video element - Page 258

Can an HTML img tag have multiple src attributes?

- by Jason Christa

Much like how the video tag can provide multiple source attributes so an mp4 video can fall back to an ogg video, I would like to get an svg image to fall back to an png image.

Parameter pack argument consumption

It is possible to get the first element of the parameter pack like this template <typename... Elements> struct type_list { }; template <typename TypeList> struct type_list_first_element { }; template <typename FirstElement, typename... OtherElements> struct type_list_first_element<type_list<FirstElement, OtherElements...>> { typedef FirstElement type; }; int main() { typedef type_list<int, float, char> list; typedef type_list_first_element<list>::type element; return 0; } but not possible to similary get the last element like this template <typename... Elements> struct type_list { }; template <typename TypeList> struct type_list_last_element { }; template <typename LastElement, typename... OtherElements> struct type_list_last_element<type_list<OtherElements..., LastElement>> { typedef LastElement type; }; int main() { typedef type_list<int, float, char> list; typedef type_list_last_element<list>::type element; return 0; } with gcc 4.7.1 complaining: error: 'type' in 'struct type_list_last_element<type_list<int, float, char>>' does not name a type What paragraps from the standard describe this behaviour? It seems to me that template parameter packs are greedy in a sense that they consume all matching arguments, which in this case means that OtherElements consumes all three arguments (int, float and char) and then there is nothing left for LastElement so the compilation fails. Am i correct in the assumption? EDIT: To clarify: I am not asking how to extract the last element from the parameter pack, i know how to do that. What i actually want is to pick the pack apart from the back as opposed to the front, and as such recursing all the way to the back for each element would be ineffective. Apparentely reversing the sequence beforehand is the most sensible choice.

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How to find the submit button in a specific form in jQuery

- by leifg

I try to get jQuery object of a submit button in a specific form (there are several forms on the same page). I managed to get the form element itself. It looks something like this: var curForm = curElement.parents("form"); The current Element has the context HTMLInputElement. The several techniques I tried to get the according submit element of the form: var curSubmit = curForm.find("input[type='submit']"); var curSubmit = $(curForm).find("input[type='submit']"); var curSubmit = curForm.find(":submit"); var curSubmit = $(curForm).find(":submit"); var curSubmit = $(curSubmit, "input[type='submit']"); the result is always the same (and very strange). The result that I get is the same element as "curElement". So how can I get the right submit button?

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how to save downloaded files in cache android

- by madcoderz

Hi i'm streaming video from a website in my android application. I have a history option showing the last seen videos. I wonder if i can use cache so that when the user enters the history the video is played faster (not downloaded again). When you use cache in Android does that mean that the whole video is downloaded and saved somewhere? or some data is saved somwhere(not the whole video). Some help will be appreciated!!! Thanks.

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Using jquery to disable function untill all selects are changed

- by richbyte

I am using a javascript function (F) (jquery )which uses 3 select values selected by the user to calculates a value - R(result) R is a number ranging from (1 through 9), (11) and (22); I need 2 extra steps one before the calculation and one after. a. Before calculation takes place: Make sure all three select values are changed before function(F) takes place. If not prompt the user with a notice ( create dom element/ I am using jquery) b. After the value R is calculated show an element corresponding to the result e.g. if R is 1 show an element ( a predetermined "link" element corresponding to each result value) thanks a lot.

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Recursion: using values passed in parameters

- by Tom Lilletveit

I got this line of code that pops a int of the array saves it to int element then removes it from array. then in the return statement return CountCriticalVotes(rest, blockIndex + element); it ads it to the blockIndex variable and if it reaches 10 before the array is empty it returns 1. But my problem is this, I do not want it to add up all the values in the array in the parameter, but only add one then revert the parameter value back to it´s original state, then add a new, revert etc... How would i do this? int NumCriticalVotes :: CountCriticalVotes(Vector<int> & blocks, int blockIndex) { if (blockIndex >= 10) { return 1; } if (blocks.isEmpty()) { return 0; } else { int element = blocks.get(0); Vector<int> rest = blocks; rest.remove(0); return CountCriticalVotes(rest, blockIndex + element);

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fast load big object graph from DB

- by Famos

Hi I have my own data structure written in C# like: public class ElectricScheme { public List<Element> Elements { get; set; } public List<Net> Nets { get; set; } } public class Element { public string IdName { get; set; } public string Func { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public BaseElementType Type { get; set; } public List<Pin> Pins { get; set; } } public class Pin { public string IdName { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public BasePinType PinType { get; set; } public BasePinDirection PinDirection { get; set; } } public class Net { public string IdName { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public List<Tuple<Element,Pin>> ConnectionPoints { get; set; } } Where Elements count ~19000, each element contain =3 Pin, Nets count ~20000, each net contain =3 pair (Element, Pin) Parse txt (file size ~17mb) file takes 5 minutes. Serilization / Deserialization by default serializer ~3 minutes. Load from DB 20 minutes and not loaded... I use Entity Framework like public ElectricScheme LoadScheme(int schemeId) { var eScheme = (from s in container.ElectricSchemesSet where s.IdElectricScheme.Equals(schemeId) select s).FirstOrDefault(); if (eScheme == null) return null; container.LoadProperty(eScheme, "Elements"); container.LoadProperty(eScheme, "Nets"); container.LoadProperty(eScheme, "Elements.Pins"); return eScheme; } The problem is dependencies between Element and Pin... (for ~19000 elements ~95000 pins) Any ideas?

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geb StaleElementReferenceException

- by Brian Mortenson

I have just started using geb with webdriver for automating testing. As I understand it, when I define content on a page, the page element should be looked up each time I invoke a content definition. //In the content block of SomeModule, which is part of a moduleList on the page: itemLoaded { waitFor{ !loading.displayed } } loading { $('.loading') } //in the page definition moduleItems {index -> moduleList SomeModule, $("#module-list > .item"), index} //in a test on this page def item = moduleItems(someIndex) assert item.itemLoaded So in this code, I think $('.loading') should be called repeatedly, to find the element on the page by its selector, within the context of the module's base element. Yet I sometimes get a StaleElementReference exception at this point. As far as I can tell, the element does not get removed from the page, but even if it does, that should not produce this exception unless $ is doing some caching behind the scenes, but if that were the case it would cause all sorts of other problems. Can someone help me understand what's happening here? Why is it possible to get a StaleElementReferenceException while looking up an element? A pointer to relevant documentation or geb source code would be useful as well.

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Iterating Through N Level Children

- by bobber205

This seems like something neat that might be "built into" jQuery but I think it's still worth asking. I have a problem where that can easily be solved by iterating through all the children of a element. I've recently discovered I need to account for the cases where I would need to do a level or two deeper than the "1 level" (just calling .children() once) I am currently doing. jQuery.each(divToLookAt.children(), function(index, element) { //do stuff } ); This is what I'm current doing. To go a second layer deep, I run another loop after doing stuff code for each element. jQuery.each(divToLookAt.children(), function(index, element) { //do stuff jQuery.each(jQuery(element).children(), function(indexLevelTwo, elementLevelTwo) { //do stuff } ); } ); If I want to go yet another level deep, I have to do this all over again. This is clearly not good. I'd love to declare a "level" variable and then have it all take care of. Anyone have any ideas for a clean efficient jQueryish solution? Thanks!

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Implementing an iterator over binary tree using C++ 11

- by user1459339

I would like to create an iterator over the binary tree so as to be able to use range-based for loop. I understand I ought to implement the begin() and end() function first. Begin should probably point to the root. According to the specification, however, the end() functions returns "the element following the last valid element". Which element (node) is that? Would it not be illegal to point to some "invalid" place? The other thing is the operator++. What is the best way to return "next" element in tree? I just need some advice to begin with this programming.

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good practice for string.partition in python

- by user1544915

some case i write code like these: a,temp,b = s.partition('-') i just need to pick the first and 3rd element. temp would never be used. is there a better way to do this? the common case is ,a better way to pick separted element to make a new list? for example i want to make a new list use old list 0,1,3,7 element code would be this: newlist = [oldlist[0],oldlist[1],oldlist[3],oldlist[7]] it's pretty ugly,isn't it?

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Unexpected output on initializing array by using both `element-by-element` & `designated` technique

- by haccks

C99 provides a feature to initialize arrays by using both element-by-element & designated method together as: int a[] = {2,1,[3] = 5,[5] = 9,6,[8] = 4}; On running the code: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int a[] = {2,1,[3] = 5,[0] = 9,4,[6] = 25}; for(int i = 0; i < sizeof(a)/sizeof(a[0]); i++) printf("%d ",a[i]); return 0; } (Note that Element 0 is initialized to 2 and then again initialised by designator [0] to 9) I was expecting that element 0(which is 2) will be replaced by 9(as designator [0] = 9) and hence o/p will become 9 1 0 5 4 0 25 Unfortunately I was wrong as o/p came; 9 4 0 5 0 0 25 Any explanation for unexpected o/p?

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Howto create own Jquery Like Function in Javascript?

- by streetparade

How can i create a function which looks like the jquery callback $ Say i want to call a element with id= "mydiv". i want to be able to call it like var div = $("mydiv").value; i think the function should look like function $(element) { return document.getElementById(element); } Is that the right way to do it, or do you prefer another way to solve it?

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CSS 100% height with padding/margin

- by Toji

This has been driving me crazy for a couple of days now, but in reality it's a problem that I've hit off and on for the last few years: With HTML/CSS how can I make an element that has a width and/or height that is 100% of it's parent element and still has proper padding or margins? By "proper" I mean that if my parent element is 200px tall and I specify 100% height with 5px padding I would expect that I should get a 190px high element with 5px "border" on all sides, nicely centered in the parent element. Now, I know that that's not how the standard box model specifies it should work (although I'd like to know why, exactly...), so the obvious answer doesn't work: #myDiv { width: 100% height: 100%; padding: 5px; } But it would seem to me that there must be SOME way of reliably producing this effect for a parent of arbitrary size. Does anyone know of a way of accomplishing this (seemingly simple) task? Oh, and for the record I'm not terribly interested in IE compatibility so that should (hopefully) make things a bit easier. EDIT: Since an example was asked for, here's the simplest one I can think of: <html style="height: 100%"> <body style="height: 100%"> <div style="background-color: black; height: 100%; padding: 25px"></div> </body> </html> The challenge is then to get the black box to show up with a 25 pixel padding on all edges without the page growing big enough to require scrollbars.

