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parallel computation for an Iterator of elements in Java

- by Brian Harris

I've had the same need a few times now and wanted to get other thoughts on the right way to structure a solution. The need is to perform some operation on many elements on many threads without needing to have all elements in memory at once, just the ones under computation. As in, Iterables.partition is insufficient because it brings all elements into memory up front. Expressing it in code, I want to write a BulkCalc2 that does the same thing as BulkCalc1, just in parallel. Below is sample code that illustrates my best attempt. I'm not satisfied because it's big and ugly, but it does seem to accomplish my goals of keeping threads highly utilized until the work is done, propagating any exceptions during computation, and not having more than numThreads instances of BigThing necessarily in memory at once. I'll accept the answer which meets the stated goals in the most concise way, whether it's a way to improve my BulkCalc2 or a completely different solution. interface BigThing { int getId(); String getString(); } class Calc { // somewhat expensive computation double calc(BigThing bigThing) { Random r = new Random(bigThing.getString().hashCode()); double d = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++) { d += r.nextDouble(); } return d; } } class BulkCalc1 { final Calc calc; public BulkCalc1(Calc calc) { this.calc = calc; } public TreeMap<Integer, Double> calc(Iterator<BigThing> in) { TreeMap<Integer, Double> results = Maps.newTreeMap(); while (in.hasNext()) { BigThing o = in.next(); results.put(o.getId(), calc.calc(o)); } return results; } } class SafeIterator<T> { final Iterator<T> in; SafeIterator(Iterator<T> in) { this.in = in; } synchronized T nextOrNull() { if (in.hasNext()) { return in.next(); } return null; } } class BulkCalc2 { final Calc calc; final int numThreads; public BulkCalc2(Calc calc, int numThreads) { this.calc = calc; this.numThreads = numThreads; } public TreeMap<Integer, Double> calc(Iterator<BigThing> in) { ExecutorService e = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(numThreads); List<Future<?>> futures = Lists.newLinkedList(); final Map<Integer, Double> results = new MapMaker().concurrencyLevel(numThreads).makeMap(); final SafeIterator<BigThing> it = new SafeIterator<BigThing>(in); for (int i = 0; i < numThreads; i++) { futures.add(e.submit(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { while (true) { BigThing o = it.nextOrNull(); if (o == null) { return; } results.put(o.getId(), calc.calc(o)); } } })); } e.shutdown(); for (Future<?> future : futures) { try { future.get(); } catch (InterruptedException ex) { // swallowing is OK } catch (ExecutionException ex) { throw Throwables.propagate(ex.getCause()); } } return new TreeMap<Integer, Double>(results); } }

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Low-Hanging Fruit: Obfuscating non-critical values in JavaScript

- by Piskvor

I'm making an in-browser game of the type "guess what place/monument/etc. is in this satellite/aerial view", using Google Maps JS API v3. However, I need to protect against cheaters - you have to pass a google.maps.LatLng and a zoom level to the map constructor, which means a cheating user only needs to view source to get to this data. I am already unsetting every value I possibly can without breaking the map (such as center and the manipulation functions like setZoom()), and initializing the map in an anonymous function (so the object is not visible in global namespace). Now, this is of course in-browser, client-side, untrusted JavaScript; I've read much of the obfuscation tag and I'm not trying to make the script bullet-proof (it's just a game, after all). I only need to make the obfuscation reasonably hard against the 1337 Java5kryp7 haxz0rz - "kid sister encryption", as Bruce Schneier puts it. Anything harder than base64 encoding would deter most cheaters by eliminating the lowest-hanging fruit - if the cheater is smart and determined enough to use a JS debugger, he can bypass anything I can do (as I need to pass the value to Google Maps API in plaintext), but that's unlikely to happen on a mass scale (there will also be other, not-code-related ways to prevent cheating). I've tried various minimizers and obfuscators, but those will mostly deal with code - the values are still shown verbatim. TL;DR: I need to obfuscate three values in JavaScript. I'm not looking for bullet-proof armor, just a sneeze-guard. What should I use?

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What about IPv4 class E?

- by Luc

IPv4's class E network (240.0.0.0/4) contains 268 million addresses. Despite the advertisements for IPv6, claiming we have ran out of address space, this block ironically still claims to be "Reserved for future use". Why hasn't this block been freed up yet? Of course, IPv6 should be promoted instead of freeing up more IPv4 addresses, but we've seen the address shortage coming for years. There has even been a time they weren't sure there was enough time to develop IPv6 before we would run out of addresses. Why didn't they free up this block already? And is there any chance these addresses will be used in the future, like when IPv6 is fairly widely implemented but we still need IPv4 for backwards compatibility? It will be phased out regardless, but then ISPs don't have to employ NAT for IPv4 compatibility.

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DNS forwarders limitations

- by thejartender

My question is very simple (maybe a tad too simple), but I will try and phrase it in a way to hopefully assist future visitors. I have just set up (successfully I hope) a DNS server at with some name server records on Ubuntu 12.10 while I am waiting for it to propagate I would like to know for future reference if I can use more than 2 forwarders in my /etc/named.conf.options.Would this speed up propagation? Do make this question and answer more valuable what other public DNS servers are available over and above Google's public DNS adresses: 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 I would also like to know if a restart of bind means that my servers will need to re-propagate? Is there a methodology to update settings while bind is running?

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Python - How to remove/unimport libs was imported before

- by Marslo

As we know that, in python 2.x, integer would be got if we divide two integer values. However, if using the furture (it's might be a lib or something like that), just like from __future__ import division, we can get float value. E.g.: >>> 3/2 1 >>> from __future__ import division >>> 3/2 1.5 >>> >>> >>> 3//2 1 >>> 4/3 1.3333333333333333 >>> So, '//' instead of '/' should be used if getting integer after imported division, but I want to know how to using '/' to get integer again. That is mean, whether there is some way to un-import or remove the libs which was imported before.

