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  • How to select chosen columns from two different entities into one DTO using NHibernate?

    - by Pawel Krakowiak
    I have two classes (just recreating the problem): public class User { public virtual int Id { get; set; } public virtual string FirstName { get; set; } public virtual string LastName { get; set; } public virtual IList<OrgUnitMembership> OrgUnitMemberships { get; set; } } public class OrgUnitMembership { public virtual int UserId { get; set; } public virtual int OrgUnitId { get; set; } public virtual DateTime JoinDate { get; set; } public virtual DateTime LeaveDate { get; set; } } There's a Fluent NHibernate map for both, of course: public class UserMapping : ClassMap<User> { public UserMapping() { Table("Users"); Id(e => e.Id).GeneratedBy.Identity(); Map(e => e.FirstName); Map(e => e.LastName); HasMany(x => x.OrgUnitMemberships) .KeyColumn(TypeReflector<OrgUnitMembership> .GetPropertyName(p => p.UserId))).ReadOnly().Inverse(); } } public class OrgUnitMembershipMapping : ClassMap<OrgUnitMembership> { public OrgUnitMembershipMapping() { Table("OrgUnitMembership"); CompositeId() .KeyProperty(x=>x.UserId) .KeyProperty(x=>x.OrgUnitId); Map(x => x.JoinDate); Map(x => x.LeaveDate); References(oum => oum.OrgUnit) .Column(TypeReflector<OrgUnitMembership> .GetPropertyName(oum => oum.OrgUnitId)).ReadOnly(); References(oum => oum.User) .Column(TypeReflector<OrgUnitMembership> .GetPropertyName(oum => oum.UserId)).ReadOnly(); } } What I want to do is to retrieve some users based on criteria, but I would like to combine all columns from the Users table with some columns from the OrgUnitMemberships table, analogous to a SQL query: select u.*, m.JoinDate, m.LeaveDate from Users u inner join OrgUnitMemberships m on u.Id = m.UserId where m.OrgUnitId = :ouid I am totally lost, I tried many different options. Using a plain SQL query almost works, but because there are some nullable enums in the User class AliasToBean fails to transform, otherwise wrapping a SQL query would work like this: return Session .CreateSQLQuery(sql) .SetParameter("ouid", orgUnitId) .SetResultTransformer(Transformers.AliasToBean<UserDTO>()) .List<UserDTO>() I tried the code below as a test (a few different variants), but I'm not sure what I'm doing. It works partially, I get instances of UserDTO back, the properties coming from OrgUnitMembership (dates) are filled, but all properties from User are null: User user = null; OrgUnitMembership membership = null; UserDTO dto = null; var users = Session.QueryOver(() => user) .SelectList(list => list .Select(() => user.Id) .Select(() => user.FirstName) .Select(() => user.LastName)) .JoinAlias(u => u.OrgUnitMemberships, () => membership) //.JoinQueryOver<OrgUnitMembership>(u => u.OrgUnitMemberships) .SelectList(list => list .Select(() => membership.JoinDate).WithAlias(() => dto.JoinDate) .Select(() => membership.LeaveDate).WithAlias(() => dto.LeaveDate)) .TransformUsing(Transformers.AliasToBean<UserDTO>()) .List<UserDTO>();

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  • Databinding, using formulas for unusual binding possible?

    - by Rattenmann
    Edit: added Info for WPF being used I am trying to bind a list of custom objects to a DataGrid. Straight binding seems easy enough, but i need to specify some complex formulas for some extra fields that do not directly show up in my class. Also i want to be able to EDIT the data in the Grid and get updates on related fields. Let me show you an example, because it is really hard to explain. I will simplify it to rooms with items. Each item can be red and blue. My Class looks like this: public class room { public string strRoomName { set; get; } public string strItemname { set; get; } public int intRedItem { set; get; } public int intBlueItem { set; get; } } Now if i use dataTable.ItemSource = myList; i get something like this: nr. | room | name | red | blue 1. living room, ball, 2, 1 2. sleeping room, bunny, 4, 1 3. living room, chair, 3, 2 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7 5. garage, chair, 1, 4 Now for the complex part i need help with. I want every item to be the same number, red and blue. And because this does not hold true i want to see the "inbalance" per room AND globally like this: nr. | room | name | red | blue | missing | global red | global blue | global missing 1. living room, ball, 2, 1, 1 blue, 6, 7, 1 red 2. sleeping room, bunny, 4, 1, 3 blue, 4, 1, 3 blue 3. living room, chair, 3, 2, 1 blue, 4, 6, 2 red 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7, 3 red, 6, 7, 1 red 5. garage, chair, 1, 4, 3 red, 4, 6, 2 red As you can see this smeels like excel formulas, i am unsure how to handle this in c# code however. You can also see i need to use data in the same row, but also get data from other rows that match one propertiy (the items name). Also if i change the blue value=1 in line 1 to value=2, i want line 1 to read like this: 1. living room, ball, 2, 2, even, 6, 8, 2 red and of corse line 4 needs to change to: 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7, 3 red, 6, 8, 2 red As i said, this smells like excel, that's why i am really upset about myself not finding an easy solution. Surely enough c# offers some way to handle this stuff, right? Disclaimer: It is totally possible that i need a complete differend approach, pointing that out ot me is perfectly fine. Be it other ways to handle this, or a better way to structure my class. I am ok with every way to handle this as it is for learning purposes. I am simply doing programms for fun next to my college and just so happen to hit these kinda things that bug me out because i don't find a clean solution. And then i neglect my studies because i want to solve my (unreleated to studys,...) issue. Just can't stand having unsolved coding stuff around, don't judge me! ;-) And big thanks in advance if you have gotten this far in my post. It sure must be confusing with all those reds and blues. Edit: After reading trough your answers and testing my skills to implement your hints, i now have the following code as my class: public class RoomList : ObservableCollection<room> { public RoomList() : base() { Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 2, intBlueItem = 1 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "sleeping room", strItemname = "bunny", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 1 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 3, intBlueItem = 2 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "kitchen", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 7 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "garage", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 1, intBlueItem = 4 }); } } //rooms public class room : INotifyPropertyChanged { public string strRoomName { set; get; } public string strItemname { set; get; } public int intRedItem { get { return intRedItem; } set { intRedItem = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("intRedItem", "strMissing"); } } public int intBlueItem { get { return intBlueItem; } set { intBlueItem = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("intBlueItem", "strMissing"); } } public string strMissing { get { int missingCount = intRedItem - intBlueItem; return missingCount == 0 ? "Even" : missingCount.ToString(); } } public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; public void NotifyPropertyChanged(params string[] propertyNames) { if (PropertyChanged != null) { foreach (string propertyName in propertyNames) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } } } I got the "missing" field working right away, thanks alot for that tip. It really was as easy as i imagined and will be of great use for future projects. Still two (three maybe....) things i am missing tho. The above code terminates with a "System.StackOverflowException" in the setter of intRedItem and intBlueItem. I fail to see the error, that could be due to being 4:30am here, or my lack of understanding. Second issue: I followed the link to ObservableCollections as you can see from my code above. Yet i am unsure how to actually use that collection. Putting it as DataContent like suggested on that page shows a missing ressource. Adding it as a ressource like listed there crashes my VSExpress designer and leads to the programm not starting. So for now i am still using my old approach of a list like this: listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 2, intBlueItem = 1 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "sleeping room", strItemname = "bunny", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 1 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 3, intBlueItem = 2 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "kitchen", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 7 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "garage", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 1, intBlueItem = 4 }); datagridRooms.ItemsSource = listRooms; And lastly: When testing before adding the notifyevents i tried to implement a proterty that looped trough the other objects, without any luck. The "missingItem" property worked so easy, yet it only tries to access "it's own" properties kind of. I need to access other objects, like "all objects that have the same room value". The idea behind this is that i am trying to calculate a value from other objects without even having those objects yet, at least in my logic. Where is the flaw in my thinking? Those 5 objects are added and created (?) one after another. So if the first tries to set it's "all red balls in my room AND all other rooms" value,.. how could it know about the balls in the kitchen, that get added as 4th object? So far so good tho, got on the right track i think. Just need some sleep first.

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  • How to Correct & Improve the Design of this Code?

    - by DaveDev
    HI Guys, I've been working on a little experiement to see if I could create a helper method to serialize any of my types to any type of HTML tag I specify. I'm getting a NullReferenceException when _writer = _viewContext.Writer; is called in protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing) {/*...*/} I think I'm at a point where it almost works (I've gotten other implementations to work) and I was wondering if somebody could point out what I'm doing wrong? Also, I'd be interested in hearing suggestions on how I could improve the design? So basically, I have this code that will generate a Select box with a number of options: // the idea is I can use one method to create any complete tag of any type // and put whatever I want in the content area <% using (Html.GenerateTag<SelectTag>(Model, new { href = Url.Action("ActionName") })) { %> <%foreach (var fund in Model.Funds) {%> <% using (Html.GenerateTag<OptionTag>(fund)) { %> <%= fund.Name %> <% } %> <% } %> <% } %> This Html.GenerateTag helper is defined as: public static MMTag GenerateTag<T>(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, object elementData, object attributes) where T : MMTag { return (T)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(T), htmlHelper.ViewContext, elementData, attributes); } Depending on the type of T it'll create one of the types defined below, public class HtmlTypeBase : MMTag { public HtmlTypeBase() { } public HtmlTypeBase(ViewContext viewContext, params object[] elementData) { base._viewContext = viewContext; base.MergeDataToTag(viewContext, elementData); } } public class SelectTag : HtmlTypeBase { public SelectTag(ViewContext viewContext, params object[] elementData) { base._tag = new TagBuilder("select"); //base.MergeDataToTag(viewContext, elementData); } } public class OptionTag : HtmlTypeBase { public OptionTag(ViewContext viewContext, params object[] elementData) { base._tag = new TagBuilder("option"); //base.MergeDataToTag(viewContext, _elementData); } } public class AnchorTag : HtmlTypeBase { public AnchorTag(ViewContext viewContext, params object[] elementData) { base._tag = new TagBuilder("a"); //base.MergeDataToTag(viewContext, elementData); } } all of these types (anchor, select, option) inherit from HtmlTypeBase, which is intended to perform base.MergeDataToTag(viewContext, elementData);. This doesn't happen though. It works if I uncomment the MergeDataToTag methods in the derived classes, but I don't want to repeat that same code for every derived class I create. This is the definition for MMTag: public class MMTag : IDisposable { internal bool _disposed; internal ViewContext _viewContext; internal TextWriter _writer; internal TagBuilder _tag; internal object[] _elementData; public MMTag() {} public MMTag(ViewContext viewContext, params object[] elementData) { } public void Dispose() { Dispose(true /* disposing */); GC.SuppressFinalize(this); } protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing) { if (!_disposed) { _disposed = true; _writer = _viewContext.Writer; _writer.Write(_tag.ToString(TagRenderMode.EndTag)); } } protected void MergeDataToTag(ViewContext viewContext, object[] elementData) { Type elementDataType = elementData[0].GetType(); foreach (PropertyInfo prop in elementDataType.GetProperties()) { if (prop.PropertyType.IsPrimitive || prop.PropertyType == typeof(Decimal) || prop.PropertyType == typeof(String)) { object propValue = prop.GetValue(elementData[0], null); string stringValue = propValue != null ? propValue.ToString() : String.Empty; _tag.Attributes.Add(prop.Name, stringValue); } } var dic = new Dictionary<string, object>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase); var attributes = elementData[1]; if (attributes != null) { foreach (PropertyDescriptor descriptor in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(attributes)) { object value = descriptor.GetValue(attributes); dic.Add(descriptor.Name, value); } } _tag.MergeAttributes<string, object>(dic); _viewContext = viewContext; _viewContext.Writer.Write(_tag.ToString(TagRenderMode.StartTag)); } } Thanks Dave

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  • Most secure way to access my home Linux server while I am on the road? Specialized solution wanted

    - by Ace Paus
    I think many people may be in my situation. I travel on business with a laptop. And I need secure access to files from the office (which in my case is my home). The short version of my question: How can I make SSH/SFTP really secure when only one person needs to connect to the server from one laptop? In this situation, what special steps would make it almost impossible for anyone else to get online access to the server? A lot more details: I use Ubuntu Linux on both my laptop (KDE) and my home/office server. Connectivity is not a problem. I can tether to my phone's connection if needed. I need access to a large number of files (around 300 GB). I don't need all of them at once, but I don't know in advance which files I might need. These files contain confidential client info and personal info such as credit card numbers, so they must be secure. Given this, I don't want store all these files on Dropbox or Amazon AWS, or similar. I couldn't justify that cost anyway (Dropbox don't even publish prices for plans above 100 GB, and security is a concern). However, I am willing to spend some money on a proper solution. A VPN service, for example, might be part of the solution? Or other commercial services? I've heard about PogoPlug, but I don't know if there is a similar service that might address my security concerns? I could copy all my files to my laptop because it has the space. But then I have to sync between my home computer and my laptop and I found in the past that I'm not very good about doing this. And if my laptop is lost or stolen, my data would be on it. The laptop drive is an SSD and encryption solutions for SSD drives are not good. Therefore, it seems best to keep all my data on my Linux file server (which is safe at home). Is that a reasonable conclusion, or is anything connected to the Internet such a risk that I should just copy the data to the laptop (and maybe replace the SSD with an HDD, which reduces battery life and performance)? I view the risks of losing a laptop to be higher. I am not an obvious hacking target online. My home broadband is cable Internet, and it seems very reliable. So I want to know the best (reasonable) way to securely access my data (from my laptop) while on the road. I only need to access it from this one computer, although I may connect from either my phone's 3G/4G or via WiFi or some client's broadband, etc. So I won't know in advance which IP address I'll have. I am leaning toward a solution based on SSH and SFTP (or similar). SSH/SFTP would provided about all the functionality I anticipate needing. I would like to use SFTP and Dolphin to browse and download files. I'll use SSH and the terminal for anything else. My Linux file server is set up with OpenSSH. I think I have SSH relatively secured. I'm using Denyhosts too. But I want to go several steps further. I want to get the chances that anyone can get into my server as close to zero as possible while still allowing me to get access from the road. I'm not a sysadmin or programmer or real "superuser". I have to spend most of my time doing other things. I've heard about "port knocking" but I have never used it and I don't know how to implement it (although I'm willing to learn). I have already read a number of articles with titles such as: Top 20 OpenSSH Server Best Security Practices 20 Linux Server Hardening Security Tips Debian Linux Stop SSH User Hacking / Cracking Attacks with DenyHosts Software more... I have not implemented every single thing I've read about. I probably can't do that. But maybe there is something even better I can do in my situation because I only need access from a single laptop. I'm just one user. My server does not need to be accessible to the general public. Given all these facts, I'm hoping I can get some suggestions here that are within my capability to implement and that leverage these facts to create a great deal better security than general purpose suggestions in the articles above.