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An Xml Serializable PropertyBag Dictionary Class for .NET

- by Rick Strahl

I don't know about you but I frequently need property bags in my applications to store and possibly cache arbitrary data. Dictionary<T,V> works well for this although I always seem to be hunting for a more specific generic type that provides a string key based dictionary. There's string dictionary, but it only works with strings. There's Hashset<T> but it uses the actual values as keys. In most key value pair situations for me string is key value to work off. Dictionary<T,V> works well enough, but there are some issues with serialization of dictionaries in .NET. The .NET framework doesn't do well serializing IDictionary objects out of the box. The XmlSerializer doesn't support serialization of IDictionary via it's default serialization, and while the DataContractSerializer does support IDictionary serialization it produces some pretty atrocious XML. What doesn't work? First off Dictionary serialization with the Xml Serializer doesn't work so the following fails: [TestMethod] public void DictionaryXmlSerializerTest() { var bag = new Dictionary<string, object>(); bag.Add("key", "Value"); bag.Add("Key2", 100.10M); bag.Add("Key3", Guid.NewGuid()); bag.Add("Key4", DateTime.Now); bag.Add("Key5", true); bag.Add("Key7", new byte[3] { 42, 45, 66 }); TestContext.WriteLine(this.ToXml(bag)); } public string ToXml(object obj) { if (obj == null) return null; StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(); XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType()); ser.Serialize(sw, obj); return sw.ToString(); } The error you get with this is: System.NotSupportedException: The type System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[[System.String, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089],[System.Object, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]] is not supported because it implements IDictionary. Got it! BTW, the same is true with binary serialization. Running the same code above against the DataContractSerializer does work: [TestMethod] public void DictionaryDataContextSerializerTest() { var bag = new Dictionary<string, object>(); bag.Add("key", "Value"); bag.Add("Key2", 100.10M); bag.Add("Key3", Guid.NewGuid()); bag.Add("Key4", DateTime.Now); bag.Add("Key5", true); bag.Add("Key7", new byte[3] { 42, 45, 66 }); TestContext.WriteLine(this.ToXmlDcs(bag)); } public string ToXmlDcs(object value, bool throwExceptions = false) { var ser = new DataContractSerializer(value.GetType(), null, int.MaxValue, true, false, null); MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); ser.WriteObject(ms, value); return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(ms.ToArray(), 0, (int)ms.Length); } This DOES work but produces some pretty heinous XML (formatted with line breaks and indentation here): <ArrayOfKeyValueOfstringanyType xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>key</Key> <Value i:type="a:string" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Value</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>Key2</Key> <Value i:type="a:decimal" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">100.10</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>Key3</Key> <Value i:type="a:guid" xmlns:a="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">2cd46d2a-a636-4af4-979b-e834d39b6d37</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>Key4</Key> <Value i:type="a:dateTime" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">2011-09-19T17:17:05.4406999-07:00</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>Key5</Key> <Value i:type="a:boolean" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">true</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> <KeyValueOfstringanyType> <Key>Key7</Key> <Value i:type="a:base64Binary" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Ki1C</Value> </KeyValueOfstringanyType> </ArrayOfKeyValueOfstringanyType> Ouch! That seriously hurts the eye! :-) Worse though it's extremely verbose with all those repetitive namespace declarations. It's good to know that it works in a pinch, but for a human readable/editable solution or something lightweight to store in a database it's not quite ideal. Why should I care? As a little background, in one of my applications I have a need for a flexible property bag that is used on a free form database field on an otherwise static entity. Basically what I have is a standard database record to which arbitrary properties can be added in an XML based string field. I intend to expose those arbitrary properties as a collection from field data stored in XML. The concept is pretty simple: When loading write the data to the collection, when the data is saved serialize the data into an XML string and store it into the database. When reading the data pick up the XML and if the collection on the entity is accessed automatically deserialize the XML into the Dictionary. (I'll talk more about this in another post). While the DataContext Serializer would work, it's verbosity is problematic both for size of the generated XML strings and the fact that users can manually edit this XML based property data in an advanced mode. A clean(er) layout certainly would be preferable and more user friendly. Custom XMLSerialization with a PropertyBag Class So… after a bunch of experimentation with different serialization formats I decided to create a custom PropertyBag class that provides for a serializable Dictionary. It's basically a custom Dictionary<TType,TValue> implementation with the keys always set as string keys. The result are PropertyBag<TValue> and PropertyBag (which defaults to the object type for values). The PropertyBag<TType> and PropertyBag classes provide these features: Subclassed from Dictionary<T,V> Implements IXmlSerializable with a cleanish XML format ToXml() and FromXml() methods to export and import to and from XML strings Static CreateFromXml() method to create an instance It's simple enough as it's merely a Dictionary<string,object> subclass but that supports serialization to a - what I think at least - cleaner XML format. The class is super simple to use: [TestMethod] public void PropertyBagTwoWayObjectSerializationTest() { var bag = new PropertyBag(); bag.Add("key", "Value"); bag.Add("Key2", 100.10M); bag.Add("Key3", Guid.NewGuid()); bag.Add("Key4", DateTime.Now); bag.Add("Key5", true); bag.Add("Key7", new byte[3] { 42,45,66 } ); bag.Add("Key8", null); bag.Add("Key9", new ComplexObject() { Name = "Rick", Entered = DateTime.Now, Count = 10 }); string xml = bag.ToXml(); TestContext.WriteLine(bag.ToXml()); bag.Clear(); bag.FromXml(xml); Assert.IsTrue(bag["key"] as string == "Value"); Assert.IsInstanceOfType( bag["Key3"], typeof(Guid)); Assert.IsNull(bag["Key8"]); //Assert.IsNull(bag["Key10"]); Assert.IsInstanceOfType(bag["Key9"], typeof(ComplexObject)); } This uses the PropertyBag class which uses a PropertyBag<string,object> - which means it returns untyped values of type object. I suspect for me this will be the most common scenario as I'd want to store arbitrary values in the PropertyBag rather than one specific type. The same code with a strongly typed PropertyBag<decimal> looks like this: [TestMethod] public void PropertyBagTwoWayValueTypeSerializationTest() { var bag = new PropertyBag<decimal>(); bag.Add("key", 10M); bag.Add("Key1", 100.10M); bag.Add("Key2", 200.10M); bag.Add("Key3", 300.10M); string xml = bag.ToXml(); TestContext.WriteLine(bag.ToXml()); bag.Clear(); bag.FromXml(xml); Assert.IsTrue(bag.Get("Key1") == 100.10M); Assert.IsTrue(bag.Get("Key3") == 300.10M); } and produces typed results of type decimal. The types can be either value or reference types the combination of which actually proved to be a little more tricky than anticipated due to null and specific string value checks required - getting the generic typing right required use of default(T) and Convert.ChangeType() to trick the compiler into playing nice. Of course the whole raison d'etre for this class is the XML serialization. You can see in the code above that we're doing a .ToXml() and .FromXml() to serialize to and from string. The XML produced for the first example looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <properties> <item> <key>key</key> <value>Value</value> </item> <item> <key>Key2</key> <value type="decimal">100.10</value> </item> <item> <key>Key3</key> <value type="___System.Guid"> <guid>f7a92032-0c6d-4e9d-9950-b15ff7cd207d</guid> </value> </item> <item> <key>Key4</key> <value type="datetime">2011-09-26T17:45:58.5789578-10:00</value> </item> <item> <key>Key5</key> <value type="boolean">true</value> </item> <item> <key>Key7</key> <value type="base64Binary">Ki1C</value> </item> <item> <key>Key8</key> <value type="nil" /> </item> <item> <key>Key9</key> <value type="___Westwind.Tools.Tests.PropertyBagTest+ComplexObject"> <ComplexObject> <Name>Rick</Name> <Entered>2011-09-26T17:45:58.5789578-10:00</Entered> <Count>10</Count> </ComplexObject> </value> </item> </properties> The