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  • Implementing a robust async stream reader

    - by Jon
    I recently provided an answer to this question: C# - Realtime console output redirection. As often happens, explaining stuff (here "stuff" was how I tackled a similar problem) leads you to greater understanding and/or, as is the case here, "oops" moments. I realized that my solution, as implemented, has a bug. The bug has little practical importance, but it has an extremely large importance to me as a developer: I can't rest easy knowing that my code has the potential to blow up. Squashing the bug is the purpose of this question. I apologize for the long intro, so let's get dirty. I wanted to build a class that allows me to receive input from a Stream in an event-based manner. The stream, in my scenario, is guaranteed to be a FileStream and there is also an associated StreamReader already present to leverage. The public interface of the class is this: public class MyStreamManager { public event EventHandler<ConsoleOutputReadEventArgs> StandardOutputRead; public void StartSendingEvents(); public void StopSendingEvents(); } Obviously this specific scenario has to do with a console's standard output, but that is a detail and does not play an important role. StartSendingEvents and StopSendingEvents do what they advertise; for the purposes of this discussion, we can assume that events are always being sent without loss of generality. The class uses these two fields internally: protected readonly StringBuilder inputAccumulator = new StringBuilder(); protected readonly byte[] buffer = new byte[256]; The functionality of the class is implemented in the methods below. To get the ball rolling: public void StartSendingEvents(); { this.stopAutomation = false; this.BeginReadAsync(); } To read data out of the Stream without blocking, and also without requiring a carriage return char, BeginRead is called: protected void BeginReadAsync() { if (!this.stopAutomation) { this.StandardOutput.BaseStream.BeginRead( this.buffer, 0, this.buffer.Length, this.ReadHappened, null); } } The challenging part: BeginRead requires using a buffer. This means that when reading from the stream, it is possible that the bytes available to read ("incoming chunk") are larger than the buffer. Since we are only handing off data from the stream to a consumer, and that consumer may well have inside knowledge about the size and/or format of these chunks, I want to call event subscribers exactly once for each chunk. Otherwise the abstraction breaks down and the subscribers have to buffer the incoming data and reconstruct the chunks themselves using said knowledge. This is much less convenient to the calling code, and detracts from the usefulness of my class. To this end, if the buffer is full after EndRead, we don't send its contents to subscribers immediately but instead append them to a StringBuilder. The contents of the StringBuilder are only sent back whenever there is no more to read from the stream (thus preserving the chunks). private void ReadHappened(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { var bytesRead = this.StandardOutput.BaseStream.EndRead(asyncResult); if (bytesRead == 0) { this.OnAutomationStopped(); return; } var input = this.StandardOutput.CurrentEncoding.GetString( this.buffer, 0, bytesRead); this.inputAccumulator.Append(input); if (bytesRead < this.buffer.Length) { this.OnInputRead(); // only send back if we 're sure we got it all } this.BeginReadAsync(); // continue "looping" with BeginRead } After any read which is not enough to fill the buffer, all accumulated data is sent to the subscribers: private void OnInputRead() { var handler = this.StandardOutputRead; if (handler == null) { return; } handler(this, new ConsoleOutputReadEventArgs(this.inputAccumulator.ToString())); this.inputAccumulator.Clear(); } (I know that as long as there are no subscribers the data gets accumulated forever. This is a deliberate decision). The good This scheme works almost perfectly: Async functionality without spawning any threads Very convenient to the calling code (just subscribe to an event) Maintains the "chunkiness" of the data; this allows the calling code to use inside knowledge of the data without doing any extra work Is almost agnostic to the buffer size (it will work correctly with any size buffer irrespective of the data being read) The bad That last almost is a very big one. Consider what happens when there is an incoming chunk with length exactly equal to the size of the buffer. The chunk will be read and buffered, but the event will not be triggered. This will be followed up by a BeginRead that expects to find more data belonging to the current chunk in order to send it back all in one piece, but... there will be no more data in the stream. In fact, as long as data is put into the stream in chunks with length exactly equal to the buffer size, the data will be buffered and the event will never be triggered. This scenario may be highly unlikely to occur in practice, especially since we can pick any number for the buffer size, but the problem is there. Solution? Unfortunately, after checking the available methods on FileStream and StreamReader, I can't find anything which lets me peek into the stream while also allowing async methods to be used on it. One "solution" would be to have a thread wait on a ManualResetEvent after the "buffer filled" condition is detected. If the event is not signaled (by the async callback) in a small amount of time, then more data from the stream will not be forthcoming and the data accumulated so far should be sent to subscribers. However, this introduces the need for another thread, requires thread synchronization, and is plain inelegant. Specifying a timeout for BeginRead would also suffice (call back into my code every now and then so I can check if there's data to be sent back; most of the time there will not be anything to do, so I expect the performance hit to be negligible). But it looks like timeouts are not supported in FileStream. Since I imagine that async calls with timeouts are an option in bare Win32, another approach might be to PInvoke the hell out of the problem. But this is also undesirable as it will introduce complexity and simply be a pain to code. Is there an elegant way to get around the problem? Thanks for being patient enough to read all of this.

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  • My desktop has started overheating -- how hot is hot?

    - by Jerry
    I have a two year old desktop, some random quad core HP desktop. It used to run very quietly, but in the past month, the fans start up anytime anything "serious" is being done -- compiles, playing video, etc. Right now, speedfan and speccy report the cores are between 50C and 70C. Speedfan reports this as hot. (Nice flame icon.) Well, the system does sit on my carpet, so two weeks ago, I took off the lid, and cough *cough* it was pretty filled with dust. I got out an air can, turned on a vacuum and carefully got out all the dust that I saw on the CPU fan the case fans any fan I saw (graphics board) and blew out all the dust I could from all the circuit boards. And then I closed the case back up. It has definitely run cooler since then, but it still runs hot, and I hear high speed fan noise I never heard before. How hot is too hot? At what temps do consumer grade CPUs die? What should I be looking to do? Replace CPU fan? (It seems to work) Replace power supply fan? Assuming the dust problem is gone, where should I be looking to determine why the machine is heating up? Epilogue: After following the various pieces of advice given here, the system did run cooler, but it was still noticeably running louder (hotter) than just a few months prior. I ended up purchasing a new cpu heatsink and fan and during installation found the cooling grease from the original heatsink was just a dried, cracked layer, probably more of an insulator than heat transfer agent. With the new fan AND the new heatsink compound, the system ran much much cooler and the fan rarely turns on.

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  • How do i set up a fully featured small business network?

