geeks - Page 26 - Developer IT

I’m going to have to stop using MS Virtual PC 2007

- by John Breakwell

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Plumbersmate/archive/2013/10/23/irsquom-going-to-have-to-stop-using-ms-virtual-pc.aspxFor many years now I’ve been happily chucking around Windows XP virtual hard disks and loading them with Virtual PC. Sadly I’m going to have to turn to something modern as the virtual processor is no longer up to scratch, as I found when trying to install Windows 8.1 evaluation. In the past this would have been a Blue Screen but they’re handled differently in Windows 8, usually with a frowning emoticon. 0x0000005D means UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR and the solution would be to enable No-Execute Memory Protection in the BIOS. Virtual PC is ancient so the AMI BIOS has no such setting on any of the menus. Off now to find a virtualisation product I like.

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ISO Mount for Windown 7 and/or Server 2008

- by Eric Johnson

Apparently it's hard to locate a free ISO mapper these days. Like most people I've use Microsoft's Virtual CD ROM to mount ISO images on XP and server 2003 machines. This will not work in Windows 7 and Server 2008 machines. Therefore, I recommend people try out magic ISO instead. It's freeware and can be downloaded from the following URL. http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-history.htm

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ASP.NET MVC localization DisplayNameAttribute alternatives: a better way

- by Brian Schroer

In my last post, I talked bout creating a custom class inheriting from System.ComponentModel.DisplayNameAttribute to retrieve display names from resource files: [LocalizedDisplayName("RememberMe")] public bool RememberMe { get; set; } That’s a lot of work to put an attribute on all of my model properties though. It would be nice if I could intercept the ASP.NET MVC code that analyzes the model metadata to retrieve display names to make it automatically get localized text from my resource files. That way, I could just set up resource file entries where the keys are the property names, and not have to put attributes on all of my properties. That’s done by creating a custom class inheriting from System.Web.Mvc.DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider: 1: public class LocalizedDataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider : 2: DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider 3: { 4: protected override ModelMetadata CreateMetadata( 5: IEnumerable<Attribute> attributes, 6: Type containerType, 7: Func<object> modelAccessor, 8: Type modelType, 9: string propertyName) 10: { 11: var meta = base.CreateMetadata 12: (attributes, containerType, modelAccessor, modelType, propertyName); 13: 14: if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(propertyName)) 15: return meta; 16: 17: if (meta.DisplayName == null) 18: GetLocalizedDisplayName(meta, propertyName); 19: 20: if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(meta.DisplayName)) 21: meta.DisplayName = string.Format("[[{0}]]", propertyName); 22: 23: return meta; 24: } 25: 26: private static void GetLocalizedDisplayName(ModelMetadata meta, string propertyName) 27: { 28: ResourceManager resourceManager = MyResource.ResourceManager; 29: CultureInfo culture = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture; 30: 31: meta.DisplayName = resourceManager.GetString(propertyName, culture); 32: } 33: } Line 11 calls the base CreateMetadata method. Line 17 checks whether the metadata DisplayName property has already been populated by a DisplayNameAttribute (or my LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute). If so, it respects that and doesn’t use my custom localized text lookup. The GetLocalizedDisplayName method checks for the property name as a resource file key. If found, it uses the localized text from the resource files. If the key is not found in the resource file, as with my LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute, I return a formatted string containing the property name (e.g. “[[RememberMe]]”) so I can tell by looking at my web pages which resource keys I haven’t defined yet. It’s hooked up with this code in the Application_Start method of Global.asax: ModelMetadataProviders.Current = new LocalizedDataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider();

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Observations From The Corner of a Starbucks

- by Chris Williams

I’ve spent the last 3 days sitting in a Starbucks for 4-8 hours at a time. As a result, I’ve observed a lot of interesting behavior and people (most of whom were uninteresting themselves.) One of the things I’ve noticed is that most people don’t sit down. They come in, get their drink and go. The ones that do sit down, stay much longer than it takes to consume their drink. The drink is just an incidental purchase. Certainly not the reason they are here. Most of the people who sit also have laptops. Probably around 75%. Only a few have kids (with them) but the ones that do, have very small kids. Toddlers or younger. Of all the “campers” only a small percentage are wearing headphone, presumably because A) external noise doesn’t bother them or B) they aren’t working on anything important. My buddy George falls into category A, but he grew up in a house full of people. Silence freaks him out far more than noise. My brother and I, on the other hand, were both only children and don’t handle noisy distractions well. He needs it quiet (like a tomb) and I need music. Go figure… I can listen to Britney Spears mixed with Apoptygma Berzerk and Anthrax and crank out 30 pages, but if your toddler is banging his spoon on the table, you’re getting a dirty look… unless I have music, then all is right with the world. Anyway, enough about me. Most of the people who come in as a group are smiling when they enter. Half as many are smiling when they leave. People who come in alone typically aren’t smiling at all. The average age, over the last three days seems to be early 30s… with a couple of senior citizens and teenagers at either end of the curve. The teenagers almost never stay. They have better stuff to do on a nice day. The senior citizens are split nearly evenly between campers and in&outs. Most of the non-solo campers have 1 person with a laptop, while the other reads the paper or a book. Some campers bring multiple laptops… but only really look at one of them. This Starbucks has a drive through. The line is almost never more than 2-3 cars long but apparently a lot of the in&out people would rather come in and stand in line behind (up to) 5 people. The music in here sucks. My musical tastes can best be described as eclectic to bad, but I can still get work done (see above.) I find the music in this particular Starbucks to be discordant and jarring. At this Starbucks, the coffee lingo is apparently something that is meant to occur between employees only. The nice lady at the counter can handle orders in plain English and translate them to Baristaspeak (Baristese?) quite efficiently. If you order in Baristaspeak however, she will look confused and repeat your order back to you in plain English to confirm you actually meant what you said. Then she will say it in Baristaspeak to the lady making your drink. Nobody in this Starbucks (other than the Baristas) makes eye-contact… at least not with me. Of course that may be indicative of a separate issue. ;)

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Twitter User/Search Feature Header Support in LINQ to Twitter

- by Joe Mayo

LINQ to Twitter’s goal is to support the entire Twitter API. So, if you see a new feature pop-up, it will be in-queue for inclusion. The same holds for the new X-Feature… response headers for User/Search requests. However, you don’t have to wait for a special property on the TwitterContext to access these headers, you can just use them via the TwitterContext.ResponseHeaders collection. The following code demonstrates how to access the new X-Feature… headers with LINQ to Twitter: var user = (from usr in twitterCtx.User where usr.Type == UserType.Search && usr.Query == "Joe Mayo" select usr) .FirstOrDefault(); Console.WriteLine( "X-FeatureRateLimit-Limit: {0}\n" + "X-FeatureRateLimit-Remaining: {1}\n" + "X-FeatureRateLimit-Reset: {2}\n" + "X-FeatureRateLimit-Class: {3}\n", twitterCtx.ResponseHeaders["X-FeatureRateLimit-Limit"], twitterCtx.ResponseHeaders["X-FeatureRateLimit-Remaining"], twitterCtx.ResponseHeaders["X-FeatureRateLimit-Reset"], twitterCtx.ResponseHeaders["X-FeatureRateLimit-Class"]); The query above is from the User entity, whose type is Search; allowing you to search for the Twitter user whose name is specified by the Query parameter filter. After materializing the query, with FirstOrDefault, twitterCtx will hold all of the headers, including X-Feature… that Twitter returned. Running the code above will display results similar to the following: X-FeatureRateLimit-Limit: 60 X-FeatureRateLimit-Remaining: 59 X-FeatureRateLimit-Reset: 1271452177 X-FeatureRateLimit-Class: namesearch In addition to getting the X-Feature… headers a capability you might have noticed is that the TwitterContext.ResponseHeaders collection will contain any HTTP that Twitter sends back to a query. Therefore, you’ll be able to access new Twitter headers anytime in the future with LINQ to Twitter. @JoeMayo

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My Tech Ed North America Preview - Content Edition