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  • Haskell: monadic takeWhile?

    - by Mark Rushakoff
    I have some functions written in C that I call from Haskell. These functions return IO (CInt). Sometimes I want to run all of the functions regardless of what any of them return, and this is easy. For sake of example code, this is the general idea of what's happening currently: Prelude> let f x = print x >> return x Prelude> mapM_ f [0..5] 0 1 2 3 4 5 Prelude> I get my desired side effects, and I don't care about the results. But now I need to stop execution immediately after the first item that doesn't return my desired result. Let's say a return value of 4 or higher requires execution to stop - then what I want to do is this: Prelude> takeWhile (<4) $ mapM f [0..5] Which gives me this error: <interactive:1:22: Couldn't match expected type `[b]' against inferred type `IO a' In the first argument of `mapM', namely `f' In the second argument of `($)', namely `mapM f ([0 .. 5])' In the expression: takeWhile (< 4) $ mapM f ([0 .. 5]) And that makes sense to me - the result is still contained in the IO monad, and I can't just compare two values contained in the IO monad. I know this is precisely the purpose of monads -- chaining results together and discarding operations when a certain condition is met -- but is there an easy way to "wrap up" the IO monad in this case to stop executing the chain upon a condition of my choosing, without writing an instance of MonadPlus? Can I just "unlift" the values from f, for the purposes of the takeWhile? Is this a solution where functors fit? Functors haven't "clicked" with me yet, but I sort of have the impression that this might be a good situation to use them. Update: @sth has the closest answer to what I want - in fact, that's almost exactly what I was going for, but I'd still like to see whether there is a standard solution that isn't explicitly recursive -- this is Haskell, after all! Looking back on how I worded my question, now I can see that I wasn't clear enough about my desired behavior. The f function I used above for an example was merely an example. The real functions are written in C and used exclusively for their side effects. I can't use @Tom's suggestion of mapM_ f (takeWhile (&lt;4) [0..5]) because I have no idea whether any input will really result in success or failure until executed. I don't actually care about the returned list, either -- I just want to call the C functions until either the list is exhausted or the first C function returns a failure code. In C-style pseudocode, my behavior would be: do { result = function_with_side_effects(input_list[index++]); } while (result == success && index < max_index); So again, @sth's answer performs the exact behavior that I want, except that the results may (should?) be discarded. A dropWhileM_ function would be equivalent for my purposes. Why isn't there a function like that or takeWhileM_ in Control.Monad? I see that there was a similar discussion on a mailing list, but it appears that nothing has come of that.

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  • Why is SQLite3 using covering indices instead of the indices I created?

    - by Geoff
    I have an extremely large database (contacts has ~3 billion entries, people has ~280 million entries, and the other tables have a negligible number of entries). Most other queries I've run are really fast. However, I've encountered a more complicated query that's really slow. I'm wondering if there's any way to speed this up. First of all, here is my schema: CREATE TABLE activities (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL); CREATE TABLE contacts ( id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, person1_id INTEGER NOT NULL, person2_id INTEGER NOT NULL, duration REAL NOT NULL, -- hours activity_id INTEGER NOT NULL -- FOREIGN_KEY(person1_id) REFERENCES people(id), -- FOREIGN_KEY(person2_id) REFERENCES people(id) ); CREATE TABLE people ( id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, state_id INTEGER NOT NULL, county_id INTEGER NOT NULL, age INTEGER NOT NULL, gender TEXT NOT NULL, -- M or F income INTEGER NOT NULL -- FOREIGN_KEY(state_id) REFERENCES states(id) ); CREATE TABLE states ( id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL, abbreviation TEXT NOT NULL ); CREATE INDEX activities_name_index on activities(name); CREATE INDEX contacts_activity_id_index on contacts(activity_id); CREATE INDEX contacts_duration_index on contacts(duration); CREATE INDEX contacts_person1_id_index on contacts(person1_id); CREATE INDEX contacts_person2_id_index on contacts(person2_id); CREATE INDEX people_age_index on people(age); CREATE INDEX people_county_id_index on people(county_id); CREATE INDEX people_gender_index on people(gender); CREATE INDEX people_income_index on people(income); CREATE INDEX people_state_id_index on people(state_id); CREATE INDEX states_abbreviation_index on states(abbreviation); CREATE INDEX states_name_index on states(name); Note that I've created an index on every column in the database. I don't care about the size of the database; speed is all I care about. Here's an example of a query that, as expected, runs almost instantly: SELECT count(*) FROM people, states WHERE people.state_id=states.id and states.abbreviation='IA'; Here's the troublesome query: SELECT * FROM contacts WHERE rowid IN (SELECT contacts.rowid FROM contacts, people, states WHERE contacts.person1_id=people.id AND people.state_id=states.id AND states.name='Kansas' INTERSECT SELECT contacts.rowid FROM contacts, people, states WHERE contacts.person2_id=people.id AND people.state_id=states.id AND states.name='Missouri'); Now, what I think would happen is that each subquery would use each relevant index I've created to speed this up. However, when I show the query plan, I see this: sqlite> EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN SELECT * FROM contacts WHERE rowid IN (SELECT contacts.rowid FROM contacts, people, states WHERE contacts.person1_id=people.id AND people.state_id=states.id AND states.name='Kansas' INTERSECT SELECT contacts.rowid FROM contacts, people, states WHERE contacts.person2_id=people.id AND people.state_id=states.id AND states.name='Missouri'); 0|0|0|SEARCH TABLE contacts USING INTEGER PRIMARY KEY (rowid=?) (~25 rows) 0|0|0|EXECUTE LIST SUBQUERY 1 2|0|2|SEARCH TABLE states USING COVERING INDEX states_name_index (name=?) (~1 rows) 2|1|1|SEARCH TABLE people USING COVERING INDEX people_state_id_index (state_id=?) (~5569556 rows) 2|2|0|SEARCH TABLE contacts USING COVERING INDEX contacts_person1_id_index (person1_id=?) (~12 rows) 3|0|2|SEARCH TABLE states USING COVERING INDEX states_name_index (name=?) (~1 rows) 3|1|1|SEARCH TABLE people USING COVERING INDEX people_state_id_index (state_id=?) (~5569556 rows) 3|2|0|SEARCH TABLE contacts USING COVERING INDEX contacts_person2_id_index (person2_id=?) (~12 rows) 1|0|0|COMPOUND SUBQUERIES 2 AND 3 USING TEMP B-TREE (INTERSECT) In fact, if I show the query plan for the first query I posted, I get this: sqlite> EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN SELECT count(*) FROM people, states WHERE people.state_id=states.id and states.abbreviation='IA'; 0|0|1|SEARCH TABLE states USING COVERING INDEX states_abbreviation_index (abbreviation=?) (~1 rows) 0|1|0|SEARCH TABLE people USING COVERING INDEX people_state_id_index (state_id=?) (~5569556 rows) Why is SQLite using covering indices instead of the indices I created? Shouldn't the search in the people table be able to happen in log(n) time given state_id which in turn is found in log(n) time?

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  • What's my best approach on this simple hierarchy Java Problem?

    - by Nazgulled
    First, I'm sorry for the question title but I can't think of a better one to describe my problem. Feel free to change it :) Let's say I have this abstract class Box which implements a couple of constructors, methods and whatever on some private variables. Then I have a couple of sub classes like BoxA and BoxB. Both of these implement extra things. Now I have another abstract class Shape and a few sub classes like Square and Circle. For both BoxA and BoxB I need to have a list of Shape objects but I need to make sure that only Square objects go into BoxA's list and only Circle objects go into BoxB's list. For that list (on each box), I need to have a get() and set() method and also a addShape() and removeShape() methods. Another important thing to know is that for each box created, either BoxA or BoxB, each respectively Shape list is exactly the same. Let's say I create a list of Square's named ls and two BoxA objects named boxA1 and boxA2. No matter what, both boxA1 and boxA2 must have the same ls list. This is my idea: public abstract class Box { // private instance variables public Box() { // constructor stuff } // public instance methods } public class BoxA extends Box { // private instance variables private static List<Shape> list; public BoxA() { // constructor stuff } // public instance methods public static List<Square> getList() { List<Square> aux = new ArrayList<Square>(); for(Square s : list.values()) { aux.add(s.clone()); // I know what I'm doing with this clone, don't worry about it } return aux; } public static void setList(List<Square> newList) { list = new ArrayList<Square>(newList); } public static void addShape(Square s) { list.add(s); } public static void removeShape(Square s) { list.remove(list.indexOf(s)); } } As the list needs to be the same for that type of object, I declared as static and all methods that work with that list are also static. Now, for BoxB the class would be almost the same regarding the list stuff. I would only replace Square by Triangle and the problem was solved. So, for each BoxA object created, the list would be only one and the same for each BoxB object created, but a different type of list of course. So, what's my problem you ask? Well, I don't like the code... The getList(), setList(), addShape() and removeShape() methods are basically repeated for BoxA and BoxB, only the type of the objects that the list will hold is different. I can't think of way to do it in the super class Box instead. Doing it statically too, using Shape instead of Square and Triangle, wouldn't work because the list would be only one and I need it to be only one but for each sub class of Box. How could I do this differently and better? P.S: I could not describe my real example because I don't know the correct words in English for the stuff I'm doing, so I just used a box and shapes example, but it's basically the same.

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  • Android onClickListener options and help on creating a non-static array adapter

    - by CoderInTraining
    I am trying to make an application that gets data dynamically and displays it in a listView. Here is my code that I have with static data. There are a couple of things I want to try and do and can't figure out how. MainActivity.java package text.example.project; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.Collections; import android.app.ListActivity; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.widget.AdapterView; import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemClickListener; import android.widget.ArrayAdapter; import android.widget.ListView; import android.widget.TextView; import android.widget.Toast; public class MainActivity extends ListActivity { //declarations private boolean isItem; private ArrayAdapter<String> item1Adapter; private ArrayAdapter<String> item2Adapter; private ArrayAdapter<String> item3Adapter; /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); Collections.sort(ITEM1); Collections.sort(ITEM2); Collections.sort(ITEM3); item1Adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, ITEM1); item2Adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, ITEM2); item3Adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, ITEM3); setListAdapter(item1Adapter); isItem = true; ListView lv = getListView(); lv.setTextFilterEnabled(true); lv.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() { @Override public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) { // When clicked, show a toast with the TextView text if (isItem) { //ITEM1.add("another\n\t" + Calendar.getInstance().getTime()); Collections.sort(ITEM1); item2Adapter.notifyDataSetChanged(); setListAdapter(item2Adapter); isItem = false; } else { item1Adapter.notifyDataSetChanged(); setListAdapter(item1Adapter); isItem = true; } Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), ((TextView) view).getText(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } }); } // need to turn dynamic static ArrayList<String> ITEM1 = new ArrayList<String> (Arrays.asList( "ITEM1-1", "ITEM1-2" )); static ArrayList<String> ITEM2 = new ArrayList<String> (Arrays.asList( "ITEM2-1", "ITEM2-2" )); static ArrayList<String> ITEM3 = new ArrayList<String> (Arrays.asList("ITEM3-1", "ITEM3-2")); } list_item.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:padding="10dp" android:textSize="16sp" > </TextView> What I want to do is first pull from a dynamic source. I need to do what is almost exactly like this tutorial... http://androiddevelopement.blogspot.in/2011/06/android-xml-parsing-tutorial-using.html ... however, I can't get the tutorial to work... I also would like to know how I can make the list item clicks so that if I click on "ITEM1-1" it goes to the menu "ITEM2-1" and "ITEM2-2". and if "ITEM1-2" is clicked, then it goes to the menu with "ITEM3-1" and "ITEM3-2"... I am totally a noob at this whole android development thing. So any suggestions would be great!

