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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 Client-Side Validation Summary with jQuery Validation (Unobtrusive JavaScript)

    - by Soe Tun
    When we were working with ASP.NET MVC 2, we needed to write our own JavaScript to get Client-Side Validation Summary with jQuery Validation plugin. I am one of those unfortunate people still stuck with .NET Framework Runtime 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.5; meaning I am still on ASP.NET MVC 2. So I will still keep on supporting by answering any question you may have with my original code.   Long awaited ASP.NET MVC 3 has been released, and it supports Client Side Validation Summary with jQuery out-of-the-box with new features like Unobtrusive JavaScript.   1. _Layout.cshtml Template Notice that I am using Protocol Relative URLs ( i.e., '//'.  Not 'http://' or 'https://' ) to reference script files and css files and you should use it too like that! However, please note that IE7 and IE8 will download the CSS files twice so use it with judgement. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>@ViewBag.Title</title> <link href="@Url.Content("~/Assets/Site.css")" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/themes/redmond/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" /> </head> <body> @RenderBody() <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.4/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="//ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery.Validate/1.7/jQuery.Validate.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="//ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/mvc/3.0/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </body> </html>   2. MVC View Template There are 3 things you *must* do exactly to get Client Side Validation Summary working. (1)  You must declare your Validation Summary **inside** the `Html.BeginForm()` block like below. (2)  You must pass `excludePropertyErrors: false` to the  Html.ValidationSummary()  method. @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.ValidationSummary(false, "Please fix these errors."); <!-- The rest of your View Template --> }   (3)  You have to put the following two elements in the `<appSettings />` block of your Web.config file. <add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true"/> <add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true"/>   That is all you need to do.  Simple, right? I will upload a sample project for download soon.  Please let me know if you run into some issues.     P.S: Without getting into too much technical details, I just wanted to let you know what I went through to get this to work. I had to look into the ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM Source Code and the jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js source. Initially, I thought I have to hack the jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js or something to get this to work. But after digging into MVC3 RTM source, I found out how to do it.

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  • Customize Entity Framework SSDL &amp; SQL Generation

    - by Dane Morgridge
    In almost every talk I have done on Entity Framework I get questions on how to do custom SSDL or SQL when using model first development.  Quite a few of these questions have required custom changes to the SSDL, which of course can be a problem if it is getting auto generated.  Luckily, there is a tool that can help.  In the Visual Studio Gallery on MSDN, there is the Entity Designer Database Generation Power Pack. You have the ability to select different generation strategies and it also allows you to inject custom T4 Templates into the generation workflow so that you can customize the SSDL and SQL generation.  When you select to generate a database from a model the dialog is replaced by one with more options:   You can clone the individual workflow for either the current project or current machine.  The templates are installed at “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Entity Framework Tools\DBGen” on my local machine and you can make a copy of any template there.  If you clone the strategy and open it up, you will get the following workflow: Each item in the sequence is defining the execution of a T4 template.  The XAML for the workflow is listed below so you can see where the T4 files are defined.  You can simply make a copy of an existing template and make what ever changes you need.   1: <Activity x:Class="GenerateDatabaseScriptWorkflow" ... > 2: <x:Members> 3: <x:Property Name="Csdl" Type="InArgument(sde:EdmItemCollection)" /> 4: <x:Property Name="ExistingSsdl" Type="InArgument(s:String)" /> 5: <x:Property Name="ExistingMsl" Type="InArgument(s:String)" /> 6: <x:Property Name="Ssdl" Type="OutArgument(s:String)" /> 7: <x:Property Name="Msl" Type="OutArgument(s:String)" /> 8: <x:Property Name="Ddl" Type="OutArgument(s:String)" /> 9: <x:Property Name="SmoSsdl" Type="OutArgument(ss:SsdlServer)" /> 10: </x:Members> 11: <Sequence> 12: <dbtk:ProgressBarStartActivity /> 13: <dbtk:CsdlToSsdlTemplateActivity SsdlOutput="[Ssdl]" TemplatePath="$(VSEFTools)\DBGen\CSDLToSSDL_TPT.tt" /> 14: <dbtk:CsdlToMslTemplateActivity MslOutput="[Msl]" TemplatePath="$(VSEFTools)\DBGen\CSDLToMSL_TPT.tt" /> 15: <ded:SsdlToDdlActivity ExistingSsdlInput="[ExistingSsdl]" SsdlInput="[Ssdl]" DdlOutput="[Ddl]" /> 16: <dbtk:GenerateAlterSqlActivity DdlInputOutput="[Ddl]" DeployToScript="True" DeployToDatabase="False" /> 17: <dbtk:ProgressBarEndActivity ClosePopup="true" /> 18: </Sequence> 19: </Activity>   So as you can see, this tool enables you to make some pretty heavy customizations to how the SSDL and SQL get generated.  You can get more info and the tool can be downloaded from: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/df3541c3-d833-4b65-b942-989e7ec74c87.  There is a comments section on the site so make sure you let the team know what you like and what you don’t like.  Enjoy!

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  • Folders in SQL Server Data Tools

    - by jamiet
    Recently I have begun a new project in which I am using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) 2012. Although I have been using SSDT & SSIS fairly extensively while SQL Server 2012 was in the beta phase I usually find that you don’t learn about the capabilities and quirks of new products until you use them on a real project, hence I am hoping I’m going to have a lot of experiences to share on my blog over the coming few weeks. In this first such blog post I want to talk about file and folder organisation in SSDT. The predecessor to SSDT is Visual Studio Database Projects. When one created a new Visual Studio Database Project a folder structure was provided with “Schema Objects” and “Scripts” in the root and a series of subfolders for each schema: Apparently a few customers were not too happy with the tool arbitrarily creating lots of folders in Solution Explorer and hence SSDT has gone in completely the opposite direction; now no folders are created and new objects will get created in the root – it is at your discretion where they get moved to: After using SSDT for a few weeks I can safely say that I preferred the older way because I never used Solution Explorer to navigate my schema objects anyway so it didn’t bother me how many folders it created. Having said that the thought of a single long list of files in Solution Explorer without any folders makes me shudder so on this project I have been manually creating folders in which to organise files and I have tried to mimic the old way as much as possible by creating two folders in the root, one for all schema objects and another for Pre/Post deployment scripts: This works fine until different developers start to build their own different subfolder structures; if you are OCD-inclined like me this is going to grate on you eventually and hence you are going to want to move stuff around so that you have consistent folder structures for each schema and (if you have multiple databases) each project. Moreover new files get created with a filename of the object name + “.sql” and often people like to have an extra identifier in the filename to indicate the object type: The overall point is this – files and folders in your solution are going to change. Some version control systems (VCSs) don’t take kindly to files being moved around or renamed because they recognise the renamed/moved file simply as a new file and when they do that you lose the revision history which, to my mind, is one of the key benefits of using a VCS in the first place. On this project we have been using Team Foundation Server (TFS) and while it pains me to say it (as I am no great fan of TFS’s version control system) it has proved invaluable when dealing with the SSDT problems that I outlined above because it is integrated right into the Visual Studio IDE. Thus the advice from this blog post is: If you are using SSDT consider using an Visual-Studio-integrated VCS that can easily handle file renames and file moves I suspect that fans of other VCSs will counter by saying that their VCS weapon of choice can handle renames/file moves quite satisfactorily and if that’s the case…great…let me know about them in the comments. This blog post is not an attempt to make people use one particular VCS, only to make people aware of this issue that might rise when using SSDT. More to come in the coming few weeks! @jamiet

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  • How to undo a changeset using tf.exe rollback

