Search Results

Search found 3465 results on 139 pages for 'msdn magazine'.

Page 26/139 | < Previous Page | 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33  | Next Page >

• What is Control's DesignMode property and how to use it?

  - by sanjuro

  Hi, what is DesignMode property? When it is useful? I don't understand it from msdn definition http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.control.designmode.aspx Some example? Thanks for answer.

  Read the article

• List of Windows Native Functions for XP, VISTA and Windows 7

  - by REA_ANDREW

  Hi, On the MSDN is there some sort of reference which details every native function inside the Windows API for different versions say from Windows XP upwards? I have been googling and looking round the MSDN but I must not be looking for the correct thing. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Andrew

  Read the article

• Using Message Boxes in Windows 7 style

  - by Meta

  After reading the MSDN article about proper user interface here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974176.aspx I want to modify the message boxes I use in my applications to reflect those guidelines (for example, have the Main Instructions in a larger font, better named Buttons, etc...). My question is, is there an API that allows you to easily build those kind of message boxes (a la user32\MessageBox()), or do you actually have to build your own message boxes which follow the guidelines?

  Read the article

• Is there any SQL Server database designer software like MySQL workbench?

  - by newbie

  I need to design database for SQL Server, is there any MySQL workbench like software for that? I have access to MSDN, so it can also be commercial product that can be found form MSDN.

  Read the article

• How To Read C# Code From Java Background

  - by ChloeRadshaw

  I come from a Java background and have been using C# for the last year - So far the API docs I use are at MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms132397.aspx). I tend to use the lightweight C# docs. What annoys me about that is that I don't see one page with details of the class, a list of members, a list of methods and properties like I would with a Java API definition. Is this possible?

  Read the article

• What does ObjectName(parameter) refer in the structure OBJECT_ATTRIBUTE?

  - by kiddo

  hi all, I found this structure called OBJECT_ATTRIBUTE in one of the nt dll functions..I was curious to know about that structure and I went through its documentation(msdn)...In the OBJECT_ATTRIBUTE structure there is a parameter called PUNICODE_STRING objectName...As per the msdn documentation..it says that the objectName "the name of the object for which a handle is to be opened" which is actually a name or some root directory,am confused with this.Can anybody explain this term "name of the object"(root directory).what it represents.

  Read the article

• IPv6 - Public IPs, private IPs, IPs derived from the MAC address? Confused!

  - by sinni800

  I'm pretty much excited for IPv6 because of the large address room and (potential?) owning of more than one IP, or even tens of IPs (/122 subnet?) Though one magazine has now confused me. In a current issue (no. 3) of "CT", a German computer magazine, I read that when using IPv6 your IP address consists of your MAC address and various other things, and that this address will be public on the web, no matter what access point / LAN you connect to. My knowledge of IP(v6) is in contrary of this. I thought you will normally always have a a local network IP and NAT takes care of your Internet access, and your provider gives the NAT router an IP. I've heard of the 6to4 interface, but does this one give you your own ip in the IPv6 net? Personally I hope it still is through a personal IP space (like 192.168, 127.16-31, 10. in IPv4) in private networks with a NAT going to the Internet. And also I hope that providers will offer subnets to private customers so they don't have to use NAT anymore. Yay for converting your LAN into the WAN and using better security (so Computers from the same subnet still get access rights like normal).

  Read the article

• Michael Crump&rsquo;s notes for 70-563 PRO &ndash; Designing and Developing Windows Applications usi

  - by mbcrump

  TIME TO GO PRO! This is my notes for 70-563 PRO – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .NET Framework 3.5 I created it using several resources (various certification web sites, msdn, official ms 70-548 book). The reason that I created this review is because a) I am taking the exam. b) MS did not create a book for this exam. Use the(MS 70-548)book. c) To make sure I am familiar with each before the exam. I hope that it provides a good start for your own notes. I hope that someone finds this useful. At least, it will give you a starting point of what to expect to know on the PRO exam. Also, for those wondering, the PRO exam does contains very little code. It is basically all theory. 1. Validation Controls – How to prevent users from entering invalid data on forms. (MaskedTextBox control and RegEx) 2. ServiceController – used to start and control the behavior of existing services. 3. User Feedback (know winforms Status Bar, Tool Tips, Color, Error Provider, Context-Sensitive and Accessibility) 4. Specific (derived) exceptions must be handled before general (base class) exceptions. By moving the exception handling for the base type Exception to after exception handling of ArgumentNullException, all ArgumentNullException thrown by the Helper method will be caught and logged correctly. 5. A heartbeat method is a method exposed by a Web service that allows external applications to check on the status of the service. 6. New users must master key tasks quickly. Giving these tasks context and appropriate detail will help. However, advanced users will demand quicker paths. Shortcuts, accelerators, or toolbar buttons will speed things along for the advanced user. 7. MSBuild uses project files to instruct the build engine what to build and how to build it. MSBuild project files are XML files that adhere to the MSBuild XML schema. The MSBuild project files contain complete file, build action, and dependency information for each individual projects. 8. Evaluating whether or not to fix a bug involves a triage process. You must identify the bug's impact, set the priority, categorize it, and assign a developer. Many times the person doing the triage work will assign the bug to a developer for further investigation. In fact, the workflow for the bug work item inside of Team System supports this step. Developers are often asked to assess the impact of a given bug. This assessment helps the person doing the triage make a decision on how to proceed. When assessing the impact of a bug, you should consider time and resources to fix it, bug risk, and impacts of the bug. 9. In large projects it is generally impossible and unfeasible to fix all bugs because of the impact on schedule and budget. 10. Code reviews should be conducted by a technical lead or a technical peer. 11. Testing Applications 12. WCF Services – application state 13. SQL Server 2005 / 2008 Express Edition – reliable storage of data / Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact Database– used for client computers to retrieve and save data from a shared location. 14. SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition – used for minimum possible memory and can synchronize data with a corporate SQL Server 2008 Database. Supports offline user and minimum dependency on external components. 15. MDI and SDI Forms (specifically IsMDIContainer) 16. GUID – in the case of data warehousing, it is important to define unique keys. 17. Encrypting / Security Data 18. Understanding of Isolated Storage/Proper location to store items 19. LINQ to SQL 20. Multithreaded access 21. ADO.NET Entity Framework model 22. Marshal.ReleaseComObject 23. Common User Interface Layout (ComboBox, ListBox, Listview, MaskedTextBox, TextBox, RichTextBox, SplitContainer, TableLayoutPanel, TabControl) 24. DataSets Class - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.dataset%28VS.71%29.aspx 25. SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) 26. SystemIcons.Shield (Vista UAC) 27. Leverging stored procedures to perform data manipulation for a database schema that can change. 28. DataContext 29. Microsoft Windows Installer Packages, ClickOnce(bootstrapping features), XCopy. 30. Client Application Services – will authenticate users by using the same data source as a ASP.NET web application. 31. SQL Server 2008 Caching 32. StringBuilder 33. Accessibility Guidelines for Windows Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228004.aspx 34. Logging erros 35. Testing performance related issues. 36. Role Based Security, GenericIdentity and GenericPrincipal 37. System.Net.CookieContainer will store session data for webapps (see isolated storage for winforms) 38. .NET CLR Profiler tool will identify objects that cause performance issues. 39. ADO.NET Synchronization (SyncGroup) 40. Globalization - CultureInfo 41. IDisposable Interface- reports on several questions relating to this. 42. Adding timestamps to determine whether data has changed or not. 43. Converting applications to .NET Framework 3.5 44. MicrosoftReportViewer 45. Composite Controls 46. Windows Vista KNOWN folders. 47. Microsoft Sync Framework 48. TypeConverter -Provides a unified way of converting types of values to other types, as well as for accessing standard values and sub properties. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx 49. Concurrency control mechanisms The main categories of concurrency control mechanisms are: Optimistic - Delay the checking of whether a transaction meets the isolation rules (e.g., serializability and recoverability) until its end, without blocking any of its (read, write) operations, and then abort a transaction, if the desired rules are violated. Pessimistic - Block operations of a transaction, if they may cause violation of the rules. Semi-optimistic - Block operations in some situations, and do not block in other situations, while delaying rules checking to transaction's end, as done with optimistic. 50. AutoResetEvent 51. Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ) 4.0 52. Bulk imports 53. KeyDown event of controls 54. WPF UI components 55. UI process layer 56. GAC (installing, removing and queuing) 57. Use a local database cache to reduce the network bandwidth used by applications. 58. Sound can easily be annoying and distracting to users, so use it judiciously. Always give users the option to turn sound off. Because a user might have sound off, never convey important information through sound alone.