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  • replaceAll() method using parameter from text file

    - by Herman Plani Ginting
    i have a collection of raw text in a table in database, i need to replace some words in this collection using a set of words. i put all the term to be replace and its substitutes in a text file as below min=admin lelet=lambat lemot=lambat nii=nih ntu=itu and so on. i have successfully initiate a variabel of File and Scanner to read the collection of the term and its substitutes. i loop all the dataset and save the raw text in a string in the same loop i loop all the term collection and save its row to a string name 'pattern', and split the pattern into two string named 'term' and 'replacer' in this loop i initiate a new string which its value is the string from the dataset modified by replaceAll(term,replacer) end loop for term collection then i insert the new string to another table in database end loop for dataset i do it manualy as below replaceAll("min","admin") and its works but its really something to code it manually for almost 2000 terms to be replace it. anyone ever face this kind of really something.. i really need a help now desperate :( package sentimenrepo; import javax.swing.*; import java.sql.*; import java.io.*; //import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.Scanner; //import java.util.Map; /** * * @author herman */ public class synonimReplaceV2 extends SwingWorker { protected Object doInBackground() throws Exception { new skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter().setVisible(true); Integer row = 0; File synonimV2 = new File("synV2/catatan_kata_sinonim.txt"); String newTweet = ""; DB db = new DB(); Connection conn = db.dbConnect("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/tweet", "root", ""); try{ Statement select = conn.createStatement(); select.executeQuery("select * from synonimtweet"); ResultSet RS = select.getResultSet(); Scanner scSynV2 = new Scanner(synonimV2); while(RS.next()){ row++; String no = RS.getString("no"); String tweet = " "+ RS.getString("tweet"); String published = RS.getString("published"); String label = RS.getString("label"); clean2 cleanv2 = new clean2(); newTweet = cleanv2.cleanTweet(tweet); try{ Statement insert = conn.createStatement(); insert.executeUpdate("INSERT INTO synonimtweet_v2(no,tweet,published,label) values('" +no+"','"+newTweet+"','"+published+"','"+label+"')"); String current = skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.txtAreaResult.getText(); skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.txtAreaResult.setText(current+"\n"+row+"original : "+tweet+"\n"+newTweet+"\n______________________\n"); skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.lblStat.setText(row+" tweet read"); skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.txtAreaResult.setCaretPosition(skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.txtAreaResult.getText().length() - 1); }catch(Exception e){ skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.lblStat.setText(e.getMessage()); } skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.lblStat.setText(e.getMessage()); } }catch(Exception e){ skripsisentimen.sentimenttwitter.lblStat.setText(e.getMessage()); } return row; } class clean2{ public clean2(){} public String cleanTweet(String tweet){ File synonimV2 = new File("synV2/catatan_kata_sinonim.txt"); String pattern = ""; String term = ""; String replacer = ""; String newTweet=""; try{ Scanner scSynV2 = new Scanner(synonimV2); while(scSynV2.hasNext()){ pattern = scSynV2.next(); term = pattern.split("=")[0]; replacer = pattern.split("=")[1]; newTweet = tweet.replace(term, replacer); } }catch(Exception e){ e.printStackTrace(); } System.out.println(newTweet+"\n"+tweet); return newTweet; } } }

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  • Optimizing JS Array Search

    - by The.Anti.9
    I am working on a Browser-based media player which is written almost entirely in HTML 5 and JavaScript. The backend is written in PHP but it has one function which is to fill the playlist on the initial load. And the rest is all JS. There is a search bar that refines the playlist. I want it to refine as the person is typing, like most media players do. The only problem with this is that it is very slow and laggy as there are about 1000 songs in the whole program and there is likely to be more as time goes on. The original playlist load is an ajax call to a PHP page that returns the results as JSON. Each item has 4 attirbutes: artist album file url I then loop through each object and add it to an array called playlist. At the end of the looping a copy of playlist is created, backup. This is so that I can refine the playlist variable when people refine their search, but still repopulated it from backup without making another server request. The method refine() is called when the user types a key into the searchbox. It flushes playlist and searches through each property (not including url) of each object in the backup array for a match in the string. If there is a match in any of the properties, it appends the information to a table that displays the playlist, and adds it to the object to playlist for access by the actual player. Code for the refine() method: function refine() { $('#loadinggif').show(); $('#library').html("<table id='libtable'><tr><th>Artist</th><th>Album</th><th>File</th><th>&nbsp;</th></tr></table>"); playlist = []; for (var j = 0; j < backup.length; j++) { var sfile = new String(backup[j].file); var salbum = new String(backup[j].album); var sartist = new String(backup[j].artist); if (sfile.toLowerCase().search($('#search').val().toLowerCase()) !== -1 || salbum.toLowerCase().search($('#search').val().toLowerCase()) !== -1 || sartist.toLowerCase().search($('#search').val().toLowerCase()) !== -1) { playlist.push(backup[j]); num = playlist.length-1; $("<tr></tr>").html("<td>" + num + "</td><td>" + sartist + "</td><td>" + salbum + "</td><td>" + sfile + "</td><td><a href='#' onclick='setplay(" + num +");'>Play</a></td>").appendTo('#libtable'); } } $('#loadinggif').hide(); } As I said before, for the first couple of letters typed, this is very slow and laggy. I am looking for ways to refine this to make it much faster and more smooth.

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  • UIPageViewController blanking page

    - by CrazyEoin
    I've been trying to use the UIPageViewController to display 3 different nibs for a few days on and off now and have almost got it working. I still have one weird bug that I cant figure out. Basically the app starts, I can scroll between the 3 pages one after another with out any problems, eg: Page1-Page2-Page3 and then back to the start: Page3-Page2-Page1. No Problems. The issue is that if I scroll, for example from Page3-Page2, then BACK to Page3, Page3 Dissappears when it snaps into place. If I scroll to where a forth page would be, then I get Page3. Here is the code relevant to the UIPageViewController, the nibs and the delegate methods for the UIPageViewController: - (void)viewDidLoad{ [super viewDidLoad]; // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. self.pageViewController = [[UIPageViewController alloc] initWithTransitionStyle:UIPageViewControllerTransitionStyleScroll navigationOrientation:UIPageViewControllerNavigationOrientationHorizontal options:nil]; self.pageViewController.delegate = self; [[self.pageViewController view] setFrame:[[self view] bounds]]; indexTest = 0; Page1 *p1 = [[Page1 alloc]initWithNibName:@"Page1" bundle:nil]; p1.view.tag = 1; Page2 *p2 = [[Page2 alloc]initWithNibName:@"Page2" bundle:nil]; p2.view.tag = 2; Page3 *p3 = [[Page3 alloc]initWithNibName:@"Page3" bundle:nil]; p3.view.tag = 3; NSArray *arr = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:p1,nil]; viewControllers = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:p1,p2,p3, nil]; [self.pageViewController setViewControllers:arr direction:UIPageViewControllerNavigationDirectionForward animated:NO completion:nil]; self.pageViewController.dataSource = self; [self addChildViewController:self.pageViewController]; [[self view] addSubview:[self.pageViewController view]]; [self.pageViewController didMoveToParentViewController:self]; self.view.gestureRecognizers = self.pageViewController.gestureRecognizers; } #pragma mark - page view controller stuff - (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerBeforeViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController { if (indexTest > 0) { switch (indexTest) { case 1:{ NSLog(@"NO page is BEFORE current page"); break; } case 2:{ NSLog(@"Page BEFORE is Page: %@", [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[viewControllers objectAtIndex:0] ] ); indexTest--; return [viewControllers objectAtIndex:0]; break; } default:{ NSLog(@"PROBLEM in viewBEFORE, indexTest = %d!!!!", indexTest); break; } } } return nil; } - (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerAfterViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController { if (indexTest < NUM_OF_PAGES) { switch (indexTest) { case 0:{ NSLog(@"Page AFTER is Page: %@", [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[viewControllers objectAtIndex:1] ] ); indexTest++; return [viewControllers objectAtIndex:1]; break; } case 1:{ NSLog(@"Page AFTER is Page: %@", [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[viewControllers objectAtIndex:2] ] ); indexTest++; return [viewControllers objectAtIndex:2]; break; } case 2:{ NSLog(@"No pages AFTER this current page %d", indexTest); break; } default:{ NSLog(@"PROBLEM in viewAFTER, indexTest = %d!!!!", indexTest); break; } } } return nil; } Finally the page index dots code #pragma mark - dot controller - (NSInteger)presentationCountForPageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController { // The number of items reflected in the page indicator. return NUM_OF_PAGES; } - (NSInteger)presentationIndexForPageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController { // The selected item reflected in the page indicator. return 0; } Any and all help is much appreciated, I think I'm just doing something silly that I cant see as I'm so close to it fully working. If anythings not clear or I haven't give enough information please let me know and I'll answer it as best as I can. Thanks

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  • mine phrases (up to 3 words) from a given text

    - by DS_web_developer
    I asked before for a simple solution to my problem (using sphinx search service) but I got nowhere... someone has kindly provided me with this code <?php /** * $Project: GeoGraph $ * $Id$ * * GeoGraph geographic photo archive project * This file copyright (C) 2005 Barry Hunter ([email protected]) * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License * as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 * of the License, or (at your option) any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. */ /** * Provides the methods for updating the worknet tables * * @package Geograph * @author Barry Hunter <[email protected]> * @version $Revision$ */ function addTwoLetterPhrase($phrase) { global $w2; $w2[$phrase] = (isset($w2[$phrase]))?($w2[$phrase]+1):1; } function addThreeLetterPhrase($phrase) { global $w3; $w3[$phrase] = (isset($w3[$phrase]))?($w3[$phrase]+1):1; } function updateWordnet(&$db,$text,$field,$id) { global $w1,$w2,$w3; $alltext = strtolower(preg_replace('/\W+/',' ',str_replace("'",'',$text))); if (strlen($text)< 1) return; $words = preg_split('/ /',$alltext); $w1 = array(); $w2 = array(); $w3 = array(); //build a list of one word phrases foreach ($words as $word) { $w1[$word] = (isset($w1[$word]))?($w1[$word]+1):1; } //build a list of two word phrases $text = $alltext; $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+)/e','addTwoLetterPhrase("$1 $2")',$text); $text = $alltext; $text = preg_replace('/(\w+)/','',$text,1); $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+)/e','addTwoLetterPhrase("$1 $2")',$text); //build a list of three word phrases $text = $alltext; $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+) (\w+)/e','addThreeLetterPhrase("$1 $2 $3")',$text); $text = $alltext; $text = preg_replace('/(\w+)/','',$text,1); $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+) (\w+)/e','addThreeLetterPhrase("$1 $2 $3")',$text); $text = $alltext; $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+)/','',$text,1); $text = preg_replace('/(\w+) (\w+) (\w+)/e','addThreeLetterPhrase("$1 $2 $3")',$text); foreach ($w1 as $word=>$count) { $db->Execute("insert into wordnet1 set gid = $id,words = '$word',$field = $count");// ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE $field=$field+$count"); } foreach ($w2 as $word=>$count) { $db->Execute("insert into wordnet2 set gid = $id,words = '$word',$field = $count"); } foreach ($w3 as $word=>$count) { $db->Execute("insert into wordnet3 set gid = $id,words = '$word',$field = $count"); } } ?> It works fine and does almost exactly what I need....... except.... it is not utf8 friendly... I mean... it splits whole words into parts (on special chars) where it shouldn't! so my guess is I should use multibyte functions instead of regular preg_replace... I tried to replace preg_replace with mb_ereg_replace but it is not working as it should... at least not for 2 and 3 words phrases any ideas?

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  • Testing shared memory ,strange thing happen

    - by barfatchen
    I have 2 program compiled in 4.1.2 running in RedHat 5.5 , It is a simple job to test shared memory , shmem1.c like following : #define STATE_FILE "/program.shared" #define NAMESIZE 1024 #define MAXNAMES 100 typedef struct { char name[MAXNAMES][NAMESIZE]; int heartbeat ; int iFlag ; } SHARED_VAR; int main (void) { int first = 0; int shm_fd; static SHARED_VAR *conf; if((shm_fd = shm_open(STATE_FILE, (O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_RDWR), (S_IREAD | S_IWRITE))) > 0 ) { first = 1; /* We are the first instance */ } else if((shm_fd = shm_open(STATE_FILE, (O_CREAT | O_RDWR), (S_IREAD | S_IWRITE))) < 0) { printf("Could not create shm object. %s\n", strerror(errno)); return errno; } if((conf = mmap(0, sizeof(SHARED_VAR), (PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE), MAP_SHARED, shm_fd, 0)) == MAP_FAILED) { return errno; } if(first) { for(idx=0;idx< 1000000000;idx++) { conf->heartbeat = conf->heartbeat + 1 ; } } printf("conf->heartbeat=(%d)\n",conf->heartbeat) ; close(shm_fd); shm_unlink(STATE_FILE); exit(0); }//main And shmem2.c like following : #define STATE_FILE "/program.shared" #define NAMESIZE 1024 #define MAXNAMES 100 typedef struct { char name[MAXNAMES][NAMESIZE]; int heartbeat ; int iFlag ; } SHARED_VAR; int main (void) { int first = 0; int shm_fd; static SHARED_VAR *conf; if((shm_fd = shm_open(STATE_FILE, (O_RDWR), (S_IREAD | S_IWRITE))) < 0) { printf("Could not create shm object. %s\n", strerror(errno)); return errno; } ftruncate(shm_fd, sizeof(SHARED_VAR)); if((conf = mmap(0, sizeof(SHARED_VAR), (PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE), MAP_SHARED, shm_fd, 0)) == MAP_FAILED) { return errno; } int idx ; for(idx=0;idx< 1000000000;idx++) { conf->heartbeat = conf->heartbeat + 1 ; } printf("conf->heartbeat=(%d)\n",conf->heartbeat) ; close(shm_fd); exit(0); } After compiled : gcc shmem1.c -lpthread -lrt -o shmem1.exe gcc shmem2.c -lpthread -lrt -o shmem2.exe And Run both program almost at the same time with 2 terminal : [test]$ ./shmem1.exe First creation of the shm. Setting up default values conf->heartbeat=(840825951) [test]$ ./shmem2.exe conf->heartbeat=(1215083817) I feel confused !! since shmem1.c is a loop 1,000,000,000 times , how can it be possible to have a answer like 840,825,951 ? I run shmem1.exe and shmem2.exe this way,most of the results are conf-heartbeat will larger than 1,000,000,000 , but seldom and randomly , I will see result conf-heartbeat will lesser than 1,000,000,000 , either in shmem1.exe or shmem2.exe !! if run shmem1.exe only , it is always print 1,000,000,000 , my question is , what is the reason cause conf-heartbeat=(840825951) in shmem1.exe ? Update: Although not sure , but I think I figure it out what is going on , If shmem1.exe run 10 times for example , then conf-heartbeat = 10 , in this time shmem1.exe take a rest and then back , shmem1.exe read from shared memory and conf-heartbeat = 8 , so shmem1.exe will continue from 8 , why conf-heartbeat = 8 ? I think it is because shmem2.exe update the shared memory data to 8 , shmem1.exe did not write 10 back to shared memory before it took a rest ....that is just my theory... i don't know how to prove it !!

