, and THEY say to do things "this way". Here's another way of thinking about it: If you wanted to get into politics and needed advice on the best way to do it, would you rather listen to the mayor of Hicktown, USA or Barack Obama?  One is a small-time nobody while the other is very well-known and, as such, would probably have much more accurate and beneficial advice. NOTE: The selection of Barack Obama as an example in no way, shape, or form suggests a political affiliation or political bent to this post or blog, and no political innuendo should be mistakenly read from it; the intent was merely to compare a small-time persona with a well-known persona in a non-software field.  Feel free to replace the name "Barack Obama" with any well-known Congressman, Senator or US President of your choice. DIY Considered Harmful I will say right now that the homebrew development environment is the WORST one for an aspiring programmer, because it relies on nothing outside it's own little box - no useful skill outside of the small pond.  If you are forced to use some half-baked, homebrew ORM created by your Director of Software, you are not learning anything valuable you can take with you in the future; now, if you plan to stay at Initrode for 10 years like Joe Everyman, this is fine and dandy.  However if, like most of us, you want to advance your career outside a very narrow space you will do more harm than good by sticking it out in an environment where you, to be frank, know better than everybody else because you are aware of alternative and, in almost most cases, better tools for the job.  A junior developer who understands why the SOLID principles are good to follow, or why TDD is beneficial, or who knows that it's better to use NHibernate/Subsonic/EF/LINQ/well-known ORM versus some in-house one knows better than a senior developer with 20 years experience who doesn't understand any of that, plain and simple.  Anyone who disagrees is either a liar, or someone who, just like Joe Everyman, Lead Developer, relies on seniority and tenure rather than adapting their knowledge as things evolve. In many cases, the Joe Everymans of the world act this way out of fear - they cannot possibly fathom that a “junior” could know more than them; after all, they’ve spent 10 or more years in the same company, doing the same job, cranking out the same shoddy software.  And here comes a newbie who hasn’t spent 10+ years doing the same things, with a fresh and often radical take on the craft, and Joe Everyman is afraid he might have to put some real effort into his career again instead of just pointing to his 10 years of service at Initrode as “proof” that he’s good, or that he might have to learn something new to improve; in most cases the problem is Joe Everyman, and by extension Initrode itself, has a mentality of just being “good enough”, and mediocrity is the rule of the day. A Thorn Bush is No Place for a Phoenix My advice is that if you work on a team where they don't use the best practices that some of the most famous developers in our field say is the "right" way to do things (and have legions of people who agree), and YOU are aware of these practices and can see why they work, then LEAVE the company.  Find a company where they DO care about quality, and craftsmanship, otherwise you will never be happy.  There is no point in "dumbing" yourself down to the level of your co-workers and slinging code without care to craftsmanship.  In 95% of these situations there will be no point in bringing it to the attention of Joe Everyman because he won't listen; he might even get upset that someone is trying to "upstage" him and fire the newbie, and replace someone with loads of untapped potential with a drone that will just nod affirmatively and grind out the tasks assigned without question. Find a company that has people smart enough to listen to the "best and brightest", and be happy.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste away in a job working for ignorant people.  At the end of the day software development IS a craft, and a level of craftsmanship is REQUIRED for any serious professional.  When you have knowledgeable people with the credibility to back it up saying one thing, and small-time people who are, to put it bluntly, nobodies in the field saying and doing something totally different because they can't comprehend it, leave the nobodies to their own devices to fade into obscurity.  Work for a company that uses REAL software engineering techniques and really cares about craftsmanship.  The biggest issue affecting our career, and the reason software development has never been the respected, white-collar career it was meant to be, is because hacks and charlatans can pass themselves off as professional programmers without following a lick of good advice from programmers much better at the craft than they are.  These modern day snake-oil salesmen entrench themselves in companies by hoodwinking non-technical businesspeople and customers with their shoddy wares, end up in senior/lead/executive positions, and push their lack of knowledge on everybody unfortunate enough to work with/for/under them, crushing any dissent or voices of reason and change under their tyrannical heel and leaving behind a trail of dismayed and, often, unemployed junior developers who were made examples of to keep up the facade and avoid the shadow of doubt being cast upon them. To sum this up another way: If you surround yourself with learned people, you will learn.  Surround yourself with ignorant people who can't, as the saying goes, see the forest through the trees, and you'll learn nothing of any real value.  There is more to software development than just writing code, and the end goal should not be just "shipping software", it should be shipping software that is extensible, maintainable, and above all else software whose creation has broadened your knowledge in some capacity, even if a minor one.  An eager newbie who knows theory and thirsts for knowledge can easily be moulded and taught the advanced topics, but the same can't be said of someone who only cares about the finish line.  This industry needs more people espousing the benefits of software craftsmanship and proper software engineering techniques, and less Joe Everymans who are unwilling to adapt or foster new ways of thinking. Conclusion - I Cast “Protection from Fire” I am fairly certain this post will spark some controversy and might even invite the flames.  Please keep in mind these are opinions and nothing more.  A little healthy rant and subsequent flamewar can be good for the soul once in a while.  To paraphrase The Godfather: It helps to get rid of the bad blood.

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• The future for Microsoft

  - by Scott Dorman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/sdorman/archive/2013/10/16/the-future-for-microsoft.aspxMicrosoft is in the process of reinventing itself. While some may argue that it’s “too little, too late” or that their growing consumer-focused strategy is wrong, the truth of the situation is that Microsoft is reinventing itself into a new company. While Microsoft is now calling themselves a “devices and services” company, that’s not entirely accurate. Let’s look at some facts: Microsoft will always (for the long-term foreseeable future) be financially split into the following divisions: Windows/Operating Systems, which for FY13 made up approximately 24% of overall revenue. Server and Tools, which for FY13 made up approximately 26% of overall revenue. Enterprise/Business Products, which for FY13 made up approximately 32% of overall revenue. Entertainment and Devices, which for FY13 made up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Online Services, which for FY13 made up approximately 4% of overall revenue. It is important to realize that hardware products like the Surface fall under the Windows/Operating Systems division while products like the Xbox 360 fall under the Entertainment and Devices division. (Presumably other hardware, such as mice, keyboards, and cameras, also fall under the Entertainment and Devices division.) It’s also unclear where Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Nokia’s handset division will fall, but let’s assume that it will be under Entertainment and Devices as well. Now, for the sake of argument, let’s assume a slightly different structure that I think is more in line with how Microsoft presents itself and how the general public sees it: Consumer Products and Devices, which would probably make up approximately 9% of overall revenue. Developer Tools, which would probably make up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Enterprise Products and Devices, which would probably make up approximately 47% of overall revenue. Entertainment, which would probably make up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Online Services, which would probably make up approximately 17% of overall revenue. (Just so we’re clear, in this structure hardware products like the Surface, a portion of Windows sales, and other hardware fall under the Consumer Products and Devices division. I’m assuming that more of the income for the Windows division is coming from enterprise/volume licenses so 15% of that income went to the Enterprise Products and Devices division. Most of the enterprise services, like Azure, fall under the Online Services division so half of the Server and Tools income went there as well.) No matter how you look at it, the bulk of Microsoft’s income still comes from not just the enterprise but also software sales, and this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. So, now that the stage is set…what’s the future for Microsoft? The future I see for Microsoft (again, this is just my prediction based on my own instinct, gut-feel and publicly available information) is this: Microsoft is becoming a consumer-focused enterprise company. Let’s look at it a different way. Microsoft is an enterprise-focused company trying to create a larger consumer presence.  To a large extent, this is the exact opposite of Apple, who is really a consumer-focused company trying to create a larger enterprise presence. The major reason consumer-focused companies (like Apple) have started making in-roads into the enterprise is the “bring your own device” phenomenon. Yes, Apple has created some “game-changing” products but their enterprise influence is still relatively small. Unfortunately (for this blog post at least), Apple provides revenue in terms of hardware products rather than business divisions, so it’s not possible to do a direct comparison. However, in the interest of transparency, from Apple’s Quarterly Report (filed 24 July 2013), their revenue breakdown is: iPhone, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 51% of revenue. iPad, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 18% of revenue. Mac, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 14% of revenue. iPod, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 2% of revenue. iTunes, Software, and Services, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 11% of revenue. Accessories, which for the 3 months ending 29 July 2013 made up approximately 3% of revenue. From this, it’s pretty clear that Apple is a consumer-and-hardware-focused company. At this point, you may be asking yourself “Where is all of this going?” The answer to that lies in Microsoft’s shift in company focus. They are becoming more consumer focused, but what exactly does that mean? The biggest change (at least that’s been in the news lately) is the pending purchase of Nokia’s handset division. This, in combination with their Surface line of tablets and the Xbox, will put Microsoft squarely in the realm of a hardware-focused company in addition to being a software-focused company. That can (and most likely will) shift the revenue split to looking at revenue based on software sales (both consumer and enterprise) and also hardware sales (mostly on the consumer side). If we look at things strictly from a Windows perspective, Microsoft clearly has a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Discounting the various product SKUs available and painting the picture with broader strokes, there are currently 5 different Windows-based operating systems: Windows Phone Windows Phone 7.x, which runs on top of the Windows CE kernel Windows Phone 8.x+, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Windows RT The ARM-based version of Windows 8, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Windows (Pro) The Intel-based version of Windows 8, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Xbox The Xbox 360, which runs it’s own proprietary OS. The Xbox One, which runs it’s own proprietary OS, a version of Windows running on top of the Windows 8 kernel and a proprietary “manager” OS which manages the other two. Over time, Windows Phone 7.x devices will fade so that really leaves 4 different versions. Looking at Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.x paints an interesting story. Right now, all mobile phone devices run on some sort of ARM chip and that doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. That means Microsoft has two different Windows based operating systems for the ARM platform. Long term, it doesn’t make sense for Microsoft to continue supporting that arrangement. I have long suspected (since the Surface was first announced) that Microsoft will unify these two variants of Windows and recent speculation from some of the leading Microsoft watchers lends credence to this suspicion. It is rumored that upcoming Windows Phone releases will include support for larger screen sizes, relax the requirement to have a hardware-based back button and will continue to improve API parity between Windows Phone and Windows RT. At the same time, Windows RT will include support for smaller screen sizes. Since both of these operating systems are based on the same core Windows kernel, it makes sense (both from a financial and development resource perspective) for Microsoft to unify them. The user interfaces are already very similar. So similar in fact, that visually it’s difficult to tell them apart. To illustrate this, here are two screen captures: Other than a few variations (the Bing News app, the picture shown in the Pictures tile and the spacing between the tiles) these are identical. The one on the left is from my Windows 8.1 laptop (which looks the same as on my Surface RT) and the one on the right is from my Windows Phone 8 Lumia 925. This pretty clearly shows that from a consumer perspective, there really is no practical difference between how these two operating systems look and how you interact with them. For the consumer, your entertainment device (Xbox One), phone (Windows Phone) and mobile computing device (Surface [or some other vendors tablet], laptop, netbook or ultrabook) and your desktop computing device (desktop) will all look and feel the same. While many people will denounce this consistency of user experience, I think this will be a good thing in the long term, especially for the upcoming generations. For example, my 5-year old son knows how to use my tablet, phone and Xbox because they all feature nearly identical user experiences. When Windows 8 was released, Microsoft allowed a Windows Store app to be purchased once and installed on as many as 5 devices. With Windows 8.1, this limit has been increased to over 50. Why is that important? If you consider that your phone, computing devices, and entertainment device will be running the same operating system (with minor differences related to physical hardware chipset), that means that I could potentially purchase my sons favorite Angry Birds game once and be able to install it on all of the devices I own. (And for those of you wondering, it’s only 7 [at the moment].) From an app developer perspective, the story becomes even more compelling. Right now there are differences between the different operating systems, but those differences are shrinking. The user interface technology for both is XAML but there are different controls available and different user experience concepts. Some of the APIs available are the same while some are not. You can’t develop a Windows Phone