- by Chris Gardner

As I promised in my last post, I feel the need to give you a rundown on all the technical content I am looking forward to checking out at Tech Ed this year. We shall start with the content I know I'll be able to see. This would be some demo stations in the Technical Learning Center. I will DEFINITELY be checking out the Windows Phone Device Bar. I will admit that I am a bit of a phone snob, and I just want to manhandle all that sexy, sexy tech. I am also planning on talking to the Windows Phone team and the Azure team. Year after year, I end up spending more time in either the TLC or taking certification tests than anywhere else. This leads me to the one "Exam Cram" session I hope to attend. There is a session to cram for 70-599: Designing and Developing Windows Phone Applications. I know this seems odd. I'm (sort of) an XNA guru. However, I'm not that up on my Silverlight. I know enough to add Silverlight to an XNA project. Now, let's talk breakout sessions. We always need to keep track of where we're going. I know, I talk about solving problems over forcing buzz words. However, it is important to know what those buzz words before you tell people not to use them. For this, we will look to the "What's New in Visual Studio 11" and "What's New in Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5." Of course, we do talk bad about buzz words around here. For this, I'm really looking forward to "Visual C#/Visual Basic: Becoming a Guru with Existing Features." I still have .NET 2 tricks that are crucial to my internal libraries. In depth knowledge will NEVER trump shortcut libraries. There is a session in ASP.NET for phones and tablets. For those of you that have not tried to use ASP.NET on a mobile device, there is one thing you really need to understand. Mobile devices don't use scroll bars. That's right; the thing with the least screen real estate doesn't use scroll bars. Thus, I am hoping this session will give some good advice in having an ASP.NET site target both mobile and desktop. The last "business only" session "The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin." T & W Operations is a VERY small business. As such, I am the TFS admin because I'm the developer that is also the SQL Guru. I keep my server up, but it'd be nice to know some really cool tricks for the part time guy. This leads us the the fun sessions. Coding4Fun has a Kinect session. The Twitter followers will remember that I now have a Kinect for Windows sitting on my desk at work. I have gotten pretty handy with the device, but I KNOW I'm missing some good stuff. Finally, we come to Brian Prince's session on "Making Crazy Money with Games and the Cloud." Never mind the fact that we're using Azure at work. Never mind the fact that I'm actually using the cloud in a game. Never mind the fact that the session has the terms "Crazy Money" and "Games" in the title. If you've never seen Brian Prince speak, you're missing out. In the Hands-on-Labs, we are not allowed to make our own schedule. Instead, we're asked what sessions we can't miss, and they try to schedule around those times. This was the one session I said I couldn't miss. This should complete the technical content for the conference. Coming soon, I'll dig into the certifications I hope to attain. Then, we'll talk about the social activities for the week. Here's a preview of that. I am a member of The Krewe...

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Robotic Arm – Hardware

- by Szymon Kobalczyk

This is first in series of articles about project I've been building in my spare time since last Summer. Actually it all began when I was researching a topic of modeling human motion kinematics in order to create gesture recognition library for Kinect. This ties heavily into motion theory of robotic manipulators so I also glanced at some designs of robotic arms. Somehow I stumbled upon this cool looking open source robotic arm: It was featured on Thingiverse and published by user jjshortcut (Jan-Jaap). Since for some time I got hooked on toying with microcontrollers, robots and other electronics, I decided to give it a try and build it myself. In this post I will describe the hardware build of the arm and in later posts I will be writing about the software to control it. Another reason to build the arm myself was the cost factor. Even small commercial robotic arms are quite expensive – products from Lynxmotion and Dagu look great but both cost around USD $300 (actually there is one cheap arm available but it looks more like a toy to me). In comparison this design is quite cheap. It uses seven hobby grade servos and even the cheapest ones should work fine. The structure is build from a set of laser cut parts connected with few metal spacers (15mm and 47mm) and lots of M3 screws. Other than that you’d only need a microcontroller board to drive the servos. So in total it comes a lot cheaper to build it yourself than buy an of the shelf robotic arm. Oh, and if you don’t like this one there are few more robotic arm projects at Thingiverse (including one by oomlout). Laser cut parts Some time ago I’ve build another robot using laser cut parts so I knew the process already. You can grab the design files in both DXF and EPS format from Thingiverse, and there are also 3D models of each part in STL. Actually the design is split into a second project for the mini servo gripper (there is also a standard servo version available but it won’t fit this arm). I wanted to make some small adjustments, layout, and add measurements to the parts before sending it for cutting. I’ve looked at some free 2D CAD programs, and finally did all this work using QCad 3 Beta with worked great for me (I also tried LibreCAD but it didn’t work that well). All parts are cut from 4 mm thick material. Because I was worried that acrylic is too fragile and might break, I also ordered another set cut from plywood. In the end I build it from plywood because it was easier to glue (I was told acrylic requires a special glue). Btw. I found a great laser cutter service in Kraków and highly recommend it (www.ebbox.com.pl). It cost me only USD $26 for both sets ($16 acrylic + $10 plywood). Metal parts I bought all the M3 screws and nuts at local hardware store. Make sure to look for nylon lock (nyloc) nuts for the gripper because otherwise it unscrews and comes apart quickly. I couldn’t find local store with metal spacers and had to order them online (you’d need 11 x 47mm and 3 x 15mm). I think I paid less than USD $10 for all metal parts. Servos This arm uses five standards size servos to drive the arm itself, and two micro servos are used on the gripper. Author of the project used Modelcraft RS-2 Servo and Modelcraft ES-05 HT Servo. I had two Futaba S3001 servos laying around, and ordered additional TowerPro SG-5010 standard size servos and TowerPro SG90 micro servos. However it turned out that the SG90 won’t fit in the gripper so I had to replace it with a slightly smaller E-Sky EK2-0508 micro servo. Later it also turned out that Futaba servos make some strange noise while working so I swapped one with TowerPro SG-5010 which has higher torque (8kg / cm). I’ve also bought three servo extension cables. All servos cost me USD $45. Assembly The build process is not difficult but you need to think carefully about order of assembling it. You can do the base and upper arm first. Because two servos in the base are close together you need to put first with one piece of lower arm already connected before you put the second servo. Then you connect the upper arm and finally put the second piece of lower arm to hold it together. Gripper and base require some gluing so think it through too. Make sure to look closely at all the photos on Thingiverse (also other people copies) and read additional posts on jjshortcust’s blog: My mini servo grippers and completed robotic arm Multiply the robotic arm and electronics Here is also Rob’s copy cut from aluminum My assembled arm looks like this – I think it turned out really nice: Servo controller board The last piece of hardware I needed was an electronic board that would take command from PC and drive all seven servos. I could probably use Arduino for this task, and in fact there are several Arduino servo shields available (for example from Adafruit or Renbotics). However one problem is that most support only up to six servos, and second that their accuracy is limited by Arduino’s timer frequency. So instead I looked for dedicated servo controller and found a series of Maestro boards from Pololu. I picked the Pololu Mini Maestro 12-Channel USB Servo Controller. It has many nice features including native USB connection, high resolution pulses (0.25µs) with no jitter, built-in speed and acceleration control, and even scripting capability. Another cool feature is that besides servo control, each channel can be configured as either general input or output. So far I’m using seven channels so I still have five available to connect some sensors (for example distance sensor mounted on gripper might be useful). And last but important factor was that they have SDK in .NET – what more I could wish for! The board itself is very small – half of the size of Tic-Tac box. I picked one for about USD $35 in this store. Perhaps another good alternative would be the Phidgets Advanced Servo 8-Motor – but it is significantly more expensive at USD $87.30. The Maestro Controller Driver and Software package includes Maestro Control Center program with lets you immediately configure the board. For each servo I first figured out their move range and set the min/max limits. I played with setting the speed an acceleration values as well. Big issue for me was that there are two servos that control position of lower arm (shoulder joint), and both have to be moved at the same time. This is where the scripting feature of Pololu board turned out very helpful. I wrote a script that synchronizes position of second servo with first one – so now I only need to move one servo and other will follow automatically. This turned out tricky because I couldn’t find simple offset mapping of the move range for each servo – I had to divide it into several sub-ranges and map each individually. The scripting language is bit assembler-like but gets the job done. And there is even a runtime debugging and stack view available. Altogether I’m very happy with the Pololu Mini Maestro Servo Controller, and with this final piece I completed the build and was able to move my arm from the Meastro Control program. The total cost of my robotic arm was: $10 laser cut parts $10 metal parts $45 servos $35 servo controller ----------------------- $100 total So here you have all the information about the hardware. In next post I’ll start talking about the software that I wrote in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4. Stay tuned!