    - by JoshReedSchramm
    This has the possibility to be a very large question but I recently acquired a few rack mount servers and the hardware necessary to run them. Unfortunately I'm a programmer with very little understanding of how to set up a good working network so I'm hoping someone on here might be able to help. What I want to do is run a domain with a series of subdomains which would all be externally accessible. The setup would live inside my home and my internet connection is your run of the mill cable model (which means a dynamic IP) I want to be able to set up a couple site, specifically: www.mycompany.com (mycompany.com with no subdomain would redirect to this) build.mycompany.com (for my continuous integration server) ruby.mycompany.com (for ruby projects) win.mycompany.com (for windows project) etc. Additionally this is still my home network so our personal machines need to be able to get on via wifi with at least the same security we have now through an out of the box router from best buy. I'm thinking i need a DNS server, DHCP server and one of those would run either no-ip or dyndns to accommodate the dynamic ip. I don't necessarily need mail but it might be helpful to have some sort of mail server i could use for testing, it doesn't need to get out to the greater internet though. So how do i set up this kinda of network? tl;dr Need to know how to set up your standard office style network in my home off my normal consumer level cable modem connection.

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  • Wireless to Wireless Transfer Slow on a Linksys WRT54GL

    - by Kyle Brandt
    The Situation: When I try to transfer a file from one computer to another that are both connected via wireless on a WRT54GL (in a office) with dd-wrt firmware I often get bad speeds. In generally they average around 100 kilobytes a second. Either computer can download via wireless from the Internet at at about 2 megabytes a second. The speed is slow with the transfer of one large file. There are about 20 other wireless networks that the computers can see, so there is a lot of noise, but I don't have the equipment to really monitor the frequencies well. But that still seems pretty slow. I thought maybe it was the transmit on each card, but even when they are 5 feet away with a line of sight I still get these speeds. According to Linux both cards are operating at 54g. My Questions: Is this normal for this sort of consumer level wireless equipment? Anything I can do to improve it? why is wireless to wireless transfer slow when everything else isn't? Whats steps might I take to figure out what is happening? For example, are lots of packets not making to the access point requiring retransmissions? Above all, I want to find out what the problem actually is. This may seem odd, but at this point I am more interested in understanding what the problem is than fixing it. What I have tried: I have tried messing with lots of settings. Different channels, xmit power, G-Only, none of which has made anything any better. I've also tried upgrading to newer dd-wrt firmware version and doing a reset to wipe out the settings.

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  • Implementing a robust async stream reader for a console

    - by Jon
    I recently provided an answer to this question: C# - Realtime console output redirection. As often happens, explaining stuff (here "stuff" was how I tackled a similar problem) leads you to greater understanding and/or, as is the case here, "oops" moments. I realized that my solution, as implemented, has a bug. The bug has little practical importance, but it has an extremely large importance to me as a developer: I can't rest easy knowing that my code has the potential to blow up. Squashing the bug is the purpose of this question. I apologize for the long intro, so let's get dirty. I wanted to build a class that allows me to receive input from a Stream in an event-based manner. The stream, in my scenario, is guaranteed to be a FileStream and there is also an associated StreamReader already present to leverage. The public interface of the class is this: public class MyStreamManager { public event EventHandler<ConsoleOutputReadEventArgs> StandardOutputRead; public void StartSendingEvents(); public void StopSendingEvents(); } Obviously this specific scenario has to do with a console's standard output. StartSendingEvents and StopSendingEvents do what they advertise; for the purposes of this discussion, we can assume that events are always being sent without loss of generality. The class uses these two fields internally: protected readonly StringBuilder inputAccumulator = new StringBuilder(); protected readonly byte[] buffer = new byte[256]; The functionality of the class is implemented in the methods below. To get the ball rolling: public void StartSendingEvents(); { this.stopAutomation = false; this.BeginReadAsync(); } To read data out of the Stream without blocking, and also without requiring a carriage return char, BeginRead is called: protected void BeginReadAsync() { if (!this.stopAutomation) { this.StandardOutput.BaseStream.BeginRead( this.buffer, 0, this.buffer.Length, this.ReadHappened, null); } } The challenging part: BeginRead requires using a buffer. This means that when reading from the stream, it is possible that the bytes available to read ("incoming chunk") are larger than the buffer. Since we are only handing off data from the stream to a consumer, and that consumer may well have inside knowledge about the size and/or format of these chunks, I want to call event subscribers exactly once for each chunk. Otherwise the abstraction breaks down and the subscribers have to buffer the incoming data and reconstruct the chunks themselves using said knowledge. This is much less convenient to the calling code, and detracts from the usefulness of my class. Edit: There are comments below correctly stating that since the data is coming from a stream, there is absolutely nothing that the receiver can infer about the structure of the data unless it is fully prepared to parse it. What I am trying to do here is leverage the "flush the output" "structure" that the owner of the console imparts while writing on it. I am prepared to assume (better: allow my caller to have the option to assume) that the OS will pass me the data written between two flushes of the stream in exactly one piece. To this end, if the buffer is full after EndRead, we don't send its contents to subscribers immediately but instead append them to a StringBuilder. The contents of the StringBuilder are only sent back whenever there is no more to read from the stream (thus preserving the chunks). private void ReadHappened(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { var bytesRead = this.StandardOutput.BaseStream.EndRead(asyncResult); if (bytesRead == 0) { this.OnAutomationStopped(); return; } var input = this.StandardOutput.CurrentEncoding.GetString( this.buffer, 0, bytesRead); this.inputAccumulator.Append(input); if (bytesRead < this.buffer.Length) { this.OnInputRead(); // only send back if we 're sure we got it all } this.BeginReadAsync(); // continue "looping" with BeginRead } After any read which is not enough to fill the buffer, all accumulated data is sent to the subscribers: private void OnInputRead() { var handler = this.StandardOutputRead; if (handler == null) { return; } handler(this, new ConsoleOutputReadEventArgs(this.inputAccumulator.ToString())); this.inputAccumulator.Clear(); } (I know that as long as there are no subscribers the data gets accumulated forever. This is a deliberate decision). The good This scheme works almost perfectly: Async functionality without spawning any threads Very convenient to the calling code (just subscribe to an event) Maintains the "chunkiness" of the data; this allows the calling code to use inside knowledge of the data without doing any extra work Is almost agnostic to the buffer size (it will work correctly with any size buffer irrespective of the data being read) The bad That last almost is a very big one. Consider what happens when there is an incoming chunk with length exactly equal to the size of the buffer. The chunk will be read and buffered, but the event will not be triggered. This will be followed up by a BeginRead that expects to find more data belonging to the current chunk in order to send it back all in one piece, but... there will be no more data in the stream. In fact, as long as data is put into the stream in chunks with length exactly equal to the buffer size, the data will be buffered and the event will never be triggered. This scenario may be highly unlikely to occur in practice, especially since we can pick any number for the buffer size, but the problem is there. Solution? Unfortunately, after checking the available methods on FileStream and StreamReader, I can't find anything which lets me peek into the stream while also allowing async methods to be used on it. One "solution" would be to have a thread wait on a ManualResetEvent after the "buffer filled" condition is detected. If the event is not signaled (by the async callback) in a small amount of time, then more data from the stream will not be forthcoming and the data accumulated so far should be sent to subscribers. However, this introduces the need for another thread, requires thread synchronization, and is plain inelegant. Specifying a timeout for BeginRead would also suffice (call back into my code every now and then so I can check if there's data to be sent back; most of the time there will not be anything to do, so I expect the performance hit to be negligible). But it looks like timeouts are not supported in FileStream. Since I imagine that async calls with timeouts are an option in bare Win32, another approach might be to PInvoke the hell out of the problem. But this is also undesirable as it will introduce complexity and simply be a pain to code. Is there an elegant way to get around the problem? Thanks for being patient enough to read all of this.

