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• Creating a new window that stays on top even when in full screen mode (Qt on Linux)

  - by Lorenz03Tx

  I'm using Qt 4.6.3, and ubuntu linux on an embedded target. I call dlg->setWindowState(Qt::WindowFullScreen); on my windows in my application (so I don't loose any real-estate on the touch screen to task bar and status panel on the top and bottom of the screen. This all works fine and as expected. The issue comes in when I want to popup the on screen keyboard to allow the user to input some data. I use m_keyProc= new QProcess(); m_keyProc->start("onboard -s 640x120"); This pops up the keyboard but it is behind the full screen window. The onbaord keyboards preferences are set such that it is always on top, but that seems to actually mean "except for full screen windows". I guess that makes sense and probably meets most use cases, but I need it to be really on top. Can I either A) Not be full screen mode (so the keyboard works) and programmatically hide the task bars? or B) Force the keyboard to be on top despite my full screen status? Note: On windows we call m_keyProc->start("C:\\Windows\\system32\\osk.exe"); and the osk keyboard is on top despite the full screen status. So, I'm guessing this is a difference in window mangers on the different operating systems. So do I need to set some flag on the window with the linux window manager?

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Hybrid Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Organizations see the need for computing infrastructures that they can “rent” or pay for only when they need them. They also understand the benefits of distributed computing, but do not want to create this infrastructure themselves. However, they may have considerations that prevent them from moving all of their current IT investment to a distributed environment: Private data (do not want to send or store sensitive data off-site) High dollar investment in current infrastructure Applications currently running well, but may need additional periodic capacity Current applications not designed in a stateless fashion In these situations, a “hybrid” approach works best. In fact, with Windows Azure, a hybrid approach is an optimal way to implement distributed computing even when the stipulations above do not apply. Keeping a majority of the computing function in an organization local while exploring and expanding that footprint into Windows and SQL Azure is a good migration or expansion strategy. A “hybrid” architecture merely means that part of a computing cycle is shared between two architectures. For instance, some level of computing might be done in a Windows Azure web-based application, while the data is stored locally at the organization. Implementation: There are multiple methods for implementing a hybrid architecture, in a spectrum from very little interaction from the local infrastructure to Windows or SQL Azure. The patterns fall into two broad schemas, and even these can be mixed. 1. Client-Centric Hybrid Patterns In this pattern, programs are coded such that the client system sends queries or compute requests to multiple systems. The “client” in this case might be a web-based codeset actually stored on another system (which acts as a client, the user’s device serving as the presentation layer) or a compiled program. In either case, the code on the client requestor carries the burden of defining the layout of the requests. While this pattern is often the easiest to code, it’s the most brittle. Any change in the architecture must be reflected on each client, but this can be mitigated by using a centralized system as the client such as in the web scenario. 2. System-Centric Hybrid Patterns Another approach is to create a distributed architecture by turning on-site systems into “services” that can be called from Windows Azure using the service Bus or the Access Control Services (ACS) capabilities. Code calls from a series of in-process client application. In this pattern you move the “client” interface into the server application logic. If you do not wish to change the application itself, you can “layer” the results of the code return using a product (such as Microsoft BizTalk) that exposes a Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) endpoint to Windows Azure using the Application Fabric. In effect, this is similar to creating a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment, and has the advantage of de-coupling your computing architecture. If each system offers a “service” of the results of some software processing, the operating system or platform becomes immaterial, assuming it adheres to a service contract. There are important considerations when you federate a system, whether to Windows or SQL Azure or any other distributed architecture. While these considerations are consistent with coding any application for distributed computing, they are especially important for a hybrid application. Connection resiliency - Applications on-premise normally have low-latency and good connection properties, something you’re not always guaranteed in a distributed and hybrid application. Whether a centralized client or a distributed one, the code should be able to handle extended retry logic. Authorization and Access - In a single authorization environment like a Active Directory domain, security is handled at a user-password level. In a distributed computing environment, you have more options. You can mitigate this with  using The Windows Azure Application Fabric feature of ACS to make the Azure application aware of the App Fabric as an ADFS provider. However, a claims-based authentication structure is often a superior choice.  Consistency and Concurrency - When you have a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), Consistency and Concurrency are part of the design. In a Service Architecture, you need to plan for sequential message handling and lifecycle. Resources: How to Build a Hybrid On-Premise/In Cloud Application: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ignitionshowcase/archive/2010/11/09/how-to-build-a-hybrid-on-premise-in-cloud-application.aspx  General Architecture guidance: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2010/12/21/windows-azure-learning-plan-architecture.aspx   

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• Dude, what’s up with POP Forums vNext?