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  • Processing Email in Outlook

    - by Daniel Moth
    A. Why Goal 1 = Help others: Have at most a 24-hour response turnaround to internal (from colleague) emails, typically achieving same day response. Goal 2 = Help projects: Not to implicitly pass/miss an opportunity to have impact on electronic discussions around any project on the radar. Not achieving goals 1 & 2 = Colleagues stop relying on you, drop you off conversations, don't see you as a contributing resource or someone that cares, you are perceived as someone with no peripheral vision. Note this is perfect if all you are doing is cruising at your job, trying to fly under the radar, with no ambitions of having impact beyond your absolute minimum 'day job'. B. DON'T: Leave unread email lurking around Don't: Receive or process all incoming emails in a single folder ('inbox' or 'unread mail'). This is actually possible if you receive a small number of emails (e.g. new to the job, not working at a company like Microsoft). Even so, with (your future) success at any level (company, community) comes large incoming email, so learn to deal with it. With large volumes, it is best to let the system help you by doing some categorization and filtering on your behalf (instead of trying to do that in your head as you process the single folder). See later section on how to achieve this. Don't: Leave emails as 'unread' (or worse: read them, then mark them as unread). Often done by individuals who think they possess super powers ("I can mentally cache and distinguish between the emails I chose not to read, the ones that are actually new, and the ones I decided to revisit in the future; the fact that they all show up the same (bold = unread) does not confuse me"). Interactions with this super-powered individuals typically end up with them saying stuff like "I must have missed that email you are talking about (from 2 weeks ago)" or "I am a bit behind, so I haven't read your email, can you remind me". TIP: The only place where you are "allowed" unread email is in your Deleted Items folder. Don't: Interpret a read email as an email that has been processed. Doing that, means you will always end up with fake unread email (that you have actually read, but haven't dealt with completely so you then marked it as unread) lurking between actual unread email. Another side effect is reading the email and making a 'mental' note to action it, then leaving the email as read, so the only thing left to remind you to carry out the action is… you. You are not super human, you will forget. This is a key distinction. Reading (or even scanning) a new email, means you now know what needs to be done with it, in order for it to be truly considered processed. Truly processing an email is to, for example, write an email of your own (e.g. to reply or forward), or take a non-email related action (e.g. create calendar entry, do something on some website), or read it carefully to gain some knowledge (e.g. it had a spec as an attachment), or keep it around as reference etc. 'Reading' means that you know what to do, not that you have done it. An email that is read is an email that is triaged, not an email that is resolved. Sometimes the thing that needs to be done based on receiving the email, you can (and want) to do immediately after reading the email. That is fine, you read the email and you processed it (typically when it takes no longer than X minutes, where X is your personal tolerance – mine is roughly 2 minutes). Other times, you decide that you don't want to spend X minutes at that moment, so after reading the email you need a quick system for "marking" the email as to be processed later (and you still leave it as 'read' in outlook). See later section for how. C. DO: Use Outlook rules and have multiple folders where incoming email is automatically moved to Outlook email rules are very powerful and easy to configure. Use them to automatically file email into folders. Here are mine (note that if a rule catches an email message then no further rules get processed): "personal" Email is either personal or business related. Almost all personal email goes to my gmail account. The personal emails that end up on my work email account, go to a dedicated folder – that is achieved via a rule that looks at the email's 'From' field. For those that slip through, I use the new Outlook 2010  quick step of "Conversation To Folder" feature to let the slippage only occur once per conversation, and then update my rules. "External" and "ViaBlog" The remaining external emails either come from my blog (rule on the subject line) or are unsolicited (rule on the domain name not being microsoft) and they are filed accordingly. "invites" I may do a separate blog post on calendar management, but suffice to say it should be kept up to date. All invite requests end up in this folder, so that even if mail gets out of control, the calendar can stay under control (only 1 folder to check). I.e. so I can let the organizer know why I won't be attending their meeting (or that I will be). Note: This folder is the only one that shows the total number of items in it, instead of the total unread. "Inbox" The only email that ends up here is email sent TO me and me only. Note that this is also the only email that shows up above the systray icon in the notification toast – all other emails cannot interrupt. "ToMe++" Email where I am on the TO line, but there are other recipients as well (on the TO or CC line). "CC" Email where I am on the CC line. I need to read these, but nobody is expecting a response or action from me so they are not as urgent (and if they are and follow up with me, they'll receive a link to this). "@ XYZ" Emails to aliases that are about projects that I directly work on (and I wasn't on the TO or CC line, of course). Test: these projects are in my commitments that I get measured on at the end of the year. "Z Mass" and subfolders under it per distribution list (DL) Emails to aliases that are about topics that I am interested in, but not that I formally own/contribute to. Test: if I unsubscribed from these aliases, nobody could rightfully complain. "Admin" folder, which resides under "Z Mass" folder Emails to aliases that I was added typically by an admin, e.g. broad emails to the floor/group/org/building/division/company that I am a member of. "BCC" folder, which resides under "Z Mass" Emails where I was not on the TO or the CC line explicitly and the alias it was sent to is not one I explicitly subscribed to (or I have been added to the BCC line, which I briefly touched on in another post). When there are only a few quick minutes to catch up on email, read as much as possible from these folders, in this order: Invites, Inbox, ToMe++. Only when these folders are all read (remember that doesn't mean that each email in them has been fully dealt with), we can move on to the @XYZ and then the CC folders. Only when those are read we can go on to the remaining folders. Note that the typical flow in the "Z Mass" subfolders is to scan subject lines and use the new Ctrl+Delete Outlook 2010 feature to ignore conversations. D. DO: Use Outlook Search folders in combination with categories As you process each folder, when you open a new email (i.e. click on it and read it in the preview pane) the email becomes read and stays read and you have to decide whether: It can take 2 minutes to deal with for good, right now, or It will take longer than 2 minutes, so it needs to be postponed with a clear next step, which is one of ToReply – there may be intermediate action steps, but ultimately someone else needs to receive email about this Action – no email is required, but I need to do something ReadLater – no email is required from the quick scan, but this is too long to fully read now, so it needs to be read it later WaitingFor – the email is informing of an intermediate status and 'promising' a future email update. Need to track. SomedayMaybe – interesting but not important, non-urgent, non-time-bound information. I may want to spend part of one of my weekends reading it. For all these 'next steps' use Outlook categories (right click on the email and assign category, or use shortcut key). Note that I also use category 'WaitingFor' for email that I send where I am expecting a response and need to track it. Create a new search folder for each category (I dragged the search folders into my favorites at the top left of Outlook, above my inboxes). So after the activity of reading/triaging email in the normal folders (where the email arrived) is done, the result is a bunch of emails appearing in the search folders (configure them to show the total items, not the total unread items). To actually process email (that takes more than 2 minutes to deal with) process the search folders, starting with ToReply and Action. E. DO: Get into a Routine Now you have a system in place, get into a routine of using it. Here is how I personally use mine, but this part I keep tweaking: Spend short bursts of time (between meetings, during boring but mandatory meetings and, in general, 2-4 times a day) aiming to have no unread emails (and in the process deal with some emails that take less than 2 minutes). Spend around 30 minutes at the end of each day processing most urgent items in search folders. Spend as long as it takes each Friday (or even the weekend) ensuring there is no unnecessary email baggage carried forward to the following week. F. Other resources Official Outlook help on: Create custom actions rules, Manage e-mail messages with rules, creating a search folder. Video on ignoring conversations (Ctrl+Del). Official blog post on Quick Steps and in particular the Move Conversation to folder. If you've read "Getting Things Done" it is very obvious that my approach to email management is driven by GTD. A very similar approach was described previously by ScottHa (also influenced by GTD), worth reading here. He also described how he sets up 2 outlook rules ('invites' and 'external') which I also use – worth reading that too. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • Processing Email in Outlook

    - by Daniel Moth
    A. Why Goal 1 = Help others: Have at most a 24-hour response turnaround to internal (from colleague) emails, typically achieving same day response. Goal 2 = Help projects: Not to implicitly pass/miss an opportunity to have impact on electronic discussions around any project on the radar. Not achieving goals 1 & 2 = Colleagues stop relying on you, drop you off conversations, don't see you as a contributing resource or someone that cares, you are perceived as someone with no peripheral vision. Note this is perfect if all you are doing is cruising at your job, trying to fly under the radar, with no ambitions of having impact beyond your absolute minimum 'day job'. B. DON'T: Leave unread email lurking around Don't: Receive or process all incoming emails in a single folder ('inbox' or 'unread mail'). This is actually possible if you receive a small number of emails (e.g. new to the job, not working at a company like Microsoft). Even so, with (your future) success at any level (company, community) comes large incoming email, so learn to deal with it. With large volumes, it is best to let the system help you by doing some categorization and filtering on your behalf (instead of trying to do that in your head as you process the single folder). See later section on how to achieve this. Don't: Leave emails as 'unread' (or worse: read them, then mark them as unread). Often done by individuals who think they possess super powers ("I can mentally cache and distinguish between the emails I chose not to read, the ones that are actually new, and the ones I decided to revisit in the future; the fact that they all show up the same (bold = unread) does not confuse me"). Interactions with this super-powered individuals typically end up with them saying stuff like "I must have missed that email you are talking about (from 2 weeks ago)" or "I am a bit behind, so I haven't read your email, can you remind me". TIP: The only place where you are "allowed" unread email is in your Deleted Items folder. Don't: Interpret a read email as an email that has been processed. Doing that, means you will always end up with fake unread email (that you have actually read, but haven't dealt with completely so you then marked it as unread) lurking between actual unread email. Another side effect is reading the email and making a 'mental' note to action it, then leaving the email as read, so the only thing left to remind you to carry out the action is… you. You are not super human, you will forget. This is a key distinction. Reading (or even scanning) a new email, means you now know what needs to be done with it, in order for it to be truly considered processed. Truly processing an email is to, for example, write an email of your own (e.g. to reply or forward), or take a non-email related action (e.g. create calendar entry, do something on some website), or read it carefully to gain some knowledge (e.g. it had a spec as an attachment), or keep it around as reference etc. 'Reading' means that you know what to do, not that you have done it. An email that is read is an email that is triaged, not an email that is resolved. Sometimes the thing that needs to be done based on receiving the email, you can (and want) to do immediately after reading the email. That is fine, you read the email and you processed it (typically when it takes no longer than X minutes, where X is your personal tolerance – mine is roughly 2 minutes). Other times, you decide that you don't want to spend X minutes at that moment, so after reading the email you need a quick system for "marking" the email as to be processed later (and you still leave it as 'read' in outlook). See later section for how. C. DO: Use Outlook rules and have multiple folders where incoming email is automatically moved to Outlook email rules are very powerful and easy to configure. Use them to automatically file email into folders. Here are mine (note that if a rule catches an email message then no further rules get processed): "personal" Email is either personal or business related. Almost all personal email goes to my gmail account. The personal emails that end up on my work email account, go to a dedicated folder – that is achieved via a rule that looks at the email's 'From' field. For those that slip through, I use the new Outlook 2010  quick step of "Conversation To Folder" feature to let the slippage only occur once per conversation, and then update my rules. "External" and "ViaBlog" The remaining external emails either come from my blog (rule on the subject line) or are unsolicited (rule on the domain name not being microsoft) and they are filed accordingly. "invites" I may do a separate blog post on calendar management, but suffice to say it should be kept up to date. All invite requests end up in this folder, so that even if mail gets out of control, the calendar can stay under control (only 1 folder to check). I.e. so I can let the organizer know why I won't be attending their meeting (or that I will be). Note: This folder is the only one that shows the total number of items in it, instead of the total unread. "Inbox" The only email that ends up here is email sent TO me and me only. Note that this is also the only email that shows up above the systray icon in the notification toast – all other emails cannot interrupt. "ToMe++" Email where I am on the TO line, but there are other recipients as well (on the TO or CC line). "CC" Email where I am on the CC line. I need to read these, but nobody is expecting a response or action from me so they are not as urgent (and if they are and follow up with me, they'll receive a link to this). "@ XYZ" Emails to aliases that are about projects that I directly work on (and I wasn't on the TO or CC line, of course). Test: these projects are in my commitments that I get measured on at the end of the year. "Z Mass" and subfolders under it per distribution list (DL) Emails to aliases that are about topics that I am interested in, but not that I formally own/contribute to. Test: if I unsubscribed from these aliases, nobody could rightfully complain. "Admin" folder, which resides under "Z Mass" folder Emails to aliases that I was added typically by an admin, e.g. broad emails to the floor/group/org/building/division/company that I am a member of. "BCC" folder, which resides under "Z Mass" Emails where I was not on the TO or the CC line explicitly and the alias it was sent to is not one I explicitly subscribed to (or I have been added to the BCC line, which I briefly touched on in another post). When there are only a few quick minutes to catch up on email, read as much as possible from these folders, in this order: Invites, Inbox, ToMe++. Only when these folders are all read (remember that doesn't mean that each email in them has been fully dealt with), we can move on to the @XYZ and then the CC folders. Only when those are read we can go on to the remaining folders. Note that the typical flow in the "Z Mass" subfolders is to scan subject lines and use the new Ctrl+Delete Outlook 2010 feature to ignore conversations. D. DO: Use Outlook Search folders in combination with categories As you process each folder, when you open a new email (i.e. click on it and read it in the preview pane) the email becomes read and stays read and you have to decide whether: It can take 2 minutes to deal with for good, right now, or It will take longer than 2 minutes, so it needs to be postponed with a clear next step, which is one of ToReply – there may be intermediate action steps, but ultimately someone else needs to receive email about this Action – no email is required, but I need to do something ReadLater – no email is required from the quick scan, but this is too long to fully read now, so it needs to be read it later WaitingFor – the email is informing of an intermediate status and 'promising' a future email update. Need to track. SomedayMaybe – interesting but not important, non-urgent, non-time-bound information. I may want to spend part of one of my weekends reading it. For all these 'next steps' use Outlook categories (right click on the email and assign category, or use shortcut key). Note that I also use category 'WaitingFor' for email that I send where I am expecting a response and need to track it. Create a new search folder for each category (I dragged the search folders into my favorites at the top left of Outlook, above my inboxes). So after the activity of reading/triaging email in the normal folders (where the email arrived) is done, the result is a bunch of emails appearing in the search folders (configure them to show the total items, not the total unread items). To actually process email (that takes more than 2 minutes to deal with) process the search folders, starting with ToReply and Action. E. DO: Get into a Routine Now you have a system in place, get into a routine of using it. Here is how I personally use mine, but this part I keep tweaking: Spend short bursts of time (between meetings, during boring but mandatory meetings and, in general, 2-4 times a day) aiming to have no unread emails (and in the process deal with some emails that take less than 2 minutes). Spend around 30 minutes at the end of each day processing most urgent items in search folders. Spend as long as it takes each Friday (or even the weekend) ensuring there is no unnecessary email baggage carried forward to the following week. F. Other resources Official Outlook help on: Create custom actions rules, Manage e-mail messages with rules, creating a search folder. Video on ignoring conversations (Ctrl+Del). Official blog post on Quick Steps and in particular the Move Conversation to folder. If you've read "Getting Things Done" it is very obvious that my approach to email management is driven by GTD. A very similar approach was described previously by ScottHa (also influenced by GTD), worth reading here. He also described how he sets up 2 outlook rules ('invites' and 'external') which I also use – worth reading that too. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community

