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• Challenges in multi-player Android Game Server with RESTful Nature

  - by Kush

  I'm working on an Android Game based on Contract Bridge, as a part of my college Summer Internship project. The game will be multi-player such that 4 Android devices can play it, so there's no BOT or CPU player to be developed. At the time of getting project, I realized that most of the students had already worked on the project but none of their works is reusable now (for variety of reasons like, undocumented code and design architecture, different platform implementation). I have experience working on several open source projects and hence I emphasis to work out on this project such that components I make become reusable as much as possible. Now, as the game is multi-player and entire game progress will be handled on server, I'm currently working on Server's design, since I wanted to make game server reusable such that any client platform can use it, I was previously confused in selecting Socket or REST for Game Server's design, but later finalized to work on REST APIs for the server. Now, since I have to keep all players in-sync while they make movements in game, on server I've planned to use Database which will keep all players' progress, specific for each table (in Bridge, 4 players play on single table, and server will handle many such game tables). I don't know if its an appropriate decision to use database as shared medium to track progress of each game table (let me know if there's an appropriate or better option). Obviously, when game is completed for the table, data for that table on server's database is discarded. Now the problem is that, access to REST service is an HTTP call, so as long as client doesn't make any request, server will remain idle, and consider a situation where A player has played a card on his device and the device requests to apply this change on the server. Now, I need to let rest of the three devices know that the player has played a card, and also update view on their device. AFAIK, REST cannot provide a sort-of Push-notification system, since the connection to the server is not persistent. One solution that I thought was to make each device constantly poll the server for any change (like every 56 ms) and when changes are found, reflect it on the device. But I feel this is not an elegant way, as every HTTP request is expensive. (and I choose REST to make game play experience robust since, a mobile device tends to get disconnected from Internet, and if there's Socket-like persistent connection then entire game progress is subject to lost. Also, portability on client-end is important) Also, imagining a situation where 10 game tables are in progress and 40 players are playing, a server must be capable to handle flooded HTTP requests from all the devices which make it every 56 ms. So I wonder if the situation is assumed as DoS attack. So, explaining the situation, am I going on the right track for the server design? I wanted to be sure before I proceed much further with the code.

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• What's a good scheme for multi-user database synchronization?

  - by Mason Wheeler

  I'm working on a system to allow multiple users to collaborate on an online project. Everything is fairly straightforward, except for keeping the users in sync. Each user has their own local copy of the project database, which allows them to make changes and test things out, and then send the updates to the central server. But this runs into the classic synchronization question: how do you keep two users from editing the same thing and stomping each other's work? I've got an idea that should work, but I wonder if there's a simpler way to do it. Here's the basic concept: All project data is stored in a relational database. Each row in the database has an owner. If the current user is not the owner, he can read but not write that row. (This is enforced client-side.) The user can send a request to the server to take ownership of a row, which will be granted if the server's copy says that the current owner is NULL, or to release ownership when they're done with it. It is not possible to release ownership without committing changes to the server. It is not possible to commit changes to the server without having first downloaded all outstanding changes to the server. When any changes are made to rows you own, a trigger marks that row as Dirty. When you commit changes, the database is scanned for all Dirty rows in all tables, and the data is serialized into an update file, which is posted to the server, and all rows are marked Clean. The server applies the updates on its end, and keeps the file around. When other users download changes, the server sends them the update files that they haven't already received. So, essentially this is a reinvention of version control on a relational database. (Sort of.) As long as taking ownership and applying updates to the server are guaranteed atomic changes, and the server verifies that some smart-aleck user didn't edit their local database so they could send an update for a row they don't have ownership of, it should be guaranteed to be correct, and with no need to worry about merges and merge conflicts. (I think.) Can anyone think of any problems with this scheme, or ways to do it better? (And no, "build [insert VCS here] into your project" is not what I'm looking for. I've thought of that already. VCSs work well with text, and not so well with other file formats, such as relational databases.)