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  • Windows 8 keeps signing out

    - by bill weaver
    Ran into a strange problem with Windows 8 Pro. Last night i installed Windows 8 Pro as an upgrade on a Sony Vaio laptop that had Windows 7 Pro on it. The install seemed to go okay. Then once installed, live tiles seem to work, native/Metro apps will start okay, but pretty soon after going into an app or settings, the screen flashes a few times and we're back to the lock screen. Signing in appears to do a full login. I've tried this with a local account and with a live.com account. This is someone else's laptop, so we decided to let it breathe, in case the install was still settling in. Well, they say today it's doing the same thing. Open the music app, and within a minute it's back to signon/lock screen. However, they can go to the actual Desktop and run Zune to play music, and it seems happy. In the past, i've installed retail Windows 8 Pro clean on a homebrew system, as an upgrade on a Dell laptop with a zillion apps and drivers, neither with any problems. Also, i've had the consumer preview and release candidate installed as well, no problems. Any ideas on what's going on here?

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  • Looking for Remote Control that works with everything (even Windows 7 Media Center)

    - by T Reddy
    Using my Google-Fu, it seems that the most basic of things one gets with any DVR is the remote control. Had I known it would be difficult just to get a consumer IR receiver for Windows 7 I may not have bothered to build an HTPC. But too late, I already have the HTPC ready to go (minus the CETON card...) So I'm moving away from TiVo, I hate paying the monthly fees and my box is ancient. I'm looking for these solutions to my HTCP setup...I want to: Switch audio from HDMI to SPDIF via the remote control (i.e., switch from TV to Receiver) (as a side note, the built-in audio on the mobo has software to do this). Pressing the volume button on the remote will always change the TV's volume (or the Receiver's if possible) and NOT the PC's volume. The remote/receiver works well around 25 feet. Bonus if the IR Receiver can work with my existing TiVo remote (or other remotes laying around the house) I read a review of the Bluetooth TiVo remote...it sounds promising...but I'm not sure if it is great for Windows 7 HTPC?