    - by Tarun Arora
    Technorati Tags: Team Foundation Server 2010,Team Foundation Utilities,TFS2010   Oh no! Did you just check in a changeset in to TFS and realized that you need to roll back the changeset because the changes were suppose to go in a different branch? Or did you just accidently merge a wrong changeset in your release branch? There are several ways to undo the damage, Manual: Yes, we all just hate this word but for the record you could manually rollback the changes. Get Specific version on the branch and chose the changeset prior to the one you checked in. After that check out all the files in the changeset and check them in. During the check in you will receive a conflict. At this point choose ‘Keep local changes’ in the conflict resolution window and check in the files. Automated: Yes, we just love it! TFS comes with a very powerful command line utility ‘tf.exe’ that gives you the ability to rollback the effects of one or more changesets to one or more version-controlled items. This command does not remove the changesets from an item's version history. Instead, this command creates in your workspace a set of pending changes that negate the effects of the changesets that you specify. Syntax tf rollback /toversion:VersionSpec ItemSpec [/recursive] [/lock:none|checkin|checkout] [/version:versionspec] [/keepmergehistory] [/login:username,[password]] [/noprompt] tf rollback /changeset:ChangesetFrom~ChangesetTo [ItemSpec] [/recursive] [/lock:none|checkin|checkout] [/version:VersionSpec] [/keepmergehistory] [/noprompt] [/login:username,[password]]   I’ll explain this with an example. Your workspace is at the location C:\myWorkspace You want to rollback changeset # 145621 C:\Workspace\MyBranch>tf.exe rollback /changeset:145621 /recursive How do i rollback/undo a series of changesets? You can also rollback a range of changesets by using the following C:\Workspace\MyBranch>tf.exe rollback /changeset:145601~145621 /recursive This will check out the files in the version control and you should be able to see them in the pending changes. Go on check them in to undo the specific changeset that you just rolled back. Do you completely want to get rid of the changeset from all future merges between the two branches? /KeepMergeHistory: This option has an effect only if one or more of the changesets that you are rolling back include a branch or merge change. Specify this option if you want future merges between the same source and the same target to exclude the changes that you are rolling back. Errors “If you get the message ‘Unable to determine the workspace.’ You may be able to correct this by running ‘tf worksapces /collection:TeamProjectCollectionUrl’” you are in the wrong directory. Make sure that you run the ‘tf rollback’ command from the directory of your workspace.   Status Exit Code Description 0 The operation rolled back all items successfully. 1 The operation rolled back at least one item successfully but could not roll back one or more items. 100 The operation could not roll back any items.   To use the command you must have the Read, Check Out, and Check In permissions set to Allow. So, have you been in a rollback undo situation before?   Share this post :

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for October 7-13, 2012

    - by Bob Rhubart
    The Top 10 items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the week of October 7-13, 2012. OOW12: Oracle Business Process Management/Oracle ADF Integration Best Practices | Andrejus Baranovskis The Oracle OpenWorld presentations keep coming! Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis shares the slides from "Oracle Business Process Management/Oracle ADF Integration Best Practices," co-presented with Danilo Schmiedel from Opitz Consulting. Oracle's Analytics, Engineered Systems, and Big Data Strategy | Mark Rittman Part 1 of 3 in Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman's series on Oracle Exalytics, Oracle R Enterprise and Endeca. Adaptive ADF/WebCenter template for the iPad | Maiko Rocha Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Maiko Rocha responds to a a customer request for information about how to create an adaptive iPad template for their WebCenter Portal application, "a specific template to streamline their workflow on the iPad." Following the Thread in OSB | Antony Reynolds Antony Reynolds recently led an Oracle Service Bus POC in which his team needed to get high throughput from an OSB pipeline. "Imagine our surprise when, on stressing the system, we saw it lock up, with large numbers of blocked threads." He shares the details of the problem and the solution in this extensive technical post. WebCenter Sites Gadget Development Concepts Quickstart | John Brunswick What are Gadgets? "At their most basic level they can be thought of as lightweight portlets that run largely on the client side of an architecture," says John Brunswick. "Gadgets provide a cross-platform container to run reusable UI modules that generally expose dynamic information to an end user, allowing for some level of end user customization." Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: OAM and OIM 11g Academies Looking for technical how-to content covering Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Identity Manager? The people behind the Oracle Middleware Security blog have indexed relevant blog posts into what they call Academies. "These indexes contain the articles we've written that we believe provide long lasting guidance on OAM and OIM. Posts covered in these series include articles on key aspects of OAM and OIM 11g, best practice architectural guidance, integrations, and customizations." Fusion Applications Technical Tips | Naveen Nahata "Setting memory parameters for Admin and Managed servers of various domains in Fusion Applications can be, let us say, a little daunting," says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Naveen Nahata. "While all this may look complicated and intimidating, it is actually relatively simple once you understand how it all works." Updated Agenda for OTN Architect Day Los Angeles (Oct 25) In less than two weeks Oracle Architect Day rolls into Los Angeles, with a full slate of sessions devoted to cloud computing, engineered systems, and SOA. Follow the link for the updated event agenda. ORCLville: OOW 2012 - A Not So Brief Recap Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter, an Applications & Apps Technology specialists, shares his personal, frank, and and extensive recap or Oracle OpenWorld 2012. SOA Suite create partition in Enterprise Manager | Peter Paul van de Beek "In Oracle SOA Suite 10g, or more specific BPEL 10g, one could group functionality in domains," says Peter Paul van de Beek. "This feature has been away in the early versions of SOA Suite 11g. They have returned in more recent version and can be used for all SCA composites (instead of BPEL only). Nowadays these 10g domains are called partitions." Thought for the Day "I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away." — Helmut Jahn Source: BrainyQuote.com

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  • Game Object Factory: Fixing Memory Leaks

    - by Bunkai.Satori
    Dear all, this is going to be tough: I have created a game object factory that generates objects of my wish. However, I get memory leaks which I can not fix. Memory leaks are generated by return new Object(); in the bottom part of the code sample. static BaseObject * CreateObjectFunc() { return new Object(); } How and where to delete the pointers? I wrote bool ReleaseClassType(). Despite the factory works well, ReleaseClassType() does not fix memory leaks. bool ReleaseClassTypes() { unsigned int nRecordCount = vFactories.size(); for (unsigned int nLoop = 0; nLoop < nRecordCount; nLoop++ ) { // if the object exists in the container and is valid, then render it if( vFactories[nLoop] != NULL) delete vFactories[nLoop](); } return true; } Before taking a look at the code below, let me help you in that my CGameObjectFactory creates pointers to functions creating particular object type. The pointers are stored within vFactories vector container. I have chosen this way because I parse an object map file. I have object type IDs (integer values) which I need to translate them into real objects. Because I have over 100 different object data types, I wished to avoid continuously traversing very long Switch() statement. Therefore, to create an object, I call vFactoriesnEnumObjectTypeID via CGameObjectFactory::create() to call stored function that generates desired object. The position of the appropriate function in the vFactories is identical to the nObjectTypeID, so I can use indexing to access the function. So the question remains, how to proceed with garbage collection and avoid reported memory leaks? #ifndef GAMEOBJECTFACTORY_H_UNIPIXELS #define GAMEOBJECTFACTORY_H_UNIPIXELS //#include "MemoryManager.h" #include <vector> template <typename BaseObject> class CGameObjectFactory { public: // cleanup and release registered object data types bool ReleaseClassTypes() { unsigned int nRecordCount = vFactories.size(); for (unsigned int nLoop = 0; nLoop < nRecordCount; nLoop++ ) { // if the object exists in the container and is valid, then render it if( vFactories[nLoop] != NULL) delete vFactories[nLoop](); } return true; } // register new object data type template <typename Object> bool RegisterClassType(unsigned int nObjectIDParam ) { if(vFactories.size() < nObjectIDParam) vFactories.resize(nObjectIDParam); vFactories[nObjectIDParam] = &CreateObjectFunc<Object>; return true; } // create new object by calling the pointer to the appropriate type function BaseObject* create(unsigned int nObjectIDParam) const { return vFactories[nObjectIDParam](); } // resize the vector array containing pointers to function calls bool resize(unsigned int nSizeParam) { vFactories.resize(nSizeParam); return true; } private: //DECLARE_HEAP; template <typename Object> static BaseObject * CreateObjectFunc() { return new Object(); } typedef BaseObject*(*factory)(); std::vector<factory> vFactories; }; //DEFINE_HEAP_T(CGameObjectFactory, "Game Object Factory"); #endif // GAMEOBJECTFACTORY_H_UNIPIXELS

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  • Impressions of Pivotal Tracker

    Pivotal Tracker is a free, online agile project management system. Ive been using it recently to better communicate to customers about the current state of our project. In Pivotal Tracker, the unit of work is a story and stories are arranged into iterations or delivery cycles. Stories can be any level of granularity you want, but the idea is to use stories to communicate clearly to customers, so you dont want to write a novel. You especially dont want to write a list of detailed programming tasks. A good story for a point of sale system might be: Allow managers to override the price of an item while ringing up a customer. A less useful story: Script out the process of adding a manager flag to the user table and stage that script into the deploy directory. Stories are estimated using a point scale, by default 1, 2 or 3. Iterations are then automatically laid out by combining enough tasks to fill the point total for that period of time. You have to start with a guess on how many points your team can do in an iteration, then adjust with real data as you complete iterations. This is basic agile methodology, but where Pivotal Tracker adds value is that it automatically and graphically lays out iterations for you on your project site. This makes communication and planning easy. Compiling release notes is no longer painful as it has been clear from the outset what work is going on. While I much prefer Pivotal Trackers customer facing interface over what we used previously (TFS), I see a couple of gaps. First, I have not able to make much headway with the reporting tools. Despite my complaints about TFS, it can produce some nice reports. Second, its not clear where if at all, Id keep track of purely internal tasks. Im talking about server maintenance, cleaning up source control, checking back on some code which you never quite felt right about. Theres no purpose in cluttering up an iteration backlog with these items, but if you dont track them, you lose them. Im not sure what a good answer for that is. One gap I thought Id see, which I dont, is more granular dev tasks. If Im implementing a story, Ill write out the steps and track my progress, but really, those steps arent useful to anybody but me. The only time Ive found that level of detail really useful is when my tasks are defined at too high a level anyway or when Im working with someone who needs more coaching and might not be able to finish a story in time without some scaffolding to get them going. You can learn more about Pivotal Tracker at: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/learnmore.   --- Relevant Links --- A good intro to stories: http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/userStory.htmDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • 3 Incredibly Useful Projects to jump-start your Kinect Development.