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• Backup Meta-Data

  - by BuckWoody

  I'm working on a PowerShell script to show me the trending durations of my backup activities. The first thing I need is the data, so I looked at the Standard Reports in SQL Server Management Studio, and found a report that suited my needs, so I pulled out the script that it runs and modified it to this T-SQL Script. A few words here - you need to be in the MSDB database for this to run, and you can add a WHERE clause to limit to a database, timeframe, type of backup, whatever. For that matter, I won't use all of the data in this query in my PowerShell script, but it gives me lots of avenues to graph: SELECT distinct t1.name AS 'DatabaseName' ,(datediff( ss,  t3.backup_start_date, t3.backup_finish_date)) AS 'DurationInSeconds' ,t3.user_name AS 'UserResponsible' ,t3.name AS backup_name ,t3.description ,t3.backup_start_date ,t3.backup_finish_date ,CASE WHEN t3.type = 'D' THEN 'Database' WHEN t3.type = 'L' THEN 'Log' WHEN t3.type = 'F' THEN 'FileOrFilegroup' WHEN t3.type = 'G' THEN 'DifferentialFile' WHEN t3.type = 'P' THEN 'Partial' WHEN t3.type = 'Q' THEN 'DifferentialPartial' END AS 'BackupType' ,t3.backup_size AS 'BackupSizeKB' ,t6.physical_device_name ,CASE WHEN t6.device_type = 2 THEN 'Disk' WHEN t6.device_type = 102 THEN 'Disk' WHEN t6.device_type = 5 THEN 'Tape' WHEN t6.device_type = 105 THEN 'Tape' END AS 'DeviceType' ,t3.recovery_model  FROM sys.databases t1 INNER JOIN backupset t3 ON (t3.database_name = t1.name )  LEFT OUTER JOIN backupmediaset t5 ON ( t3.media_set_id = t5.media_set_id ) LEFT OUTER JOIN backupmediafamily t6 ON ( t6.media_set_id = t5.media_set_id ) ORDER BY backup_start_date DESC I'll munge this into my Excel PowerShell chart script tomorrow. Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 15, 2010Popular ReleasesTweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 5: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 5 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numerous fixes reported by preview users Preview 3 ChangesNumerous ...SQL Monitor: SQL Monitor 2.8: 1. redesigned the object explorer, support multiple serversEnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.2 ALPHA: 2.2.2 ALPHAThis release adds in the changes for 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - The spirit ...FlickrNet API Library: 3.1.4000: Newest release. Now contains dedicated Windows Phone 7 DLL as well as all previous DLLs. Also contains Windows Help file documentation now as standard.mojoPortal: 2.3.5.8: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2358-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2010 Code Samples 2010-12-13: Code samples for Visual Studio 2010SuperSocket, an extensible socket application framework: SuperSocket 1.3 beta 1: SuperSocket 1.3 is built on .NET 4.0 framework. Bug fixes: fixed a potential bug that the running state hadn't been updated after socket server stopped fixed a synchronization issue when clearing timeout session fixed a bug in ArraySegmentList fixed a bug on getting configuration value Third-part library upgrades: upgraded SuperSocket to .NET 4.0 upgraded EntLib 4.1 to 5.0 New features: supported UDP socket support custom protocol (can support binary protocol and other complecate...Wii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.9 Beta: - Aqua or brushed metal style for Mac OS X - Shows selection count beside ID - Game list selection mode via settings - Compare Files <-> WBFS game lists - Verify game images/DVD/WBFS - WIT command line for log (via settings) - Cancel possibility for loading games process - Progress infos while loading games - Localization for dates - UTF-8 support - Shortcuts added - View game infos in browser - Transfer infos for log - All transfer routines rewritten - Extract image from image/WBFS - Support....NETTER Code Starter Pack: v1.0.beta: '.NETTER Code Starter Pack ' contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies and frameworks based on Microsoft .NET Framework. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database (for database driven scenarios). The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic...WPF Multiple Document Interface (MDI): Beta Release v1.1: WPF.MDI is a library to imitate the traditional Windows Forms Multiple Document Interface (MDI) features in WPF. This is Beta release, means there's still work to do. Please provide feedback, so next release will be better. Features: Position dependency property MdiLayout dependency property Menu dependency property Ctrl + F4, Ctrl + Tab shortcuts should work Behavior: don’t allow negative values for MdiChild position minimized windows: remember position, tile multiple windows, ...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.3.1 Production: Release 2.3.1 implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 12 modules with 155 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scripts for working with ADO.NET, SMO, Agent, RMO, SSIS, SQL script files, PBM, Performance Counters, SQLProfiler and using Powershell ISE as a SQL and Oracle query tool. In addition optional backend databases and SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 reports are provided with SQLServer and PBM modules. See readme file for details.NuGet (formerly NuPack): NuGet 1.0 Release Candidate: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. This new build targets the newer feed (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669) and package format. See http://nupack.codeplex.com/documentation?title=Nuspe...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire Silverlight, WPF Charts v3.6.5 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.5 with the following new feature: * New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. You can visit Visifire documentation to know more. http://www.visifire.com/visifirechartsdocumentation.php Also this release includes few bug fixes: * Chart threw exception while adding new Axis in Chart using Vi...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.5 Production: DonationsDonate via PayPal via PayPal. If you want to, we can also add your name / company on our Donation Acknowledgements page. PEAR channelWe now also have a full PEAR channel! Here's how to use it: New installation: pear channel-discover pear.pearplex.net pear install pearplex/PHPExcel Or if you've already installed PHPExcel before: pear upgrade pearplex/PHPExcel The official page can be found at http://pearplex.net. Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page.SwapWin: SwapWin 0.2: Updates: Bring all windows that are swapped to foreground. Make the window sent to primary screen active.??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2010-12-10: ?????All-In-One Code Framework（??） 2010?12??????！！http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ?????release?，???????ASP.NET, WinForm, Silverlight????12?Sample Code。???，??????????sample code。 ?????：http://blog.csdn.net/sjb5201/archive/2010/12/13/6072675.aspx ??，??????MSDN????????????。 http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/zh-CN/codezhchs/threads ?????????????????，??Email ????DNN Simple Article: DNNSimpleArticle Module V00.00.03: The initial release of the DNNSimpleArticle module (labelled V00.00.03) There are C# and VB versions of this module for this initial release. No promises that going forward there will be packages for both languages provided for future releases. This module provides the following functionality Create and display articles Display a paged list of articles Articles get created as DNN ContentItems Categorization provided through DNN Taxonomy SEO functionality for article display providi...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.4.3: AutoLoL now supports importing the build pages from Mobafire.com as well! Just insert the url to the build and voila. (For example: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/unforgivens-guide-how-to-build-a-successful-mordekaiser-24061) Stable release of AutoChat (It is still recommended to use with caution and to read the documentation) It is now possible to associate *.lolm files with AutoLoL to quickly open them The selected spells are now displayed in the masteries tab for qu...SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.2: - Added auto insertion of RLE (RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING) Unicode character for the RTL languages. - Fixed delete rows issue.PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7: This is a final stable release of PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7. This is a minor incremental release that contains all the functionality available in 53121 plus additional features listed below: Improved detection logic for existing PHP installations. Now PHP Manager detects the location to php.ini file in accordance to the PHP specifications Configuring date.timezone. PHP Manager can automatically set the date.timezone directive which is required to be set starting from PHP 5.3 Ability to ...New Projectscomplile: compiler is bestComputer Graphics: Esercitazioni di Computer GraficaDocsVision WorkFlow Extended Library: ?????? ??????, ???????????? ????? ??????????, ??????????? ????? ?????? ? DocsVision.WorkFlow.Gates. ?????????? ?????????? ????????????? ???????-????????? ? ????? DocsVision. ??????????? ??????: - DVTypeConverter; - DVCardProperty.DotNetNuke Razor Forum Profile: A razor based module for DotNetNuke that displays a user's forum profile information (based on the core forum). Excel AddIn to reset the last worksheet cell: This is a sample Excel AddIn to reset the last worsheet cell in an Excel Workbook.FriendFeed Backup Creator: FriendFeed Backup Creator makes it easier for friendfeed users to backup their feeds including likes and comments. You'll no longer have to worry about your old feeds.Gerins: Sistema Gerencial InsolGoodreads for Windows Phone 7: Goodreads client for Windows Phone 7HyperView for DotNetNuke: HyperView for DotNetNuke is a port of the MIT Exhibit project for DotNetNuke. Exhibit enables web site authors to easily create dynamic exhibits of collections. The collections can be searched and browsed using faceted browsing.Ladder Ranking System: A ladder ranking system as a DotNetNuke moduleLive Office Tools: <LOT - Live Office Tools> makes it easier for <target user group> to <Escritórios>. You'll no longer have to <activity>. It's developed in <C#>. LostMamory: ???????GIS??My WP7 Brand: My WP7 Brand is a simple Windows Phone 7 Template that allows users to view your rss feed, your tweet and your contact's info.Network Adapter/ Interface Analyzer, viewer, Speed Calculator: Simple .Net Application to give information about all network adapters in the system, their running status, max speed, download upload speed, etcOnlineenquete: Online enquete is an application based based on BeeldbankMVC. This project will be used as a starting point for creating my online survay toolOpalis Extension Exchange Mail: A Opalis Integration Pack allowing for Exachange 2007 and 2010 mail manipulation functions. Uses Exchange Webservices.PAK: A Sample project for windows Phone 7, Azure and K2 blackpearl.Persephone CMS: // TODO: Some description to be displayed here!!!Perspectives: Perspectives makes it easier for Visual Studio 2010 users to manage window configurations. It's developed in C#. It was modeled after the Eclipse Perspectives window management system.Photo Studio: Photo studio for storing family albumsPorto Alegre Dojo: Porto Alegre DojoRazor's Edge DotNetNuke User Map: Razor's Edge User Map allows you to load your DotnetNuke user's locations on to a map dynamically based on the address in their user profile. It uses the razor scripting language to retrieve user data and display that data on the page.RestUpMVC: RestUpMVC is a library that allows developers to easily expose a RESTful interface from an ASP.NET MVC application. The library was written in C#.Rocket Framework for Windows Form: Rocket Framework winform .net 4.0 WPF generic entity framework repositoryRPG Maplestory XNA SDK C#: a RPG Maplestory XNA SDK makes it easier for all people want to devolopded a Platform rpg in XNA - C# Sistema para Manejo de Maquinas: Sistema para controlar, insertar y almacenar datos.SoloForum: SoloForumUpdate SharePoint 2010 User Personal Settings: Every SharePoint user will have his/her personal settings for a site collection. Each user can view their details by clicking on Logged-in User link and select My Settings menu item. This tool helps to update user personal settings for a particular site collection.uREST 4 Umbraco: uREST is an Umbraco package for adding a set of RESTful web services to an Umbraco website.Veller: This is a high speed game where speed is your ally. The faster you go the more damage you do. You are vulnerable when moving slow, but gain momentum. Windows Forms Wizard: Oddly, the Windows Forms libraries don't provide any support for writing wizards. Here's one way to do it. Yes!gama NewCMS: Yes!gama NewCMS is a simple news CMS Builded by asp.net + access very very simple... maybe u like simlpe tings...