app that can also run on Windows (either Windows Pro or RT). With each release of Windows Phone and Windows RT, those difference become smaller and smaller. Add to this mix the Xbox One, which will also feature a Windows-based operating system and the same “modern” (tile-based) user interface and the visible distinctions between the operating systems will become even smaller. Unifying the operating systems means one set of APIs and one code base to maintain for an app that can run on multiple devices. One code base means it’s easier to add features and fix bugs and that those changes become available on all devices at the same time. It also means a single app store, which will increase the discoverability and reach of your app and consolidate revenue and app profile management. Now, the choice of what devices an app is available on becomes a simple checkbox decision rather than a technical limitation. Ultimately, this means more apps available to consumers, which is always good for the app ecosystem. Is all of this just rumor, speculation and conjecture? Of course, but it’s not unfounded. As I mentioned earlier, some of the prominent Microsoft watchers are also reporting similar rumors. However, Microsoft itself has even hinted at this future with their recent organizational changes and by telling developers “if you want to develop for Xbox One, start developing for Windows 8 now.” I think this pretty clearly paints the following picture: Microsoft is committed to the “modern” user interface paradigm. Microsoft is changing their release cadence (for all products, not just operating systems) to be faster and more modular. Microsoft is going to continue to unify their OS platforms both from a consumer perspective and a developer perspective. While this direction will certainly concern some people it will excite many others. Microsoft’s biggest failing has always been following through with a strong and sustained marketing strategy that presents a consistent view point and highlights what this unified and connected experience looks like and how it benefits consumers and enterprises. We’ve started to see some of this over the last few years, but it needs to continue and become more aggressive and consistent. In the long run, I think Microsoft will be able to pull all of these technologies and devices together into one seamless ecosystem. It isn’t going to happen overnight, but my prediction is that we will be there by the end of 2016. As both a consumer and a developer, I, for one, am excited about the future of Microsoft.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013Popular ReleasesFFXIV Crafting Simulator: Crafting Simulator 2.4.1: -Fixed the offset for the new patch (Auto Loading function)iBoxDB.EX - Fast Transactional NoSQL Database Resources: iBoxDB.net fast transactional nosql database 1.5.2: Easily process objects and documents, zero configuration. fast embeddable transactional nosql document database, includes CURD, QueryLanguage, Master-Master-Slave Replication, MVCC, etc. supports .net2, .net4, windows phone, mono, unity3d, node.js , copy and run. http://download-codeplex.sec.s-msft.com/Download?ProjectName=iboxdb&DownloadId=737783 Benchmark with MongoDB Compatibility more platforms for java versionneurogoody: slicebox: this is the slice box jsEvent-Based Components AppBuilder: AB3.AppDesigner.55: Iteration 55 (Feature): Moving of TargetEdge (simple wires only) by mouse.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.8.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...SharpConfig: SharpConfig 1.2: Implemented comment parsing. Comments are now part of settings and setting categories. New properties: Setting: Comment PreComments SettingCategory: Comment PreCommentsC++ REST SDK (codename "Casablanca"): C++ REST SDK 1.3.0: This release fixes multiple customer reported issues as well as the following: Full support for Dev12 binaries and project files Full support for Windows XP New sample highlighting the Client and Server APIs : BlackJack Expose underlying native handle to set custom options on http_client Improvements to Listener Library Note: Dev10 binaries have been dropped as of this release, however the Dev10 project files are still available in the Source CodeAD ACL Scanner: 1.3.2: Minor bug fixed: Powershell 4.0 will report: Select—Object: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name p is ambiguous.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 7: New feature - Added support for Immutable Collections New feature - Added WriteData and ReadData settings to DataExtensionAttribute New feature - Added reference and type name handling support to extension data New feature - Added default value and required support to constructor deserialization Change - Extension data is now written when serializing Fix - Added missing casts to JToken Fix - Fixed parsing large floating point numbers Fix - Fixed not parsing some ISO date ...RESX Manager: ResxManager 0.2.1: FIXED: Many critical bugs have been fixed. New Features Error logging for improved exception handling New toolbar Improvements of user interfaceFast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This is a complete overhaul but has the same core style. I hope you enjoy it. This version is compatible with 1.2.0.3 Please send issues to my Twitter or https://github.com/TJChap2840WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...MoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3: =========== =New Features= =========== New Markers added for Plantera's Bulb, Heart Fruits and Gold Cache. Markers now correctly display for the gems found in rock debris on the floor. =========== =Compatibility= =========== Fixed header changes found in Terraria 1.0.3.1Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.581b: Fix in place for TVDB xml issue. New* Movie - General Preferences, allow saving of ignored 'The' or 'A' to end of movie title, stored in sorttitle field. * Movie - New Way for Cropping Posters. Fixed* Movie - Rename of folders/filename. caught error message. * Movie - Fixed Bug in Save Cropped image, only saving in Pre-Frodo format if Both model selected. * Movie - Fixed Cropped image didn't take zoomed ratio into effect. * Movie - Separated Folder Renaming and File Renaming fuctions durin...SmartStore.NET - Free ASP.NET MVC Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution: SmartStore.NET 1.2.0: HighlightsMulti-store support "Trusted Shops" plugins Highly improved SmartStore.biz Importer plugin Add custom HTML content to pages Performance optimization New FeaturesMulti-store-support: now multiple stores can be managed within a single application instance (e.g. for building different catalogs, brands, landing pages etc.) Added 3 new Trusted Shops plugins: Seal, Buyer Protection, Store Reviews Added Display as HTML Widget to CMS Topics (store owner now can add arbitrary HT...New ProjectsArtezio SharePoint 2013 Workflow Activities: SharePoint Workflow 2013 doesn’t provide activities to work with permissions, we've fixed it using HttpSend activity that makes REST API calls.Dependency.Injection: An attempt to write a really simple dependency injection framework. Does property-based and recursive dependency injection. Handles singletons. Yay!DHGMS SUO Killer: SUO Killer is a Visual Studio extension to deal with the removal of SUO file to mitigate SUO related issues in Visual Studio. This project is written in C#.dynamicsheet: dynamicsheetExcel Comparator: Excel Comparator is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows the user to compare a range between two sheets. FetchAIP: FetchAIP is a utility to download the various sections of the Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) for New Zealand.Fluent Method and Type Builder: Still working on the summary.getboost: NuGet package for Boost framework.Goldstone Forum: WebForms Forum - TelerikAcademy Team ProjectGroupMe Software Development Kit: .NET Software Development Kit for http://groupme.com/ chat service.GSLMS: ----Import Excel Files Into SQL Server: Load Excel files into SQL Database without schema changes.Inaction: ?????????? jBegin: Learning ASP.net MVC from beginning, then here will be the source code for jbegin.comKDG's Statistical Quality Control Solver: This tool will include methods that can solve sample standard deviation, sample variance, median, mode, moving average, percentiles, margin of error, etc.kpi: Key Performance Indicator (KPI)????; visual studio 2010 with .NET 4.0 runtimeLECO Remote Control Client Application: Sample code and binaries are provided to demonstrate the remote control capability of a LECO Cornerstone instrument.LinkPad: My first Windows Store app intended for student to sketch up thoughts and concepts in quick diagrams.Modler.NET - Automating Graphical Data Model Co-Evolution: Modler.NET was the tool created for a Master's thesis project, which automates the co-evolution of graphical data models and the database that they represent.MyFileManager1: SummaryNever Lotto: Korean 465 Lotto Analyzer and Simulator. The real purpose of this project is to show that this kind of lotto things are just shit.NHibernate: The purpose of this project is to demo CRUD operations using NHibernate with Mono in Visual Studio 2012 using C# language. OAuth2 Authorizer: OAuth2 Authorizer helps you get the access code for a standard OAuth2 REST service that implements 3-legged authentication.Regular Expression for Excel: Regular Expression For Excel is an Excel Plugin. It provides a regular expressions EXCEL support. We can use it in the EXCEL function.Service Tester: Service Tester is an Azure Cloud based load testing application targeted at Soap Web Services which allows you to invoke your Web Service by random parameters.Simple TypeScript and C# Class Generator: Simple GUI application to generate compatible class source code for C# and TypeScript for communications between C# and TypeScript. Soccer team management: ---Spanner: No more stringly-typed web development! Build statically typed single page web applications in C#, automatically generating all HTML, JavaScript, and Knockout.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012Popular ReleasesA C# 4.0 Push Notification Helper Library for WP7.0 & WP7.1: Easy Notification 1.0.0: New Feature - Send Tile, Toast & Raw Notifications to Windows Phone Devices. New Feature - Supports Windows Phone 7.0 & Windows Phone 7.1. New Feature - Validation rules are in-built for Push Notification Messages. New Feature - Strongly typed interfaces. New Feature - Supports synchronous & asynchronous methods to send notifications. New Feature - Supports authenticated notifications using X509 Certificates. New Feature - Supports Callback Registration Requests. New Feature - S...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial captcha. Now you can easily customize the layout, s...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Online Image Editor: Online Image Editor v1.1: If you have problems with this tool, please email me at amisouvikdas@gmail.com or You can also participate this project to improve this.Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69: Fix for issue #18766: build task should not build the output if it's newer than all the input files. Fix for Issue #18764: build taks -res switch not working. update build task to concatenate input source and then minify, rather than minify and then concatenate. include resource string-replacement root name in the assumed globals list. Stop replacing new Date().getTime() with +new Date -- the latter is smaller, but turns out it executes up to 45% slower. add CSS support for single-...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...DevLib: 69721 binary dll: 69721 binary dllVidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...DotNetNuke Boards: 01.00.00: This beta release represents the end of training session 1, based on jQuery and Knockout integration in DotNetNuke 6.2.3. It is designed to allow a single user or multiple users to add/edit/delete cards but no cards can be assigned to anyone at this point. This release is not intended for production use!Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.2: 1.4.2patterns & practices: Prism: Prism for .NET 4.5: This is a release does not include any functionality changes over Prism 4.1 Desktop. These assemblies target .NET 4.5. These assemblies also were compiled against updated dependencies: Unity 3.0 and Common Service Locator (Portable Class Library).Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.8.0: Snoop 2.8.0Announcing Snoop 2.8.0! It's been exactly six months since the last release, and this one has a bunch of goodies in it. In particular, there is now a PowerShell scripting tab, compliments of Bailey Ling. With this tab, the possibilities are limitless. It basically lets you automate/script the application that you are Snooping. Bailey has a couple blog posts (one and two) on his tab already, and I am sure more is to come. Please note that if you do not have PowerShell installed, y....NET Micro Framework: .NET MF 4.3 (Beta): This is the 4.3 Beta version of the .NET Micro Framework. Feature List for v4.3 Support for Visual Studio 2012 (including the Windows Desktop Express version) All v4.2 QFEs features and bug fixes (PWM enhancements, lwIP and network driver reliability improvements, Analog Output, WinUSB and latest GCC support) Improved diagnostic information for deployment Decreased boot time Bug fixes Work Item 1736 - Create link for MFDeploy under start menu Work Item 1504 - Customizing lwIP o...New Projectsadcc2: adccAP.Framework: This a asp.net mvc3 of test web site .EFCodeFirst: Projeto criado para experimentos e estudos com o Entity FrameworkEXPS-RAT: HelloFiskalizacija za developere: Projekt je namijenjen razvojnim inženjerima, programerima, developerima i svima ostalima koji se bave razvojem programskih rješenja za fiskalne blagajne.Galleriffic App for SharePoint 2013: Galleriffic App is an app part for SharePoint 2013 to display a picture gallery with cool JQuery animations and effects. Hack.net: Hack.net is a Roguelike clone similar to NetHack or Roguelike.Inno Setup For .NET Application: This is a simple inno setup for .net developerJava Special Functions Library: Java Special Functions Library implemented as a public class part of my larger mathematical package.LocalFileOpener: The LocalFileOpener plugin opens an intent to help you easily open local files on the device under installed applications.localizr - .NET Collaborative Translation & Localization: Localizr is a platform for collaborative localization and translation of .NET projects.Metro UI CSS: Metro UI CSS a set of styles to create a site with an interface similar to Windows 8 Metro UI. MoskieDotNet: A sandbox for me learn some new technologies.Mouse Automation: Allows a user to automate repetitive clicking within EverQuestMS SQL DB Schema Updater: Simple tool for updating MS SQL database schema based on "ideal" database model.n8design Tools: Tools any Source Code by Stefan Bauer.NasosCS: ???? ?? ??????Pokemonochan: ALright this is a Pokemon MMo bound to come out someday!PotatoSoft: ?????????????!Power Mirrors: Leverage the usefulness of SQL Server mirrors using PowerShell and SMO. Create mirrors from scratch, assign witnesses and test failovers, all from PowerShell! Project13251010: sdfdReal Time Data Bus: A collection of real time data bus implementations.Ricky Tailor's ASP.NET Web 2.0 Project: 7COM0203 Web Scripting And Content Creation Task 1. SampleTFS2: Sample Projectslotcarduino - An Arduino based slotcar timing project: Slotcar timing project based on Arduino Uno/Mega 2560. Standalone system with serial enabled graphic display.System.Data.Entity.Repository: Entity framework code first framework wrapper with support for generic repository pattern, N-Tier application and Transaction Management for rapid developmentTest Marron: This project is a test to explore codeplexTmib Video Downloader: A small youtube video downloader. Created in C#Web Scripting & Content Creation: Fhame Rashid MSc Software Engineering Module Log: Web-Scripting and Content Creationwebbase: webbaseWebScriptingandContentCreation: This project is for the MSc module Web Scripting and Content Creation.Zuordnung: Zuordnung