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  • InputDispatcher Error

    - by StarDust
    INFO/ActivityManager(68): Process com.example (pid 390) has died. ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): channel '406ed580 com.example/com.example.afeTest (server)' ~ Consumer closed input channel or an error occurred. events=0x8 ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): channel '406ed580 com.example/com.example.afeTest (server)' ~ Channel is unrecoverably broken and will be disposed! ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): Received spurious receive callback for unknown input channel. fd=165, events=0x8 Can anyone tell what may be the reason behind this error? I've ported a native code on the Android-ndk. One thing I noticed regarding fd (that may be some reason :S) My code uses fd_sets which was defined in winsock2.h But I didn't find fd_sets defined in android-ndk. So I had included "select.h" where fd_set is a typedef in the android-ndk: typedef __kernel_fd_set fd_set; Here is the log cat: 04-06 11:15:32.405: INFO/DEBUG(31): *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 04-06 11:15:32.405: INFO/DEBUG(31): Build fingerprint: 'generic/sdk/generic:2.3.3/GRI34/101070:eng/test-keys' 04-06 11:15:32.415: INFO/DEBUG(31): pid: 335, tid: 348 >>> com.example <<< 04-06 11:15:32.426: INFO/DEBUG(31): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1 (SEGV_MAPERR), fault addr deadbaad 04-06 11:15:32.426: INFO/DEBUG(31): r0 deadbaad r1 0000000c r2 00000027 r3 00000000 04-06 11:15:32.445: INFO/DEBUG(31): r4 00000080 r5 afd46668 r6 0000a000 r7 00000078 04-06 11:15:32.445: INFO/DEBUG(31): r8 804ab00d r9 002a9778 10 00100000 fp 00000001 04-06 11:15:32.445: INFO/DEBUG(31): ip ffffffff sp 44295d10 lr afd19375 pc afd15ef0 cpsr 00000030 04-06 11:15:32.756: INFO/DEBUG(31): #00 pc 00015ef0 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.756: INFO/DEBUG(31): #01 pc 00013852 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.767: INFO/DEBUG(31): code around pc: 04-06 11:15:32.785: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd15ed0 68241c23 d1fb2c00 68dae027 d0042a00 04-06 11:15:32.785: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd15ee0 20014d18 6028447d 48174790 24802227 04-06 11:15:32.785: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd15ef0 f7f57002 2106eb56 ec92f7f6 0563aa01 04-06 11:15:32.796: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd15f00 60932100 91016051 1c112006 e818f7f6 04-06 11:15:32.807: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd15f10 2200a905 f7f62002 f7f5e824 2106eb42 04-06 11:15:32.815: INFO/DEBUG(31): code around lr: 04-06 11:15:32.815: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd19354 b0834a0d 589c447b 26009001 686768a5 04-06 11:15:32.825: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd19364 220ce008 2b005eab 1c28d003 47889901 04-06 11:15:32.836: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd19374 35544306 d5f43f01 2c006824 b003d1ee 04-06 11:15:32.836: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd19384 bdf01c30 000281a8 ffffff88 1c0fb5f0 04-06 11:15:32.846: INFO/DEBUG(31): afd19394 43551c3d a904b087 1c16ac01 604d9004 04-06 11:15:32.856: INFO/DEBUG(31): stack: 04-06 11:15:32.856: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cd0 00000408 04-06 11:15:32.867: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cd4 afd18407 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.875: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cd8 afd4270c /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.875: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cdc afd426b8 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.885: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295ce0 00000000 04-06 11:15:32.896: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295ce4 afd19375 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.896: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295ce8 804ab00d /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:32.896: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cec afd183d9 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.906: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cf0 00000078 04-06 11:15:32.906: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cf4 00000000 04-06 11:15:32.906: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cf8 afd46668 04-06 11:15:32.906: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295cfc 0000a000 [heap] 04-06 11:15:32.916: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d00 00000078 04-06 11:15:32.927: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d04 afd18677 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.927: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d08 df002777 04-06 11:15:32.945: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d0c e3a070ad 04-06 11:15:32.945: INFO/DEBUG(31): #00 44295d10 002c43a0 [heap] 04-06 11:15:32.945: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d14 002a9900 [heap] 04-06 11:15:32.956: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d18 afd46608 04-06 11:15:32.966: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d1c afd11010 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:32.976: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d20 002c4298 [heap] 04-06 11:15:32.976: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d24 fffffbdf 04-06 11:15:33.006: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d28 000000da 04-06 11:15:33.006: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d2c afd46450 04-06 11:15:33.006: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d30 000001b4 04-06 11:15:33.026: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d34 afd13857 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:33.026: INFO/DEBUG(31): #01 44295d38 afd46450 04-06 11:15:33.035: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d3c afd13857 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:33.056: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d40 804ab00d /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.056: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d44 44295e8c 04-06 11:15:33.056: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d48 804ab00d /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.056: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d4c 804bfec3 /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.056: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d50 002c43a0 [heap] 04-06 11:15:33.066: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d54 44295e8c 04-06 11:15:33.066: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d58 804ab00d /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.076: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d5c 002a9778 [heap] 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d60 00000078 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d64 afd14769 /system/lib/libc.so 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d68 44295e8c 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d6c 805d9763 /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d70 44295e8c 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d74 8051dc35 /data/data/com.example/lib/libAFE.so 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d78 0000003a 04-06 11:15:33.085: INFO/DEBUG(31): 44295d7c 002a9900 [heap] 04-06 11:15:37.126: DEBUG/Zygote(33): Process 335 terminated by signal (11) 04-06 11:15:37.146: INFO/ActivityManager(68): Process com.example (pid 335) has died. 04-06 11:15:37.178: ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): channel '406f03a0 com.example/com.example.afeTest (server)' ~ Consumer closed input channel or an error occurred. events=0x8 04-06 11:15:37.178: ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): channel '406f03a0 com.example/com.example.afeTest (server)' ~ Channel is unrecoverably broken and will be disposed! 04-06 11:15:37.185: INFO/BootReceiver(68): Copying /data/tombstones/tombstone_09 to DropBox (SYSTEM_TOMBSTONE) 04-06 11:15:37.576: DEBUG/dalvikvm(68): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 266K, 47% free 4404K/8199K, external 3520K/3903K, paused 306ms 04-06 11:15:37.835: DEBUG/dalvikvm(68): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 203K, 47% free 4457K/8391K, external 3520K/3903K, paused 120ms 04-06 11:15:37.886: INFO/WindowManager(68): WIN DEATH: Window{406f03a0 com.example/com.example.afeTest paused=false} 04-06 11:15:38.095: DEBUG/dalvikvm(68): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 67K, 47% free 4518K/8391K, external 3511K/3903K, paused 94ms 04-06 11:15:38.095: INFO/dalvikvm-heap(68): Grow heap (frag case) to 10.575MB for 196628-byte allocation 04-06 11:15:38.126: DEBUG/dalvikvm(126): GC_EXPLICIT freed 110K, 51% free 2903K/5895K, external 4701K/5293K, paused 2443ms 04-06 11:15:38.217: DEBUG/dalvikvm(68): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 1K, 46% free 4708K/8647K, external 3511K/3903K, paused 96ms 04-06 11:15:38.225: INFO/WindowManager(68): WIN DEATH: Window{406f72f8 com.example/com.example.afeTest paused=false} 04-06 11:15:38.405: DEBUG/dalvikvm(68): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 492K, 50% free 4345K/8647K, external 3511K/3903K, paused 96ms 04-06 11:15:38.485: ERROR/InputDispatcher(68): Received spurious receive callback for unknown input channel. fd=164, events=0x8

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  • How important is dual-gigabit lan for a super user's home NAS?

    - by Andrew
    Long story short: I'm building my own home server based on Ubuntu with 4 drives in RAID 10. Its primary purpose will be NAS and backup. Would I be making a terrible mistake by building a NAS Server with a single Gigabit NIC? Long story long: I know the absolute max I can get out of a single Gigabit port is 125MB/s, and I want this NAS to be able to handle up to 6 computers accessing files simultaneously, with up to two of them streaming video. With Ubuntu NIC-bonding and the performance of RAID 10, I can theoretically double my throughput and achieve 250MB/s (ok, not really, but it would be faster). The drives have an average read throughput of 83.87MB/s according to Tom's Hardware. The unit itself will be based on the Chenbro ES34069-BK-180 case. With my current hardware choices, it'll have this motherboard with a Core i3 CPU and 8GB of RAM. Overkill, I know, but this server will be doing other things as well (like transcoding video). Unfortunately, the only Mini-ITX boards I can find with dual-gigabit and 6 SATA ports are Intel Atom-based, and I need more processing power than an Atom has to offer. I would love to find a board with 6 SATA ports and two Gigabit LAN ports that supports a Core i3 CPU. So far, my search has come up empty. Thus, my dilemma. Should I hold out for such a board, go with an Atom-based solution, or stick with my current single-gigabit configuration? I know there are consumer NAS units with just one gigabit interface (probably most of them), but I think I will demand a lot more from my server than the average home user. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

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  • Which CPU for XEN - LAMP testbed - Budget

    - by deploymonkey
    Dear serverfault knowledgeables, im in a decision dilemma right now, which I can't resolve due to lack of hands on experience. I need to build a testbed for basically virtualizing a LAMP application (os'ses not yet decided) including server side calculations. I'll opt for XEN since it seems better supported by cloud hosters at the moment. The hardware is for a proof of concept for a startup doing saas and might be used for closed live alpha/beta later on. After testing, the testbed might be a) deployed as a colocated white box server b) used as workstation Single socket is enough. We want to have ECC memory for reliability, this excludes most of the consumer line at intel. If intel CPU, then threaded cpu (HT) is preferred have at least 16 gig ram If justified by price and reliability is not too bad, a high quality desktop MB instead of a server MB would be worth a try It came down to the opteron 6128 vs. the xeon 5620 for me after a lot of research, but I don't necessarily have to be right. Which CPU is preferrable, concerning TCO (MB price, power requirements 24/7...) , Opteron 6128 or Xeon 5620? Which one offers better performance in real world applications? (Do You have any other suggestions I probably overlooked?) Thank You for Your consideration

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  • Doing arithmetic and passing it to the next command

    - by neurolysis
    I know how to do this in /bin/sh, but I'm struggling a bit in Windows. I know you can do arithmetic on 32-bit signed integers with SET /a 2+2 4 But how do I pass this to the next command? For example, the process I want to perform is as follows. Consumer editions of Windows have no native automated sleep function (I believe?) -- the best way to perform a sleep is to use PING in association with the -n switch to get that many seconds, minus one, of sleep. The following command is effective for a silent sleep: PING localhost -n 3 > NUL But I want to alias this into a sleep command. I'd like to have it elegant so that you enter the actual number of seconds you want to sleep after the command, right now I can do DOSKEY SLEEP=PING 127.0.0.1 -n $1 > NUL Which works, but it's always 1 second less than your input, so if you wanted to sleep for one second you would have to use the command SLEEP 2. That's not exactly ideal. Is there some way for me to pass the arithmetic of $1+1 and pass it on to the next command in Windows? I assume there is some way of using STDOUT...