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• A Small Utility to Delete Files recursively by Date

  - by Rick Strahl

  It's funny, but for me the following seems to be a recurring theme: Every few months or years I end up with a host of files on my server that need pruning selectively and often under program control. Today I realized that my SQL Server logs on my server were really piling up and nearly ran my backup drive out of drive space. So occasionally I need to check on that server drive and clean out files. Now with a bit of work this can be done with PowerShell or even a complicated DOS batch file, but heck, to me it's always easier to just create a small Console application that handles this sort of thing with a full command line parser and a few extra options, plus in the end I end up with code that I can actually modify and add features to as is invariably the case. No more searching for a script each time :-) So for my typical copy needs the requirements are: Need to recursively delete files Need to be able to specify a filespec (ie. *.bak) Be able to specify a cut off date before which to delete files And it'd be nice to have an option to send files to the Recycle bin just in case for operator error :-)(and yes that came in handy as I blew away my entire database backup folder by accident - oops!) The end result is a small Console file copy utility that I popped up on Github: https://github.com/RickStrahl/DeleteFiles The source code is up there along with the binary file you can just run. Creating DeleteFiles It's pretty easy to create a simple utility like DeleteFiles of course, so I'm not going to spend any talking about how it works. You can check it out in the repository or download and compile it. The nice thing about using a full programming language like C over something like PowerShell or batch file is that you can make short work of the recursive tree walking that's required to make this work. There's very little code, but there's also a very small, self-contained command line parser in there that might be useful that can be plugged into any project - I've been using it quite a bit for just about any Console application I've been building. If you're like me and don't have the patience or the persistence (that funky syntax requires some 'sticking with it' that I simply can't get over) to get into Powershell coding, having an executable file that I can just copy around or keep in my Utility directory is the only way I'll ever get to reuse this functionality without going on a wild search each time :-) Anyway, hope some of you might find this useful. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  CSharp   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Retire Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

   Originally posted by John Brunswick. Good news - the Retire Phase is actually more fun than the Manage Phase. During the Retire Phase our content management team should not have to track down content creators if the Request Phase of this process was completed successfully. The ownership meta data, success criteria and time stamp that was applied to the original content submission will help to manage content at the end of the content life cycle. The Retire Phase will provide the opportunity for us to prune irrelevant content items through archiving or deletion, keeping the content system clear of irrelevant information, streamlining users ability to browse and search for content.   1. Act on Metrics Established during the Request Phase Why - Some information is only relevant for a given amount of time. In Content Platform Migration Strategy - Artifacts vs Perishable Content we examined two content types - Artifacts and Perishable content. Understanding the differences between Artifacts and Perishable content will allow us to explicitly respect their various lifespans. Additionally, some content may have been part of a project that failed to meet the success criteria outlined in the Request Phase. Any content that did not meet the metrics outlined in the Request Phase should be considered for deletion. How - Thankfully by adhering to to The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance our content should have some level of meta data associated with it that will allow us to quickly sort and understand how to deal with it. Content Management Systems like Oracle's Universal Content Management (UCM) natively allow you to create and save advanced searches that can use content meta data like folders, author, expiration date, security settings and custom meta data to pull back listings of content for examination. Additionally, analytics are available for all content items that allow us to determine if the usage is meeting success criteria that may have been previously outlined during the request phase. The lists that are produced from these approaches can be quickly reviewed for each project with the content owners and based on the nature of the content and success criteria undergo archiving or deletion. Impact - Retiring content that is no longer relevant will allow end users to have fast and relevant access to information across your enterprise. As we mentioned in our first post in this series - it is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year. The light level of effort that was placed into the Request Phase of this process will set us up to keep content clean and relevant for a long time to come. With an up-to-date content repository users will be able to quickly find access to the information that is critical to their work processes. You might not get a holiday named in your honor managing the content system, but will appreciate their quick access to quality information.

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• Using the Data Form Web Part (SharePoint 2010) Site Agnostically!