    There we go! I finally managed to push myself forward and pick up an old, actually too old, idea since I ever arrived here in Mauritius more than six years ago. I'm talking about a community for all kind of ICT connected people. In the past (back in Germany), I used to be involved in various community activities. For example, I was part of the Microsoft Community Leader/Influencer Program (CLIP) in Germany due to an FAQ on Visual FoxPro, actually Active FoxPro Pages (AFP) to be more precise. Then in 2003/2004 I addressed the responsible person of the dFPUG user group in Speyer in order to assist him in organising monthly user group meetings. Well, he handed over management completely, and attended our meetings regularly. Why did it take you so long? Well, I don't want to bother you with the details but short version is that I was too busy on either job (building up new companies) or private life (got married and we have two lovely children, eh 'monsters') or even both. But now is the time where I was starting to look for new fields given the fact that I gained some spare time. My businesses are up and running, the kids are in school, and I am finally in a position where I can commit myself again to community activities. And I love to do that! Why a new user group? Good question... And 'easy' to answer. Since back in 2007 I did my usual research, eh Google searches, to see whether there existing user groups in Mauritius and in which field of interest. And yes, there are! If I recall this correctly, then there are communities for PHP, Drupal, Python (just recently), Oracle, and Linux (which used to be even two). But... either they do not exist anymore, they are dormant, or there is only a low heart-beat, frankly speaking. And yes, I went to meetings of the Linux User Group Meta (Mauritius) back in 2010/2011 and just recently. I really like the setup and the way the LUGM is organised. It's just that I have a slightly different point of view on how a user group or community should organise itself and how to approach future members. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing others doing a very good job, I'm only saying that I'd like to do it differently. The last meeting of the LUGM was awesome; read my feedback about it. Ok, so what's up with 'Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community' or short: MSCC? As I've already written in my article on 'Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion' I think it is essential in a world of IT to stay 'connected' with a good number of other people in the same field. There is so much dynamic and every day's news that it is almost impossible to keep on track with all of them. The MSCC is going to provide a common platform to exchange experience and share knowledge between each other. You might be a newbie and want to know what to expect working as a software developer, or as a database administrator, or maybe as an IT systems administrator, or you're an experienced geek that loves to share your ideas or solutions that you implemented to solve a specific problem, or you're the business (or HR) guy that is looking for 'fresh' blood to enforce your existing team. Or... you're just interested and you'd like to communicate with like-minded people. Meetup of 26.06.2013 @ L'arabica: Of course there are laptops around. Free WiFi, power outlet, coffee, code and Linux in one go. The MSCC is technology-agnostic and spans an umbrella over any kind of technology. Simply because you can't ignore other technologies anymore in a connected IT world as we have. A front-end developer for iOS applications should have the chance to connect with a Python back-end coder and eventually with a DBA for MySQL or PostgreSQL and exchange their experience. Furthermore, I'm a huge fan of cross-platform development, and it is very pleasant to have pure Web developers - with all that HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and JS libraries stuff - and passionate C# or Java coders at the same table. This diversity of knowledge can assist and boost your personal situation. And last but not least, there are projects and open positions 'flying' around... People might like to hear others opinion about an employer or get new impulses on how to tackle down an issue at their workspace, etc. This is about community. And that's how I see the MSCC in general - free of any limitations be it by programming language or technology. Having the chance to exchange experience and to discuss certain aspects of technology saves you time and money, and it's a pleasure to enjoy. Compared to dusty books and remote online resources. It's human! Organising meetups (meetings, get-together, gatherings - you name it!) As of writing this article, the MSCC is currently meeting every Wednesday for the weekly 'Code & Coffee' session at various locations (suggestions are welcome!) in Mauritius. This might change in the future eventually but especially at the beginning I think it is very important to create awareness in the Mauritian IT world. Yes, we are here! Come and join us! ;-) The MSCC's main online presence is located at Meetup.com because it allows me to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments very easily, and any member can have a look who else is involved so that an exchange of contacts is given at any time. In combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there is a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Trello is also available as free smartphone app. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians! Recent updates The MSCC is now officially participating in the O'Reilly UK User Group programm and we are allowed to request review or recension copies of recent titles. Additionally, we have a discount code for any books or ebooks that you might like to order on shop.oreilly.com. More applications for user group sponsorship programms are pending and I'm looking forward to a couple of announcement very soon. And... we need some kind of 'corporate identity' - Over at the MSCC website there is a call for action (or better said a contest with prizes) to create a unique design for the MSCC. This would include a decent colour palette, a logo, graphical banners for Meetup, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and of course badges for our craftsmen to add to their personal blogs and websites. Please spread the word and contribute. Thanks!

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  • Parallelism in .NET – Part 4, Imperative Data Parallelism: Aggregation

    - by Reed
    In the article on simple data parallelism, I described how to perform an operation on an entire collection of elements in parallel.  Often, this is not adequate, as the parallel operation is going to be performing some form of aggregation. Simple examples of this might include taking the sum of the results of processing a function on each element in the collection, or finding the minimum of the collection given some criteria.  This can be done using the techniques described in simple data parallelism, however, special care needs to be taken into account to synchronize the shared data appropriately.  The Task Parallel Library has tools to assist in this synchronization. The main issue with aggregation when parallelizing a routine is that you need to handle synchronization of data.  Since multiple threads will need to write to a shared portion of data.  Suppose, for example, that we wanted to parallelize a simple loop that looked for the minimum value within a dataset: double min = double.MaxValue; foreach(var item in collection) { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This seems like a good candidate for parallelization, but there is a problem here.  If we just wrap this into a call to Parallel.ForEach, we’ll introduce a critical race condition, and get the wrong answer.  Let’s look at what happens here: // Buggy code! Do not use! double min = double.MaxValue; Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This code has a fatal flaw: min will be checked, then set, by multiple threads simultaneously.  Two threads may perform the check at the same time, and set the wrong value for min.  Say we get a value of 1 in thread 1, and a value of 2 in thread 2, and these two elements are the first two to run.  If both hit the min check line at the same time, both will determine that min should change, to 1 and 2 respectively.  If element 1 happens to set the variable first, then element 2 sets the min variable, we’ll detect a min value of 2 instead of 1.  This can lead to wrong answers. Unfortunately, fixing this, with the Parallel.ForEach call we’re using, would require adding locking.  We would need to rewrite this like: // Safe, but slow double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); lock(syncObject) min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This will potentially add a huge amount of overhead to our calculation.  Since we can potentially block while waiting on the lock for every single iteration, we will most likely slow this down to where it is actually quite a bit slower than our serial implementation.  The problem is the lock statement – any time you use lock(object), you’re almost assuring reduced performance in a parallel situation.  This leads to two observations I’ll make: When parallelizing a routine, try to avoid locks. That being said: Always add any and all required synchronization to avoid race conditions. These two observations tend to be opposing forces – we often need to synchronize our algorithms, but we also want to avoid the synchronization when possible.  Looking at our routine, there is no way to directly avoid this lock, since each element is potentially being run on a separate thread, and this lock is necessary in order for our routine to function correctly every time. However, this isn’t the only way to design this routine to implement this algorithm.  Realize that, although our collection may have thousands or even millions of elements, we have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE).  Processing Element is the standard term for a hardware element which can process and execute instructions.  This typically is a core in your processor, but many modern systems have multiple hardware execution threads per core.  The Task Parallel Library will not execute the work for each item in the collection as a separate work item. Instead, when Parallel.ForEach executes, it will partition the collection into larger “chunks” which get processed on different threads via the ThreadPool.  This helps reduce the threading overhead, and help the overall speed.  In general, the Parallel class will only use one thread per PE in the system. Given the fact that there are typically fewer threads than work items, we can rethink our algorithm design.  We can parallelize our algorithm more effectively by approaching it differently.  Because the basic aggregation we are doing here (Min) is communitive, we do not need to perform this in a given order.  We knew this to be true already – otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to parallelize this routine in the first place.  With this in mind, we can treat each thread’s work independently, allowing each thread to serially process many elements with no locking, then, after all the threads are complete, “merge” together the results. This can be accomplished via a different set of overloads in the Parallel class: Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>.  The idea behind these overloads is to allow each thread to begin by initializing some local state (TLocal).  The thread will then process an entire set of items in the source collection, providing that state to the delegate which processes an individual item.  Finally, at the end, a separate delegate is run which allows you to handle merging that local state into your final results. To rewriting our routine using Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>, we need to provide three delegates instead of one.  The most basic version of this function is declared as: public static ParallelLoopResult ForEach<TSource, TLocal>( IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TLocal> localInit, Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> body, Action<TLocal> localFinally ) The first delegate (the localInit argument) is defined as Func<TLocal>.  This delegate initializes our local state.  It should return some object we can use to track the results of a single thread’s operations. The second delegate (the body argument) is where our main processing occurs, although now, instead of being an Action<T>, we actually provide a Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> delegate.  This delegate will receive three arguments: our original element from the collection (TSource), a ParallelLoopState which we can use for early termination, and the instance of our local state we created (TLocal).  It should do whatever processing you wish to occur per element, then return the value of the local state after processing is completed. The third delegate (the localFinally argument) is defined as Action<TLocal>.  This delegate is passed our local state after it’s been processed by all of the elements this thread will handle.  This is where you can merge your final results together.  This may require synchronization, but now, instead of synchronizing once per element (potentially millions of times), you’ll only have to synchronize once per thread, which is an ideal situation. Now that I’ve explained how this works, lets look at the code: // Safe, and fast! double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach( collection, // First, we provide a local state initialization delegate. () => double.MaxValue, // Next, we supply the body, which takes the original item, loop state, // and local state, and returns a new local state (item, loopState, localState) => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); return System.Math.Min(localState, value); }, // Finally, we provide an Action<TLocal>, to "merge" results together localState => { // This requires locking, but it's only once per used thread lock(syncObj) min = System.Math.Min(min, localState); } ); Although this is a bit more complicated than the previous version, it is now both thread-safe, and has minimal locking.  This same approach can be used by Parallel.For, although now, it’s Parallel.For<TLocal>.  When working with Parallel.For<TLocal>, you use the same triplet of delegates, with the same purpose and results. Also, many times, you can completely avoid locking by using a method of the Interlocked class to perform the final aggregation in an atomic operation.  The MSDN example demonstrating this same technique using Parallel.For uses the Interlocked class instead of a lock, since they are doing a sum operation on a long variable, which is possible via Interlocked.Add. By taking advantage of local state, we can use the Parallel class methods to parallelize algorithms such as aggregation, which, at first, may seem like poor candidates for parallelization.  Doing so requires careful consideration, and often requires a slight redesign of the algorithm, but the performance gains can be significant if handled in a way to avoid excessive synchronization.