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  • Upgrading memory in a laptop

    - by ulidtko
    I'm a bit confused about all the memory types and various bus frequencies of modern consumer PCs. Requesting expert help on the subject. So far I'm confident that: I have an Asus X51L laptop with an unknown set of configuration options. The CPU in there supports PAE, so I still have a chance to extend the memory beyond 3GiB; and the upper limit of the system is 8GiB. (?) The laptop has two SODIMM slots, one of which is occupied by a 2GiB bank, and the other one is empty. dmidecode and lshw tools consistently state 533 Mhz frequency of the bank. The last one confuses me the most. I failed to find out characteristics of the northbridge in this laptop, and still can't figure out what DDR2 to seek for. Is it DDR2-1066? Or, rather, PC2-8500/PC2-8600? Wouldn't a DDR2-800 bank harm the system's performance? Which kind of modules should I look up in stores? Update: I have bought a 2 GiB DDR2-800 SODIMM, and it seams that the system can't handle 4 GiB of memory. When installed by itself in either slot, both new and old bank (which btw happens to be marked GDDR2-677) work just perfectly; i.e. any configuration resulting in 2 GiB works. When both banks are installed though (totalling in 4 GiB), the memcheck86 tool produces horrible artifacts and crashes, and system reboots; an Ubuntu system can be started and even logged into a Unity session, but the system reboots too in this case from even a minor RAM load. So it's pretty obvious to me now that this laptop doesn't support 4 GiB of RAM or more.

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  • Can't access shared folder of win8/win7 machine - Error code: 0x80004005. Unspecified Error

    - by ruslan
    It's ironic that I, software engineer with 12 years of experience, continue to have this problem from one version of Windows to another without being able to achive consistent result (sometimes it works). Here it goes again. I have a machine with Win8 Consumer Preview. It doesn't really matter that it's win8. I had same issue with win7 before. On given machine I created local admin user with same name and password I have on second PC (the machine I'm typing this from now). I have two questions to you guys. Why I'm not able to access C$ share of win8 machine from another Win7 machine? I get error that C$ doesn't exist even though it does. Why I'm not able to access share named "test" in Win8 for which Permission set to Full for Everyone. When I attempt to access it from Win7 machine I'm asked to enter username and password. After entering administrator credentials I get error "Windows cannot access \192.168.1.123\test. Error code: 0x80004005. Unspecified Error". Windows Firewall is disabled on Win8 machine for both Private and Public networks. Guest account is disabled. Built-in admin account is enabled. Machine is pingable from other machines.

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  • How to reduce celeryd memory consumption?

    - by Gringo Suave
    I'm using celery 2.5.1 with django on a micro ec2 instance with 613mb memory and as such have to keep memory consumption down. Currently I'm using it only for the scheduler "celery beat" as a web interface to cron, though I hope to use it for more in the future. I've noticed it is the biggest consumer of memory on my micro machine even though I have configured the number of workers to one. I don't have many other options set in settings.py: import djcelery djcelery.setup_loader() BROKER_BACKEND = 'djkombu.transport.DatabaseTransport' CELERYBEAT_SCHEDULER = 'djcelery.schedulers.DatabaseScheduler' CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND = 'database' BROKER_POOL_LIMIT = 2 CELERYD_CONCURRENCY = 1 CELERY_DISABLE_RATE_LIMITS = True CELERYD_MAX_TASKS_PER_CHILD = 20 CELERYD_SOFT_TASK_TIME_LIMIT = 5 * 60 CELERYD_TASK_TIME_LIMIT = 6 * 60 Here's the details via top: PID USER NI CPU% VIRT SHR RES MEM% Command 1065 wuser 10 0.0 283M 4548 85m 14.3 python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat 1025 wuser 10 1.0 577M 6368 67m 11.2 python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat 1071 wuser 10 0.0 578M 2384 62m 10.6 python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat That's about 214mb of memory (and not much shared) to run a cron job occasionally. Have I done anything wrong, or can this be reduced about ten-fold somehow? ;) Update: here's my upstart config: description "Celery Daemon" start on (net-device-up and local-filesystems) stop on runlevel [016] nice 10 respawn respawn limit 5 10 chdir /home/wuser/wuser/ env CELERYD_OPTS=--concurrency=1 exec sudo -u wuser -H /usr/bin/python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat --concurrency=1 --loglevel info --logfile /var/tmp/celeryd.log Update 2: I notice there is one root process, one user child process, and two grandchildren from that. So I think it isn't a matter of duplicate startup. root 34580 1556 sudo -u wuser -H /usr/bin/python manage_prod.py celeryd wuser 577M 67548 +- python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat --concurrency=1 wuser 578M 63784 +- python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat --concurrency=1 wuser 271M 76260 +- python manage_prod.py celeryd --beat --concurrency=1

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  • How to back up initial state of external backup drive?

    - by intuited
    I've picked up an HP Simplesave external drive. It comes with some fancy software that is of no use to me because I don't use Windows. Like many current consumer-targeted backup drives, the backup software is actually contained on the drive itself. I'd like to save the drive's initial state so that I can restore it if I decide to sell it. The backup box itself is somewhat customized: in addition to the hard drive device, it presents a CDROM-like device on /dev/sr0. I gather that the purpose of this cdrom device is to bootstrap via Windows autoplay the backup application which lives on the disk itself. I wouldn't suppose any guarantees about how it does this, so it seems important to preserve the exact state of the disk. The drive is formatted with a single 500GB NTFS partition. My initial thought was to use dd to dump the disk (/dev/sdb) itself, but this proved impractical, as the resulting file was not sparse. This seemed to be because the NTFS empty space is not filled with zeroes, but with a repeating series of 16 bytes. I tried gzipping the output of dd. This reduced to the file to a manageable size — the first 18GB was compressed to 81MB, versus 47MB to tarball the contents of the mounted filesystem — but it was very slow on my admittedly somewhat derelict Pentium M processor. The time to do that first 18GB was about 30 minutes. So I've resorted to dumping the disk state and partition data separately. I've dumped the partition state with sfdisk -d /dev/sdb > sfdisk.-d.out I've also created a compressed image of the NTFS partition (the only one on the disk) with ntfsclone --save-image --output - /dev/sdb1 | gzip -c > ntfsclone.img.gz Is there anything else I should do to ensure that I can restore the precise original state of the drive?