  Read the article

• On StringComparison Values

  - by Jesse

  When you use the .NET Framework’s String.Equals and String.Compare methods do you use an overloStringComparison enumeration value? If not, you should be because the value provided for that StringComparison argument can have a big impact on the results of your string comparison. The StringComparison enumeration defines values that fall into three different major categories: Culture-sensitive comparison using a specific culture, defaulted to the Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture value (StringComparison.CurrentCulture and StringComparison.CurrentCutlureIgnoreCase) Invariant culture comparison (StringComparison.InvariantCulture and StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) Ordinal (byte-by-byte) comparison of  (StringComparison.Ordinal and StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) There is a lot of great material available that detail the technical ins and outs of these different string comparison approaches. If you’re at all interested in the topic these two MSDN articles are worth a read: Best Practices For Using Strings in the .NET Framework: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465121.aspx How To Compare Strings: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc165449.aspx Those articles cover the technical details of string comparison well enough that I’m not going to reiterate them here other than to say that the upshot is that you typically want to use the culture-sensitive comparison whenever you’re comparing strings that were entered by or will be displayed to users and the ordinal comparison in nearly all other cases. So where does that leave the invariant culture comparisons? The “Best Practices For Using Strings in the .NET Framework” article has the following to say: “On balance, the invariant culture has very few properties that make it useful for comparison. It does comparison in a linguistically relevant manner, which prevents it from guaranteeing full symbolic equivalence, but it is not the choice for display in any culture. One of the few reasons to use StringComparison.InvariantCulture for comparison is to persist ordered data for a cross-culturally identical display. For example, if a large data file that contains a list of sorted identifiers for display accompanies an application, adding to this list would require an insertion with invariant-style sorting.” I don’t know about you, but I feel like that paragraph is a bit lacking. Are there really any “real world” reasons to use the invariant culture comparison? I think the answer to this question is, “yes”, but in order to understand why we should first think about what the invariant culture comparison really does. The invariant culture comparison is really just a culture-sensitive comparison using a special invariant culture (Michael Kaplan has a great post on the history of the invariant culture on his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2004/12/29/344136.aspx). This means that the invariant culture comparison will apply the linguistic customs defined by the invariant culture which are guaranteed not to differ between different machines or execution contexts. This sort of consistently does prove useful if you needed to maintain a list of strings that are sorted in a meaningful and consistent way regardless of the user viewing them or the machine on which they are being viewed. Example: Prototype Names Let’s say that you work for a large multi-national toy company with branch offices in 10 different countries. Each year the company would work on 15-25 new toy prototypes each of which is assigned a “code name” while it is under development. Coming up with fun new code names is a big part of the company culture that everyone really enjoys, so to be fair the CEO of the company spent a lot of time coming up with a prototype naming scheme that would be fun for everyone to participate in, fair to all of the different branch locations, and accessible to all members of the organization regardless of the country they were from and the language that they spoke. Each new prototype will get a code name that begins with a letter following the previously created name using the alphabetical order of the Latin/Roman alphabet. Each new year prototype names would start back at “A”. The country that leads the prototype development effort gets to choose the name in their native language. (An appropriate Romanization system will be used for countries where the primary language is not written in the Latin/Roman alphabet. For example, the Pinyin system could be used for Chinese). To avoid repeating names, a list of all current and past prototype names will be maintained on each branch location’s company intranet site. Assuming that maintaining a single pre-sorted list is not feasible among all of the highly distributed intranet implementations, what string comparison method would you use to sort each year’s list of prototype names so that the list is both meaningful and consistent regardless of the country within which the list is being viewed? Sorting the list with a culture-sensitive comparison using the default configured culture on each country’s intranet server the list would probably work most of the time, but subtle differences between cultures could mean that two different people would see a list that was sorted slightly differently. The CEO wants the prototype names to be a unifying aspect of company culture and is adamant that everyone see the the same list sorted in the same order and there’s no way to guarantee a consistent sort across different cultures using the culture-sensitive string comparison rules. The culture-sensitive sort would produce a meaningful list for the specific user viewing it, but it wouldn’t always be consistent between different users. Sorting with the ordinal comparison would certainly be consistent regardless of the user viewing it, but would it be meaningful? Let’s say that the current year’s prototype name list looks like this: Antílope (Spanish) Babouin (French) Cahoun (Czech) Diamond (English) Flosse (German) If you were to sort this list using ordinal rules you’d end up with: Antílope Babouin Diamond Flosse Cahoun This sort is no good because the entry for “C” appears the bottom of the list after “F”. This is because the Czech entry for the letter “C” makes use of a diacritic (accent mark). The ordinal string comparison does a byte-by-byte comparison of the code points that make up each character in the string and the code point for the “C” with the diacritic mark is higher than any letter without a diacritic mark, which pushes that entry to the bottom of the sorted list. The CEO wants each country to be able to create prototype names in their native language, which means we need to allow for names that might begin with letters that have diacritics, so ordinal sorting kills the meaningfulness of the list. As it turns out, this situation is actually well-suited for the invariant culture comparison. The invariant culture accounts for linguistically relevant factors like the use of diacritics but will provide a consistent sort across all machines that perform the sort. Now that we’ve walked through this example, the following line from the “Best Practices For Using Strings in the .NET Framework” makes a lot more sense: One of the few reasons to use StringComparison.InvariantCulture for comparison is to persist ordered data for a cross-culturally identical display That line describes the prototype name example perfectly: we need a way to persist ordered data for a cross-culturally identical display. While this example is 100% made-up, I think it illustrates that there are indeed real-world situations where the invariant culture comparison is useful.