    - by mbcrump
    I’ve been playing with the Kinect SDK Beta for the past few days and have noticed a few projects on CodePlex worth checking out. I decided to blog about them to help spread awareness. If you want to learn more about Kinect SDK then you check out my”Busy Developer’s Guide to the Kinect SDK Beta”. Let’s get started:   KinectContrib is a set of VS2010 Templates that will help you get started building a Kinect project very quickly. Once you have it installed you will have the option to select the following Templates: KinectDepth KinectSkeleton KinectVideo Please note that KinectContrib requires the Kinect for Windows SDK beta to be installed. Kinect Templates after installing the Template Pack. The reference to Microsoft.Research.Kinect is added automatically.  Here is a sample of the code for the MainWindow.xaml in the “Video” template: <Window x:Class="KinectVideoApplication1.MainWindow" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" Height="480" Width="640"> <Grid> <Image Name="videoImage"/> </Grid> </Window> and MainWindow.xaml.cs using System; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Imaging; using Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui; namespace KinectVideoApplication1 { public partial class MainWindow : Window { //Instantiate the Kinect runtime. Required to initialize the device. //IMPORTANT NOTE: You can pass the device ID here, in case more than one Kinect device is connected. Runtime runtime = new Runtime(); public MainWindow() { InitializeComponent(); //Runtime initialization is handled when the window is opened. When the window //is closed, the runtime MUST be unitialized. this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Loaded); this.Unloaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Unloaded); //Handle the content obtained from the video camera, once received. runtime.VideoFrameReady += new EventHandler<Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs>(runtime_VideoFrameReady); } void MainWindow_Unloaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { runtime.Uninitialize(); } void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { //Since only a color video stream is needed, RuntimeOptions.UseColor is used. runtime.Initialize(Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.RuntimeOptions.UseColor); //You can adjust the resolution here. runtime.VideoStream.Open(ImageStreamType.Video, 2, ImageResolution.Resolution640x480, ImageType.Color); } void runtime_VideoFrameReady(object sender, Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs e) { PlanarImage image = e.ImageFrame.Image; BitmapSource source = BitmapSource.Create(image.Width, image.Height, 96, 96, PixelFormats.Bgr32, null, image.Bits, image.Width * image.BytesPerPixel); videoImage.Source = source; } } } You will find this template pack is very handy especially for those new to Kinect Development.   Next up is The Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit which contains extension methods and a WPF control to help you develop with the Kinect SDK. After downloading the package simply add a reference to the .dll using either the WPF or WinForms version. Now you will have access to several methods that can help you save an image: (for example) For a full list of extension methods and properties, please visit the site at http://c4fkinect.codeplex.com/. Kinductor – This is a great application for just learning how to use the Kinect SDK. The project uses MVVM Light and is a great start for those looking how to structure their first Kinect Application. Conclusion: Things are already getting easier for those working with the Kinect SDK. I imagine that after a few more months we will see the SDK go out of beta and allow commercial applications to run using it. I am very excited and hope that you continue reading my blog for more Kinect, WPF and Silverlight news.  Subscribe to my feed

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  • Using Content Analytics for More Effective Engagement

    - by Kellsey Ruppel
    Using Content Analytics for More Effective Engagement: Turning High-Volume Content into Templates for Success By Mitchell Palski, Oracle WebCenter Sales Consultant Many organizations use Oracle WebCenter Portal to develop these basic types of portals: Intranet portals used for collaboration, employee self-service, and company communication Extranet portals used by customers and partners for self-service and support Team collaboration portals that allow users to share documents and content, track activity, and engage in discussions Portals are intended to provide a personalized, single point of interaction with web-based applications and information. The user experiences that a Portal is capable of displaying should be relevant to an individual user or class of users (a group or role). The components of a Portal that would vary based on a user’s identity include: Web content such as images, news articles, and on-screen instruction Social tools such as threaded discussions, polls/surveys, and blogs Document management tools to upload, download, and edit files Web applications that present data visualizations and data entry modules These collections of content, tools, and applications make up valuable workspaces. The challenge that a development team may have is defining which combinations are the most effective for its users. No one wants to create and manage a workspace that goes un-used or (even worse) that is used but is ineffective. Oracle WebCenter Portal provides you with the capabilities to not only rapidly develop variations of portals, but also identify which portals are the most effective and should be re-used throughout an enterprise. Capturing Portal AnalyticsOracle WebCenter Portal provides an analytics service that allows administrators and business users to track and analyze portal usage. These analytics are captured in the form of: Usage tracking metrics Behavior tracking User Profile Correlation The out-of-the-box task reports that come with Oracle WebCenter Portal include: WebCenter Portal Traffic Page Traffic Login Metrics Portlet Traffic Portlet Response Time Portlet Instance Traffic Portlet Instance Response Time Search Metrics Document Metrics Wiki Metrics Blog Metrics Discussion Metrics Portal Traffic Portal Response Time By determining the usage and behavior tracking metrics that are associated with specific user profiles (including groups and roles), your administrators will be able to identify the components of your solution that are the most valuable.  Your first step as an administrator should be to identify the specific pages and/or components are used the most frequently. Next, determine the user(s) or user-group(s) that are accessing those high-use elements of a portal. It is also important to determine patterns in high-usage and see if they correlate to a specific schedule. One of the goals of any development team (especially those that are following Agile methodologies) should be to develop reusable web components to minimize redundant development. Oracle WebCenter Portal provides you the tools to capture the successful workspaces that have already been developed and identified so that they can be reused for similar user demographics. Re-using Successful PortalsWhen creating a new Portal in Oracle WebCenter, developers have the option to base that portal on a template that includes: Pre-seeded data such as pages, tools, user roles, and look-and-feel assets Specific sub-sets of page-layouts, tools, and other resources to standardize what is added to a Portal’s pages Any custom components that your team creates during development cycles Once you have identified a successful workspace and its most valuable components, leverage Oracle WebCenter’s ability to turn that custom portal into a portal template. By creating a template from your already successful portal, you are empowering your enterprise by providing a starting point for future initiatives. Your new projects, new teams, and new web pages can benefit from lessons learned and adjustments that have already been made to optimize user experiences instead of starting from scratch. ***For a complete explanation of how to work with Portal Templates, be sure to read the Fusion Middleware documentation available online.

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  • MySQL Server 5.6 default my.cnf and my.ini

    - by user12626240
    We've introduced a default my.cnf / my.ini file for MySQL Server that you can now see in the 5.6.8 release candidate: # For advice on how to change settings please see # http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/server-configuration-defaults.html [mysqld] # Remove leading # and set to the amount of RAM for the most important data # cache in MySQL. Start at 70% of total RAM for dedicated server, else 10%. # innodb_buffer_pool_size = 128M   # Remove leading # to turn on a very important data integrity option: logging # changes to the binary log between backups. # log_bin   # These are commonly set, remove the # and set as required. # basedir = ..... # datadir = ..... # port = ..... # socket = ..... # server_id = .....   # Remove leading # to set options mainly useful for reporting servers. # The server defaults are faster for transactions and fast SELECTs. # Adjust sizes as needed, experiment to find the optimal values. # join_buffer_size = 128M # sort_buffer_size = 2M # read_rnd_buffer_size = 2M   sql_mode=NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION,STRICT_TRANS_TABLES    There is also a template file called my-default.cnf or my-default.ini that has these lines near the start: # *** DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE. It's a template which will be copied to the # *** default location during install, and will be replaced if you # *** upgrade to a newer version of MySQL.   On Linux systems, the mysql_install_db command will copy the template file to the final location, where the server will read and use the file, removing the extra three lines. On Windows, the installer will create extra settings based on the answers you gave during installation. Neither will overwrite an existing my.cnf or my.ini file. The only initially active setting here is to change the value of  sql_mode from the server default of NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION to NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION,STRICT_TRANS_TABLES. This strict mode changes warnings for some non-standard behaviour into errors. This can cause applications which rely on the non-standard things, like dates that aren't valid, to lose data. If we had just changed the server default, the new setting would affect all servers that lack an explicit sql_mode setting, including those where strict mode is harmful. So we did it in the default file instead because that will only affect new server installations. You should expect that in our next version after 5.6, the server default will include STRICT_TRANS_TABLES. Our Windows installer and some of our connectors already use STRICT_TRANS_TABLES by default. Strict has been our preferred setting for many years and it is good to see some development platforms are using it. If you need the old behaviour, just remove the STRICT_TRANS_TABLES setting. If you do this, please also ask your application provider to make it unnecessary. They can do that by setting the session sql_mode setting in their own connections, so the rest of the applications using the server don't have to have an undesirable default. We've kept this file as small as possible because we found that our old files were too big and confused people. We've also now removed the old my-huge and related example files. One key part of this is the link to the documentation, where we will provide an introduction to some key settings. We'd like to hear your feedback on settings that will benefit most users or are most important to call out for existing users. Please do that by commenting here or if you prefer by adding comments to this bug report.