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IE 10 Win UI Version Won’t Support Flash*

- by D'Arcy Lussier

Rabid Gremlin has a blog post up entitled: Did Microsoft just kill Flash? IE 10 won’t run Flash unless your site is on a Microsoft whitelist! Apparently this is true…kind of. There are 2 versions of IE 10 that ship with WIndows 8. One is the Windows UI version (in this article, I’m going to reference this as IE10Metro) and one is the desktop version. These are entirely different apps, different codebases. IE10Metro will *not* serve up Flash content unless the website hosting the content has been whitelisted with Microsoft, as per this Microsoft document. IE10 for the desktop will serve Flash content without any issues. In a broader view, what this means is that web developers now need to consider another browser for testing their sites in – IE 10 Metro, in addition to IE 10 Desktop. D

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FAT Volume and CE

- by Kate Moss' Open Space

Whenever we format a disk volume, it is a good idea to name the label so it will be easier to categorize. To label a volume, we can use LABEL command or UI depends on your preference. Windows CE does provide FAT driver and support various format (FAT12, FAT16,FAT32, ExFAT and TFAT - transaction-safe FAT) and many feature to let you scan and even defrag the volume but not labeling. At any time you format a volume in CE and then mount it on PC, the label is always empty! Of course, you can always label the volume on PC, even it is formatted in CE. So looks like CE does not care about the volume label at all, neither report the label to OS nor changing the label on FAT.So how can we set the volume label in CE? To Answer this question, we need to know how does FAT stores the volume label. Here are some on-line resources are handy for parsing FAT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table http://www.pjrc.com/tech/8051/ide/fat32.html http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgen.mspx You can refer to PUBLIC\COMMON\OAK\DRIVERS\FSD\FATUTIL\MAIN\bootsec.h and dosbpb.h or the above links for the fields we discuss here. The first sector of a FAT Volume (it is not necessary to be the first sector of a disk.) is a FAT boot sector and BPB (BIOS Parameter Block). And at offset 43, bgbsVolumeLabel (or bsVolumeLabel on FAT16) is for storing the volume lable, but note in the spec also indicates "FAT file system drivers should make sure that they update this field when the volume label file in the root directory has its name changed or created.". So we can't just simply update the bgbsVolumeLabel but also need to create a volume lable file in root directory. The volume lable file is not a real file but just a file entry in root directory with zero file lenth and a very special file attribute, ATTR_VOLUME_ID. (defined in public\common\oak\drivers\fsd\fatutil\MAIN\fatutilp.h) Locating and accessing bootsector is quite straight forward, as long as we know the starting sector of a FAT volume, that's it. But where is the root directory? The layout of a typical FAT is like this Boot sector (Volume ID in the figure) followed by Reserved Sectors (1 on FAT12/16 and 32 on FAT32), then FAT chain table(s) (can be 1 or 2), after that is the root directory (FAT12/16 and not shows in the figure) then begining of the File and Directories. In FAT12/16, the root directory is placed right after FAT so it is not hard to caculate the offset in the volume. But in FAT32, this rule is no longer true: the first cluster of the root directory is determined by BGBPB_RootDirStrtClus (or offset 44 in boot sector). Although this field is usually 0x00000002 (it is how CE initial the root directory after formating a volume. Note we should never assume it is always true) which means the first cluster contains data but not like the root directory is contiguous in FAT12/16, it is just like a regular file can be fragmented. So we need to access the root directory (of FAT32) hopping one cluster to another by traversing FAT table. Let's trace the code now. Although the source of FAT driver is not available in CE Shared Source program, but the formatter, Fatutil.dll, is available in public\common\oak\drivers\fsd\fatutil\MAIN\formatdisk.cpp. Be aware the public code only provides formatter for FAT12/16/32 for ExFAT it is still not available. FormatVolumeInternal is the main worker function. With the knowledge here, you should be able the trace the code easily. But I would like to discuss the following code pieces dwReservedSectors = (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) ? 32 : 1; dwRootEntries = (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) ? 0 : fo.dwRootEntries; Note the dwReservedSectors is 32 in FAT32 and 1 in FAT12/16. Root Entries is another different mentioned in previous paragraph, 0 for FAT32 (dynamic allocated) and fixed size (usually 512, defined in DEFAULT_ROOT_ENTRIES in public\common\sdk\inc\fatutil.h) And then here memset(pBootSec->bsVolumeLabel, 0x20, sizeof(pBootSec->bsVolumeLabel)); It sets the Volume Label as empty string. Now let's carry on to the next section - write the root directory. if (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) { if (!(fo.dwFlags & FATUTIL_FORMAT_TFAT)) { dwRootSectors = dwSectorsPerCluster; } else { DIRENTRY dirEntry; DWORD offset; int iVolumeNo; memset(pbBlock, 0, pdi->di_bytes_per_sect); memset(&dirEntry, 0, sizeof(DIRENTRY)); dirEntry.de_attr = ATTR_VOLUME_ID; // the first one is volume label memcpy(dirEntry.de_name, "TFAT ", sizeof (dirEntry.de_name)); memcpy(pbBlock, &dirEntry, sizeof(dirEntry)); ... // Skip the next step of zeroing out clusters dwCurrentSec += dwSectorsPerCluster; dwRootSectors = 0; } } // Each new root directory sector needs to be zeroed. memset(pbBlock, 0, cbSizeBlk); iRootSec=0; while ( iRootSec < dwRootSectors) { Basically, the code zero out the each entry in root directory depends on dwRootSectors. In FAT12/16, the dwRootSectors is calculated as the sectors we need for the root entries (512 for most of the case) and in FAT32 it just zero out the one cluster. Please note that, if it is a TFAT volume, it initialize the root directory with special volume label entries for some special purpose. Despite to its unusual initialization process for TFAT, it does provide a example for how to create a volume entry. With some minor modification, we can assign the volume label in FAT formatter and also remember to sync the volume label with bsVolumeLabel or bgbsVolumeLabel in boot sector.

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Visual Studio LightSwitch: Yes, these are the droids you’re looking for

- by Jim Duffy

With all the news and focus on the new features coming in Silverlight 5 I thought I’d take a few minutes to remind folks about the work that Microsoft has done on LightSwitch since the applications created by LightSwitch are Silverlight applications. LightSwitch makes it easier for non-coders to build business applications and easier for coders to maintain them. For those not familiar with LightSwitch, it is a new tool that provides a easier and quicker way for coder and non-coder types alike to create line-of-business applications for the desktop, the web, and the cloud. The target audience for this tool are those power-user types who create Access applications for their organization. While those Access applications fill an immediate need, they typically aren’t very scalable, extendable and/or maintainable by the development staff of the organization. LightSwitch creates applications based on technologies built into Visual Studio thus making it easier for corporate developers to extend and maintain them. LightSwitch is currently in beta but it will ultimately become a new addition to the Visual Studio line of products. Go ahead and download the beta to get a better idea of what the product can do for your organization. The LightSwitch Developer Center contains links to download the beta links to instructional videos links to tutorials links to the LightSwitch Training Kit Another quality resource for LightSwitch information is the Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog. My good friend Beth Massi is on the LightSwitch team and has additional valuable content on her blog. Have a day.

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IronRuby rocks at IronRuby-rocks.com

- by Eric Nelson

My colleague Edd (who wrote two great guest posts for me on IronRuby) just pointed me at a new site ironruby-rocks.com. It is early days for the site but I felt it was worth some additional exposure even at this early stage. Posts are nice and varied right now – from working with Microsoft Office to working with SQL Server. I wish the site the very best of luck. Related Links: 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby Mini Book Review of IronRuby Unleashed by Shay Friedman Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure Guest Post: What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails?

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Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010

- by Martin Hinshelwood

I will be presenting a session on “Scrum for TFS2010” not once, but twice! If you are going to be at the Aberdeen Partner Group meeting on 27th April, or DDD Scotland on 8th May then you may be able to catch my session. Credit: I want to give special thanks to Aaron Bjork from Microsoft who provided me with most of my material He is a Scrum and Power Point genius. Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010 Synopsis Visual Studio ALM (formerly Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) and Team Foundation Server (TFS) are the cornerstones of development on the Microsoft .NET platform. These are the best tools for a team to have successful projects and for the developers to have a focused and smooth software development process. For TFS 2010 Microsoft is heavily investing in Scrum and has already started moving some teams across to using it. Martin will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even asses your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. Come and see Martin Hinshelwood, Visual Studio ALM MVP and Solution Architect from SSW show you: How to successfully gather requirements with User stories How to plan a project using TFS 2010 and Scrum How to work with a product backlog in TFS 2010 The right way to plan a sprint with TFS 2010 Tracking your progress The right way to use work items What you can use from the built in reporting as well as the Project portals available on from the SharePoint dashboard The important reports to give your Product Owner / Project Manager Walk away knowing how to see the project health and progress. Visual Studio ALM is designed to help address many of these traditional problems faced by teams. It does so by providing a set of integrated tools to help teams improve their software development activities and to help managers better support the software development processes. During this session we will cover the lifecycle of creating work items and how this fits into Scrum using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server. If you want to know more about how to do Scrum with TFS then there is a new course that has been created in collaboration with Microsoft and Scrum.org that is going to be the official course for working with TFS 2010. SSW has Professional Scrum Developer Trainers who specialise in training your developers in implementing Scrum with Microsoft's Visual Studio ALM tools. Ken Schwaber and and Sam Guckenheimer: Professional Scrum Development Technorati Tags: Scrum,VS ALM,VS 2010,TFS 2010