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form_for called in a loop overloads IDs and associates fields and labels incorrectly

- by Katy Levinson

Rails likes giving all of my fields the same IDs when they are generated in a loop, and this causes trouble. <% current_user.subscriptions.each do |s| %> <div class="subscription_listing"> <%= link_to_function s.product.name, "toggle_delay(this)"%> in <%= s.calc_time_to_next_arrival %> days. <div class="modify_subscription"> <%= form_for s, :url => change_subscription_path(s) do |f| %> <%= label_tag(:q, "Days to delay:") %> <%= text_field_tag(:query) %> <%= check_box_tag(:always) %> <%= label_tag(:always, "Apply delay to all future orders") %> <%= submit_tag("Change") %> <% end %> <%= link_to 'Destroy', s, :confirm => 'Are you sure?', :method => :delete %> </div> </div> <% end %> Produces <div class="subscription_listing"> <a href="#" onclick="toggle_delay(this); return false;">Pasta</a> in 57 days. <div class="modify_subscription"> <form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/subscriptions/7/change" class="edit_subscription" id="edit_subscription_7" method="post"><div style="margin:0;padding:0;display:inline"><input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="✓" /><input name="_method" type="hidden" value="put" /><input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="s5LJffuzmbEMkSrez8b3KLVmDWN/PGmDryXhp25+qc4=" /></div> <label for="q">Days to delay:</label> <input id="query" name="query" type="text" /> <input id="always" name="always" type="checkbox" value="1" /> <label for="always">Apply delay to all future orders</label> <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Change" /> </form> <a href="/subscriptions/7" data-confirm="Are you sure?" data-method="delete" rel="nofollow">Destroy</a> </div> </div> <div class="subscription_listing"> <a href="#" onclick="toggle_delay(this); return false;">Gummy Bears</a> in 57 days. <div class="modify_subscription"> <form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/subscriptions/8/change" class="edit_subscription" id="edit_subscription_8" method="post"><div style="margin:0;padding:0;display:inline"><input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="✓" /><input name="_method" type="hidden" value="put" /><input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="s5LJffuzmbEMkSrez8b3KLVmDWN/PGmDryXhp25+qc4=" /></div> <label for="q">Days to delay:</label> <input id="query" name="query" type="text" /> <input id="always" name="always" type="checkbox" value="1" /> <label for="always">Apply delay to all future orders</label> <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Change" /> </form> <a href="/subscriptions/8" data-confirm="Are you sure?" data-method="delete" rel="nofollow">Destroy</a> </div> </div> And that's a problem because now no matter which "Apply delay to all future orders" I select it always very helpfully checks the first box for me. How can I override the ID without doing something ugly and un-rails-like?

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Fake ISAPI Handler to serve static files with extention that are rewritted by url rewriter

- by developerit

Introduction I often map html extention to the asp.net dll in order to use url rewritter with .html extentions. Recently, in the new version of www.nouvelair.ca, we renamed all urls to end with .html. This works great, but failed when we used FCK Editor. Static html files would not get serve because we mapped the html extension to the .NET Framework. We can we do to to use .html extension with our rewritter but still want to use IIS behavior with static html files. Analysis I thought that this could be resolve with a simple HTTP handler. We would map urls of static files in our rewriter to this handler that would read the static file and serve it, just as IIS would do. Implementation This is how I coded the class. Note that this may not be bullet proof. I only tested it once and I am sure that the logic behind IIS is more complicated that this. If you find errors or think of possible improvements, let me know. Imports System.Web Imports System.Web.Services ' Author: Nicolas Brassard ' For: Solutions Nitriques inc. http://www.nitriques.com ' Date Created: April 18, 2009 ' Last Modified: April 18, 2009 ' License: CPOL (http://www.codeproject.com/info/cpol10.aspx) ' Files: ISAPIDotNetHandler.ashx ' ISAPIDotNetHandler.ashx.vb ' Class: ISAPIDotNetHandler ' Description: Fake ISAPI handler to serve static files. ' Usefull when you want to serve static file that has a rewrited extention. ' Example: It often map html extention to the asp.net dll in order to use url rewritter with .html. ' If you want to still serve static html file, add a rewritter rule to redirect html files to this handler Public Class ISAPIDotNetHandler Implements System.Web.IHttpHandler Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest ' Since we are doing the job IIS normally does with html files, ' we set the content type to match html. ' You may want to customize this with your own logic, if you want to serve ' txt or xml or any other text file context.Response.ContentType = "text/html" ' We begin a try here. Any error that occurs will result in a 404 Page Not Found error. ' We replicate the behavior of IIS when it doesn't find the correspoding file. Try ' Declare a local variable containing the value of the query string Dim uri As String = context.Request("fileUri") ' If the value in the query string is null, ' throw an error to generate a 404 If String.IsNullOrEmpty(uri) Then Throw New ApplicationException("No fileUri") End If ' If the value in the query string doesn't end with .html, then block the acces ' This is a HUGE security hole since it could permit full read access to .aspx, .config, etc. If Not uri.ToLower.EndsWith(".html") Then ' throw an error to generate a 404 Throw New ApplicationException("Extention not allowed") End If ' Map the file on the server. ' If the file doesn't exists on the server, it will throw an exception and generate a 404. Dim fullPath As String = context.Server.MapPath(uri) ' Read the actual file Dim stream As IO.StreamReader = FileIO.FileSystem.OpenTextFileReader(fullPath) ' Write the file into the response context.Response.Output.Write(stream.ReadToEnd) ' Close and Dipose the stream stream.Close() stream.Dispose() stream = Nothing Catch ex As Exception ' Set the Status Code of the response context.Response.StatusCode = 404 'Page not found ' For testing and bebugging only ! This may cause a security leak ' context.Response.Output.Write(ex.Message) Finally ' In all cases, flush and end the response context.Response.Flush() context.Response.End() End Try End Sub ' Automaticly generated by Visual Studio ReadOnly Property IsReusable() As Boolean Implements IHttpHandler.IsReusable Get Return False End Get End Property End Class Conclusion As you see, with our static files map to this handler using query string (ex.: /ISAPIDotNetHandler.ashx?fileUri=index.html) you will have the same behavior as if you ask for the uri /index.html. Finally, test this only in IIS with the html extension map to aspnet_isapi.dll. Url rewritting will work in Casini (Internal Web Server shipped with Visual Studio) but it’s not the same as with IIS since EVERY request is handle by .NET. Versions First release

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WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main WXS and WXI file