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  • Configuring Seam for Glassfish

    - by Walter White
    Hi all, I am still migrating to Glassfish instead of Jetty for our application servers and am running into some problems. The application starts up fine, the database tables are created by hibernate and data is imported by my database importer, so Seam is alive, running and well. It appears that Seam is not properly bound to any JSF lifecycle as I'm getting no active application scope: INFO: Initializing filter: com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.security.authenticationFailureEventFilter Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.jboss.seam.contexts.Contexts flushAndDestroyContexts SEVERE: could not discover transaction status Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve log WARNING: StandardWrapperValve[Faces Servlet]: PWC1406: Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception java.lang.IllegalStateException: No active application scope at org.jboss.seam.core.Init.instance(Init.java:115) at org.jboss.seam.contexts.Contexts.flushAndDestroyContexts(Contexts.java:347) at org.jboss.seam.contexts.Lifecycle.endRequest(Lifecycle.java:164) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:89) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:73) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:277) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:188) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:641) at com.sun.enterprise.web.WebPipeline.invoke(WebPipeline.java:97) at com.sun.enterprise.web.PESessionLockingStandardPipeline.invoke(PESessionLockingStandardPipeline.java:85) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:185) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:332) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.jboss.seam.exception.Exceptions handle SEVERE: handled and logged exception java.lang.NullPointerException at com.walterjwhite.util.persistence.QueryUtil.setParameter(QueryUtil.java:71) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.web.file.FileAliasFilter.filterHttpServletRequest(FileAliasFilter.java:57) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractHttpServletFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpServletFilter.java:30) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractHttpServletFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpServletFilter.java:36) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RewriteFilter.doFilter(RewriteFilter.java:63) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.IdentityFilter.doFilter(IdentityFilter.java:40) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.MultipartFilter.doFilter(MultipartFilter.java:90) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:64) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:497) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:314) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.web.content.WelcomeFilter.process(WelcomeFilter.java:56) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractSinglePassPreFilter.singlePass(AbstractSinglePassPreFilter.java:28) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractSinglePassFilter.filterHttpServletRequest(AbstractSinglePassFilter.java:27) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractHttpServletFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpServletFilter.java:30) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RewriteFilter.doFilter(RewriteFilter.java:63) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.IdentityFilter.doFilter(IdentityFilter.java:40) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.MultipartFilter.doFilter(MultipartFilter.java:90) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:64) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:475) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.dispatchToErrorPage(StandardHostValve.java:669) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.throwable(StandardHostValve.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.postInvoke(StandardHostValve.java:241) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:334) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher log WARNING: ApplicationDispatcher[/WalterJWhite-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT-Development] PWC1231: Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception org.jboss.seam.InstantiationException: Could not instantiate Seam component: com.walterjwhite.listener.exception.exceptionListener at org.jboss.seam.Component.newInstance(Component.java:2156) at org.jboss.seam.Component.getInstance(Component.java:2021) at org.jboss.seam.Component.getInstance(Component.java:1983) at org.jboss.seam.core.Events.raiseEvent(Events.java:77) at org.jboss.seam.exception.Exceptions.handle(Exceptions.java:103) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:114) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:497) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:314) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.web.content.WelcomeFilter.process(WelcomeFilter.java:56) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractSinglePassPreFilter.singlePass(AbstractSinglePassPreFilter.java:28) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractSinglePassFilter.filterHttpServletRequest(AbstractSinglePassFilter.java:27) at com.walterjwhite.servlet.filter.base.AbstractHttpServletFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpServletFilter.java:30) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RewriteFilter.doFilter(RewriteFilter.java:63) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.IdentityFilter.doFilter(IdentityFilter.java:40) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.MultipartFilter.doFilter(MultipartFilter.java:90) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:64) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:475) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.dispatchToErrorPage(StandardHostValve.java:669) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.throwable(StandardHostValve.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.postInvoke(StandardHostValve.java:241) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:334) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) Caused by: javax.naming.NamingException: Lookup failed for 'java:comp/env/localhost/ExceptionListener/local' in SerialContext [Root exception is javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: No object bound to name java:comp/env/localhost/ExceptionListener/local] at com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.SerialContext.lookup(SerialContext.java:442) at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:392) at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:392) at org.jboss.seam.Component.instantiateSessionBean(Component.java:1400) at org.jboss.seam.Component.instantiate(Component.java:1364) at org.jboss.seam.Component.newInstance(Component.java:2134) ... 66 more Caused by: javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: No object bound to name java:comp/env/localhost/ExceptionListener/local at com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.GlassfishNamingManagerImpl.lookup(GlassfishNamingManagerImpl.java:684) at com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.GlassfishNamingManagerImpl.lookup(GlassfishNamingManagerImpl.java:657) at com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.JavaURLContext.lookup(JavaURLContext.java:148) at com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.SerialContext.lookup(SerialContext.java:428) ... 71 more Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher log WARNING: ApplicationDispatcher[/WalterJWhite-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT-Development] PWC1231: Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception java.lang.IllegalStateException at org.apache.catalina.connector.ResponseFacade.sendRedirect(ResponseFacade.java:522) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponseWrapper.sendRedirect(HttpServletResponseWrapper.java:170) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter$1.sendRedirect(RedirectFilter.java:72) at org.jboss.seam.mock.MockExternalContext.redirect(MockExternalContext.java:528) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:220) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:185) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:55) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:42) at org.jboss.seam.exception.RedirectHandler.handle(RedirectHandler.java:51) at org.jboss.seam.exception.Exceptions.handle(Exceptions.java:76) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:114) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:475) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.dispatchToErrorPage(StandardHostValve.java:669) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.throwable(StandardHostValve.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.postInvoke(StandardHostValve.java:241) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:334) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) Apr 26, 2010 7:31:28 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve log WARNING: org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve@1bb5d98: Exception Processing ErrorPage[exceptionType=java.lang.Throwable, location=/content/error/500.xhtml] javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.IllegalStateException at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:126) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:475) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.dispatchToErrorPage(StandardHostValve.java:669) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.throwable(StandardHostValve.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.postInvoke(StandardHostValve.java:241) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:334) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException at org.apache.catalina.connector.ResponseFacade.sendRedirect(ResponseFacade.java:522) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponseWrapper.sendRedirect(HttpServletResponseWrapper.java:170) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter$1.sendRedirect(RedirectFilter.java:72) at org.jboss.seam.mock.MockExternalContext.redirect(MockExternalContext.java:528) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:220) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:185) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:55) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:42) at org.jboss.seam.exception.RedirectHandler.handle(RedirectHandler.java:51) at org.jboss.seam.exception.Exceptions.handle(Exceptions.java:76) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:114) ... 35 more ----- Root Cause ----- java.lang.IllegalStateException at org.apache.catalina.connector.ResponseFacade.sendRedirect(ResponseFacade.java:522) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponseWrapper.sendRedirect(HttpServletResponseWrapper.java:170) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter$1.sendRedirect(RedirectFilter.java:72) at org.jboss.seam.mock.MockExternalContext.redirect(MockExternalContext.java:528) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:220) at org.jboss.seam.faces.FacesManager.redirect(FacesManager.java:185) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:55) at org.jboss.seam.faces.Navigator.redirect(Navigator.java:42) at org.jboss.seam.exception.RedirectHandler.handle(RedirectHandler.java:51) at org.jboss.seam.exception.Exceptions.handle(Exceptions.java:76) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.endWebRequestAfterException(ExceptionFilter.java:114) at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.web.HotDeployFilter.doFilter(HotDeployFilter.java:53) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:69) at org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:256) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInvoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:800) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:664) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doDispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:468) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.dispatch(ApplicationDispatcher.java:364) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:475) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.dispatchToErrorPage(StandardHostValve.java:669) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.throwable(StandardHostValve.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.postInvoke(StandardHostValve.java:241) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:334) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:233) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:165) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.exec

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  • Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

    - by mbcrump
    Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created.  Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases  including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands.  For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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  • Try and catch error trapping. why is it so significant

    - by oded
    sorry if it sounds dumb ' as i am i a process of learnning java i try to understand , why on earth i should "try" a method to catch errors. it looks to me like the concept is:- ' letting a process run assuming its not properly developed. should i always assume that a program based on classes and inheritance is bound for unexpected errors, which i should handle with such a heavy tools like try catch throw throws ? should all java programs be included withing try catch framework? Thanks Oded.