  - by Jeff

  Yeah, it has been awhile. I posted v9.2 back in January, about five months ago. That’s a real change from the release pace I had there for awhile. Let me explain what’s going on. First off, in the interim, I re-launched CoasterBuzz, which required a lot of my attention for about two of those months. That’s a good thing though, because that site is just about the best test bed I could ask for. The other thing is that I committed to make the next version use ASP.NET MVC 4, which is now at the RC stage. I didn’t think much about when they’d hit their RTW point, but RC is good enough for me. To that end, there is enough change in the next version that I recently decided to make it a major version upgrade, and finish up the loose ends and science projects to make it whole. Here’s what’s in store… Mobile views: I sat on this or a long time. Originally, I was going to use jQuery Mobile, and waited and waited for a new release, but in the end, decided against using it. Sometimes buttons would unexplainably not work, I felt like I was fighting it at times, and the CSS just felt too heavy. I rolled my own mobile sugar at a fraction of the size, and I think you’ll find it easy to modify. And it’s Metro-y, of course! Re-do of background services: A number of things run in the background, and I did quite a bit of “reimagining” of that code. It’s the weirdness of running services in a Web site context, because so many folks can’t run a bona fide service on their host’s box. The biggest change here is that these service no longer start up by default. You’ll need to call a new method from global.asax called PopForumsActivation.StartServices(). This is also a precursor to running the app in a Web farm (new data layer and caching is the second part of that). I learned about this the hard way when I had three apps using the forum library code but only one was actually the forum. The services were all running three times as often with race conditions and hits on the same data. That was particularly bad for e-mail. CSS clean up: It’s still not ideal, but it’s getting better. That’s one of those things that comes with integrating to a real site… you discover all of the dumb things you did. The mobile CSS is particularly easier to live with. Bug fixes: There are a whole lot of them. Most were minor, but it’s feeling pretty solid now. So that’s where I am. I’m going to call it v10.0, and I’m going to really put forth some effort toward finishing the mobile experience and getting through the remaining bugs. The roadmap beyond that will likely not be feature oriented, but rather work on some other things, like making it run in Azure, perhaps using SQL CE, a better install experience, etc. As usual, I’ll post the latest here. Stay tuned!

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• Using Lambdas for return values in Rhino.Mocks

  - by PSteele

  In a recent StackOverflow question, someone showed some sample code they’d like to be able to use.  The particular syntax they used isn’t supported by Rhino.Mocks, but it was an interesting idea that I thought could be easily implemented with an extension method. Background When stubbing a method return value, Rhino.Mocks supports the following syntax: dependency.Stub(s => s.GetSomething()).Return(new Order()); The method signature is generic and therefore you get compile-time type checking that the object you’re returning matches the return value defined by the “GetSomething” method. You could also have Rhino.Mocks execute arbitrary code using the “Do” method: dependency.Stub(s => s.GetSomething()).Do((Func<Order>) (() => new Order())); This requires the cast though.  It works, but isn’t as clean as the original poster wanted.  They showed a simple example of something they’d like to see: dependency.Stub(s => s.GetSomething()).Return(() => new Order()); Very clean, simple and no casting required.  While Rhino.Mocks doesn’t support this syntax, it’s easy to add it via an extension method. The Rhino.Mocks “Stub” method returns an IMethodOptions<T>.  We just need to accept a Func<T> and use that as the return value.  At first, this would seem straightforward: public static IMethodOptions<T> Return<T>(this IMethodOptions<T> opts, Func<T> factory) { opts.Return(factory()); return opts; } And this would work and would provide the syntax the user was looking for.  But the problem with this is that you loose the late-bound semantics of a lambda.  The Func<T> is executed immediately and stored as the return value.  At the point you’re setting up your mocks and stubs (the “Arrange” part of “Arrange, Act, Assert”), you may not want the lambda executing – you probably want it delayed until the method is actually executed and Rhino.Mocks plugs in your return value. So let’s make a few small tweaks: public static IMethodOptions<T> Return<T>(this IMethodOptions<T> opts, Func<T> factory) { opts.Return(default(T)); // required for Rhino.Mocks on non-void methods opts.WhenCalled(mi => mi.ReturnValue = factory()); return opts; } As you can see, we still need to set up some kind of return value or Rhino.Mocks will complain as soon as it intercepts a call to our stubbed method.  We use the “WhenCalled” method to set the return value equal to the execution of our lambda.  This gives us the delayed execution we’re looking for and a nice syntax for lambda-based return values in Rhino.Mocks. Technorati Tags: .NET,Rhino.Mocks,Mocking,Extension Methods