- by Mladen Prajdic

In the previous post we’ve taken a look at the WiX solution/project structure and project properties. We’re still playing with our super SuperForm application and today we’ll take a look at the general parts of the main wxs file, SuperForm.wxs, and the wxi include file. For wxs file we’ll just go over the general description of what each part does in the code comments. The more detailed descriptions will be in future posts about features themselves. WXI include file Include files are exactly what their name implies. To include a wxi file into the wxs file you have to put the wxi at the beginning of each .wxs file you wish to include it in. If you’ve ever worked with C++ you can think of the include files as .h files. For example if you include SuperFormVariables.wxi into the SuperForm.wxs, the variables in the wxi won’t be seen in FilesFragment.wxs or RegistryFragment.wxs. You’d have to include it manually into those two wxs files too. For preprocessor variable $(var.VariableName) to be seen by every file in the project you have to include them in the WiX project properties->Build->“Define preprocessor variables” textbox. This is why I’ve chosen not to go this route because in multi developer teams not everyone has the same directory structure and having a single variable would mean each developer would have to checkout the wixproj file to edit the variable. This is pretty much unacceptable by my standards. This is why we’ve added a System Environment variable named SuperFormFilesDir as is shown in the previous Wix Tutorial post. Because the FilesFragment.wxs is autogenerated on every project build we don’t want to change it manually each time by adding the include wxi at the beginning of the file. This way we couldn’t recreate it in each pre-build event. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Include>  <?define MajorVersion="1" ?> <?define MinorVersion="0" ?> <?define BuildVersion="0" ?>  <?define Revision="0" ?>  <?define VersionNumber="$(var.MajorVersion).$(var.MinorVersion).$(var.BuildVersion).$(var.Revision)" ?>  <?define UpgradeCode="YOUR-GUID-HERE" ?>  <?define ResourcesDir="$(var.ProjectDir)\Resources" ?>  <?define ExeProcessName="SuperForm.MainApp.exe" ?></Include> For now there’s no way to tell WiX in Visual Studio to have a wxi include file available to the whole project, so you have to include it in each file separately. Only variables set in “Define preprocessor variables” or System Environment variables are accessible to the whole project for now. The main WXS file: SuperForm.wxs We’ll only take a look at the general structure of the main SuperForm.wxs and not its the details. We’ll cover the details in future posts. The code comments should provide plenty info about what each part does in general. Basically there are 5 major parts. The update part, the conditions and actions part, the UI install sequence, the directory structure and the features we want to include. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">  <?include $(sys.CURRENTDIR)Includes\SuperFormVariables.wxi ?>  <Product Id="*" Name="!(loc.ProductName) $(var.VersionNumber)" Language="!(loc.LANG)" Version="$(var.VersionNumber)" Manufacturer="!(loc.ManufacturerName)" UpgradeCode="$(var.UpgradeCode)">  <Package InstallerVersion="300" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine"/> <Media Id="1" Cabinet="media1.cab" EmbedCab="yes" />  <Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)"> <UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Minimum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMinimum="no" Property="NEWER_VERSION_FOUND" /> <UpgradeVersion Minimum="0.0.0.0" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMaximum="no" Property="OLDER_VERSION_FOUND" /> </Upgrade>  <PropertyRef Id="NETFRAMEWORK35"/>  <Condition Message="!(loc.DotNetFrameworkNeeded)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR NETFRAMEWORK35]]> </Condition> <Condition Message="!(loc.AppNotSupported)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR ((VersionNT >= 501 AND ServicePackLevel >= 2) OR (VersionNT >= 502))]]> </Condition>  <CustomAction Id="NewerVersionFound" Error="!(loc.SuperFormNewerVersionInstalled)" /> <InstallExecuteSequence>  <Custom Action="NewerVersionFound" After="FindRelatedProducts"> <![CDATA[NEWER_VERSION_FOUND]]> </Custom>  <RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallInitialize"/>  <Custom Action="WixCloseApplications" Before="InstallInitialize" /> </InstallExecuteSequence>  <util:CloseApplication Id="CloseSuperForm" CloseMessage="no" Description="!(loc.MustCloseSuperForm)" ElevatedCloseMessage="no" RebootPrompt="no" Target="$(var.ExeProcessName)" />  <UIRef Id="WixUI_InstallDir" /> <UI>  <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" /> <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" />  </UI>  <Icon Id="SuperFormIcon.ico" SourceFile="$(var.ResourcesDir)\Exclam.ico" /> <Property Id="ARPPRODUCTICON" Value="SuperFormIcon.ico" />   <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir"> <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder"> <Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="!(loc.ProductName)" /> </Directory> </Directory>  <Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="INSTALLLOCATION" />  <Feature Id="SuperFormFeature" Title="!(loc.ProductName)" Level="1"> <ComponentGroupRef Id="SuperFormFiles" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpVersionInRegistry" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpIsThisUpdateInRegistry" /> </Feature> </Product></Wix> For more info on what certain attributes mean you should look into the WiX Documentation. WiX 3 tutorial by Mladen Prajdic navigation WiX 3 Tutorial: Solution/Project structure and Dev resources WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main wxs and wxi file WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe

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SDL2 sprite batching and texture atlases

- by jms

I have been programming a 2D game in C++, using the SDL2 graphics API for rendering. My game concept currently features effects that could result in even tens of thousands of sprites being drawn simultaneously to the screen. I'd like to know what can be done for increasing rendering efficiency if the need arises, preferably using the SDL2 API only. I have previously given a quick look at OpenGL-based 2D rendering, and noticed that SDL2 lacks a command like int SDL_RenderCopyMulti(SDL_Renderer* renderer, SDL_Texture* texture, const SDL_Rect* srcrects, SDL_Rect* dstrects, int count) Which would permit SDL to benefit from two common techniques used for efficient 2D graphics: Texture batching: Sorting sprites by the texture used, and then simultaneously rendering as many sprites that use the same texture as possible, changing only the source area on the texture and the destination area on the render target between sprites. This allows the encapsulation of the whole operation in a single GPU command, reducing the overhead drastically from multiple distinct calls. Texture atlases: Instead of creating one texture for each frame of each animation of each sprite, combining multiple animations and even multiple sprites into a single large texture. This lessens the impact of changing the current texture when switching between sprites, as the correct texture is often ready to be used from the previous draw call. Furthemore the GPU is optimized for handling large textures, in contrast to the many tiny textures typically used for sprites. My question: Would SDL2 still get somewhat faster from any rudimentary sprite sorting or from combining multiple images into one texture thanks to automatic video driver optimizations? If I will encounter performance issues related to 2D rendering in the future, will I be forced to switch to OpenGL for lower level control over the GPU? Edit: Are there any plans to include such functionality in the near future?