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Knockout.js - Filtering, Sorting, and Paging

- by jtimperley

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/jtimperley/archive/2013/07/28/knockout.js---filtering-sorting-and-paging.aspxKnockout.js is fantastic! Maybe I missed it but it appears to be missing flexible filtering, sorting, and pagination of its grids. This is a summary of my attempt at creating this functionality which has been working out amazingly well for my purposes. Before you continue, this post is not intended to teach you the basics of Knockout. They have already created a fantastic tutorial for this purpose. You'd be wise to review this before you continue. http://learn.knockoutjs.com/ Please view the full source code and functional example on jsFiddle. Below you will find a brief explanation of some of the components. http://jsfiddle.net/JTimperley/pyCTN/13/ First we need to create a model to represent our records. This model is a simple container with defined and guaranteed members. function CustomerModel(data) { if (!data) { data = {}; } var self = this; self.id = data.id; self.name = data.name; self.status = data.status; } Next we need a model to represent the page as a whole with an array of the previously defined records. I have intentionally overlooked the filtering and sorting options for now. Note how the filtering, sorting, and pagination are chained together to accomplish all three goals. This strategy allows each of these pieces to be used selectively based on the page's needs. If you only need sorting, just sort, etc. function CustomerPageModel(data) { if (!data) { data = {}; } var self = this; self.customers = ExtractModels(self, data.customers, CustomerModel); var filters = […]; var sortOptions = […]; self.filter = new FilterModel(filters, self.customers); self.sorter = new SorterModel(sortOptions, self.filter.filteredRecords); self.pager = new PagerModel(self.sorter.orderedRecords); } The code currently supports text box and drop down filters. Text box filters require defining the current 'Value' and the 'RecordValue' function to retrieve the filterable value from the provided record. Drop downs allow defining all possible values, the current option, and the 'RecordValue' as before. Once defining these filters, they are automatically added to the screen and any changes to their values will automatically update the results, causing their sort and pagination to be re-evaluated. var filters = [ { Type: "text", Name: "Name", Value: ko.observable(""), RecordValue: function(record) { return record.name; } }, { Type: "select", Name: "Status", Options: [ GetOption("All", "All", null), GetOption("New", "New", true), GetOption("Recently Modified", "Recently Modified", false) ], CurrentOption: ko.observable(), RecordValue: function(record) { return record.status; } } ]; Sort options are more simplistic and are also automatically added to the screen. Simply provide each option's name and value for the sort drop down as well as function to allow defining how the records are compared. This mechanism can easily be adapted for using table headers as the sort triggers. That strategy hasn't crossed my functionality needs at this point. var sortOptions = [ { Name: "Name", Value: "Name", Sort: function(left, right) { return CompareCaseInsensitive(left.name, right.name); } } ]; Paging options are completely contained by the pager model. Because we will be chaining arrays between our filtering, sorting, and pagination models, the following utility method is used to prevent errors when handing an observable array to another observable array. function GetObservableArray(array) { if (typeof(array) == 'function') { return array; } return ko.observableArray(array); }

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NET Math Libraries

- by JoshReuben

NET Mathematical Libraries .NET Builder for Matlab The MathWorks Inc. - http://www.mathworks.com/products/netbuilder/ MATLAB Builder NE generates MATLAB based .NET and COM components royalty-free deployment creates the components by encrypting MATLAB functions and generating either a .NET or COM wrapper around them. .NET/Link for Mathematica www.wolfram.com a product that 2-way integrates Mathematica and Microsoft's .NET platform call .NET from Mathematica - use arbitrary .NET types directly from the Mathematica language. use and control the Mathematica kernel from a .NET program. turns Mathematica into a scripting shell to leverage the computational services of Mathematica. write custom front ends for Mathematica or use Mathematica as a computational engine for another program comes with full source code. Leverages MathLink - a Wolfram Research's protocol for sending data and commands back and forth between Mathematica and other programs. .NET/Link abstracts the low-level details of the MathLink C API. Extreme Optimization http://www.extremeoptimization.com/ a collection of general-purpose mathematical and statistical classes built for the.NET framework. It combines a math library, a vector and matrix library, and a statistics library in one package. download the trial of version 4.0 to try it out. Multi-core ready - Full support for Task Parallel Library features including cancellation. Broad base of algorithms covering a wide range of numerical techniques, including: linear algebra (BLAS and LAPACK routines), numerical analysis (integration and differentiation), equation solvers. Mathematics leverages parallelism using .NET 4.0's Task Parallel Library. Basic math: Complex numbers, 'special functions' like Gamma and Bessel functions, numerical differentiation. Solving equations: Solve equations in one variable, or solve systems of linear or nonlinear equations. Curve fitting: Linear and nonlinear curve fitting, cubic splines, polynomials, orthogonal polynomials. Optimization: find the minimum or maximum of a function in one or more variables, linear programming and mixed integer programming. Numerical integration: Compute integrals over finite or infinite intervals, over 2D and higher dimensional regions. Integrate systems of ordinary differential equations (ODE's). Fast Fourier Transforms: 1D and 2D FFT's using managed or fast native code (32 and 64 bit) BigInteger, BigRational, and BigFloat: Perform operations with arbitrary precision. Vector and Matrix Library Real and complex vectors and matrices. Single and double precision for elements. Structured matrix types: including triangular, symmetrical and band matrices. Sparse matrices. Matrix factorizations: LU decomposition, QR decomposition, singular value decomposition, Cholesky decomposition, eigenvalue decomposition. Portability and performance: Calculations can be done in 100% managed code, or in hand-optimized processor-specific native code (32 and 64 bit). Statistics Data manipulation: Sort and filter data, process missing values, remove outliers, etc. Supports .NET data binding. Statistical Models: Simple, multiple, nonlinear, logistic, Poisson regression. Generalized Linear Models. One and two-way ANOVA. Hypothesis Tests: 12 14 hypothesis tests, including the z-test, t-test, F-test, runs test, and more advanced tests, such as the Anderson-Darling test for normality, one and two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and Levene's test for homogeneity of variances. Multivariate Statistics: K-means cluster analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), multivariate probability distributions. Statistical Distributions: 25 29 continuous and discrete statistical distributions, including uniform, Poisson, normal, lognormal, Weibull and Gumbel (extreme value) distributions. Random numbers: Random variates from any distribution, 4 high-quality random number generators, low discrepancy sequences, shufflers. New in version 4.0 (November, 2010) Support for .NET Framework Version 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 TPL Parallellized – multicore ready sparse linear program solver - can solve problems with more than 1 million variables. Mixed integer linear programming using a branch and bound algorithm. special functions: hypergeometric, Riemann zeta, elliptic integrals, Frensel functions, Dawson's integral. Full set of window functions for FFT's. Product Price Update subscription Single Developer License $999 $399 Team License (3 developers) $1999 $799 Department License (8 developers) $3999 $1599 Site License (Unlimited developers in one physical location) $7999 $3199 NMath http://www.centerspace.net .NET math and statistics libraries matrix and vector classes random number generators Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) numerical integration linear programming linear regression curve and surface fitting optimization hypothesis tests analysis of variance (ANOVA) probability distributions principal component analysis cluster analysis built on the Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL), which contains highly-optimized, extensively-threaded versions of BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines) and LAPACK (Linear Algebra PACKage). Product Price Update subscription Single Developer License $1295 $388 Team License (5 developers) $5180 $1554 DotNumerics http://www.dotnumerics.com/NumericalLibraries/Default.aspx free DotNumerics is a website dedicated to numerical computing for .NET that includes a C# Numerical Library for .NET containing algorithms for Linear Algebra, Differential Equations and Optimization problems. The Linear Algebra library includes CSLapack, CSBlas and CSEispack, ports from Fortran to C# of LAPACK, BLAS and EISPACK, respectively. Linear Algebra (CSLapack, CSBlas and CSEispack). Systems of linear equations, eigenvalue problems, least-squares solutions of linear systems and singular value problems. Differential Equations. Initial-value problem for nonstiff and stiff ordinary differential equations ODEs (explicit Runge-Kutta, implicit Runge-Kutta, Gear's BDF and Adams-Moulton). Optimization. Unconstrained and bounded constrained optimization of multivariate functions (L-BFGS-B, Truncated Newton and Simplex methods). Math.NET Numerics http://numerics.mathdotnet.com/ free an open source numerical library - includes special functions, linear algebra, probability models, random numbers, interpolation, integral transforms. A merger of dnAnalytics with Math.NET Iridium in addition to a purely managed implementation will also support native hardware optimization. constants & special functions complex type support real and complex, dense and sparse linear algebra (with LU, QR, eigenvalues, ... decompositions) non-uniform probability distributions, multivariate distributions, sample generation alternative uniform random number generators descriptive statistics, including order statistics various interpolation methods, including barycentric approaches and splines numerical function integration (quadrature) routines integral transforms, like fourier transform (FFT) with arbitrary lengths support, and hartley spectral-space aware sequence manipulation (signal processing) combinatorics, polynomials, quaternions, basic number theory. parallelized where appropriate, to leverage multi-core and multi-processor systems fully managed or (if available) using native libraries (Intel MKL, ACMS, CUDA, FFTW) provides a native facade for F# developers

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Dutch for once: op zoek naar een nieuwe uitdaging!