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• Part 2&ndash;Load Testing In The Cloud

  - by Tarun Arora

  Welcome to Part 2, In Part 1 we discussed the advantages of creating a Test Rig in the cloud, the Azure edge and the Test Rig Topology we want to get to. In Part 2, Let’s start by understanding the components of Azure we’ll be making use of followed by manually putting them together to create the test rig, so… let’s get down dirty start setting up the Test Rig.  What Components of Azure will I be using for building the Test Rig in the Cloud? To run the Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Compute and to enable communication between Test Controller and Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect.  Azure Connect The Test Controller is on premise and the Test Agents are in the cloud (How will they talk?). To enable communication between the two, we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. With this you can now join Windows Azure role instances to your domain, so that you can use your existing methods for domain authentication, name resolution, or other domain-wide maintenance actions. For more details refer to an overview of Windows Azure connect. A very useful video explaining everything you wanted to know about Windows Azure connect.  Azure Compute Windows Azure compute provides developers a platform to host and manage applications in Microsoft’s data centres across the globe. A Windows Azure application is built from one or more components called ‘roles.’ Roles come in three different types: Web role, Worker role, and Virtual Machine (VM) role, we’ll be using the Worker role to set up the Test Agents. A very nice blog post discussing the difference between the 3 role types. Developers are free to use the .NET framework or other software that runs on Windows with the Worker role or Web role. Developers can also create applications using languages such as PHP and Java. More on Windows Azure Compute. Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server... Virtual Machine Size CPU Cores Memory Cost Per Hour Extra Small Shared 768 MB $0.04 Small 1 1.75 GB $0.12 Medium 2 3.50 GB $0.24 Large 4 7.00 GB $0.48 Extra Large 8 14.00 GB $0.96   You might want to review the Windows Azure Pricing FAQ. Let’s Get Started building the Test Rig… Configuration Machine Role Comments VM – 1 Domain Controller for Playpit.com On Premise VM – 2 TFS, Test Controller On Premise VM – 3 Test Agent Cloud   In this blog post I would assume that you have the domain, Team Foundation Server and Test Controller Installed and set up already. If not, please refer to the TFS 2010 Installation Guide and this walkthrough on MSDN to set up your Test Controller. You can also download a preconfigured TFS 2010 VM from Brian Keller's blog, Brian also has some great hands on Labs on TFS 2010 that you may want to explore. I. Lets start building VM – 3: The Test Agent Download the Windows Azure SDK and Tools Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Azure Project using the Cloud Template                   Choose the Worker Role for reasons explained in the earlier post         The WorkerRole.cs implements the Run() and OnStart() methods, no code changes required. You should be able to compile the project and run it in the compute emulator (The compute emulator should have been installed as part of the Windows Azure Toolkit) on your local machine.                   We will only be making changes to WindowsAzureProject, open ServiceDefinition.csdef. Ensure that the vmsize is small (remember the cost chart above). Import the “Connect” module. I am importing the Connect module because I need to join the Worker role VM to the Playpit domain. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect"/> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg and note that settings with key ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.%%%%’ have been added to the configuration file. This is because you decided to import the connect module. See the config below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>             Let’s go step by step and understand all the highlighted parameters and where you can find the values for them.       osFamily – By default this is set to 1 (Windows Server 2008 SP2). Change this to 2 if you want the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The Advantage of using osFamily = “2” is that you get Powershell 2.0 rather than Powershell 1.0. In Powershell 2.0 you could simply use “powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted ./myscript.ps1” and it will work while in Powershell 1.0 you will have to change the registry key by including the following in your command file “reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell /v ExecutionPolicy /d Unrestricted /f” before you can execute any power shell. The other reason you might want to move to os2 is if you wanted IIS 7.5.       Activation Token – To enable communication between the on premise machine and the Windows Azure Worker role VM both need to have the same token. Log on to Windows Azure Management Portal, click on Connect, click on Get Activation Token, this should give you the activation token, copy the activation token to the clipboard and paste it in the configuration file. Note – Later in the blog I’ll be showing you how to install connect on the on premise machine.                       EnableDomainJoin – Set the value to true, ofcourse we want to join the on windows azure worker role VM to the domain.       DomainFQDN, DomainControllerFQDN, DomainAccountName, DomainPassword, DomainOU, Administrators – This information is specific to your domain. I have extracted this information from the ‘service manager’ and ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’. Also, i created a new Domain-OU namely ‘CloudInstances’ so all my cloud instances joined to my domain show up here, this is optional. You can encrypt the DomainPassword – refer to the instructions here. Or hold fire, I’ll be covering that when i come to certificates and encryption in the coming section.       Now once you have filled all this information up, the configuration file should look something like below, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Next we will be enabling the Remote Desktop module in to the ServiceDefinition.csdef, we could make changes manually or allow a beautiful wizard to help us make changes. I prefer the second option. So right click on the Windows Azure project and choose Publish       Now once you get the publish wizard, if you haven’t already you would be asked to import your Windows Azure subscription, this is simply the Msdn subscription activation key xml. Once you have done click Next to go to the Settings page and check ‘Enable Remote Desktop for all roles’.       As soon as you do that you get another pop up asking you the details for the user that you would be logging in with (make sure you enter a reasonable expiry date, you do not want the user account to expire today). Notice the more information tag at the bottom, click that to get access to the certificate section. See screen shot below.       From the drop down select the option to create a new certificate        In the pop up window enter the friendly name for your certificate. In my case I entered ‘WAC – Test Rig’ and click ok. This will create a new certificate for you. Click on the view button to see the certificate details. Do you see the Thumbprint, this is the value that will go in the config file (very important). Now click on the Copy to File button to copy the certificate, we will need to import the certificate to the windows Azure Management portal later. So, make sure you save it a safe location.                                Click Finish and enter details of the user you would like to create with permissions for remote desktop access, once you have entered the details on the ‘Remote desktop configuration’ screen click on Ok. From the Publish Windows Azure Wizard screen press Cancel. Cancel because we don’t want to publish the role just yet and Yes because we want to save all the changes in the config file.       Now if you go to the ServiceDefinition.csdef file you will see that the RemoteAccess and RemoteForwarder roles have been imported for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteAccess" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteForwarder" /> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Now go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg file and you see a whole bunch for setting “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.%%%” values added for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="MIIBnQYJKoZIhvcNAQcDoIIBjjCCAYoCAQAxggFOMIIBSgIBADAyMB4xHDAaBgNVBAMME1dpbmRvd 3MgQXp1cmUgVG9vbHMCEGa+B46voeO5T305N7TSG9QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQAEggEABg4ol5Xol66Ip6QKLbAPWdmD4ae ADZ7aKj6fg4D+ATr0DXBllZHG5Umwf+84Sj2nsPeCyrg3ZDQuxrfhSbdnJwuChKV6ukXdGjX0hlowJu/4dfH4jTJC7sBWS AKaEFU7CxvqYEAL1Hf9VPL5fW6HZVmq1z+qmm4ecGKSTOJ20Fptb463wcXgR8CWGa+1w9xqJ7UmmfGeGeCHQ4QGW0IDSBU6ccg vzF2ug8/FY60K1vrWaCYOhKkxD3YBs8U9X/kOB0yQm2Git0d5tFlIPCBT2AC57bgsAYncXfHvPesI0qs7VZyghk8LVa9g5IqaM Cp6cQ7rmY/dLsKBMkDcdBHuCTAzBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwFAYIKoZIhvcNAwcECDRVifSXbA43gBApNrp40L1VTVZ1iGag+3O1" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2012-11-27T23:59:59.0000000+00:00" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Certificates> <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="AA23016CF0BDFC344400B5B82706B608B92E4217" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" /> </Certificates> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>          Okay let’s look at them one at a time,       Enabled - Yes, we would like to enable Remote Access.       AccountUserName – This is the user name you entered while you were on the publish windows azure role screen, as detailed above.       AccountEncrytedPassword – Try and decode that, the certificate is used to encrypt the password you specified for the user account. Remember earlier i said, either use the instructions or wait and i’ll be showing you encryption, now the user account i am using for rdp has the same password as my domain password, so i can simply copy the value of the AccountEncryptedPassword to the DomainPassword as well.       AccountExpiration – This is the expiration as you specified in the wizard earlier, make sure your account does not expire today.       Remote Forwarder – Check out the documentation, below is how I understand it, -- One role in an application that implements a remote desktop connection must import the RemoteForwarder module. The two modules work together to enable the remote desktop connections to role instances. -- If you have multiple roles defined in the service model, it does not matter which role you add the RemoteForwarder module to, but you must add it to only one of the role definitions.       Certificate – Remember the certificate thumbprint from the wizard, the on premise machine and windows azure role machine that need to speak to each other must have the same thumbprint. More on that when we install Windows Azure connect Endpoints on the on premise machine. As i said earlier, in this blog post, I’ll be showing you the manual process so i won’t be scripting any star up tasks to install the test agent or register the test agent with the TFS Server. I’ll be showing you all this cool stuff in the next blog post, that’s because it’s important to understand the manual side of it, it becomes easier for you to troubleshoot in case something fails. Having said that, the changes we have made are sufficient to spin up the Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent VM, have it connected with the play.pit.com domain and have remote access enabled on it. Before we deploy the Test Agent VM we need to set up Windows Azure Connect on the TFS Server. II. Windows Azure Connect: Setting up Connect on VM – 2 i.e. TFS & Test Controller Glad you made it so far, now to enable communication between the on premise TFS/Test Controller and Azure-ed Test Agent we need to enable communication. We have set up the Azure connect module in the Test Agent configuration, now the connect end points need to be enabled on the on premise machines, let’s have a look at how we can do this. Log on to VM – 2 running the TFS Server and Test Controller Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network Click on Virtual Network, if you already have a subscription you should see the below screen shot, if not, you would be asked to complete the subscription first        Click on Install Local Endpoints from the top left on the panel and you get a url appended with a token id in it, remember the token i showed you earlier, in theory the token you get here should match the token you added to the Test Agent config file.        Copy the url to the clip board and paste it in IE explorer (important, the installation at present only works out of IE and you need to have cookies enabled in order to complete the installation). As stated in the pop up, you can NOT download and run the software later, you need to run it as is, since it contains a token. Once the installation completes you should see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray.                         Right click the Azure Connect icon, choose Diagnostics and refer to this link for diagnostic detail terminology. NOTE – Unfortunately I could not see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray, a bit of binging with Google revealed that the azure connect icon is only shown when the ‘Windows Azure Connect Endpoint’ Service is started. So go to services.msc and make sure that the service is started, if not start it, unfortunately again, the service did not start for me on a manual start and i realised that one of the dependant services was disabled, you can look at the service dependencies and start them and then start windows azure connect. Bottom line, you need to start Windows Azure connect service before you can proceed. Please refer here on MSDN for more on Troubleshooting Windows Azure connect. (Follow the next step as well)   Now go back to the Windows Azure Management Portal and from Groups and Roles create a new group, lets call it ‘Test Rig’. Make sure you add the VM – 2 (the TFS Server VM where you just installed the endpoint).       Now if you go back to the Azure Connect icon in the system tray and click ‘Refresh Policy’ you will notice that the disconnected status of the icon should change to ready for connection. III. Importing Certificate in to Windows Azure Management Portal But before that you need to import the certificate you created in Step I in to the Windows Azure Management Portal. Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on ‘Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN’ and then ‘Management Certificates’ followed by Add Certificates as shown in the screen shot below        Browse to the location where you saved the certificate earlier, remember… Refer to Step I in case you forgot.        Now you should be able to see the imported certificate here, make sure the thumbprint of the certificate matches the one you inserted in the config files        IV. Publish Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent Having completed I, II and III, you are ready to publish the Test Agent VM – 3 to the cloud. Go to Visual Studio and right click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. Verify the infomration in the wizard, from the advanced settings tab, you can also enabled capture of intellitrace or profiling information.         Click Next and Click Publish! From the view menu bar select the Windows Azure Activity Log window.       Now you should be able to see the deployment progress in real time.             In the Windows Azure Management Portal, you should also be able to see the progress of creation of a new Worker Role.       Once the deployment is complete you should be able to RDP (go to run prompt type mstsc and in the pop up the machine name) in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM from the Playpit network using the domain admin user account. In case you are unable to log in to the Test Agent using the domain admin user account it means the process of joining the Test Agent to the domain has failed! But the good news is, because you imported the connect module, you can connect to the Test Agent machine using Windows Azure Management Portal and troubleshoot the reason for failure, you will be able to log in with the user name and password you specified in the config file for the keys ‘RemoteAccess.AccountUsername, RemoteAccess.EncryptedPassword (just that enter the password unencrypted)’, fix it or manually join the machine to the domain. Once you have managed to Join the Test Agent VM to the Domain move to the next step.      So, log in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM with the Playpit Domain Administrator and verify that you can log in, the machine is connected to the domain and the connect service is successfully running. If yes, give your self a pat on the back, you are 80% mission accomplished!         Go to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network, click on Groups and Roles and click on Test Rig, click Edit Group, the edit the Test Rig group you created earlier. In the Connect to section, click on Add to select the worker role you have just deployed. Also, check the ‘Allow connections between endpoints in the group’ with this you will enable to communication between test controller and test agents and test agents/test agents. Click Save.      Now, you are ready to deploy the Test Agent software on the Worker Role Test Agent VM and configure it to work with the Test Controller. V. Configuring VM – 3: Installing Test Agent and Associating Test Agent to Controller Log in to the Worker Role Test Agent VM that you have just successfully deployed, make sure you log in with the domain administrator account. Download the All Agents software from MSDN, ‘en_visual_studio_agents_2010_x86_x64_dvd_509679.iso’, extract the iso and navigate to where you have extracted the iso. In my case, i have extracted the iso to “C:\Resources\Temp\VsAgentSetup”. Open the Test Agent folder and double click on setup.exe. Once you have installed the Test Agent you should reach the configuration window. If you face any issues installing TFS Test Agent on the VM, refer to the walkthrough on MSDN.       Once you have successfully installed the Test Agent software you will need to configure the test agent. Right click the test agent configuration tool and run as a different user. i.e. an Administrator. This is really to run the configuration wizard with elevated privileges (you might have UAC block something's otherwise).        In the run options, you can select ‘service’ you do not need to run the agent as interactive un less you are running coded UI tests. I have specified the domain administrator to connect to the TFS Test Controller. In real life, i would never do that, i would create a separate test user service account for this purpose. But for the blog post, we are using the most powerful user so that any policies or restrictions don’t block you.        Click the Apply Settings button and you should be all green! If not, the summary usually gives helpful error messages that you can resolve and proceed. As per my experience, you may run in to either a permission or a firewall blocking communication issue.        And now the moment of truth! Go to VM –2 open up Visual Studio and from the Test Menu select Manage Test Controller       Mission Accomplished! You should be able to see the Test Agent that you have just configured here,         VI. Creating and Running Load Tests on your brand new Azure-ed Test Rig I have various blog posts on Performance Testing with Visual Studio Ultimate, you can follow the links and videos below, Blog Posts: - Part 1 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 2 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 3 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Videos: - Test Tools Configuration & Settings in Visual Studio - Why & How to Record Web Performance Tests in Visual Studio Ultimate - Goal Driven Load Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate Now that you have created your load tests, there is one last change you need to make before you can run the tests on your Azure Test Rig, create a new Test settings file, and change the Test Execution method to ‘Remote Execution’ and select the test controller you have configured the Worker Role Test Agent against in our case VM – 2 So, go on, fire off a test run and see the results of the test being executed on the Azur-ed Test Rig. Review and What’s next? A quick recap of the benefits of running the Test Rig in the cloud and what i will be covering in the next blog post AND I would love to hear your feedback! Advantages Utilizing the power of Azure compute to run a heavy virtual user load. Benefiting from the Azure flexibility, destroy Test Agents when not in use, takes < 25 minutes to spin up a new Test Agent. Most important test Network Latency, (network latency and speed of connection are two different things – usually network latency is very hard to test), by placing the Test Agents in Microsoft Data centres around the globe, one can actually test the lag in transferring the bytes not because of a slow connection but because the page has been requested from the other side of the globe. Next Steps The process of spinning up the Test Agents in windows Azure is not 100% automated. I am working on the Worker process and power shell scripts to make the role deployment, unattended install of test agent software and registration of the test agent to the test controller automated. In the next blog post I will show you how to make the complete process unattended and automated. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. See you in Part III.   Share this post : CodeProject

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• Tile Collision & Sliding against tiles

  - by Devin Rawlek

  I have a tile based map with a top down camera. My sprite stops moving when he collides with a wall in any of the four directions however I am trying to get the sprite to slide along the wall if more than one directional key is pressed after being stopped. Tiles are set to 32 x 32. Here is my code; // Gets Tile Player Is Standing On var splatterTileX = (int)player.Position.X / Engine.TileWidth; var splatterTileY = (int)player.Position.Y / Engine.TileHeight; // Foreach Layer In World Splatter Map Layers foreach (var layer in WorldSplatterTileMapLayers) { // If Sprite Is Not On Any Edges if (splatterTileX < layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY < layer.Height - 1 && splatterTileY > 0) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West } // If Sprite Is Not On Any X Edges And Is On -Y Edge if (splatterTileX < layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West } // If Sprite Is On +X And -Y Edges if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West } // If Sprite Is On +X Edge And Y Is Not On Any Edge if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY < layer.Height - 1 && splatterTileY > 0) { tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North } // If Sprite Is On +X And +Y Edges if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North } // If Sprite Is Not On Any X Edges And Is On +Y Edge if (splatterTileX < (layer.Width - 1) && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East } // If Sprite Is On -X And +Y Edges if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East } // If Sprite Is On -X Edge And Y Is Not On Any Edges if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY < (layer.Height - 1) && splatterTileY > 0) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South } // If Sprite Is In The Top Left Corner if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South } // Creates A New Rectangle For TileN tileN.TileRectangle = new Rectangle(splatterTileX * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And N Tile var tileNCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileN.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileNE tileNE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And NE Tile var tileNECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileNE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileE tileE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, splatterTileY * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And E Tile var tileECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileSE tileSE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And SE Tile var tileSECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileSE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileS tileS.TileRectangle = new Rectangle(splatterTileX * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And S Tile var tileSCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileS.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileSW tileSW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And SW Tile var tileSWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileSW.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileW tileW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, splatterTileY * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And Current Tile var tileWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileW.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileNW tileNW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And Current Tile var tileNWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileNW.TileRectangle); // Allow Sprite To Occupy More Than One Tile if (tileNCollision && tileN.TileBlocked == false) { tileN.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileECollision && tileE.TileBlocked == false) { tileE.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileSCollision && tileS.TileBlocked == false) { tileS.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileWCollision && tileW.TileBlocked == false) { tileW.TileOccupied = true; } // Player Up if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.W) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Up == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Up; if (tileN.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileNCollision && tileN.TileBlocked || tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = -1; } else if (tileN.TileOccupied) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = -1; } } // Player Down if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.S) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Down == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Down; // Check Collision With Tiles if (tileS.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked || tileSCollision && tileS.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = 1; } else if (tileS.TileOccupied) { if (tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = 1; } } // Player Left if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Left == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Left; if (tileW.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileWCollision && tileW.TileBlocked || tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = -1; } else if (tileW.TileOccupied) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = -1; } } // Player Right if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.D) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Right == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Right; if (tileE.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked || tileECollision && tileE.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = 1; } else if (tileE.TileOccupied) { if (tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = 1; } } I have my tile detection setup so the 8 tiles around the sprite are the only ones detected. The collision variable is true if the sprites rectangle intersects with one of the detected tiles. The sprites origin is centered at 16, 16 on the image so whenever this point goes over to the next tile it calls the surrounding tiles. I am trying to have collision detection like in the game Secret of Mana. If I remove the diagonal checks the sprite will pass through thoses tiles because whichever tile the sprites origin is on will be the detection center. So if the sprite is near the edge of the tile and then goes up it looks like half the sprite is walking through the wall. Is there a way for the detection to occur for each tile the sprite's rectangle touches?