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Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community

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

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DevDays ‘00 The Netherlands day #1

- by erwin21

First day of DevDays 2010, I was looking forward to DevDays to see all the new things like VS2010, .NET4.0, MVC2. The lineup for this year is again better than the year before, there are 100+ session of all kind of topics like Cloud, Database, Mobile, SharePoint, User experience, Visual Studio, Web. The first session of the day was a keynote by Anders Hejlsberg he talked about the history and future of programming languages. He gave his view about trends and influences in programming languages today and in the future. The second talk that i followed was from the famous Scott Hanselman, he talked about the basics of ASP.NET MVC 2, although it was a 300 level session, it was more like a level 100 session, but it was mentioned by Scott at the beginning. Although it was interesting to see all the basic things about MVC like the controllers, actions, routes, views, models etc. After the lunch the third talk for me was about moving ASP.NET webform applications to MVC from Fritz Onion. In this session he changed an example webform application part by part to a MVC application. He gave some interesting tips and tricks and showed how to solve some issues that occur while converting. Next and the fourth talk was about the difference between LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework from Kurt Claeys. He gave a good understanding about this two options, the demos where in LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework, the goal was to get a good understanding when and where to use both options. The last talk about this day was also from Scott Hanselman, he goes deeper into the features of ASP.NET MVC 2 and gave some interesting tips, the ninja black belt tips. He gave some tips about the tooling, the new MVC 2 html helper methods, other view engines (like NHaml, spark),T4 templating. With this tips we can be more productive and create web applications better and faster. It was a long and interesting day, I am looking forward to day #2.

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Allen for Umbraco with location EXIF meta data

- by Vizioz Limited

The latest version of Allen for Umbraco has now hit the Apple App store, we have managed to add some nice improvements to this version that include:Storing location and direction information when photos are taken within the AppEmbedding EXIF data into the images when they are uploadBackground UploadingPull to refresh the media tree Location and DirectionBy default when the camera is used within an application the location and direction that the camera is pointing is not stored within the image meta data. We have now added full support so that this data is now added. We have added a setting which allows you to prevent this data from being uploaded to your website if you do not want the location data to be sent you can turn it off within Allen, Note: Please don't forget that location services do need to be turned on to allow the app to access the images in the phone's asset library.We have had quite a few ideas from users already for using this location data, including logging free parking in Denmark to geo-tagging holiday photos and linking the photos to Google street view. Embedding EXIF dataWe now embed all the meta data available on the iPhone into the image when it is uploaded to your server, this allows you to pull the data out and use it within your site. Have a look at Cultiv's Photo Meta Data package for great example code that allows you to automatically pull this data out and populate properties on your Umbraco media item.We slightly modified the source code of this package to allow the package to always extract the image data, as the default package requires a property to allow the data to be extracted, it's an easy change, if you get stuck add a comment to this post. Background UploadingIf you try to upload multiple images and need to start doing something else on your phone, you can now click the home button and the application will continue to upload your images in the background. As soon as it has finished you will receive a standard Apple notification. Pull to RefreshOur final enhancement has been to add "Pull to refresh" to the media trees, just pull the tree downwards with your finger and it will refresh, this is useful if you are adding items to your media tree while testing your site with Allen for Umbraco. Future enhancements.. your ideas?If you have any ideas for future enhancement feel free to add a comment below!

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Why is C++ backward compatibility important / necessary?

- by Giorgio

As far as understand it is a well-established opinion within the C++ community that C is an obsolete language that was useful 20 years ago but cannot support many modern good programming practices, or even encourages bad practices; certain features that were typical of C++ (C with classes) during the nineties are also obsolete and considered bad practice in modern C++ (e.g., new and delete should be replaced by smart pointer primitives). In view of this, I often wonder why backward compatibility with C and obsolete C++ features is still considered important: to my knowledge there is no 100% compatibility, but most of C and C++ are contained in C++11 as a subset. Of course, there is a lot of legacy code and libraries (possibly containing templates) that are written using a previous standard of the language and which still need to be maintained or used in connection with new code. Nevertheless, maybe it would still be possible to drop obsolete C and C++ features (e.g. the mentioned new / delete) from a future C++ standard so that it is impossible to use them in new code. In this way, old and dangerous programming practices would be quickly banned from new code, and modern, better programming practices would be enforced by the compiler. Legacy code could still be maintained using separate compilation (having C alongside C++ source files is already a common practice). Developers would have to choose between one compiler supporting the old-style C++ that was common during the nineties and a compiler supporting the modern C++? style (the question mark indicates a future, hypothetical revision). Only mixing the two styles would be forbidden. Would this be a viable strategy for encouraging the adoption of modern C++ practices? Are there conceptual reasons or technical problems (e.g. compiling existing templates) that make such a change undesirable or even impossible? Has such a development been proposed in the C++ community. If there has been some extended discussion on the topic, is there any material on-line?

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C# 4.0: Alternative To Optional Arguments

- by Paulo Morgado

Like I mentioned in my last post, exposing publicly methods with optional arguments is a bad practice (that’s why C# has resisted to having it, until now). You might argument that your method or constructor has to many variants and having ten or more overloads is a maintenance nightmare, and you’re right. But the solution has been there for ages: have an arguments class. The arguments class pattern is used in the .NET Framework is used by several classes, like XmlReader and XmlWriter that use such pattern in their Create methods, since version 2.0: XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings(); settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Auto; XmlReader.Create("file.xml", settings); With this pattern, you don’t have to maintain a long list of overloads and any default values for properties of XmlReaderSettings (or XmlWriterSettings for XmlWriter.Create) can be changed or new properties added in future implementations that won’t break existing compiled code. You might now argue that it’s too much code to write, but, with object initializers added in C# 3.0, the same code can be written like this: XmlReader.Create("file.xml", new XmlReaderSettings { ValidationType = ValidationType.Auto }); Looks almost like named and optional arguments, doesn’t it? And, who knows, in a future version of C#, it might even look like this: XmlReader.Create("file.xml", new { ValidationType = ValidationType.Auto });

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Allen for Umbraco - Upload photos from your iPhone - iPad and iPod Touch