- by Dennis Vroegop

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dvroegop/archive/2013/10/11/dutch-for-once-op-zoek-naar-een-nieuwe-uitdaging.aspxI apologize to my non-dutch speaking readers: this post is about me looking for a new job and since I am based in the Netherlands I will do this in Dutch… Next time I will be technical (and thus in English) again! Het leuke van interim zijn is dat een klus een keer afloopt. Ik heb heel bewust gekozen voor het leven als freelancer: ik wil graag heel veel verschillende mensen en organisaties leren kennen. Dit werk is daar bij uitstek geschikt voor! Immers: bij iedere klus breng ik niet alleen nieuwe ideeën en kennis maar ik leer zelf ook iedere keer ontzettend veel. Die kennis kan ik dan weer gebruiken bij een vervolgklus en op die manier verspreid ik die kennis onder de bedrijven in Nederland. En er is niets leukers dan zien dat wat ik meebreng een organisatie naar een ander niveau brengt! Iedere keer een ander bedrijf zoeken houdt in dat ik iedere keer weg moet gaan bij een organisatie. Het lastige daarvan is het juiste moment te vinden. Van buitenaf gezien is dat lastig in te schatten: wanneer kan ik niets vernieuwends meer bijdragen en is het tijd om verder te gaan? Wanneer is het tijd om te zeggen dat de organisatie alles weet wat ik ze kan bijbrengen? In mijn huidige klus is dat moment nu aangebroken. In de afgelopen elf maanden heb ik dit bedrijf zien veranderen van een kleine maar enthousiaste groep ontwikkelaars naar een professionele organisatie met ruim twee keer zo veel ontwikkelaars. Dat veranderingsproces is erg leerzaam geweest en ik ben dan ook erg blij dat ik die verandering heb kunnen en mogen begeleiden. Van drie teams met ieder vijf of zes ontwikkelaars naar zes teams met zeven tot acht ontwikkelaars per team groeien betekent dat je je ontwikkelproces heel anders moet insteken. Ook houdt dat in dat je je teams anders moet indelen, dat de organisatie zelf anders gemodelleerd moet worden en dat mensen anders met elkaar om moeten gaan. Om dat voor elkaar te krijgen is er door iedereen heel hard gewerkt, is er een aantal fouten gemaakt, is heel veel van die fouten geleerd en is uiteindelijk een vrijwel nieuw bedrijf ontstaan. Het is tijd om dit bedrijf te verlaten. Ik ben benieuwd waar ik hierna terecht kom: ik ben aan het rondkijken naar mogelijkheden. Ik weet wèl: het bedrijf waar ik naar op zoek ben, is een bedrijf dat openstaat voor veranderingen. Veranderingen, maar dan wel met het oog voor het individu; mensen staan immers centraal in de software ontwikkeling! Ik heb er in ieder geval weer zin in!

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Time to stop using “Execute Package Task”– a way to execute package in SSIS catalog taking advantage of the new project deployment model ,and the logging and reporting feature

- by Kevin Shyr

I set out to find a way to dynamically call package in SSIS 2012. The following are 2 excellent blogs I found; I used them heavily. The code below has some addition to parameter types and message types, but was made essentially derived entirely from the blogs. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2011/07/16/ssis-logging-in-denali.aspx http://www.ssistalk.com/2012/07/24/quick-tip-run-ssis-2012-packages-synchronously-and-other-execution-options/ The code: Every package will be called by a PackageController package. The packageController is initialized with some information on which package to run and what information to pass in. The following is the stored procedure called from the “Execute SQL Task”. Here is the highlight of the stored procedure It takes in packageName, project name, and folder name (folder in SSIS project deployment to SSIS catalog) The stored procedure sets the package variables of the upcoming package execution Execute package in SSIS Catalog Get the status of the execution. Also, if exists, get the error message’s message_id and store them in the management database. Return value to “Execute SQL Task” to manage failure properly CREATE PROCEDURE [AUDIT].[LaunchPackageExecutionInSSISCatalog] @PackageName NVARCHAR(255) , @ProjectFolder NVARCHAR(255) , @ProjectName NVARCHAR(255) , @AuditKey INT , @DisableNotification BIT , @PackageExecutionLogID INT AS BEGIN TRY DECLARE @execution_id BIGINT = 0; -- Create a package execution EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[create_execution] @package_name=@PackageName, @execution_id=@execution_id OUTPUT, @folder_name=@ProjectFolder, @project_name=@ProjectName, @use32bitruntime=False; UPDATE [AUDIT].[PackageInstanceExecutionLog] WITH(ROWLOCK) SET [SSISCatalogExecutionID] = @execution_id WHERE [PackageInstanceExecutionLogID] = @PackageExecutionLogID -- this is to set the execution synchronized so that I can check the result in the end EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'SYNCHRONIZED', @parameter_value=1; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: setting parameters Source table: SSISDB.internal.object_parameters object_type list: 20: project level variables 30: package level variables 50: execution parameter ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_AuditKey', @parameter_value=@AuditKey; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_DisableNotification', @parameter_value=@DisableNotification; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_PackageInstanceExecutionID', @parameter_value=@PackageExecutionLogID; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: setting variables END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /* This section is carried over from example code I don't see a reason to change them yet */ -- Set our package parameters EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_EVENT', @parameter_value=1; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_EVENT_CODE', @parameter_value=N'0x80040E4D;0x80004005'; EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'LOGGING_LEVEL', @parameter_value= 1; -- Basic EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_ERROR', @parameter_value=1; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: EXECUTING ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[start_execution] @execution_id; /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: EXECUTING END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking execution result Source table: [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions] status: 1: created 2: running 3: cancelled 4: failed 5: pending 6: ended unexpectedly 7: succeeded 8: stopping 9: completed ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ if EXISTS(SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions] WITH(NOLOCK) WHERE [execution_id] = @execution_id AND [status] NOT IN (2, 7, 9)) BEGIN /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: logging error messages Source table: [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages] message type: 10: OnPreValidate 20: OnPostValidate 30: OnPreExecute 40: OnPostExecute 60: OnProgress 70: OnInformation 90: Diagnostic 110: OnWarning 120: OnError 130: Failure 140: DiagnosticEx 200: Custom events 400: OnPipeline message source type: 10: Messages logged by the entry APIs (e.g. T-SQL, CLR Stored procedures) 20: Messages logged by the external process used to run package (ISServerExec) 30: Messages logged by the package-level objects 40: Messages logged by tasks in the control flow 50: Messages logged by containers (For, ForEach, Sequence) in the control flow 60: Messages logged by the Data Flow Task ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ INSERT INTO AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionOperationErrorLink SELECT @PackageExecutionLogID ,[operation_message_id] FROM [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages] WITH(NOLOCK) WHERE operation_id = @execution_id AND message_type IN (120, 130) EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, 'SSISDB Internal operation_messages found' GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking messages END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /* This part is not really working, so now using rowcount to pass status --DECLARE @PackageErrorMessage NVARCHAR(4000) --SET @PackageErrorMessage = @PackageName + 'failed with executionID: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), @execution_id) --RAISERROR (@PackageErrorMessage -- Message text. -- , 18 -- Severity, -- , 1 -- State, -- , N'check table AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionErrorMessages' -- First argument. -- ); */ END ELSE BEGIN GOTO ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess END /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking execution result END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ END TRY BEGIN CATCH DECLARE @SSISCatalogCallError NVARCHAR(MAX) SELECT @SSISCatalogCallError = ERROR_MESSAGE() EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, @SSISCatalogCallError GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag END CATCH; /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: end result ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag: SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 1) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess: SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 0) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists GO

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Welcome!