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• Integrating Code Metrics in TFS 2010 Build

  - by Jakob Ehn

  The build process template and custom activity described in this post is available here: http://cid-ee034c9f620cd58d.office.live.com/self.aspx/BlogSamples/CodeMetricsSample.zip Running code metrics has been available since VS 2008, but only from inside the IDE. Yesterday Microsoft finally releases a Visual Studio Code Metrics Power Tool 10.0, a command line tool that lets you run code metrics on your applications.  This means that it is now possible to perform code metrics analysis on the build server as part of your nightly/QA builds (for example). In this post I will show how you can run the metrics command line tool, and also a custom activity that reads the output and appends the results to the build log, and also fails he build if the metric values exceeds certain (configurable) treshold values. The code metrics tool analyzes all the methods in the assemblies, measuring cyclomatic complexity, class coupling, depth of inheritance and lines of code. Then it calculates a Maintainability Index from these values that is a measure f how maintanable this method is, between 0 (worst) and 100 (best). For information on hwo this value is calculated, see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/codeanalysis/archive/2007/11/20/maintainability-index-range-and-meaning.aspx. After this it aggregates the information and present it at the class, namespace and module level as well. Running Metrics.exe in a build definition Running the actual tool is easy, just use a InvokeProcess activity last in the Compile the Project sequence, reference the metrics.exe file and pass the correct arguments and you will end up with a result XML file in the drop directory. Here is how it is done in the attached build process template: In the above sequence I first assign the path to the code metrics result file ([BinariesDirectory]\result.xml) to a variable called MetricsResultFile, which is then sent to the InvokeProcess activity in the Arguments property. Here are the arguments for the InvokeProcess activity: Note that we tell metrics.exe to analyze all assemblies located in the Binaries folder. You might want to do some more intelligent filtering here, you probably don’t want to analyze all 3rd party assemblies for example. Note also the path to the metrics.exe, this is the default location when you install the Code Metrics power tool. You must of course install the power tool on all build servers. Using the standard output logging (in the Handle Standard Output/Handle Error Output sections), we get the following output when running the build: Integrating Code Metrics into the build Having the results available next to the build result is nice, but we want to have results integrated in the build result itself, and also to affect the outcome of the build. The point of having QA builds that measure, for example, code metrics is to make it very clear how the code being built measures up to the standards of the project/company. Just having a XML file available in the drop location will not cause the developers to improve their code, but a (partially) failing build will! To do this, we need to write a custom activity that parses the metrics result file, logs it to the build log and fails the build if the values frfom the metrics is below/above some predefined treshold values. The custom activity performs the following steps Parses the XML. I’m using Linq 2 XSD for this, since the XML schema for the result file is available, it is vey easy to generate code that lets you query the structure using standard Linq operators. Runs through the metric result hierarchy and logs the metrics for each level and also verifies maintainability index and the cyclomatic complexity with the treshold values. The treshold values are defined in the build process template are are sent in as arguments to the custom activity If the treshold values are exceeded, the activity either fails or partially fails the current build. For more information about the structure of the code metrics result file, read Cameron Skinner's post about it. It is very simpe and easy to understand. I won’t go through the code of the custom activity here, since there is nothing special about it and it is available for download so you can look at it and play with it yourself. The treshold values for Maintainability Index and Cyclomatic Complexity is defined in the build process template, and can be modified per build definition: I have taken the default value for these settings from my colleague Terje Sandström post on Code Metrics - suggestions for approriate limits. You’ll notice that this is quite an improvement compared to using code metrics inside the IDE, where Red/Yellow/Green limits are fixed (and the default values are somewaht strange, see Terjes post for a discussion on this) This is the first version of the code metrics integration with TFS 2010 Build, I will proabably enhance the functionality and the logging (the “tree view” structure in the log becomes quite hard to read) soon. I will also consider adding it to the Community TFS Build Extensions site when it becomes a bit more mature. Another obvious improvement is to extend the data warehouse of TFS and push the metric results back to the warehouse and make it visible in the reports.