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• How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Have a huge folder of images needing tweaks? A few hundred adjustments may seem like a big, time consuming job—but read one to see how Photoshop can do repetitive tasks automatically, even if you don’t know how to program! Photoshop Actions are a simple way to program simple routines in Photoshop, and are a great time saver, allowing you to re-perform tasks over and over, saving you minutes or hours, depending on the job you have to work on. See how any bunch of images and even some fairly complicated photo tweaking can be done automatically to even hundreds of images at once. When Can I use Photoshop Actions? Photoshop actions are a way of recording the tools, menus, and keys pressed while using the program. Each time you use a tool, adjust a color, or use the brush, it can be recorded and played back over any file Photoshop can open. While it isn’t perfect and can get very confused if not set up correctly, it can automate editing hundreds of images, saving you hours and hours if you have big jobs with complex edits. The image illustrated above is a template for a polaroid-style picture frame. If you had several hundred images, it would actually be a simple matter to use Photoshop Actions to create hundreds of new images inside the frame in almost no time at all. Let’s take a look at how a simple folder of images and some Image editing automation can turn lots of work into a simple and easy job. Creating a New Action Actions is a default part of the “Essentials” panel set Photoshop begins with as a default. If you can’t see the panel button under the “History” button, you can find Actions by going to Window > Actions or pressing Alt + F9. Click the in the Actions Panel, pictured in the previous illustration on the left. Choose to create a “New Set” in order to begin creating your own custom Actions. Name your action set whatever you want. Names are not relevant, you’ll simply want to make it obvious that you have created it. Click OK. Look back in the layers panel. You’ll see your new Set of actions has been added to the list. Click it to highlight it before going on. Click the again to create a “New Action” in your new set. If you care to name your action, go ahead. Name it after whatever it is you’re hoping to do—change the canvas size, tint all your pictures blue, send your image to the printer in high quality, or run multiple filters on images. The name is for your own usage, so do what suits you best. Note that you can simplify your process by creating shortcut keys for your actions. If you plan to do hundreds of edits with your actions, this might be a good idea. If you plan to record an action to use every time you use Photoshop, this might even be an invaluable step. When you create a new Action, Photoshop automatically begins recording everything you do. It does not record the time in between steps, but rather only the data from each step. So take your time when recording and make sure you create your actions the way you want them. The square button stops recording, and the circle button starts recording again. With these basics ready, we can take a look at a sample Action. Recording a Sample Action Photoshop will remember everything you input into it when it is recording, even specific photographs you open. So begin recording your action when your first photo is already open. Once your first image is open, click the record button. If you’re already recording, continue on. Using the File > Place command to insert the polaroid image can be easier for Actions to deal with. Photoshop can record with multiple open files, but it often gets confused when you try it. Keep your recordings as simple as possible to ensure your success. When the image is placed in, simply press enter to render it. Select your background layer in your layers panel. Your recording should be following along with no trouble. Double click this layer. Double clicking your background layer will create a new layer from it. Allow it to be renamed “Layer 0” and press OK. Move the “polaroid” layer to the bottom by selecting it and dragging it down below “Layer 0” in the layers panel. Right click “Layer 0” and select “Create Clipping Mask.” The JPG image is cropped to the layer below it. Coincidentally, all actions described here are being recorded perfectly, and are reproducible. Cursor actions, like the eraser, brush, or bucket fill don’t record well, because the computer uses your mouse movements and coordinates, which may need to change from photo to photo. Click the to set your Photograph layer to a “Screen” blending mode. This will make the image disappear when it runs over the white parts of the polaroid image. With your image layer (Layer 0) still selected, navigate to Edit > Transform > Scale. You can use the mouse to resize your Layer 0, but Actions work better with absolute numbers. Visit the Width and Height adjustments in the top options panel. Click the chain icon to link them together, and adjust them numerically. Depending on your needs, you may need to use more or less than 30%. Your image will resize to your specifications. Press enter to render, or click the check box in the top right of your application. + Click on your bottom layer, or “polaroid” in this case. This creates a selection of the bottom layer. Navigate to Image > Crop in order to crop down to your bottom layer selection Your image is now resized to your bottommost layer, and Photoshop is still recording to that effect. For additional effect, we can navigate to Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary to rotate our image by a small tilt. Choosing 3 degrees clockwise , we click OK to render our choice. Our image is rotated, and this step is recorded. Photoshop will even record when you save your files. With your recording still going, find File > Save As. You can easily tell Photoshop to save in a new folder, other than the one you have been working in, so that your files aren’t overwritten. Navigate to any folder you wish, but do not change the filename. If you change the filename, Photoshop will record that name, and save all your images under whatever you type. However, you can change your filetype without recording an absolute filename. Use the pulldown tab and select a different filetype—in this instance, PNG. Simply click “Save” to create a new PNG based on your actions. Photoshop will record the destination and the change in filetype. If you didn’t edit the name of your file, it will always use the variable filename of any image you open. (This is very important if you want to edit hundreds of images at once!) Click File > Close or the red “X” in the corner to close your filetype. Photoshop can record that as well. Since we have already saved our image as a JPG, click “NO” to not overwrite your original image. Photoshop will also record your choice of “NO” for subsequent images. In your Actions panel, click the stop button to complete your action. You can always click the record button to add more steps later, if you want. This is how your new action looks with its steps expanded. Curious how to put it into effect? Read on to see how simple it is to use that recording you just made. Editing Lots of Images with Your New Action Open a large number of images—as many as you care to work with. Your action should work immediately with every image on screen, although you may have to test and re-record, depending on how you did. Actions don’t require any programming knowledge, but often can get confused or work in a counter-intuitive way. Record your action until it is perfect. If it works once without errors, it’s likely to work again and again! Find the “Play” button in your Actions Panel. With your custom action selected, click “Play” and your routine will edit, save, and close each file for you. Keep bashing “Play” for each open file, and it will keep saving and creating new files until you run out of work you need to do. And in mere moments, a complicated stack of work is done. Photoshop actions can be very complicated, far beyond what is illustrated here, and can even be combined with scripts and other actions, creating automated creation of potentially very complex files, or applying filters to an entire portfolio of digital photos. Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to [email protected], and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: All images copyright Stephanie Pragnell and author Eric Z Goodnight, protected under Creative Commons. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Smart Taskbar Is a Thumb Friendly Android Task Launcher Comix is an Awesome Comics Archive Viewer for Linux Get the MakeUseOf eBook Guide to Speeding Up Windows for Free Need Tech Support? Call the Star Wars Help Desk! [Video Classic] Reclaim Vertical UI Space by Adding a Toolbar to the Left or Right Side of Firefox Androidify Turns You into an Android-style Avatar

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• Using a portable USB monitor in Ubuntu 13.04 (AOC e1649Fwu - DisplayLink)

  Having access to a little bit of IT hardware extravaganza isn't that easy here in Mauritius for exactly two reasons - either it is simply not available or it is expensive like nowhere. Well, by chance I came across an advert by a local hardware supplier and their offer of the week caught my attention - a portable USB monitor. Sounds cool, and the specs are okay as well. It's completely driven via USB 2.0, has a light weight, the dimensions would fit into my laptop bag and the resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels is okay for a second screen. Long story, short ending: I called them and only got to understand that they are out of stock - how convenient! Well, as usual I left some contact details and got the regular 'We call you back' answer. Surprisingly, I didn't receive a phone call as promised and after starting to complain via social media networks they finally came back to me with new units available - and *drum-roll* still the same price tag as promoted (and free delivery on top as one of their employees lives in Flic en Flac). Guess, it was a no-brainer to get at least one unit to fool around with. In worst case it might end up as image frame on the shelf or so... The usual suspects... Ubuntu first! Of course, the packing mentions only Windows or Mac OS as supported operating systems and without hesitation at all, I hooked up the device on my main machine running on Ubuntu 13.04. Result: Blackout... Hm, actually not the situation I was looking for but okay can't be too difficult to get this piece of hardware up and running. Following the output of syslogd (or dmesg if you prefer) the device has been recognised successfully but we got stuck in the initialisation phase. Oct 12 08:17:23 iospc2 kernel: [69818.689137] usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pciOct 12 08:17:23 iospc2 kernel: [69818.800306] usb 2-4: device descriptor read/64, error -32Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.043620] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=17e9, idProduct=4107Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.043630] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.043636] usb 2-4: Product: e1649FwuOct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.043642] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: DisplayLinkOct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.043647] usb 2-4: SerialNumber: FJBD7HA000778Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 kernel: [69819.046073] hid-generic 0003:17E9:4107.0008: hiddev0,hidraw5: USB HID v1.10 Device [DisplayLink e1649Fwu] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-4/input1Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 5: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-4"Oct 12 08:17:24 iospc2 mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 5 was not an MTP deviceOct 12 08:17:30 iospc2 kernel: [69825.411220] [drm] vendor descriptor length:17 data:17 5f 01 00 15 05 00 01 03 00 04Oct 12 08:17:30 iospc2 kernel: [69825.498778] udl 2-4:1.0: fb1: udldrmfb frame buffer deviceOct 12 08:17:30 iospc2 kernel: [69825.498786] [drm] Initialized udl 0.0.1 20120220 on minor 1Oct 12 08:17:30 iospc2 kernel: [69825.498909] usbcore: registered new interface driver udl The device has been recognised as USB device without any question and it is listed properly: # lsusb...Bus 002 Device 005: ID 17e9:4107 DisplayLink ... A quick and dirty research on the net gave me some hints towards the udlfb framebuffer device for USB DisplayLink devices. By default this kernel module is blacklisted $ less /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf | grep udl#blacklist udlblacklist udlfb and it is recommended to load it manually. So, unloading the whole udl stack and giving udlfb a shot: Oct 12 08:22:31 iospc2 kernel: [70126.642809] usbcore: registered new interface driver udlfb But still no reaction on the external display which supposedly should have been on and green. Display okay? Test run on Windows Just to be on the safe side and to exclude any hardware related defects or whatsoever - you never know what happened during delivery. I moved the display to a new position on the opposite side of my laptop, installed the display drivers first in Windows Vista (I know, I know...) as recommended in the manual, and then finally hooked it up on that machine. Tada! Display has been recognised correctly and I have a proper choice between cloning and extending my desktop. Testing whether the display is working properly - using Windows Vista Okay, good to know that there is nothing wrong on the hardware side just software... Back to Ubuntu - Kernel too old Some more research on Google and various hits recommend that the original displaylink driver has been merged into the recent kernel development and one should manually upgrade the kernel image (and both header) packages for Ubuntu. At least kernel 3.9 or higher would be necessary, and so I went out to this URL: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ and I downloaded all the good stuff from the v3.9-raring directory. The installation itself is easy going via dpkg: $ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.9.0-030900-generic_3.9.0-030900.201304291257_amd64.deb$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.9.0-030900_3.9.0-030900.201304291257_all.deb$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.9.0-030900-generic_3.9.0-030900.201304291257_amd64.deb As with any kernel upgrades it is necessary to restart the system in order to use the new one. Said and done: $ uname -r3.9.0-030900-generic And now connecting the external display gives me the following output in /var/log/syslog: Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2314.984293] usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci-pciOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.096257] usb 2-4: device descriptor read/64, error -32Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.337105] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=17e9, idProduct=4107Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.337115] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.337122] usb 2-4: Product: e1649FwuOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.337127] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: DisplayLinkOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.337132] usb 2-4: SerialNumber: FJBD7HA000778Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338292] udlfb: DisplayLink e1649Fwu - serial #FJBD7HA000778Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338299] udlfb: vid_17e9&pid_4107&rev_0129 driver's dlfb_data struct at ffff880117e59000Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338303] udlfb: console enable=1Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338306] udlfb: fb_defio enable=1Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338309] udlfb: shadow enable=1Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338468] udlfb: vendor descriptor length:17 data:17 5f 01 0015 05 00 01 03 00 04Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338473] udlfb: DL chip limited to 1500000 pixel modesOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.338565] udlfb: allocated 4 65024 byte urbsOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.343592] hid-generic 0003:17E9:4107.0009: hiddev0,hidraw5: USB HID v1.10 Device [DisplayLink e1649Fwu] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-4/input1Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 6: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-4"Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 6 was not an MTP deviceOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.426583] udlfb: 1366x768 @ 59 Hz valid modeOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.426589] udlfb: Reallocating framebuffer. Addresses will change!Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.428338] udlfb: 1366x768 @ 59 Hz valid modeOct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.428343] udlfb: set_par mode 1366x768Oct 12 17:51:36 iospc2 kernel: [ 2315.430620] udlfb: DisplayLink USB device /dev/fb1 attached. 1366x768 resolution. Using 4104K framebuffer memory Okay, that's looks more promising but still only blackout on the external screen... And yes, due to my previous modifications I swapped the blacklisted kernel modules: $ less /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf | grep udlblacklist udl#blacklist udlfb Silly me! Okay, back to the original situation in which udl is allowed and udlfb blacklisted. Now, the logging looks similar to this and the screen shows those maroon-brown and azure-blue horizontal bars as described on other online resources. Oct 15 21:27:23 iospc2 kernel: [80934.308238] usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pciOct 15 21:27:23 iospc2 kernel: [80934.420244] usb 2-4: device descriptor read/64, error -32Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.660822] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=17e9, idProduct=4107Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.660832] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.660838] usb 2-4: Product: e1649FwuOct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.660844] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: DisplayLinkOct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.660850] usb 2-4: SerialNumber: FJBD7HA000778Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 kernel: [80934.663391] hid-generic 0003:17E9:4107.0008: hiddev0,hidraw5: USB HID v1.10 Device [DisplayLink e1649Fwu] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-4/input1Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 5: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-4"Oct 15 21:27:24 iospc2 mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 5 was not an MTP deviceOct 15 21:27:25 iospc2 kernel: [80935.742407] [drm] vendor descriptor length:17 data:17 5f 01 00 15 05 00 01 03 00 04Oct 15 21:27:25 iospc2 kernel: [80935.834403] udl 2-4:1.0: fb1: udldrmfb frame buffer deviceOct 15 21:27:25 iospc2 kernel: [80935.834416] [drm] Initialized udl 0.0.1 20120220 on minor 1Oct 15 21:27:25 iospc2 kernel: [80935.836389] usbcore: registered new interface driver udlOct 15 21:27:25 iospc2 kernel: [80936.021458] [drm] write mode info 153 Next, it's time to enable the display for our needs... This can be done either via UI or console, just as you'd prefer it. Adding the external USB display under Linux isn't an issue after all... Settings Manager => Display Personally, I like the console. With the help of xrandr we get the screen identifier first $ xrandrScreen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3200 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm...DVI-0 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm   1366x768       60.0*+ and then give it the usual shot with auto-configuration. Let the system decide what's best for your hardware... $ xrandr --output DVI-0 --off$ xrandr --output DVI-0 --auto And there we go... Cloned output of main display: New kernel, new display... The external USB display works out-of-the-box with a Linux kernel > 3.9.0. Despite of a good number of resources it is absolutely not necessary to create a Device or Screen section in one of Xorg.conf files. This information belongs to the past and is not valid on kernel 3.9 or higher. Same hardware but Windows 8 Of course, I wanted to know how the latest incarnation from Redmond would handle the new hardware... Flawless! Most interesting aspect here: I did not use the driver installation medium on purpose. And I was right... not too long afterwards a dialog with the EULA of DisplayLink appeared on the main screen. And after confirmation of same it took some more seconds and the external USB monitor was ready to rumble. Well, and not only that one... but see for yourself. This time Windows 8 was the easiest solution after all. Resume I can highly recommend this type of hardware to anyone asking me. Although, it's dimensions are 15.6" it is actually lighter than my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and it still fits into my laptop bag without any issues. From now on... no more single screen while developing software on the road!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 19, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 19, 2012Popular ReleasesToolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011: XrmToolBox (1.0.0.0): Initial Release Contains following tools: Attribute Bulk Updater Iconator Role Updater Scripts Finder SiteMap Editor Solution Import View Layout Replicator WebResources Manager Also include the sample tool described in the documentation "How to develop your own tool" More tools to come later...NB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module: NB_Store v2.3.3 Rel0: DNN 5.3.2 and above, and DNN 6 Compatible - Some release notes are discussed here. Important : v2.3.3 requires the Back Office module to be placed onto a seperate page to the productlist. During the upgrade process, this module retains your existing configuration by not overwriting any existing settings and templates. If you wish to reset your configuration to gain all new settings and templates, please review this KB article. Please view the following documentation if you are installing ...F# PowerPack with F# Compiler Source Drops: PowerPack for FSharp 3.0 + .NET 4.x + VS2010: This is a release of the old FSharp Power Pack binaries recompiled for F# 3.0, .NET 4.0/4.5 and Silveright 5. NOTE: This is for F# 3.0 & .NET 4.0 or F# 3.0 & Silverlight 5 NOTE: The assemblies are no longer strong named NOTE: The assemblies are not added to the GAC NOTE: In some cases functionality overlaps with F# 3.0, e.g. SI Units of measurecodeSHOW: codeSHOW AppPackage Release 16: This release is a package file built out of Visual Studio that you can side load onto your machine if for some reason you don't have access to the Windows Store. To install it, just unzip and run the .ps1 file using PowerShell (right click | run with PowerShell). Attention: if you want to download the source code for codeSHOW, you're in the wrong place. You need to go to the SOURCE CODE tab.Move Mouse: Move Mouse 2.5.3: FIXED - Issue where it errors on load if the screen saver interval is over 333 minutes.LINUX????????: LINUX????????: LINUX????????cnbeta: cnbeta: cnbetaCSDN ??: CSDN??????: CSDN??????PowerShell Community Extensions: 2.1.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.1.1 Release NotesDec 16, 2012 This version of PSCX supports both Windows PowerShell 2.0 and 3.0. Bug fix for HelpUri error with the Get-Help proxy command. See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.VidCoder: 1.4.11 Beta: Added Hungarian translation, thanks to Brechler Zsolt. Update HandBrake core to SVN 5098. This update should fix crashes on some files. Updated the enqueue split button to fit in better with the active Windows theme. Updated presets to use x264 preset/profile/level.???: Cnblogs: CNBLOGSSandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.6.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...Electricity, Gas and Temperature Monitoring with Netduino Plus: V1.0.1 Netduino Plus Monitoring: This is the first stable release from the Netduino Plus Monitoring program. Bugfixing The code is enhanced at some places in respect to the V0.6.1 version There is a possibility to add multiple S0 meters Website for realtime display of data Website for configuring the Netduino Comments are welcome! Additions will not be made to this version. This is the first and last major Netduino Plus V1 release. The new development will take place with the Netduino Plus V2 development board in mi...Windows Store Application Library: Windows Store Application Library - 1.1.1.0: Windows Store Application Library StoreAppLib can be installed from Visual Studio "Manage NuGet Packages" tool. This release of Windows Store Application Library contains following controls and utilities. DatePicker control TimePicker control PageHeaderTextBlock control with Global Navigation Menu Popup manager AppBarButton control TapEffect animation DateTimeConverter ConcatenationConverter CountConverterCRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1116.8): [FIX] Fixed issue not displaying CRM system button images correctly (incorrect path in file VisualRibbonEditor.exe.config)My Expenses Windows Store LOB App Demo: My Expenses Version 1: This is version 1 of the MyExpenses Windows 8 line of business demo app. The app is written in XAML and C#. It calls a WCF service that works with a SQL Server database. The app uses the Callisto toolkit. You can get it at https://github.com/timheuer/callisto. The Expenses.sql file contains the SQL to create the Expenses database. The ExpensesWCFService.zip file contains the WCF service, also written in C#. You should create a WCF service. Create an Entity Framework model and point it to...Manage upload files for SP 2010: Manage upload files (SP 2010) 1.0.0: Version 1.0.0: Manage upload file size on specific application page Simple in use Simple installation Work on: SharePoint Foundation 2010 Sharepoint Server 2010 (Standard, Enterprise) Localized: English RussianMCEBuddy Viewer: MCEBuddy Viewer 1.0.0 Beta: MCEBuddy Viewer for MCEBuddy 2.x Windows Media Center Add-On to view the current job status of MCEbuddy. Requirements: 1. Installed MCEBuddy 2.x (tested on release 2.3.7-2.3.10) http://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com 2. Windows Media Center (tested on Windows 7 Pro 32-bit&64-bit, Windows 8 Pro with WMC 64-bit) Before installing the new version of Plug-in uninstall old version through windows control panelBlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.4: 2012.12.13 Ver5.7.4 (1)Web???????、???????????????????????????????????????????VFPX: ssClasses A1.0: My initial release. See https://vfpx.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=ssClasses&referringTitle=Home for a brief description of what is inside this releaseNew ProjectsAutonomic Middleware: Reflective middleware using workflow that makes the middleware autonomic.Battleforge: Assault: A card battle game. This project is being built using Silverlight 4 in C#.ChurajPatterns: Design patterns testing and overview console application.FimExplorer: Tool for executing XPath queries against FIM without going through it's web portal.Financial Management Studio: This is a WPF application for the financial management. Will use bunch of technologies such as: MVVM, Microsoft Extension Framework and Entities Framework.iJob: Do u no what is this?Developed with C#.net3.5 MSSQL2008Interaction Production Server: A software based networked lighting controller. It brokers many protocols together to allow easy setup and development of new stage lighting controllers.Interface weaver Custom Tool: A CustomTool for vs auto implementing interface based on aspects (auto INotifyPropertychanged data context implementation, auto command mapping...).IntroductionWeb: This is the second time for us to build something extraordinaryiSteam: iSteam is a product being developed focusing on the Steamworks platform, to advertise and centralize everything about steam in one application.iSun_PLS: iSun PLS is a Photo libary System, to help you manager your pictures on your server!LSharp: A Scripting Language Interpreter for .NETMassive Dangerzone: Don't try this at home.MinGuid: An alternative / replacement for those long Guid strings, simply call the function in the library which generates the Unique 16 character string.Nx Portable Framework: Framework aiming to speed up cross platform movile developement.Orchard Training Demo module: Demo Orchard module for training purposes. This module completes the training materials at http://english.orchardproject.hu/Training/Oriol ASAP: ASAPPanopticonize API: This project provides code samples for the panopticonize.com video thumbnailing API.Registry Editor Navigator: The small utility that takes a path and makes Regedit open to that path. Similar to RegJump but it has UI, uses clipboard and has a global keyboard hook. SafetyExam: ??????????????Simple Queuing System: This project is created to show you how queuing system can be implemented in MSMQ in C#. The sample is implemented from real life queuing system. TypeScript plugin enhancements for VS 2010 add-in: This add-in allows to - Compile .ts files by saveVisual Studio Help Downloader 2012: Tool for downloading the Visual Studio 2012 help packages for offline useWebGoat.NET test repository: THis is a clone of the WebGoat.NET project hosted at GitHub, provided here for those who need to be able to have a TFS-accessible copy of WebGoat.WebPythonHost: A .NET application hosting web python environment.Wpf Sqlite Management: about 1 month i publish this project and use avalon edit and avalon doc in my project WPFSchematics: The WPFSchematics is a vector graphic interactive system,and based on WPF graphics technology.XEasyFileSearch: easy and quick file searcherZweiBooks: Plugin for a Bukkit-Server.