format is a bit cleaner than the DataContractSerializer. Each item is serialized into <key> <value> pairs. If the value is a string no type information is written. Since string tends to be the most common type this saves space and serialization processing. All other types are attributed. Simple types are mapped to XML types so things like decimal, datetime, boolean and base64Binary are encoded using their Xml type values. All other types are embedded with a hokey format that describes the .NET type preceded by a three underscores and then are encoded using the XmlSerializer. You can see this best above in the ComplexObject encoding. For custom types this isn't pretty either, but it's more concise than the DCS and it works as long as you're serializing back and forth between .NET clients at least. The XML generated from the second example that uses PropertyBag<decimal> looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <properties> <item> <key>key</key> <value type="decimal">10</value> </item> <item> <key>Key1</key> <value type="decimal">100.10</value> </item> <item> <key>Key2</key> <value type="decimal">200.10</value> </item> <item> <key>Key3</key> <value type="decimal">300.10</value> </item> </properties> How does it work As I mentioned there's nothing fancy about this solution - it's little more than a subclass of Dictionary<T,V> that implements custom Xml Serialization and a couple of helper methods that facilitate getting the XML in and out of the class more easily. But it's proven very handy for a number of projects for me where dynamic data storage is required. Here's the code: /// <summary> /// Creates a serializable string/object dictionary that is XML serializable /// Encodes keys as element names and values as simple values with a type /// attribute that contains an XML type name. Complex names encode the type /// name with type='___namespace.classname' format followed by a standard xml /// serialized format. The latter serialization can be slow so it's not recommended /// to pass complex types if performance is critical. /// </summary> [XmlRoot("properties")] public class PropertyBag : PropertyBag<object> { /// <summary> /// Creates an instance of a propertybag from an Xml string /// </summary> /// <param name="xml">Serialize</param> /// <returns></returns> public static PropertyBag CreateFromXml(string xml) { var bag = new PropertyBag(); bag.FromXml(xml); return bag; } } /// <summary> /// Creates a serializable string for generic types that is XML serializable. /// /// Encodes keys as element names and values as simple values with a type /// attribute that contains an XML type name. Complex names encode the type /// name with type='___namespace.classname' format followed by a standard xml /// serialized format. The latter serialization can be slow so it's not recommended /// to pass complex types if performance is critical. /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TValue">Must be a reference type. For value types use type object</typeparam> [XmlRoot("properties")] public class PropertyBag<TValue> : Dictionary<string, TValue>, IXmlSerializable { /// <summary> /// Not implemented - this means no schema information is passed /// so this won't work with ASMX/WCF services. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchema GetSchema() { return null; } /// <summary> /// Serializes the dictionary to XML. Keys are /// serialized to element names and values as /// element values. An xml type attribute is embedded /// for each serialized element - a .NET type /// element is embedded for each complex type and /// prefixed with three underscores. /// </summary> /// <param name="writer"></param> public void WriteXml(System.Xml.XmlWriter writer) { foreach (string key in this.Keys) { TValue value = this[key]; Type type = null; if (value != null) type = value.GetType(); writer.WriteStartElement("item"); writer.WriteStartElement("key"); writer.WriteString(key as string); writer.WriteEndElement(); writer.WriteStartElement("value"); string xmlType = XmlUtils.MapTypeToXmlType(type); bool isCustom = false; // Type information attribute if not string if (value == null) { writer.WriteAttributeString("type", "nil"); } else if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(xmlType)) { if (xmlType != "string") { writer.WriteStartAttribute("type"); writer.WriteString(xmlType); writer.WriteEndAttribute(); } } else { isCustom = true; xmlType = "___" + value.GetType().FullName; writer.WriteStartAttribute("type"); writer.WriteString(xmlType); writer.WriteEndAttribute(); } // Actual deserialization if (!isCustom) { if (value != null) writer.WriteValue(value); } else { XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(value.GetType()); ser.Serialize(writer, value); } writer.WriteEndElement(); // value writer.WriteEndElement(); // item } } /// <summary> /// Reads the custom serialized format /// </summary> /// <param name="reader"></param> public void ReadXml(System.Xml.XmlReader reader) { this.Clear(); while (reader.Read()) { if (reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && reader.Name == "key") { string xmlType = null; string name = reader.ReadElementContentAsString(); // item element reader.ReadToNextSibling("value"); if (reader.MoveToNextAttribute()) xmlType = reader.Value; reader.MoveToContent(); TValue value; if (xmlType == "nil") value = default(TValue); // null else if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(xmlType)) { // value is a string or object and we can assign TValue to value string strval = reader.ReadElementContentAsString(); value = (TValue) Convert.ChangeType(strval, typeof(TValue)); } else if (xmlType.StartsWith("___")) { while (reader.Read() && reader.NodeType != XmlNodeType.Element) { } Type type = ReflectionUtils.GetTypeFromName(xmlType.Substring(3)); //value = reader.ReadElementContentAs(type,null); XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(type); value = (TValue)ser.Deserialize(reader); } else value = (TValue)reader.ReadElementContentAs(XmlUtils.MapXmlTypeToType(xmlType), null); this.Add(name, value); } } } /// <summary> /// Serializes this dictionary to an XML string /// </summary> /// <returns>XML String or Null if it fails</returns> public string ToXml() { string xml = null; SerializationUtils.SerializeObject(this, out xml); return xml; } /// <summary> /// Deserializes from an XML string /// </summary> /// <param name="xml"></param> /// <returns>true or false</returns> public bool FromXml(string xml) { this.Clear(); // if xml string is empty we return an empty dictionary if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(xml)) return true; var result = SerializationUtils.DeSerializeObject(xml, this.GetType()) as PropertyBag<TValue>; if (result != null) { foreach (var item in result) { this.Add(item.Key, item.Value); } } else // null is a failure return false; return true; } /// <summary> /// Creates an instance of a propertybag from an Xml string /// </summary> /// <param name="xml"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static PropertyBag<TValue> CreateFromXml(string xml) { var bag = new PropertyBag<TValue>(); bag.FromXml(xml); return bag; } } } The code uses a couple of small helper classes SerializationUtils and XmlUtils for mapping Xml types to and from .NET, both of which are from the WestWind,Utilities project (which is the same project where PropertyBag lives) from the West Wind Web Toolkit. The code implements ReadXml and WriteXml for the IXmlSerializable implementation using old school XmlReaders and XmlWriters (because it's pretty simple stuff - no need for XLinq here). Then there are two helper methods .ToXml() and .FromXml() that basically allow your code to easily convert between XML and a PropertyBag object. In my code that's what I use to actually to persist to and from the entity XML property during .Load() and .Save() operations. It's sweet to be able to have a string key dictionary and then be able to turn around with 1 line of code to persist the whole thing to XML and back. Hopefully some of you will find this class as useful as I've found it. It's a simple solution to a common requirement in my applications and I've used the hell out of it in the short time since I created it. Resources You can find the complete code for the two classes plus the helpers in the Subversion repository for Westwind.Utilities. You can grab the source files from there or download the whole project. You can also grab the full Westwind.Utilities assembly from NuGet and add it to your project if that's easier for you. PropertyBag Source Code SerializationUtils and XmlUtils Westwind.Utilities Assembly on NuGet (add from Visual Studio) © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in .NET CSharp Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Automating Solaris 11 Zones Installation Using The Automated Install Server