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• Make Text and Images Easier to Read with the Windows 7 Magnifier

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you have impaired vision or find it difficult to read small print on your computer screen? Today, we’ll take a closer look at how to magnify that hard to read content with the Magnifier in Windows 7. Magnifier was available in previous versions of Windows, but the Windows 7 version comes with some notable improvements. There are now three screen modes in Magnifier. Full Screen and Lens mode, however, require Windows Aero to be enabled. If your computer doesn’t support Aero, or if you’re not using am Aero theme, Magnifier will only work in Docked mode. Using Magnifier in Windows 7 You can find the Magnifier by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Ease of Access > Magnifier.   Alternately, you can type magnifier into the Search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter. On the Magnifier toolbar, choose your View mode by clicking Views and choosing from the available options. Clicking the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons will zoom in or zoom out. You can change the zoom in/out percentage by adjusting the slider bar. You can also enable color inversion and select tracking options. Click OK when finished to save your settings.   After a brief period, the Magnifier Toolbar will switch to a magnifying glass icon. Simply click the magnifying glass to display the Magnifier Toolbar again.   Docked Mode In Docked mode, a portion of the screen is magnified and docked at the top of the screen. The rest of your desktop will remain in it’s normal state. You can then control which area of the screen is magnified by moving your mouse.   Full Screen Mode This magnifies your entire screen and follows your mouse as you move it around. If you loose track of where you are on the screen, use the Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar shortcut to preview where your mouse pointer is on the screen.   Lens Mode The Lens screen mode is similar to holding a magnifying glass up to your screen. Full screen mode magnifies the area around the mouse. The magnified area moves around the screen with your mouse.    Shortcut Keys Windows key + (+) to zoom in Windows key + (-) to zoom out Windows key + ESC to exit Ctrl + Alt + F – Full screen mode Ctrl + Alt + L – Lens mode Ctrl + Alt + D – Dock mode Ctrl + Alt + R – Resize the lens Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar – Preview full screen Conclusion Windows Magnifier is a nice little tool if you have impaired vision or just need to make items on the screen easier to read. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips New Features in WordPad and Paint in Windows 7How-To Geek on Lifehacker: How to Make Windows Vista Less AnnoyingUsing Comments in Word 2007 DocumentsMake Your PC Look Like Windows Phone 7Use Image Placeholders to Display Documents Faster in Word TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide

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• Getting to grips with the stack in nasm