  Read the article

• Real World Nuget

  - by JoshReuben

  Why Nuget A higher level of granularity for managing references When you have solutions of many projects that depend on solutions of many projects etc à escape from Solution Hell. Links · Using A GUI (Package Explorer) to build packages - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/creating-packages/using-a-gui-to-build-packages · Creating a Nuspec File - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2010trainingcourse_aspnetmvcnuget_topic2.aspx · consuming a Nuget Package - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2010trainingcourse_aspnetmvcnuget_topic3 · Nuspec reference - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/nuspec-reference · updating packages - http://nuget.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Updating%20All%20Packages · versioning - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/versioning POC Folder Structure POC Setup Steps · Install package explorer · Source o Create a source solution – configure output directory for projects (Project > Properties > Build > Output Path) · Package o Add assemblies to package from output directory (D&D)- add net folder o File > Export – save .nuspec files and lib contents <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package > <metadata> <id>MyPackage</id> <version>1.0.0.3</version> <title /> <authors>josh-r</authors> <owners /> <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance> <description>My package description.</description> <summary /> </metadata> </package> o File > Save – saves .nupkg file · Create Target Solution o In Tools > Options: Configure package source & Add package Select projects: Output from package manager (powershell console) ------- Installing...MyPackage 1.0.0 ------- Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyA.dll' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyA.pdb' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyB.dll' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyB.pdb' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'MyPackage.1.0.0.nupkg' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0'. Successfully installed 'MyPackage 1.0.0'. Added reference 'NugetSource.AssemblyA' to project 'AssemblyX' Added reference 'NugetSource.AssemblyB' to project 'AssemblyX' Added file 'packages.config'. Added file 'packages.config' to project 'AssemblyX' Added file 'repositories.config'. Successfully added 'MyPackage 1.0.0' to AssemblyX. ============================== o Packages folder created at solution level o Packages.config file generated in each project: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <packages>   <package id="MyPackage" version="1.0.0" targetFramework="net40" /> </packages> A local Packages folder is created for package versions installed: Each folder contains the downloaded .nupkg file and its unpacked contents – eg of dlls that the project references Note: this folder is not checked in UpdatePackages o Configure Package Manager to automatically check for updates o Browse packages - It automatically picked up the updates Update Procedure · Modify source · Change source version in assembly info · Build source · Open last package in package explorer · Increment package version number and re-add assemblies · Save package with new version number and export its definition · In target solution – Tools > Manage Nuget Packages – click on All to trigger refresh , then click on recent packages to see updates · If problematic, delete packages folder Versioning uninstall-package mypackage install-package mypackage –version 1.0.0.3 uninstall-package mypackage install-package mypackage –version 1.0.0.4 Dependencies · <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2012/06/nuspec.xsd"> <metadata> <id>MyDependentPackage</id> <version>1.0.0</version> <title /> <authors>josh-r</authors> <owners /> <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance> <description>My package description.</description> <dependencies> <group targetFramework=".NETFramework4.0"> <dependency id="MyPackage" version="1.0.0.4" /> </group> </dependencies> </metadata> </package> Using NuGet without committing packages to source control http://docs.nuget.org/docs/workflows/using-nuget-without-committing-packages Right click on the Solution node in Solution Explorer and select Enable NuGet Package Restore. — Recall that packages folder is not part of solution If you get downloading package ‘Nuget.build’ failed, config proxy to support certificate for https://nuget.org/api/v2/ & allow unrestricted access to packages.nuget.org To test connectivity: get-package –listavailable To test Nuget Package Restore – delete packages folder and open vs as admin. In nugget msbuild: <Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" /> TFSBuild Integration Modify Nuget.Targets file <RestorePackages Condition="  '$(RestorePackages)' == '' "> True </RestorePackages> … <PackageSource Include="\\IL-CV-004-W7D\Packages" /> Add System Environment variable EnableNuGetPackageRestore=true & restart the “visual studio team foundation build service host” service. Important: Ensure Network Service has access to Packages folder Nugetter TFS Build integration Add Nugetter build process templates to TFS source control For Build Controller - Specify location of custom assemblies Generate .nuspec file from Package Explorer: File > Export Edit the file elements – remove path info from src and target attributes <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2012/06/nuspec.xsd">     <metadata>         <id>Common</id>         <version>1.0.0</version>         <title />         <authors>josh-r</authors>         <owners />         <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance>         <description>My package description.</description>         <dependencies>             <group targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5" />         </dependencies>     </metadata>     <files>         <file src="CommonTypes.dll" target="CommonTypes.dll" />         <file src="CommonTypes.pdb" target="CommonTypes.pdb" /> … Add .nuspec file to solution so that it is available for build: Dev\NovaNuget\Common\NuSpec\common.1.0.0.nuspec Add a Build Process Definition based on the Nugetter build process template: Configure the build process – specify: · .sln to build · Base path (output directory) · Nuget.exe file path · .nuspec file path Copy DLLs to a binary folder 1) Set copy local for an assembly reference to false 2)  MSBuild Copy Task – modify .csproj file: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3e54c37h.aspx <ItemGroup>     <MySourceFiles Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\SourceAssemblies\**\*.*" />   </ItemGroup>     <Target Name="BeforeBuild">     <Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="bin\debug\SourceAssemblies" />   </Target> 3) Set Probing assembly search path from app.config - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/823z9h8w(v=vs.80).aspx -                 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration>   <runtime>     <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">       <probing privatePath="SourceAssemblies"/>     </assemblyBinding>   </runtime> </configuration> Forcing 'copy local = false' The following generic powershell script was added to the packages install.ps1: param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project) if( $project.Object.Project.Name -ne "CopyPackages") { $asms = $package.AssemblyReferences | %{$_.Name} foreach ($reference in $project.Object.References) { if ($asms -contains $reference.Name + ".dll") { $reference.CopyLocal = $false; } } } An empty project named "CopyPackages" was added to the solution - it references all the packages and is the only one set to CopyLocal="true". No MSBuild knowledge required.