- by Orgad Kimchi

Introduction How to use the Oracle Solaris 11 Automated install server in order to automate the Solaris 11 Zones installation. In this document I will demonstrate how to setup the Automated Install server in order to provide hands off installation process for the Global Zone and two Non Global Zones located on the same system. Architecture layout: Figure 1. Architecture layout Prerequisite Setup the Automated install server (AI) using the following instructions “How to Set Up Automated Installation Services for Oracle Solaris 11” The first step in this setup will be creating two Solaris 11 Zones configuration files. Step 1: Create the Solaris 11 Zones configuration files The Solaris Zones configuration files should be in the format of the zonecfg export command. # zonecfg -z zone1 export > /var/tmp/zone1# cat /var/tmp/zone1 create -b set brand=solaris set zonepath=/rpool/zones/zone1 set autoboot=true set ip-type=exclusive add anet set linkname=net0 set lower-link=auto set configure-allowed-address=true set link-protection=mac-nospoof set mac-address=random end Create a backup copy of this file under a different name, for example, zone2. # cp /var/tmp/zone1 /var/tmp/zone2 Modify the second configuration file with the zone2 configuration information You should change the zonepath for example: set zonepath=/rpool/zones/zone2 Step2: Copy and share the Zones configuration files Create the NFS directory for the Zones configuration files # mkdir /export/zone_config Share the directory for the Zones configuration file # share –o ro /export/zone_config Copy the Zones configuration files into the NFS shared directory # cp /var/tmp/zone1 /var/tmp/zone2 /export/zone_config Verify that the NFS share has been created using the following command # share export_zone_config /export/zone_config nfs sec=sys,ro Step 3: Add the Global Zone as client to the Install Service Use the installadm create-client command to associate client (Global Zone) with the install service To find the MAC address of a system, use the dladm command as described in the dladm(1M) man page. The following command adds the client (Global Zone) with MAC address 0:14:4f:2:a:19 to the s11x86service install service. # installadm create-client -e “0:14:4f:2:a:19" -n s11x86service You can verify the client creation using the following command # installadm list –c Service Name Client Address Arch Image Path ------------ -------------- ---- ---------- s11x86service 00:14:4F:02:0A:19 i386 /export/auto_install/s11x86service We can see the client install service name (s11x86service), MAC address (00:14:4F:02:0A:19 and Architecture (i386). Step 4: Global Zone manifest setup First, get a list of the installation services and the manifests associated with them: # installadm list -m Service Name Manifest Status ------------ -------- ------ default-i386 orig_default Default s11x86service orig_default Default Then probe the s11x86service and the default manifest associated with it. The -m switch reflects the name of the manifest associated with a service. Since we want to capture that output into a file, we redirect the output of the command as follows: # installadm export -n s11x86service -m orig_default > /var/tmp/orig_default.xml Create a backup copy of this file under a different name, for example, orig-default2.xml, and edit the copy. # cp /var/tmp/orig_default.xml /var/tmp/orig_default2.xml Use the configuration element in the AI manifest for the client system to specify non-global zones. Use the name attribute of the configuration element to specify the name of the zone. Use the source attribute to specify the location of the config file for the zone.The source location can be any http:// or file:// location that the client can access during installation. The following sample AI manifest specifies two Non-Global Zones: zone1 and zone2 You should replace the server_ip with the ip address of the NFS server. <!DOCTYPE auto_install SYSTEM "file:///usr/share/install/ai.dtd.1"> <auto_install> <ai_instance> <target> <logical> <zpool name="rpool" is_root="true"> <filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/> <filesystem name="export/home"/> <be name="solaris"/> </zpool> </logical> </target> <software type="IPS"> <source> <publisher name="solaris"> <origin name="http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release"/> </publisher> </source> <software_data action="install"> <name>pkg:/entire@latest</name> <name>pkg:/group/system/solaris-large-server</name> </software_data> </software> <configuration type="zone" name="zone1" source="file:///net/server_ip/export/zone_config/zone1"/> <configuration type="zone" name="zone2" source="file:///net/server_ip/export/zone_config/zone2"/> </ai_instance> </auto_install> The following example adds the /var/tmp/orig_default2.xml AI manifest to the s11x86service install service # installadm create-manifest -n s11x86service -f /var/tmp/orig_default2.xml -m gzmanifest You can verify the manifest creation using the following command # installadm list -n s11x86service -m Service/Manifest Name Status Criteria --------------------- ------ -------- s11x86service orig_default Default None gzmanifest Inactive None We can see from the command output that the new manifest named gzmanifest has been created and associated with the s11x86service install service. Step 5: Non Global Zone manifest setup The AI manifest for non-global zone installation is similar to the AI manifest for installing the global zone. If you do not provide a custom AI manifest for a non-global zone, the default AI manifest for Zones is used The default AI manifest for Zones is available at /usr/share/auto_install/manifest/zone_default.xml. In this example we should use the default AI manifest for zones The following sample default AI manifest for zones # cat /usr/share/auto_install/manifest/zone_default.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  <!DOCTYPE auto_install SYSTEM "file:///usr/share/install/ai.dtd.1"> <auto_install> <ai_instance name="zone_default"> <target> <logical> <zpool name="rpool">  <filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/> <filesystem name="export/home"/> <be name="solaris"> <options> <option name="compression" value="on"/> </options> </be> </zpool> </logical> </target> <software type="IPS"> <destination> <image>  <facet set="false">facet.locale.*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de_DE</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en_US</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.es</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.es_ES</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.fr</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.fr_FR</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.it</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.it_IT</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.ja</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.ja_*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.ko</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.ko_*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.pt</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.pt_BR</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.zh</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.zh_CN</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.zh_TW</facet> </image> </destination> <software_data action="install"> <name>pkg:/group/system/solaris-small-server</name> </software_data> </software> </ai_instance> </auto_install> (optional) We can customize the default AI manifest for Zones Create a backup copy of this file under a different name, for example, zone_default2.xml and edit the copy # cp /usr/share/auto_install/manifest/zone_default.xml /var/tmp/zone_default2.xml Edit the copy (/var/tmp/zone_default2.xml) The following example adds the /var/tmp/zone_default2.xml AI manifest to the s11x86service install service and specifies that zone1 and zone2 should use this manifest. # installadm create-manifest -n s11x86service -f /var/tmp/zone_default2.xml -m zones_manifest -c zonename="zone1 zone2" Note: Do not use the following elements or attributes in a non-global zone AI manifest: The auto_reboot attribute of the ai_instance element The http_proxy attribute of the ai_instance element The disk child element of the target element The noswap attribute of the logical element The nodump attribute of the logical element The configuration element Step 6: Global Zone profile setup We are going to create a global zone configuration profile which includes the host information for example: host name, ip address name services etc… # sysconfig create-profile –o /var/tmp/gz_profile.xml You need to provide the host information for example: Default router Root password DNS information The output should eventually disappear and be replaced by the initial screen of the System Configuration Tool (see Figure 2), where you can do the final configuration. Figure 2. Profile creation menu You can validate the profile using the following command # installadm validate -n s11x86service –P /var/tmp/gz_profile.xml Validating static profile gz_profile.xml... Passed Next, instantiate a profile with the install service. In our case, use the following syntax for doing this # installadm create-profile -n s11x86service -f /var/tmp/gz_profile.xml -p gz_profile You can verify profile creation using the following command # installadm list –n s11x86service -p Service/Profile Name Criteria -------------------- -------- s11x86service gz_profile None We can see that the gz_profie has been created and associated with the s11x86service Install service. Step 7: Setup the Solaris Zones configuration profiles The step should be similar to the Global zone profile creation on step 6 # sysconfig create-profile –o /var/tmp/zone1_profile.xml # sysconfig create-profile –o /var/tmp/zone2_profile.xml You can validate the profiles using the following command # installadm validate -n s11x86service -P /var/tmp/zone1_profile.xml Validating static profile zone1_profile.xml... Passed # installadm validate -n s11x86service -P /var/tmp/zone2_profile.xml Validating static profile zone2_profile.xml... Passed Next, associate the profiles with the install service The following example adds the zone1_profile.xml configuration profile to the s11x86service install service and specifies that zone1 should use this profile. # installadm create-profile -n s11x86service -f /var/tmp/zone1_profile.xml -p zone1_profile -c zonename=zone1 The following example adds the zone2_profile.xml configuration profile to the s11x86service install service and specifies that zone2 should use this profile. # installadm create-profile -n s11x86service -f /var/tmp/zone2_profile.xml -p zone2_profile -c zonename=zone2 You can verify the profiles creation using the following command # installadm list -n s11x86service -p Service/Profile Name Criteria -------------------- -------- s11x86service zone1_profile zonename = zone1 zone2_profile zonename = zone2 gz_profile None We can see that we have three profiles in the s11x86service install service Global Zone gz_profile zone1 zone1_profile zone2 zone2_profile. Step 8: Global Zone setup Associate the global zone client with the manifest and the profile that we create in the previous steps The following example adds the manifest and profile to the client (global zone), where: gzmanifest is the name of the manifest. gz_profile is the name of the configuration profile. mac="0:14:4f:2:a:19" is the client (global zone) mac address s11x86service is the install service name. # installadm set-criteria -m gzmanifest –p gz_profile -c mac="0:14:4f:2:a:19" -n s11x86service You can verify the manifest and profile association using the following command # installadm list -n s11x86service -p -m Service/Manifest Name Status Criteria --------------------- ------ -------- s11x86service gzmanifest mac = 00:14:4F:02:0A:19 orig_default Default None Service/Profile Name Criteria -------------------- -------- s11x86service gz_profile mac = 00:14:4F:02:0A:19 zone2_profile zonename = zone2 zone1_profile zonename = zone1 Step 9: Provision the host with the Non-Global Zones The next step is to boot the client system off the network and provision it using the Automated Install service that we just set up. First, boot the client system. Figure 3 shows the network boot attempt (when done on an x86 system): Figure 3. Network Boot Then you will be prompted by a GRUB menu, with a timer, as shown in Figure 4. The default selection (the "Text Installer and command line" option) is highlighted. Press the down arrow to highlight the second option labeled Automated Install, and then press Enter. The reason we need to do this is because we want to prevent a system from being automatically re-installed if it were to be booted from the network accidentally. Figure 4. GRUB Menu What follows is the continuation of a networked boot from the Automated Install server,. The client downloads a mini-root (a small set of files in which to successfully run the installer), identifies the location of the Automated Install manifest on the network, retrieves that manifest, and then processes it to identify the address of the IPS repository from which to obtain the desired software payload. Non-Global Zones are installed and configured on the first reboot after the Global Zone is installed. You can list all the Solaris Zones status using the following command # zoneadm list -civ Once the Zones are in running state you can login into the Zone using the following command # zlogin –z zone1 Troubleshooting Automated Installations If an installation to a client system failed, you can find the client log at /system/volatile/install_log. NOTE: Zones are not installed if any of the following errors occurs: A zone config file is not syntactically correct. A collision exists among zone names, zone paths, or delegated ZFS datasets in the set of zones to be installed Required datasets are not configured in the global zone. For more troubleshooting information see “Installing Oracle Solaris 11 Systems” Conclusion This paper demonstrated the benefits of using the Automated Install server to simplify the Non Global Zones setup, including the creation and configuration of the global zone manifest and the Solaris Zones profiles.

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Make exact mp4 (H264) format for uploading to youtube

- by WHITECOLOR

With ffmpeg I'm converting video from mp3 and picture to upload it to youtube. After upload, conversion fails. Reasons are unknown. I believe the problem is in format. By the way If I'm uploading file 5 minutes length, it fails if I upload 30 seconds of this file it succeeds. I have donwload mp4 file from youtube. Then I uploaded it, it is done very fast. So a nice solution would be to convert videos to the same format that is done by google. I got the following output by mpeg: ffmpeg version N-44264-g070b0e1 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers built on Sep 7 2012 17:38:57 with gcc 4.7.1 (GCC) configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-pthreads --enable-runt ime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-bzlib --enable-frei0r --enable-libass - -enable-libcelt --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-l ibfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --enable-libopenj peg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheo ra --enable-libutvideo --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-li bvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --ena ble-zlib libavutil 51. 72.100 / 51. 72.100 libavcodec 54. 55.100 / 54. 55.100 libavformat 54. 25.105 / 54. 25.105 libavdevice 54. 2.100 / 54. 2.100 libavfilter 3. 16.100 / 3. 16.100 libswscale 2. 1.101 / 2. 1.101 libswresample 0. 15.100 / 0. 15.100 libpostproc 52. 0.100 / 52. 0.100 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'youtubetrack0.mp4': Metadata: major_brand : mp42 minor_version : 0 compatible_brands: isommp42 creation_time : 2012-10-02 22:58:57 Duration: 00:06:46.66, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 176 kb/s Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yu v420p, 450x360, 78 kb/s, 6 fps, 6 tbr, 12 tbn, 12 tbc Metadata: creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00 handler_name : VideoHandler Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 95 kb/s Metadata: creation_time : 2012-10-02 22:58:57 handler_name : IsoMedia File Produced by Google, 5-11-2011 Is it possible to construct ffmpeg parameters so that that would give the same format that google internally does? Is the information above sufficient? I couldn't construct needed params. For example I don't understand how to set tbn and what 95 kb/s mean in "Stream #0:1(und): Audio:". Now I just do: ffmpeg -i videoimage.jpg -i audio.mp3 video.mp4 Info I've got: ffmpeg version N-44998-gdf82454 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers built on Oct 2 2012 23:03:12 with gcc 4.7.1 (GCC) configuration: --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-bzlib --enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-libcelt --enable-libopencore-amrnb --en able-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger - -enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libutvideo --enable-libvo-aacenc -- enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enab le-libxavs --enable-libxvid --enable-zlib libavutil 51. 73.101 / 51. 73.101 libavcodec 54. 63.100 / 54. 63.100 libavformat 54. 29.105 / 54. 29.105 libavdevice 54. 3.100 / 54. 3.100 libavfilter 3. 19.102 / 3. 19.102 libswscale 2. 1.101 / 2. 1.101 libswresample 0. 16.100 / 0. 16.100 libpostproc 52. 1.100 / 52. 1.100 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'video.mp4': Metadata: major_brand : isom minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41 encoder : Lavf54.25.105 Duration: 00:06:46.81, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 129 kb/s Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p, 450x360, 3392 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 50 tbc Metadata: handler_name : VideoHandler Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 127 kb/s Metadata: handler_name : SoundHandler This video fails the conversion on youtube. I also tried to use other vcode parmam and extensions of output file (mp4, wmv, avi) but failed too. Would be greatful for help.

