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• I Didn&rsquo;t Get You Anything&hellip;

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Nearly every day this blog features a  list posts and articles written by members of the OTN architect community. But with Christmas just days away, I thought a break in that routine was in order. After all, if the holidays aren’t excuse enough for an off-topic post, then the terrorists have won. Rather than buy gifts for everyone -- which, given the readership of this blog and my budget could amount to a cash outlay of upwards of $15.00 – I thought I’d share a bit of holiday humor. I wrote the following essay back in the mid-90s, for a “print” publication that used “paper” as a content delivery system.  That was then. I’m older now, my kids are older, but my feelings toward the holidays haven’t changed… It’s New, It’s Improved, It’s Christmas! The holidays are a time of rituals. Some of these, like the shopping, the music, the decorations, and the food, are comforting in their predictability. Other rituals, like the shopping, the  music, the decorations, and the food, can leave you curled into the fetal position in some dark corner, whimpering. How you react to these various rituals depends a lot on your general disposition and credit card balance. I, for one, love Christmas. But there is one Christmas ritual that really tangles my tinsel: the seasonal editorializing about how our modern celebration of the holidays pales in comparison to that of Christmas past. It's not that the old notions of how to celebrate the holidays aren't all cozy and romantic--you can't watch marathon broadcasts of "It's A Wonderful White Christmas Carol On Thirty-Fourth Street Story" without a nostalgic teardrop or two falling onto your plate of Christmas nachos. It's just that the loudest cheerleaders for "old-fashioned" holiday celebrations overlook the fact that way-back-when those people didn't have the option of doing it any other way. Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh? No thanks. When Christmas morning rolls around, I'm going to be mighty grateful that the family is going to hop into a nice warm Toyota for the ride over to grandma's place. I figure a horse-drawn sleigh is big fun for maybe fifteen minutes. After that you’re going to want Old Dobbin to haul ass back to someplace warm where the egg nog is spiked and the family can gather in the flickering glow of a giant TV and contemplate the true meaning of football. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Sorry, no fireplace. We've got a furnace for heat, and stuffing nuts in there voids the warranty. Any of the roasting we do these days is in the microwave, and I'm pretty sure that if you put chestnuts in the microwave they would become little yuletide hand grenades. Although, if you've got a snoot full of Yule grog, watching chestnuts explode in your microwave might be a real holiday hoot. Some people may see microwave ovens as a symptom of creeping non-traditional holiday-ism. But I'll bet you that if there were microwave ovens around in Charles Dickens' day, the Cratchits wouldn't have had to entertain an uncharacteristically giddy Scrooge for six or seven hours while the goose cooked. Holiday entertaining is, in fact, the one area that even the most severe critic of modern practices would have to admit has not changed since Tim was Tiny. A good holiday celebration, then as now, involves lots of food, free-flowing drink, and a gathering of friends and family, some of whom you are about as happy to see as a subpoena. Just as the Cratchit's Christmas was spent with a man who, for all they knew, had suffered some kind of head trauma, so the modern holiday gathering includes relatives or acquaintances who, because they watch too many talk shows, and/or have poor personal hygiene, and/or fail to maintain scheduled medication, you would normally avoid like a plate of frosted botulism. But in the season of good will towards men, you smile warmly at the mystery uncle wandering around half-crocked with a clump of mistletoe dangling from the bill of his N.R.A. cap. Dickens' story wouldn't have become the holiday classic it has if, having spotted on their doorstep an insanely grinning, raw poultry-bearing, fresh-off-a-rough-night Scrooge, the Cratchits had pulled their shades and pretended not to be home. Which is probably what I would have done. Instead, knowing full well his reputation as a career grouch, they welcomed him into their home, and we have a touching story that teaches a valuable lesson about how the Christmas spirit can get the boss to pump up the payroll. Despite what the critics might say, our modern Christmas isn't all that different from those of long ago. Sure, the technology has changed, but that just means a bigger, brighter, louder Christmas, with lasers and holograms and stuff. It's our modern celebration of a season that even the least spiritual among us recognizes as a time of hope that the nutcases of the world will wake up and realize that peace on earth is a win/win proposition for everybody. If Christmas has changed, it's for the better. We should continue making Christmas bigger and louder and shinier until everybody gets it.  *** Happy Holidays, everyone!   del.icio.us Tags: holiday,humor Technorati Tags: holiday,humor

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• HR According to Batman

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Any idea who that guy is running alongside the Caped Crusader? That’s Nightwing, but you may know him as Robin…well, the first Robin anyway. There were actually like 5 Robin’s according to Wikipedia: Dick Grayson, the original, who’s parents were circus performers killed by a gangster. Jason Todd, who was caught trying to steal tires off of the Batmobile. Tim Drake, who saw Dick’s parents die and figured out who Batman and Robin were. and a few others that get into recent time travel/altered reality storylines. What does this have to do with HR? Well, it somewhat ties in with an article by Alex Papadimoulis from 2008. In the article he talks about the “Cravath System”. The Craveth system was developed by a law firm called Cravath, Swaine & Moore back in the 19th century. In a nutshell, they believed in hiring the best and brightest straight out of school. These aspiring lawyers would then begin a fight for survival in the firm, with the strong surviving. In what’s termed the “Up and Out” rule, employees needed to be promoted within 3 years or leave the company. They should achieve partner within 7 – 8 years and no later than 10 after initially coming on board (read all about the system on Wikipedia here). Back to Alex’s article, he quotes from a book published in 1947 about the lawfirm: Under the “Cravath system” of taking a substantial number of men annually and keeping a current constantly moving up in the office, and its philosophy of tenure, men are constantly leaving… it is often difficult to keep the best men long enough to determine whether they shall be made partners, for Cravath-trained men are always in demand, usually at premium salaries. And so we see a pattern forming here: 1. Hire a whole whack of smart college graduates 2. Put them to work 3. The ones that stick around should move up the ladder. The ones that don’t stick around served the company well and left to expound the quality of the Cravath firm. Those that didn’t fall into either of those categories were just let go. There’s some interesting undercurrents to these ideas. If you stick around, you better keep your feet moving! I was at a Microsoft shindig a few months back, and was talking to a Microsoft employee. He shared that at MS you have 5 years to achieve a “senior” position within the company. Once you hit that mark, you can stay there for the rest of your career (he told about a guy who’s a “senior” developer and has been for the last 20+ years working on audio drivers for Windows), but you *must* hit that mark within the timeframe. What we see with Microsoft is Cravath’s system in action, whether intentional or not: bring in smart young people and see which ones stick. You need to give people something to work towards. Saying “You must reach this level or else!” is one way to look at it. The other way is to see achieving a higher rank in the organization as something for ambitious employees to reach towards. It’s important for an organization to always have the next generation of executives waiting in the wings, and unless you’re encouraging that early on you may find yourself in a position of needing to fill positions that nobody has been working towards. Now, you might suggest that this isn’t that big of a deal because you could just hire someone from outside the organization, but the Cravath system holds to the tenet of promoting internally; develop your own talent, since your business is the best place for the future leadership to learn teh business from. It’s OK for people to quit. Alex’s article really drives this point home, but its worth noting here also: its OK for your people to quit. In fact its inevitable…and more inevitable that it’ll be good people that leave. Some will stay and work towards the internal awards of promotion, but a number will get experience, serve the organization well, and then move on to something else. This should be expected and treated as a natural business occurrence. The idea of an alumni of an organization begins to come into play here: “That guy used to work for <insert company here>”. There’s a benefit in that: those best and brightest will be drawn to your organization and your reputation will permeate your market through former staff that are sought after because of how well you nurtured them. The Batman Hook All of this brings us back to Batman and his HR practice: when Dick decided he’d had enough of the Robin schtick, he quit and became his own…but he was always associated with Batman and people understood where his training had come from. To the Dark Knight’s credit, he continued training partners under the Robin brand. Luckily he didn’t have to worry about firing any of them (the ship sort of sails when you reveal a secret identity), although there was that unfortunate “quitting” of the second Robin when the Joker blew him up…but regardless, we see the Cravath system at work: bring in talent, expect great things, and be ok with whatever they decide for their careers. It’s an interesting way to approach HR, and luckily for us our business isn’t as dangerous or over-the-top as the caped crusader’s.