- by Vizioz Limited

At last year's UK Umbraco Festival we gave a demo of our alpha version of Allen for Umbraco, at that stage the application only worked on an iPhone and was a very quick prototype to see what people thought.When we returned to our office the next day, we decided if we were going to release Allen for Umbraco into the wild we really should start again from scratch, the main two reasons for this were;First to ensure it was a truly Universal application ( i.e. it can be installed on an iPhone, iPad or iPod ) which looks and behaves differently depending on the device. The second reason was we really wanted the application to be the foundations of more than just image uploading for Umbraco, for this to be the case we ensured the new version was built following proven design patterns and with lots of unit tests so that we can easily extended it.We have lots of plans for future versions of Allen for Umbraco including adding iCloud support to keep all your settings in sync across your multiple Apple devices. We are also working on support for Umbraco 5 which should be release soon.When you download the App and setup your site, make sure you have a look at the Image Resizing settings, by default we have set these to resize your images to 512 pixels wide, however you can choose from a variety of different resizing methods (by Height, Width, Fit within a frame or the full size image).Also, by default when you select a photo you will see that the image is named with it's date and time stamp of when the photograph was taken (or the current date and time if the original date is not stored in your image). If you click on this name you can edit the name of your photo before it is uploaded.Finally, we are really keep to get your feedback, so within the App help section you will find a way to submit Suggestions and if needed, you can send up Support emails from within the App :)We hope you enjoy the first version of Allen for Umbraco and we look forward to bringing you lots of exciting additional functionality in the future!

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What design patters are the worst or most narrowly defined?

- by Akku

For every programming project, Managers with past programming experience try to shine when they recommend some design patterns for your project. I like design patterns when they make sense or if you need a scalbale solution. I've used Proxies, Observers and Command patterns in a positive way for example, and do so every day. But I'm really hesitant to use say a Factory pattern if there's only one way to create an object, as a factory might make it all easier in the future, but complicates the code and is pure overhead. So, my question is in respect to my future career and my answer to manager types throwing random pattern-names around: Which design patterns did you use, that threw you back overall? Which are the worst design patterns, that you shouldn't have a look at if it's not that only single situation where it makes sense (read: which design patterns are very narrowly defined)? (It's like I was looking for the negative reviews of an overall good product of amazon to see what bugged people most in using design patterns). And I'm not talking about Anti-Patterns here, but about Patterns that are usually thought of as "good" patterns.

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Big Data – Learning Basics of Big Data in 21 Days – Bookmark

- by Pinal Dave

Earlier this month I had a great time to write Bascis of Big Data series. This series received great response and lots of good comments I have received, I am going to follow up this basics series with further in-depth series in near future. Here is the consolidated blog post where you can find all the 21 days blog posts together. Bookmark this page for future reference. Big Data – Beginning Big Data – Day 1 of 21 Big Data – What is Big Data – 3 Vs of Big Data – Volume, Velocity and Variety – Day 2 of 21 Big Data – Evolution of Big Data – Day 3 of 21 Big Data – Basics of Big Data Architecture – Day 4 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: What is NoSQL – Day 5 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: What is Hadoop – Day 6 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: What is MapReduce – Day 7 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: What is HDFS – Day 8 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: Importance of Relational Database in Big Data World – Day 9 of 21 Big Data – Buzz Words: What is NewSQL – Day 10 of 21 Big Data – Role of Cloud Computing in Big Data – Day 11 of 21 Big Data – Operational Databases Supporting Big Data – RDBMS and NoSQL – Day 12 of 21 Big Data – Operational Databases Supporting Big Data – Key-Value Pair Databases and Document Databases – Day 13 of 21 Big Data – Operational Databases Supporting Big Data – Columnar, Graph and Spatial Database – Day 14 of 21 Big Data – Data Mining with Hive – What is Hive? – What is HiveQL (HQL)? – Day 15 of 21 Big Data – Interacting with Hadoop – What is PIG? – What is PIG Latin? – Day 16 of 21 Big Data – Interacting with Hadoop – What is Sqoop? – What is Zookeeper? – Day 17 of 21 Big Data – Basics of Big Data Analytics – Day 18 of 21 Big Data – How to become a Data Scientist and Learn Data Science? – Day 19 of 21 Big Data – Various Learning Resources – How to Start with Big Data? – Day 20 of 21 Big Data – Final Wrap and What Next – Day 21 of 21 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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Nervous about the "real" world

- by Randy

I am currently majoring in Computer Science and minoring in mathematics (the minor is embedded in the major). The program has a strong C++ curriculum. We have done some UNIX and assembly language (not fun) and there is C and Java on the way in future classes that I must take. The program I am in did not use the STL, but rather a STL-ish design that was created from the ground up for the program. From what I have read on, the STL and what I have taken are very similar but what I used seemed more user friendly. Some of the programs that I had to write in C++ for assignments include: a password server that utilized hashing of the passwords for security purposes, a router simulator that used a hash table and maps, a maze solver that used depth first search, a tree traveler program that traversed a tree using levelorder, postorder, inorder, selection sort, insertion sort, bit sort, radix sort, merge sort, heap sort, quick sort, topological sort, stacks, queues, priority queues, and my least favorite, red-black trees. All of this was done in three semesters which was just enough time to code them up and turn them in. That being said, if I was told to use a stack to convert an equation to infix notation or something, I would be lost for a few hours. My main concern in writing this is when I graduate and land an interview, what are some of the questions posed to assess my skills? What are some of the most important areas of computer science that are prevalent in the field? I am currently trying to get some ideas of programs I can write in C++ that interest and challenge me to keep learning the language. A sodoku solver came to mind but am lost as to where to start. I apologize for the rant, but I'm just a wee bit nervous about the future. Any tips are appreciated.

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Glassfish alive or dead? WebLogic SE cost is less than Glassfish!