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Parallelism in .NET – Part 5, Partitioning of Work

- by Reed

When parallelizing any routine, we start by decomposing the problem. Once the problem is understood, we need to break our work into separate tasks, so each task can be run on a different processing element. This process is called partitioning. Partitioning our tasks is a challenging feat. There are opposing forces at work here: too many partitions adds overhead, too few partitions leaves processors idle. Trying to work the perfect balance between the two extremes is the goal for which we should aim. Luckily, the Task Parallel Library automatically handles much of this process. However, there are situations where the default partitioning may not be appropriate, and knowledge of our routines may allow us to guide the framework to making better decisions. First off, I’d like to say that this is a more advanced topic. It is perfectly acceptable to use the parallel constructs in the framework without considering the partitioning taking place. The default behavior in the Task Parallel Library is very well-behaved, even for unusual work loads, and should rarely be adjusted. I have found few situations where the default partitioning behavior in the TPL is not as good or better than my own hand-written partitioning routines, and recommend using the defaults unless there is a strong, measured, and profiled reason to avoid using them. However, understanding partitioning, and how the TPL partitions your data, helps in understanding the proper usage of the TPL. I indirectly mentioned partitioning while discussing aggregation. Typically, our systems will have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE), which is the terminology used for hardware capable of processing a stream of instructions. For example, in a standard Intel i7 system, there are four processor cores, each of which has two potential hardware threads due to Hyperthreading. This gives us a total of 8 PEs – theoretically, we can have up to eight operations occurring concurrently within our system. In order to fully exploit this power, we need to partition our work into Tasks. A task is a simple set of instructions that can be run on a PE. Ideally, we want to have at least one task per PE in the system, since fewer tasks means that some of our processing power will be sitting idle. A naive implementation would be to just take our data, and partition it with one element in our collection being treated as one task. When we loop through our collection in parallel, using this approach, we’d just process one item at a time, then reuse that thread to process the next, etc. There’s a flaw in this approach, however. It will tend to be slower than necessary, often slower than processing the data serially. The problem is that there is overhead associated with each task. When we take a simple foreach loop body and implement it using the TPL, we add overhead. First, we change the body from a simple statement to a delegate, which must be invoked. In order to invoke the delegate on a separate thread, the delegate gets added to the ThreadPool’s current work queue, and the ThreadPool must pull this off the queue, assign it to a free thread, then execute it. If our collection had one million elements, the overhead of trying to spawn one million tasks would destroy our performance. The answer, here, is to partition our collection into groups, and have each group of elements treated as a single task. By adding a partitioning step, we can break our total work into small enough tasks to keep our processors busy, but large enough tasks to avoid overburdening the ThreadPool. There are two clear, opposing goals here: Always try to keep each processor working, but also try to keep the individual partitions as large as possible. When using Parallel.For, the partitioning is always handled automatically. At first, partitioning here seems simple. A naive implementation would merely split the total element count up by the number of PEs in the system, and assign a chunk of data to each processor. Many hand-written partitioning schemes work in this exactly manner. This perfectly balanced, static partitioning scheme works very well if the amount of work is constant for each element. However, this is rarely the case. Often, the length of time required to process an element grows as we progress through the collection, especially if we’re doing numerical computations. In this case, the first PEs will finish early, and sit idle waiting on the last chunks to finish. Sometimes, work can decrease as we progress, since previous computations may be used to speed up later computations. In this situation, the first chunks will be working far longer than the last chunks. In order to balance the workload, many implementations create many small chunks, and reuse threads. This adds overhead, but does provide better load balancing, which in turn improves performance. The Task Parallel Library handles this more elaborately. Chunks are determined at runtime, and start small. They grow slowly over time, getting larger and larger. This tends to lead to a near optimum load balancing, even in odd cases such as increasing or decreasing workloads. Parallel.ForEach is a bit more complicated, however. When working with a generic IEnumerable<T>, the number of items required for processing is not known in advance, and must be discovered at runtime. In addition, since we don’t have direct access to each element, the scheduler must enumerate the collection to process it. Since IEnumerable<T> is not thread safe, it must lock on elements as it enumerates, create temporary collections for each chunk to process, and schedule this out. By default, it uses a partitioning method similar to the one described above. We can see this directly by looking at the Visual Partitioning sample shipped by the Task Parallel Library team, and available as part of the Samples for Parallel Programming. When we run the sample, with four cores and the default, Load Balancing partitioning scheme, we see this: The colored bands represent each processing core. You can see that, when we started (at the top), we begin with very small bands of color. As the routine progresses through the Parallel.ForEach, the chunks get larger and larger (seen by larger and larger stripes). Most of the time, this is fantastic behavior, and most likely will out perform any custom written partitioning. However, if your routine is not scaling well, it may be due to a failure in the default partitioning to handle your specific case. With prior knowledge about your work, it may be possible to partition data more meaningfully than the default Partitioner. There is the option to use an overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes a Partitioner<T> instance. The Partitioner<T> class is an abstract class which allows for both static and dynamic partitioning. By overriding Partitioner<T>.SupportsDynamicPartitions, you can specify whether a dynamic approach is available. If not, your custom Partitioner<T> subclass would override GetPartitions(int), which returns a list of IEnumerator<T> instances. These are then used by the Parallel class to split work up amongst processors. When dynamic partitioning is available, GetDynamicPartitions() is used, which returns an IEnumerable<T> for each partition. If you do decide to implement your own Partitioner<T>, keep in mind the goals and tradeoffs of different partitioning strategies, and design appropriately. The Samples for Parallel Programming project includes a ChunkPartitioner class in the ParallelExtensionsExtras project. This provides example code for implementing your own, custom allocation strategies, including a static allocator of a given chunk size. Although implementing your own Partitioner<T> is possible, as I mentioned above, this is rarely required or useful in practice. The default behavior of the TPL is very good, often better than any hand written partitioning strategy.

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Enable Media Streaming in Windows Home Server to Windows Media Player

- by Mysticgeek

One of the cool features of Windows Home Server is the ability to stream photos, music, and video to other computers on your network. Today we take a look at how to enable streaming in WHS to Windows Media Player in Vista and Windows 7. Turn on Media Streaming on WHS To enable Media Streaming from Windows Home Server, open the Windows Home Server Console and click on Settings. Now in the Setting screen select Media Sharing, then in the right column under Media Library Sharing turn on Library Sharing for the folders you want to stream. If you have a Windows 7 machine on your network make sure media streaming is enabled. You should then see the server under Other Libraries and can start streaming your media collection. Stream Video to Media Player 11 Now let’s say you want to stream videos to another member of your household who’s using a Vista machine in another room through Windows Media Player 11. Open WMP and click on Library then Media Sharing. Now click the box next to Find media that others are sharing then click Ok. Now you should see the server listed under Library…where in this example it’s geekserver. Since we only enabled Video streaming for this example, we need to click on the category icon and select Video. Now you can scroll through the available videos… And start enjoying your favorite videos streamed from the server through WMP 11 on Vista. Of course you can use this method to stream photos and music as well, you just need to enable what you want to stream from the Home Server Console. You can also stream your media to Windows Media Center and Xbox which we will be covering soon. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Share Digital Media With Other Computers on a Home Network with Windows 7Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesGMedia Blog: Setting Up a Windows Home ServerShare and Stream Digital Media Between Windows 7 Machines On Your Home NetworkInstalling Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher Automate Tasks in Linux with Crontab

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Using Durandal to Create Single Page Apps