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  • Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7

    - by Mysticgeek
    We’ve received a lot of questions about mapping a drive from XP to Windows 7 to access data easily. Today we look at how to map a drive in Windows 7, and how to map to an XP drive from Windows 7. With the new Homegroup feature in Windows 7, it makes sharing data between computers a lot easier. But you might need to map a network drive so you can go directly into a folder to access its contents. Mapping a network drive may sound like “IT talk”, but the process is fairly easy. Map Network Drive in Windows 7 Note: All of the computers used in this article are part of the same workgroup on a home network. In this first example we’re mapping to another Windows 7 drive on the network. Open Computer and from the toolbar click on Map Network Drive. Alternately in Computer you can hit “Alt+T” to pull up the toolbar and click on Tools \ Map Network Drive. Now give it an available drive letter, type in the path or browse to the folder you want to map to. Check the box next to Reconnect at logon if you want it available after a reboot, and click Finish. If both machines aren’t part of the same Homegroup, you may be prompted to enter in a username and password. Make sure and check the box next to Remember my credentials if you don’t want to log in every time to access it. The drive will map and the contents of the folder will open up. When you look in Computer, you’ll see the drive under network location. This process works if you want to connect to a server drive as well. In this example we map to a Home Server drive. Map an XP Drive to Windows 7 There might be times when you need to map a drive on an XP machine on your network. There are extra steps you’ll need to take to make it work however. Here we take a look at the problem you’ll encounter when trying to map to an XP machine if things aren’t set up correctly. If you try to browse to your XP machine you’ll see a message that you don’t have permission. Or if you try to enter in the path directly, you’ll be prompted for a username and password, and the annoyance is, no matter what credentials you put in, you can’t connect. To solve the problem we need to set up the Windows 7 machine as a user on the XP machine and make them part of the Administrators group. Right-click My Computer and select Manage. Under Computer Management expand Local Users and Groups and click on the Users folder. Right-click an empty area and click New User. Add in the user credentials, uncheck User must change password at next logon, then check Password never expires then click Create. Now you see the new user you created in the list. After the user is added you might want to reboot before proceeding to the next step.   Next we need to make the user part of the Administrators group. So go back into Computer Management \ Local Users and Groups \ Groups then double click on Administrators. Click the Add button in Administrators Properties window. Enter in the new user you created and click OK. An easy way to do this is to enter the name of the user you created then click Check Names and the path will be entered in for you. Now you see the user as a member of the Administrators group. Back on the Windows 7 machine we’ll start the process of mapping a drive. Here we’re browsing to the XP Media Center Edition machine. Now we can enter in the user name and password we just created. If you only want to access specific shared folders on the XP machine you can browse to them. Or if you want to map to the entire drive, enter in the drive path where in this example it’s “\\XPMCE\C$” –Don’t forget the “$” sign after the local drive letter. Then login… Again the contents of the drive will open up for you to access. Here you can see we have two drives mapped. One to another Windows 7 machine on the network, and the other one to the XP computer.   If you ever want to disconnect a drive, just right-click on it and then Disconnect. There are several scenarios where you might want to map a drive in Windows 7 to access specific data. It takes a little bit of work but you can map to an XP drive from Windows 7 as well. This comes in handy where you have a network with different versions of Windows running on it. 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  • Uninstalling Reporting Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008

    - by Piotr Rodak
    Ha. I had quite disputable pleasure of installing and reinstalling and reinstalling and reinstalling – I think about 5 times before it worked – Reporting Server 2008 on Windows Server with the same year number in name. During my struggle I came across an error which seems to be not quite unfamiliar to some more unfortunate developers and admins who happen to uninstall SSRS 2008 from the server. I had the SSRS 2008 installed as named instance, SQL2008. I wanted to uninstall the server and install it to default instance. And this is when it bit me – not the first time and not the last that day . The setup complained that it couldn’t access a DLL: Error message: TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Setup ------------------------------ The following error has occurred: Access to the path 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\perf-ReportServer$SQL2008-rsctr.dll' is denied. For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=20476&ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=setup.rll&EvtID=50000&ProdVer=10.0.1600.22&EvtType=0x60797DC7%25400x84E8D3C0 ------------------------------ BUTTONS: OK This is a screenshot that shows the above error: This issue seems to have a bit of literature dedicated to it and even seemingly a KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956173 and a similar Connect item: http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/363653/error-messages-when-upgrading-from-sql-2008-rc0-to-rtm The article describes issue as following: When you try to uninstall Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services from the server, you may receive the following error message: An error has occurred: Access to the path 'Drive_Letter:\WINDOWS\system32\perf-ReportServer-rsctr.dll' is denied. Note Drive_Letter refers to the disc drive into which the SQL Server installation media is inserted. In my case, the Note was not true; the error pointed to a dll that was located in Windows folder on C:\, not where the installation media were. Despite this difference I tried to identify any processes that might be keeping lock on the dll. I downloaded Sysinternals process explorer and ran it to find any processes I could stop. Unfortunately, there was no such process. I tried to rerun the installation, but it failed at the same step. Eventually I decided to remove the dll before the setup was executed. I changed name of the dll to be able to restore it in case of some issues. Interestingly, Windows let me do it, which means that indeed, it was not locked by any process. I ran the setup and this time it uninstalled the instance without any problems:   To summarize my experience I should say – be very careful, don’t leave any leftovers after uninstallation – remove/rename any folders that are left after setup has finished. For some reason, setup doesn’t remove folders and certain files. Installation on Windows Server 2008 requires more attention than on Windows 2003 because of the changed security model, some actions can be executed only by administrator in elevated execution mode. In general, you have to get used to UAC and a bit different experience than with Windows Server 2003. Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2008,Windows Server 2008,SRS,Reporting Services

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  • How to integerate Skype in Messaging Menu with Skype-Wrapper?

    - by Tahir Akram
    I cant see skype-wrapper in unity dash (alt f2). So I run it from terminal and attach it with skype. But it only appears in menu, when I run it from terminal like tahir@StoneCode:~$ skype-wrapper Starting skype-wrapper /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gobject/constants.py:24: Warning: g_boxed_type_register_static: assertion `g_type_from_name (name) == 0' failed import gobject._gobject INFO: Initializing Skype API INFO: Waiting for Skype Process INFO: Attaching skype-wrapper to Skype process INFO: Attached complete When I quit the terminal, skype disappear from messaging menu. So I need to run skype-wrapper instead of skype and need to add it in startup? Or any other work around? I followed this tutorial. Restart also does not help. Thanks.

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  • Ask How-To Geek: Tiling Windows, iOS Remote Desktop, and Getting a Handle on Windows 7 Libraries

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This week we’re taking a look at how to tile application windows in Windows 7, remote controlling your desktop from iOS devices, and understanding exactly what Windows 7 libraries are. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see the fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? Battlestar Galactica – Caprica Map of the 12 Colonies (Wallpaper Also Available) View Enlarged Versions of Thumbnail Images with Thumbnail Zoom for Firefox IntoNow Identifies Any TV Show by Sound Walk Score Calculates a Neighborhood’s Pedestrian Friendliness Factor Fantasy World at Twilight Wallpaper Hack a Wireless Doorbell into a Snail Mail Indicator

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  • The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

    - by Rick Strahl
    High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   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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  • Back to Basics: When does a .NET Assembly Dependency get loaded