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• SQLAuthority News – Storing Data and Files in Cloud – Dropbox – Personal Technology Tip

  - by pinaldave

  I thought long and hard about doing a Personal Technology Tips series for this blog.  I have so many tips I’d like to share.  I am on my computer almost all day, every day, so I have a treasure trove of interesting tidbits I like to share if given the chance.  The only thing holding me back – which tip to share first?  The first tip obviously has the weight of seeming like the most important.  But this would mean choosing amongst my favorite tricks and shortcuts.  This is a hard task. Source: Dropbox.com My Dropbox I have finally decided, though, and have determined that the first Personal Technology Tip may not be the most secret or even trickier to master – in fact, it is probably the easiest.  My today’s Personal Technology Tip is Dropbox. I hope that all of you are nodding along in recognition right now.  If you do not use Dropbox, or have not even heard of it before, get on the internet and find their site.  You won’t be disappointed.  A quick recap for those in the dark: Dropbox is an online storage site with a lot of additional syncing and cloud-computing capabilities.  Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s explore some of my favorite options in Dropbox. Collaborate with All The first thing I love about Dropbox is the ability it gives you to collaborate with others.  You can share files easily with other Dropbox users, and they can alter them, share them with you, all while keeping track of different versions in on easy place.  I’d like to see anyone try to accomplish that key idea – “easily” – using e-mail versions and multiple computers.  It’s even difficult to accomplish using a shared network. Afraid that this kind of ease looks too good to be true?  Afraid that maybe there isn’t enough storage space, or the user interface is confusing?  Think again.  There is plenty of space – you can get 2 GB with just a free account, and upgrades are inexpensive and go up to 100 GB of storage.  And the user interface is so easy that anyone can learn to use it. What I use Dropbox for I love Dropbox because I give a lot of presentations and often they are far from home.  I can keep my presentations on Dropbox and have easy access to them anywhere, without needing to have my whole computer with me.  This is just one small way that you can use Dropbox. You can sync your entire hard drive, or hard drives if you have multiple computers (home, work, office, shared), and you can set Dropbox to automatically sync files on a certain timeline, or whenever Dropbox notices that they’ve been changed. Why I love Dropbox Dropbox has plenty of storage, but 2 GB still has a hard time competing with the average desktop’s storage space.  So what if you want to sync most of your files, but only the ones you use the most and share between work and home, and not all your files (especially large files like pictures and videos)?  You can use selective sync to choose which files to sync. Above all, my favorite feature is LanSync.  Dropbox will search your Local Area Network (LAN) for new files and sync them to Dropbox, as well as downloading the new version to all the shared files across the network.  That means that if move around on different computers at work or at home, you will have the same version of the file every time.  Or, other users on the LAN will have access to the new version, which makes collaboration extremely easy. Ref: rzfeeser.com Dropbox has so many other features that I feel like I could create a Personal Technology Tips series devoted entirely to Dropbox.  I’m going to create a bullet list here to make things shorter, but I strongly encourage you to look further into these into options if it sounds like something you would use. Theft Recover Home Security File Hosting and Sharing Portable Dropbox Sync your iCal calendar Password Storage What is your favorite tool and why? I could go on and on, but I will end here.  In summary – I strongly encourage everyone to investigate Dropbox to see if it’s something they would find useful.  If you use Dropbox and know of a great feature I failed to mention, please share it with me, I’d love to hear how everyone uses this program. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Personal Technology

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• GLSL Atmospheric Scattering Issue

  - by mtf1200

  I am attempting to use Sean O'Neil's shaders to accomplish atmospheric scattering. For now I am just using SkyFromSpace and GroundFromSpace. The atmosphere works fine but the planet itself is just a giant dark sphere with a white blotch that follows the camera. I think the problem might rest in the "v3Attenuation" variable as when this is removed the sphere is show (albeit without scattering). Here is the vertex shader. Thanks for the time! uniform mat4 g_WorldViewProjectionMatrix; uniform mat4 g_WorldMatrix; uniform vec3 m_v3CameraPos; // The camera's current position uniform vec3 m_v3LightPos; // The direction vector to the light source uniform vec3 m_v3InvWavelength; // 1 / pow(wavelength, 4) for the red, green, and blue channels uniform float m_fCameraHeight; // The camera's current height uniform float m_fCameraHeight2; // fCameraHeight^2 uniform float m_fOuterRadius; // The outer (atmosphere) radius uniform float m_fOuterRadius2; // fOuterRadius^2 uniform float m_fInnerRadius; // The inner (planetary) radius uniform float m_fInnerRadius2; // fInnerRadius^2 uniform float m_fKrESun; // Kr * ESun uniform float m_fKmESun; // Km * ESun uniform float m_fKr4PI; // Kr * 4 * PI uniform float m_fKm4PI; // Km * 4 * PI uniform float m_fScale; // 1 / (fOuterRadius - fInnerRadius) uniform float m_fScaleDepth; // The scale depth (i.e. the altitude at which the atmosphere's average density is found) uniform float m_fScaleOverScaleDepth; // fScale / fScaleDepth attribute vec4 inPosition; vec3 v3ELightPos = vec3(g_WorldMatrix * vec4(m_v3LightPos, 1.0)); vec3 v3ECameraPos= vec3(g_WorldMatrix * vec4(m_v3CameraPos, 1.0)); const int nSamples = 2; const float fSamples = 2.0; varying vec4 color; float scale(float fCos) { float x = 1.0 - fCos; return m_fScaleDepth * exp(-0.00287 + x*(0.459 + x*(3.83 + x*(-6.80 + x*5.25)))); } void main(void) { gl_Position = g_WorldViewProjectionMatrix * inPosition; // Get the ray from the camera to the vertex and its length (which is the far point of the ray passing through the atmosphere) vec3 v3Pos = vec3(g_WorldMatrix * inPosition); vec3 v3Ray = v3Pos - v3ECameraPos; float fFar = length(v3Ray); v3Ray /= fFar; // Calculate the closest intersection of the ray with the outer atmosphere (which is the near point of the ray passing through the atmosphere) float B = 2.0 * dot(m_v3CameraPos, v3Ray); float C = m_fCameraHeight2 - m_fOuterRadius2; float fDet = max(0.0, B*B - 4.0 * C); float fNear = 0.5 * (-B - sqrt(fDet)); // Calculate the ray's starting position, then calculate its scattering offset vec3 v3Start = m_v3CameraPos + v3Ray * fNear; fFar -= fNear; float fDepth = exp((m_fInnerRadius - m_fOuterRadius) / m_fScaleDepth); float fCameraAngle = dot(-v3Ray, v3Pos) / fFar; float fLightAngle = dot(v3ELightPos, v3Pos) / fFar; float fCameraScale = scale(fCameraAngle); float fLightScale = scale(fLightAngle); float fCameraOffset = fDepth*fCameraScale; float fTemp = (fLightScale + fCameraScale); // Initialize the scattering loop variables float fSampleLength = fFar / fSamples; float fScaledLength = fSampleLength * m_fScale; vec3 v3SampleRay = v3Ray * fSampleLength; vec3 v3SamplePoint = v3Start + v3SampleRay * 0.5; // Now loop through the sample rays vec3 v3FrontColor = vec3(0.0, 0.0, 0.0); vec3 v3Attenuate; for(int i=0; i<nSamples; i++) { float fHeight = length(v3SamplePoint); float fDepth = exp(m_fScaleOverScaleDepth * (m_fInnerRadius - fHeight)); float fScatter = fDepth*fTemp - fCameraOffset; v3Attenuate = exp(-fScatter * (m_v3InvWavelength * m_fKr4PI + m_fKm4PI)); v3FrontColor += v3Attenuate * (fDepth * fScaledLength); v3SamplePoint += v3SampleRay; } vec3 first = v3FrontColor * (m_v3InvWavelength * m_fKrESun + m_fKmESun); vec3 secondary = v3Attenuate; color = vec4((first + vec3(0.25,0.25,0.25) * secondary), 1.0); // ^^ that color is passed to the frag shader and is used as the gl_FragColor } Here is also an image of the problem image

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• Design a T-shirt for .NET Reflector Pro