  Read the article

• Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and DevExpress XAF

  - by Patrick Liekhus

  So in my previous posts I showed you how I used EDMX to quickly build my business objects within XPO and XAF.  But how do you test whether your business objects are actually doing what you want and verify that your business logic is correct?  Well I was reading my monthly MSDN magazine last last year and came across an article about using SpecFlow and WatiN to build BDD tests.  So why not use these same techniques to write SpecFlow style scripts and have them generate EasyTest scripts for use with XAF.  Let me outline and show a few things below.  I plan on releasing this code in a short while, I just wanted to preview what I was thinking. Before we begin… First, if you have not read the article in MSDN, here is the link to the article that I found my inspiration.  It covers the overview of BDD vs. TDD, how to write some of the SpecFlow syntax and how use the “Steps” logic to create your own tests. Second, if you have not heard of EasyTest from DevExpress I strongly recommend you review it here.  It basically takes the power of XAF and the beauty of your application and allows you to create text based files to execute automated commands within your application. Why would we do this?  Because as you will see below, the cucumber syntax is easier for business analysts to interpret and digest the business rules from.  You can find most of the information you will need on Cucumber syntax within The Secret Ninja Cucumber Scrolls located here.  The basics of the syntax are that Given X When Y Then Z.  For example, Given I am at the login screen When I enter my login credentials Then I expect to see the home screen.  Pretty easy syntax to follow. Finally, we will need to download and install SpecFlow.  You can find it on their website here.  Once you have this installed then let’s write our first test. Let’s get started… So where to start.  Create a new testing project within your solution.  I typically call this with a similar naming convention as used by XAF, my project name .FunctionalTests (i.e.  AlbumManager.FunctionalTests).  Remove the basic test that is created for you.  We will not use the default test but rather create our own SpecFlow “Feature” files.  Add a new item to your project and select the SpecFlow Feature file under C#.  Name your feature file as you do your class files after the test they are performing. Now you can crack open your new feature file and write the actual test.  Make sure to have your Ninja Scrolls from above as it provides valuable resources on how to write your test syntax.  In this test below you can see how I defined the documentation in the Feature section.  This is strictly for our purposes of readability and do not effect the test.  The next section is the Scenario Outline which is considered a test template.  You can see the brackets <> around the fields that will be filled in for each test.  So in the example below you can see that Given I am starting a new test and the application is open.  This means I want a new EasyTest file and the windows application generated by XAF is open.  Next When I am at the Albums screen tells XAF to navigate to the Albums list view.  And I click the New:Album button, tells XAF to click the new button on the list grid.  And I enter the following information tells XAF which fields to complete with the mapped values.  And I click the Save and Close button causes the record to be saved and the detail form to be closed.  Then I verify results tests the input data against what is visible in the grid to ensure that your record was created. The Scenarios section gives each test a unique name and then fills in the values for each test.  This way you can use the same test to make multiple passes with different data. Almost there.  Now we must save the feature file and the BDD tests will be written using standard unit test syntax.  This is all handled for you by SpecFlow so just save the file.  What you will see in your Test List Editor is a unit test for each of the above scenarios you just built. You can now use standard unit testing frameworks to execute the test as you desire.  As you would expect then, these BDD SpecFlow tests can be automated into your build process to ensure that your business requirements are satisfied each and every time. How does it work? What we have done is to intercept the testing logic at runtime to interpret the SpecFlow syntax into EasyTest syntax.  This is the basic StepDefinitions that we are working on now.  We expect to put these on CodePlex within the next few days.  You can always override and make your own rules as you see fit for your project.  Follow the MSDN magazine above to start your own.  You can see part of our implementation below. As you can gather from the MSDN article and the code sample below, we have created our own common rules to build the above syntax. The code implementation for these rules basically saves your information from the feature file into an EasyTest file format.  It then executes the EasyTest file and parses the XML results of the test.  If the test succeeds the test is passed.  If the test fails, the EasyTest failure message is logged and the screen shot (as captured by EasyTest) is saved for your review. Again we are working on getting this code ready for mass consumption, but at this time it is not ready.  We will post another message when it is ready with all details about usage and setup. Thanks

  Read the article

• Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers, and Implicit Line Continuation support with VB 2010

  - by ScottGu

  [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] This is the eighteenth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the upcoming VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. A few days ago I blogged about two new language features coming with C# 4.0: optional parameters and named arguments.  Today I’m going to post about a few of my favorite new features being added to VB with VS 2010: Auto-Implemented Properties, Collection Initializers, and Implicit Line Continuation support. Auto-Implemented Properties Prior to VB 2010, implementing properties within a class using VB required you to explicitly declare the property as well as implement a backing field variable to store its value.  For example, the code below demonstrates how to implement a “Person” class using VB 2008 that exposes two public properties - “Name” and “Age”:   While explicitly declaring properties like above provides maximum flexibility, I’ve always found writing this type of boiler-plate get/set code tedious when you are simply storing/retrieving the value from a field.  You can use VS code snippets to help automate the generation of it – but it still generates a lot of code that feels redundant.  C# 2008 introduced a cool new feature called automatic properties that helps cut down the code quite a bit for the common case where properties are simply backed by a field.  VB 2010 also now supports this same feature.  Using the auto-implemented properties feature of VB 2010 we can now implement our Person class using just the code below: When you declare an auto-implemented property, the VB compiler automatically creates a private field to store the property value as well as generates the associated Get/Set methods for you.  As you can see above – the code is much more concise and easier to read. The syntax supports optionally initializing the properties with default values as well if you want to: You can learn more about VB 2010’s automatic property support from this MSDN page. Collection Initializers VB 2010 also now supports using collection initializers to easily create a collection and populate it with an initial set of values.  You identify a collection initializer by declaring a collection variable and then use the From keyword followed by braces { } that contain the list of initial values to add to the collection.  Below is a code example where I am using the new collection initializer feature to populate a “Friends” list of Person objects with two people, and then bind it to a GridView control to display on a page: You can learn more about VB 2010’s collection initializer support from this MSDN page. Implicit Line Continuation Support Traditionally, when a statement in VB has been split up across multiple lines, you had to use a line-continuation underscore character (_) to indicate that the statement wasn’t complete.  For example, with VB 2008 the below LINQ query needs to append a “_” at the end of each line to indicate that the query is not complete yet: The VB 2010 compiler and code editor now adds support for what is called “implicit line continuation support” – which means that it is smarter about auto-detecting line continuation scenarios, and as a result no longer needs you to explicitly indicate that the statement continues in many, many scenarios.  This means that with VB 2010 we can now write the above code with no “_” at all: The implicit line continuation feature also works well when editing XML Literals within VB (which is pretty cool). You can learn more about VB 2010’s Implicit Line Continuation support and many of the scenarios it supports from this MSDN page (scroll down to the “Implicit Line Continuation” section to find details). Summary The above three VB language features are but a few of the new language and code editor features coming with VB 2010.  Visit this site to learn more about some of the other VB language features coming with the release.  Also subscribe to the VB team’s blog to learn more and stay up-to-date with the posts they the team regularly publishes. Hope this helps, Scott