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• ASP.NET MVC: Moving code from controller action to service layer

  - by DigiMortal

  I fixed one controller action in my application that doesn’t seemed good enough for me. It wasn’t big move I did but worth to show to beginners how nice code you can write when using correct layering in your application. As an example I use code from my posting ASP.NET MVC: How to implement invitation codes support. Problematic controller action Although my controller action works well I don’t like how it looks. It is too much for controller action in my opinion. [HttpPost] public ActionResult GetAccess(string accessCode) {     if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(accessCode.Trim()))     {         ModelState.AddModelError("accessCode", "Insert invitation code!");         return View();     }       Guid accessGuid;       try     {         accessGuid = Guid.Parse(accessCode);     }     catch     {         ModelState.AddModelError("accessCode", "Incorrect format of invitation code!");         return View();                    }       using(var ctx = new EventsEntities())     {         var user = ctx.GetNewUserByAccessCode(accessGuid);         if(user == null)         {             ModelState.AddModelError("accessCode", "Cannot find account with given invitation code!");             return View();         }           user.UserToken = User.Identity.GetUserToken();         ctx.SaveChanges();     }       Session["UserId"] = accessGuid;       return Redirect("~/admin"); } Looking at this code my first idea is that all this access code stuff must be located somewhere else. We have working functionality in wrong place and we should do something about it. Service layer I add layers to my application very carefully because I don’t like to use hand grenade to kill a fly. When I see real need for some layer and it doesn’t add too much complexity I will add new layer. Right now it is good time to add service layer to my small application. After that it is time to move code to service layer and inject service class to controller. public interface IUserService {     bool ClaimAccessCode(string accessCode, string userToken,                          out string errorMessage);       // Other methods of user service } I need this interface when writing unit tests because I need fake service that doesn’t communicate with database and other external sources. public class UserService : IUserService {     private readonly IDataContext _context;       public UserService(IDataContext context)     {         _context = context;     }       public bool ClaimAccessCode(string accessCode, string userToken, out string errorMessage)     {         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(accessCode.Trim()))         {             errorMessage = "Insert invitation code!";             return false;         }           Guid accessGuid;         if (!Guid.TryParse(accessCode, out accessGuid))         {             errorMessage = "Incorrect format of invitation code!";             return false;         }           var user = _context.GetNewUserByAccessCode(accessGuid);         if (user == null)         {             errorMessage = "Cannot find account with given invitation code!";             return false;         }           user.UserToken = userToken;         _context.SaveChanges();           errorMessage = string.Empty;         return true;     } } Right now I used simple solution for errors and made access code claiming method to follow usual TrySomething() methods pattern. This way I can keep error messages and their retrieval away from controller and in controller I just mediate error message from service to view. Controller Now all the code is moved to service layer and we need also some modifications to controller code so it makes use of users service. I don’t show here DI/IoC details about how to give service instance to controller. GetAccess() action of controller looks like this right now. [HttpPost] public ActionResult GetAccess(string accessCode) {     var userToken = User.Identity.GetUserToken();     string errorMessage;       if (!_userService.ClaimAccessCode(accessCode, userToken,                                       out errorMessage))     {                       ModelState.AddModelError("accessCode", errorMessage);         return View();     }       Session["UserId"] = Guid.Parse(accessCode);     return Redirect("~/admin"); } It’s short and nice now and it deals with web site part of access code claiming. In the case of error user is shown access code claiming view with error message that ClaimAccessCode() method returns as output parameter. If everything goes fine then access code is reserved for current user and user is authenticated. Conclusion When controller action grows big you have to move code to layers it actually belongs. In this posting I showed you how I moved access code claiming functionality from controller action to user service class that belongs to service layer of my application. As the result I have controller action that coordinates the user interaction when going through access code claiming process. Controller communicates with service layer and gets information about how access code claiming succeeded.

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• Big GRC: Turning Data into Actionable GRC Intelligence