- by Stephen.Walther

A few days ago, I gave a talk on building Single Page Apps on the Microsoft Stack. In that talk, I recommended that people use Knockout, Sammy, and RequireJS to build their presentation layer and use the ASP.NET Web API to expose data from their server. After I gave the talk, several people contacted me and suggested that I investigate a new open-source JavaScript library named Durandal. Durandal stitches together Knockout, Sammy, and RequireJS to make it easier to use these technologies together. In this blog entry, I want to provide a brief walkthrough of using Durandal to create a simple Single Page App. I am going to demonstrate how you can create a simple Movies App which contains (virtual) pages for viewing a list of movies, adding new movies, and viewing movie details. The goal of this blog entry is to give you a sense of what it is like to build apps with Durandal. Installing Durandal First things first. How do you get Durandal? The GitHub project for Durandal is located here: https://github.com/BlueSpire/Durandal The Wiki — located at the GitHub project — contains all of the current documentation for Durandal. Currently, the documentation is a little sparse, but it is enough to get you started. Instead of downloading the Durandal source from GitHub, a better option for getting started with Durandal is to install one of the Durandal NuGet packages. I built the Movies App described in this blog entry by first creating a new ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application with the Basic Template. Next, I executed the following command from the Package Manager Console: Install-Package Durandal.StarterKit As you can see from the screenshot of the Package Manager Console above, the Durandal Starter Kit package has several dependencies including: · jQuery · Knockout · Sammy · Twitter Bootstrap The Durandal Starter Kit package includes a sample Durandal application. You can get to the Starter Kit app by navigating to the Durandal controller. Unfortunately, when I first tried to run the Starter Kit app, I got an error because the Starter Kit is hard-coded to use a particular version of jQuery which is already out of date. You can fix this issue by modifying the App_Start\DurandalBundleConfig.cs file so it is jQuery version agnostic like this: bundles.Add( new ScriptBundle("~/scripts/vendor") .Include("~/Scripts/jquery-{version}.js") .Include("~/Scripts/knockout-{version}.js") .Include("~/Scripts/sammy-{version}.js") // .Include("~/Scripts/jquery-1.9.0.min.js") // .Include("~/Scripts/knockout-2.2.1.js") // .Include("~/Scripts/sammy-0.7.4.min.js") .Include("~/Scripts/bootstrap.min.js") ); The recommendation is that you create a Durandal app in a folder off your project root named App. The App folder in the Starter Kit contains the following subfolders and files: · durandal – This folder contains the actual durandal JavaScript library. · viewmodels – This folder contains all of your application’s view models. · views – This folder contains all of your application’s views. · main.js — This file contains all of the JavaScript startup code for your app including the client-side routing configuration. · main-built.js – This file contains an optimized version of your application. You need to build this file by using the RequireJS optimizer (unfortunately, before you can run the optimizer, you must first install NodeJS). For the purpose of this blog entry, I wanted to start from scratch when building the Movies app, so I deleted all of these files and folders except for the durandal folder which contains the durandal library. Creating the ASP.NET MVC Controller and View A Durandal app is built using a single server-side ASP.NET MVC controller and ASP.NET MVC view. A Durandal app is a Single Page App. When you navigate between pages, you are not navigating to new pages on the server. Instead, you are loading new virtual pages into the one-and-only-one server-side view. For the Movies app, I created the following ASP.NET MVC Home controller: public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } } There is nothing special about the Home controller – it is as basic as it gets. Next, I created the following server-side ASP.NET view. This is the one-and-only server-side view used by the Movies app: @{ Layout = null; } <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Index</title> </head> <body> <div id="applicationHost"> Loading app.... </div> @Scripts.Render("~/scripts/vendor") <script type="text/javascript" src="~/App/durandal/amd/require.js" data-main="/App/main"></script> </body> </html> Notice that I set the Layout property for the view to the value null. If you neglect to do this, then the default ASP.NET MVC layout will be applied to the view and you will get the <!DOCTYPE> and opening and closing <html> tags twice. Next, notice that the view contains a DIV element with the Id applicationHost. This marks the area where virtual pages are loaded. When you navigate from page to page in a Durandal app, HTML page fragments are retrieved from the server and stuck in the applicationHost DIV element. Inside the applicationHost element, you can place any content which you want to display when a Durandal app is starting up. For example, you can create a fancy splash screen. I opted for simply displaying the text “Loading app…”: Next, notice the view above includes a call to the Scripts.Render() helper. This helper renders out all of the JavaScript files required by the Durandal library such as jQuery and Knockout. Remember to fix the App_Start\DurandalBundleConfig.cs as described above or Durandal will attempt to load an old version of jQuery and throw a JavaScript exception and stop working. Your application JavaScript code is not included in the scripts rendered by the Scripts.Render helper. Your application code is loaded dynamically by RequireJS with the help of the following SCRIPT element located at the bottom of the view: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/App/durandal/amd/require.js" data-main="/App/main"></script> The data-main attribute on the SCRIPT element causes RequireJS to load your /app/main.js JavaScript file to kick-off your Durandal app. Creating the Durandal Main.js File The Durandal Main.js JavaScript file, located in your App folder, contains all of the code required to configure the behavior of Durandal. Here’s what the Main.js file looks like in the case of the Movies app: require.config({ paths: { 'text': 'durandal/amd/text' } }); define(function (require) { var app = require('durandal/app'), viewLocator = require('durandal/viewLocator'), system = require('durandal/system'), router = require('durandal/plugins/router'); //>>excludeStart("build", true); system.debug(true); //>>excludeEnd("build"); app.start().then(function () { //Replace 'viewmodels' in the moduleId with 'views' to locate the view. //Look for partial views in a 'views' folder in the root. viewLocator.useConvention(); //configure routing router.useConvention(); router.mapNav("movies/show"); router.mapNav("movies/add"); router.mapNav("movies/details/:id"); app.adaptToDevice(); //Show the app by setting the root view model for our application with a transition. app.setRoot('viewmodels/shell', 'entrance'); }); }); There are three important things to notice about the main.js file above. First, notice that it contains a section which enables debugging which looks like this: //>>excludeStart(“build”, true); system.debug(true); //>>excludeEnd(“build”); This code enables debugging for your Durandal app which is very useful when things go wrong. When you call system.debug(true), Durandal writes out debugging information to your browser JavaScript console. For example, you can use the debugging information to diagnose issues with your client-side routes: (The funny looking //> symbols around the system.debug() call are RequireJS optimizer pragmas). The main.js file is also the place where you configure your client-side routes. In the case of the Movies app, the main.js file is used to configure routes for three page: the movies show, add, and details pages. //configure routing router.useConvention(); router.mapNav("movies/show"); router.mapNav("movies/add"); router.mapNav("movies/details/:id"); The route for movie details includes a route parameter named id. Later, we will use the id parameter to lookup and display the details for the right movie. Finally, the main.js file above contains the following line of code: //Show the app by setting the root view model for our application with a transition. app.setRoot('viewmodels/shell', 'entrance'); This line of code causes Durandal to load up a JavaScript file named shell.js and an HTML fragment named shell.html. I’ll discuss the shell in the next section. Creating the Durandal Shell You can think of the Durandal shell as the layout or master page for a Durandal app. The shell is where you put all of the content which you want to remain constant as a user navigates from virtual page to virtual page. For example, the shell is a great place to put your website logo and navigation links. The Durandal shell is composed from two parts: a JavaScript file and an HTML file. Here’s what the HTML file looks like for the Movies app: <h1>Movies App</h1> <div class="container-fluid page-host">  </div> And here is what the JavaScript file looks like: define(function (require) { var router = require('durandal/plugins/router'); return { router: router, activate: function () { return router.activate('movies/show'); } }; }); The JavaScript file contains the view model for the shell. This view model returns the Durandal router so you can access the list of configured routes from your shell. Notice that the JavaScript file includes a function named activate(). This function loads the movies/show page as the first page in the Movies app. If you want to create a different default Durandal page, then pass the name of a different age to the router.activate() method. Creating the Movies Show Page Durandal pages are created out of a view model and a view. The view model contains all of the data and view logic required for the view. The view contains all of the HTML markup for rendering the view model. Let’s start with the movies show page. The movies show page displays a list of movies. The view model for the show page looks like this: define(function (require) { var moviesRepository = require("repositories/moviesRepository"); return { movies: ko.observable(), activate: function() { this.movies(moviesRepository.listMovies()); } }; }); You create a view model by defining a new RequireJS module (see http://requirejs.org). You create a RequireJS module by placing all of your JavaScript code into an anonymous function passed to the RequireJS define() method. A RequireJS module has two parts. You retrieve all of the modules which your module requires at the top of your module. The code above depends on another RequireJS module named repositories/moviesRepository. Next, you return the implementation of your module. The code above returns a JavaScript object which contains a property named movies and a method named activate. The activate() method is a magic method which Durandal calls whenever it activates your view model. Your view model is activated whenever you navigate to a page which uses it. In the code above, the activate() method is used to get the list of movies from the movies repository and assign the list to the view model movies property. The HTML for the movies show page looks like this: <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Title</th><th>Director</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody data-bind="foreach:movies"> <tr> <td data-bind="text:title"></td> <td data-bind="text:director"></td> <td><a data-bind="attr:{href:'#/movies/details/'+id}">Details</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <a href="#/movies/add">Add Movie</a> Notice that this is an HTML fragment. This fragment will be stuffed into the page-host DIV element in the shell.html file which is stuffed, in turn, into the applicationHost DIV element in the server-side MVC view. The HTML markup above contains data-bind attributes used by Knockout to display the list of movies (To learn more about Knockout, visit http://knockoutjs.com). The list of movies from the view model is displayed in an HTML table. Notice that the page includes a link to a page for adding a new movie. The link uses the following URL which starts with a hash: #/movies/add. Because the link starts with a hash, clicking the link does not cause a request back to the server. Instead, you navigate to the movies/add page virtually. Creating the Movies Add Page The movies add page also consists of a view model and view. The add page enables you to add a new movie to the movie database. Here’s the view model for the add page: define(function (require) { var app = require('durandal/app'); var router = require('durandal/plugins/router'); var moviesRepository = require("repositories/moviesRepository"); return { movieToAdd: { title: ko.observable(), director: ko.observable() }, activate: function () { this.movieToAdd.title(""); this.movieToAdd.director(""); this._movieAdded = false; }, canDeactivate: function () { if (this._movieAdded == false) { return app.showMessage('Are you sure you want to leave this page?', 'Navigate', ['Yes', 'No']); } else { return true; } }, addMovie: function () { // Add movie to db moviesRepository.addMovie(ko.toJS(this.movieToAdd)); // flag new movie this._movieAdded = true; // return to list of movies router.navigateTo("#/movies/show"); } }; }); The view model contains one property named movieToAdd which is bound to the add movie form. The view model also has the following three methods: 1. activate() – This method is called by Durandal when you navigate to the add movie page. The activate() method resets the add movie form by clearing out the movie title and director properties. 2. canDeactivate() – This method is called by Durandal when you attempt to navigate away from the add movie page. If you return false then navigation is cancelled. 3. addMovie() – This method executes when the add movie form is submitted. This code adds the new movie to the movie repository. I really like the Durandal canDeactivate() method. In the code above, I use the canDeactivate() method to show a warning to a user if they navigate away from the add movie page – either by clicking the Cancel button or by hitting the browser back button – before submitting the add movie form: The view for the add movie page looks like this: <form data-bind="submit:addMovie"> <fieldset> <legend>Add Movie</legend> <div> <label> Title: <input data-bind="value:movieToAdd.title" required /> </label> </div> <div> <label> Director: <input data-bind="value:movieToAdd.director" required /> </label> </div> <div> <input type="submit" value="Add" /> <a href="#/movies/show">Cancel</a> </div> </fieldset> </form> I am using Knockout to bind the movieToAdd property from the view model to the INPUT elements of the HTML form. Notice that the FORM element includes a data-bind attribute which invokes the addMovie() method from the view model when the HTML form is submitted. Creating the Movies Details Page You navigate to the movies details Page by clicking the Details link which appears next to each movie in the movies show page: The Details links pass the movie ids to the details page: #/movies/details/0 #/movies/details/1 #/movies/details/2 Here’s what the view model for the movies details page looks like: define(function (require) { var router = require('durandal/plugins/router'); var moviesRepository = require("repositories/moviesRepository"); return { movieToShow: { title: ko.observable(), director: ko.observable() }, activate: function (context) { // Grab movie from repository var movie = moviesRepository.getMovie(context.id); // Add to view model this.movieToShow.title(movie.title); this.movieToShow.director(movie.director); } }; }); Notice that the view model activate() method accepts a parameter named context. You can take advantage of the context parameter to retrieve route parameters such as the movie Id. In the code above, the context.id property is used to retrieve the correct movie from the movie repository and the movie is assigned to a property named movieToShow exposed by the view model. The movie details view displays the movieToShow property by taking advantage of Knockout bindings: <div> <h2 data-bind="text:movieToShow.title"></h2> directed by <span data-bind="text:movieToShow.director"></span> </div> Summary The goal of this blog entry was to walkthrough building a simple Single Page App using Durandal and to get a feel for what it is like to use this library. I really like how Durandal stitches together Knockout, Sammy, and RequireJS and establishes patterns for using these libraries to build Single Page Apps. Having a standard pattern which developers on a team can use to build new pages is super valuable. Once you get the hang of it, using Durandal to create new virtual pages is dead simple. Just define a new route, view model, and view and you are done. I also appreciate the fact that Durandal did not attempt to re-invent the wheel and that Durandal leverages existing JavaScript libraries such as Knockout, RequireJS, and Sammy. These existing libraries are powerful libraries and I have already invested a considerable amount of time in learning how to use them. Durandal makes it easier to use these libraries together without losing any of their power. Durandal has some additional interesting features which I have not had a chance to play with yet. For example, you can use the RequireJS optimizer to combine and minify all of a Durandal app’s code. Also, Durandal supports a way to create custom widgets (client-side controls) by composing widgets from a controller and view. You can download the code for the Movies app by clicking the following link (this is a Visual Studio 2012 project): Durandal Movie App