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: Web Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Many applications have a requirement to be located outside of the organization’s internal infrastructure control. For instance, the company website for a brick-and-mortar retail company may want to post not only static but interactive content to be available to their external customers, and not want the customers to have access inside the organization’s firewall. There are also cases of pure web applications used for a great many of the internal functions of the business. This allows for remote workers, shared customer/employee workloads and data and other advantages. Some firms choose to host these web servers internally, others choose to contract out the infrastructure to an “ASP” (Application Service Provider) or an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company. In any case, the design of these applications often resembles the following: In this design, a server (or perhaps more than one) hosts the presentation function (http or https) access to the application, and this same system may hold the computational aspects of the program. Authorization and Access is controlled programmatically, or is more open if this is a customer-facing application. Storage is either placed on the same or other servers, hosted within an RDBMS or NoSQL database, or a combination of the options, all coded into the application. High-Availability within this scenario is often the responsibility of the architects of the application, and by purchasing more hosting resources which must be built, licensed and configured, and manually added as demand requires, although some IaaS providers have a partially automatic method to add nodes for scale-out, if the architecture of the application supports it. Disaster Recovery is the responsibility of the system architect as well. Implementation: In a Windows Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment, many of these architectural considerations are designed into the system. The Azure “Fabric” (not to be confused with the Azure implementation of Application Fabric - more on that in a moment) is designed to provide scalability. Compute resources can be added and removed programmatically based on any number of factors. Balancers at the request-level of the Fabric automatically route http and https requests. The fabric also provides High-Availability for storage and other components. Disaster recovery is a shared responsibility between the facilities (which have the ability to restore in case of catastrophic failure) and your code, which should build in recovery. In a Windows Azure-based web application, you have the ability to separate out the various functions and components. Presentation can be coded for multiple platforms like smart phones, tablets and PC’s, while the computation can be a single entity shared between them. This makes the applications more resilient and more object-oriented, and lends itself to a SOA or Distributed Computing architecture. It is true that you could code up a similar set of functionality in a traditional web-farm, but the difference here is that the components are built into the very design of the architecture. The API’s and DLL’s you call in a Windows Azure code base contains components as first-class citizens. For instance, if you need storage, it is simply called within the application as an object.  Computation has multiple options and the ability to scale linearly. You also gain another component that you would either have to write or bolt-in to a typical web-farm: the Application Fabric. This Windows Azure component provides communication between applications or even to on-premise systems. It provides authorization in either person-based or claims-based perspectives. SQL Azure provides relational storage as another option, and can also be used or accessed from on-premise systems. It should be noted that you can use all or some of these components individually. Resources: Design Strategies for Scalable Active Server Applications - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972349.aspx  Physical Tiers and Deployment  - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx

  Read the article

• Silverlight Cream for March 30, 2010 -- #825

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Jeremy Likness, Tim Greenfield, Tim Heuer, ondrejsv, XAML Ninja, Nikhil Kothari, Sergey Barskiy, Shawn Oster, smartyP, Christian Schormann(-2-), and John Papa And Glenn Block. Shoutouts: Victor Gaudioso produced a RefCard for DZone: Getting Started with Silverlight and Expression Blend Way to go Victor... it looks great! Gavin Wignall announced Metia launch FourSquare and Bing maps mash up – called Near.me Cheryl Simmons talks about VS2010 and the design surface: Changing Templates with the Silverlight Designer (and seeing the changes immediately) Michael S. Scherotter posted that New York Times Silverlight Kit Updated for Windows Phone 7 Series Jaime Rodriguez posted about 2 free chapters in his new book (with Yochay Kiriaty): A Journey Into Silverlight On Windows Phone -Via Learning WIndows PHone Programming Did you know there was "MSDN Radio"?? Tim Heuer posted follow-up answers to this morning's show: MSDN Radio follow-up answers: Prism for Silverlight, DomainServices and relationships Michael Klucher posted a great set of links for WP7 game development this morning: Great Game Development Tutorials for Windows Phone Zhiming Xue has 3 pages of synopsis and links for everything Windows Phone at MIX. This is the 1st, but at the top of the pages are links to the other two: Windows Phone 7 Content From MIX10 – Part I From SilverlightCream.com: Using WriteableBitmap to Simplify Animations with Clones Jeremy Likness takes a break from his LOB posts to demonstrate a page flip animation using WriteableBitmap to simplify the animation using clones. SAX-like Xml parsing Want some experience or fun with Rx? Tim Greenfield has a post up on building an observable XmlReader. nstalling Silverlight applications without the browser involved Last night I blogged Mike Taulty's take on the "Silent Install" for an OOB app, tonight, I'm posting Tim Heuer's insight on the topic. How to: Create computed/custom properties for sample data in Blend/Sketchflow ondrejsv posted an example of digging into the files that control the sample data for Blend to get what you really want. PathListBox Adventures – radial layout Check out the radial layout XAML Ninja did using the PathListBox ... and all code available. RIA Services and Validation Nikhil Kothari has a great (duh!) post up that follows his Silverlight TV on the same subject: RIA Services and validation... lots of good external links also. Windows Phone 7 Application with OData Sergey Barskiy did an OData to WP7 app by using the feed from MIX10. You can see a list of sessions, and click on one to see details. Getting Blur And DropShadow to work in the Windows Phone Emulator Shawn Oster responds to some forum questions about Blur and DropShadow effects not showing up in the WP7 emulator, and gives the code trick we have to do for now. Metro Icons for Windows Phone 7 We all got the other icon set for WP7 from MSDN, but smartyP pulled the Metro Icons from the PPT deck of the MIX10 presentations... good job! Fonts in SketchFlow Christian Schormann talks about fonts in Sketchflow, where they live on your machine, and how you can use them. Blend 4: About Path Layout, Part III Christian Schormann also has Part III of his epic tutorial up on Path Layout and Blend. This one is on dynamic resizing layouts, and he has links back to the other two if you missed them... or you can find them with a search at SilverlightCream... :) Simple ViewModel Locator for MVVM: The Patients Have Left the Asylum John Papa And Glenn Block teamed up to solve the View First model only without the maintenance involved with the ViewModel locator by using MEF. It only took these guys and hour... sigh... :) 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