  - by David Jacobus

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/djacobus/archive/2013/10/24/154465.aspxAs a Developer whom has worked closely with web designers (Power users) in a SharePoint environment, I have come across the issue of making the Data Form Web Part reusable across the site collection! In SharePoint 2007 it was very easy and this blog pointed the way to make it happen: Josh Gaffey's Blog. In SharePoint 2010 something changed! This method failed except for using a Data Form Web Part that pointed to a list in the Site Collection Root! I am making this discussion relative to a developer whom creates a solution (WSP) with all the artifacts embedded and the user shouldn’t have any involvement in the process except to activate features. The Scenario: 1. A Power User creates a Data Form Web Part using SharePoint Designer 2010! It is a great web part the uses all the power of SharePoint Designer and XSLT (Conditional formatting, etc.). 2. Other Users in the site collection want to use that specific web part in sub sites in the site collection. Pointing to a list with the same name, not at the site collection root! The Issues: 1. The Data Form Web Part Data Source uses a List ID (GUID) to point to the specific list. Which means a list in a sub site will have a list with a new GUID different than the one which was created with SharePoint Designer! Obviously, the List needs to be the same List (Fields, Content Types, etc.) with different data. 2. How can we make this web part site agnostic, and dependent only on the lists Name? I had this problem come up over and over and decided to put my solution forward! The Solution: 1. Use the XSL of the Data Form Web Part Created By the Power User in SharePoint Designer! 2. Extend the OOTB Data Form Web Part to use this XSL and Point to a List by name. The solution points to a hybrid solution that requires some coding (Developer) and the XSL (Power User) artifacts put together in a Visual Studio SharePoint Solution. Here are the solution steps in summary: 1. Create an empty SharePoint project in Visual Studio 2. Create a Module and Feature and put the XSL file created by the Power User into it a. Scope the feature to web 3. Create a Feature Receiver to Create the List. The same list from which the Data Form Web Part was created with by the Power User. a. Scope the feature to web 4. Create a Web Part extending the Data Form Web a. Point the Data Form Web Part to point to the List by Name b. Point the Data Form Web Part XSL link to the XSL added using the Module feature c. Scope The feature to Site i. This is because all web parts are in the site collection web part gallery. So in a Narrative Summary: We are creating a list in code which has the same name and (site Columns) as the list from which the Power User created the Data Form Web Part Using SharePoint Designer. We are creating a Web Part in code which extends the OOTB Data Form Web Part to point to a list by name and use the XSL created by the Power User. Okay! Here are the steps with images and code! At the end of this post I will provide a link to the code for a solution which works in any site! I want to TOOT the HORN for the power of this solution! It is the mantra a use with all my clients! What is a basic skill a SharePoint Developer: Create an application that uses the data from a SharePoint list and make that data visible to the user in a manner which meets requirements! Create an Empty SharePoint 2010 Project Here I am naming my Project DJ.DataFormWebPart Create a Code Folder Copy and paste the Extension and Utilities classes (Found in the solution provided at the end of this post) Change the Namespace to match this project The List to which the Data Form Web Part which was used to make the XSL by the Power User in SharePoint Designer is now going to be created in code! If already in code, then all the better! Here I am going to create a list in the site collection root and add some data to it! For the purpose of this discussion I will actually create this list in code before using SharePoint Designer for simplicity! So here I create the List and deploy it within this solution before I do anything else. I will use a List I created before for demo purposes. Footer List is used within the footer of my master page. Add a new Feature: Here I name the Feature FooterList and add a Feature Event Receiver: Here is the code for the Event Receiver: I have a previous blog post about adding lists in code so I will not take time to narrate this code: using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Security.Permissions; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using DJ.DataFormWebPart.Code; namespace DJ.DataFormWebPart.Features.FooterList { /// <summary> /// This class handles events raised during feature activation, deactivation, installation, uninstallation, and upgrade. /// </summary> /// <remarks> /// The GUID attached to this class may be used during packaging and should not be modified. /// </remarks> [Guid("a58644fd-9209-41f4-aa16-67a53af7a9bf")] public class FooterListEventReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver { SPWeb currentWeb = null; SPSite currentSite = null; const string columnGroup = "DJ"; const string ctName = "FooterContentType"; // Uncomment the method below to handle the event raised after a feature has been activated. public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { using (SPWeb spWeb = properties.GetWeb() as SPWeb) { using (SPSite site = new SPSite(spWeb.Site.ID)) { using (SPWeb rootWeb = site.OpenWeb(site.RootWeb.ID)) { //add the fields addFields(rootWeb); //add content type SPContentType testCT = rootWeb.ContentTypes[ctName]; // we will not create the content type if it exists if (testCT == null) { //the content type does not exist add it addContentType(rootWeb, ctName); } if ((spWeb.Lists.TryGetList("FooterList") == null)) { //create the list if it dosen't to exist CreateFooterList(spWeb, site); } } } } } #region ContentType public void addFields(SPWeb spWeb) { Utilities.addField(spWeb, "Link", SPFieldType.URL, false, columnGroup); Utilities.addField(spWeb, "Information", SPFieldType.Text, false, columnGroup); } private static void addContentType(SPWeb spWeb, string name) { SPContentType myContentType = new SPContentType(spWeb.ContentTypes["Item"], spWeb.ContentTypes, name) { Group = columnGroup }; spWeb.ContentTypes.Add(myContentType); addContentTypeLinkages(spWeb, myContentType); myContentType.Update(); } public static void addContentTypeLinkages(SPWeb spWeb, SPContentType ct) { Utilities.addContentTypeLink(spWeb, "Link", ct); Utilities.addContentTypeLink(spWeb, "Information", ct); } private void CreateFooterList(SPWeb web, SPSite site) { Guid newListGuid = web.Lists.Add("FooterList", "Footer List", SPListTemplateType.GenericList); SPList newList = web.Lists[newListGuid]; newList.ContentTypesEnabled = true; var footer = site.RootWeb.ContentTypes[ctName]; newList.ContentTypes.Add(footer); newList.ContentTypes.Delete(newList.ContentTypes["Item"].Id); newList.Update(); var view = newList.DefaultView; //add all view fields here //view.ViewFields.Add("NewsTitle"); view.ViewFields.Add("Link"); view.ViewFields.Add("Information"); view.Update(); } } } Basically created a content type with two site columns Link and Information. I had to change some code as we are working at the SPWeb level and need Content Types at the SPSite level! I’ll use a new Site Collection for this demo (Best Practice) keep old artifacts from impinging on development: Next we will add this list to the root of the site collection by deploying this solution, add some data and then use SharePoint Designer to create a Data Form Web Part. The list has been added, now let’s add some data: Okay let’s add a Data Form Web Part in SharePoint Designer. Create a new web part page in the site pages library: I will name it TestWP.aspx and edit it in advanced mode: Let’s add an empty Data Form Web Part to the web part zone: Click on the web part to add a data source: Choose FooterList in the Data Source menu: Choose appropriate fields and select insert as multiple item view: Here is what it look like after insertion: Let’s add some conditional formatting if the information filed is not blank: Choose Create (right side) apply formatting: Choose the Information Field and set the condition not null: Click Set Style: Here is the result: Okay! Not flashy but simple enough for this demo. Remember this is the job of the Power user! All we want from this web part is the XLS-Style Sheet out of SharePoint Designer. We are going to use it as the XSL for our web part which we will be creating next. Let’s add a web part to our project extending the OOTB Data Form Web Part. Add new item from the Visual Studio add menu: Choose Web Part: Change WebPart to DataFormWebPart (Oh well my namespace needs some improvement, but it will sure make it readily identifiable as an extended web part!) Below is the code for this web part: using System; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls; using System.Text; namespace DJ.DataFormWebPart.DataFormWebPart { [ToolboxItemAttribute(false)] public class DataFormWebPart : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.DataFormWebPart { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { base.OnInit(e); this.ChromeType = PartChromeType.None; this.Title = "FooterListDF"; try { //SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site; SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web; SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList("FooterList"); if (list != null) { string queryList1 = "<Query><Where><IsNotNull><FieldRef Name='Title' /></IsNotNull></Where><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Title' Ascending='True' /></OrderBy></Query>"; uint maximumRowList1 = 10; SPDataSource dataSourceList1 = GetDataSource(list.Title, web.Url, list, queryList1, maximumRowList1); this.DataSources.Add(dataSourceList1); this.XslLink = web.Url + "/Assests/Footer.xsl"; this.ParameterBindings = BuildDataFormParameters(); this.DataBind(); } } catch (Exception ex) { this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("ERROR: " + ex.Message)); } } private SPDataSource GetDataSource(string dataSourceId, string webUrl, SPList list, string query, uint maximumRow) { SPDataSource dataSource = new SPDataSource(); dataSource.UseInternalName = true; dataSource.ID = dataSourceId; dataSource.DataSourceMode = SPDataSourceMode.List; dataSource.List = list; dataSource.SelectCommand = "" + query + ""; Parameter listIdParam = new Parameter("ListID"); listIdParam.DefaultValue = list.ID.ToString( "B").ToUpper(); Parameter maximumRowsParam = new Parameter("MaximumRows"); maximumRowsParam.DefaultValue = maximumRow.ToString(); QueryStringParameter rootFolderParam = new QueryStringParameter("RootFolder", "RootFolder"); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(maximumRowsParam); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(rootFolderParam); dataSource.UpdateParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.DeleteParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.InsertParameters.Add(listIdParam); return dataSource; } private string BuildDataFormParameters() { StringBuilder parameters = new StringBuilder("<ParameterBindings><ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_apos\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/><ParameterBinding Name=\"UserID\" Location=\"CAMLVariable\" DefaultValue=\"CurrentUserName\"/><ParameterBinding Name=\"Today\" Location=\"CAMLVariable\" DefaultValue=\"CurrentDate\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_firstrow\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_nextpagedata\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_adhocmode\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_adhocfiltermode\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("</ParameterBindings>"); return parameters.ToString(); } } } The OnInit method we use to set the list name and the XSL Link property of the Data Form Web Part. We do not have the link to XSL in our Solution so we will add the XSL now: Add a Module in the Visual Studio add menu: Rename Sample.txt in the module to footer.xsl and then copy the XSL from SharePoint Designer Look at elements.xml to where the footer.xsl is being provisioned to which is Assets/footer.xsl, make sure the Web parts xsl link is pointing to this url: Okay we are good to go! Let’s check our features and package: DataFormWebPart should be scoped to site and have the web part: The Footer List feature should be scoped to web and have the Assets module (Okay, I see, a spelling issue but it won’t affect this demo) If everything is correct we should be able to click a couple of sub site feature activations and have our list and web part in a sub site. (In fact this solution can be activated anywhere) Here is the list created at SubSite1 with new data It. Next let’s add the web part on a test page and see if it works as expected: It does! So we now have a repeatable way to use a WSP to move a Data Form Web Part around our sites! Here is a link to the code: DataFormWebPart Solution

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• Addin Central Windows Home Server

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you’re a Windows Home Server user, you’ve probably come across a lot of cool addins that you can use to enhance its functionality. Today we take a look at Addin Central… which gives you easy access to the many addin possibilities out there. Addin Central from HomeServerLand is a free well…addin…that brings you information and easy access to several other addins that are available for your Windows Home Server. It essentially creates an “app store” of sorts for your Windows Home Server that you can view in the console. Install Addin Central Browse to your shared folders on the server and open the Add-Ins folder and copy the AddinCentral.msi installer (link below). Next open WHS Console from one of the computers connected to your network, and click Settings then Add-ins. Under Available Add-ins click the Available tab and you’ll see the Addin Central installer file we just copied over. Click the Install button. Installation kicks off and when it’s complete, you’ll need to close out of the console and reconnect. Using Addin Central When you reconnect to WHS Console, you’ll see Addin Central in the menu with a list of the newest updated addins. You can go through the list of addins and check out their rating, version, author, amount of downloads, and if they’re free or you need to purchase a license. You can sort through the addins by popularity, author, categories, or look at them all.   When you select an addin you can read more detail about it in the pane on the right side…from here you can go directly to the addin website as well. Hover over the thumbnail of the addin to get a larger screenshot of what it looks like. The toolbox gives you different options for controlling Addin Central, and notice you can easily search for addins too. In the Addin Central Toolbox you can change settings such as the startup view, showing tooltips, and more.   Conclusion If you’re a Windows Home Server user, you’ll definitely want to give Addin Central a go. It lets you easily find and download various addins for essentially anything you might want to use to customize your home server. HomeServerLand calls it “The Mother of All Addins” and for a good reason. Download Addin Central (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips GMedia Blog: Setting Up a Windows Home ServerGet Extended Access to Windows Home Server with Advanced Admin ConsoleShare Ubuntu Home Directories using SambaInstalling Windows Home ServerAnother Blog You Should Subscribe To TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time