- by JuergenKress

Is a hot discussion in the community in the last few days! Send us your opinion on tiwtter @wlscommunity #Glassfish #WebLogicCommunity We posted theGlassFishStrategy.pptx at our WebLogic Community Workspace (WebLogic Community membership required). Please read also the Java EE and GlassFish Server Roadmap Update Bruno Borges ?Another great article covering story about #GlassFish. Comments starting to be reasonable ;-) 6 facts helped a lot http://adtmag.com/articles/2013/11/08/oracle-drops-glassfish.aspx … Adam Bien ?What Oracle Could Do For GlassFish Now: Move the sources to GitHub (GitHub is the most popular collaboration p... http://bit.ly/1d1uo24 JAXenter.com ?Oracle evangelist: “GlassFish Open Source Edition is not dead” http://jaxenter.com/oracle-evangelist-glassfish-open-source-edition-is-not-dead-48830.html … GlassFish 6 Facts About #GlassFish Announcement and the Future of #JavaEE http://bit.ly/1bbSVPf via @brunoborges David Blevins ?In support of our #GlassFish friends and open source in general: Feed the Fish http://www.tomitribe.com/blog/2013/11/feed-the-fish/ … #JavaEE #opensource #manifesto GlassFish ?GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 4.1 is scheduled for 2014. Version 5.0 as impl for #JavaEE8 https://blogs.oracle.com/theaquarium/entry/java_ee_and_glassfish_server … #Community focused C2B2 Consulting ?C2B2 continues to offer support for your operational #JEE applications running on #GlassFish http://blog.c2b2.co.uk/2013/11/oracle-dropping-commercial-support-of.html … #Java Markus Eisele ?RT @InfoQ: #GlassFish Commercial Edition is Dead http://bit.ly/17eFB0Z < at least they agree to my points... Adam Bien suggests: Move the sources to GitHub (GitHub is the most popular collaboration platform). It is more likely for an individual to contribute via GitHub, than the current infrastructure. Introduce a business friendlier license like e.g. the Apache license. Companies interesting in providing added value (and commercial support) on top of existing sources would appreciate it. Implement GitHub-based, open source, CI system with nightly builds. Introduce a transparent voting process / pull-request acceptance process. Release more frequently. Keep https://glassfish.java.net as the main hub. C2B2 offers Glassfish support by Steve Millidge Oracle have just announced that commercial support for GlassFish 4 will not be available from Oracle. In light of this announcement I thought I would put together some thoughts about how I see this development. I think the key word in this announcement is "commercial", nowhere does Oracle announce the "death of GlassFish" in contrary Oracle reaffirm; GlassFish Server Open Source Edition continues to be the strategic foundation for Java EE reference implementation going forward. And for developers, updates will be delivered as needed to continue to deliver a great developer experience for GlassFish Server Open Source Edition so GlassFish is not about to go away soon. In a similar fashion RedHat do not provide commercial support for WildFly and only provide commercial support for JBoss EAP. Admittedly JBoss EAP and WildFly are much closer together than GlassFish and WebLogic but WildFly and JBoss EAP are absolutely NOT the same thing. The key going forward to the viability of GlassFish as a production platform is how the GlassFish community develops; How often does the community release binary builds? How open is the community to bug fixes? How much engineering resource does Oracle commit to GlassFish? At this stage we just don't know the answers to these questions. If the GlassFish open source project continues on it's current trajectory without a commercial support offering then I don't see much of a problem. Oracle just have to work harder to sell migration paths to WebLogic in the same way as RedHat have to sell migration paths from WildFly to JBoss EAP. In the meantime C2B2 continues to offer support for your operational JEE applications running on GlassFish and we will endeavour to work with the community to get any bugs fixed. The key difference is we can no longer back our Expert Support with a support contract from Oracle for patches and fixes for any release greater than 3.x. Read the complete article here. 6 Facts About GlassFish Announcement By Bruno.Borges Fact #1 - GlassFish Open Source Edition is not dead GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will remain the reference implementation of Java EE. The current trunk is where an implementation for Java EE 8 will flourish, and this will become the future GlassFish 5.0. Calling "GlassFish is dead" does no good to the Java EE ecosystem. The GlassFish Community will remain strong towards the future of Java EE. Without revenue-focused mind, this might actually help the GlassFish community to shape the next version, and set free from any ties with commercial decisions. Fact #2 - OGS support is not over As I said before, GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will continue. Main change is that there will be no more future commercial releases of Oracle GlassFish Server. New and existing OGS 2.1.x and 3.1.x commercial customers will continue to be supported according to the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy. In parallel, I believe there's no other company in the Java EE business that offers commercial support to more than one build of a Java EE application server. This new direction can actually help customers and partners, simplifying decision through commercial negotiations. Fact #3 - WebLogic is not always more expensive than OGS Oracle GlassFish Server ("OGS") is a build of GlassFish Server Open Source Edition bundled with a set of commercial features called GlassFish Server Control and license bundles such as Java SE Support. OGS has at the moment of this writing the pricelist of U$ 5,000 / processor. One information that some bloggers are mentioning is that WebLogic is more expensive than this. Fact 3.1: it is not necessarily the case. The initial edition of WebLogic is called "Standard Edition" and falls into a policy where some “Standard Edition” products are licensed on a per socket basis. As of current pricelist, US$ 10,000 / socket. If you do the math, you will realize that WebLogic SE can actually be significantly more cost effective than OGS, and a customer can save money if running on a CPU with 4 cores or more for example. Quote from the price list: “When licensing Oracle programs with Standard Edition One or Standard Edition in the product name (with the exception of Java SE Support, Java SE Advanced, and Java SE Suite), a processor is counted equivalent to an occupied socket; however, in the case of multi-chip modules, each chip in the multi-chip module is counted as one occupied socket.” For more details speak to your Oracle sales representative - this is clearly at list price and every customer typically has a relationship with Oracle (like they do with other vendors) and different contractual details may apply. And although OGS has always been production-ready for Java EE applications, it is no secret that WebLogic has always been more enterprise, mission critical application server than OGS since BEA. Different editions of WLS provide features and upgrade irons like the WebLogic Diagnostic Framework, Work Managers, Side by Side Deployment, ADF and TopLink bundled license, Web Tier (Oracle HTTP Server) bundled licensed, Fusion Middleware stack support, Oracle DB integration features, Oracle RAC features (such as GridLink), Coherence Management capabilities, Advanced HA (Whole Service Migration and Server Migration), Java Mission Control, Flight Recorder, Oracle JDK support, etc. Fact #4 - There’s no major vendor supporting community builds of Java EE app servers There are no major vendors providing support for community builds of any Open Source application server. For example, IBM used to provide community support for builds of Apache Geronimo, not anymore. Red Hat does not commercially support builds of WildFly and if I remember correctly, never supported community builds of former JBoss AS. Oracle has never commercially supported GlassFish Server Open Source Edition builds. Tomitribe appears to be the exception to the rule, offering commercial support for Apache TomEE. Fact #5 - WebLogic and GlassFish share several Java EE implementations It has been no secret that although GlassFish and WebLogic share some JSR implementations (as stated in the The Aquarium announcement: JPA, JSF, WebSockets, CDI, Bean Validation, JAX-WS, JAXB, and WS-AT) and WebLogic understands GlassFish deployment descriptors, they are not from the same codebase. Fact #6 - WebLogic is not for GlassFish what JBoss EAP is for WildFly WebLogic is closed-source offering. It is commercialized through a license-based plus support fee model. OGS although from an Open Source code, has had the same commercial model as WebLogic. Still, one cannot compare GlassFish/WebLogic to WildFly/JBoss EAP. It is simply not the same case, since Oracle has had two different products from different codebases. The comparison should be limited to GlassFish Open Source / Oracle GlassFish Server versus WildFly / JBoss EAP. Read the complete article here WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: Glassfish,training,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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Role of Microsoft certifications ADO.Net, ASP.Net, WPF, WCF and Career?