  Read the article

• F# in ASP.NET, mathematics and testing

  - by DigiMortal

  Starting from Visual Studio 2010 F# is full member of .NET Framework languages family. It is functional language with syntax specific to functional languages but I think it is time for us also notice and study functional languages. In this posting I will show you some examples about cool things other people have done using F#. F# and ASP.NET As I am ASP/ASP.NET MVP I am – of course – interested in how people use different languages and technologies with ASP.NET. C# MVP Tomáš Petrícek writes about developing ASP.NET MVC applications using F#. He also shows how to use LINQ To SQL in F# (using F# PowerPack) and provides sample solution and Visual Studio 2010 template for F# MVC web applications. You may also find interesting how you can create controllers in F#. Excellent work, Tomáš! Vladimir Matveev has interesting example about how to use F# and ApplicationHost class to process ASP.NET requests ouside of IIS. This is simple and very straight-forward example and I strongly suggest you to take a look at it. Very cool example is project Strom in Codeplex. Storm is web services testing tool that is fully written on F#. Take a look at this site because Codeplex offers also source code besides binaries. Math Functional languages are strong in fields like mathematics and physics. When I wrote my C# example about BigInteger class I found out that recursive version of Fibonacci algorithm in C# is not performing well. In same time I made same experiment on F# and in F# there were no performance problems with recursive version. You can find F# version of Fibonacci algorithm from Bob Palmer’s blog posting Fibonacci numbers in F#. Although golden spiral is useful for solving many problems I looked for some practical code example and found one. Kean Walmsley published in his Through the Interface blog very interesting posting Creating Fibonacci spirals in AutoCAD using F#. There are also other cool examples you may be interested in. Using numerical components by Extreme Optimization  it is possible to make some numerical integration (quadrature method) using F# (also C# example is available). fsharp.it introduces factorials calculation on F#. Robert Pickering has made very good work on programming The Game of Life in Silverlight and F# – I definitely suggest you to try out this example as it is very illustrative too. Who wants something more complex may take a look at Newton basin fractal example in F# by Jonathan Birge. Testing After some searching and surfing I found out that there is almost everything available for F# to write tests and test your F# code. FsCheck - FsCheck is a port of Haskell's QuickCheck. Important parts of the manual for using FsCheck is almost literally "adapted" from the QuickCheck manual and paper. Any errors and omissions are entirely my responsibility. FsTest - This project is designed to Language Oriented Programming constructs around unit testing and behavior testing in F#. The goal of this project is to create a Domain Specific Language for testing F# code in a way that makes sense for functional programming. FsUnit - FsUnit makes unit-testing with F# more enjoyable. It adds a special syntax to your favorite .NET testing framework. xUnit.NET - xUnit.net is a developer testing framework, built to support Test Driven Development, with a design goal of extreme simplicity and alignment with framework features. It is compatible with .NET Framework 2.0 and later, and offers several runners: console, GUI, MSBuild, and Visual Studio integration via TestDriven.net, CodeRush Test Runner and Resharper. It also offers test project integration for ASP.NET MVC. Getting started Well, as a first thing you need Visual Studio 2010. Then take a look at these resources: F# samples @ MSDN Microsoft F# Developer Center @ MSDN F# Language Reference @ MSDN F# blog F# forums Real World Functional Programming: With Examples in F# and C# (Amazon) Happy F#-ing! :)

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Emulators On Your Desktop

  - by BuckWoody

  Many people feel they have to set up a full Azure subscription online to try out and develop on Windows Azure. But you don’t have to do that right away. In fact, you can download the Windows Azure Compute Emulator – a “cloud development environment” – right on your desktop. No, it’s not for production use, and no, you won’t have other people using your system as a cloud provider, and yes, there are some differences with Production Windows Azure, but you’ll be able code, run, test, diagnose, watch, change and configure code without having any connection to the Internet at all. The best thing about this approach is that when you are ready to deploy the code you’ve been testing, a few clicks deploys it to your subscription when you make one.   So what deep-magic does it take to run such a thing right on your laptop or even a Virtual PC? Well, it’s actually not all that difficult. You simply download and install the Windows Azure SDK (you can even get a free version of Visual Studio for it to run on – you’re welcome) from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsazure/cc974146.aspx   This SDK will also install the Windows Azure Compute Emulator and the Windows Azure Storage Emulator – and then you’re all set. Right-click the icon for Visual Studio and select “Run as Administrator”:    Now open a new “Cloud” type of project:   Add your Web and Worker Roles that you want to code:   And when you’re done with your design, press F5 to start the desktop version of Azure:   Want to learn more about what’s happening underneath? Right-click the tray icon with the Azure logo, and select the two emulators to see what they are doing:          In the configuration files, you’ll see a “Use Development Storage” setting. You can call the BLOB, Table or Queue storage and it will all run on your desktop. When you’re ready to deploy everything to Windows Azure, you simply change the configuration settings and add the storage keys and so on that you need.   Want to learn more about all this?   Overview of the Windows Azure Compute Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432968.aspx Overview of the Windows Azure Storage Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432983.aspx January 2011 Training Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en      

  Read the article

• Azure Mobile Services: lessons learned

  - by svdoever

  When I first started using Azure Mobile Services I thought of it as a nice way to: authenticate my users - login using Twitter, Google, Facebook, Windows Live create tables, and use the client code to create the columns in the table because that is not possible in the Azure Mobile Services UI run some Javascript code on the table crud actions (Insert, Update, Delete, Read) schedule a Javascript to run any 15 or more minutes I had no idea of the magic that was happening inside… where is the data stored? Is it a kind of big table, are relationships between tables possible? those Javascripts on the table crud actions, is that interpreted, what is that exactly? After working for some time with Azure Mobile Services I became a lot wiser: Those tables are just normal tables in an Azure SQL Server 2012 Creating the table columns through client code sucks, at least from my Javascript code, because the columns are deducted from the sent JSON data, and a datetime field is sent as string in JSON, so a string type column is created instead of a datetime column You can connect with SQL Management Studio to the Azure SQL Server, and although you can’t manage your columns through the SQL Management Studio UI, it is possible to just run SQL scripts to drop and create tables and indices When you create a table through SQL script, add the table with the same name in the Azure Mobile Services UI to hook it up and be able to access the table through the provided abstraction layer You can also go to the SQL Database through the Azure Mobile Services UI, and from there get in a web based SQL management studio where you can create columns and manage your data The table crud scripts and the scheduler scripts are full blown node.js scripts, introducing a lot of power with great performance The web based script editor is really powerful, I do most of my editing currently in the editor which has syntax highlighting and code completing. While editing the code JsHint is used for script validation. The documentation on Azure Mobile Services is… suboptimal. It is such a pity that there is no way to comment on it so the community could fill in the missing holes, like which node modules are already loaded, and which modules are available on Azure Mobile Services. Soon I was hacking away on Azure Mobile Services, creating my own database tables through script, and abusing the read script of an empty table named query to implement my own set of “services”. The latest updates to Azure Mobile Services described in the following posts added some great new features like creating web API’s, use shared code from your scripts, command line tools for managing Azure Mobile Services (upload and download scripts for example), support for node modules and git support: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/06/14/windows-azure-major-updates-for-mobile-backend-development.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2013/06/14/custom-apis-in-azure-mobile-services.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2013/06/19/custom-api-in-azure-mobile-services-client-sdks.aspx In the mean time I rewrote all my “service-like” table scripts to API scripts, which works like a breeze. Bad thing with the current state of Azure Mobile Services is that the git support is not working if you are a co-administrator of your Azure subscription, and not and administrator (as in my case). Another bad thing is that Cross Origin Request Sharing (CORS) is not supported for the API yet, so no go yet from the browser client for API’s, which is my case. See http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsazure/en-US/2b79c5ea-d187-4c2b-823a-3f3e0559829d/known-limitations-for-source-control-and-custom-api-features for more on these and other limitations. In his talk at Build 2013 Josh Twist showed that there is a work-around for accessing shared script code from the table scripts as well (another limitation mentioned in the post above). I could not find that code in the Votabl2 code example from the presentation at https://github.com/joshtwist/votabl2, but we can grab it from the presentation when it comes online on Channel9. By the way: you can always express your needs and ideas at http://mobileservices.uservoice.com, that’s the place they are listening to (I hope!).