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• PowerShell PowerPack Download

  - by BuckWoody

  I read Jeffery Hicks’ article in this month’s Redmond Magazine on a new add-in for Windows PowerShell 2.0. It’s called the PowerShell Pack and it has a some great new features that I plan to put into place on my production systems as soon as I finished learning and testing them. You can download the pack here if you have PowerShell 2.0. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I’ll blog about what I’m learning here in the near future, but you should check it out. The only issue I have with it right now is that you have to load a module and then use get-help to find out what it does, because I haven’t found a lot of other documentation so far. The most interesting modules for me are the ones that can run a command elevated (in PSUserTools), the task scheduling commands (in TaskScheduler) and the file system checks and tools (in FileSystem). There’s also a way to create simple Graphical User Interface panels (in ). I plan to string all these together to install a management set of tools on my SQL Server Express Instances, giving the user “task buttons” to backup or restore a database, add or delete users and so on. Yes, I’ll be careful, and yes, I’ll make sure the user is allowed to do that. For now, I’m testing the download, but I thought I would share what I’m up to. If you have PowerShell 2.0 and you download the pack, let me know how you use it. Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Open the SQL Server Error Log with PowerShell

  - by BuckWoody

  Using the Server Management Objects (SMO) library, you don’t even need to have the SQL Server 2008 PowerShell Provider to read the SQL Server Error Logs – in fact, you can use regular old everyday PowerShell. Keep in mind you will need the SMO libraries – which can be installed separately or by installing the Client Tools from the SQL Server install media. You could search for errors, store a result as a variable, or act on the returned values in some other way. Replace the Machine Name with your server and Instance Name with your instance, but leave the quotes, to make this work on your system: [reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo") $machineName = "UNIVAC" $instanceName = "Production" $sqlServer = new-object ("Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server") "$machineName\$instanceName" $sqlServer.ReadErrorLog() Want to search for something specific, like the word “Error”? Replace the last line with this: $sqlServer.ReadErrorLog() | where {$_.Text -like "Error*"} Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• A Plea for Plain English

  - by Tony Davis

  The English language has, within a lifetime, emerged as the ubiquitous 'international language' of scientific, political and technical communication. On the one hand, learning a single, common language, International English, has made it much easier to participate in and adopt new technologies; on the other hand it must be exasperating to have to use English at international conferences, or on community sites, when your own language has a long tradition of scientific and technical usage. It is also hard to master the subtleties of using a foreign language to explain advanced ideas. This requires English speakers to be more considerate in their writing. Even if you’re used to speaking English, you may be brought up short by this sort of verbiage… "Business Intelligence delivering actionable insights is becoming more critical in the enterprise, and these insights require large data volumes for trending and forecasting" It takes some imagination to appreciate the added hassle in working out what it means, when English is a language you only use at work. Try, just to get a vague feel for it, using Google Translate to translate it from English to Chinese and back again. "Providing actionable business intelligence point of view is becoming more and more and more business critical, and requires that these insights and projected trends in large amounts of data" Not easy eh? If you normally use a different language, you will need to pause for thought before finally working out that it really means … "Every Business Intelligence solution must be able to help companies to make decisions. In order to detect current trends, and accurately predict future ones, we need to analyze large volumes of data" Surely, it is simple politeness for English speakers to stop peppering their writing with a twisted vocabulary that renders it inaccessible to everyone else. It isn’t just the problem of writers who use long words to give added dignity to their prose. It is the use of Colloquial English. This changes and evolves at a dizzying rate, adding new terms and idioms almost daily; it is almost a new and separate language. By contrast, ‘International English', is gradually evolving separately, at its own, more sedate, pace. As such, all native English speakers need to make an effort to learn, and use it, switching from casual colloquial patter into a simpler form of communication that can be widely understood by different cultures, even if it gives you less credibility on the street. Simple-Talk is based, at least in part, on the idea that technical articles can be written simply and clearly in a form of English that can be easily understood internationally, and that they can be written, with a little editorial help, by anyone, and read by anyone, regardless of their native language. Cheers, Tony.

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• Partition Wise Joins II

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  One of the things that I did not talk about in the initial partition wise join post was the effect it has on resource allocation on the database server. When Oracle applies a different join method - e.g. not PWJ - what you will see in SQL Monitor (in Enterprise Manager) or in an Explain Plan is a set of producers and a set of consumers. The producers scan the tables in the the join. If there are two tables the producers first scan one table, then the other. The producers thus provide data to the consumers, and when the consumers have the data from both scans they do the join and give the data to the query coordinator. Now that behavior means that if you choose a degree of parallelism of 4 to run such query with, Oracle will allocate 8 parallel processes. Of these 8 processes 4 are producers and 4 are consumers. The consumers only actually do work once the producers are fully done with scanning both sides of the join. In the plan above you can see that the producers access table SALES [line 11] and then do a PX SEND [line 9]. That is the producer set of processes working. The consumers receive that data [line 8] and twiddle their thumbs while the producers go on and scan CUSTOMERS. The producers send that data to the consumer indicated by PX SEND [line 5]. After receiving that data [line 4] the consumers do the actual join [line 3] and give the data to the QC [line 2]. BTW, the myth that you see twice the number of processes due to the setting PARALLEL_THREADS_PER_CPU=2 is obviously not true. The above is why you will see 2 times the processes of the DOP. In a PWJ plan the consumers are not present. Instead of producing rows and giving those to different processes, a PWJ only uses a single set of processes. Each process reads its piece of the join across the two tables and performs the join. The plan here is notably different from the initial plan. First of all the hash join is done right on top of both table scans [line 8]. This query is a little more complex than the previous so there is a bit of noise above that bit of info, but for this post, lets ignore that (sort stuff). The important piece here is that the PWJ plan typically will be faster and from a PX process number / resources typically cheaper. You may want to look out for those plans and try to get those to appear a lot... CREDITS: credits for the plans and some of the info on the plans go to Maria, as she actually produced these plans and is the expert on plans in general... You can see her talk about explaining the explain plan and other optimizer stuff over here: ODTUG in Washington DC, June 27 - July 1 On the Optimizer blog At OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 19 - 23 Happy joining and hope to see you all at ODTUG and OOW...

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• MVC's Html.DropDownList and "There is no ViewData item of type 'IEnumerable<SelectListItem>' that has the key '...'