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What’s new in IIS8, Perf, Indexing Service-Week 49

- by OWScott

You can find this week’s video here. After some delays in the publishing process week 49 is finally live. This week I'm taking Q&A from viewers, starting with what's new in IIS8, a question on enable32BitAppOnWin64, performance settings for asp.net, the ARR Helper, and Indexing Services. Starting this week for the remaining four weeks of the 52 week series I'll be taking questions and answers from the viewers. Already a number of questions have come in. This week we look at five topics. Pre-topic: We take a look at the new features in IIS8. Last week Internet Information Services (IIS) 8 Beta was released to the public. This week's video touches on the upcoming features in the next version of IIS. Here’s a link to the blog post which was mentioned in the video Question 1: In a number of places (http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/201/32-bit-mode-worker-processes/, http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MIX/MIX08/T06), I've saw that enable32BitAppOnWin64 is recommended for performance reasons. I'm guessing it has to do with memory usage... but I never could find detailed explanation on why this is recommended (even Microsoft books are vague on this topic - they just say - do it, but provide no reason why it should be done). Do you have any insight into this? (Predrag Tomasevic) Question 2: Do you have any recommendations on modifying aspnet.config and machine.config to deliver better performance when it comes to "high number of concurrent connections"? I've implemented recommendations for modifying machine.config from this article (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/10ASPNetPerformance.aspx - ASP.NET Process Configuration Optimization section)... but I would gladly listen to more recommendations if you have them. (Predrag Tomasevic) Question 3: Could you share more of your experience with ARR Helper? I'm specifically interested in configuring ARR Helper (for example - how to only accept only X-Forwards-For from certain IPs (proxies you trust)). (Predrag Tomasevic) Question 4: What is the replacement for indexing service to use in coding web search pages on a Windows 2008R2 server? (Susan Williams) Here’s the link that was mentioned: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692804.aspx This is now week 49 of a 52 week series for the web pro. You can view past and future weeks here: http://dotnetslackers.com/projects/LearnIIS7/ You can find this week’s video here.

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Replacing jQuery.live() with jQuery.on()

- by Rick Strahl

jQuery 1.9 and 1.10 have introduced a host of changes, but for the most part these changes are mostly transparent to existing application usage of jQuery. After spending some time last week with a few of my projects and going through them with a specific eye for jQuery failures I found that for the most part there wasn't a big issue. The vast majority of code continues to run just fine with either 1.9 or 1.10 (which are supposed to be in sync but with 1.10 removing support for legacy Internet Explorer pre-9.0 versions). However, one particular change in the new versions has caused me quite a bit of update trouble, is the removal of the jQuery.live() function. This is my own fault I suppose - .live() has been deprecated for a while, but with 1.9 and later it was finally removed altogether from jQuery. In the past I had quite a bit of jQuery code that used .live() and it's one of the things that's holding back my upgrade process, although I'm slowly cleaning up my code and switching to the .on() function as the replacement. jQuery.live() jQuery.live() was introduced a long time ago to simplify handling events on matched elements that exist currently on the document and those that are are added in the future and also match the selector. jQuery uses event bubbling, special event binding, plus some magic using meta data attached to a parent level element to check and see if the original target event element matches the selected selected elements (for more info see Elijah Manor's comment below). An Example Assume a list of items like the following in HTML for example and further assume that the items in this list can be appended to at a later point. In this app there's a smallish initial list that loads to start, and as the user scrolls towards the end of the initial small list more items are loaded dynamically and added to the list.<div id="PostItemContainer" class="scrollbox"> <div class="postitem" data-id="4z6qhomm"> <div class="post-icon"></div> <div class="postitemheader"><a href="show/4z6qhomm" target="Content">1999 Buick Century For Sale!</a></div> <div class="postitemprice rightalign">$ 3,500 O.B.O.</div> <div class="smalltext leftalign">Jun. 07 @ 1:06am</div> <div class="post-byline">- Vehicles - Automobiles</div> </div> <div class="postitem" data-id="2jtvuu17"> <div class="postitemheader"><a href="show/2jtvuu17" target="Content">Toyota VAN 1987</a></div> <div class="postitemprice rightalign">$950</div> <div class="smalltext leftalign">Jun. 07 @ 12:29am</div> <div class="post-byline">- Vehicles - Automobiles</div> </div> … </div> With the jQuery.live() function you could easily select elements and hook up a click handler like this:$(".postitem").live("click", function() {...}); Simple and perfectly readable. The behavior of the .live handler generally was the same as the corresponding simple event handlers like .click(), except that you have to explicitly name the event instead of using one of the methods. Re-writing with jQuery.on() With .live() removed in 1.9 and later we have to re-write .live() code above with an alternative. The jQuery documentation points you at the .on() or .delegate() functions to update your code. jQuery.on() is a more generic event handler function, and it's what jQuery uses internally to map the high level event functions like .click(),.change() etc. that jQuery exposes. Using jQuery.on() however is not a one to one replacement of the .live() function. While .on() can handle events directly and use the same syntax as .live() did, you'll find if you simply switch out .live() with .on() that events on not-yet existing elements will not fire. IOW, the key feature of .live() is not working. You can use .on() to get the desired effect however, but you have to change the syntax to explicitly handle the event you're interested in on the container and then provide a filter selector to specify which elements you are actually interested in for handling the event for. Sounds more complicated than it is and it's easier to see with an example. For the list above hooking .postitem clicks, using jQuery.on() looks like this:$("#PostItemContainer").on("click", ".postitem", function() {...}); You specify a container that can handle the .click event and then provide a filter selector to find the child elements that trigger the the actual event. So here #PostItemContainer contains many .postitems, whose click events I want to handle. Any container will do including document, but I tend to use the container closest to the elements I actually want to handle the events on to minimize the event bubbling that occurs to capture the event. With this code I get the same behavior as with .live() and now as new .postitem elements are added the click events are always available. Sweet. Here's the full event signature for the .on() function: .on( events [, selector ] [, data ], handler(eventObject) ) Note that the selector is optional - if you omit it you essentially create a simple event handler that handles the event directly on the selected object. The filter/child selector required if you want life-like - uh, .live() like behavior to happen. While it's a bit more verbose than what .live() did, .on() provides the same functionality by being more explicit on what your parent container for trapping events is. .on() is good Practice even for ordinary static Element Lists As a side note, it's a good practice to use jQuery.on() or jQuery.delegate() for events in most cases anyway, using this 'container event trapping' syntax. That's because rather than requiring lots of event handlers on each of the child elements (.postitem in the sample above), there's just one event handler on the container, and only when clicked does jQuery drill down to find the matching filter element and tries to match it to the originating element. In the early days of jQuery I used manually build handlers that did this and manually drilled from the event object into the originalTarget to determine if it's a matching element. With later versions of jQuery the various event functions in jQuery essentially provide this functionality out of the box with functions like .on() and .delegate(). All of this is nothing new, but I thought I'd write this up because I have on a few occasions forgotten what exactly was needed to replace the many .live() function calls that litter my code - especially older code. This will be a nice reminder next time I have a memory blank on this topic. And maybe along the way I've helped one or two of you as well to clean up your .live() code…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in jQuery Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Oracle Data Integration Solutions and the Oracle EXADATA Database Machine

- by João Vilanova

Oracle's data integration solutions provide a complete, open and integrated solution for building, deploying, and managing real-time data-centric architectures in operational and analytical environments. Fully integrated with and optimized for the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle's data integration solutions take data integration to the next level and delivers extremeperformance and scalability for all the enterprise data movement and transformation needs. Easy-to-use, open and standards-based Oracle's data integration solutions dramatically improve productivity, provide unparalleled efficiency, and lower the cost of ownership.You can watch a video about this subject, after clicking on the link below.DIS for EXADATA Video

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Extending NerdDinner: Adding Geolocated Flair