  Read the article

• MPI Cluster Debugger launch integration in VS2010

  Let's assume that you have all the HPC bits installed and that you have existing MPI code (or you created a "Hello World" project using the MPI project template). Of course, you create a single MPI application and at runtime it will correspond to multiple processes (of the same app) launched on multiple nodes (i.e. machines) on the cluster. So how do you debug such a situation by simply hitting the familiar "F5" keystroke (i.e. Debug - Start Debugging)?WATCH IT INSTEAD OF READING ABOUT ITIf you can't bear to read through all the details below, just watch this 19-minute screencast explaining this VS2010 feature. Alternatively, or even additionally, keep on reading.REQUIREMENTWhen you debug an MPI application, you would want the copying of resources from your client machine (where Visual Studio is installed) to each compute node (where Windows HPC Server is installed) to take place automatically for you. 'Resources' in the previous sentence includes your application binary, plus any binary or data dependencies it may have, plus PDBs if needed, plus the debug CRT of the correct bitness, plus msvsmon for remote debugging to work. You would also want, after copying is complete, to have your app and msvsmon launched and attached so that you can hit breakpoints back in Visual Studio on your client machine. All these thing that you would want are delivered in VS2010.STEPS TO F51. In your MPI project where you have placed a breakpoint go to Project Properties - Configuration Properties - Debugging. Ensure the "Debugger to launch" combo box value is set to MPI Cluster Debugger.2. There are a whole bunch of properties here and typically you can ignore all of them except one: Run Environment. By default it is set to run 1 process on your local machine and if you change the number after that to, for example, 4 it will launch 4 processes of your app on your local machine.You want this to run on your cluster though, so go to the dropdown arrow at the end of the Run Environment cell and open it to expose the "Edit Hpc node" menu which opens the Node Selector dialog:In this dialog you can enter (or pick from a list) the cluster head node name and then the number of processes you want to execute on the cluster and then hit OK and… you are done.3. Press F5 and watch your breakpoint get hit (after giving it some time for copying, remote execution, attachment and symbol resolution to take place).GOING DEEPERIn the MPI Cluster Debugger project properties above, you can see many additional properties to the Run Environment. They are all optional, but you may want to understand them in order to fine tune your cluster debugging. Read all about each one of these on the MSDN page Configuration Properties for the MPI Cluster Debugger.In the Node Selector dialog above you can see more options than just the Head Node name and Number of Process to run. They should be self-explanatory but I also cover them in depth in my screencast showing you an example of why you would choose to schedule processes per core versus per node. You can also read about these options on MSDN as part of the page How to: Configure and Launch the MPI Cluster Debugger.To read through an example that touches on MPI project creation, project properties, node selector, and also usage of MPI with OpenMP plus MPI with PPL, read the MSDN page Walkthrough: Launching the MPI Cluster Debugger in Visual Studio 2010.Happy MPI debugging! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Emulators On Your Desktop

  - by BuckWoody

  Many people feel they have to set up a full Azure subscription online to try out and develop on Windows Azure. But you don’t have to do that right away. In fact, you can download the Windows Azure Compute Emulator – a “cloud development environment” – right on your desktop. No, it’s not for production use, and no, you won’t have other people using your system as a cloud provider, and yes, there are some differences with Production Windows Azure, but you’ll be able code, run, test, diagnose, watch, change and configure code without having any connection to the Internet at all. The best thing about this approach is that when you are ready to deploy the code you’ve been testing, a few clicks deploys it to your subscription when you make one.   So what deep-magic does it take to run such a thing right on your laptop or even a Virtual PC? Well, it’s actually not all that difficult. You simply download and install the Windows Azure SDK (you can even get a free version of Visual Studio for it to run on – you’re welcome) from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsazure/cc974146.aspx   This SDK will also install the Windows Azure Compute Emulator and the Windows Azure Storage Emulator – and then you’re all set. Right-click the icon for Visual Studio and select “Run as Administrator”:    Now open a new “Cloud” type of project:   Add your Web and Worker Roles that you want to code:   And when you’re done with your design, press F5 to start the desktop version of Azure:   Want to learn more about what’s happening underneath? Right-click the tray icon with the Azure logo, and select the two emulators to see what they are doing:          In the configuration files, you’ll see a “Use Development Storage” setting. You can call the BLOB, Table or Queue storage and it will all run on your desktop. When you’re ready to deploy everything to Windows Azure, you simply change the configuration settings and add the storage keys and so on that you need.   Want to learn more about all this?   Overview of the Windows Azure Compute Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432968.aspx Overview of the Windows Azure Storage Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432983.aspx January 2011 Training Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en      