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  • Turn Photos and Home Videos into Movies with Windows Live Movie Maker

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Are you looking for an easy way to take your digital photos and videos and turn them into a movie or slideshow? Today we’ll take a detailed look at how to do use Windows Live Movie Maker. Installation Windows Live Movie Maker comes bundled as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite (link below). However, you don’t have to install any of the programs you may not want. Take notice of the You’re almost done screen. Before clicking Continue, be sure to uncheck the boxes to set your search provider and homepage. Adding Pictures and Videos Open Windows Live Movie Maker. You can add videos or photos by simply dragging and dropping them onto the storyboard area. You can also click on the storyboard area or on the Add videos and photos button on the Home tab to browse for videos and photos. Windows Live Movie Maker supports most video, image, and audio file types. Select your files and add click Open to add them to Windows Live Movie Maker. By default WLMM doesn’t allow you to add files from network locations…so check out our article on how to add network support to Windows Live MovieMaker if the files you want to add are on a network drive. Layout All of your added clips will appear in the storyboard area on the right, while the currently selected clip will appear in the preview window on the left. You can adjust the size of the two areas by clicking and dragging the dividing line in the middle.    Make the clips on the storyboard bigger or smaller by clicking on the thumbnail size icon. The slider at the lower right adjusts the zoom time scale.   Previewing your Movie At any time, you can playback your movie and preview how it will look in the Preview window by clicking the space bar, or by pushing the play button under the preview window. You can also manually move the preview bar slider across the storyboard to view the clips as the video progresses. Adjusting Clips on the Storyboard You can click and drag clips on the storyboard to change the order in which the photos and videos appear.   Adding Music Nothing brings a movie to life quite like music. Selecting Add music will add your music to the beginning of the movie. Select Add music at the current point to include it in the movie to the current location of your preview bar slider, then browse for your music clip. WLMM supports many common audio files such as WAV, MP3, M4A, WMA, AIFF, and ASF. The music clip will appear above the video / photos clips on the storyboard.   You can change the location of music clips by clicking and dragging them to a different location on the storyboard. Add Titles, Captions, and Credits To add a Title screen to your movie, click the Title button on the Home tab. Type your title directly into the text box on the preview screen. The title will be placed at the location of the preview slider on the storyboard. However, you can change the location by clicking and dragging title to other areas of the storyboard. On the Format tab, there are a handful of text settings. You can change the font, color, size, alignment,  and transparency. The Adjust group allows you to change the background color, edit the text, and set the length of time the Title will appear in the movie.   The Effects group on the Format tab allows you to select an effect for your title screen. By hovering your cursor over each option, you will get a live preview of how each effect will appear in the preview window. Click to apply any of the effects. For captions, select where you want your caption to appear with the preview slider on the storyboard, then click the captions button on the Home tab. Just like the title, you type your caption directly into the text box on the preview screen, and you can make any adjustments by using the Font and Paragraph, Adjust, and Effects groups above. Credits are done the same as titles and captions, except they are automatically placed at the end of the movie.   Transitions Go to the Animation tab on the ribbon to apply transitions. Select a clip from the storyboard and hover over one of the transition to see it in the preview window. Click on the transition to apply it to the clip. You can apply transitions separately to clips or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same transition. Pan and zoom effects are also located on the Animations tab, but can be applied to photos only. Like transition, you can apply them individually to a clip or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same pan and zoom effect. Once applied, you can adjust the duration of the transitions and pan and zoom effects. You can also click the dropdown for additional transitions or effects. Visual Effects Similar to Pan and Zoom and Transitions, you can apply a variety of Visual Effects to individual or multiple clips. Editing Video and Music Note: This does not actually edit the original video you imported into your Windows Live Movie Maker project, only how it appears in your WLMM project. There are some very basic editing tools located on the Home tab. The Rotate left and Rotate right button will adjust any clip that may be oriented incorrectly. The Fit to music button will automatically adjust the duration of the photos (if you have any in your project) to fit the length of the music in your movie. Audio mix allows you to change the volume level   You can also do some slightly more advanced editing from the Edit tab. Select the video clip on the storyboard and click the Trim tool to edit or remove portions of a video clip. Next, click and drag the sliders in the preview windows to select the are you wish to keep. For example, the area outside the sliders is the area trimmed from the movie. The area inside is the section that is kept in the movie. You can also adjust the Start and End points manually on the ribbon.   When you are finished, click Save trim. You can also split your video clips. Move the preview slider to the location in the video clip where you’d like to split it, and select Split. Your video will be split into separate sections. Now you can apply different effects or move them to different locations on the storyboard. Editing Music Clips Select the music clip on the storyboard and then the Options tab on the ribbon. You can adjust the music volume by moving the slider right and left.   You can also choose to have your music clip fade in or out at the beginning and end of your movie. From the Fade in and Fade out dropdowns, select None, Slow, Medium, or Fast. To adjust the sound of your audio clips, click on the Edit tab, select the Video volume button, and adjust the slider. Move it all the way to the left to mute any background noise in your video clips.   AutoMovie As you have seen, Windows Live Movie Maker allows you to add effects, transitions, titles, and more. If you don’t want to do any of that stuff yourself, AutoMovie will automatically add title, credits, cross fade transitions between items, pan and zoom effects to photos, and fit your project to the music. Just select the AutoMovie button on the Home tab. You can go from zero to movie in literally a couple minutes.   Uploading to YouTube You can share your video on YouTube directly from Windows Live Movie Maker. Click on the YouTube icon in the Sharing group on the Home tab. You’ll be prompted for your YouTube username and password. Fill in the details about your movie and click Publish. The movie will be converted to WMV before being uploaded to YouTube. As soon as the YouTube conversion is complete, you’re new movie is live and ready to be viewed. Saving your Movie as a Video File Select the icon at the top left, then select Save movie. As you hover your mouse over each of the options, you will see the output display size, aspect ratio, and estimated file size per minute of video. All of these settings will output your movie as a WMV file. (Unfortunately, the only option is to save a movie as a WMV file.) The only difference is how they are encoded based on preset common settings. The Burn to DVD option also outputs a WMV file, but then opens Windows DVD Maker and walks you through the process of creating and burning a DVD.   If you choose the Burn to DVD option, close this window when the WMV file conversion is complete and the Windows DVD Maker will prompt you to begin. When your movie is finished, it’s time to relax and enjoy.   Conclusion Windows Live Movie Maker makes it easy for the average person to quickly churn out nice looking movies and slideshows from there own pictures and videos. However, long time users of previous editions (formerly called Windows Movie Maker) will likely be disappointed by some features missing in Windows Live Movie Maker that existed in earlier editions. Looking for details on burning your new project to DVD, check out our article on how to create and author DVDs with Windows DVD Maker. Download Windows Live Movie Maker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesCreate and Author DVDs in Windows 7Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie MakerInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7How to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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  • Entity Association Mapping with Code First Part 1 : Mapping Complex Types

    - by mortezam
    Last week the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code First has been released by data team at Microsoft. Entity Framework Code-First provides a pretty powerful code-centric way to work with the databases. When it comes to associations, it brings ultimate flexibility. I’m a big fan of the EF Code First approach and am planning to explain association mapping with code first in a series of blog posts and this one is dedicated to Complex Types. If you are new to Code First approach, you can find a great walkthrough here. In order to build a solid foundation for our discussion, we will start by learning about some of the core concepts around the relationship mapping.   What is Mapping?Mapping is the act of determining how objects and their relationships are persisted in permanent data storage, in our case, relational databases. What is Relationship mapping?A mapping that describes how to persist a relationship (association, aggregation, or composition) between two or more objects. Types of RelationshipsThere are two categories of object relationships that we need to be concerned with when mapping associations. The first category is based on multiplicity and it includes three types: One-to-one relationships: This is a relationship where the maximums of each of its multiplicities is one. One-to-many relationships: Also known as a many-to-one relationship, this occurs when the maximum of one multiplicity is one and the other is greater than one. Many-to-many relationships: This is a relationship where the maximum of both multiplicities is greater than one. The second category is based on directionality and it contains two types: Uni-directional relationships: when an object knows about the object(s) it is related to but the other object(s) do not know of the original object. To put this in EF terminology, when a navigation property exists only on one of the association ends and not on the both. Bi-directional relationships: When the objects on both end of the relationship know of each other (i.e. a navigation property defined on both ends). How Object Relationships Are Implemented in POCO domain models?When the multiplicity is one (e.g. 0..1 or 1) the relationship is implemented by defining a navigation property that reference the other object (e.g. an Address property on User class). When the multiplicity is many (e.g. 0..*, 1..*) the relationship is implemented via an ICollection of the type of other object. How Relational Database Relationships Are Implemented? Relationships in relational databases are maintained through the use of Foreign Keys. A foreign key is a data attribute(s) that appears in one table and must be the primary key or other candidate key in another table. With a one-to-one relationship the foreign key needs to be implemented by one of the tables. To implement a one-to-many relationship we implement a foreign key from the “one table” to the “many table”. We could also choose to implement a one-to-many relationship via an associative table (aka Join table), effectively making it a many-to-many relationship. Introducing the ModelNow, let's review the model that we are going to use in order to implement Complex Type with Code First. It's a simple object model which consist of two classes: User and Address. Each user could have one billing address. The Address information of a User is modeled as a separate class as you can see in the UML model below: In object-modeling terms, this association is a kind of aggregation—a part-of relationship. Aggregation is a strong form of association; it has some additional semantics with regard to the lifecycle of objects. In this case, we have an even stronger form, composition, where the lifecycle of the part is fully dependent upon the lifecycle of the whole. Fine-grained domain models The motivation behind this design was to achieve Fine-grained domain models. In crude terms, fine-grained means “more classes than tables”. For example, a user may have both a billing address and a home address. In the database, you may have a single User table with the columns BillingStreet, BillingCity, and BillingPostalCode along with HomeStreet, HomeCity, and HomePostalCode. There are good reasons to use this somewhat denormalized relational model (performance, for one). In our object model, we can use the same approach, representing the two addresses as six string-valued properties of the User class. But it’s much better to model this using an Address class, where User has the BillingAddress and HomeAddress properties. This object model achieves improved cohesion and greater code reuse and is more understandable. Complex Types: Splitting a Table Across Multiple Types Back to our model, there is no difference between this composition and other weaker styles of association when it comes to the actual C# implementation. But in the context of ORM, there is a big difference: A composed class is often a candidate Complex Type. But C# has no concept of composition—a class or property can’t be marked as a composition. The only difference is the object identifier: a complex type has no individual identity (i.e. no AddressId defined on Address class) which make sense because when it comes to the database everything is going to be saved into one single table. How to implement a Complex Types with Code First Code First has a concept of Complex Type Discovery that works based on a set of Conventions. The convention is that if Code First discovers a class where a primary key cannot be inferred, and no primary key is registered through Data Annotations or the fluent API, then the type will be automatically registered as a complex type. Complex type detection also requires that the type does not have properties that reference entity types (i.e. all the properties must be scalar types) and is not referenced from a collection property on another type. Here is the implementation: public class User{    public int UserId { get; set; }    public string FirstName { get; set; }    public string LastName { get; set; }    public string Username { get; set; }    public Address Address { get; set; }} public class Address {     public string Street { get; set; }     public string City { get; set; }            public string PostalCode { get; set; }        }public class EntityMappingContext : DbContext {     public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }        } With code first, this is all of the code we need to write to create a complex type, we do not need to configure any additional database schema mapping information through Data Annotations or the fluent API. Database SchemaThe mapping result for this object model is as follows: Limitations of this mappingThere are two important limitations to classes mapped as Complex Types: Shared references is not possible: The Address Complex Type doesn’t have its own database identity (primary key) and so can’t be referred to by any object other than the containing instance of User (e.g. a Shipping class that also needs to reference the same User Address). No elegant way to represent a null reference There is no elegant way to represent a null reference to an Address. When reading from database, EF Code First always initialize Address object even if values in all mapped columns of the complex type are null. This means that if you store a complex type object with all null property values, EF Code First returns a initialized complex type when the owning entity object is retrieved from the database. SummaryIn this post we learned about fine-grained domain models which complex type is just one example of it. Fine-grained is fully supported by EF Code First and is known as the most important requirement for a rich domain model. Complex type is usually the simplest way to represent one-to-one relationships and because the lifecycle is almost always dependent in such a case, it’s either an aggregation or a composition in UML. In the next posts we will revisit the same domain model and will learn about other ways to map a one-to-one association that does not have the limitations of the complex types. References ADO.NET team blog Mapping Objects to Relational Databases Java Persistence with Hibernate

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  • What You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

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

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  • ASP.NET GZip Encoding Caveats