- by ConfusedComputers

Here are some useful links if you have any computer problems, they concentrate on computer repairs in kidderminster and they have a wealth of knowledge that they use to assist people with computer issues. So if your confused about computers then here is some useful resources that could help you get over your computer problems. They have a designated confused computer knowledge base that has hundred of pages of information about all kinds of computer problems so hit them up and see what they can do for you!

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Book “Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter” published!

- by Jakob Ehn

During the summer and fall this year, me and my colleague Terje Sandstrøm has worked together on a book project that has now finally hit the stores! The title of the book is Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter and is published by Packt Publishing. You can find it at http://www.packtpub.com/team-foundation-server-2012-starter/book or from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1849688389 The book is part of a concept that Packt have with starter-books, intended for people new to Team Foundation Server 2012 and who want a quick guideline to get it up and working. It covers the fundamentals, from installing and configuring it, and how to use it with source control, work items and builds. It is done as a step-by-step guide, but also includes best practices advice in the different areas. It covers the use of both the on-premises and the TFS Services version. It also has a list of links and references in the end to the most relevant Visual Studio 2012 ALM sites. Our good friend and fellow ALM MVP Mathias Olausson have done the review of the book, thanks again Mathias! We hope the book fills the gap between the different online guide sites and the more advanced books that are out. Check it out and please let us know what you think of the book! Book Description Your quick start guide to TFS 2012, top features, and best practices with hands on examples Overview Install TFS 2012 from scratch Get up and running with your first project Streamline release cycles for maximum productivity In Detail Team Foundation Server 2012 is Microsoft's leading ALM tool, integrating source control, work item and process handling, build automation, and testing. This practical "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide" will provide you with clear step-by-step exercises covering all major aspects of the product. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to set up, organize, and use TFS server. This hands-on guide looks at the top features in Team Foundation Server 2012, starting with a quick installation guide and then moving into using it for your software development projects. Manage your team projects with Team Explorer, one of the many new features for 2012. Covering all the main features in source control to help you work more efficiently, including tools for branching and merging, we will delve into the Agile Planning Tools for planning your product and sprint backlogs. Learn to set up build automation, allowing your team to become faster, more streamlined, and ultimately more productive with this "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide". What you will learn from this book Install TFS 2012 on premise Access TFS Services in the cloud Quickly get started with a new project with product backlogs, source control, and build automation Work efficiently with source control using the top features Understand how the tools for branching and merging in TFS 2012 help you isolate work and teams Learn about the existing process templates, such as Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 Manage your product and sprint backlogs using the Agile planning tools Approach This Starter guide is a short, sharp introduction to Team Foundation Server 2012, covering everything you need to get up and running. Who this book is written for If you are a developer, project lead, tester, or IT administrator working with Team Foundation Server 2012 this guide will get you up to speed quickly and with minimal effort.

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Mocking the Unmockable: Using Microsoft Moles with Gallio

- by Thomas Weller

Usual opensource mocking frameworks (like e.g. Moq or Rhino.Mocks) can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. In contrary to that, Microsoft’s Moles framework can ‘mock’ virtually anything, in that it uses runtime instrumentation to inject callbacks in the method MSIL bodies of the moled methods. Therefore, it is possible to detour any .NET method, including non-virtual/static methods in sealed types. This can be extremely helpful when dealing e.g. with code that calls into the .NET framework, some third-party or legacy stuff etc… Some useful collected resources (links to website, documentation material and some videos) can be found in my toolbox on Delicious under this link: http://delicious.com/thomasweller/toolbox+moles A Gallio extension for Moles Originally, Moles is a part of Microsoft’s Pex framework and thus integrates best with Visual Studio Unit Tests (MSTest). However, the Moles sample download contains some additional assemblies to also support other unit test frameworks. They provide a Moled attribute to ease the usage of mole types with the respective framework (there are extensions for NUnit, xUnit.net and MbUnit v2 included with the samples). As there is no such extension for the Gallio platform, I did the few required lines myself – the resulting Gallio.Moles.dll is included with the sample download. With this little assembly in place, it is possible to use Moles with Gallio like that: [Test, Moled] public void SomeTest() { ... What you can do with it Moles can be very helpful, if you need to ‘mock’ something other than a virtual or interface-implementing method. This might be the case when dealing with some third-party component, legacy code, or if you want to ‘mock’ the .NET framework itself. Generally, you need to announce each moled type that you want to use in a test with the MoledType attribute on assembly level. For example: [assembly: MoledType(typeof(System.IO.File))] Below are some typical use cases for Moles. For a more detailed overview (incl. naming conventions and an instruction on how to create the required moles assemblies), please refer to the reference material above. Detouring the .NET framework Imagine that you want to test a method similar to the one below, which internally calls some framework method: public void ReadFileContent(string fileName) { this.FileContent = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(fileName); } Using a mole, you would replace the call to the File.ReadAllText(string) method with a runtime delegate like so: [Test, Moled] [Description("This 'mocks' the System.IO.File class with a custom delegate.")] public void ReadFileContentWithMoles() { // arrange ('mock' the FileSystem with a delegate) System.IO.Moles.MFile.ReadAllTextString = (fname => fname == FileName ? FileContent : "WrongFileName"); // act var testTarget = new TestTarget.TestTarget(); testTarget.ReadFileContent(FileName); // assert Assert.AreEqual(FileContent, testTarget.FileContent); } Detouring static methods and/or classes A static method like the below… public static string StaticMethod(int x, int y) { return string.Format("{0}{1}", x, y); } … can be ‘mocked’ with the following: [Test, Moled] public void StaticMethodWithMoles() { MStaticClass.StaticMethodInt32Int32 = ((x, y) => "uups"); var result = StaticClass.StaticMethod(1, 2); Assert.AreEqual("uups", result); } Detouring constructors You can do this delegate thing even with a class’ constructor. The syntax for this is not all too intuitive, because you have to setup the internal state of the mole, but generally it works like a charm. For example, to replace this c’tor… public class ClassWithCtor { public int Value { get; private set; } public ClassWithCtor(int someValue) { this.Value = someValue; } } … you would do the following: [Test, Moled] public void ConstructorTestWithMoles() { MClassWithCtor.ConstructorInt32 = ((@class, @value) => new MClassWithCtor(@class) {ValueGet = () => 99}); var classWithCtor = new ClassWithCtor(3); Assert.AreEqual(99, classWithCtor.Value); } Detouring abstract base classes You can also use this approach to ‘mock’ abstract base classes of a class that you call in your test. Assumed that you have something like that: public abstract class AbstractBaseClass { public virtual string SaySomething() { return "Hello from base."; } } public class ChildClass : AbstractBaseClass { public override string SaySomething() { return string.Format( "Hello from child. Base says: '{0}'", base.SaySomething()); } } Then you would set up the child’s underlying base class like this: [Test, Moled] public void AbstractBaseClassTestWithMoles() { ChildClass child = new ChildClass(); new MAbstractBaseClass(child) { SaySomething = () => "Leave me alone!" } .InstanceBehavior = MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough; var hello = child.SaySomething(); Assert.AreEqual("Hello from child. Base says: 'Leave me alone!'", hello); } Setting the moles behavior to a value of MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough causes the ‘original’ method to be called if a respective delegate is not provided explicitly – here it causes the ChildClass’ override of the SaySomething() method to be called. There are some more possible scenarios, where the Moles framework could be of much help (e.g. it’s also possible to detour interface implementations like IEnumerable<T> and such…). One other possibility that comes to my mind (because I’m currently dealing with that), is to replace calls from repository classes to the ADO.NET Entity Framework O/R mapper with delegates to isolate the repository classes from the underlying database, which otherwise would not be possible… Usage Since Moles relies on runtime instrumentation, mole types must be run under the Pex profiler. This only works from inside Visual Studio if you write your tests with MSTest (Visual Studio Unit Test). While other unit test frameworks generally can be used with Moles, they require the respective tests to be run via command line, executed through the moles.runner.exe tool. A typical test execution would be similar to this: moles.runner.exe <mytests.dll> /runner:<myframework.console.exe> /args:/<myargs> So, the moled test can be run through tools like NCover or a scripting tool like MSBuild (which makes them easy to run in a Continuous Integration environment), but they are somewhat unhandy to run in the usual TDD workflow (which I described in some detail here). To make this a bit more fluent, I wrote a ReSharper live template to generate the respective command line for the test (it is also included in the sample download – moled_cmd.xml). - This is just a quick-and-dirty ‘solution’. Maybe it makes sense to write an extra Gallio adapter plugin (similar to the many others that are already provided) and include it with the Gallio download package, if there’s sufficient demand for it. As of now, the only way to run tests with the Moles framework from within Visual Studio is by using them with MSTest. From the command line, anything with a managed console runner can be used (provided that the appropriate extension is in place)… A typical Gallio/Moles command line (as generated by the mentioned R#-template) looks like that: "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Moles\bin\moles.runner.exe" /runner:"%ProgramFiles%\Gallio\bin\Gallio.Echo.exe" "Gallio.Moles.Demo.dll" /args:/r:IsolatedAppDomain /args:/filter:"ExactType:TestFixture and Member:ReadFileContentWithMoles" -- Note: When using the command line with Echo (Gallio’s console runner), be sure to always include the IsolatedAppDomain option, otherwise the tests won’t use the instrumentation callbacks! -- License issues As I already said, the free mocking frameworks can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. if you want to mock other things, you need the Typemock Isolator tool for that, which comes with license costs (Although these ‘costs’ are ridiculously low compared to the value that such a tool can bring to a software project, spending money often is a considerable gateway hurdle in real life...). The Moles framework also is not totally free, but comes with the same license conditions as the (closely related) Pex framework: It is free for academic/non-commercial use only, to use it in a ‘real’ software project requires an MSDN Subscription (from VS2010pro on). The demo solution The sample solution (VS 2008) can be downloaded from here. It contains the Gallio.Moles.dll which provides the here described Moled attribute, the above mentioned R#-template (moled_cmd.xml) and a test fixture containing the above described use case scenarios. To run it, you need the Gallio framework (download) and Microsoft Moles (download) being installed in the default locations. Happy testing…