    - by Rick Strahl
    When we work on typical day to day applications, it's easy to forget some of the core features of the .NET framework. For me personally it's been a long time since I've learned about some of the underlying CLR system level services even though I rely on them on a daily basis. I often think only about high level application constructs and/or high level framework functionality, but the low level stuff is often just taken for granted. Over the last week at DevConnections I had all sorts of low level discussions with other developers about the inner workings of this or that technology (especially in light of my Low Level ASP.NET Architecture talk and the Razor Hosting talk). One topic that came up a couple of times and ended up a point of confusion even amongst some seasoned developers (including some folks from Microsoft <snicker>) is when assemblies actually load into a .NET process. There are a number of different ways that assemblies are loaded in .NET. When you create a typical project assemblies usually come from: The Assembly reference list of the top level 'executable' project The Assembly references of referenced projects Dynamically loaded at runtime via AppDomain/Reflection loading In addition .NET automatically loads mscorlib (most of the System namespace) the boot process that hosts the .NET runtime in EXE apps, or some other kind of runtime hosting environment (runtime hosting in servers like IIS, SQL Server or COM Interop). In hosting environments the runtime host may also pre-load a bunch of assemblies on its own (for example the ASP.NET host requires all sorts of assemblies just to run itself, before ever routing into your user specific code). Assembly Loading The most obvious source of loaded assemblies is the top level application's assembly reference list. You can add assembly references to a top level application and those assembly references are then available to the application. In a nutshell, referenced assemblies are not immediately loaded - they are loaded on the fly as needed. So regardless of whether you have an assembly reference in a top level project, or a dependent assembly assemblies typically load on an as needed basis, unless explicitly loaded by user code. The same is true of dependent assemblies. To check this out I ran a simple test: I have a utility assembly Westwind.Utilities which is a general purpose library that can work in any type of project. Due to a couple of small requirements for encoding and a logging piece that allows logging Web content (dependency on HttpContext.Current) this utility library has a dependency on System.Web. Now System.Web is a pretty large assembly and generally you'd want to avoid adding it to a non-Web project if it can be helped. So I created a Console Application that loads my utility library: You can see that the top level Console app a reference to Westwind.Utilities and System.Data (beyond the core .NET libs). The Westwind.Utilities project on the other hand has quite a few dependencies including System.Web. I then add a main program that accesses only a simple utillity method in the Westwind.Utilities library that doesn't require any of the classes that access System.Web: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.ReadLine(); } StringUtils.NewStringId() calls into Westwind.Utilities, but it doesn't rely on System.Web. Any guesses what the assembly list looks like when I stop the code on the ReadLine() command? I'll wait here while you think about it… … … So, when I stop on ReadLine() and then fire up Process Explorer and check the assembly list I get: We can see here that .NET has not actually loaded any of the dependencies of the Westwind.Utilities assembly. Also not loaded is the top level System.Data reference even though it's in the dependent assembly list of the top level project. Since this particular function I called only uses core System functionality (contained in mscorlib) there's in fact nothing else loaded beyond the main application and my Westwind.Utilities assembly that contains the method accessed. None of the dependencies of Westwind.Utilities loaded. If you were to open the assembly in a disassembler like Reflector or ILSpy, you would however see all the compiled in dependencies. The referenced assemblies are in the dependency list and they are loadable, but they are not immediately loaded by the application. In other words the C# compiler and .NET linker are smart enough to figure out the dependencies based on the code that actually is referenced from your application and any dependencies cascading down into the dependencies from your top level application into the referenced assemblies. In the example above the usage requirement is pretty obvious since I'm only calling a single static method and then exiting the app, but in more complex applications these dependency relationships become very complicated - however it's all taken care of by the compiler and linker figuring out what types and members are actually referenced and including only those assemblies that are in fact referenced in your code or required by any of your dependencies. The good news here is: That if you are referencing an assembly that has a dependency on something like System.Web in a few places that are not actually accessed by any of your code or any dependent assembly code that you are calling, that assembly is never loaded into memory! Some Hosting Environments pre-load Assemblies The load behavior can vary however. In Console and desktop applications we have full control over assembly loading so we see the core CLR behavior. However other environments like ASP.NET for example will preload referenced assemblies explicitly as part of the startup process - primarily to minimize load conflicts. Specifically ASP.NET pre-loads all assemblies referenced in the assembly list and the /bin folder. So in Web applications it definitely pays to minimize your top level assemblies if they are not used. Understanding when Assemblies Load To clarify and see it actually happen what I described in the first example , let's look at a couple of other scenarios. To see assemblies loading at runtime in real time lets create a utility function to print out loaded assemblies to the console: public static void PrintAssemblies() { var assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies(); foreach (var assembly in assemblies) { Console.WriteLine(assembly.GetName()); } } Now let's look at the first scenario where I have class method that references internally uses System.Web. In the first scenario lets add a method to my main program like this: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.ReadLine(); PrintAssemblies(); } public static void WebLogEntry() { var entry = new WebLogEntry(); entry.UpdateFromRequest(); Console.WriteLine(entry.QueryString); } UpdateFromWebRequest() internally accesses HttpContext.Current to read some information of the ASP.NET Request object so it clearly needs a reference System.Web to work. In this first example, the method that holds the calling code is never called, but exists as a static method that can potentially be called externally at some point. What do you think will happen here with the assembly loading? Will System.Web load in this example? No - it doesn't. Because the WebLogEntry() method is never called by the mainline application (or anywhere else) System.Web is not loaded. .NET dynamically loads assemblies as code that needs it is called. No code references the WebLogEntry() method and so System.Web is never loaded. Next, let's add the call to this method, which should trigger System.Web to be loaded because a dependency exists. Let's change the code to: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.WriteLine("--- Before:"); PrintAssemblies(); WebLogEntry(); Console.WriteLine("--- After:"); PrintAssemblies(); Console.ReadLine(); } public static void WebLogEntry() { var entry = new WebLogEntry(); entry.UpdateFromRequest(); Console.WriteLine(entry.QueryString); } Looking at the code now, when do you think System.Web will be loaded? Will the before list include it? Yup System.Web gets loaded, but only after it's actually referenced. In fact, just until before the call to UpdateFromRequest() System.Web is not loaded - it only loads when the method is actually called and requires the reference in the executing code. Moral of the Story So what have we learned - or maybe remembered again? Dependent Assembly References are not pre-loaded when an application starts (by default) Dependent Assemblies that are not referenced by executing code are never loaded Dependent Assemblies are just in time loaded when first referenced in code All of this is nothing new - .NET has always worked like this. But it's good to have a refresher now and then and go through the exercise of seeing it work in action. It's not one of those things we think about everyday, and as I found out last week, I couldn't remember exactly how it worked since it's been so long since I've learned about this. And apparently I'm not the only one as several other people I had discussions with in relation to loaded assemblies also didn't recall exactly what should happen or assumed incorrectly that just having a reference automatically loads the assembly. The moral of the story for me is: Trying at all costs to eliminate an assembly reference from a component is not quite as important as it's often made out to be. For example, the Westwind.Utilities module described above has a logging component, including a Web specific logging entry that supports pulling information from the active HTTP Context. Adding that feature requires a reference to System.Web. Should I worry about this in the scope of this library? Probably not, because if I don't use that one class of nearly a hundred, System.Web never gets pulled into the parent process. IOW, System.Web only loads when I use that specific feature and if I am, well I clearly have to be running in a Web environment anyway to use it realistically. The alternative would be considerably uglier: Pulling out the WebLogEntry class and sticking it into another assembly and breaking up the logging code. In this case - definitely not worth it. So, .NET definitely goes through some pretty nifty optimizations to ensure that it loads only what it needs and in most cases you can just rely on .NET to do the right thing. Sometimes though assembly loading can go wrong (especially when signed and versioned local assemblies are involved), but that's subject for a whole other post…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  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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  • My Interview with Microsoft