    - by Rick Strahl
    GZip encoding in ASP.NET is pretty easy to accomplish using the built-in GZipStream and DeflateStream classes and applying them to the Response.Filter property.  While applying GZip and Deflate behavior is pretty easy there are a few caveats that you have watch out for as I found out today for myself with an application that was throwing up some garbage data. But before looking at caveats let’s review GZip implementation for ASP.NET. ASP.NET GZip/Deflate Basics Response filters basically are applied to the Response.OutputStream and transform it as data is written to it through the ASP.NET Response object. So a Response.Write eventually gets written into the output stream which if a filter is also written through the filter stream’s interface. To perform the actual GZip (and Deflate) encoding typically used by Web pages .NET includes the GZipStream and DeflateStream stream classes which can be readily assigned to the Repsonse.OutputStream. With these two stream classes in place it’s almost trivially easy to create a couple of reusable methods that allow you to compress your HTTP output. In my standard WebUtils utility class (from the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit) created two static utility methods – IsGZipSupported and GZipEncodePage – that check whether the client supports GZip encoding and then actually encodes the current output (note that although the method includes ‘Page’ in its name this code will work with any ASP.NET output). /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } } } As you can see the actual assignment of the Filter is as simple as: Response.Filter = new DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); which applies the filter to the OutputStream. You also need to ensure that your response reflects the new GZip or Deflate encoding and ensure that any pages that are cached in Proxy servers can differentiate between pages that were encoded with the various different encodings (or no encoding). To use this utility function now is trivially easy: In any ASP.NET code that wants to compress its Response output you simply use: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Entry = WebLogFactory.GetEntry(); var entries = Entry.GetLastEntries(App.Configuration.ShowEntryCount, "pk,Title,SafeTitle,Body,Entered,Feedback,Location,ShowTopAd", "TEntries"); if (entries == null) throw new ApplicationException("Couldn't load WebLog Entries: " + Entry.ErrorMessage); this.repEntries.DataSource = entries; this.repEntries.DataBind(); } Here I use an ASP.NET page, but the above WebUtils.GZipEncode() method call will work in any ASP.NET application type including HTTP Handlers. The only requirement is that the filter needs to be applied before any other output is sent to the OutputStream. For example, in my CallbackHandler service implementation by default output over a certain size is GZip encoded. The output that is generated is JSON or XML and if the output is over 5k in size I apply WebUtils.GZipEncode(): if (sbOutput.Length > GZIP_ENCODE_TRESHOLD) WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Response.ContentType = ControlResources.STR_JsonContentType; HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sbOutput.ToString()); Ok, so you probably get the idea: Encoding GZip/Deflate content is pretty easy. Hold on there Hoss –Watch your Caching Or is it? There are a few caveats that you need to watch out for when dealing with GZip content. The fist issue is that you need to deal with the fact that some clients don’t support GZip or Deflate content. Most modern browsers support it, but if you have a programmatic Http client accessing your content GZip/Deflate support is by no means guaranteed. For example, WinInet Http clients don’t support GZip out of the box – it has to be explicitly implemented. Other low level HTTP clients on other platforms too don’t support GZip out of the box. The problem is that your application, your Web Server and Proxy Servers on the Internet might be caching your generated content. If you return content with GZip once and then again without, either caching is not applied or worse the wrong type of content is returned back to the client from a cache or proxy. The result is an unreadable response for *some clients* which is also very hard to debug and fix once in production. You already saw the issue of Proxy servers addressed in the GZipEncodePage() function: // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); This ensures that any Proxy servers also check for the Content-Encoding HTTP Header to cache their content – not just the URL. The same thing applies if you do OutputCaching in your own ASP.NET code. If you generate output for GZip on an OutputCached page the GZipped content will be cached (either by ASP.NET’s cache or in some cases by the IIS Kernel Cache). But what if the next client doesn’t support GZip? She’ll get served a cached GZip page that won’t decode and she’ll get a page full of garbage. Wholly undesirable. To fix this you need to add some custom OutputCache rules by way of the GetVaryByCustom() HttpApplication method in your global_ASAX file: public override string GetVaryByCustomString(HttpContext context, string custom) { // Override Caching for compression if (custom == "GZIP") { string acceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers["Content-Encoding"]; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(acceptEncoding)) return ""; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) return "GZIP"; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) return "DEFLATE"; return ""; } return base.GetVaryByCustomString(context, custom); } In a page that use Output caching you then specify: <%@ OutputCache Duration="180" VaryByParam="none" VaryByCustom="GZIP" %> To use that custom rule. It’s all Fun and Games until ASP.NET throws an Error Ok, so you’re up and running with GZip, you have your caching squared away and your pages that you are applying it to are jamming along. Then BOOM, something strange happens and you get a lovely garbled page that look like this: Lovely isn’t it? What’s happened here is that I have WebUtils.GZipEncode() applied to my page, but there’s an error in the page. The error falls back to the ASP.NET error handler and the error handler removes all existing output (good) and removes all the custom HTTP headers I’ve set manually (usually good, but very bad here). Since I applied the Response.Filter (via GZipEncode) the output is now GZip encoded, but ASP.NET has removed my Content-Encoding header, so the browser receives the GZip encoded content without a notification that it is encoded as GZip. The result is binary output. Here’s what Fiddler says about the raw HTTP header output when an error occurs when GZip encoding was applied: HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error Cache-Control: private Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:21:08 GMT Content-Length: 2138 Connection: close ?`I?%&/m?{J?J??t??` … binary output striped here Notice: no Content-Encoding header and that’s why we’re seeing this garbage. ASP.NET has stripped the Content-Encoding header but left our filter intact. So how do we fix this? In my applications I typically have a global Application_Error handler set up and in this case I’ve been using that. One thing that you can do in the Application_Error handler is explicitly clear out the Response.Filter and set it to null at the top: protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Remove any special filtering especially GZip filtering Response.Filter = null; … } And voila I get my Yellow Screen of Death or my custom generated error output back via uncompressed content. BTW, the same is true for Page level errors handled in Page_Error or ASP.NET MVC Error handling methods in a controller. Another and possibly even better solution is to check whether a filter is attached just before the headers are sent to the client as pointed out by Adam Schroeder in the comments: protected void Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() { // ensure that if GZip/Deflate Encoding is applied that headers are set // also works when error occurs if filters are still active HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (response.Filter is GZipStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "gzip") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip"); else if (response.Filter is DeflateStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "deflate") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate"); } This uses the Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() pipeline event to check for compression encoding in a filter and adjusts the content accordingly. This is actually a better solution since this is generic – it’ll work regardless of how the content is cleaned up. For example, an error Response.Redirect() or short error display might get changed and the filter not cleared and this code actually handles that. Sweet, thanks Adam. It’s unfortunate that ASP.NET doesn’t natively clear out Response.Filters when an error occurs just as it clears the Response and Headers. I can’t see where leaving a Filter in place in an error situation would make any sense, but hey - this is what it is and it’s easy enough to fix as long as you know where to look. Riiiight! IIS and GZip I should also mention that IIS 7 includes good support for compression natively. If you can defer encoding to let IIS perform it for you rather than doing it in your code by all means you should do it! Especially any static or semi-dynamic content that can be made static should be using IIS built-in compression. Dynamic caching is also supported but is a bit more tricky to judge in terms of performance and footprint. John Forsyth has a great article on the benefits and drawbacks of IIS 7 compression which gives some detailed performance comparisons and impact reviews. I’ll post another entry next with some more info on IIS compression since information on it seems to be a bit hard to come by. Related Content Built-in GZip/Deflate Compression in IIS 7.x HttpWebRequest and GZip Responses © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET   IIS7  

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 05, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 05, 2010New Projects.svn Folders Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup is a tool that allows you to remove the .svn folders . Just click, browse, say abracadabra ...and the magic is done. Have fun with...Accord: The Accord framework creates an easy we to integrate any Dependency Injection framework into your project, while abstracting the details of your im...Asp.net MVC Lab: Try asp.net mvc outASP.NET Themes management with Webforms: The provided source is an example for how to use themes in ASP.NET Webforms. this source is the "up to date" support for the article I wroteB&W Port Scanner: B&W Port Scanner (formerly Net Inspector) is a fast TCP Port scan utility. The main idea is support of customizable operations to be performed f...BizTalk SWAT - Simple Web Activity Tracker: This is a web based version of BizTalk HAT. The concept is designed to be able to share and enable sharing of orchestration info easily. Some of th...C# Linear Hash Table: A C# dictionary-like implementation of a linear hash table. It is more memory efficiant than the .NET dictionary, and also almost as fast. NOTE: On...DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF Import Export Wizard is a tool for anyone needing to import DBF files into SQL Server or to export SQL Server tables to a DBF file. This proje...Domain as XML - Driven Development: Visual Studio Code Samples: Domain as XML - Driven Development: Visual Studio Code SamplesEasyDownload: This application allows to manage downloads handling an stack of files and several useful configurationsEos2: .FlightTickets: This application allows to buy flight ticketsFotofly PhotoViewer: A Silverlight control that uses the Fotofly metadata library to show the people in a photo (using Windows Live Photo Gallery People metadata) and a...Fujiy source code: Source code examplesGameSet: This application allows to play games with distributed users.Injectivity (Dependency Injection): Injectivity is a dependency injection framework (written in C#) with a strong focus on the ease of configuration and performance. Having been writt...Inventory: Keep track of inputs, materias and salesLoanTin.Com Source Code: LoanTin.Com - a Social Networking Website as same as Tumblr.com, based on source code of Loantiner Project, allow anyone can share anything to anyo...mysln: my solutions.NumTextBox: TextBox控件重写 之NumTextBox,主要实现的功能是,只允许输入数字,或String,Numeric,Currency,Decimal,Float,Double,Short,Int,Long 修改自:http://www.codeproject.com/KB/edit/num...Quick Performance Monitor: This small utility helps to monitor performance counters without using the full blown perfmon tool from Windows. It supports a number of command li...Runo: Runo ResearchSales: This application allows to manage a hardware storeScrewWiki Form Auth Provider: Enables your ASP.NET site to use Forms Authentication to integrate with your ScrewWiki. User management is performed on a parent site, and cookie i...SDS: Scientific DataSet library and tools: The SDS library makes it easy for .Net developers to read, write and share scalars, vectors, matrices and multidimensional grids which are very com...ShapeSweeper: Minesweeper-like game for the Zune HD. Each hidden object has three properties to discover--location, color, and shape--and all three must be corre...SilverlightExcel: an Excel file viewer in Silverlight 4: SilverlightExcel is a Silverlight application allowing you to open and view Excel files and also create graphs.sPWadmin: pwAdmin is an Web Interface based on JSP that uses the PW-Java API to control an PW-Server.Video Player control in Silverlight: A control for playing video in Silverlight 4 with chapters on timeline control. This player will be easily skinnable and customizable. More Featur...XNA Light Pre Pass Renderer: A demo/sample that shows how to write a light pre pass renderer in XNA.Zimms: Collaboration Site for friends, a code depot, and scratch padNew Releases.svn Folders Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup Tool executableAccord: Alpha: Initial build of the Accord framework.AcPrac: AcPrac Ver 0.1: The first version of AcPrac. It is not fully functional, but rather a version to get the bugs out. Please report all bugs.ASP.NET: ASP.NET Browser Definition Files: This download contains: ASP.NET 4 Browser Definition Files -- You can use the new ASP.NET 4 browser definition files with earlier versions of ASP....B&W Port Scanner: Black`n`White Port Scanner 1.0: B&W Port Scanner 1.0 Final Release Date: 03.03.2010 Black`n`WhiteBizTalk SWAT - Simple Web Activity Tracker: BizTalk SWAT: This is a web based version of BizTalk HAT. The concept is designed to be able to share and enable sharing of orchestration info easily. It uses th...BTP Tools: CSB+CUV+HCSB dict files 2010-03-04: 5. is now missing a space between the Strong’s number and the Count: >CSB Translation: 圣所 7, 至圣所G39+G394 it should be: CSB Translation: 圣所 7, 至圣所G...C# Linear Hash Table: Linear Hash Table: First working version of the Linear Hash Table.Cassiopeia: WinTools 1.0 beta: First ReleaseComposure: Caliburn-44007-trunk-vs2010.net40: This is a very simple conversion of the Caliburn trunk (rev 44007) for use in Visual Studio 2010 RC1 built against .NET40. Because the conversion w...Cover Creator: CoverCreator 1.3.0: English and Polish version. Functionality to add image to the front page. Load / save covers.DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF Import Export Wizard Source Code: Version 0.1.0.3DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF_Import_Export_Wizard Setup 0.1.0.3: Zip file contains Setup.exeESB Toolkit Extensions: Tellago BizTalk ESB 2.0 Toolkit Extensions v0.2: Windows Installer file that installs Library on a BizTalk ESB 2.0 system. This Install automatically configures the esb.config to use the new compo...Fotofly PhotoViewer: Fotofly Photoview v0.1: The first public release. Based on a Silverlight application I have been using for over a year at www.tassography.com. This version uses Fotofly v0...HPC with GPUs applied to CG: Cuda Soft Bodies simulation: Cuda src for soft bodiesHPC with GPUs applied to CG: Full Soft Bodies src: full src code for soft bodies simulationInjectivity (Dependency Injection): 2.8.166.2135: Release 2.8.166.2135 of the Injectivity dependency injection framework.Line Counter: 1.5 (Code Outline Preview): This version contains preview of the code outline feature, you can now view C# code outline within Line Counter. Note that the code outline now onl...Micajah Mindtouch Deki Wiki Copier: MicajahWikiCopier: You should use the following line arguments: WikiCopier.exe "http://oldwikiwithdata.wik.is/@api/deki" "login" "password" "http://newwiki.somename.l...ncontrols: Alpha 0.4.0.1: Added some example on the Console Project.NumTextBox: NumTextBox初始版本: TextBox控件重写 之NumTextBox,主要实现的功能是,只允许输入数字,或String,Numeric,Currency,Decimal,Float,Double,Short,Int,Long 此为初始版本PSCodeplex: PS CodePlex 0.2: PS CodePlex 0.2 has some breaking changes to the parameters. A few of the parameters are renamed and a few are made as switch parameters. Add-Rele...Quick Performance Monitor: QPerfMon First release - Version 1.0.0: The first release of the utility.RapidWebDev - .NET Enterprise Software Development Infrastructure: ProductManagement Quick Sample 0.2: This is a sample product management application to demonstrate how to develop enterprise software in RapidWebDev. The glossary of the system are ro...ScrewWiki Form Auth Provider: ScrewWiki Forms Authentication: Initial ReleaseSee.Sharper: See.Sharper.Docs-1.10.3.4: HTML documentation (including Doxygen project)See.Sharper: See.Sharper-1.10.3.4: Solution (Source files, debug and release binaries)Solar.Generic: Solar.Generic 0.8.0.0 Beta (Revised, Renamed): Solar.Generic 0.8.0.0 (Revised & Renamed) Renamed project from Solar.Commons to Solar.Generic. Project solution file is now in format of Visual ...Solar.Security: Solar.Security 1.1.0.0: Performed several major refactorings of code base. Stripped In-Memory implementation of IConfiguration interface of transactional behavior due to...sPWadmin: pwAdmin v0.7: -Star System Simulator: Star System Simulator 2.3: Changes in this release: Fixed several localisation issues. Features in this release: Model star systems in 3D. Euler-Cromer method. Improved...SysI: sysi, stable and ready: This time for sure.TheWhiteAmbit: TheWhiteAmbit - Demo: Two little demos demonstrating: - fast realtime raytracing - generating bent normals for shading (CUDA capable GPU needed = nVidia GeForce >8x00)VsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 22 Beta: Build 22 (beta) New: Visual Studio 2010 RC support (VsTortoise for Visual Studio 2010 RC screenshots) New: VsTortoise integrates in to Solution E...WinMergeFS: WinMergeFS 0.1.42128alpha: WinMergeFS provides AuFS functionality for windows. With WinMergeFS users can mount multiple directories into a virtual drive. Plugin based root se...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.0.2: - Bugs fixed - Code refactored - Added support for custom typesXNA Light Pre Pass Renderer: LightPrePassRendererXNA: Zipped source code for the light pre pass renderer made with XNA.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)LiveUpload to FacebookASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrBlogEngine.NETSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsMapWindow GISpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterMDT Web FrontEndDiffPlex - a .NET Diff Generator

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  • Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