  - by Laila

  Win a .NET Reflector Pro license, a box of Red Gate goodies, and a t-shirt printed with your design! Red Gate likes t-shirts. Each of our teams has one. In fact, each individual person has one, numbered according to when they joined the company: Red Gate's 1st, 2nd, and so on right up to Red Gate's 170th, with the slogan "More than just a number". Those t-shirts are important, chiefly because they remind the people wearing them that they are important. But that isn't enough. What really makes us great are the people who choose to use our tools. So we'd like to extend our tradition of t-shirts to include you and put the design of our next shirt entirely in your hands. We'd like you to come up with a witty slogan or create an inventive or simply beautiful t-shirt design for .NET Reflector Pro, our add-in for Visual Studio, which allows you to step into decompiled assemblies whilst debugging in Visual Studio. When you're done, post your masterpiece to Twitter with the hash tag #reflectortees, and @redgate will take a look! We'll pick the best design, and the winner will get a licensed copy of .NET Reflector Pro and a box of Red Gate goodies - not to mention a copy of their t-shirt. The winning design will go into production and be worn and given out at tradeshows, conferences, and user group events across the world, proudly bearing the name of their designer. We'll also pick three runners-up who will receive licenses for .NET Reflector Pro. Red Gate goodie box Interested? If you're up for the challenge, then we've got some resources to get you started. Inside the .zip file you'll find high-quality versions of the following: T-shirt templates: don't forget to design the front and the back! Different versions of the .NET Reflector Pro logo and Red Gate logo. Colour sheets to give you an easy reference to the Red Gate colours, including hex and RGB values. You can create and send us as many designs as you like, and each of them will be considered for the prize. To submit your designs, simply tweet including the competition hash tag, #reflectortees, and a link to somewhere we can see your design: either an image hosting site such as Twitpic, Flickr or Picasa, or a personal blog. You will need to create a Twitter account (which is free), if you don't already have one. You only have three limits: The background colour of the t-shirt should be one of our brand colours (red, light/dark grey or black), though you're welcome to use other colours in the rest of the design. You need to make use of either the .NET Reflector Pro logo OR the Red Gate logo (please keep them as they are) If you include any text or slogan, stick with just one or two colors for it. Apart from that, go wild. Go and do whatever it is you do when you get creative: whether you walk barefoot on the grass with a pencil and paper, sit cross-legged on a pile of cushions with a laptop, or simply close your eyes and float through a mist of ideas, now is your chance. Make sure you enjoy it. We're looking forward to seeing your creations. Terms and conditions 1. The closing date for entries is June 11th, 2010 (4 p.m. UK time). Red Gate Software Ltd reserves the right to extend the competition deadline at its discretion. If there is a revision, the revised date will be published on this blog and the date for announcing the results will be postponed accordingly. 2. The winning designer will be notified on June 14th, 2010 through Twitter. The winner must claim his/her prize by sending us a high-resolution image of their design via email (i.e. Illustrator EPS files or appropriate format, ideally at 300dpi). If the winner does not come forward within 3 days of the announcement, they will forfeit their prize and another winner will be selected from the runners-up. The names of the winner and runners-up will be posted on this blog by June 18th.  3. Entry is completed on the designer posting a link to their entry in a tweet with the correct hash tag, #reflectortees. 4. Red Gate Software needs to hold the rights to using the winning design in order to put the t-shirt into production. We will make sure that this is fine with the winner before we do so, but if you do not want us holding the rights to your design, please do not submit your designs. We reserve the right to slightly alter or adjust any artwork we decide to use (mainly to make it easier to print), but we will make sure we contact the winner for approval first. The winner will also need to allow us the use of his/her name for purposes of promoting your design. 5. Entries must be entirely your own original work and must not breach any copyright or third party rights. Red Gate Software Ltd will not be made partially or fully liable for any non-original work submitted by you. 6. This competition is free: you do not need to buy anything or be an existing customer to enter. 7. This competition is not open to employees of Red Gate Software Ltd, their families, or any other company directly connected with the administration of this promotion.

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• EHome IR receiver and Ubuntu 13 - any one have this working?

  - by squakie

  I have a "generic" USB IR receiver I purchased off of Ebay to make my life a little easier with XBMC on my Ubuntu box. I am currently running 13.10 and have never tried nor have any knowledge of IR in Ubuntu. I know of lirc, and I know a lot of it is now included in the kernel. My understanding is that lirc in basic terms maps pulses from an remote control to functions - like keyboard or mouse clicks. It is also my understanding that I might still need a driver or something for my device. lsusb shows the device as: Bus 006 Device 003: ID 147a:e016 Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. eHome Infrared Receiver dmesg shows the following pertaining to the device: [43635.311985] usb 6-2: USB disconnect, device number 2 [43641.344387] usb 6-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci-pci [43641.543454] usb 6-2: New USB device found, idVendor=147a, idProduct=e016 [43641.543467] usb 6-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [43641.543473] usb 6-2: Product: eHome Infrared Transceiver [43641.543478] usb 6-2: Manufacturer: Formosa21 [43641.543483] usb 6-2: SerialNumber: FM000623 [43641.555736] Registered IR keymap rc-rc6-mce [43641.555968] input: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (147a:e016) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb6/6-2/6-2:1.0/rc/rc2/input15 [43641.556221] rc2: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (147a:e016) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb6/6-2/6-2:1.0/rc/rc2 [43641.556584] input: MCE IR Keyboard/Mouse (mceusb) as /devices/virtual/input/input16 [43641.557186] rc rc2: lirc_dev: driver ir-lirc-codec (mceusb) registered at minor = 0 [43641.731965] mceusb 6-2:1.0: Registered Formosa21 eHome Infrared Transceiver with mce emulator interface version 1 [43641.731978] mceusb 6-2:1.0: 2 tx ports (0x0 cabled) and 2 rx sensors (0x0 active) (excuse the double spacing, but I had to put in extra cr/lf using "enter" or the entire thing was just one long unreadable string). When I connect the same IR receiver to a Raspberry Pi running OpenELEC/XBMC there is no flashing led unless I press a remote button, and the device works. In Ubuntu, the led is constantly blinking, and nothing happens when I press a remote key. I tried the command line program to test but it never echoes anything back to the terminal window. I believe it must need some sort of driver or something else, but I am completely in the dark on this. If it matters I also have: - Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse USB receiver - Tenda USB wireless adapter And.....I've also noticed some errors now that show in dmesg that seem to somehow related to HDMI if that makes any sense: 46721.144731] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46721.144749] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46721.444025] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46721.444061] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46721.743375] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46721.743411] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46722.043092] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46722.043118] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46722.343086] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46722.343122] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46722.642517] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46722.642574] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46722.942459] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46722.942485] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46723.242103] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46723.242129] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [46723.541877] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [46723.541923] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58366.651954] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58366.651980] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58366.951523] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58366.951549] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58367.251075] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58367.251121] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58367.550517] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58367.550563] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58367.850219] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58367.850256] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58368.150160] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58368.150185] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58368.449544] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58368.449570] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58368.749583] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58368.749629] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58369.049280] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58369.049326] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58394.706273] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58394.706300] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58394.706350] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58394.706367] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58395.003032] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58395.003058] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58395.302680] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58395.302705] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58395.602442] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58395.602477] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58395.902143] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58395.902179] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58396.201839] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58396.201875] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58396.501538] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58396.501574] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58396.801232] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58396.801268] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [58397.100583] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128 [58397.100627] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0 [63095.766042] systemd-hostnamed[8875]: Warning: nss-myhostname is not installed. Changing the local hostname might make it unresolveable. Please install nss-myhostname! dave@davepc:~$ EDIT: Maybe another way to look at this would be what does Ubuntu do or not do that OpenELEC does or doesn't do (on Raspberry Pi) such that it works in OpenELEC but not in Ubuntu?

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• SQLCMD Mode: give it one more chance

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    - Click on me. Choose me. - asked one forgotten feature when some bored DBA was purposelessly wondering through the Management Studio menu at the end of her long and busy working day. - Why would I use you? I have heard of no one who does. What are you for? - perplexedly wondered aged and wise DBA. At least that DBA thought she was aged and wise though each day tried to prove to her that she wasn't. - I know you. You are quite lazy. Why would you do additional clicks to move from window to window? From Tool to tool ? This is irritating, isn't it? I can run windows system commands, sql statements and much more from the same script, from the same query window! - I have all my tools that I‘m used to, I have Management Studio, Cmd, Powershell. They can do anything for me. I don’t need additional tools. - I promise you, you will like me. – the thing continued to whine . - All right, show me. – she gave up. It’s always this way, she thought sadly, - easier to agree than to explain why you don’t want. - Enable me and then think about anything that you always couldn’t do through the management studio and had to use other tools. - Ok. Google for me the list of greatest features of SQL SERVER 2012. - Well... I’m not sure... Think about something else. - Ok, here is something easy for you. I want to check if file folder exists or if file is there. Though, I can easily do this using xp_cmdshell … - This is easy for me. – rejoiced the feature. By the way, having the items of the menu talking to you usually means you should stop working and go home. Or drink coffee. Or both. Well, aged and wise dba wasn’t thinking about the weirdness of the situation at that moment. - After enabling me, – said unfairly forgotten feature (it was thinking of itself in such manner) – after enabling me you can use all command line commands in the same management studio query window by adding two exclamation marks !! at the beginning of the script line to denote that you want to use cmd command: -Just keep in mind that when using this feature, you are actually running the commands ON YOUR computer and not on SQL server that query window is connected to. This is main difference from using xp_cmdshell which is executing commands on sql server itself. Bottomline, use UNC path instead of local path. - Look, there are much more than that. - The SQLCMD feature was getting exited.- You can get IP of your servers, create, rename and drop folders. You can see the contents of any file anywhere and even start different tools from the same query window: Not so aged and wise DBA was getting interested: - I also want to run different scripts on different servers without changing connection of the query window. - Sure, sure! Another great feature that CMDmode is providing us with and giving more power to querying. Use “:” to use additional features, like :connect that allows you to change connection: - Now imagine, you have one script where you have all your changes, like creating staging table on the DWH staging server, adding fact table to DWH itself and updating stored procedures in the server where reporting database is located. - Now, give me more challenges! - Script out a list of stored procedures into the text files. - You can do it easily by using command :out which will write the query results into the specified text file. The output can be the code of the stored procedure or any data. Actually this is the same as changing the query output into the file instead of the grid. - Now, take all of the scripts and run all of them, one by one, on the different server.  - Easily - Come on... I’m sure that you can not... -Why not? Naturally, I can do it using :r commant which is opening a script and executing it. Look, I can also use :setvar command to define an environment variable in SQLCMD mode. Just note that you have to leave the empty string between :r commands, otherwise it’s not working although I have no idea why. - Wow.- She was really impressed. - Ok, I’ll go to try all those… -Wait, wait! I know how to google the SQL SERVER features for you! This example will open chrome explorer with search results for the “SQL server 2012 top features” ( change the path to suit your PC): “Well, this can be probably useful stuff, maybe this feature is really unfairly forgotten”, thought the DBA while going through the dark empty parking lot to her lonely car. “As someone really wise once said: “It is what we think we know that keeps us from learning. Learn, unlearn and relearn”.