- by Steve Johnson

I am a Microsoft fan and .Net enthusiast. I want to align my career in the lines of current and future .Net technologies. I have an MCTS in ASP.Net 3.5. The question is about the continuation of certifications and my career growth and maybe a different job! I want to keep pace with future Microsoft .Net technologies. My current job however doesn't allow so.So i bid to do .Net based certifications to stay abreast with latest .Net technologies. My questions: What certifications should i follow next? I have MCTS .Net 3.5 WPF(Exam 70-502) and MCTS .Net 3.5 WCF(Exam 70-504) in my mind so that i can go for Silverlight development and seek jobs related to Silverlight development. What other steps i need to take in order to develop professional expertise in technologies such as WPF, WCF and Silverlight when my current employer is reluctant to shift to latest .Net technologies? I am sure that there are a lot of people of around here who are working with .Net technologies and they have industrial experience. I being a new comer and starter in my career need to take right decision and so i am seeking help from this community in guiding me to the right path. Expert replies are much appreciated and thanks in advance. Best Regards Steve.

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Wire Framing WP7 Apps With Cacoo

- by Tim Murphy

While looking for a free alternative to Sketchflow I landed on the Cacoo web site. Any developer who decides to use the free Visual Studio tools may find themselves doing the same search. The base functionality of Cacoo is free although there are certain features that have fees attached to them such as extended stencils and templates. Cacoo doesn’t seem to have a template for WP7. It does have templates for iOS and Android development so I started with the Android template and started modidfying it for WP7. Funny thing is since Android has the same hardware vendors as Windows Phone the basic frame looks just right (I would swear I was looking at my Samsung Focus). Below is the start of a new mockup for the user group that I help run. I found that while Cacoo doesn’t have all the icons I need I am able to insert them from the Windows Phone Toolkit folder. If I put them off to the side as you can see above. I can simply copy and paste them into the appropriate place as needed. Beyond that I have customized the main frame frame so I can have my base to work from. In the future I intend to create this as a stencil and if it looks good enough I would consider making it public. My use of this product is still in it’s early phase, but it seems like a great way to start. Maybe if you use this to get going you can earn enough from your resulting apps to pay for something with more bells and whistles in the future. del.icio.us Tags: WP7,Windows Phone 7 development,design,Cacoo,wire frame

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ADDS: 1 - Introducing and designing

- by marc dekeyser

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} What is ADDS? Every Microsoft oriented infrastructure in today's enterprises will depend largely on the active directory version built by Microsoft. It is the foundation stone on which all other products (Exchange, update services, office communicator, the system center family, etc) rely on to get their information. And that is just looking at it from an infrastructure perspective. A well designed and implemented Active Directory implementation makes life for IT personnel and user alike a lot easier. Centralised management and the abilities opened up by having it in place are ample. But what is Active Directory Domain Services? We can look at ADDS as a centralised directory containing all objects your infrastructure runs on in one way or another. Since it is a Microsoft product you'll obviously not be seeing linux or mac clients listed in here (exceptions exist) but in general we can say it contains everything your company has in place in one form or another. The domain name services. The domain naming service (or DNS for short) is a service which translates IP address (the identifiers for each computer in your domain) into readable and easy to understand names. This service is a prequisite for ADDA to work and having wrong record in a DNS server will make any ADDS service fail. Generally speaking a DNS service will be run on the same server as the ADDS service but it is worth wile to remember that this is not necessary. You could, for example, run your DNS services on a linux box (which would need special preparing to host an ADDS integrated DNS zone) and run the ADDS service of another box… Where to start? If the aim is to put in place a first time implementation of ADDS in your enterprise there are plenty of things to consider depending on what you are going to do in the long run. Great care has to be taken when first designing and implementing as having it set up wrong will cause a headache down the line. It is for that reason that I like to start building from the bottom up and start with a generic installation of ADDS (which will still differ for every client) and make it adaptable for future services which can hook in to the existing environment. Adapting existing environments is out of scope for this document (and series) although it is possible to take the pointers and change your existing environment to run in a smoother manor. Take great care when changing things as one small slip of the hand can give you a forest wide failure… Whenever starting with an ADDS deployment I ask the client the following questions: What are your long term plans and goals? How flexible do you want it? Are you currently linux heavy and want to keep this or can we go for an all Microsoft design? Those three questions should give some sort of indicator what direction can be taken and if the client has thought about some things themselves :). The technical side of things What is next to consider is what kind of infrastructure is already in place. For these series I'll keep it simple and introduce some general concepts without going in to depth on integrating ADDS with other DNS services. Building from the ground up means we need to consider our layers on which our infrastructure will rely. In my view that goes as follows: Network (WAN/LAN links and physical sites DNS Namespacing All in one domain or split up in different domains/forests? Security (both for ADDS and physical sites) The network side of things Looking at how the network is currently set up can potentially teach us a large deal about the client. Do they have multiple physical site? What network speeds exist between these sites, etc… Depending on this information we will design our site links (which controls replication) in future stages. DNS Namespacing Maybe the single most intresting thing to know is what the domain will be named (ADDS will need a DNS domain with the same name) and where this will be hosted. Note that active directory can be set up with a singe name (aka contoso instead of contoso.com) but it is highly recommended to never do this. If you do end up with a domain like that for some reason there will be a lot of services that are going to give you good grief in the future (exchange being one of them). So one of the best practises would be always to use a double name (contoso.com or contoso.lan for example). Internal namespace A single namespace is just what it sounds like. You have a DNS domain which is different internally from what the client has as an external namespace. f.e. contoso.com as an external name (out on the internet) and contoso.lan on the internal network. his setup is has its advantages in that you have more obscurity from the internet in the DNS side of this but it will require additional work to publish services to the web. External namespace Quite like the internal namespace only here you do not differ the internal namespace of the company from what is known on the internet. In this implementation you would host your own DNS servers for the external domain inside the network. Or in other words, any external computer doing a DNS lookup would contact your internal DNS server for the resolution. Generally speaking this set up is a bad idea from the security side of things. Split DNS Whilst using an external namespace design is fairly easy it involves a lot of security risks. Opening up you ADDS DSN servers for lookups exposes your entire network to the internet and should be avoided at any cost. And that is where the "split DNS" design comes in. In this setup up would still have the same namespace internally and externally but you would be using different DNS servers for lookups on the external network who have no records of your internal resources unless you explicitly publish them. All in one or not? In determining your active directory design you can look at the following possibilities: Single forest, Single domain Single forest, multiple domains Multiple forests, multiple domains I've listed the possibilities for design in increasing order of administrative magnitude. Microsoft recommends trying to use a single forest, single domain in as much situations as possible. It is, however, always possible that you require your services to be seperated from your users in a resource forest with trusts set up between the different forests. To start out I would go with the single forest design to avoid complexity unless there are strict requirements to have multiple forests. Security What kind of security is required on the domain and does this reflect the physical security on the sites? Not every client can afford to have a domain controller in a secluded server room on every site and it is exactly for that reason that Microsoft introduced the RODC (read only domain controller). A RODC is a domain controller that has been limited in functionality, in essence it will only cache the data you explicitly tell it to cache and in the case of a DC compromise (it being stolen) only a limited number of accounts will need to be affected. Th- Th- Th- That’s all folks! Well at least for now! In future editions of this series we’ll be walking through the different task that need to be done and the thought which needs to be put in to it. But for all editions we’ll be going from the concept of running a single forest, single domain with a split DNS setup… See you next time!