  - by Jenna Danko

  While it’s no longer headline news that Governments have carried out large scale data-mining programmes aimed at terrorism detection and identifying other patterns of interest across a wide range of digital data sources, the debate over the ethics and justification over this action, will clearly continue for some time to come. What is becoming clear is that these programmes are a framework for the collation and aggregation of massive amounts of unstructured data and from this, the creation of actionable intelligence from analyses that allowed the analysts to explore and extract a variety of patterns and then direct resources. This data included audio and video chats, phone calls, photographs, e-mails, documents, internet searches, social media posts and mobile phone logs and connections. Although Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) professionals are not looking at the implementation of such programmes, there are many similar GRC “Big data” challenges to be faced and potential lessons to be learned from these high profile government programmes that can be applied a lot closer to home. For example, how can GRC professionals collect, manage and analyze an enormous and disparate volume of data to create and manage their own actionable intelligence covering hidden signs and patterns of criminal activity, the early or retrospective, violation of regulations/laws/corporate policies and procedures, emerging risks and weakening controls etc. Not exactly the stuff of James Bond to be sure, but it is certainly more applicable to most GRC professional’s day to day challenges. So what is Big Data and how can it benefit the GRC process? Although it often varies, the definition of Big Data largely refers to the following types of data: Traditional Enterprise Data – includes customer information from CRM systems, transactional ERP data, web store transactions, and general ledger data. Machine-Generated /Sensor Data – includes Call Detail Records (“CDR”), weblogs and trading systems data. Social Data – includes customer feedback streams, micro-blogging sites like Twitter, and social media platforms like Facebook. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that data volume is growing 40% per year, and will grow 44x between 2009 and 2020. But while it’s often the most visible parameter, volume of data is not the only characteristic that matters. In fact, according to sources such as Forrester there are four key characteristics that define big data: Volume. Machine-generated data is produced in much larger quantities than non-traditional data. This is all the data generated by IT systems that power the enterprise. This includes live data from packaged and custom applications – for example, app servers, Web servers, databases, networks, virtual machines, telecom equipment, and much more. Velocity. Social media data streams – while not as massive as machine-generated data – produce a large influx of opinions and relationships valuable to customer relationship management as well as offering early insight into potential reputational risk issues. Even at 140 characters per tweet, the high velocity (or frequency) of Twitter data ensures large volumes (over 8 TB per day) need to be managed. Variety. Traditional data formats tend to be relatively well defined by a data schema and change slowly. In contrast, non-traditional data formats exhibit a dizzying rate of change. Without question, all GRC professionals work in a dynamic environment and as new services, new products, new business lines are added or new marketing campaigns executed for example, new data types are needed to capture the resultant information.  Value. The economic value of data varies significantly. Typically, there is good information hidden amongst a larger body of non-traditional data that GRC professionals can use to add real value to the organisation; the greater challenge is identifying what is valuable and then transforming and extracting that data for analysis and action. For example, customer service calls and emails have millions of useful data points and have long been a source of information to GRC professionals. Those calls and emails are critical in helping GRC professionals better identify hidden patterns and implement new policies that can reduce the amount of customer complaints.   Now on a scale and depth far beyond those in place today, all that unstructured call and email data can be captured, stored and analyzed to reveal the reasons for the contact, perhaps with the aggregated customer results cross referenced against what is being said about the organization or a similar peer organization on social media. The organization can then take positive actions, communicating to the market in advance of issues reaching the press, strengthening controls, adjusting risk profiles, changing policy and procedures and completely minimizing, if not eliminating, complaints and compensation for that specific reason in the future. In this one example of many similar ones, the GRC team(s) has demonstrated real and tangible business value. Big Challenges - Big Opportunities As pointed out by recent Forrester research, high performing companies (those that are growing 15% or more year-on-year compared to their peers) are taking a selective approach to investing in Big Data.  "Tomorrow's winners understand this, and they are making selective investments aimed at specific opportunities with tangible benefits where big data offers a more economical solution to meet a need." (Forrsights Strategy Spotlight: Business Intelligence and Big Data, Q4 2012) As pointed out earlier, with the ever increasing volume of regulatory demands and fines for getting it wrong, limited resource availability and out of date or inadequate GRC systems all contributing to a higher cost of compliance and/or higher risk profile than desired – a big data investment in GRC clearly falls into this category. However, to make the most of big data organizations must evolve both their business and IT procedures, processes, people and infrastructures to handle these new high-volume, high-velocity, high-variety sources of data and be able integrate them with the pre-existing company data to be analyzed. GRC big data clearly allows the organization access to and management over a huge amount of often very sensitive information that although can help create a more risk intelligent organization, also presents numerous data governance challenges, including regulatory compliance and information security. In addition to client and regulatory demands over better information security and data protection the sheer amount of information organizations deal with the need to quickly access, classify, protect and manage that information can quickly become a key issue  from a legal, as well as technical or operational standpoint. However, by making information governance processes a bigger part of everyday operations, organizations can make sure data remains readily available and protected. The Right GRC & Big Data Partnership Becomes Key  The "getting it right first time" mantra used in so many companies remains essential for any GRC team that is sponsoring, helping kick start, or even overseeing a big data project. To make a big data GRC initiative work and get the desired value, partnerships with companies, who have a long history of success in delivering successful GRC solutions as well as being at the very forefront of technology innovation, becomes key. Clearly solutions can be built in-house more cheaply than through vendor, but as has been proven time and time again, when it comes to self built solutions covering AML and Fraud for example, few have able to scale or adapt appropriately to meet the changing regulations or challenges that the GRC teams face on a daily basis. This has led to the creation of GRC silo’s that are causing so many headaches today. The solutions that stand out and should be explored are the ones that can seamlessly merge the traditional world of well-known data, analytics and visualization with the new world of seemingly innumerable data sources, utilizing Big Data technologies to generate new GRC insights right across the enterprise.Ultimately, Big Data is here to stay, and organizations that embrace its potential and outline a viable strategy, as well as understand and build a solid analytical foundation, will be the ones that are well positioned to make the most of it. A Blueprint and Roadmap Service for Big Data Big data adoption is first and foremost a business decision. As such it is essential that your partner can align your strategies, goals, and objectives with an architecture vision and roadmap to accelerate adoption of big data for your environment, as well as establish practical, effective governance that will maintain a well managed environment going forward. Key Activities: While your initiatives will clearly vary, there are some generic starting points the team and organization will need to complete: Clearly define your drivers, strategies, goals, objectives and requirements as it relates to big data Conduct a big data readiness and Information Architecture maturity assessment Develop future state big data architecture, including views across all relevant architecture domains; business, applications, information, and technology Provide initial guidance on big data candidate selection for migrations or implementation Develop a strategic roadmap and implementation plan that reflects a prioritization of initiatives based on business impact and technology dependency, and an incremental integration approach for evolving your current state to the target future state in a manner that represents the least amount of risk and impact of change on the business Provide recommendations for practical, effective Data Governance, Data Quality Management, and Information Lifecycle Management to maintain a well-managed environment Conduct an executive workshop with recommendations and next steps There is little debate that managing risk and data are the two biggest obstacles encountered by financial institutions.  Big data is here to stay and risk management certainly is not going anywhere, and ultimately financial services industry organizations that embrace its potential and outline a viable strategy, as well as understand and build a solid analytical foundation, will be best positioned to make the most of it. Matthew Long is a Financial Crime Specialist for Oracle Financial Services. He can be reached at matthew.long AT oracle.com.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, December 18, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, December 18, 2012Popular Releasessb0t v.5: sb0t 5 Template for Visual Studio: This is the official sb0t 5 template for Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 for C# programmers. Use this template to create your own sb0t 5 extensions.F# PowerPack with F# Compiler Source Drops: PowerPack for FSharp 3.0 + .NET 4.x + VS2010: This is a release of the old FSharp Power Pack binaries recompiled for F# 3.0, .NET 4.0/4.5 and Silveright 5. NOTE: This is for F# 3.0 & .NET 4.0 or F# 3.0 & Silverlight 5 NOTE: The assemblies are no longer strong named NOTE: The assemblies are not added to the GAC NOTE: In some cases functionality overlaps with F# 3.0, e.g. SI Units of measurecodeSHOW: codeSHOW AppPackage Release 16: This release is a package file built out of Visual Studio that you can side load onto your machine if for some reason you don't have access to the Windows Store. To install it, just unzip and run the .ps1 file using PowerShell (right click | run with PowerShell). Attention: if you want to download the source code for codeSHOW, you're in the wrong place. You need to go to the SOURCE CODE tab.Move Mouse: Move Mouse 2.5.3: FIXED - Issue where it errors on load if the screen saver interval is over 333 minutes.LINUX????????: LINUX????????: LINUX????????cnbeta: cnbeta: cnbetaCSDN ??: CSDN??????: CSDN??????PowerShell Community Extensions: 2.1.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.1.1 Release NotesDec 16, 2012 This version of PSCX supports both Windows PowerShell 2.0 and 3.0. Bug fix for HelpUri error with the Get-Help proxy command. See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.VidCoder: 1.4.11 Beta: Added Hungarian translation, thanks to Brechler Zsolt. Update HandBrake core to SVN 5098. This update should fix crashes on some files. Updated the enqueue split button to fit in better with the active Windows theme. Updated presets to use x264 preset/profile/level.BarbaTunnel: BarbaTunnel 6.0: Check Version History for more information about this release.???: Cnblogs: CNBLOGSSandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.6.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...Electricity, Gas and Temperature Monitoring with Netduino Plus: V1.0.1 Netduino Plus Monitoring: This is the first stable release from the Netduino Plus Monitoring program. Bugfixing The code is enhanced at some places in respect to the V0.6.1 version There is a possibility to add multiple S0 meters Website for realtime display of data Website for configuring the Netduino Comments are welcome! Additions will not be made to this version. This is the first and last major Netduino Plus V1 release. The new development will take place with the Netduino Plus V2 development board in mi...CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1116.8): [FIX] Fixed issue not displaying CRM system button images correctly (incorrect path in file VisualRibbonEditor.exe.config)My Expenses Windows Store LOB App Demo: My Expenses Version 1: This is version 1 of the MyExpenses Windows 8 line of business demo app. The app is written in XAML and C#. It calls a WCF service that works with a SQL Server database. The app uses the Callisto toolkit. You can get it at https://github.com/timheuer/callisto. The Expenses.sql file contains the SQL to create the Expenses database. The ExpensesWCFService.zip file contains the WCF service, also written in C#. You should create a WCF service. Create an Entity Framework model and point it to...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.4: 2012.12.13 Ver5.7.4 (1)Web???????、???????????????????????????????????????????VFPX: ssClasses A1.0: My initial release. See https://vfpx.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=ssClasses&referringTitle=Home for a brief description of what is inside this releaseLayered Architecture Solution Guidance (LASG): LASG 1.0.0.8 for Visual Studio 2012: PRE-REQUISITES Open GAX (Please install Oct 4, 2012 version) Microsoft® System CLR Types for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Shared Management Objects Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 (for the generated code) Windows Azure SDK (for layered cloud applications) Silverlight 5 SDK (for Silverlight applications) THE RELEASE This release only works on Visual Studio 2012. Known Issue If you choose the Database project, the solution unfolding time will be slow....Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 2.0: Prva prava produkcijska verzija - Zakon je tu, ova je verzija uskladena sa trenutno važecom Tehnickom specifikacijom (v1.2. od 04.12.2012.) i spremna je za produkcijsko korištenje. Verzije iza ove ce ovisiti o naknadnim izmjenama Zakona i/ili Tehnicke specifikacije, odnosno, o eventualnim greškama u radu/zahtjevima community-a za novim feature-ima. Novosti u v2.0 su: - That assembly does not allow partially trusted callers (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/699) - scheme IznosType...Bootstrap Helpers: Version 1: First releaseNew ProjectsAsh Launcher: The ash launcher is a launcher for the ash modpack for minecraftAsynchronous PowerShell Module: psasync is a PowerShell module containing simple helper functions to allow for multi-threaded operations using Runspaces. ClearVss: ClearVss clear any reference of Visual SourceSafe in yours solution. You'll no longer have to delete and modify solution files by hand. It's developed in C#dewitcher Framework: A rly cool Framework, made for use with COSMOS. - Console-class that supports colored, horizontal- and vertical- centered text printing - more =PGTD Pad: Notepad for GTD TechniqueHTML/JavaScript Rendering Web Part: HTML/JavaScript Render Web Part - replaces the SharePoint Content Editor Web Part (CEWP). Permits flying in script, HTML, etc. to a SharePoint Page.Kracken Generator and Architecture Tool for Visual Studio 2012: Welcome to Kracken a suite of tools for creating code from Architecture models. This program is the pet project of Tracy Rooks.Logica101: Aplicación para visualización de procesos algebraicosManaged DismApi Wrapper: This is a managed wrapper for the native Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) API. This allows .NET developers to call into the native API instead Mvc web-ajax: A Javascript library for displaying lists and editing objects N2F Yverdon InfoBoxes: A simple extension (plus some resources) for managing information boxes on a given page.N2F Yverdon Solar Flare Reflector: The solar flare reflector provides minimal base-range protection for your N2F Yverdon installation against solar flare interference.newplay: goodPhnyx: The project is under re-structuring - look backPigeonCms: Cms made with c# (using NET framework 3.5, SqlServer2005 or Express edition) with many Joomla-like features. Poppæa: Very early version of a c# library for cassandra nosql database. For now it adds support for the new CQL3 protocol in cassandra 1.2+. Proximity Tapper: Proximity Tapper is a developer tool for working with NFC on both Windows Phone and Windows, and allows you to build NFC apps in the Windows Phone emulator.SharePoint 2010 SpellCheck: SharePoint 2010 SpellCheck Project will let you enable spelling check functionality in SharePoint 2010 using SpellCheck.asmxShift8Read Community Credit Tool (DotNetNuke Module): A simple DotNetNuke Module I created for submitting content to Community-Credit.comTempistGamer Client: The tempistgamers game client manager. Includes a cross-platform, cross-game UI to allow for player interactivity. While the program itself manages the games.testtom12122012tfs02: fdstesttom12172012tfs02: uioTEviewer: The Transient Event Viewer is an application designed for visualization and analysis of transient events.trucho-JCI: summaryTypeSharp: TypeSharp is a C# to TypeScript code generatorWeiboWPSdk: To make wp applications about sina weibo more easily.XNA Games Core: XNA Core Game Programming library. Uses interfaces and delegates, in tune with the .NET way, with inheritence used for implementation reuse.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 12, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 12, 2012Popular ReleasesHyperCrunch Druid: HyperCrunch Druid 1.0.2102: For all documentation and feedback, visit http://druid.hypercrunch.com.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.1: Some important bug fixes and couple of new features were added. There are no major changes to the sample website. Source code could be downloaded from the Source Code section selecting branch release-6.1. Thus just builds of GoogleMap Control are issued here in this release. NuGet Package GoogleMap Control 6.1 NuGet Package FeaturesBounds property to provide ability to create a map by center and bounds as well; Setting in markup <artem:GoogleMap ID="GoogleMap1" runat="server" MapType="HY...Bundle Transformer - a modular extension for ASP.NET Web Optimization Framework: Bundle Transformer 1.6.5: Version: 1.6.5 Published: 10/12/2012 In the configuration elements css and js added the usePreMinifiedFiles attribute, which enables/disables usage of pre-minified files; Added translator-adapter, which produces translation of TypeScript-code to JS-code; In BundleTransformer.MicrosoftAjax added support of the Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69; In BundleTransformer.Yui added support of the YUI Compressor for .NET 2.1.0.0; In BundleTransformer.Csso added support of the CSSO version 1.3.4. ...OrgCharts for SharePoint: OrgChart web part for SharePoint: Key features: • Central License management so no need to remember the license key details when adding to pages. • Builtin-asp.net caching for high performing loading of the Org Chart. • Create Org Chart from SharePoint list data OR SQL server queries. • Multi-level drill through • Use SharePoint lists or SQL Data as datasource • Support node level Images. {Example: Peoples my site photos} • AJAX enabled for fast client side processing • Optionally set the TAB field for an Auto-generated TAB i...mojoPortal: 2.3.9.3: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2393-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0, but we recommend you to use .NET 4, we will probably drop support for .NET 3.5 once .NET 4.5 is available The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code and are not intended for use in Visual Studio. To download the source code see getting the lates...OstrivDB: OstrivDB 0.1: - Storage configuration: objects serialization (Xml, Json), storage file compressing, data block size. - Caching for Select queries. - Indexing. - Batch of queries. - No special query language (LINQ used). - Integrated sorting and paging. - Multithreaded data processing.D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial captcha. Now you can easily customize the layout, s...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69: Fix for issue #18766: build task should not build the output if it's newer than all the input files. Fix for Issue #18764: build taks -res switch not working. update build task to concatenate input source and then minify, rather than minify and then concatenate. include resource string-replacement root name in the assumed globals list. Stop replacing new Date().getTime() with +new Date -- the latter is smaller, but turns out it executes up to 45% slower. add CSS support for single-...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...VidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.2: 1.4.2patterns & practices: Prism: Prism for .NET 4.5: This is a release does not include any functionality changes over Prism 4.1 Desktop. These assemblies target .NET 4.5. These assemblies also were compiled against updated dependencies: Unity 3.0 and Common Service Locator (Portable Class Library).New ProjectsATM Stimulate Using WCF Service: This project is my homework Basic Events: Basic Events makes it easier for developers to use out of the box events with basic properties in their eventargs like string message and datetime.BCCP-DEX: sumary not avaibleBing Maps TypeScript Declarations: Unofficial TypeScript declarations for the Bing Maps v7 AJAX Control.CodePlex Practice: Testing CodePlexDepIC: Dependency Injection Container with a very simple API.DNN TaskManger: This is the a project build with the DotNetNuke task manager tutorial videos series.Document Importer For SharePoint: Quickly import large volumes of documents into SharePoint document libraries using an effective user interface.Drop Me!!: cOMING SOON...wORKING ON THISGesPro: PFE de fin de BAC MB MLGL2DX (OpenGL to DirectX Wrapper Library): GL2DX is a wrapper library that allows you to build your OpenGL app for WinRT.MoControls - XNA 4 GUI Controls Library: XNA 4 GUI Controls Library aimed to simplify porting of a XNA 4.0 GUI interface to various platforms.Morph implementation in Delphi: Morph Protocol implementation written in Delphi XE3. Morph is a very powerful application level protocol. For more about Morph, go to http://morph.codeplex.com/Musicallis: Projeto da disciplina de Técnicas de Programação Aplicada II da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - SP.NHook - A debugger API for your hooking projects: A debugger API for your hooking projectsOperation Timber System: This is a Timber system aimed at merchants/wholesalers/Mills. It is only in design phase.Oryon .Net Extension Methods Library: This project contains a lot of useful extension methods for .Net Applications.OstrivDB: OstrivDB is an embedded NoSQL database engine.Outreach02: A research project for website development.PARCIAL-CP-2012: Proyecto De Calidad y Pruebas de Software - Examen ParcialProject13261011: dfdsfProject13271011: 11project-3D-fabien: C# project 3D IN4M12 -->http://www.esiee.fr/~mustafan/IN4M12-13/Pulsar Programming Language: Pulsar, is a free open source programming language alternative to Assembly. Create your dream Operating System without using Assembly, or C#, or C++!Scoot: A rowing club management application.Sfaar Bytex: an hexadecimal file readerSSIS RAW File Viewer: SSIS 2008 RAW file viewer.testddgit1011201201: ttesttom10112012tfs02: fdsf fsd???WindowsPhone???: ???Windows Phone??????www.yidingcan.com?????。??????、??

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 18, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 18, 2013Popular ReleasesVoya Media: Voya Media v. 1.2.255: Voya Media is free, open-source and provides one central place to play and organize all your music, pictures and videos. Voya Media | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ Features: Scans disk drives and network shares for valid media files. Generates playlist tags based on directory names. Supports MP3 tags and cover images. Supports built-in and external SRT/SUB subtitles. Gets TV Show episode details from the tvrage.com API. Gets Movie details from the themoviedb.org API. Supports Med...Aphid: Aphid 0.1.0.17 Alpha: Added several samples Fixed + operator bugpatterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Cloud Design Patterns: 1st drop of Cloud Design Patterns project. It contains 14 patterns with 6 related guidance.Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.582b: New* Both - Added 'An' as option to ignore in title * Movie - Renaming - added %Z - Sorttitle to Legend * Movie - Renaming - added %O - Audio Channels to Legend * Movie - Remove a poster source from priority list. Reset List back to defaults. * Made Media Companion truly portable application. Fixed* Movie - browse for Poster Or Fanart, allows for jpg, tbn, png and bmp images * Movie - Alt Fanart Browser - Url or Browse window now fully visible. * Movie - Manual renaming checks if 'Use Fold...Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 8: Fix - Fixed not writing string quotes when QuoteName is falsePowerShell Community Extensions: 3.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 3.1 Release NotesOct 17, 2013 This version of PSCX supports Windows PowerShell 3.0 and 4.0 See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.SQL Power Doc: Version 1.0.2.1: Misc. bug fixes Added logic to resolve members of a Windows Group server login Added columns to Excel workbooks to show definitions for server permissions, server roles, database permissions, and database rolesNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module: NB_Store v2.3.8 Rel1: v2.3.8 Is now DNN6 and DNN7 compatible NOTE: NB_Store v2.3.8 is NOT compatible with DNN5. SOURCE CODE : https://github.com/leedavi/NB_Store (Source code has been moved to GitHub, due to issues with codeplex SVN and the inability to move easily to GIT on codeplex)Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.9): This new version includes: - Download latest status update and use it as vertex tooltip - Limit the timelines to parse to me, my friends or both - Fixed some reported bugs about the fan page and group importer - Fixed the login bug reported latelyTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: You can now backspace in number fields Items added in 1.2.0.3 no longer corrupt player files Buff durations capped at 9999999 Item stacks capped at 9999999 Version info added Prefix IDs corrected Shoe and Eye color box are now properly clickable Moved Bank and Safe into their own tab Users will now be notified of new updatesPython Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0: PTVS 2.0 We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 RTM. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, IPython, and cross platform and cross language debugging support. QUICK VIDEO OVERVIEW For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this v...Collection Commander for Configuration Manager 2012: CMCollCtr 1.0.0: Change log: - MSI Setup - UI Improved - CM12 Console integration - New Powershell code snippets - Client Center IntegrationSandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.8.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...Fast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 3.4: fixes for new version look up.New ProjectsA Program to Calculate the Sum of Two Numbers: Dennis Gaya - University of HertfordshireAllow users to change their Active Directory password from SharePoint 2013: Allow users to change their Active Directory password from SharePoint 2013 user menu contextAutoCAD Code Pack: AutoCADCodePack is a powerful library that help you to develop AutoCAD plugins using the AutoCAD .NET API.Core Engine: A game engine, written by engineers, for engineers.EmeraldForum: A simple forumFcdbas: FcdbasFreedom: ...High School Behaviour Log: A web based tool for recording student detentions, behaviour issues as well as referrals and positive behaviour. Integrated with school's SIMS.net MIS system.htmlcxx unicode version: thanks for Davi de Castro Reis and Robson Braga Ara?o's work. also thanks for Kasper Peeters 's tree.hhLets Learn DirectX 11.1 Series: Lets Learn DirectX 11.1 is a project run by Ernest Loveland to make knowledge about DirectX 11.1 development more public and freely available.Migrate CPPUnit to VS2013: migrate CPPUnit to VS2013Poll System: Poll system for educational purposePort Layer: ????????，???????R.M.B: JUST XIXIRecetas_LosBorbotones: Recetas Los BorbotonesScrolltastic-Skin: Imagine A Free DotNetNuke responsive Skin, Which Will Make Your Wishes Come True. Sharepoint and web service: This is Sharepoint 2010 project, after deploy it, you can use javascript (ajax) to access sharepoint list, call a custom web service. Everything are very easy!SourceSareProject: 00TestWebApi: WebApi serviceTFSBuildMonitor: Application that in its current shape let you monitor build queues and finished builds in an easier way than what is possible throug the built in Build ExplorerTigerProjects: This project is to create a online RSS reader similar as Google ReaderVottReader: It is project simple reader and viewer for http://vott.ru site.WinFormStudy: C#??