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Handling Trailing Delimiters in HL7 Messages

- by Thomas Canter

Applies to: BizTalk Server 2006 with the HL7 1.3 Accelerator Outline of the problem Trailing Delimiters are empty values at the end of an object in a HL7 ER7 formatted message. Examples: Empty Field NTE|P| NTE|P|| Empty component ORC|1|725^ Empty Subcomponent ORC|1|||||27& Empty repeat OBR|1||||||||027~ Trailing delimiters indicate the following object exists and is empty, which is quite different from null, null is an explicit value indicated by a pair of double quotes -> "". The BizTalk HL7 Accelerator by default does not allow trailing delimiters. There are three methods to allow trailing delimiters. NOTE: All Schemas always allow trailing delimiters in the MSH Segment Using party identifiers MSH3.1 – Receive/inbound processing, using this value as a party allows you to configure the system to allow inbound trailing delimiters. MSH5.1 – Send/outbound processing, using this value as a party allows you to configure the system to allow outbound trailing delimiters. Generally, if you allow inbound trailing delimiters, unless you are willing to programmatically remove all trailing delimiters, then you need to configure the send to allow trailing delimiters. Add the appropriate parties to the BizTalk Parties list from these two fields in your message stream. Open the BizTalk HL7 Configuration tool and for each party check the "Allow trailing delimiters (separators)" check box on the Validation tab. Disadvantage – Each MSH3.1 and MSH5.1 value must be represented in the parties list and configured. Advantage – granular control over system behavior for each inbound/outbound system. Using instance properties of a pipeline used in a send port or receive location. Open the BizTalk Server Administration console locate the send port or receive location that contains the BTAHL72XReceivePipeline or BTAHL72XSendPipeline pipeline. Open the properties To the right of the pipeline selected locate the […] ellipses button In the property list, locate the "TrailingDelimiterAllowed" property and set it to True. Advantage – All messages through a particular Send Port or Receive Location will allow trailing delimiters. Disadvantage – Must configure each Send Port or Receive Location. No granular control over which remote parties will send or receive messages with trailing delimiters. Using a custom pipeline that uses a pre-configured BTA HL7 Pipeline component. Use Visual Studio to construct a custom receive and send pipeline using the appropriate assembler or dissasembler. Set the component property to "TrailingDelimitersAllowed" to True Compile and deploy the custom pipeline Use the custom pipeline instead of the standard pipeline for all HL7 message processing Advantage – All messages using the custom pipeline will automatically allow trailing delimiters. Disadvantage – Requires custom coding and development to create and deploy the custom pipeline. No granular control over which remote parties will send or receive messages with trailing delimiters. What does a Trailing Delimiter do to the XML Schema? Allowing trailing delimiters does not have the impact often expected in the actual XML Schema.The Schema reproduces the message with no data loss.Thus, the message when represented in XML must contain the extra fields, in order to reproduce the outbound message.Thus, a trialing delimiter results in an empty XML field.Trailing Delmiters are not stripped from the inbound message. Example:<PID_21>44172</PID_21><PID_21>9257</PID_21> -> the original maximum number of repeats<PID_21></PID_21> -> The empty repeated field Allowing trailing delimiters not remove the trailing delimiters from the message, it simply suppresses the check that will cause the message to fail parse with trailing delimiters. When can you not fix the problem by enabling trailing delimiters Each object in a message must have a location in the target BTAHL7 schema for its content to reside.If you have more objects in the message than are contained at that location, then enabling trailing delimiters will not resolve the problem. The schema must be extended to accommodate the empty message content.Examples: Extra Field NTE|P||||Only 4 fields in NTE Segment, the 4th field exists, but is empty. Extra component PID|1|1523|47^^^^^^^Only 5 components in a CX data type, the 5th component exists, but is empty Extra subcomponent ORC|1|||||27&&Only 2 subcomponents in a CQ data type, the 3rd subcomponent is empty, but exists. Extra Repeat PID|1||||||||||||||||||||4419~5217~Only 2 repeats allowed for the field "Mother's identifier", the repeat is empty, but exists. In each of these cases, you must locate the failing object and extend the type to allow an additional object of that type. FieldAdd a field of ST to the end of the segment with a suitable name in the segments_nnn.xsd Component Create a new Custom CX data type (i.e. CX_XtraComp) in the datatypes_nnn.xsd and add a new component to the custom CX data type. Update the field in the segments_nnn.xsd file to use the custom data type instead of the standard datatype. Subcomponent Create a new Custom CQ data type that accepts an additional TS value at the end of the data type. Create a custom TQ data type that uses the new custom CQ data type as the first subcomponent. Modify the ORC segment to use the new CQ data type at ORC.7 instead of the standard CQ data type. RepeatModify the Field definition for PID.21 in the segments_nnn.xsd to allow more repeats in the field.

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BizTalk Server Monitoring – SharePoint Web Part

- by SURESH GIRIRAJAN

I have been worked with customers using BizTalk as shared infrastructure in the enterprise, where we have two or more BizTalk apps running on it for different Business groups. Also these customers are not using BizTalk ESB portal even though they are using BizTalk ESB exception framework. So main issue with all these Business groups are they don’t have visibility into the BizTalk apps running in prod, even though they are using SCOM and other monitoring stuff in place. So I am trying to address few issues I am going to list below and how I try to mitigate them, first one on the list is how to get visibility into prod, how to provision those access to the BizTalk resources with minimal activity and how can we take advantage of the resources we have today. So I was working on creating REST data services for BizTalk RFID a year ago and available on codeplex. I thought to extend that idea to take advantage of BizTalk Data Services available in codeplex. I extended the BizTalk data services I will upload the updated service soon. So let me start thru how my solution works, so first step I am using the BizTalk data service (REST service) which expose most of the BizTalk artifacts as resources such as Applications, Orchestrations, Send ports, Receive ports, Host instances and In process instances etc. BizTalk Server Monitoring – SharePoint Web Part I am hosting the BizTalk data service in IIS with application pool configured to run under BizTalk administrator credentials. So with this setup I am making the service to make accessible anonymous. Next step of this solution I have created a SharePoint Visual web part which consumes the BizTalk data service and display all the BizTalk Application and Platform settings in read only mode. Even though BizTalk data services offers to browse resources as well perform actions like starting, stopping Orchestrations, Send ports, Receive locations, Host instances etc. Host Instances BizTalk Applications BizTalk Running / Suspended Instances So having this BizTalk Monitoring SharePoint web part, will be added to the SharePoint. This eliminates the need for granting access to the BizTalk users explicitly, so when you have BizTalk contractor or BizTalk application user need to have access to the BizTalk environment all the need is have access to the SharePoint website. You can configure the web part point to different end point based on your environment. I am making this as read only as part of this to make easier for the users and in terms of provisioning. This removes the dependency of BizTalk admin at least for viewing the BizTalk application status and errors etc. If we need to make any changes to the BizTalk application then its application owner responsibility to co-ordinate with BizTalk admins. There are options like BizTalk ESB portal, BizTalk 360 etc… but this one of the approach to reduce number of steps required to give access to BizTalk application users and also to maximize the resource we have in enterprise today. Also you can expose this data service thru Azure Service Bus and access from other apps like mobile devices or create a web site hosted in Azure etc. One last thing I have tested only with BizTalk Server 2010 on x64 VM only, but it should work on other version. I will try to upload the code shortly with instructions how to setup etc.… I welcome thoughts and suggestions… Hope this helps….