  Read the article

• MPI Cluster Debugger launch integration in VS2010

  Let's assume that you have all the HPC bits installed and that you have existing MPI code (or you created a "Hello World" project using the MPI project template). Of course, you create a single MPI application and at runtime it will correspond to multiple processes (of the same app) launched on multiple nodes (i.e. machines) on the cluster. So how do you debug such a situation by simply hitting the familiar "F5" keystroke (i.e. Debug - Start Debugging)?WATCH IT INSTEAD OF READING ABOUT ITIf you can't bear to read through all the details below, just watch this 19-minute screencast explaining this VS2010 feature. Alternatively, or even additionally, keep on reading.REQUIREMENTWhen you debug an MPI application, you would want the copying of resources from your client machine (where Visual Studio is installed) to each compute node (where Windows HPC Server is installed) to take place automatically for you. 'Resources' in the previous sentence includes your application binary, plus any binary or data dependencies it may have, plus PDBs if needed, plus the debug CRT of the correct bitness, plus msvsmon for remote debugging to work. You would also want, after copying is complete, to have your app and msvsmon launched and attached so that you can hit breakpoints back in Visual Studio on your client machine. All these thing that you would want are delivered in VS2010.STEPS TO F51. In your MPI project where you have placed a breakpoint go to Project Properties - Configuration Properties - Debugging. Ensure the "Debugger to launch" combo box value is set to MPI Cluster Debugger.2. There are a whole bunch of properties here and typically you can ignore all of them except one: Run Environment. By default it is set to run 1 process on your local machine and if you change the number after that to, for example, 4 it will launch 4 processes of your app on your local machine.You want this to run on your cluster though, so go to the dropdown arrow at the end of the Run Environment cell and open it to expose the "Edit Hpc node" menu which opens the Node Selector dialog:In this dialog you can enter (or pick from a list) the cluster head node name and then the number of processes you want to execute on the cluster and then hit OK and… you are done.3. Press F5 and watch your breakpoint get hit (after giving it some time for copying, remote execution, attachment and symbol resolution to take place).GOING DEEPERIn the MPI Cluster Debugger project properties above, you can see many additional properties to the Run Environment. They are all optional, but you may want to understand them in order to fine tune your cluster debugging. Read all about each one of these on the MSDN page Configuration Properties for the MPI Cluster Debugger.In the Node Selector dialog above you can see more options than just the Head Node name and Number of Process to run. They should be self-explanatory but I also cover them in depth in my screencast showing you an example of why you would choose to schedule processes per core versus per node. You can also read about these options on MSDN as part of the page How to: Configure and Launch the MPI Cluster Debugger.To read through an example that touches on MPI project creation, project properties, node selector, and also usage of MPI with OpenMP plus MPI with PPL, read the MSDN page Walkthrough: Launching the MPI Cluster Debugger in Visual Studio 2010.Happy MPI debugging! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

  Read the article

• Getting the CVE ID Property of an update from WSUS API via Powershell

  - by thebitsandthebytes

  I am writing a script in Powershell to get the update information from each computer and correlate the information with another System which identifies updates by CVE ID. I have discovered that there is a "CVEIDs" property for an update in WSUS, which is documented in MSDN, but I have no idea how to access the property. Retrieving the CVE ID from WSUS is the key to this script, so I am hoping someone out there can help! Here is the property that I am having difficulty accessing: IUpdate2::CveIDs Property - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa386102(VS.85).aspx According to this, the IUnknown::QueryInterface method is needed to interface IUpdate2 -  "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee917057(PROT.10).aspx" "An IUpdate instance can be retrieved by calling the IUpdateCollection::Item (opnum 8) (section 3.22.4.1) method.  The client can use the IUnknown::QueryInterface method to then obtain an IUpdate2, IUpdate3, IUpdate4, or IUpdate5 interface. Additionally, if the update is a driver, the client can use the IUnknown::QueryInterface method to obtain an IWindowsDriverUpdate, IWindowsDriverUpdate2, IWindowsDriverUpdate3, IWindowsDriverUpdate4, or IWindowsDriverUpdate5 interface. " Here is a skeleton of my code: [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration") | Out-Null  if (!$wsus)  {  Returns an object that implements IUpdateServer  $wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer($server, $false, $port)  }  $computerScope = New-Object Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.ComputerTargetScope  $updateScope = New-Object Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateScope  $updateScope.UpdateSources = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateSources]::MicrosoftUpdate  $wsusMachines = $wsus.GetComputerTargets($computerScope)  foreach machine in QSUS, write the full domain name $wsusMachines | ForEach-Object {  Write-host $.FullDomainName  $updates = $.GetUpdateInstallationInfoPerUpdate($updateScope)  foreach update for each machine, write the update title, installation state and securitybulletin $updates | ForEach-Object {  $update = $wsus.GetUpdate($.UpdateId) # Returns an object that implements Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.IUpdate $updateTitle = $update.Title | Write-Host $updateInstallationState = $.UpdateInstallationState | Write-Host $updateSecurityBulletin = $update.SecurityBulletins | Write-Host  $updateCveIds = $update.CveIDs # ERROR: Property 'CveIDs' belongs to IUpdate2, not IUpdate  }  }

  Read the article

• Creating files with french characters and encoding.

  - by Kevin

  HI, I am creating a file like so. FileStream temp = File.Create( this.FileName ); Then putting data in the file like so. this.Writer = new StreamWriter( this.Stream ); this.Writer.WriteLine( strMessage ); That code is encapsulated in a class hierarchy but that is the meat and potatoes of it. My problem is this. MSDN says that the default encoding for creating a file this way is UTF8. And when I write a french character such as é Textpad interprets the file as a UTF 8 file, but notepad++ says it's "ANSI as UTF8" or maybe it's an ansi file but is reading it as UTF8. When I create a file the same way without the french character both textpad and notepad++ read the file as an ansi file even though according to msdn it should be a utf 8 file still. Which program should be trusted. Notepad++ or textpad - Notepad++ seems to be more consistant, but is still the oppossite to what MSDN says it should be. My problem is that we create files that get sent off to another company and depending on whether there are french characters the encoding seems to keep changing. Or is there a better way to determine the encoding of a file. I've read about byte order marks and preambles but as far as I understand neither are guaranteed to be there. We initially thought that all the files we were building were ansi. Also please note that both ansi and utf8 should handle the french characters appropriately as the characters are part of both character sets.

  Read the article

• What is the difference: LoadUserProfile -vs- RegOpenCurrentUser

  - by Will5801

  These two APIs are very similar but it is unclear what the differences are and when each should be used (Except that LoadUserProfile is specified for use with CreateProcessAsUser which I am not using. I am simply impersonating for hive accesss). LoadUserProfile http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762281(VS.85).aspx RegOpenCurrentUser http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724894(VS.85).aspx According to the Services & the Registry article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms685145(VS.85).aspx we should use RegOpenCurrentUser when impersonating. But what does/should RegOpenCurrentUser do if the user profile is roaming - should it load it? As far as I can tell from these docs, both APIs provide a handle to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER for the user the thread is impersonating. Therefore, they both "load" the hive i.e. lock it as a database file and give a handle to it for registry APIs. It might seem that LoadUserProfile loads the user profile in the same way as the User does when he/she logs on, whereas RegOpenCurrentUser does not - is this correct? What is the fundamental difference (if any) in how these two APIs mount the hive? What are the implications and differences (if any) between what happens IF A user logs-on or logs-off while each of these impersonated handles is already in use? A user is already logged-on when each matching close function (RegCloseKey and UnloadUserProfile) is called?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33  | Next Page >