  - by pjohnson

  ASP.NET MVC's HtmlHelper extension methods take out a lot of the HTML-by-hand drudgery to which MVC re-introduced us former WebForms programmers. Another thing to which MVC re-introduced us is poor documentation, after the excellent documentation for most of the rest of ASP.NET and the .NET Framework which I now realize I'd taken for granted. I'd come to regard using HtmlHelper methods instead of writing HTML by hand as a best practice. When I upgraded a project from MVC 3 to MVC 4, several hidden fields with boolean values broke, because MVC 3 called ToString() on those values implicitly, and MVC 4 threw an exception until you called ToString() explicitly. Fields that used HtmlHelper weren't affected. I then went through dozens of views and manually replaced hidden inputs that had been coded by hand with Html.Hidden calls. So for a dropdown list I was rendering on the initial page as empty, then populating via JavaScript after an AJAX call, I tried to use a HtmlHelper method: @Html.DropDownList("myDropdown") which threw an exception: System.InvalidOperationException: There is no ViewData item of type 'IEnumerable<SelectListItem>' that has the key 'myDropdown'. That's funny--I made no indication I wanted to use ViewData. Why was it looking there? Just render an empty select list for me. When I populated the list with items, it worked, but I didn't want to do that: @Html.DropDownList("myDropdown", new List<SelectListItem>() { new SelectListItem() { Text = "", Value = "" } }) I removed this dummy item in JavaScript after the AJAX call, so this worked fine, but I shouldn't have to give it a list with a dummy item when what I really want is an empty select. A bit of research with JetBrains dotPeek (helpfully recommended by Scott Hanselman) revealed the problem. Html.DropDownList requires some sort of data to render or it throws an error. The documentation hints at this but doesn't make it very clear. Behind the scenes, it checks if you've provided the DropDownList method any data. If you haven't, it looks in ViewData. If it's not there, you get the exception above. In my case, the helper wasn't doing much for me anyway, so I reverted to writing the HTML by hand (I ain't scared), and amended my best practice: When an HTML control has an associated HtmlHelper method and you're populating that control with data on the initial view, use the HtmlHelper method instead of writing by hand.

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• Autoscaling in a modern world&hellip;. Part 3

  - by Steve Loethen

  The Wasabi Hands on Labs give you a good look at the basic mechanics, but I don’t find the setup too practical.  Using a local console application to host the Autoscaler and rules files is probably the (IMHO) least likely architecture.  Far more common would be hosting in a service on premise (if you want to have the Autoscaler local) or most likely, host it in a Azure role of it’s own.  I chose to go the Azure route. First step was to get the rules.xml and the services.xml files into the cloud.  I tend to be a “one step at a time” sort of guy, so running the console application with the rules sitting in a Azure hosted set of blobs seemed to be the logical first step.  Here are the steps: 1) Create a container in the storage account you wish to use.  Name does not matter, you will get a chance to set the container name (as well as the file names) in the app.config 2) Copy the two files from where you created them to your  container.  I used the same files I had locally.  I made the container public to eliminate security issues, but in the final application, a bit of security needs to be applied (one problem at a time).  The content type was set to text/xml.  I found one reference claiming the importance of this step, and it makes sense. 3) Adjust the app.config to set the location of the files.  This will let you set all the storage account and key information needed to reach into the cloud form your console application.  The sections of your app.config will look like this: <rulesStores> <add name="Blob Rules Store" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.WindowsAzure.Autoscaling.Rules.Configuration.BlobXmlFileRulesStore, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.WindowsAzure.Autoscaling, Version=5.0.1118.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" blobContainerName="[ContainerName]" blobName="rules.xml" storageAccount="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=[StorageAccount];AccountKey=[AccountKey]" monitoringRate="00:00:30" certificateThumbprint="" certificateStoreLocation="LocalMachine" checkCertificateValidity="false" /> </rulesStores> <serviceInformationStores> <add name="Blob Service Information Store" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.WindowsAzure.Autoscaling.ServiceModel.Configuration.BlobXmlFileServiceInformationStore, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.WindowsAzure.Autoscaling, Version=5.0.1118.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" blobContainerName="[ContainerName]" blobName="services.xml" storageAccount="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=[StorageAccount];AccountKey=[AccountKey]" monitoringRate="00:00:30" certificateThumbprint="" certificateStoreLocation="LocalMachine" checkCertificateValidity="false" /> </serviceInformationStores> Once I had the files up in the sky, I renamed the local copies to just to make my self feel better about the application using the correct set of rules and services.  Deploy the web role to the cloud.  Once it is up and running, start the console application.  You should find the application scales up and down in response to the buttons on the web site.  Tune in next time for moving the hosting of the Autoscaler to a worker role, discussions on getting the logging information into diagnostics into storage, and a set of discussions about certs and how they play a role.

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• Network Solutions Gold VIP Program

  - by GGBlogger

  Today I received an email advising me “Congratulations! You have been selected for the Network Solutions Gold VIP Program” Now I get a bunch of messages from Network Solutions because a long time ago I chose them as my registrar. I usually just save these to my Outlook Network Solutions folder and move on. This time my wife was in the room and I chuckled and said something about “Network Solutions has made me a Gold VIP member.” She said “So what does that mean?” Prompted by that I scrolled down the page to look at my “perks". Let’s see – Special pricing, 1 year free Web Forwarding, 1 hour of free support… etc etc until I hit “Enrollment in SafeRenew* SafeRenew* simplifies your renewal process. It protects your domain name registrations and corresponding services in the event you forget or are unable to renew on time. I’m thinking “Now ain’t that neat” I don’t use auto renew anyway and never have. Then I continued reading: Beginning June 24th, 2012 your domains* (that’s 10 days away) will automatically renew. To ensure continuation of service, please be certain you have a valid credit card on file. If you do not wish for your services to be automatically renewed, please click here to log into account manager and opt out of the SafeRenew™ service. Whoa Network Solutions is going to start spending my money without so much as a by your leave sir!!! I don’t bloody think so and how truly magnanimous of them I can “click here” to opt out of what I didn’t opt in for. Talk about furious! I still am. Now the kicker is: if my wife hadn’t been curious and if I’d had a working credit card on file I wouldn’t have know this until one of my unwanted domain names auto renewed. Of course I was told “Oh – we’d have refunded your money” to which I say bull. In my view Networks Solutions is guilty of a crime of some sort. They DO NOT have a right to spend my money without asking!!!!! So watch out folks.

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• Who Are the BI Users in Your Neighborhood?

  - by Brian Dayton

  Forrester's Boris Evelson recently wrote a blog titled "Who are the BI Personas?" that I enjoyed for a number of reasons. It's a quick read, easy to grasp and (refreshingly) focuses on the users of technology VS the technology. As Evelson admits, he meant to keep the reference chart at a high-level because there are too many different permutations and additional sub-categories to make such a chart useful. For me, I wouldn't head into the technical permutations but more the contextual use of BI and the issues that users experience.  My thoughts brought up more questions than answers such as: Context: -          HOW: With the exception of the "Power User" persona--likely some sort of business or operations analyst? -          WHEN: Are they using the information to make real-time decisions on the front lines (a customer service manager or shipping/logistics VP) or are they using this information for cumulative analysis and business planning? Or both? -          WHERE: What areas of the business are more or less likely to rely on BI across an organization? Human Resources, Operations, Facilities, Finance--- and why are some more prone to use data-driven analysis than others? Issues: -          DELAYS & DRAG ON IT?: One of the persona characteristics Evelson calls out is a reliance on IT. Every persona except for the "Power User" has a heavy reliance on IT for support. What business issues or delays does that cause to users? What is the drag on IT resources who could potentially be creating instead of reporting? -          HOW MANY CLICKS: If BI is being used within the context of a transaction (sales manager looking for upsell opportunities as an example) is that person getting the information within the context of that action or transaction? Or are they minimizing screens, logging into another application or reporting tool, running queries, etc.?   Who are the BI Users in your neighborhood or line of business? Do Evelson's personas resonate--and do the tools that he calls out (he refers to it as "BI Style") resonate with what your personas have or need? Finally, I'm very interested if BI use is viewed as  a bolt-on...or an integrated part of your daily enterprise processes?