    - by Victor Hurdugaci
    This post is for those who want to apply or have already applied (but not finished the interview) for a Microsoft Job. The recruitment process is quite similar for everyone and consists of a few steps. Application E-Mail Interview Phone Interview On Site Interview I will tell you my story and how I went through the four phases. 1. Application My blog's title (Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit) means "Nothing Comes Out of Nothing". You can't get a job at Microsoft by not doing anything - this is true for anything else. The first step you need to complete is the application process. For this, many options are available. You can... ... apply online on Microsoft's Careers website as I did ... send your CV to different e-mail addresses (there are some dedicated e-mails for different positions) ... apply through some 3rd party organization (job shop, campus recruitment, job agency, etc) On MS Careers you just have to post your CV and choose the job you want. That's all! No recommendation letter, no cover letter, no nothing. Of course, not every CV passes the selection process. Here are some tips for improving your resume (worked for me): Don't write it just before applying! Write a draft version, wait a few days and then review it. This way you will find a lot of mistakes and stupid things you wrote initially. If you review it immediately after writing, your mind will not be criticism oriented and will just ignore mistakes. Repeat the write-wait-review process as many times as necessary, until you find that the review revealed no mistakes. After you did the final review and the CV is bullet-proof, ask others to review it. They will definitely find inconsistencies and mistakes and this will make you feel stupid. This is good because will open your eyes will make you go into an 'I want to improve' mode. You'll try to correct everything. After you come up with a modified version go again through steps 1 and 2. Repeat this as many times as necessary. [Special thanks to Lucian Sasu, Nadia Comanici, Andrei Ciobanu, Monica Balan and Lavinia Tanase for reviewing my CV!] Make it short and give only relevant facts. Initially, I come up with a 5 pages CV because I wrote every single technology with which I worked. There were a lot irrelevant things, I wrote Windows Workflow Foundation just because I played with it for a few days. I added extensive descriptions for every project, made a personal details section (name, birth date, address, etc) of 1/2 page. Others suggested to cut everything that was not necessary. You don't need to give extensive descriptions, just add a few words. For example, I wrote "VS Image Visualizer - Visual Studio 2008 debug visualizer for images" and added a link to the project's page - you submit formatted andcan embed links. Add something that makes it different. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I added some lines to separate items just like in the picture below. Definitely Microsoft gets thousands of CVs per day. You need something special. Don't lie! Tell exactly what you did and what is the proficiency level of your skills. For example, don't write "Advanced" for UML if you don't know the difference between composition and aggregation. Be realistic and don't under/over estimate yourself. Use the spell chick. Make sure everything is written in correct English and there are no grammar/spelling mistakes. Noddy likes a WC with grammar mi takes. You mght fail just because of that. Once you completed your CV, choose the job that suits best your needs, apply and wait... The waiting is a problem because all these big companies like Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Apple, etc. will contact you only if they find something interesting in your application. If you're not suitable, then no rejection is sent. I applied for an Intern Software Development Engineer position at Microsoft Redmond. I cannot apply for a full time position because I want to finish the master program on time, in the next summer - an internship is just what I need. 2. E-Mail Interview January 20, 2010. Two months since I submitted the CV. I wasn't hoping anymore that MS will contact me, when I got an e-mail titled: "Victor Hurdugaci ES DK" from Holly Peterson saying: Read more >>

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  • Adopting DBVCS

    - by Wes McClure
    Identify early adopters Pick a small project with a small(ish) team.  This can be a legacy application or a green-field application. Strive to find a team of early adopters that will be eager to try something new. Get the team on board! Research Research the tool(s) that you want to use.  Some tools provide all of the features you would need while some only provide a slice of the pie.  DBVCS requires the ability to manage a set of change scripts that update a database from one version to the next.  Ideally a tool can track database versions and automatically apply updates.  The change script generation process can be manual, but having diff tools available to automatically generate it can really reduce the overhead to adoption.  Finally, an automated tool to generate a script file per database object is an added bonus as your version control system can quickly identify what was changed in a commit (add/del/modify), just like with code changes. Don’t settle on just one tool, identify several.  Then work with the team to evaluate the tools.  Have the team do some tests of the following scenarios with each tool: Baseline an existing database: can the migration tool work with legacy databases?  Caution: most migration platforms do not support baselines or have poor support, especially the fad of fluent APIs. Add/drop tables Add/drop procedures/functions/views Alter tables (rename columns, add columns, remove columns) Massage data – migrations sometimes involve changing data types that cannot be implicitly casted and require you to decide how the data is explicitly cast to the new type.  This is a requirement for a migrations platform.  Think about a case where you might want to combine fields, or move a field from one table to another, you wouldn’t want to lose the data. Run the tool via the command line.  If you cannot automate the tool in Continuous Integration what is the point? Create a copy of a database on demand. Backup/restore databases locally. Let the team give feedback and decide together, what tool they would like to try out. My recommendation at this point would be to include TSqlMigrations and RoundHouse as SQL based migration platforms.  In general I would recommend staying away from the fluent platforms as they often lack baseline capabilities and add overhead to learn a new API when SQL is already a very well known DSL.  Code migrations often get messy with procedures/views/functions as these have to be created with SQL and aren’t cross platform anyways.  IMO stick to SQL based migrations. Reconciling Production If your project is a legacy application, you will need to reconcile the current state of production with your development databases.  Find changes in production and bring them down to development, even if they are old and need to be removed.  Once complete, produce a baseline of either dev or prod as they are now in sync.  Commit this to your VCS of choice. Add whatever schema changes tracking mechanism your tool requires to your development database.  This often requires adding a table to track the schema version of that database.  Your tool should support doing this for you.  You can add this table to production when you do your next release. Script out any changes currently in dev.  Remove production artifacts that you brought down during reconciliation.  Add change scripts for any outstanding changes in dev since the last production release.  Commit these to your repository.   Say No to Shared Dev DBs Simply put, you wouldn’t dream of sharing a code checkout, why would you share a development database?  If you have a shared dev database, back it up, distribute the backups and take the shared version offline (including the dev db server once all projects are using DB VCS).  Doing DB VCS with a shared database is bound to cause problems as people won’t be able to easily script out their own changes from those that others are working on.   First prod release Copy prod to your beta/testing environment.  Add the schema changes table (or mechanism) and do a test run of your changes.  If successful you can schedule this to be run on production.   Evaluation After your first release, evaluate the pain points of the process.  Try to find tools or modifications to existing tools to help fix them.  Don’t leave stones unturned, iteratively evolve your tools and practices to make the process as seamless as possible.  This is why I suggest open source alternatives.  Nothing is set in stone, a good example was adding transactional support to TSqlMigrations.  We ran into situations where an update would break a database, so I added a feature to do transactional updates and rollback on errors!  Another good example is generating change scripts.  We have been manually making these for months now.  I found an open source project called Open DB Diff and integrated this with TSqlMigrations.  These were things we just accepted at the time when we began adopting our tool set.  Once we became comfortable with the base functionality, it was time to start automating more of the process.  Just like anything else with development, never be afraid to try to find tools to make your job easier!   Enjoy -Wes

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  • The Interaction between Three-Tier Client/Server Model and Three-Tier Application Architecture Model

    The three-tier client/server model is a network architectural approach currently used in modern networking. This approach divides a network in to three distinct components. Three-Tier Client/Server Model Components Client Component Server Component Database Component The Client Component of the network typically represents any device on the network. A basic example of this would be computer or another network/web enabled devices that are connected to a network. Network clients request resources on the network, and are usually equipped with a user interface for the presentation of the data returned from the Server Component. This process is done through the use of various software clients, and example of this can be seen through the use of a web browser client. The web browser request information from the Server Component located on the network and then renders the results for the user to process. The Server Components of the network return data based on specific client request back to the requesting client.  Server Components also inherit the attributes of a Client Component in that they are a device on the network and that they can also request information from other Server Components. However what differentiates a Client Component from a Server Component is that a Server Component response to requests from devices on the network. An example of a Server Component can be seen in a web server. A web server listens for new requests and then interprets the request, processes the web pages, and then returns the processed data back to the web browser client so that it may render the data for the user to interpret. The Database Component of the network returns unprocessed data from databases or other resources. This component also inherits attributes from the Server Component in that it is a device on a network, it can request information from other server components and database components, and it also listens for new requests so that it can return data when needed. The three-tier client/server model is very similar to the three-tier application architecture model, and in fact the layers can be mapped to one another. Three-Tier Application Architecture Model Presentation Layer/Logic Business Layer/Logic Data Layer/Logic The Presentation Layer including its underlying logic is very similar to the Client Component of the three-tiered model. The Presentation Layer focuses on interpreting the data returned by the Business Layer as well as presents the data back to the user.  Both the Presentation Layer and the Client Component focus primarily on the user and their experience. This allows for segments of the Business Layer to be distributable and interchangeable because the Presentation Layer is not directly integrated in with Business Layer. The Presentation Layer does not care where the data comes from as long as it is in the proper format. This allows for the Presentation Layer and Business Layer to be stored on one or more different servers so that it can provide a higher availability to clients requesting data. A good example of this is a web site that uses load balancing. When a web site decides to take on the task of load balancing they must obtain a network device that sits in front of a one or machines in order to distribute the request across multiple servers. When a user comes in through the load balanced device they are redirected to a specific server based on a few factors. Common Load Balancing Factors Current Server Availability Current Server Response Time Current Server Priority The Business Layer and corresponding logic are business rules applied to data prior to it being sent to the Presentation Layer. These rules are used to manipulate the data coming from the Data Access Layer, in addition to validating any data prior to being stored in the Data Access Layer. A good example of this would be when a user is trying to create multiple accounts under one email address. The Business Layer logic can prevent duplicate accounts by enforcing a unique email for every new account before the data is even stored in the Data Access Layer. The Server Component can be directly tied to this layer in that the server typically stores and process the Business Layer before it is returned to the end-user via the Presentation Layer. In addition the Server Component can also run automated process through the Business Layer on the data in the Data Access Layer so that additional business analysis can be derived from the data that has been already collected. The Data Layer and its logic are responsible for storing information so that it can be easily retrieved. Typical in most modern applications data is stored in a database management system however data can also be in the form of files stored on a file server. In addition a database can take on one of several forms. Common Database Formats XML File Pipe Delimited File Tab Delimited File Comma Delimited File (CSV) Plain Text File Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server MySql Oracle Sybase The Database component of the Networking model can be directly tied to the Data Layer because this is where the Data Layer obtains the data to return back the Business Layer. The Database Component basically allows for a place on the network to store data for future use. This enables applications to save data when they can and then quickly recall the saved data as needed so that the application does not have to worry about storing the data in memory. This prevents overhead that could be created when an application must retain all data in memory. As you can see the Three-Tier Client/Server Networking Model and the Three-Tiered Application Architecture Model rely very heavily on one another to function especially if different aspects of an application are distributed across an entire network. The use of various servers and database servers are wonderful when an application has a need to distribute work across the network. Network Components and Application Layers Interaction Database components will store all data needed for the Data Access Layer to manipulate and return to the Business Layer Server Component executes the Business Layer that manipulates data so that it can be returned to the Presentation Layer Client Component hosts the Presentation Layer that  interprets the data and present it to the user