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• What Counts For A DBA: Foresight

  - by drsql

  Of all the valuable attributes of a DBA covered so far in this series, ranging from passion to humility to practicality, perhaps one of the most important attributes may turn out to be the most seemingly-nebulous: foresight. According to Free Dictionary foresight is the "perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred". Foresight does not come naturally to most people, as the parent of any teenager will attest. No matter how clearly you see their problems coming they won't listen, and have to fail before eventually (hopefully) learning for themselves. Having graduated from the school of hard knocks, the DBA, the naive teenager no longer, acquires the ability to foretell how events will unfold in response to certain actions or attitudes with the unerring accuracy of a doom-laden prophet. Like Simba in the Lion King, after a few blows to the head, we foretell that a sore head that will be the inevitable consequence of a swing of Rafiki's stick, and we take evasive action. However, foresight is about more than simply learning when to duck. It's about taking the time to understand and prevent the habits that caused the stick to swing in the first place. And based on this definition, I often think there is a lot less foresight on display in my industry than there ought to be. Most DBAs reading this blog will spot a line such as the following in a piece of "working" code, understand immediately why it is less than optimimum, and take evasive action. …WHERE CAST (columnName as int) = 1 However, the programmers who regularly write this sort of code clearly lack that foresight, and this and numerous other examples of similarly-malodorous code prevail throughout our industry (and provide premium-grade fertilizer for the healthy growth of many a consultant's bank account). Sometimes, perhaps harried by impatient managers and painfully tight deadlines, everyone makes mistakes. Yes, I too occasionally write code that "works", but basically stinks. When the problems manifest, it is sometimes accompanied by a sense of grim recognition that somewhere in me existed the foresight to know that that approach would lead to this problem. However, in the headlong rush, warning signs got overlooked, lessons learned previously, which could supply the foresight to the current project, were lost and not applied.   Of course, the problem often is a simple lack of skills, training and knowledge in the relevant technology and/or business space; programmers and DBAs forced to do their best in the face of inadequate training, or to apply their skills in areas where they lack experience. However, often the problem goes deeper than this; I detect in some DBAs and programmers a certain laziness of attitude.   They veer from one project to the next, going with "whatever works", unwilling or unable to take the time to understand where their actions are leading them. Of course, the whole "Agile" mindset is often interpreted to favor flexibility and rapid production over aiming to get things right the first time. The faster you try to travel in the dark, frequently changing direction, the more important it is to have someone who has the foresight to know at least roughly where you are heading. This is doubly true for the data tier which, no matter how you try to deny it, simply cannot be "redone" every month as you learn aspects of the world you are trying to model that, with a little bit of foresight, you would have seen coming.   Sometimes, when as a DBA you can glance briefly at 200 lines of working SQL code and know instinctively why it will cause problems, foresight can feel like magic, but it isn't; it's more like muscle memory. It is acquired as the consequence of good experience, useful communication with those around you, and a willingness to learn continually, through continued education as well as from failure. Foresight can be deployed only by finding time to understand how the lessons learned from other DBAs, and other projects, can help steer the current project in the right direction.   C.S. Lewis once said "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." It cannot be avoided; the quality of what you build now is going to affect you, and others, at some point in the future. Take the time to acquire foresight; it is a love letter to your future self, to say you cared.

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• Stumbling Through: Visual Studio 2010 (Part II)

  I would now like to expand a little on what I stumbled through in part I of my Visual Studio 2010 post and touch on a few other features of VS 2010.  Specifically, I want to generate some code based off of an Entity Framework model and tie it up to an actual data source.  Im not going to take the easy way and tie to a SQL Server data source, though, I will tie it to an XML data file instead.  Why?  Well, why not?  This is purely for learning, there are probably much better ways to get strongly-typed classes around XML but it will force us to go down a path less travelled and maybe learn a few things along the way.  Once we get this XML data and the means to interact with it, I will revisit data binding to this data in a WPF form and see if I cant get reading, adding, deleting, and updating working smoothly with minimal code.  To begin, I will use what was learned in the first part of this blog topic and draw out a data model for the MFL (My Football League) - I dont want the NFL to come down and sue me for using their name in this totally football-related article.  The data model looks as follows, with Teams having Players, and Players having a position and statistics for each season they played: Note that when making the associations between these entities, I was given the option to create the foreign key but I only chose to select this option for the association between Player and Position.  The reason for this is that I am picturing the XML that will contain this data to look somewhat like this: <MFL> <Position/> <Position/> <Position/> <Team>     <Player>         <Statistic/>     </Player> </Team> </MFL> Statistic will be under its associated Player node, and Player will be under its associated Team node no need to have an Id to reference it if we know it will always fall under its parent.  Position, however, is more of a lookup value that will not have any hierarchical relationship to the player.  In fact, the Position data itself may be in a completely different xml file (something Id like to play around with), so in any case, a player will need to reference the position by its Id. So now that we have a simple data model laid out, I would like to generate two things based on it:  A class for each entity with properties corresponding to each entity property An IO class with methods to get data for each entity, either all instances, by Id or by parent. Now my experience with code generation in the past has consisted of writing up little apps that use the code dom directly to regenerate code on demand (or using tools like CodeSmith).  Surely, there has got to be a more fun way to do this given that we are using the Entity Framework which already has built-in code generation for SQL Server support.  Lets start with that built-in stuff to give us a base to work off of.  Right click anywhere in the canvas of our model and select Add Code Generation Item: So just adding that code item seemed to do quite a bit towards what I was intending: It apparently generated a class for each entity, but also a whole ton more.  I mean a TON more.  Way too much complicated code was generated now that code is likely to be a black box anyway so it shouldnt matter, but we need to understand how to make this work the way we want it to work, so lets get ready to do some stumbling through that text template (tt) file. When I open the .tt file that was generated, right off the bat I realize there is going to be trouble there is no color coding, no intellisense no nothing!  That is going to make stumbling through more like groping blindly in the dark while handcuffed and hopping on one foot, which was one of the alternate titles I was considering for this blog.  Thankfully, the community comes to my rescue and I wont have to cast my mind back to the glory days of coding in VI (look it up, kids).  Using the Extension Manager (Available under the Tools menu), I did a quick search for tt editor in the Online Gallery and quickly found the Tangible T4 Editor: Downloading and installing this was a breeze, and after doing so I got some color coding and intellisense while editing the tt files.  If you will be doing any customizing of tt files, I highly recommend installing this extension.  Next, well see if that is enough help for us to tweak that tt file to do the kind of code generation that we wantDid 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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• Waiting for Windows 8: A Long, Hot Summer