- by Jon Galloway

NerdDinner is a website with the audacious goal of “Organizing the world’s nerds and helping them eat in packs.” Because nerds aren’t likely to socialize with others unless a website tells them to do it. Scott Hanselman showed off a lot of the cool features we’ve added to NerdDinner lately during his popular talk at MIX10, Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform. Did you miss it? Go ahead and watch it, I’ll wait. One of the features we wanted to add was flair. You know about flair, right? It’s a way to let folks who like your site show it off in their own site. For example, here’s my StackOverflow flair: Great! So how could we add some of this flair stuff to NerdDinner? What do we want to show? If we’re going to encourage our users to give up a bit of their beautiful website to show off a bit of ours, we need to think about what they’ll want to show. For instance, my StackOverflow flair is all about me, not StackOverflow. So how will this apply to NerdDinner? Since NerdDinner is all about organizing local dinners, in order for the flair to be useful it needs to make sense for the person viewing the web page. If someone visits from Egypt visits my blog, they should see information about NerdDinners in Egypt. That’s geolocation – localizing site content based on where the browser’s sitting, and it makes sense for flair as well as entire websites. So we’ll set up a simple little callout that prompts them to host a dinner in their area: Hopefully our flair works and there is a dinner near your viewers, so they’ll see another view which lists upcoming dinners near them: The Geolocation Part Generally website geolocation is done by mapping the requestor’s IP address to a geographic area. It’s not an exact science, but I’ve always found it to be pretty accurate. There are (at least) three ways to handle it: You pay somebody like MaxMind for a database (with regular updates) that sits on your server, and you use their API to do lookups. I used this on a pretty big project a few years ago and it worked well. You use HTML 5 Geolocation API or Google Gears or some other browser based solution. I think those are cool (I use Google Gears a lot), but they’re both in flux right now and I don’t think either has a wide enough of an install base yet to rely on them. You might want to, but I’ve heard you do all kinds of crazy stuff, and sometimes it gets you in trouble. I don’t mean talk out of line, but we all laugh behind your back a bit. But, hey, it’s up to you. It’s your flair or whatever. There are some free webservices out there that will take an IP address and give you location information. Easy, and works for everyone. That’s what we’re doing. I looked at a few different services and settled on IPInfoDB. It’s free, has a great API, and even returns JSON, which is handy for Javascript use. The IP query is pretty simple. We hit a URL like this: http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip=74.125.45.100&timezone=false … and we get an XML response back like this… <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Response> <Ip>74.125.45.100</Ip> <Status>OK</Status> <CountryCode>US</CountryCode> <CountryName>United States</CountryName> <RegionCode>06</RegionCode> <RegionName>California</RegionName> <City>Mountain View</City> <ZipPostalCode>94043</ZipPostalCode> <Latitude>37.4192</Latitude> <Longitude>-122.057</Longitude> </Response> So we’ll build some data transfer classes to hold the location information, like this: public class LocationInfo { public string Country { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public string City { get; set; } public string ZipPostalCode { get; set; } public LatLong Position { get; set; } } public class LatLong { public float Lat { get; set; } public float Long { get; set; } } And now hitting the service is pretty simple: public static LocationInfo HostIpToPlaceName(string ip) { string url = "http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip={0}&timezone=false"; url = String.Format(url, ip); var result = XDocument.Load(url); var location = (from x in result.Descendants("Response") select new LocationInfo { City = (string)x.Element("City"), RegionName = (string)x.Element("RegionName"), Country = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), ZipPostalCode = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), Position = new LatLong { Lat = (float)x.Element("Latitude"), Long = (float)x.Element("Longitude") } }).First(); return location; } Getting The User’s IP Okay, but first we need the end user’s IP, and you’d think it would be as simple as reading the value from HttpContext: HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress But you’d be wrong. Sorry. UserHostAddress just wraps HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"], but that doesn’t get you the IP for users behind a proxy. That’s in another header, “HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR". So you can either hit a wrapper and then check a header, or just check two headers. I went for uniformity: string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; We’re almost set to wrap this up, but first let’s talk about our views. Yes, views, because we’ll have two. Selecting the View We wanted to make it easy for people to include the flair in their sites, so we looked around at how other people were doing this. The StackOverflow folks have a pretty good flair system, which allows you to include the flair in your site as either an IFRAME reference or a Javascript include. We’ll do both. We have a ServicesController to handle use of the site information outside of NerdDinner.com, so this fits in pretty well there. We’ll be displaying the same information for both HTML and Javascript flair, so we can use one Flair controller action which will return a different view depending on the requested format. Here’s our general flow for our controller action: Get the user’s IP Translate it to a location Grab the top three upcoming dinners that are near that location Select the view based on the format (defaulted to “html”) Return a FlairViewModel which contains the list of dinners and the location information public ActionResult Flair(string format = "html") { string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty( Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; var location = GeolocationService.HostIpToPlaceName(SourceIP); var dinners = dinnerRepository. FindByLocation(location.Position.Lat, location.Position.Long). OrderByDescending(p => p.EventDate).Take(3); // Select the view we'll return. // Using a switch because we'll add in JSON and other formats later. string view; switch (format.ToLower()) { case "javascript": view = "JavascriptFlair"; break; default: view = "Flair"; break; } return View( view, new FlairViewModel { Dinners = dinners.ToList(), LocationName = string.IsNullOrEmpty(location.City) ? "you" : String.Format("{0}, {1}", location.City, location.RegionName) } ); } Note: I’m not in love with the logic here, but it seems like overkill to extract the switch statement away when we’ll probably just have two or three views. What do you think? The HTML View The HTML version of the view is pretty simple – the only thing of any real interest here is the use of an extension method to truncate strings that are would cause the titles to wrap. public static string Truncate(this string s, int maxLength) { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(s) || maxLength <= 0) return string.Empty; else if (s.Length > maxLength) return s.Substring(0, maxLength) + "..."; else return s; } So here’s how the HTML view ends up looking: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<FlairViewModel>" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> <!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"> <head> <title>Nerd Dinner</title> <link href="/Content/Flair.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="nd-wrapper"> <h2 id="nd-header">NerdDinner.com</h2> <div id="nd-outer"> <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> <div id="nd-bummer"> Looks like there's no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create">host one</a>?</div> <% } else { %> <h3> Dinners Near You</h3> <ul> <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> <li> <%: Html.ActionLink(String.Format("{0} with {1} on {2}", item.Title.Truncate(20), item.HostedBy, item.EventDate.ToShortDateString()), "Details", "Dinners", new { id = item.DinnerID }, new { target = "_blank" })%></li> <% } %> </ul> <% } %> <div id="nd-footer"> More dinners and fun at <a target="_blank" href="http://nrddnr.com">http://nrddnr.com</a></div> </div> </div> </body> </html> You’d include this in a page using an IFRAME, like this: <IFRAME height=230 marginHeight=0 src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair" frameBorder=0 width=160 marginWidth=0 scrolling=no></IFRAME> The Javascript view The Javascript flair is written so you can include it in a webpage with a simple script include, like this: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair?format=javascript"></script> The goal of this view is very similar to the HTML embed view, with a few exceptions: We’re creating a script element and adding it to the head of the document, which will then document.write out the content. Note that you have to consider if your users will actually have a <head> element in their documents, but for website flair use cases I think that’s a safe bet. Since the content is being added to the existing page rather than shown in an IFRAME, all links need to be absolute. That means we can’t use Html.ActionLink, since it generates relative routes. We need to escape everything since it’s being written out as strings. We need to set the content type to application/x-javascript. The easiest way to do that is to use the <%@ Page ContentType%> directive. <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<NerdDinner.Models.FlairViewModel>" ContentType="application/x-javascript" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> document.write('<script>var link = document.createElement(\"link\");link.href = \"http://nerddinner.com/content/Flair.css\";link.rel = \"stylesheet\";link.type = \"text/css\";var head = document.getElementsByTagName(\"head\")[0];head.appendChild(link);</script>'); document.write('<div id=\"nd-wrapper\"><h2 id=\"nd-header\">NerdDinner.com</h2><div id=\"nd-outer\">'); <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-bummer\">Looks like there\'s no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create\">host one</a>?</div>'); <% } else { %> document.write('<h3> Dinners Near You</h3><ul>'); <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> document.write('<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com/<%: item.DinnerID %>\"><%: item.Title.Truncate(20) %> with <%: item.HostedBy %> on <%: item.EventDate.ToShortDateString() %></a></li>'); <% } %> document.write('</ul>'); <% } %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-footer\"> More dinners and fun at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com\">http://nrddnr.com</a></div></div></div>'); Getting IP’s for Testing There are a variety of online services that will translate a location to an IP, which were handy for testing these out. I found http://www.itouchmap.com/latlong.html to be most useful, but I’m open to suggestions if you know of something better. Next steps I think the next step here is to minimize load – you know, in case people start actually using this flair. There are two places to think about – the NerdDinner.com servers, and the services we’re using for Geolocation. I usually think about caching as a first attack on server load, but that’s less helpful here since every user will have a different IP. Instead, I’d look at taking advantage of Asynchronous Controller Actions, a cool new feature in ASP.NET MVC 2. Async Actions let you call a potentially long-running webservice without tying up a thread on the server while waiting for the response. There’s some good info on that in the MSDN documentation, and Dino Esposito wrote a great article on Asynchronous ASP.NET Pages in the April 2010 issue of MSDN Magazine. But let’s think of the children, shall we? What about ipinfodb.com? Well, they don’t have specific daily limits, but they do throttle you if you put a lot of traffic on them. From their FAQ: We do not have a specific daily limit but queries that are at a rate faster than 2 per second will be put in "queue". If you stay below 2 queries/second everything will be normal. If you go over the limit, you will still get an answer for all queries but they will be slowed down to about 1 per second. This should not affect most users but for high volume websites, you can either use our IP database on your server or we can whitelist your IP for 5$/month (simply use the donate form and leave a comment with your server IP). Good programming practices such as not querying our API for all page views (you can store the data in a cookie or a database) will also help not reaching the limit. So the first step there is to save the geolocalization information in a time-limited cookie, which will allow us to look up the local dinners immediately without having to hit the geolocation service.

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Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff

- by The Geek

Yesterday Microsoft announced the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9, which is very close to the final product. Here’s a screenshot tour of the most interesting new stuff, as well as answers to your questions. The most important question is should you install this version? And the answer is absolutely yes. Even if you don’t use IE, it’s better to have a newer, more secure version on your PC. What’s New Under the Hood in Release Candidate vs Beta? If you want to see the full list of changes with all the original marketing detail, you can read Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web page, but here’s the highlights that you might be interested in. Improved Performance – they’ve made a lot of changes, and it really feels faster, especially when using more intensive web apps like Gmail. Power Consumption Settings – since the JavaScript engine in any browser uses a lot of CPU power, they’ve now integrated it into the power settings, so if you’re on battery it will use less CPU, and save battery life. This is really a great change. UI Changes – The tab bar can now be moved below the address bar (see below for more), they’ve shaved some pixels off the design to save space, and now you can toggle the Menu bar to be always on. Pinned Sites – now you can pin multiple pages to a single taskbar button. Very useful if you always use a couple web apps together. You can also pin a site in InPrivate mode. FlashBlock and AdBlock are Integrated (sorta) – there’s a new ActiveX filtering that lets you enable plug-ins only for sites you trust. There’s also a tracking protection list that can block certain content (which can obviously be used to block ads). Geolocation – while a lot of privacy conscious people might complain about this, if you use your laptop while traveling, it’s really useful to have geo-located features when using Google Maps, etc. Don’t worry, it won’t leak your privacy by default. WebM Video – Yeah, Google recently removed H.264 from Chrome, but Microsoft has added Google’s WebM video format to Internet Explorer. Keep reading for more about using the new features Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines The 50 Faces of Mario Death [Infographic] Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO]

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