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• Adventures in Windows 8: Placing items in a GridView with a ColumnSpan or RowSpan

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  Currently working on a Windows 8 app for an important client, I will be writing about small issues, tips and tricks, ideas and whatever occurs to me during the development and the integration of this app. When working with a GridView, it is quite common to use a VariableSizedWrapGrid as the ItemsPanel. This creates a nice flowing layout which will auto-adapt for various resolutions. This is ideal when you want to build views like the Windows 8 start menu. However immediately we notice that the Start menu allows to place items on one column (Smaller) or two columns (Larger). This switch happens through the AppBar. So how do we implement that in our app? Using ColumnSpan and RowSpan When you use a VariableSizedWrapGrid directly in your XAML, you can attach the VariableSizedWrapGrid.ColumnSpan and VariableSizedWrapGrid.RowSpan attached properties directly to an item to create the desired effect. For instance this code create this output (shown in Blend but it runs just the same): <VariableSizedWrapGrid ItemHeight="100" ItemWidth="100" Width="200" Orientation="Horizontal"> <Rectangle Fill="Purple" /> <Rectangle Fill="Orange" /> <Rectangle Fill="Yellow" VariableSizedWrapGrid.ColumnSpan="2" /> <Rectangle Fill="Red" VariableSizedWrapGrid.ColumnSpan="2" VariableSizedWrapGrid.RowSpan="2" /> <Rectangle Fill="Green" VariableSizedWrapGrid.RowSpan="2" /> <Rectangle Fill="Blue" /> <Rectangle Fill="LightGray" /> </VariableSizedWrapGrid> Using the VariableSizedWrapGrid as ItemsPanel When you use a GridView however, you typically bind the ItemsSource property to a collection, for example in a viewmodel. In that case, you want to be able to switch the ColumnSpan and RowSpan depending on properties on the item. I tried to find a way to bind the VariableSizedWrapGrid.ColumnSpan attached property on the GridView’s ItemContainerStyle template to an observable property on the item, but it didn’t work. Instead, I decided to use a StyleSelector to switch the GridViewItem’s style. Here’s how: First I added my two GridViews to my XAML as follows: <Page.Resources> <local:MainViewModel x:Key="Main" /> <DataTemplate x:Key="DataTemplate1"> <Grid Background="{Binding Brush}"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding BrushCode}" /> </Grid> </DataTemplate> </Page.Resources> <Page.DataContext> <Binding Source="{StaticResource Main}" /> </Page.DataContext> <Grid Background="{StaticResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}" Margin="20"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <GridView ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource DataTemplate1}" VerticalAlignment="Top"> <GridView.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <VariableSizedWrapGrid ItemHeight="150" ItemWidth="150" /> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </GridView.ItemsPanel> </GridView> <GridView Grid.Column="1" ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource DataTemplate1}" VerticalAlignment="Top"> <GridView.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <VariableSizedWrapGrid ItemHeight="100" ItemWidth="100" /> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </GridView.ItemsPanel> </GridView> </Grid> The MainViewModel looks like this: public class MainViewModel { public IList<Item> Items { get; private set; } public MainViewModel() { Items = new List<Item> { new Item { Brush = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Red) }, new Item { Brush = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Blue) }, new Item { Brush = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green), }, // And more... }; } } As for the Item class, I am using an MVVM Light ObservableObject but you can use your own simple implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged of course: public class Item : ObservableObject { public const string ColSpanPropertyName = "ColSpan"; private int _colSpan = 1; public int ColSpan { get { return _colSpan; } set { Set(ColSpanPropertyName, ref _colSpan, value); } } public SolidColorBrush Brush { get; set; } public string BrushCode { get { return Brush.Color.ToString(); } } } Then I copied the GridViewItem’s style locally. To do this, I use Expression Blend’s functionality. It has the disadvantage to copy a large portion of XAML to your application, but the HUGE advantage to allow you to change the look and feel of your GridViewItem everywhere in the application. For example, you can change the selection chrome, the item’s alignments and many other properties. Actually everytime I use a ListBox, ListView or any other data control, I typically copy the item style to a resource dictionary in my application and I tweak it. Note that Blend for Windows 8 apps is automatically installed with every edition of Visual Studio 2012 (including Express) so you have no excuses anymore not to use Blend :) Open MainPage.xaml in Expression Blend by right clicking on the MainPage.xaml file in the Solution Explorer and selecting Open in Blend from the context menu. Note that the items do not look very nice! The reason is that the default ItemContainerStyle sets the content’s alignment to “Center” which I never quite understood. Seems to me that you rather want the content to be stretched, but anyway it is easy to change.   Right click on the GridView on the left and select Edit Additional Templates, Edit Generated Item Container (ItemContainerStyle), Edit a Copy. In the Create Style Resource dialog, enter the name “DefaultGridViewItemStyle”, select “Application” and press OK. Side note 1: You need to save in a global resource dictionary because later we will need to retrieve that Style from a global location. Side note 2": I would rather copy the style to an external resource dictionary that I link into the App.xaml file, but I want to keep things simple here. Blend switches in Template edit mode. The template you are editing now is inside the ItemContainerStyle and will govern the appearance of your items. This is where, for instance, the “checked” chrome is defined, and where you can alter it if you need to. Note that you can reuse this style for all your GridViews even if you use a different DataTemplate for your items. Makes sense? I probably need to think about writing another blog post dedicated to the ItemContainerStyle :) In the breadcrumb bar on top of the page, click on the style icon. The property we want to change now can be changed in the Style instead of the Template, which is a better idea. Blend is not in Style edit mode, as you can see in the Objects and Timeline pane. In the Properties pane, in the Search box, enter the word “content”. This will filter all the properties containing that partial string, including the two we are interested in: HorizontalContentAlignment and VerticalContentAlignment. Set these two values to “Stretch” instead of the default “Center”. Using the breadcrumb bar again, set the scope back to the Page (by clicking on the first crumb on the left). Notice how the items are now showing as squares in the first GridView. We will now use the same ItemContainerStyle for the second GridView. To do this, right click on the second GridView and select Edit Additional Templates, Edit Generate Item Container, Apply Resource, DefaultGridViewItemStyle. The page now looks nicer: And now for the ColumnSpan! So now, let’s change the ColumnSpan property. First, let’s define a new Style that inherits the ItemContainerStyle we created before. Make sure that you save everything in Blend by pressing Ctrl-Shift-S. Open App.xaml in Visual Studio. Below the newly created DefaultGridViewItemStyle resource, add the following style: <Style x:Key="WideGridViewItemStyle" TargetType="GridViewItem" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultGridViewItemStyle}"> <Setter Property="VariableSizedWrapGrid.ColumnSpan" Value="2" /> </Style> Add a new class to the project, and name it MainItemStyleSelector. Implement the class as follows: public class MainItemStyleSelector : StyleSelector { protected override Style SelectStyleCore(object item, DependencyObject container) { var i = (Item)item; if (i.ColSpan == 2) { return Application.Current.Resources["WideGridViewItemStyle"] as Style; } return Application.Current.Resources["DefaultGridViewItemStyle"] as Style; } } In MainPage.xaml, add a resource to the Page.Resources section: <local:MainItemStyleSelector x:Key="MainItemStyleSelector" /> In MainPage.xaml, replace the ItemContainerStyle property on the first GridView with the ItemContainerStyleSelector property, pointing to the StaticResource we just defined. <GridView ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource DataTemplate1}" VerticalAlignment="Top" ItemContainerStyleSelector="{StaticResource MainItemStyleSelector}"> <GridView.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <VariableSizedWrapGrid ItemHeight="150" ItemWidth="150" /> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </GridView.ItemsPanel> </GridView> Do the same for the second GridView as well. Finally, in the MainViewModel, change the ColumnSpan property on the 3rd Item to 2. new Item { Brush = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green), ColSpan = 2 }, Running the application now creates the following image, which is what we wanted. Notice how the green item is now a “wide tile”. You can also experiment by creating different Styles, all inheriting the DefaultGridViewItemStyle and using different values of RowSpan for instance. This will allow you to create any layout you want, while leaving the heavy lifting of “flowing the layout” to the GridView control. What about changing these values dynamically? Of course as we can see in the Start menu, it would be nice to be able to change the ColumnSpan and maybe even the RowSpan values at runtime. Unfortunately at this time I have not found a good way to do that. I am investigating however and will make sure to post a follow up when I find what I am looking for!   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 17, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 17, 2013Popular ReleasesSocial Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.9): This new version includes: - Download latest status update and use it as vertex tooltip - Limit the timelines to parse to me, my friends or both - Fixed some reported bugs about the fan page and group importer - Fixed the login bug reported latelyDotNetNuke® Wiki: 05.00.00: Changes made to better support upgrades and the removal of deprecated legacy files that were causing formatting issues. Updated the Version number to better indicate the significance of the C# migration and the new DNN 7.0.2 minimum requirement.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: You can now backspace in number fields Items added in 1.2.0.3 no longer corrupt player files Buff durations capped at 9999999 Item stacks capped at 9999999 Version info added Prefix IDs corrected Shoe and Eye color box are now properly clickable Moved Bank and Safe into their own tab Users will now be notified of new updatesPython Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0: PTVS 2.0 We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 RTM. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, IPython, and cross platform and cross language debugging support. QUICK VIDEO OVERVIEW For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this v...C# Intellisense for Notepad++: Release v.1.0.8.2: Solved scrolling problem after DocumentFormatting Implemented "format as you type" --- To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.8.2: Solved scrolling problem after DocumentFormatting Implemented "format as you type" --- To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.Collection Commander for Configuration Manager 2012: CMCollCtr 1.0.0: Change log: - MSI Setup - UI Improved - CM12 Console integration - New Powershell code snippets - Client Center IntegrationLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v2.1.09: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Windows Phone 8, Client Profile, Windows 8, and Windows Azure. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also supports Twitter API v1.1! Also on NuGet.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.8.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...C++ REST SDK (codename "Casablanca"): C++ REST SDK 1.3.0: This release fixes multiple customer reported issues as well as the following: Full support for Dev12 binaries and project files Full support for Windows XP New sample highlighting the Client and Server APIs : BlackJack Expose underlying native handle to set custom options on http_client Improvements to Listener Library Note: Dev10 binaries have been dropped as of this release, however the Dev10 project files are still available in the Source CodeAD ACL Scanner: 1.3.2: Minor bug fixed: Powershell 4.0 will report: Select—Object: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name p is ambiguous.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 7: New feature - Added support for Immutable Collections New feature - Added WriteData and ReadData settings to DataExtensionAttribute New feature - Added reference and type name handling support to extension data New feature - Added default value and required support to constructor deserialization Change - Extension data is now written when serializing Fix - Added missing casts to JToken Fix - Fixed parsing large floating point numbers Fix - Fixed not parsing some ISO date ...Fast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 3.4: fixes for new version look up.PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit: PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit v3.0.6: Added PersistPrompt parameter to Show-InstallationWelcome and Show-InstallationPrompt. Prompt window is persistently returned to center screen after interval specified in config file (default 10 seconds). For Show-InstallationWelcome, this only takes effect if deferral is not available to user. The user will have no option but to respond to the prompt - resistance is futile! Added example advanced Office 2010 deployment script Asynchronous actions now write to the same log file as synchro...New ProjectsAdditionPage: This is a simple ASP.NET in VB.NET page that allows users to enter 2 numbers, and display their sum. Arad Enterprise Messaging Proxy: In these situations, the overhead and configuration complexity of an external webserver is seldom worth the trouble. AEMGP Server Implementation base on Socke.Boring Sudoku: Boring Sudoku is Sudoku game, made for SFML-game programming tutorial. Feel free to download the source code to learn more about game programming.Configurator Debug: O Configurator Debug é uma ferramenta que auxilia na depuração das queries da feature do Configurador no Dynamics AX 2009.Fast Query: FastQuery - is a tool to execute MS SQL Queries without SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). gdrwebapp1: Test ProjectK2 workflow Manifestation d'interet with custom IPF methode: K2 SamplesL Language Interpreter: We are now in dev start stage, when none of the functionality is available, but probably you will be able to see it published. this shoud have tex outputLameXP - Audio Encoder Front-End: LameXP is a graphical user-interface for various of audio encoders: It allows you convert audio files from one format to another one in the most simple way.Learn Node.js: Node.js express jade ...localcompare: localhistory add new featureOpen source WPF PDF Viewer: Open source PDF Viewer based on Apitron PDF Rasterizer for .NET component that performs high-quality conversion from PDF file to an image.Pfz.AnimationManagement: A .NET animation library that supports both declarative and imperative animations, capable of creating from simple animation to entire games.SerieSpotter: .net projectSimpleUnitity: ??????? ??? DataBase, TextLog, CacheSPOnlineDevelopTool（SharePoint ??????）: SPOnlineDevelopTool?????????SharePoint WebPart?SharePoint WebPartVoya Media: Voya Media is free, open-source and provides one central place to play and organize all your music, pictures and videos.

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• ASP.Net MVC Interview Questions and Answers

  - by Samir R. Bhogayta

  About ASP.Net MVC The ASP.Net MVC is the framework provided by Microsoft that lets you develop the applications that follows the principles of Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The .Net programmers new to MVC thinks that it is similar to WebForms Model (Normal ASP.Net), but it is far different from the WebForms programming.  This article will tell you how to quick learn the basics of MVC along with some frequently asked interview questions and answers on ASP.Net MVC 1. What is ASP.Net MVC The ASP.Net MVC is the framework provided by Microsoft to achieve     separation of concerns that leads to easy maintainability of the     application. Model is supposed to handle data related activity View deals with user interface related work Controller is meant for managing the application flow by communicating between Model and View. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE 2. Why to use ASP.Net MVC The strength of MVC (i.e. ASP.Net MVC) listed below will answer this question MVC reduces the dependency between the components; this makes your code more testable. MVC does not recommend use of server controls, hence the processing time required to generate HTML response is drastically reduced. The integration of java script libraries like jQuery, Microsoft MVC becomes easy as compared to Webforms approach. 3. What do you mean by Razor The Razor is the new View engine introduced in MVC 3.0. The View engine is responsible for processing the view files [e.g. .aspx, .cshtml] in order to generate HTML response. The previous versions of MVC were dependent on ASPX view engine.  4. Can we use ASPX view engine in latest versions of MVC Yes. The Recommended way is to prefer Razor View 5. What are the benefits of Razor View?      The syntax for server side code is simplified      The length of code is drastically reduced      Razor syntax is easy to learn and reduces the complexity Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 6. What is the extension of Razor View file? .cshtml (for c#) and .vbhtml (for vb) 7. How to create a Controller in MVC Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Create a simple class and extend it from Controller class. The bare minimum requirement for a class to become a controller is to inherit it from ControllerBase is the class that is required to inherit to create the controller but Controller class inherits from ControllerBase. 8. How to create an Action method in MVC Add a simple method inside a controller class with ActionResult return type. 9. How to access a view on the server    The browser generates the request in which the information like Controller name, Action Name and Parameters are provided, when server receives this URL it resolves the Name of Controller and Action, after that it calls the specified action with provided parameters. Action normally does some processing and returns the ViewResult by specifying the view name (blank name searches according to naming conventions).   10. What is the default Form method (i.e. GET, POST) for an action method GET. To change this you can add an action level attribute e.g [HttpPost] Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 11. What is a Filter in MVC? When user (browser) sends a request to server an action method of a controller gets invoked; sometimes you may require executing a custom code before or after action method gets invoked, this custom code is called as Filter. 12. What are the different types of Filters in MVC? a. Authorization filter b. Action filter c. Result filter d. Exception filter [Do not forget the order mentioned above as filters gets executed as per above mentioned sequence] 13. Explain the use of Filter with an example? Suppose you are working on a MVC application where URL is sent in an encrypted format instead of a plain text, once encrypted URL is received by server it will ignore action parameters because of URL encryption. To solve this issue you can create global action filter by overriding OnActionExecuting method of controller class, in this you can extract the action parameters from the encrypted URL and these parameters can be set on filterContext to send plain text parameters to the actions.     14. What is a HTML helper? A HTML helper is a method that returns string; return string usually is the HTML tag. The standard HTML helpers (e.g. Html.BeginForm(),Html.TextBox()) available in MVC are lightweight as it does not rely on event model or view state as that of in ASP.Net server controls.