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Silverlight Cream for March 29, 2010 -- #824

- by Dave Campbell

In this Issue: smartyP(-2-), Al Pascual, Mike Taulty, Shawn Burke(-2-), Vikram Pendse, Tomasz Janczuk, Lee, and Alexey Zakharov. Shoutouts: Jeff Weber announced New Silverlight Game “Snow Spill” by Nick Avery of Liserd Arts Games John Papa summarized links to all the Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Sessions from MIX 10 Tim Heuer has a post up about OData and the MIX10 feed: MIX10: Yet another way to view video content sessions using their OData feed From SilverlightCream.com: Creating a Windows Phone 7 Metro Style Pivot Application [Part 1] smartyP has a two-part video tutorial up on creating a WP7 pivot navigation app using Expression Blend. He's also looking for feedback. Creating a Windows Phone 7 Metro Style Pivot Application [Part 2] In part 2, smartyP adds gestures to his navigation. He also has some good external links listed. Al Pascual: My First Windows Phone 7 Application Al Pascual extends the MIX10 keynote WP7 sample by adding the ability to send tweets ... with all the code. Silverlight 4 RC and the “silent installation” Mike Taulty discusses and demonstrates installing an OOB app without having to visit a webpage to get it. In other words, pass it around on a USB drive, send it in email, etc. iPhone SDK vs Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 1: Hello World! Shawn Burke has a 2-part series up comparing iPhone and WP7 development looking at how easy it is to code and lines of code produced by the tools. This first post is the classic Hello World. Check out the comments as well. iPhone SDK vs. Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 2: MoveMe Shawn Burke's part 2 is comparing the classic iPhone 'MoveMe' app... again, check out all the comments. Silverlight 4 : Indic Support in Silverlight Vikram Pendse demonstrates using the Microsoft Indic Language Input tool. He has some screen shots and discussion about fonts in Silverlight. Comparison of HTTP polling duplex and net.tcp performance in Silverlight 4 RC Tomasz Janczuk is checking out Silverlight4 RC and has a comparison up of the performance of the three mechanisms for asynch data push for the server to the client/. Summary rows in Datagrid with multiple groups Lee revisted a post that displayed Summary/Totals in the group header to also support multiple groups now. Silverlight Commands Hacks: Passing EventArgs as CommandParameter to DelegateCommand triggered by EventTrigger Alexey Zakharov suggests a workaround 'InvokeDelegateCommandAction' to keep Blend from ignoring event args. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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Silverlight Cream for January 26, 2011 -- #1036

- by Dave Campbell

In this all-submittal Issue: XamlNinja, Kevin Dockx, Steve Wortham, Andrea Boschin, Mick Norman, Colin Eberhardt, and Rudi Grobler(-2-, -3-, -4-, -5-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Getting an invalid cross-thread exception in Silverlight?" Kevin Dockx WP7: "WP7 Contrib – the last messenger" XamlNinja ISO: "How many files are too many files for isolated storage?" Mick Norman Shoutouts: Telerik announced a free WP7 Webinars series that you probably don't want to miss: Join Us for the Special Free Windows Phone 7 Webinars Series. Guest lecturers - Shawn Wildermuth and Mark Arteaga From SilverlightCream.com: WP7 Contrib – the last messenger XamlNinja has a great post up extending Laurent's IMessenger to deal with a tricky issue of trying to fire a message from one VM to another even if the 2nd VM isn't alive yet... oh, and this is in WP7Contrib, so go grab it! Getting an invalid cross-thread exception in Silverlight? Kevin Dockx has a solution to a problem we've all had... the 'invalid cross-thread exception' ... and the solution is even for those of us trying to do this in a VM... cool and easy solution, Kevin! Mastering Storyboards One Mistake at a Time Steve Wortham is back with a tutorial with a great title :) ... check out the progression from one success to another in this picture/title viewer ... don't miss the very end where he has the control rolled up into a CaptionedImageHyperlink, and a link to download it! Windows Phone 7 - Part #2: Your First Application Andrea Boschin has part 2 of his SilverlightShow WP7 series up. Lots of good intro material here on the manifest file and app.xaml ... he even gets into the ApplicationBar, phone orientation, and the Metro theme. How many files are too many files for isolated storage? Mick Norman alerted me to his blog early this morning, and this is his latest post... interesting tests of how many files are too many for ISO on your WP7... and I have to admit... he's stuffing a boatload of them out there in these tests! ... great info Mick! and thanks for the links. A Navigator Control For Visiblox Time Series Charts Colin Eberhardt's latest post is about creating an interactive navigator for large time series datasets in Visiblox charts.... check the images at the top of the post, and it'll be obvious :) ... very cool stuff. MVVM Frameworks with WP7 support Rudi Grobler has been very busy and if you check the dates, these posts are all in a day or two! This first highlights two contenders for MVVM on WP7: Caliburn and MVVMLight... both well-supported... quick intro to each followed by good links out to the author's sites Reading barcodes from your WP7 device Rudi Grobler also has a cool post up on reading barcodes with your WP7... he's using the ZXing Barcode Scanning Library, and makes quick work of the job. Taking Sterling for a Test-Drive Rudi Grobler has a quick intro to Sterlink, Jeremy Likness' ISO database for Silverlight up... quickly taking care of writing and reading back data. SQLite on WP7 After his discussion of Sterling, Rudi Grobler is now demonstrating the use of SQLite that has been ported to WP7. Check out his demo code... looks pretty easy to use. Hacking the WP7 Camera (The basics) Rudi Grobler's latest post is on getting direct access to the camera on WP7... be sure to do all the downloads and check out the external links he has. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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I want to hit Apex SQL with a big stick

- by Michael Stephenson

<Whinge> Thought id just have a little whinge about this product which caused me a load of grief the other day..... So the background was that my development machine had a completely full hard disk which I needed to sort out. Upon investigation I found the issue was that the msdb database had managed to get very large. This was caused because a long time ago (and I cant even remember why) I tried out Apex SQL. After a few days I decided to uninstall it and thought nothing more of it. What I didnt realise was that uninstalling it doesnt actually uninstall it (and it doesnt inform you about this), but there was still some assemblies left on my machine. Everytime SQL Server was running it was starting the Apex SQL Connection monitor which was then running in the background and regularly recording information in the msdb database. Over time it had recorded enough to fill the disk. The below article advises how to sort this out by removing this fully so if your having a problem then try this out:http://knowledgebase.apexsql.com/2007/08/how-to-uninstall-apexsqlconnectionmonit_09.htm Once this was sorted out its interesting to read the above article because I just dont think the approach used by the vendor of this software is a very good one. So for the Apex team just wanted to pass on a thought: If I want to uninstall your product you should tell me if stuff is left on the machine especially if a process will be running which is going to fill my machine with useless data, </Whinge>

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Connecting to SQL database using SQLCMD

- by kaleidoscope

As we all know, there are a number of ways you can connect to your SQL Azure Database. One of the quick options is to try to connect to SQL server is SQLCMD. To start the SQLCMD utility and connect to a named instance of SQL Server Open a Command Prompt window, and type sqlcmd -S myServer\instanceName. Replace myServer\instanceName with the name of the computer and the instance of SQL Server that you want to connect to. Press ENTER. The sqlcmd prompt (1>) indicates that you are connected to the specified instance of SQL Server. SQL Management Studio offers the facility to use SQLCMD from within SQL scripts by using SQLCMD Mode. How to: Enable SQLCMD mode in the Transact-SQL Editor (About how to start the editor, see How to: Start the Transact-SQL Editor.) To toggle SQLCMD mode from the Data menu 1. Open the query in the Transact-SQL editor. 2. On the Data menu, point to Transact-SQL Editor, and click SQLCMD Mode. To toggle SQLCMD mode from the toolbar 1. Open the query in the Transact-SQL editor. 2. On the Transact-SQL Editor toolbar, click SQLCMD Mode. To toggle SQLCMD mode from the shortcut menu 1. Open the query in the Transact-SQL editor. 2. Right-click anywhere in the editor window, and then click SQLCMD Mode. For more information follow below link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms170207.aspx Geeta, G

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