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• Sites To Download Free eBooks For Kindle

  - by Gopinath

  Amazon Kindle is the top selling gadget of this holiday season and many of you would have received it as a gift. For those who got a Amazon Kindle here are few websites that offer free eBooks to fulfil reading appetite at no cost. 1. Free Kindle Books – Amazon Website – This page on Amazon lists nice collection of free books available for Kindle that includes Serial by Jack Kiborn, The Wild’s Call by Jeri Smith, Star Wars by John Jackson MIller and several other books from a list of 40 books. 2. Project Gutenberg: This site as 33,000 + free books that not work let you read on Kindle but also on iPad, PCs and smart phones.  This site is very popular for free ebooks. 3. Google E-Bookstore: Google’s eBookStore has thousands of free ebooks for Kindle in their free books section. 4. Internet Archive: Here you find millions of rare print works that are especially useful for academic research. Multiple language books are also available for Kindle. 5. Open Library: This site is sort of Wikipedia for eBooks with over 20 million user-contributed books and magazines. They are all Kindle friendly. 6. ManyBooks.net: Nearly 30,000 titles, many of which have been pulled from Project Gutenberg. Has a good collection of little-known Creative Commons works. 7. Freebooks.com – the public domain section of this site contains many free ebooks that are perfect for your Kindle. 8. freecomputerbooks.com, freetechbooks.com and onlinecomputerbooks.com - if you are geek and looking for technology books, this is the site you should visit to grab free books. Image credit: bike/flickr This article titled,Sites To Download Free eBooks For Kindle, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Chuck Norris Be Thy Name

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Chuck Norris doesn’t program with a keyboard. He stares the computer down until it does what he wants. All things need a name. We’ve tossed around a bunch of names for the framework of tools we’ve been working on, but one we kept coming back to was Chuck Norris. Why did we choose Chuck Norris? Well Chuck Norris sort of chose us. Everything we talked about, the name kept drawing us closer to it. We couldn’t escape Chuck Norris, no matter how hard we tried. So we gave in. Chuck Norris can divide by zero. What is the Chuck Norris Framework? @drusellers and I have been working on a variety of tools: WarmuP - http://github.com/chucknorris/warmup (Template your entire project/solution and create projects ready to code - From Zero to a Solution with everything in seconds. Your templates, your choices.) UppercuT - http://projectuppercut.org (Build with Conventions - Professional Builds in Moments, Not Days!) | Code also at http://github.com/chucknorris/uppercut DropkicK - http://github.com/chucknorris/dropkick (Deploy Fluently) RoundhousE - http://projectroundhouse.org (Professional Database Management with Versioning) | Code also at http://github.com/chucknorris/roundhouse SidePOP - http://sidepop.googlecode.com (Does your application need to check email?) HeadlocK - http://github.com/chucknorris/headlock (Hash a directory so you can later know if anything has changed) Others – still in concept or vaporware People ask why we choose such violent names for each tool of our framework? At first it was about whipping your code into shape, but after awhile the naming became, “How can we relate this to Chuck Norris?” People also ask why we uppercase the last letter of each name. Well, that’s more about making you ask questions…but there are a few reasons for it. Project managers never ask Chuck Norris for estimations…ever. The class object inherits from Chuck Norris Chuck Norris doesn’t need garbage collection because he doesn’t call .Dispose(), he calls .DropKick() So what are you waiting for? Join the Google group today, download and play with the tools. And lastly, welcome to Chuck Norris. Or should I say Chuck Norris welcomes you…

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• Finally home - and something fully off topic

  - by Mike Dietrich

  Arrived at Munich Pasing last night at 0:50am ... finally :-) On Sunday I've left the Dylan Hotel in Dublin (thanks to the staff there as well: you were REALLY helpful!!) around 7:30pm to go to the port - and came home on Tuesday morning 1:15am. So all together 29:45hrs door-to-door - not bad for nearly 2000km just relying on public transport. And could have been faster if there were seats in ealier TGV's left. But I don't complain at all ;-) Just checked the website of Dublin Airport - it says currently: 17.00pm: Latest on flight disruptions at Dublin Airport The IAA have advised us that based on the latest Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre London Dublin Airport will remain closed for all inbound and outbound commercial flights until 20.00hours. This effectively means that no flights will land or take off at Dublin Airport until then. A further update will be posted this afternoon. When traveling I have always my iPod with me. It has gotten a bit old now (I think I've bought it 3 years ago in November 2007) but it has a 160GB hard disk in it so it fits most of my music collection (not the entire collection anymore as I'm currently re-riping everything to Apple Lossless because at least for my ears it makes a big difference - but I listen to good ol' vinyl as well ...and I don't download compressed music ;-) ). The battery of my little travel companion is still good for more than 20 hours consistent music playback - and there was a band from Texas being in my ears most of the whole journey called Midlake. I haven't heard of them before until I asked a lady at a Munich store some few weeks ago what she's playing on the speakers in the shop. She was amazed and came back with the CD cover but I hesitated to buy it as I always want to listen the tunes before - and at this day I had no time left to do so. But in Dublin I had a bit of spare time on Saturday and I always enter record stores - and the Tower Records was the sort of store I really enjoy and so I've spent there nearly two hours - leaving with 3 Midlake CDs in my bag. So if you are interested just listen those tunes which may remind some people on Fleetwood Mac: As I said in the title, fully off topic ;-)

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• Development processes, the use of version control, and unit-testing

  - by ct01

  Preface I've worked at quite a few "flat" organizations in my time. Most of the version control policy/process has been "only commit after it's been tested". We were constantly committing at each place to "trunk" (cvs/svn). The same was true with unit-testing - it's always been a "we need to do this" mentality but it never really materializes in a substantive form b/c there is no institutional knowledge base to do it - no mentorship. Version Control The emphasis for version control management at one place was a very strict protocol for commit messages (format & content). The other places let employees just do "whatever". The branching, tagging, committing, rolling back, and merging aspect of things was always ill defined and almost never used. This sort of seems to leave the version control system in the position of being a fancy file-storage mechanism with a meta-data component that never really gets accessed/utilized. (The same was true for unit testing and committing code to the source tree) Unit tests It seems there's a prevailing "we must/should do this" mentality in most places I've worked. As a policy or standard operating procedure it never gets implemented because there seems to be a very ill-defined understanding about what that means, what is going to be tested, and how to do it. Summary It seems most places I've been to think version control and unit testing is "important" b/c the trendy trade journals say it is but, if there's very little mentorship to use these tools or any real business policies, then the full power of version control/unit testing is never really expressed. So grunts, like myself, never really have a complete understanding of the point beyond that "it's a good thing" and "we should do it". Question I was wondering if there are blogs, books, white-papers, or online journals about what one could call the business process or "standard operating procedures" or uses cases for version control and unit testing? I want to know more than the trade journals tell me and get serious about doing these things. PS: @Henrik Hansen had a great comment about the lack of definition for the question. I'm not interested in a specific unit-testing/versioning product or methodology (like, XP) - my interest is more about work-flow at the individual team/developer level than evangelism. This is more-or-less a by product of the management situation I've operated under more than a lack of reading software engineering books or magazines about development processes. A lot of what I've seen/read is more marketing oriented material than any specifically enumerated description of "well, this is how our shop operates".

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• Search and Browse Database Objects with Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  I was tempted to throw in another Dora the Explorer Map reference here, but I came to my senses.Having trouble finding something? Maybe you’re just getting older? I know I am. But still, it’d be nice if my favorite database tool could help me out a bit. Hmmm, what’s this ‘Find Database Object‘ thing over here…sounds like a search mechanism of some sort? You can access this panel from the ‘View‘ menu. It’s a good bit down the screen, so I don’t blame you if you haven’t seen it before. It makes finding ‘stuff’ in your database so much easier. Let’s say I want to find my ‘beer’ objects. I simply need to type my search string and the context (in this case I want it to search EVERYTHING), and hit enter. The search results are listed below and clicking on an object automatically opens it! I know it seems very simple, but I get asked this question a LOT. It will even search through your PL/SQL code! Finding too much? Be sure to toggle off the ‘%’ wildcard check box before doing a search. Working on a Project? I bet you use common column names, or codes, throughout your tables. You could take advantage of this knowledge and use the Find Database Object panel as a substitute connection tree or schema browser. Working on your HR project and want to look at your employee objects? Do a column search for your column ID/key. Sometimes thinking outside the box actually works! Don’t be afraid to tackle a problem from a weird angle, or re-purpose your tools. I do it all the time And I drive the developers nuts trying to do things with the tools they were never designed to do. But I digress. Back to your coding!