  - by andrewbrust

  Microsoft has revealed some things about Windows 8, and revealed a part of the developer story for new Windows 8 “tailored,” “immersive” applications.  In retrospect, very little was shared.  The bit that was revealed to us is that those applications can be developed using a combination of HTML 5 and JavaScript.  Not much else was said, except that additional details would be revealed at Microsoft’s //Build/ conference in Anaheim, California in September. This has left a lot of people in suspense, and it seems that suspended state is going to last all summer.  The problem, of course, is that in the absence of hard information, people fill the void with Speculation, Rumor and Gloom.  That’s a bit like Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, except that it’s self-imposed by the Microsoft community and not planted by Microsoft’s competitors. This is a less-than-perfect situation.  Not only is it causing developers to worry about the value of their skill sets, but I am already hearing from consulting shops that customers are getting nervous too and, in extreme cases, opting for non-Microsoft tools for their projects as a result.  I’m also hearing from dev tool ISVs that sales have suffered as a result. It’s quite possible that the customers moving off .NET wanted to do so anyway and it’s also possible that dev tool ISVs are suffering slower sales this year due a slowed rate of economic recovery. Without hard information, tend to people interpret things negatively.  Actually, that’s the major point in all of this. While there is multitude of opinions about what the Windows 8 development platform will look like once fully revealed, there is an emerging consensus around one thing: it sure would help if Microsoft revealed more of its strategy…just enough to quash absurd rumors, stabilize the .NET ecosystem and get people to stay calm. We’ve had some reassurances thus far: there will be a Windows desktop mode; we’ll still have Windows Explorer, we’ll still run Office, we’ll still have a task bar, and all the skills and tools we use now will still work there.  But with reassurances like that…people still feel insecure.  Because telling us that Windows 8 will have what is essentially a “classic” mode sure makes it sound like today’s skill sets will soon be “classic” too…and then maybe they’ll just become obsolete. Humans find change scary; it’s natural.  And when left alone with their fears – because no one is saying anything to dispel them – people can go from frightened to paranoid, and can start to viewing things in a downright conspiratorial light.  It would be great if Microsoft stepped into the void now and told us what is coming – especially because whatever they tell us is bound to be at least a little better than what people think they are going to hear. I don’t know what the announcements will be, but I do have it on authority, from a number of sources, that Microsoft isn’t gong to talk until //Build/.  That means no news until September September 13th.  Nothing until after Labor Day.  You get zippo until after the Back-to-School sales are done. What to do?  Try not to let the dark voices of gloom and doom fill your head.  Even in the absence of answers, we still have some important facts: The .NET developer community is huge. Microsoft’s customers have major investments in .NET, and in .NET skills. Political infighting in Redmond might make for irrational decisions, but ultimately public companies can’t just alienate their advocates and piss off their customers.  Spite doesn’t trump fiduciary responsibility. The computing device markets are changing, software is changing, software business models are changing and developers are changing.  Microsoft has to keep up. The HTML + JavaScript community is huge too, and it includes many of the “changed” developers. Public companies can’t ignore new markets nor the popular standards that can help them enter those new markets.  Loyalty doesn’t trump fiduciary responsibility either. If Microsoft can appeal to new developers, then it should. If Microsoft can keep catering to its existing developers and customers -- not just through legacy support, but also through empowering futures -- then it probably will. You don’t have to shove your old friends out into the rain to make room for new ones; you can bring those new constituents in under a bigger tent.  I hope Microsoft will enlarge the tent, and I have trouble imagining why it would not.

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• Stumbling Through: Visual Studio 2010 (Part II)

  I would now like to expand a little on what I stumbled through in part I of my Visual Studio 2010 post and touch on a few other features of VS 2010.  Specifically, I want to generate some code based off of an Entity Framework model and tie it up to an actual data source.  Im not going to take the easy way and tie to a SQL Server data source, though, I will tie it to an XML data file instead.  Why?  Well, why not?  This is purely for learning, there are probably much better ways to get strongly-typed classes around XML but it will force us to go down a path less travelled and maybe learn a few things along the way.  Once we get this XML data and the means to interact with it, I will revisit data binding to this data in a WPF form and see if I cant get reading, adding, deleting, and updating working smoothly with minimal code.  To begin, I will use what was learned in the first part of this blog topic and draw out a data model for the MFL (My Football League) - I dont want the NFL to come down and sue me for using their name in this totally football-related article.  The data model looks as follows, with Teams having Players, and Players having a position and statistics for each season they played: Note that when making the associations between these entities, I was given the option to create the foreign key but I only chose to select this option for the association between Player and Position.  The reason for this is that I am picturing the XML that will contain this data to look somewhat like this: <MFL> <Position/> <Position/> <Position/> <Team>     <Player>         <Statistic/>     </Player> </Team> </MFL> Statistic will be under its associated Player node, and Player will be under its associated Team node no need to have an Id to reference it if we know it will always fall under its parent.  Position, however, is more of a lookup value that will not have any hierarchical relationship to the player.  In fact, the Position data itself may be in a completely different xml file (something Id like to play around with), so in any case, a player will need to reference the position by its Id. So now that we have a simple data model laid out, I would like to generate two things based on it:  A class for each entity with properties corresponding to each entity property An IO class with methods to get data for each entity, either all instances, by Id or by parent. Now my experience with code generation in the past has consisted of writing up little apps that use the code dom directly to regenerate code on demand (or using tools like CodeSmith).  Surely, there has got to be a more fun way to do this given that we are using the Entity Framework which already has built-in code generation for SQL Server support.  Lets start with that built-in stuff to give us a base to work off of.  Right click anywhere in the canvas of our model and select Add Code Generation Item: So just adding that code item seemed to do quite a bit towards what I was intending: It apparently generated a class for each entity, but also a whole ton more.  I mean a TON more.  Way too much complicated code was generated now that code is likely to be a black box anyway so it shouldnt matter, but we need to understand how to make this work the way we want it to work, so lets get ready to do some stumbling through that text template (tt) file. When I open the .tt file that was generated, right off the bat I realize there is going to be trouble there is no color coding, no intellisense no nothing!  That is going to make stumbling through more like groping blindly in the dark while handcuffed and hopping on one foot, which was one of the alternate titles I was considering for this blog.  Thankfully, the community comes to my rescue and I wont have to cast my mind back to the glory days of coding in VI (look it up, kids).  Using the Extension Manager (Available under the Tools menu), I did a quick search for tt editor in the Online Gallery and quickly found the Tangible T4 Editor: Downloading and installing this was a breeze, and after doing so I got some color coding and intellisense while editing the tt files.  If you will be doing any customizing of tt files, I highly recommend installing this extension.  Next, well see if that is enough help for us to tweak that tt file to do the kind of code generation that we wantDid 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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• Single Sign On for a Web App

  - by Jeremy Goodell

  I have been trying to understand how this problem is solved for over a month now. I really need to come up with a general approach that works -- I'm basically the only resource who can do it. I have a theory, but I'm just not sure it's the easiest (or correct) approach and I haven't been able to find any information to support my ideas. Here's the scenario: 1) You have a complex web application that offers secure content on a subscription basis. 2) Users are required to log in to your application with user name and password. 3) You sell to large corporations, which already have a corporate authentication technology (for example, Active Directory). 4) You would like to integrate with the corporate authentication mechanism to allow their users to log onto your Web App without having to enter their user name and password. Now, any solution you come up with will have to provide a mechanism for: adding new users removing users changing user information allowing users to log in Ideally, all these would happen "automagically" when the corporate customer made the corresponding changes to their own authentication. Now, I have a theory that the way to do this (at least for Active Directory) would be for me to write a client-side app that integrates with the customer's Active Directory to track the targeted changes, and then communicate those changes to my Web App. I think that if this communication were done via Web Services offered by my web app, then it would maintain an unhackable level of security, which would obviously be a requirement for these corporate customers. I've found some information about a Microsoft product called Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS) which may or may not be the right approach for me. It seems to be a bit bulky and have some requirements that might not work for all customers. For other existing ID scenarios (like Athens and Shibboleth), I don't think a client application is necessary. It's probably just a matter of tying into the existing ID services. I would appreciate any advice anyone has on anything I've mentioned here. In particular, if you can tell me if my theory is correct about providing a client-side app that communicates with server-side Web Services, or if I'm totally going in the wrong direction. Also, if you could point me at any web sites or articles that explain how to do this, I'd really appreciate it. My research has not turned up much so far. Finally, if you could let me know of any Web applications that currently offer this service (particularly as tied to a corporate Active Directory), I would be very grateful. I am wondering if other B2B Web app's like salesforce.com, or hoovers.com offer a similar service for their corporate customers. I hate being in the dark and would greatly appreciate any light you can shed ... Jeremy

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• Chaining IQueryables together