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  • running a laptop continuously

    - by intuited
    I have an experienced laptop — a Dell Latitude D400, with a Pentium M CPU — that I'd like to run as an always-on server. This model was launched in 2004; I got mine second-hand in about 2007. I've heard that continuous operation is generally not a good idea with consumer hardware, but am lacking in specific knowledge about related problems, and have little idea of how much such usage patterns would reduce the lifespan of the machine. I'm mostly concerned with the unit's core components; parts such as the hard drive which are readily replaceable are, well, readily replaceable. What sorts of things can I do to increase the lifespan of this machine under such circumstances? For example, I'm guessing that it would be wise to limit the CPU frequency or take other steps to keep the internal temperature low. However, I'm not sure where the point of diminishing returns would lie with such an approach — 50°C? 40°C? Would it be useful to suspend the machine periodically, for perhaps an hour each day, or a few hours each week?

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  • Windows mounted network drives slow after upgrading switch

    - by Kver
    On our small business network our old 10/100 consumer grade switch gave up the ghost, and we replaced it with a proper business-grade gigabyte switch. After wiring it in our Linux and Mac users immediately got back to working off of network drives; But 2 of our 3 Windows 7 PCs have suddenly experienced a tremendous slowdown with mapped network drives; Windows will become stuck "discovering" a folder causing applications to freeze when trying to open files. It will instantly display and browse files, but the moment you try to open one the bug hits. To remedy this we have our users copying files to the desktop, but it can take a few minutes while windows is stuck "calculating" the time it will take to copy. These aren't big files, mostly excel sheets less than 500KB - these operations are instant on Linux and Mac. (The third Windows machine is having no issues) I've tried remapping the drives, mapping to different drive letters, rebooting, etc. I'm at a loss, because switches are mostly transparent, and it's only after the switch was replaced that the Windows PCs started acting up. What black-magic voodoo am I missing to make Windows work? Thank you.

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  • Throughput and why do ISPs sell too much bandwidth?

    - by jonescb
    I hope the question made sense how I worded it. :) I've been wondering, maximum theoretical bandwidth is measured as RWIN/RTT (Window size / round trip time) Source 1 and Souce 2 So if a major city only 100 miles away gives me a ping of 50ms, and I have the default 64kb TCP window size then my maximum throughput will be 12.5Mb/s. Everything further away would give me a higher ping and therefore a lower throughput. Is there any reason to buy something like FiOS with a 50Mb/s or greater connection? Will you ever be able to reach that kind of speed? I know you can increase the TCP window size to increase throughput, but it has to be at both ends which is a deal breaker because you can't control the server. I'm assuming other network protocols like UDP aren't quite as affected by latency as TCP is, but how much of overall network traffic does non-TCP make up vs TCP. Am I just misguided about how throughput works? But if the above is correct, then why should a consumer like me buy way more bandwidth than can be realistically used. Maybe the only reason is for downloading multiple things at once, or one thing from multiple servers/peers?

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  • Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group - How SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services could change yo

    - by dmccollough
    Bio: Corey Roth is a consultant at Stonebridge specializing in SharePoint solutions in the Oil & Gas Industry. He has ten plus years of experience delivering solutions in the energy, travel, advertising and consumer electronics verticals. Corey has always focused on rapid adoption of new Microsoft technologies including Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, LINQ, and SilverLight. He also contributed greatly to the beta phases of Visual Studio 2005. For his contributions, he was awarded the Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE). Corey is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Corey is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia.com) where he blogs about the latest technology and SharePoint. Abstract: How SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services could change your life - The New BDC How many hours have your wasted building simple ASP.NET applications to do nothing more than simple CRUD operations against a database.  Many tools have made this easier, but now it's so easy, you'll be up and running in minutes.  This session will show you hot easy it is to get started integrating external data from your line of business systems in SharePoint 2010.  You will learn how to register an external content type using SharePoint Designer based upon a database table or web service and then build an external list.  With external lists, you will see how you can perform CRUD operations on your line of business directly from SharePoint without ever having to do manual configuration in XML files.  Finally, we will walk through how to create custom edit forms for your list using InfoPath 2010. Agenda: 6pm - 6:30 Pizza and Mingle - Sponsored by TekSystems 6:30 - 6:45 Announcements 6:45 - 7:45 Presentation! 7:45 - 8:00 Drawings and Door Prizes Location: TCC (Tulsa Community College) Northeast Campus 3727 East Apache Tulsa, OK 74115 918-594-8000 Campus Map | Live | Yahoo | Google | MapQuest Door Prizes: We will be giving away one of each of these: XBox 360 - Halo 3 ODST Telerik Premium Collection ($1300.00 value) ReSharper ($199.00 value) SQLSets ($149.00 value) 64 bit Windows 7 Introducing Windows 7 for Developers Developing Service-Oriented AJAX Applications on the Microsoft Platform Sponsors: Thanks to our sponsors: TekSystems - Thanks for purchasing the Pizza for our meetings. ISOCentric - Thanks for providing us hosting for the groups web site. Tulsa Community College - Thanks for providing us a place to have our meetings. NEVRON - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. INETA.org - For allowing us to be a Charter Member and providing awesome Speakers! PERPETUUM Software - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. Telerik - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. GrapeCity - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. SQLSets - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. K2 - Thanks for providing us prizes to give away. Microsoft - For providing us with a lot of support and product giveaways! Orielly books - For providing us with books and discounts. Wrox books - For providing us with books and discounts. Have any special requests? Let us know at this link: http://tinyurl.com/lg5o38. RSVP for this month's meeting by responding to this thread: http://tinyurl.com/yafkzel . (Must be logged in to the site) Be SURE to RSVP no later than Noon on April 12th and you will get an extra entry for the prize drawings! So, do it now, before you forget and miss out! Show up for the first time or bring a new buddy and you both get TWO extra entries!