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• Maintaining Revision Levels

  - by kyle.hatlestad

  A question that came up on an earlier blog post was how to limit the number of revisions on a piece of content. UCM does not inherently enforce any sort of limit on how many revisions you can have. It's unlimited. In some cases, there may be content that goes through lots of changes, but there just simply isn't a need to keep all of its revisions around. Deleting those revisions through the content information screen can be very cumbersome. And going through the Repository Manager applet can take time as well to filter and find the revisions to get rid of. But there is an easier way through the Archiver. The Export Query criteria in Archiver includes a very handy field called 'Revision Rank'. With revision labels, they typically go up as new revisions come in (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc...). But you can't really use this field to tell it to keep the top 5 revisions. Those top 5 revision numbers are always going up. But revision rank goes the opposite direction. The very latest revision is always 0. The previous revision to that is 1. Previous revision to that is 2. And so on and so forth. With revision rank, you can set your query to look for any Revision Rank greater or equal to 5. Now as older revisions move down the line, their revision rank gets higher and higher until they reach that threshold. Then when you run that archive export, you can choose to delete and remove those revisions. Running that export in Archiver is normally a manual process. But with Idc Command, you can script the process and have it run automatically from the server. Idc Command is a utility that allows you to run any of the content server services via the command line. You basically feed it a text file with the services and parameters defined along with the user to run it as. The Idc Command executable is located within the \bin\ directory: $ ./IdcCommand -f DeleteOlderRevisions.txt -u sysadmin -l delete_revisions.log In this example, our IdcCommand file to run the export and do the deletions would look like: IdcService=EXPORT_ARCHIVE aArchiveName=DeleteOlderRevisions aDoDelete=1 IDC_Name=idc dataSource=RevisionIDs <<EOD>> You can then use automated scheduling routines in the OS to run the command and command file at the frequency needed. Remember that you are deleting the revisions from within UCM, but they are still getting placed within the archive. So you will need to delete those batches to have them fully removed (or re-import if you need to recover them). For more information about Idc Command, you can find that in the Idc Command Reference Guide.

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• Isometric screen to 3D world coordinates efficiently

  - by Justin

  Been having a difficult time transforming 2D screen coordinates to 3D isometric space. This is the situation where I am working in 3D but I have an orthographic camera. Then my camera is positioned at (100, 200, 100), Where the xz plane is flat and y is up and down. I've been able to get a sort of working solution, but I feel like there must be a better way. Here's what I'm doing: With my camera at (0, 1, 0) I can translate my screen coordinates directly to 3D coordinates by doing: mouse2D.z = (( event.clientX / window.innerWidth ) * 2 - 1) * -(window.innerWidth /2); mouse2D.x = (( event.clientY / window.innerHeight) * 2 + 1) * -(window.innerHeight); mouse2D.y = 0; Everything okay so far. Now when I change my camera back to (100, 200, 100) my 3D space has been rotated 45 degrees around the y axis and then rotated about 54 degrees around a vector Q that runs along the xz plane at a 45 degree angle between the positive z axis and the negative x axis. So what I do to find the point is first rotate my point by 45 degrees using a matrix around the y axis. Now I'm close. So then I rotate my point around the vector Q. But my point is closer to the origin than it should be, since the Y value is not 0 anymore. What I want is that after the rotation my Y value is 0. So now I exchange my X and Z coordinates of my rotated vector with the X and Z coordinates of my non-rotated vector. So basically I have my old vector but it's y value is at an appropriate rotated amount. Now I use another matrix to rotate my point around the vector Q in the opposite direction, and I end up with the point where I clicked. Is there a better way? I feel like I must be missing something. Also my method isn't completely accurate. I feel like it's within 5-10 coordinates of where I click, maybe because of rounding from many calculations. Sorry for such a long question.

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• Introduction to Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems

  - by Ben Griswold

  Last year I took myself through a crash course on Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems in preparation for an in-house presentation.  I learned a bunch.  In this series, I’ll be sharing what I learned with you.   If your career looks anything like mine, you have probably been affiliated with a company or two which pushed requirements gathering and documentation to the nth degree. To add insult to injury, they probably added planning process (documentation, requirements, policies, meetings, committees) to the extent that it possibly retarded any progress. In my opinion, the typical company resembles the quote from Tom DeMarco. It isn’t enough just to do things right – we also had to say in advance exactly what we intended to do and then do exactly that. In the 1980s, Toyota turned the tables and revolutionize the automobile industry with their approach of “Lean Manufacturing.” A massive paradigm shift hit factories throughout the US and Europe. Mass production and scientific management techniques from the early 1900’s were questioned as Japanese manufacturing companies demonstrated that ‘Just-in-Time’ was a better paradigm. The widely adopted Japanese manufacturing concepts came to be known as ‘lean production’. Lean Thinking capitalizes on the intelligence of frontline workers, believing that they are the ones who should determine and continually improve the way they do their jobs. Lean puts main focus on people and communication – if people who produce the software are respected and they communicate efficiently, it is more likely that they will deliver good product and the final customer will be satisfied. In time, the abstractions behind lean production spread to logistics, and from there to the military, to construction, and to the service industry. As it turns out, principles of lean thinking are universal and have been applied successfully across many disciplines. Lean has been adopted by companies including Dell, FedEx, Lens Crafters, LLBean, SW Airlines, Digital River and eBay. Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production. This book chronicles the movement of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production. Tom and Mary Poppendieck, that is.  Here’s one of their books: Implementing Lean Software Thinking: From Concept to Cash Our in-house presentations are supposed to run no more than 45 minutes.  I really cranked and got through my 87 slides in just under an hour. Of course, I had to cheat a little – I only covered the 7 principles and a single practice. In the next part of the series, we’ll dive into Principle #1: Eliminate Waste. And I am going to be a little obnoxious about listing my Lean and Kanban references with every series post.  The references are great and they deserve this sort of attention. 

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_DISC() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function PERCENTILE_DISC(). The book online gives following definition of this function: Computes a specific percentile for sorted values in an entire rowset or within distinct partitions of a rowset in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0). For a given percentile value P, PERCENTILE_DISC sorts the values of the expression in the ORDER BY clause and returns the value with the smallest CUME_DIST value (with respect to the same sort specification) that is greater than or equal to P. If you are clear with understanding of the function – no need to read further. If you got lost here is the same in simple words – find value of the column which is equal or more than CUME_DIST. Before you continue reading this blog I strongly suggest you read about CUME_DIST function over here Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: You can see that I have used PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) in query, which is similar to finding median but not exactly. PERCENTILE_DISC() function takes a percentile as a passing parameters. It returns the value as answer which value is equal or great to the percentile value which is passed into the example. For example in above example we are passing 0.5 into the PERCENTILE_DISC() function. It will go through the resultset and identify which rows has values which are equal to or great than 0.5. In first example it found two rows which are equal to 0.5 and the value of ProductID of that row is the answer of PERCENTILE_DISC(). In some third windowed resultset there is only single row with the CUME_DIST() value as 1 and that is for sure higher than 0.5 making it as a answer. To make sure that we are clear with this example properly. Here is one more example where I am passing 0.6 as a percentile. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: The result of the PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) is ProductID of which CUME_DIST() is more than 0.6. This means for SalesOrderID 43670 has row with CUME_DIST() 0.75 is the qualified row, resulting answer 773 for ProductID. I hope this explanation makes it further clear. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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