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  • Lessons from a SAN Failure

    - by Bill Graziano
    At 1:10AM Sunday morning the main SAN at one of my clients suffered a “partial” failure.  Partial means that the SAN was still online and functioning but the LUNs attached to our two main SQL Servers “failed”.  Failed means that SQL Server wouldn’t start and the MDF and LDF files mostly showed a zero file size.  But they were online and responding and most other LUNs were available.  I’m not sure how SANs know to fail at 1AM on a Saturday night but they seem to.  From a personal standpoint this worked out poorly: I was out with friends and after more than a few drinks.  From a work standpoint this was about the best time to fail you could imagine.  Everything was running well before Monday morning.  But it was a long, long Sunday.  I started tipsy, got tired and ended up hung over later in the day. Note to self: Try not to go out drinking right before the SAN fails. This caught us at an interesting time.  We’re in the process of migrating to an entirely new set of servers so some things were partially moved.  This made it difficult to follow our procedures as cleanly as we’d like.  The benefit was that we had much better documentation of everything on the server.  I would encourage everyone to really think through the process of implementing your DR plan and document as much as possible.  Following a checklist is much easier than trying to remember at night under pressure in a hurry after a few drinks. I had a series of estimates on how long things would take.  They were accurate for any single server failure.  They weren’t accurate for a SAN failure that took two servers down.  This wasn’t bad but we should have communicated better. Don’t forget how many things are outside the database.  Logins, linked servers, DTS packages (yikes!), jobs, service broker, DTC (especially DTC), database triggers and any objects in the master database are all things you need backed up.  We’d done a decent job on this and didn’t find significant problems here.  That said this still took a lot of time.  There were many annoyances as a result of this.  Small settings like a login’s default database had a big impact on whether an application could run.  This is probably the single biggest area of concern when looking to recreate a server.  I’d encourage everyone to go through every single node of SSMS and look for user created objects or settings outside the database. Script out your logins with the proper SID and already encrypted passwords and keep it updated.  This makes life so much easier.  I used an approach based on KB246133 that worked well.  I’ll get my scripts posted over the next few days. The disaster can cause your DR process to fail in unexpected ways.  We have a job that scripts out all logins and role memberships and writes it to a file.  This runs on the DR server and pulls from the production server.  Upon opening the file I found that the contents were a “server not found” error.  Fortunately we had other copies and didn’t need to try and restore the master database.  This now runs on the production server and pushes the script to the DR site.  Soon we’ll get it pushed to our version control software. One of the biggest challenges is keeping your DR resources up to date.  Any server change (new linked server, new SQL Server Agent job, etc.) means that your DR plan (and scripts) is out of date.  It helps to automate the generation of these resources if possible. Take time now to test your database restore process.  We test ours quarterly.  If you have a large database I’d also encourage you to invest in a compressed backup solution.  Restoring backups was the single larger consumer of time during our recovery. And yes, there’s a database mirroring solution planned in our new architecture. I didn’t have much involvement in things outside SQL Server but this caused many, many things to change in our environment.  Many applications today aren’t just executables or web sites.  They are a combination of those plus network infrastructure, reports, network ports, IP addresses, DTS and SSIS packages, batch systems and many other things.  These all needed a little bit of attention to make sure they were functioning properly. Profiler turned out to be a handy tool.  I started a trace for failed logins and kept that running.  That let me fix a number of problems before people were able to report them.  I also ran traces to capture exceptions.  This helped identify problems with linked servers. Overall the thing that gave me the most problem was linked servers.  In order for a linked server to function properly you need to be pointed to the right server, have the proper login information, have the network routes available and have MSDTC configured properly.  We have a lot of linked servers and this created many failure points.  Some of the older linked servers used IP addresses and not DNS names.  This meant we had to go in and touch all those linked servers when the servers moved.

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  • Print Any Document Type with AutoVue Document Print Services

    - by [email protected]
    The newly released AutoVue Document Print Services allow development organizations to automate and process high volume printing operations, of both business and technical document types, within their broader enterprise applications. For many organizations, their printing processes are challenged by the fact that they can only print a small subset of the documents required by their enterprise users. By integrating AutoVue Document Print Services, and deploying them in conjunction with their existing print server solutions, organizations can address that challenge and automate the printing of virtually any document type required in any business process, greatly extending the value of their print server solutions, and improving business processes and workforce productivity. For further details, check out the AutoVue Document Print Services datasheet.

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  • Change Comes from Within

    - by John K. Hines
    I am in the midst of witnessing a variety of teams moving away from Scrum. Some of them are doing things like replacing Scrum terms with more commonly understood terminology. Mainly they have gone back to using industry standard terms and more traditional processes like the RAPID decision making process. For example: Scrum Master becomes Project Lead. Scrum Team becomes Project Team. Product Owner becomes Stakeholders. I'm actually quite sad to see this happening, but I understand that Scrum is a radical change for most organizations. Teams are slowly but surely moving away from Scrum to a process that non-software engineers can understand and follow. Some could never secure the education or personnel (like a Product Owner) to get the whole team engaged. And many people with decision-making authority do not see the value in Scrum besides task planning and tracking. You see, Scrum cannot be mandated. No one can force a team to be Agile, collaborate, continuously improve, and self-reflect. Agile adoptions must start from a position of mutual trust and willingness to change. And most software teams aren't like that. Here is my personal epiphany from over a year of attempting to promote Agile on a small development team: The desire to embrace Agile methodologies must come from each and every member of the team. If this desire does not exist - if the team is satisfied with its current process, if the team is not motivated to improve, or if the team is afraid of change - the actual demonstration of all the benefits prescribed by Agile and Scrum will take years. I've read some blog posts lately that criticise Scrum for demanding "Big Change Up Front." One's opinion of software methodologies boils down to one's perspective. If you see modern software development as successful, you will advocate for small, incremental changes to how it is done. If you see it as broken, you'll be much more motivated to take risks and try something different. So my question to you is this - is modern software development healthy or in need of dramatic improvement? I can tell you from personal experience that any project that requires exploration, planning, development, stabilisation, and deployment is hard. Trying to make that process better with only a slightly modified approach is a mistake. You will become completely dependent upon the skillset of your team (the only variable you can change). But the difficulty of planned work isn't one of skill. It isn't until you solve the fundamental challenges of communication, collaboration, quality, and efficiency that skill even comes into play. So I advocate for Big Change Up Front. And I advocate for it to happen often until those involved can say, from experience, that it is no longer needed. I hope every engineer has the opportunity to see the benefits of Agile and Scrum on a highly functional team. I'll close with more key learnings that can help with a Scrum adoption: Your leaders must understand Scrum. They must understand software development, its inherent difficulties, and how Scrum helps. If you attempt to adopt Scrum before the understanding is there, your leaders will apply traditional solutions to your problems - often creating more problems. Success should be measured by quality, not revenue. Namely, the value of software to an organization is the revenue it generates minus ongoing support costs. You should identify quality-based metrics that show the effect Agile techniques have on your software. Motivation is everything. I finally understand why so many Agile advocates say you that if you are not on a team using Agile, you should leave and find one. Scrum and especially Agile encompass many elegant solutions to a wide variety of problems. If you are working on a team that has not encountered these problems the the team may never see the value in the solutions.   Having said all that, I'm not giving up on Agile or Scrum. I am convinced it is a better approach for software development. But reality is saying that its adoption is not straightforward and highly subject to disruption. Unless, that is, everyone really, really wants it.

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