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SkyDrive and Consumer Cloud Services

- by Tim Murphy

Paul Thurrrott recently posted an article on the future of SkyDrive and I was asked what I thought about its future by @UserCommunity. So let’s take a look. The breakdown from Microsoft that Paul described I believe is an accurate representation of users and usages. While I can’t say that I leverage SkyDrive to the extent that it was meant to be I do enjoy having OneNote hosted their and being able to consult and edit it from the desktop, web and Windows Phone. Taking that one step further is the Midwest Geeks group which started as the community of Microsoft related user groups in our region uses SkyDrive groups and shares calendars and documents. This collaboration aspect isn’t new in itself, but having it connected with the rest of your cloud assets makes life easier. Another recent usage of this type of cloud service is storing your personal music files in order to get that same universal access. This is a scenario that has some arguments for and against. On the one hand own once and listen anywhere is great, but the on the other hand the bandwidth cost becomes a giant downside. This is especially the case since most carriers are now doing away with unlimited data packages. Ultimately I see this type of resource growing an evolving at a phenomenal rate over the next few years as we continue to become more mobile. Having multiple players such as SkyDrive and iCloud will only help to give us more options. Only time will tell where we end up next. del.icio.us Tags: SkyDrive,Cloud Services,Paul Thurrott,UserCommunity

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SQLAuthority News – Resolution for New Year 2011

- by pinaldave

Today is the first day of the year so I want to write something very light. Last Year: 2010 Last Year was a blast; really traveled a lot. My family and I went on vacation. There I enjoyed being father, rolling on the floor and playing with my daughter. Here is the list of the countries I visited throughout 2010: Singapore (twice) Malaysia (twice) Sri Lanka (thrice) Nepal (once) United States of America (twice) United Arab Emirates (UAE) (once) My daughter who just completed 1 year on September 1, 2010 has so far visited three countries: Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, where I have done lots of community activities. The list containing all my activities can be found at Pinal Dave’s Community Events. I have written nearly 380 blog posts last year. It would be difficult for me to pick a few. However, I keep a running list of all of my articles over here: All Articles on SQLAuthority.com. I have so far received more than 10,000 email questions during the year and consequently I have done my best to answer most of them. I strongly believe if one would Search SQLAuthority.com blog, they would have found the answer quickly. The best part of 2010 for me was working on SQL Server Health Check and SQL Server Performance Tuning. This Year: 2011 This year, I came up with two simple goals: 1. Personal Goal: Reduce Weight 2. Professional Goal: Stay busy for the entire year with SQL Server Performance Tuning Projects. (Currently January 2011 is booked with performance tuning projects and 40 other days are already booked throughout the year). Future The future is something one cannot exactly guess and one cannot see. I just want to wish all of you the very best for this coming New Year. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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ORAchk 2.2.5 – New Tool Features & New Health Checks for the Oracle Stack

- by SamanthaF-Oracle

ORAchk version 2.2.5 is now available for download, new features in 2.2.5: Running checks for multiple databases in parallel Ability to schedule multiple automated runs via ORAchk daemon New "scratch area" for ORAchk temporary files moved from /tmp to a configurable $HOME directory location System health score calculation now ignores skipped checks Checks the health of pluggable databases using OS authentication New report section to report top 10 time consuming checks to be used for optimizing runtime in the future More readable report output for clusterwide checks Includes over 50 new Health Checks for the Oracle Stack Provides a single dashboard to view collections across your entire enterprise using the Collection Manager, now pre-bundled Expands coverage of pre and post upgrade checks to include standalone databases, with new profile options to run only these checks Expands to additional product areas in E-Business Suite of Workflow & Oracle Purchasing and in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control ORAchk has replaced the popular RACcheck tool, extending the coverage based on prioritization of top issues reported by users, to proactively scan for known problems within the area of: Oracle Database Standalone Database Grid Infrastructure & RAC Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) Validation Upgrade Readiness Validation Golden Gate Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Repository E-Business Suite Oracle Payables (R12 only) Oracle Workflow Oracle Purchasing (R12 only) Oracle Sun Systems Oracle Solaris ORAchk features: Proactively scans for the most impactful problems across the various layers of your stack Streamlines how to investigate and analyze which known issues present a risk to you Executes lightweight checks in your environment, providing immediate results with no configuration data sent to Oracle Local reporting capability showing specific problems and their resolutions Ability to configure email notifications when problems are detected Provides a single dashboard to view collections across your entire enterprise using the Collection Manager ORAchk will expand in the future with high impact checks in existing and additional product areas. If you have particular checks or product areas you would like to see covered, please post suggestions in the ORAchk subspace in My Oracle Support Community. For more details about ORAchk see Document 1268927.2

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