    - by andrewbrust
    Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 02, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 02, 2010New ProjectsAcceptance Test Excel Addin: Acceptance Test Excel Addin is a tool to author, execute and analyze acceptance tests in Excel. The tester write tests using Given-When-Then (Gherk...Adrastus: Related to manage Issue/Item of any type. To be defined later TBDAn opportunity of upgrading Linux operating system: Want to add a new software in Linux operating system? Here is an opportunity. UFS (User Friendly Scheduler) has been designed to make the operating...AspNetPager: AspNetPager is a free custom paging control for ASP.NET web form application. It's one of the most popular ASP.NET third party controls used by chi...AzureRunMe: Run Java, Ruby, Python, [insert language of your choice] applications in Windows Azure. You provide a self contained ZIP file with a runme.bat f...DiffPlex - a .NET Diff Generator: DiffPlex is a combination of a .NET Diffing Library with both a Silverlight and HTML diff viewer.GPA WebClient: GPA project web client.Maintenance Service: A lot of projects need to have a windows service that execute different tasks. If am tired of creating the same service for all this project, so He...Marager Component Framework: Marager Component Framework (mcf)Pod Thrower: An application that gives a simple way to create podcast rss feeds from local computer folders.Rapidshare Episode Downloader: Rapidshare Episode Downloader is a software that enables you (yes, you!) to organize your many episodes of different TV shows in a nice list, prese...Resxus - Total .net string resource management tool: RESXUS is a resource file management tool which is being created under my job-experience of managing multilingual resx files. The first goal of th...SLFX: SLFXTheWhiteAmbit: Hybrid Scanline-Raytracing Engine. VisitorPattern based Scenegraph written in C++. DirectX9 or DirectX10 rendering is used for PrimaryRays and CUDA...TSqlMigrations: Yet another migrations platform right? This is purely sql based (tsql as it is only for Sql Server at this time). This tool is meant to help mana...WAFFLE: Windows Authentication Functional Framework (LE): WAFFLE - Windows Authentication Functional Framework (Light Edition) is a .NET library with a COM interface and a Java bridge that provides a worki...web lib api: This project aim, to pull together the major, web api/webservices for each relervant categorie.WSDLGenerator: A tool to generate a WSDL file from a c# dll which contains one more Microsoft WebServices. The project is build using VS2010RC and uses .net Fram...XNA Re-usable UI Components: The aim of this project is to create a re-usable set of UI game components helping reduce production time for your game. More information can be...YUI Compressor Custom Tool for Visual Studio: This EXTREMELY simple custom tool is used to automatically generate a *.min.css file from your existing code on save. It is merely a packaged versi...New ReleasesAcceptance Test Excel Addin: 1.0.0.0: How to Use Extract AcceptanceTestExcelAddIn-1.0.0.0.zip Run setup.exe Extract PasswordSample.zip Open Excel, your will see a new tab, "QA To...An opportunity of upgrading Linux operating system: UFS: The software provided by me is just a basic one that will run in the terminal through gcc compiler. The developers are therefore requested to make ...AspNetPager: Demo project: AspNetPager version 7.3.2 demo web site projectBusiness Framework: Formula Samples: A sample demonstrating textual language - Formula. It can be used is many business scenarios allowing end-user to configure or interact with the sy...Deblector: Deblector 1.1: This build fixes compatibility with .NET Reflector 6.Desktop Dimmer: March 2010: First release, March 2010EasyDump: EasyDump 1.0.1: Easy Dump 1.0.1 fix duplicate output when execute twiceExtensia: Extensia: Extensia is a very large list of extension methods and a few helper types. Many methods have practical utility (e.g. console parsing) whilst some ...Fluent Assertions: Fluent Assertions release 1.0: The first release of the Fluent Assertions. It contains assertions for the most common types and has several extension points.FolderSize: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.6.0: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.6.0 A simple utility intended to be used to scan harddrives for the folders that take most place and display this to the user...GamerShots.com Screenshot Capture: GamerShots.com Screenshot Capture: Windows Form application written in C# ASP.Net. Allows the user to capture a screen by pressing the "Print Scrn" key or by user input. Then uses ...Jet Login Tool (JetLoginTool): Stopped - 1.5.3713.17328: Fixed: Engine will now actually stop when the "Stop" button is hitJolt Environment - RuneScape Emulator: Jolt Environment 1.0.6000 GOLD: Features since 1.0.3200: - Account Creation via client - Character Saving/Loading (via MySQL serialization) - Ground Objects - Ground Items (with m...jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.2: NOTE: While I work on new releases, I post alpha versions. Usually the alpha versions are here to address a particular need. I DO NOT recommend us...LINQ to XSD: 1.0.0: The LINQ to XSD technology provides .NET developers with support for typed XML programming. LINQ to XSD contributes to the LINQ project (.NET Langu...Maintenance Service: Alpha Release: Alpha Release of the SoftwareMDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.5.56206: Fixed many gathered bugs;MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.6.56217: Fixed retrieving hotfile data using registered accounts.MRDS Services for HiTechnic: HiTechnic Controllers: The HiTechnic Controllers package contains services for MRDS that work with the LEGO NXT and TETRIX Servo and Motor Controllers. Initial ReleaseCo...Open NFe: DANFE 1.9.2: Correções do DANFE que serão incluídas na versão 1.9.2PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT-2.4: While testing a standard software parts kit library for strict portability, The following error condition occurred when using the Windows version ...Rapidshare Episode Downloader: RED 0.8: This is an almost fully working version of the software. What DOESN'T work: Showing the list of rapidshare search results (but query is being made...Reusable Library: V1.0.4: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developer.SharePoint LogViewer: SharePointLogViewer 1.5.1: Follwoing bugs are fixed Bookmarks deleted on refresh/reload Bookmarks not properly navigated on filtered list. Disabled toolbar buttons did n...SharePoint Taxonomy Extensions: SharePoint Taxonomy Extensions 1.1-1: - Some bugfixes - Possibility to switch between alphanummeric und manual sortingSilverSynth - Digital Audio Synthesis for Silverlight: SilverSynth 1.1: SilverSynth 1.1 is a zip file of the source code and includes an updated version of the demo application including presets.SQL Server Reporting Services MSBuild Tasks: Release 1.1.14669: New Features New Task added for Integrated and Native mode: DeleteReportUser Task ReportUserExists TaskTellago DevLabs: BizTalk Data Services v0.2: This release is the first version of the BizTalk Data Services API, a RESTful API for BizTalk Server based on the Open Data (OData) Protocol. The ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30301.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWAFFLE: Windows Authentication Functional Framework (LE): 1.2: Build 1.2.4217.0, initial open-source release. - Account lookup locally and in Active Directory. - Enumerating Active Directory domains. - Returns...Watermarker: 0.87: 01.03.2010: • FIXED: some stability fixes • ADDED: ability to choose any number of pictures and folder to save them after the operation completesWSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.0.1: Initial versionXNA Re-usable UI Components: Re-usable Game Components V1.0: First public release of the source codeYUI Compressor Custom Tool for Visual Studio: YUI Compressor Custom Tool with Installer v0.1a: Initial release with alpha installer - documentation to follow.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Microsoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETImage Resizer Powertoy Clone for WindowsMost Active ProjectsRawrBlogEngine.NETMapWindow GISpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesSharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLRRapid Entity Framework (ORM). CTP 2DiffPlex - a .NET Diff GeneratorMDT Web FrontEndWPF Dialogs

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  • SQL SERVER – Guest Posts – Feodor Georgiev – The Context of Our Database Environment – Going Beyond the Internal SQL Server Waits – Wait Type – Day 21 of 28

    - by pinaldave
    This guest post is submitted by Feodor. Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. In this article Feodor explains the server-client-server process, and concentrated on the mutual waits between client and SQL Server. This is essential in grasping the concept of waits in a ‘global’ application plan. Recently I was asked to write a blog post about the wait statistics in SQL Server and since I had been thinking about writing it for quite some time now, here it is. It is a wide-spread idea that the wait statistics in SQL Server will tell you everything about your performance. Well, almost. Or should I say – barely. The reason for this is that SQL Server is always a part of a bigger system – there are always other players in the game: whether it is a client application, web service, any other kind of data import/export process and so on. In short, the SQL Server surroundings look like this: This means that SQL Server, aside from its internal waits, also depends on external waits and settings. As we can see in the picture above, SQL Server needs to have an interface in order to communicate with the surrounding clients over the network. For this communication, SQL Server uses protocol interfaces. I will not go into detail about which protocols are best, but you can read this article. Also, review the information about the TDS (Tabular data stream). As we all know, our system is only as fast as its slowest component. This means that when we look at our environment as a whole, the SQL Server might be a victim of external pressure, no matter how well we have tuned our database server performance. Let’s dive into an example: let’s say that we have a web server, hosting a web application which is using data from our SQL Server, hosted on another server. The network card of the web server for some reason is malfunctioning (think of a hardware failure, driver failure, or just improper setup) and does not send/receive data faster than 10Mbs. On the other end, our SQL Server will not be able to send/receive data at a faster rate either. This means that the application users will notify the support team and will say: “My data is coming very slow.” Now, let’s move on to a bit more exciting example: imagine that there is a similar setup as the example above – one web server and one database server, and the application is not using any stored procedure calls, but instead for every user request the application is sending 80kb query over the network to the SQL Server. (I really thought this does not happen in real life until I saw it one day.) So, what happens in this case? To make things worse, let’s say that the 80kb query text is submitted from the application to the SQL Server at least 100 times per minute, and as often as 300 times per minute in peak times. Here is what happens: in order for this query to reach the SQL Server, it will have to be broken into a of number network packets (according to the packet size settings) – and will travel over the network. On the other side, our SQL Server network card will receive the packets, will pass them to our network layer, the packets will get assembled, and eventually SQL Server will start processing the query – parsing, allegorizing, generating the query execution plan and so on. So far, we have already had a serious network overhead by waiting for the packets to reach our Database Engine. There will certainly be some processing overhead – until the database engine deals with the 80kb query and its 20 subqueries. The waits you see in the DMVs are actually collected from the point the query reaches the SQL Server and the packets are assembled. Let’s say that our query is processed and it finally returns 15000 rows. These rows have a certain size as well, depending on the data types returned. This means that the data will have converted to packages (depending on the network size package settings) and will have to reach the application server. There will also be waits, however, this time you will be able to see a wait type in the DMVs called ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. What this wait type indicates is that the client is not consuming the data fast enough and the network buffers are filling up. Recently Pinal Dave posted a blog on Client Statistics. What Client Statistics does is captures the physical flow characteristics of the query between the client(Management Studio, in this case) and the server and back to the client. As you see in the image, there are three categories: Query Profile Statistics, Network Statistics and Time Statistics. Number of server roundtrips–a roundtrip consists of a request sent to the server and a reply from the server to the client. For example, if your query has three select statements, and they are separated by ‘GO’ command, then there will be three different roundtrips. TDS Packets sent from the client – TDS (tabular data stream) is the language which SQL Server speaks, and in order for applications to communicate with SQL Server, they need to pack the requests in TDS packets. TDS Packets sent from the client is the number of packets sent from the client; in case the request is large, then it may need more buffers, and eventually might even need more server roundtrips. TDS packets received from server –is the TDS packets sent by the server to the client during the query execution. Bytes sent from client – is the volume of the data set to our SQL Server, measured in bytes; i.e. how big of a query we have sent to the SQL Server. This is why it is best to use stored procedures, since the reusable code (which already exists as an object in the SQL Server) will only be called as a name of procedure + parameters, and this will minimize the network pressure. Bytes received from server – is the amount of data the SQL Server has sent to the client, measured in bytes. Depending on the number of rows and the datatypes involved, this number will vary. But still, think about the network load when you request data from SQL Server. Client processing time – is the amount of time spent in milliseconds between the first received response packet and the last received response packet by the client. Wait time on server replies – is the time in milliseconds between the last request packet which left the client and the first response packet which came back from the server to the client. Total execution time – is the sum of client processing time and wait time on server replies (the SQL Server internal processing time) Here is an illustration of the Client-server communication model which should help you understand the mutual waits in a client-server environment. Keep in mind that a query with a large ‘wait time on server replies’ means the server took a long time to produce the very first row. This is usual on queries that have operators that need the entire sub-query to evaluate before they proceed (for example, sort and top operators). However, a query with a very short ‘wait time on server replies’ means that the query was able to return the first row fast. However a long ‘client processing time’ does not necessarily imply the client spent a lot of time processing and the server was blocked waiting on the client. It can simply mean that the server continued to return rows from the result and this is how long it took until the very last row was returned. The bottom line is that developers and DBAs should work together and think carefully of the resource utilization in the client-server environment. From experience I can say that so far I have seen only cases when the application developers and the Database developers are on their own and do not ask questions about the other party’s world. I would recommend using the Client Statistics tool during new development to track the performance of the queries, and also to find a synchronous way of utilizing resources between the client – server – client. Here is another example: think about similar setup as above, but add another server to the game. Let’s say that we keep our media on a separate server, and together with the data from our SQL Server we need to display some images on the webpage requested by our user. No matter how simple or complicated the logic to get the images is, if the images are 500kb each our users will get the page slowly and they will still think that there is something wrong with our data. Anyway, I don’t mean to get carried away too far from SQL Server. Instead, what I would like to say is that DBAs should also be aware of ‘the big picture’. I wrote a blog post a while back on this topic, and if you are interested, you can read it here about the big picture. And finally, here are some guidelines for monitoring the network performance and improving it: Run a trace and outline all queries that return more than 1000 rows (in Profiler you can actually filter and sort the captured trace by number of returned rows). This is not a set number; it is more of a guideline. The general thought is that no application user can consume that many rows at once. Ask yourself and your fellow-developers: ‘why?’. Monitor your network counters in Perfmon: Network Interface:Output queue length, Redirector:Network errors/sec, TCPv4: Segments retransmitted/sec and so on. Make sure to establish a good friendship with your network administrator (buy them coffee, for example J ) and get into a conversation about the network settings. Have them explain to you how the network cards are setup – are they standalone, are they ‘teamed’, what are the settings – full duplex and so on. Find some time to read a bit about networking. In this short blog post I hope I have turned your attention to ‘the big picture’ and the fact that there are other factors affecting our SQL Server, aside from its internal workings. As a further reading I would still highly recommend the Wait Stats series on this blog, also I would recommend you have the coffee break conversation with your network admin as soon as possible. This guest post is written by Feodor Georgiev. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL

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