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  • GPGPU

    WhatGPU obviously stands for Graphics Processing Unit (the silicon powering the display you are using to read this blog post). The extra GP in front of that stands for General Purpose computing.So, altogether GPGPU refers to computing we can perform on GPU for purposes beyond just drawing on the screen. In effect, we can use a GPGPU a bit like we already use a CPU: to perform some calculation (that doesn’t have to have any visual element to it). The attraction is that a GPGPU can be orders of magnitude faster than a CPU.WhyWhen I was at the SuperComputing conference in Portland last November, GPGPUs were all the rage. A quick online search reveals many articles introducing the GPGPU topic. I'll just share 3 here: pcper (ignoring all pages except the first, it is a good consumer perspective), gizmodo (nice take using mostly layman terms) and vizworld (answering the question on "what's the big deal").The GPGPU programming paradigm (from a high level) is simple: in your CPU program you define functions (aka kernels) that take some input, can perform the costly operation and return the output. The kernels are the things that execute on the GPGPU leveraging its power (and hence execute faster than what they could on the CPU) while the host CPU program waits for the results or asynchronously performs other tasks.However, GPGPUs have different characteristics to CPUs which means they are suitable only for certain classes of problem (i.e. data parallel algorithms) and not for others (e.g. algorithms with branching or recursion or other complex flow control). You also pay a high cost for transferring the input data from the CPU to the GPU (and vice versa the results back to the CPU), so the computation itself has to be long enough to justify the overhead transfer costs. If your problem space fits the criteria then you probably want to check out this technology.HowSo where can you get a graphics card to start playing with all this? At the time of writing, the two main vendors ATI (owned by AMD) and NVIDIA are the obvious players in this industry. You can read about GPGPU on this AMD page and also on this NVIDIA page. NVIDIA's website also has a free chapter on the topic from the "GPU Gems" book: A Toolkit for Computation on GPUs.If you followed the links above, then you've already come across some of the choices of programming models that are available today. Essentially, AMD is offering their ATI Stream technology accessible via a language they call Brook+; NVIDIA offers their CUDA platform which is accessible from CUDA C. Choosing either of those locks you into the GPU vendor and hence your code cannot run on systems with cards from the other vendor (e.g. imagine if your CPU code would run on Intel chips but not AMD chips). Having said that, both vendors plan to support a new emerging standard called OpenCL, which theoretically means your kernels can execute on any GPU that supports it. To learn more about all of these there is a website: gpgpu.org. The caveat about that site is that (currently) it completely ignores the Microsoft approach, which I touch on next.On Windows, there is already a cross-GPU-vendor way of programming GPUs and that is the DirectX API. Specifically, on Windows Vista and Windows 7, the DirectX 11 API offers a dedicated subset of the API for GPGPU programming: DirectCompute. You use this API on the CPU side, to set up and execute the kernels that run on the GPU. The kernels are written in a language called HLSL (High Level Shader Language). You can use DirectCompute with HLSL to write a "compute shader", which is the term DirectX uses for what I've been referring to in this post as a "kernel". For a comprehensive collection of links about this (including tutorials, videos and samples) please see my blog post: DirectCompute.Note that there are many efforts to build even higher level languages on top of DirectX that aim to expose GPGPU programming to a wider audience by making it as easy as today's mainstream programming models. I'll mention here just two of those efforts: Accelerator from MSR and Brahma by Ananth. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • Silverlight Cream for March 26, 2010 -- #821

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Max Paulousky, Christian Schormann, John Papa, Phani Raj, David Anson(-2-, -3-), Brad Abrams(-2-), and Jeff Wilcox(-2-, -3-). Shoutouts: Jeff Wilcox posted his material from mix and some preview TestFramework bits: Unit Testing Silverlight & Windows Phone Applications – talk now online At MIX10, Jeff Wilcox demo'd an app called "Peppermint"... here's the bleeding edge demo: “Peppermint” MIX demo sources Erik Mork and Co. have put out their weekly This Week In Silverlight 3.25.2010 Brad Abrams has all his materials posted for his MIX10 session Mix2010: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Microsoft Silverlight... including play-by-play of the demo and all source. Do you use Rooler? Well you should! Watch a video Pete Brown did with Pete Blois on Expression Blend, Windows Phone, Rooler Interested in Silverlight and XNA for WP7? Me too! Michael Klucher has a post outlining the two: Silverlight and XNA Framework Game Development and Compatibility From SilverlightCream.com: Modularity in Silverlight Applications - An Issue With ModuleInitializeException Max Paulousky has a truly ugly error trace listed by way of not having a reference listed, and the obvious simple solution. Next time he'll talk about the difficult situations. Using SketchFlow to Prototype for Windows Phone Christian Schormann has a tutorial up on using Expression Blend to develop for WP7 ... who better than Christian for that task?? Silverlight TV 18: WCF RIA Services Validation John Papa held forth with Nikhil Kothari on WCF RIA Services and validation just prior to MIX10, and was posted yesterday. Building SL3 applications using OData client Library with Vs 2010 RC Phani Raj walks through building an OData consumer in SL3, the first problem you're going to hit, and the easy solution to it. Tip: When creating a DependencyProperty, follow the handy convention of "wrapper+register+static+virtual" David Anson has a couple more of his 'Tips' up... this first is about Dependency Properties again... having a good foundation for all your Dependency Properties is a great way to avoid problems. Tip: Do not assign DependencyProperty values in a constructor; it prevents users from overriding them In the next post, David Anson talks about not assigning Dependency Property values in a constructor and gives one of the two ways to get around doing so. Tip: Set DependencyProperty default values in a class's default style if it's more convenient In his latest post, David Anson gives the second way to avoid setting a Dependency Property value in the constructor. Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Brad Abrams Abrams adds SEO to the tutorial series he's doing. He begins with his PDC09 session material on the subject and then takes off on a great detailed tutorial all with source. Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Localizing Business Application Brad Abrams then discusses localization and Silverlight in another detailed tutorial with all code included. Silverlight Toolkit and the Windows Phone: WrapPanel, and a few others Jeff Wilcox has a few WP7 posts I'm going to push today. This first is from earlier this week and is about using the Toolkit in WP7 and better than that, he includes the bits you need if all you want is the WrapPanel Data binding user settings in Windows Phone applications In the next one from yesterday, Jeff Wilcox demonstrates saving some user info in Isolated Storage to improve the user experience, and shares all the necessary plumbing files, and other external links as well. Displaying 2D QR barcodes in Windows Phone applications In a post from today, Jeff Wilcox ported his Silverlight 2D QR Barcode app from last year into WP7 ... just very cool... get the source and display your Microsoft Tag. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone    MIX10

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  • HTML Presence Controls for Communications Server 14 CodePlex Project