  - by Matt Greer

  I have a RIA Services based app that is using Entity Framework on the server side (possibly not relevant). In my real app, I can do something like this. EntityQuery<Status> query = statusContext.GetStatusesQuery().Where(s => s.Description.Contains("Foo")); Where statusContext is the client side subclass of DomainContext that RIA Services was kind enough to generate for me. The end result is an EntityQuery<Status> object who's Query property is an object that implements IQueryable and represents my where clause. The WebDomainClient is able to take this EntityQuery and not just give me back all of my Statuses but also filtered with my where clause. I am trying to implement this in a mock DomainClient. This MockDomainClient accepts an IQueryably<Entity> which it returns when asked for. But what if the user makes the query and includes the ad hoc additional query? How can I merge the two together? My MockDomainClient is (this is modeled after this blog post) ... public class MockDomainClient : LocalDomainClient { private IQueryable<Entity> _entities; public MockDomainClient(IQueryable<Entity> entities) { _entities = entities; } public override IQueryable<Entity> DoQuery(EntityQuery query) { if (query.Query == null) { return _entities; } // otherwise want the union of _entities and query.Query, query.Query is IQueryable // the below does not work and was a total shot in the dark: //return _entities.Union(query.Query.Cast<Entity>()); } } public abstract class LocalDomainClient : System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.DomainClient { private SynchronizationContext _syncContext; protected LocalDomainClient() { _syncContext = SynchronizationContext.Current; } ... public abstract IQueryable<Entity> DoQuery(EntityQuery query); protected override IAsyncResult BeginQueryCore(EntityQuery query, AsyncCallback callback, object userState) { IQueryable<Entity> localQuery = DoQuery(query); LocalAsyncResult asyncResult = new LocalAsyncResult(callback, userState, localQuery); _syncContext.Post(o => (o as LocalAsyncResult).Complete(), asyncResult); return asyncResult; } ... }

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• Tiling rectangles seamlessly in WPF

  - by Joe White

  I want to seamlessly tile a bunch of different-colored Rectangles in WPF. That is, I want to put a bunch of rectangles edge-to-edge, and not have gaps between them. If everything is aligned to pixels, this works fine. But I also want to support arbitrary zoom, and ideally, I don't want to use SnapsToDevicePixels (because it would compromise quality when the image is zoomed way out). But that means my Rectangles sometimes render with gaps. For example: <Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Background="Black"> <Canvas SnapsToDevicePixels="False"> <Canvas.RenderTransform> <ScaleTransform ScaleX="0.5" ScaleY="0.5"/> </Canvas.RenderTransform> <Rectangle Canvas.Left="25" Width="100" Height="100" Fill="#CFC"/> <Rectangle Canvas.Left="125" Width="100" Height="100" Fill="#CCF"/> </Canvas> </Page> If the ScaleTransform's ScaleX is 1, then the Rectangles fit together seamlessly. When it's 0.5, there's a dark gray streak between them. I understand why -- the combined semi-transparent edge pixels don't combine to be 100% opaque. But I would like a way to fix it. I could always just make the Rectangles overlap, but I won't always know in advance what patterns they'll be in (this is for a game that will eventually support a map editor). Besides, this would cause artifacts around the overlap area when things were zoomed way in (unless I did bevel-cut angles on the underlapping portion, which is an awful lot of work, and still causes problems at corners). Is there some way I can combine these Rectangles into a single combined "shape" that does render without internal gaps? I've played around with GeometryDrawing, which does exactly that, but then I don't see a way to paint each RectangleGeometry with a different-colored brush. Are there any other ways to get shapes to tile seamlessly under an arbitrary transform, without resorting to SnapsToDevicePixels?

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• Linq to SQL Repository ~theory~ - Generic but now uses Linq to Objects?

  - by Matt Tolliday

  The project I am currently working on used Linq to SQL as an ORM data access technology. Its an MVC3 Web app. The problem I faced was primarily due to the inability to mock (for testing) the DataContext which gets autogenerated by the DBML designer. So to solve this issue (after much reading) I refactored the repository system which was in place - single repository with seperate and duplicated access methods for each table which ended up with something like 300 methods only 10 of which were unique - into a single repository with generic methods taking the table and returning more generic types to the upper reaches of the application. My question revolves more around the design I've used to get thus far and the differences I'm noticing in the structure of the app. 1) Having refactored the code from the dark ages which used classic Linq to SQL queries: public Billing GetBilling(int id) { var result = ( from bil in _bicDc.Billings where bil.BillingId == id select bil).SingleOrDefault(); return (result); } it now looks like: public T GetRecordWhere<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate) where T : class { T result; try { result = _dataContext.GetTable<T>().Where(predicate).SingleOrDefault(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw ex; } return result; } and is used by the controller with a query along the lines of: _repository.GetRecordWhere<Billing>(x => x.BillingId == 1); which is fine, and precisely what I wanted to achieve. ...however.... I'm also having to do the following to get precisely the result set i require in the controller class (the highest point of the app in essence)... viewModel.RecentRequests = _model.GetAllRecordsWhere<Billing>(x => x.BillingId == 1) .Where(x => x.BillingId == Convert.ToInt32(BillingType.Submitted)) .OrderByDescending(x => x.DateCreated). Take(5).ToList(); This - as far as my understanding is correct - is now using Linq to Objects rather than the Linq to SQL queries I was previously? Is this okay practise? It feels wrong to me but I dont know why. Probably because the logic of the queries is in the very highest tier of the app, rather than the lowest, but... I defer to you good people for advice. One of the issues I considered was bringing the entire table into memory but I understand that using the Iqeryable return type the where clause is taken to the database and evaluated there. Thus returning only the resultset i require... i may be wrong. And if you've made it this far, well done. Thank you, and if you have any advice it is very much appreciated!!

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• Having trouble getting MEF imports to be resolved

  - by Dave

  This is sort of a continuation of one of my earlier posts, which involves the resolving of modules in my WPF application. This question is specifically related to the effect of interdependencies of modules and the method of constructing those modules (i.e. via MEF or through new) on MEF's ability to resolve relationships. First of all, here is a simple UML diagram of my test application: I have tried two approaches: left approach: the App implements IError right approach: the App has a member that implements IError Left approach My code behind looked like this (just the MEF-related stuff): // app.cs [Export(typeof(IError))] public partial class Window1 : Window, IError { [Import] public CandyCo.Shared.LibraryInterfaces.IPlugin Plugin { get; set; } [Export] public CandyCo.Shared.LibraryInterfaces.ICandySettings Settings { get; set; } private ICandySettings Settings; public Window1() { // I create the preferences here with new, instead of using MEF. I wonder // if that's my whole problem? If I use MEF, and want to have parameters // going to the constructor, then do I have to [Export] a POCO (i.e. string)? Settings = new CandySettings( "Settings", @"c:\settings.xml"); var catalog = new DirectoryCatalog( "."); var container = new CompositionContainer( catalog); try { container.ComposeParts( this); } catch( CompositionException ex) { foreach( CompositionError e in ex.Errors) { string description = e.Description; string details = e.Exception.Message; } throw; } } } // plugin.cs [Export(typeof(IPlugin))] public class Plugin : IPlugin { [Import] public CandyCo.Shared.LibraryInterfaces.ICandySettings CandySettings { get; set; } [Import] public CandyCo.Shared.LibraryInterfaces.IError ErrorInterface { get; set; } [ImportingConstructor] public Plugin( ICandySettings candy_settings, IError error_interface) { CandySettings = candy_settings; ErrorInterface = error_interface; } } // candysettings.cs [Export(typeof(ICandySettings))] public class CandySettings : ICandySettings { ... } Right-side approach Basically the same as the left-side approach, except that I created a class that inherits from IError in the same assembly as Window1. I then used an [Import] to try to get MEF to resolve that for me. Can anyone explain how the two ways I have approached MEF here are flawed? I have been in the dark for so long that instead of reading about MEF and trying different suggestions, I've added MEF to my solution and am stepping into the code. The part where it looks like it fails is when it calls partManager.GetSavedImport(). For some reason, the importCache is null, which I don't understand. All the way up to this point, it's been looking at the part (Window1) and trying to resolve two imported interfaces -- IError and IPlugin. I would have expected it to enter code that looks at other assemblies in the same executable folder, and then check it for exports so that it knows how to resolve the imports...