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• Navigation in Win8 Metro Style applications

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  In Windows 8, Touch is, as they say, a first class citizen. Now, to be honest: they also said that in Windows 7. However in Win8 this is actually true. Applications are meant to be used by touch. Yes, you can still use mouse, keyboard and pen and your apps should take that into account but touch is where you should focus on initially. Will all users have touch enabled devices? No, not in the first place. I don’t think touchscreens will be on every device sold next year. But in 5 years? Who knows? Don’t forget: if your app is successful it will be around for a long time and by that time touchscreens will be everywhere. Another reason to embrace touch is that it’s easier to develop a touch-oriented app and then to make sure that keyboard, nouse and pen work as doing it the other way around. Porting a mouse-based application to a touch based application almost never works. The reverse gives you much more chances for success. That being said, there are some things that you need to think about. Most people have more than one finger, while most users only use one mouse at the time. Still, most touch-developers translate their mouse-knowledge to the touch and think they did a good job. Martin Tirion from Microsoft said that since Touch is a new language people face the same challenges they do when learning a new real spoken language. The first thing people try when learning a new language is simply replace the words in their native language to the newly learned words. At first they don’t care about grammar. To a native speaker of that other language this sounds all wrong but they still will be able to understand what the intention was. If you don’t believe me: try Google translate to translate something for you from your language to another and then back and see what happens. The same thing happens with Touch. Most developers translate a mouse-click into a tap-event and think they’re done. Well matey, you’re not done. Not by far. There are things you can do with a mouse that you cannot do with touch. Think hover. A mouse has the ability to ‘slide’ over UI elements. Touch doesn’t (I know: with Pen you can do this but I’m talking about actual fingers here). A touch is either there or it isn’t. And right-click? Forget about it. A click is a click.  Yes, you have more than one finger but the machine doesn’t know which finger you use… The other way around is also true. Like I said: most users only have one mouse but they are likely to have more than one finger. So how do we take that into account? Thinking about this is really worth the time: you might come up with some surprisingly good ideas! Still: don’t forget that not every user has touch-enabled hardware so make sure your app is useable for both groups. Keep this in mind: we’re going to need it later on! Now. Apps should be easy to use. You don’t want your user to read through pages and pages of documentation before they can use the app. Imagine that spotter next to an airfield suddenly seeing a prototype of a Concorde 2 landing on the nearby runway. He probably wants to enter that information in our app NOW and not after he’s taken a 3 day course. Even if he still has to download the app, install it for the first time and then run it he should be on his way immediately. At least, fast enough to note down the details of that unique, rare and possibly exciting sighting he just did. So.. How do we do this? Well, I am not talking about games here. Games are in a league of their own. They fall outside the scope of the apps I am describing. But all the others can roughly be characterized as being one of two flavors: the navigation is either flat or hierarchical. That’s it. And if it’s hierarchical it’s no more than three levels deep. Not more. Your users will get lost otherwise and we don’t want that. Flat is simple. Just imagine we have one screen that is as high as our physical screen is and as wide as you need it to be. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit on the screen: people can scroll to the right and left. Don’t combine up/down and left/right scrolling: it’s confusing. Next to that, since most users will hold their device in landscape mode it’s very natural to scroll horizontal. So let’s use that when we have a flat model. The same applies to the hierarchical model. Try to have at most three levels. If you need more space, find a way to group the items in such a way that you can fit it in three, very wide lanes. At the highest level we have the so called hub level. This is the entry point of the app and as such it should give the user an immediate feeling of what the app is all about. If your app has categories if items then you might show these categories here. And while you’re at it: also show 2 or 3 of the items itself here to give the user a taste of what lies beneath. If the user selects a category you go to the section part. Here you show several sections (again, go as wide as you need) with again some detail examples. After that: the details layer shows each item. By giving some samples of the underlaying layer you achieve several things: you make the layer attractive by showing several different things, you show some highlights so the user sees actual content and you provide a shortcut to the layers underneath. The image below is borrowed from the http://design.windows.com website which has tons and tons of examples: For our app we’ll use this layout. So what will we show? Well, let’s see what sorts of features our app has to offer. I’ll repeat them here: Note planes Add pictures of that plane Notify friends of new spots Share new spots on social media Write down arrival times Write down departure times Write down the runway they take I am sure you can think of some more items but for now we'll use these. In the hub we’ll show something that represents “Spots”, “Friends”, “Social”. Apparently we have an inner list of spotter-friends that are in the app, while we also have to whole world in social. In the layer below we show something else, depending on what the user choose. When they choose “Spots” we’ll display the last spots, last spots by our friends (so we can actually jump from this category to the one next to it) and so on. When they choose a “spot” (or press the + icon in the App bar, which I’ll talk about next time) they go to the lowest and final level that shows details about that spot, including a picture, date and time and the notes belonging to that entry. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to organize your app this way. If you don’t have enough room in these three layers you probably could easily get away with grouping items. Take a look at our hub: we have three completely different things in one place. If you still can’t fit it all in in a logical and consistent way, chances are you are trying to do too much in this app. Go back to your mission statement, determine if it is specific enough and if your feature list helps that statement or makes it unclear. Go ahead. Give it a go! Next time we’ll talk about the look and feel, the charms and the app-bar….

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• Session Evaluations

  - by BuckWoody

  I do a lot of public speaking. I write, teach, present and communicate at many levels. I love to do those things. And I love to get better at them. And one of the ways you get better at something is to get feedback on how you did. That being said, I have to confess that I really despise the “evaluations” I get at most venues. From college to technical events to other locations, at Microsoft and points in between, I find these things to be just shy of damaging, and most certainly useless. And it’s not always your fault. Ouch. That seems harsh. But let me ask you one question – and be as honest as you can with the answer – think about it first: “What is the point of a session evaluation?” I’m not saying there isn’t one. In fact, I think there’s a really important reason for them. In my mind, it’s really this: To make the speaker / next session better. Now, if you look at that, you can see right away that most session evals don’t accomplish this goal – not even a little. No, the way that they are worded and the way you (and I) fill them out, it’s more like the implied goal is this: Tell us how you liked this speaker / session. The current ones are for you, not for the speaker or the next person. It’s a popularity contest. Don’t get me wrong. I want to you have a good time. I want you to learn. I want (desperately, oh, please oh please) for you to like me. But in fact, that’s probably not why you went to the session / took the class / read that post. No, you want to learn, and to learn for a particular reason. Remember, I’m talking about college classes, sessions and other class environments here, not a general public event. Most – OK, all – session evaluations make you answer the second goal, not the first. Let’s see how: First, they don’t ask you why you’re there. They don’t ask you if you’re even qualified to evaluate the session or speaker. They don’t ask you how to make it better or keep it great. They use odd numeric scales that are meaningless. For instance, can someone really tell me the difference between a 100-level session and a 200-level one? Between a 400-level and a 500? Is it “internals” (whatever that means) or detail, or length or code, or what? I once heard a great description: A 100-level session makes me say, “wow - I’m smart.” A 500-level session makes me say “wow – that presenter is smart.” And just what is the difference between a 6 and a 7 answer on this question: How well did the speaker know the material? 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 Oh. My. Gosh. How does that make the next session better, or the speaker? And what criteria did you use to answer? And is a “10” better than a “1” (not always clear, and various cultures answer this differently). When it’s all said and done, a speaker basically finds out one thing from the current session evals: “They liked me. They really really liked me.” Or, “Wow. I think I may need to schedule some counseling for the depression I’m about to go into.” You may not think that’s what the speaker hears, but trust me, they do. Those are the only two reactions to the current feedback sheets they get. Either they keep doing what they are doing, or they get their feelings hurt. They just can’t use the information provided to do better. Sorry, but there it is. Keep in mind I do want your feedback. I want to get better. I want you to get your money and time’s worth, probably as much as any speaker alive. But I want those evaluations to be accurate, specific and actionable. I want to know if you had a good time, sure, but I also want to know if I did the right things, and if not, if I can do something different or better. And so, for your consideration, here is the evaluation form I would LOVE for you to use. Feel free to copy it and mail it to me any time. I’m going to put some questions here, and then I’ll even include why they are there. Notice that the form asks you a subjective question right away, and then makes you explain why. That’s work on your part. Notice also that it separates the room and the coffee and the lights and the LiveMeeting from the presenter. So many presenters are faced with circumstances beyond their control, and yet are rated high or low personally on those things. This form helps tease those apart. It’s not numeric. Numbers are easier for the scoring committees but are useless for you and me. So I don’t have any numbers. We’re actually going to have to read these things, not put them in a machine. Hey, if you put in the work to write stuff down, the least we could do is take the time to read it. It’s not anonymous. If you’ve got something to say, say it, and own up to it. People are not “more honest” when they are anonymous, they are less honest. So put your name on it. In fact – this is radical – I posit that these evaluations should be publicly available. Forever. Just like replies to a blog post. Hey, if I’m an organizer, I would LOVE to be able to have access to specific, actionable information on the attendees and the speakers. So if you want mine to be public, go for it. I’ll take the good and the bad. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Session Evaluation – Date, Time, Location, Topic Thanks for giving us your time today. We know that’s valuable, and we hope you learned something you can use from the session. If you can answer these questions as completely as you can, it will help the next person who attends a session here. Your Name: What you do for a living: (We Need your background to evaluate your evaluation) How long you have been doing that: (Again, we need your background to evaluate your evaluation) Paste Session Description Here: (This is what I said I would talk about) Did you like the session?                     No        Meh        Yes (General subjective question – overall “feeling”. You’ll tell us why in a minute.)  Tell us about the venue. Temperature, lights, coffee, or the online sound, performance, anything other than the speaker and the material. (Helps the logistics to be better or as good for the next person) 1. What did you expect to learn in this session? (How did you interpret that extract – did you have expectations that I should work towards for the next person?) 2. Did you learn what you expected to learn? Why? Be very specific. (This is the most important question there is. It tells us how to make the session better for someone like you.) 3. If you were giving this presentation, would you have done anything differently? What? (Helps us to gauge you, the listener, and might give us a great idea on how to do something better. Thanks!) 4. What will you do with the information you got? (Every presenter wants you to learn, and learn something useful. This will help us do that as well or better)  

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• How to Edit or Add a New Row in jqGrid

  - by Paul

  My jqGrid that does a great job of pulling data from my database, but I'm having trouble understanding how the Add New Row functionality works. Right now, I'm able to edit inline data, but I'm not able to create a new row using the Modal Box. I'm missing that extra logic that says, "If this is a new row, post this to the server side URL" instead of modifying existing data. (Right now, hitting Submit only clears the form and reloads the grid data.) The documentation states that Add New Row is: jQuery("#editgrid").jqGrid('editGridRow',"new",{height:280,reloadAfterSubmit:false}); but I'm not sure how to use that correctly. I've spent alot of time studying the Demos, but they seem to all use an external button to fire the new row command, rather than using the Modal Form, which I want to do. My complete code is here: <!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" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>jqGrid</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="../css/ui-lightness/jquery-ui-1.7.2.custom.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="../css/ui.jqgrid.css" /> <script src="jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="../js/i18n/grid.locale-en.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="jquery.jqGrid.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <h2>My Grid Data</h2> <table id="list" class="scroll"></table> <div id="pager" class="scroll c1"></div> <script type="text/javascript"> var lastSelectedId; jQuery('#list').jqGrid({ url:'grid.php', datatype: 'json', mtype: 'POST', colNames:['ID','Name', 'Price', 'Promotion'], colModel:[ {name:'product_id',index:'product_id', width:25,editable:false}, {name:'name',index:'name', width:50,editable:true, edittype:'text',editoptions:{size:30,maxlength:50}}, {name:'price',index:'price', width:50, align:'right',formatter:'currency', editable:true}, {name:'on_promotion',index:'on_promotion', width:50, formatter:'checkbox',editable:true, edittype:'checkbox'}], rowNum:10, rowList:[5,10,20,30], pager: $('#pager'), sortname: 'product_id', viewrecords: true, sortorder: "desc", caption:"Database", width:500, height:150, onSelectRow: function(id){ if(id && id!==lastSelectedId){ $('#list').restoreRow(lastSelectedId); $('#list').editRow(id,true,null,onSaveSuccess); lastSelectedId=id; }}, editurl:'grid.php?action=save'}) .jqGrid('navGrid','#pager', {refreshicon: 'ui-icon-refresh',view:true}, {height:280,reloadAfterSubmit:true}, {height:280,reloadAfterSubmit:true}, {reloadAfterSubmit:true}) .jqGrid('editGridRow',"new",{height:280,reloadAfterSubmit:false}); function onSaveSuccess(xhr) {response = xhr.responseText; if(response == 1) return true; return false;} </script></body></html> If it makes it easier, I'd be willing to scrap the inline editing functionality and do editing and posting via modal boxes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Silverlight 4 + MVVM + KeyDown event

  - by jturn

  I'm trying to build a sample game in Silverlight 4 using the MVVM design pattern to broaden my knowledge. I'm using Laurent Bugnion's MvvmLight toolkit as well (found here: http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/ ). All I want to do right now is move a shape around within a Canvas by pressing specific keys. My solution contains a Player.xaml (just a rectangle; this will be moved around) and MainPage.xaml (the Canvas and an instance of the Player control). To my understanding, Silverlight doesn't support tunneling routed events, only bubbling. My big problem is that Player.xaml never recognizes the KeyDown event. It's always intercepted by MainPage.xaml first and it never reaches any child controls because it bubbles upward. I'd prefer that the logic to move the Player be in the PlayerViewModel class, but I don't think the Player can know about any KeyDown events firing without me explicitly passing them on down from the MainPage. I ended up adding the handler logic to the MainPageViewModel class. Now my problem is that the MainPageViewModel has no knowledge of Player.xaml so it cannot move this object when handling KeyDown events. I guess this is expected, as ViewModels should not have any knowledge of their associated Views. In not so many words...is there a way this Player user control within my MainPage.xaml can directly accept and handle KeyDown events? If not, what's the ideal method for my MainPageViewModel to communicate with its View's child controls? I'm trying to keep code out of the code-behind files as much as possible. Seems like it's best to put logic in the ViewModels for ease of testing and to decouple UI from logic. (MainPage.xaml) <UserControl x:Class="MvvmSampleGame.MainPage" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:game="clr-namespace:MvvmSampleGame" xmlns:i="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Interactivity;assembly=System.Windows.Interactivity" xmlns:cmd="clr-namespace:GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Command;assembly=GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Extras.SL4" mc:Ignorable="d" Height="300" Width="300" DataContext="{Binding Main, Source={StaticResource Locator}}"> <i:Interaction.Triggers> <i:EventTrigger EventName="KeyDown"> <cmd:EventToCommand Command="{Binding KeyPressCommand}" PassEventArgsToCommand="True" /> </i:EventTrigger> </i:Interaction.Triggers> <Canvas x:Name="LayoutRoot"> <game:Player x:Name="Player1"></game:Player> </Canvas> (MainViewModel.cs) public MainViewModel() { KeyPressCommand = new RelayCommand<KeyEventArgs>(KeyPressed); } public RelayCommand<KeyEventArgs> KeyPressCommand { get; private set; } private void KeyPressed(KeyEventArgs e) { if (e.Key == Key.Up || e.Key == Key.W) { // move player up } else if (e.Key == Key.Left || e.Key == Key.A) { // move player left } else if (e.Key == Key.Down || e.Key == Key.S) { // move player down } else if (e.Key == Key.Right || e.Key == Key.D) { // move player right } } Thanks in advance, Jeremy

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