    Showing Presence on the Web If youre running Office Communicator Server 2007 R2, you know that your only out-of-the-box option for showing presence on the web is to use the NameControl ActiveX control that ships as part of Office.  Being an ActiveX control, this obviously means that youre limited to Internet Explorer.  Also, nobody likes ActiveX controls What if you want to show the presence of users in a pure ASP.NET or HTML application and cant assume that the user has Communicator installed you need anASP.NET or HTML presence control.  HTML Presence Controls for Microsoft Communications Server 14 We recently worked with the UC team at Microsoft on a keynote demo for TechEd 2010 in New Orleans.  The demo was for a fictitious airline Fabrikam Airlines that wanted to show the presence of customer service and reservations agents on its website.  Customers could also start an instant message conversation with the agents using a Silverlight web chat window that used WCF to communicate with the backend UCMA application. We built HTML Presence Controls that use AJAX to poll a REST-based WCF service running in IIS and hosting a UCMA 3.0 presence subscription application.   Microsoft has graciously allowed us to publish these on CodePlex so that the development community can benefit from them:  http://htmlpresencecontrols.codeplex.com/ We will be maintaining the CodePlex project as new builds of UCMA 3.0 become available.  Check out the project home page on CodePlex for some more in-depth details on how the controls are implemented. ASP.NET Server Control Implementation Were providing an ASP.NET Server Control implementation that you can use stand-alone or in a GridView or Repeater (or other layout control).  The control has properties that allow you to control its appearance, e.g. you can choose whether or not to show the contacts name or availability text. You can also use the server control in a layout control such as a GridView by putting it in a TemplateColumn and binding to the Sip Uri in the data source. Disclaimer Once we started working on these, we realized why Microsoft hasnt shipped such controls as part of the product.  There are some tradeoffs you have to be aware of when using these controls, heres the high level. Privacy The backend UCMA 3.0 application that subscribes to presence of contacts runs as a trusted application and can thus retrieve the presence of any user in the organization.  Theres currently no good way in UCMA to apply any privacy rules to ensure that the consumer of the presence controls has permission to see the presence of the contacts that the controls are bound to.  Just to be absolutely crystal clear These controls provide a way to query the presence of any user in the organization, regardless of the privacy relationship between the person consuming the controls and the contacts whose presence is being displayed. Were exploring options for a design pattern that would allow you to inject some privacy controls.  Keep in mind though that you would most likely be responsible for implementing this logic, as there is currently no functionality in UCMA that allows you to do that. Polling the WCF REST Service The controls poll the backend WCF service to retrieve the presence of contacts - you can control the refresh interval so that they poll less often. We implemented a caching layer so that the WCF service is always communicating with a presence cache it never communicates directly with Communications Server.  For example, if your web page is showing the presence of sip:[email protected] and 500 people have the page open, the presence cache only contains one instance of the subscription Communications Server is not being polled 500 times for the presence of that contact. Once the presence of a contact changes, it is updated in the cache.  There are some server-based push mechanisms that would work nicely here, such as the one that Outlook Web Access 2010 uses.  Unfortunately we didnt have time to explore these options. Community Contribution Take a look at the project Issue Tracker, there are a couple of things we can use some help with.  Shoot me a note if youre interested in contributing to the project. Did 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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  • Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

    - by andrewbrust
    Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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  • Oracle Fusion Procurement Designed for User Productivity

    - by Applications User Experience
    Sean Rice, Manager, Applications User Experience Oracle Fusion Procurement Design Goals In Oracle Fusion Procurement, we set out to create a streamlined user experience based on the way users do their jobs. Oracle has spent hundreds of hours with customers to get to the heart of what users need to do their jobs. By designing a procurement application around user needs, Oracle has crafted a user experience that puts the tools that people need at their fingertips. In Oracle Fusion Procurement, the user experience is designed to provide the user with information that will drive navigation rather than requiring the user to find information. One of our design goals for Oracle Fusion Procurement was to reduce the number of screens and clicks that a user must go through to complete frequently performed tasks. The requisition process in Oracle Fusion Procurement (Figure 1) illustrates how we have streamlined workflows. Oracle Fusion Self-Service Procurement brings together billing metrics, descriptions of the order, justification for the order, a breakdown of the components of the order, and the amount—all in one place. Previous generations of procurement software required the user to navigate to several different pages to gather all of this information. With Oracle Fusion, everything is presented on one page. The result is that users can complete their tasks in less time. The focus is on completing the work, not finding the work. Figure 1. Creating a requisition in Oracle Fusion Self-Service Procurement is a consumer-like shopping experience. Will Oracle Fusion Procurement Increase Productivity? To answer this question, Oracle sought to model how two experts working head to head—one in an existing enterprise application and another in Oracle Fusion Procurement—would perform the same task. We compared Oracle Fusion designs to corresponding existing applications using the keystroke-level modeling (KLM) method. This method is based on years of research at universities such as Carnegie Mellon and research labs like Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The KLM method breaks tasks into a sequence of operations and uses standardized models to evaluate all of the physical and cognitive actions that a person must take to complete a task: what a user would have to click, how long each click would take (not only the physical action of the click or typing of a letter, but also how long someone would have to think about the page when taking the action), and user interface changes that result from the click. By applying standard time estimates for all of the operators in the task, an estimate of the overall task time is calculated. Task times from the model enable researchers to predict end-user productivity. For the study, we focused on modeling procurement business process task flows that were considered business or mission critical: high-frequency tasks and high-value tasks. The designs evaluated encompassed tasks that are currently performed by employees, professional buyers, suppliers, and sourcing professionals in advanced procurement applications. For each of these flows, we created detailed task scenarios that provided the context for each task, conducted task walk-throughs in both the Oracle Fusion design and the existing application, analyzed and documented the steps and actions required to complete each task, and applied standard time estimates to the operators in each task to estimate overall task completion times. The Results The KLM method predicted that the Oracle Fusion Procurement designs would result in productivity gains in each task, ranging from 13 percent to 38 percent, with an overall productivity gain of 22.5 percent. These performance gains can be attributed to a reduction in the number of clicks and screens needed to complete the tasks. For example, creating a requisition in Oracle Fusion Procurement takes a user through only two screens, while ordering the same item in a previous version requires six screens to complete the task. Modeling user productivity has resulted not only in advances in Oracle Fusion applications, but also in advances in other areas. We leveraged lessons learned from the KLM studies to establish products like Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS). New user experience features in EBS 12.1.3, such as navigational improvements to the main menu, a Google-type search using auto-suggest, embedded analytics, and an in-context list of values tool help to reduce clicks and improve efficiency. For more information about KLM, refer to the Measuring User Productivity blog.

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  • Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

    - by elaine blog
    The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace.  Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.   AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare.  With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider.   At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success:  Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels.  This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year.  She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices.  Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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