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• Setting UITableViewCell button image values during scrolling

  - by Rob

  I am having an issue where I am trying to save whether a repeat image will show selected or not (it is created as a UIButton on a UITableViewCell created in IB). The issue is that since the cell gets re-used randomly, the image gets reset or set somewhere else after you start scrolling. I've looked all over and the advice was to setup an NSMutableArray to store the button's selection state and I am doing that in an array called checkRepeatState My question is: where do I put the if-then-else statement in the code to where it will actually change the button image based on if the checkRepeatState is set to 0 or 1 for the given cell that is coming back into view? Right now, the if-then-else statement I am using has absolutely no effect on the button image when it comes into view. I'm very confused at this point. Thank you ahead of time for any insight you can give!!! My code is as follows: - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { // set up the cell static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"PlayerCell"; PlayerCell *cell = (PlayerCell *)[tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier]; if (!cell) { [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"PlayerNibCells" owner:self options:nil]; cell = tmpCell; self.tmpCell = nil; NSLog(@"Creating a new cell"); } // Display dark and light background in alternate rows -- see tableView:willDisplayCell:forRowAtIndexPath:. cell.useDarkBackground = (indexPath.row % 2 == 0); // Configure the data for the cell. NSDictionary *dataItem = [soundCategories objectAtIndex:indexPath.row]; UILabel *label; label = (UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:1]; label.text = [dataItem objectForKey:@"AnimalName"]; label = (UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:2]; label.text = [dataItem objectForKey:@"Description"]; UIImageView *img; img = (UIImageView *)[cell viewWithTag:3]; img.image = [UIImage imageNamed:[dataItem objectForKey:@"Icon"]]; NSInteger row = indexPath.row; NSNumber *checkValue = [checkRepeatState objectAtIndex:row]; NSLog(@"checkValue is %d", [checkValue intValue]); // Reusing cell; make sure it has correct image based on checkRepeatState value UIButton *repeatbutton = (UIButton *)[cell viewWithTag:4]; if ([checkValue intValue] == 1) { NSLog(@"repeatbutton is selected"); [repeatbutton setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"repeatselected.png"] forState:UIControlStateSelected]; [repeatbutton setNeedsDisplay]; } else { NSLog(@"repeatbutton is NOT selected"); [repeatbutton setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"repeat.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal]; [repeatbutton setNeedsDisplay]; } cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone; return cell; }

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• Cannot access new product attributes in grid display

  - by russjman

  I added a couple new attribute to my products(a boolean "yes/no" fields). They are variables to enable/disable the price from displaying on the product detail page, and grid view. I managed to get it work on the product info page. But on product grid page I cant seem to access those variable. Specifically, the template i am working with is catalog/product/list.phtml. Ive tried adding them in the xml file like this layout/catalog.xml: <block type="catalog/product_list" name="product_list" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"> <action method="addAttribute"><name>DisplayPrice</name></action> <action method="addAttribute"><name>CustomOrder</name></action> </block> and I am trying to access the attributes like so in catalog/product/list.phtml: <?php echo $_product->getDisplayPriceName()? "Yes" : "No" ; echo $_product->getCustomOrderName()? "Yes" : "No" ;?> ive also added in the Mage config file app/code/core/Catalog/etc/config.xml: <frontend> <!---- stuff before this --> <product> <collection> <attributes> <name /> <url_key /> <price /> <special_price /> <custom_order /> <!--new attribute --> <display_price /> <!--new attribute --> <special_from_date /> <special_to_date /> <short_description /> <thumbnail /> <small_image /> <image_label /> <thumbnail_label /> <small_image_label /> <tax_class_id /> <status /> <news_from_date /> <news_to_date /> <created_at /> <updated_at /> </attributes> </collection> </product> </frontend> At this point im shooting in the dark. I dont know enough about the Magento backend to know where else i need to go or look. ANY feed back will be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

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• Jquery Galleryview

  - by kwek-kwek

  I am working on a site that requires a jquery Galleryview now I have everything set up but my images are not showing. here is my header code: <script type="text/javascript" src="=/js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery.easing.1.3.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery.timers-1.1.2.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.galleryview-1.1.js"></script> <script> $('#photos').galleryView({ panel_width: 506, panel_height: 275, transition_speed: 1500, transition_interval: 5000, nav_theme: 'dark', border: '1px solid white', pause_on_hover: true }); </script> My gallery code: <div id="photos" class="galleryview"> <div class="panel"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/condo-one/1.jpg" alt="image1" /> </div> <div class="panel"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/condo-one/2.jpg" alt="image1" /> </div> <div class="panel"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/condo-one/3.jpg" alt="image1" /> </div> <div class="panel"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/condo-one/4.jpg" /> </div> <div class="panel"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/condo-one/5.jpg" /> </div> </div> The problem is that the images are not showing but it's the correct path view the site demo here please help.

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• Dealing with personal failure

  - by codeelegance

  A while ago I was given the task of updating and extending the functionality of a software project. I was given a year to make the needed changes working solo. A month into development I came to the conclusion that it would take longer to change the existing product than to rewrite it from the ground up. I'd never attempted a complete rewrite so I talked with my boss about it and he was thrilled with the idea. I'm a fan of agile development but had never had the opportunity to take advantage of all of the prescribed practices so when I set to work I tried to incorporate as many as I could. I didn't have direct access to the customer and my coworkers (non-programmers) knew the business domain but were already so busy they didn't really have time to participate in design meetings so I resigned to working in the dark and occasionally calling one of them over to my desk to get feedback on my progress. I used TDD and refactored mercilessly and even tried taking a domain driven design approach. Things went well for a while. As the deadline came closer and the complexity of the project grew my productivity start slipping. I found myself cutting corners and ignoring the practices I had established as the pressure increased to meet the deadline. I also started working late nights and weekends to keep up with the load. In the end it made little difference how hard I worked. The project missed its deadline and what was completed wasn't enough to give to the customer. I had failed. Not only had I not finished on time but the previous version had sat untouched for almost a year so it wouldn't be of any help. Luckily we had another product that offered some of the same functionality. My boss decided to cancel the project entirely and moved all our orphaned customers to the other product. I spent weeks (along with everyone else at the company) manning the phones providing technical support for those customers. After it was all over, my boss was gracious enough not to fire me for nearly ruining the company. I was moved to the other product and have been trying to redeem myself ever since. Where did I go wrong? Has anyone else had to deal with this kind of defeat? How did you recover?

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• Facebook Like box and Like buttons return Error

  - by spartan

  I'm integrating FB social plugins - Like box and Like buttons (as iframes) - on a web page, but they don't work. When I click on Like in "Like box", I get "Error" text with link, which displays a message dialog "The page at https://www.facebook.com/provocateur.eu could not be reached.". JSON response is: for (;;);{"__ar":1,"payload":{"requires_login":false,"success":false,"already_connected":false,"is_admin":false,"show_error":true,"error_info":{"brief":"Website Inaccessible","full":"The page at https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/provocateur.eu could not be reached.","errorUri":"\/connect\/connect_to_node_error.php?title=Website+Inaccessible&body=The+page+at+https\u00253A\u00252F\u00252Fwww.facebook.com\u00252Fprovocateur.eu+could+not+be+reached.&hash=AQARp73z7huT0Eiu"}}} When I click on the Like button, the JSON response is: for (;;);{"__ar":1,"payload":{"requires_login":false,"success":false,"already_connected":false,"is_admin":false,"show_error":true,"error_info":{"brief":"An error occurred.","full":"There was an error liking the page. If you are the page owner, please try running your page through the linter on the Facebook devsite (https:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/tools\/lint\/) and fixing any errors.","errorUri":"\/connect\/connect_to_node_error.php?title=An+error+occurred.&body=There+was+an+error+liking+the+page.+If+you+are+the+page+owner\u00252C+please+try+running+your+page+through+the+linter+on+the+Facebook+devsite+\u002528https\u00253A\u00252F\u00252Fdevelopers.facebook.com\u00252Ftools\u00252Flint\u00252F\u002529+and+fixing+any+errors.&hash=AQAFI_8ieMUGPPxS"}}} This is the "Like box" iframe code: <iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:240px; height:70px;" src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fprovocateur.eu&width=240&height=70&colorscheme=dark&show_faces=false&border_color&stream=false&header=true&appId=283499041689204"></iframe> and this is the "Like button" iframe code: <iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:203px; height:21px;" src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href&amp;send=false&amp;layout=button_count&amp;width=203&amp;show_faces=false&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;font=arial&amp;height=21&amp;appId=283499041689204"></iframe> The behaviour is the same for admin and non-admin visitors and for any browser. I created application with the same name as FB page with appId 283499041689204. Web page is XHTML transitional valid, and it contains no errors according FB debugger/linter. Formely there was age restriction (17+), but I removed it and for the moment it is accessible for anyone (13+). URL of web page: http://provocateur.eu/ URL of FB page: in the first error message Any help appriciated. Thanks in advance.

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• A better UPDATE method in LINQ to SQL

  - by Refracted Paladin

  The below is a typical, for me, Update method in L2S. I am still fairly new to a lot of this(L2S & business app development) but this just FEELs wrong. Like there MUST be a smarter way of doing this. Unfortunately, I am having trouble visualizing it and am hoping someone can provide an example or point me in the right direction. To take a stab in the dark, would I have a Person Object that has all these fields as Properties? Then what, though? Is that redundant since L2S already mapped my Person Table to a Class? Is this just 'how it goes', that you eventually end up passing 30 parameters(or MORE) to an UPDATE statement at some point? For reference, this is a business app using C#, WinForms, .Net 3.5, and L2S over SQL 2005 Standard. Here is a typical Update Call for me. This is in a file(BLLConnect.cs) with other CRUD methods. Connect is the name of the DB that holds tblPerson When a user clicks save() this is what is eventually called with all of these fields having, potentially, been updated-- public static void UpdatePerson(int personID, string userID, string titleID, string firstName, string middleName, string lastName, string suffixID, string ssn, char gender, DateTime? birthDate, DateTime? deathDate, string driversLicenseNumber, string driversLicenseStateID, string primaryRaceID, string secondaryRaceID, bool hispanicOrigin, bool citizenFlag, bool veteranFlag, short ? residencyCountyID, short? responsibilityCountyID, string emailAddress, string maritalStatusID) { using (var context = ConnectDataContext.Create()) { var personToUpdate = (from person in context.tblPersons where person.PersonID == personID select person).Single(); personToUpdate.TitleID = titleID; personToUpdate.FirstName = firstName; personToUpdate.MiddleName = middleName; personToUpdate.LastName = lastName; personToUpdate.SuffixID = suffixID; personToUpdate.SSN = ssn; personToUpdate.Gender = gender; personToUpdate.BirthDate = birthDate; personToUpdate.DeathDate = deathDate; personToUpdate.DriversLicenseNumber = driversLicenseNumber; personToUpdate.DriversLicenseStateID = driversLicenseStateID; personToUpdate.PrimaryRaceID = primaryRaceID; personToUpdate.SecondaryRaceID = secondaryRaceID; personToUpdate.HispanicOriginFlag = hispanicOrigin; personToUpdate.CitizenFlag = citizenFlag; personToUpdate.VeteranFlag = veteranFlag; personToUpdate.ResidencyCountyID = residencyCountyID; personToUpdate.ResponsibilityCountyID = responsibilityCountyID; personToUpdate.EmailAddress = emailAddress; personToUpdate.MaritalStatusID = maritalStatusID; personToUpdate.UpdateUserID = userID; personToUpdate.UpdateDateTime = DateTime.Now; context.SubmitChanges(); } }

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• Do You Really Know Your Programming Languages?

  - by Kristopher Johnson

  I am often amazed at how little some of my colleagues know or care about their craft. Something that constantly frustrates me is that people don't want to learn any more than they need to about the programming languages they use every day. Many programmers seem content to learn some pidgin sub-dialect, and stick with that. If they see a keyword or construct that they aren't familiar with, they'll complain that the code is "tricky." What would you think of a civil engineer who shied away from calculus because it had "all those tricky math symbols?" I'm not suggesting that we all need to become "language lawyers." But if you make your living as a programmer, and claim to be a competent user of language X, then I think at a minimum you should know the following: Do you know the keywords of the language and what they do? What are the valid syntactic forms? How are memory, files, and other operating system resources managed? Where is the official language specification and library reference for the language? The last one is the one that really gets me. Many programmers seem to have no idea that there is a "specification" or "standard" for any particular language. I still talk to people who think that Microsoft invented C++, and that if a program doesn't compile under VC6, it's not a valid C++ program. Programmers these days have it easy when it comes to obtaining specs. Newer languages like C#, Java, Python, Ruby, etc. all have their documentation available for free from the vendors' web sites. Older languages and platforms often have standards controlled by standards bodies that demand payment for specs, but even that shouldn't be a deterrent: the C++ standard is available from ISO for $30 (and why am I the only person I know who has a copy?). Programming is hard enough even when you do know the language. If you don't, I don't see how you have a chance. What do the rest of you think? Am I right, or should we all be content with the typical level of programming language expertise? Update: Several great comments here. Thanks. A couple of people hit on something that I didn't think about: What really irks me is not the lack of knowledge, but the lack of curiosity and willingness to learn. It seems some people don't have any time to hone their craft, but they have plenty of time to write lots of bad code. And I don't expect people to be able to recite a list of keywords or EBNF expressions, but I do expect that when they see some code, they should have some inkling of what it does. Few people have complete knowledge of every dark corner of their language or platform, but everyone should at least know enough that when they see something unfamiliar, they will know how to get whatever additional information they need to understand it.

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• Rails learn's confusion

  - by Steve

  This is a beginner's rails learning confusion. When I learn rails, from time to time, I feel frustrated on rails' principle "Convention over Configuration". Rails uses heavily on conventions. A lot of them are just naming conventions. If I forget a convention, I will either use the wrong naming and get unexpected result or get things magically done but don't understand how. Sometimes, I think of configuration. At least configuration lists everything clearly and nothing is in fog. In rails, there seems a hidden, dark contract between you and the machine. If you follow the contract, you communicate well. But a beginner usually forgets items listed on the contract and this usually leads to confusion. That's why when I first pick up rails, I feel like it is somehow difficult to learn. Besides, there are many other things that could be new to a learner, such as using git, using plugins from community, using RESTful routing style, using RSpec. All these are new and come together in learning ruby and rails. This definitely adds up difficulties for a beginner. In contrast, if you learn php, it wouldn't be that bad. You can forget many things and focus on learning php itself. You don't need to learn database handling if you know SQL already(in rails, you need to learn a whole new concept migration), you don't have to learn a new decent unit test(in rails, usually they teach RSpec along the way because rails is agile and you should learn test-driven development in the early learning stage), you don't have to learn a new version control(in rails, you will be taught about git anyway), you don't have to use complicated plugins(in rails, they usually use third-party plugins in textbook examples! what the hell? why not teach how to do a simplified similar thing in rails?), you don't have to worry RESTful style. All in all, when I learn php, I learn it quick and soon I start to write things myself. Learning php is similar to learning C/java. It tastes like those traditional languages. When I learn rails, it is more difficult. And I need to learn ruby as well (I believe many of you learn ruby just because of rails). Does anyone have the similar feeling as I have? How do you overcome it and start to master rails? Hints will be welcomed. Thank you.

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• Returning JSON in CFFunction and appending it to layer is causing an error

  - by Mel

  I'm using the qTip jQuery plugin to generate a dynamic tooltip. I'm getting an error in my JS, and I'm unsure if its source is the JSON or the JS. The tooltip calls the following function: (sorry about all this code, but it's necessary) <cffunction name="fGameDetails" access="remote" returnType="any" returnformat="JSON" output="false" hint="This grabs game details for the games.cfm page"> <!---Argument, which is the game ID---> <cfargument name="gameID" type="numeric" required="true" hint="CFC will look for GameID and retrieve its details"> <!---Local var---> <cfset var qGameDetails = ""> <!---Database query---> <cfquery name="qGameDetails" datasource="#REQUEST.datasource#"> SELECT titles.titleName AS tName, titles.titleBrief AS tBrief, games.gameID, games.titleID, games.releaseDate AS rDate, genres.genreName AS gName, platforms.platformAbbr AS pAbbr, platforms.platformName AS pName, creviews.cReviewScore AS rScore, ratings.ratingName AS rName FROM games Inner Join platforms ON platforms.platformID = games.platformID Inner Join titles ON titles.titleID = games.titleID Inner Join genres ON genres.genreID = games.genreID Inner Join creviews ON games.gameID = creviews.gameID Inner Join ratings ON ratings.ratingID = games.ratingID WHERE (games.gameID = #ARGUMENTS.gameID#); </cfquery> <cfreturn qGameDetails> </cffunction> This function returns the following JSON: { "COLUMNS": [ "TNAME", "TBRIEF", "GAMEID", "TITLEID", "RDATE", "GNAME", "PABBR", "PNAME", "RSCORE", "RNAME" ], "DATA": [ [ "Dark Void", "Ancient gods known as 'The Watchers,' once banished from our world by superhuman Adepts, have returned with a vengeance.", 154, 54, "January, 19 2010 00:00:00", "Action & Adventure", "PS3", "Playstation 3", 3.3, "14 Anos" ] ] } The problem I'm having is every time I try to append the JSON to the layer #catalog, I get a syntax error that says "missing parenthetical." This is the JavaScript I'm using: $(document).ready(function() { $('#catalog a[href]').each(function() { $(this).qtip( { content: { url: '/gamezilla/resources/components/viewgames.cfc?method=fGameDetails', data: { gameID: $(this).attr('href').match(/gameID=([0-9]+)$/)[1] }, method: 'get' }, api: { beforeContentUpdate: function(content) { var json = eval('(' + content + ')'); content = $('<div />').append( $('<h1 />', { html: json.TNAME })); return content; } }, style: { width: 300, height: 300, padding: 0, name: 'light', tip: { corner: 'leftMiddle', size: { x: 40, y : 40 } } }, position: { corner: { target: 'rightMiddle', tooltip: 'leftMiddle' } } }); }); }); Any ideas where I'm going wrong? I tried many things for several days and I can't find the issue. Many thanks!

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