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I spent a good part of my day getting to grips with the stack and nasm. After looking at my notes on nasm I think this is one area for the course I am doing they could focus more on… So here are some snippets I have put together that have helped me understand a little bit about the stack… Simplest example of the stack You will probably see examples like the following in circulation… these demonstrate the simplest use of the stack… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main main: push 42h push 43h push 44h mov ah,2h ;set to display characters pop dx    ;get the first value int 21h   ;and display it pop dx    ;get 2nd value int 21h   ;and display it pop dx    ;get 3rd value int 21h   ;and display it int 20h The output from above code would be… DCB Decoupling code using “call” and “ret” This is great, but it oversimplifies what I want to use the stack for… I do not know if this goes against the grain of assembly programmers or not, but I want to write loosely coupled assembly code – and I want to use the stack as a mechanism for passing values into my decoupled code. In nasm we have the call and return instructions, which provides a mechanism for decoupling code, for example the following could be done… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov ah,2h mov dx,41h int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: call displayChar int 20h   This would output the following to the console A So, it would seem that call and ret allow us to jump to segments of our code and then return back to the calling position – a form of segmenting the code into what we would called in higher order languages “functions” or “methods”. The only issue is, in higher order languages there is a way to pass parameters into the functions and return results. Because of the primitive nature of the call and ret instructions, this does not seem to be obvious. We could of course use the registers to pass values into the subroutine and set values coming out, but the problem with this is we… Have a limited number of registers Are threading our code with tight coupling (it would be hard to migrate methods outside of their intended use in a particular program to another one) With that in mind, I turn to the stack to provide a loosely coupled way of calling subroutines… First attempt with the Stack Initially I thought this would be simple… we could use code that looks as follows to achieve what I want… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov ah,2h pop dx int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h call displayChar int 20h   However running this application does not give the desired result, I want an ‘A’ to be returned, and I am getting something totally different (you will to). Reading up on the call and ret instructions a discovery is made… they are pushing and popping things onto and off the stack as well… When the call instruction is executed, the current value of IP (the address of the instruction to follow) is pushed onto the stack, when ret is called, the last value on the stack is popped off into the IP register. In effect what the above code is doing is as follows with the stack… push 41h push current value of ip pop current value of ip to dx pop 41h to ip This is not what I want, I need to access the 41h that I pushed onto the stack, but the call value (which is necessary) is putting something in my way. So, what to do? Remember we have other registers we can use as well as a thing called indirect addressing… So, after some reading around, I came up with the following approach using indirect addressing… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov bp,sp mov ah,2h mov dx,[bp+2] int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h call displayChar int 20h In essence, what I have done here is used a trick with the stack pointer… it goes as follows… Push 41 onto the stack Make the call to the function, which will push the IP register onto the stack and then jump to the displayChar label Move the value in the stack point to the bp register (sp currently points at IP register) Move the at the location of bp minus 2 bytes to dx (this is now the value 41h) display it, execute the ret instruction, which pops the ip value off the stack and goes back to the calling point This approach is still very raw, some further reading around shows that I should be pushing the value of bp onto the stack before replacing it with sp, but it is the starting thread to getting loosely coupled subroutines. Let’s see if you get what the following output would be? org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov bp,sp mov ah,2h mov dx,[bp+4] int 21h mov dx,[bp+2] int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h push 42h call displayChar int 20h The output is… AB Where to from here? If by any luck some assembly programmer comes along and see this code and notices that I have made some fundamental flaw in my logic… I would like to know, so please leave a comment… appreciate any feedback!

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• Doing your first mock with JustMock

  - by mehfuzh

  In this post, i will start with a  more traditional mocking example that  includes a fund transfer scenario between two different currency account using JustMock.Our target interface that we will be mocking looks similar to: public interface ICurrencyService {     float GetConversionRate(string fromCurrency, string toCurrency); } Moving forward the SUT or class that will be consuming the  service and will be invoked by user [provided that the ICurrencyService will be passed in a DI style] looks like: public class AccountService : IAccountService         {             private readonly ICurrencyService currencyService;               public AccountService(ICurrencyService currencyService)             {                 this.currencyService = currencyService;             }               #region IAccountService Members               public void TransferFunds(Account from, Account to, float amount)             {                 from.Withdraw(amount);                 float conversionRate = currencyService.GetConversionRate(from.Currency, to.Currency);                 float convertedAmount = amount * conversionRate;                 to.Deposit(convertedAmount);             }               #endregion         }   As, we can see there is a TransferFunds action implemented from IAccountService  takes in a source account from where it withdraws some money and a target account to where the transfer takes place using the provided conversion rate. Our first step is to create the mock. The syntax for creating your instance mocks is pretty much same and  is valid for all interfaces, non-sealed/sealed concrete instance classes. You can pass in additional stuffs like whether its an strict mock or not, by default all the mocks in JustMock are loose, you can use it as default valued objects or stubs as well. ICurrencyService currencyService = Mock.Create<ICurrencyService>(); Using JustMock, setting up your expectations and asserting them always goes with Mock.Arrang|Assert and this is pretty much same syntax no matter what type of mocking you are doing. Therefore,  in the above scenario we want to make sure that the conversion rate always returns 2.20F when converting from GBP to CAD. To do so we need to arrange in the following way: Mock.Arrange(() => currencyService.GetConversionRate("GBP", "CAD")).Returns(2.20f).MustBeCalled(); Here, I have additionally marked the mock call as must. That means it should be invoked anywhere in the code before we do Mock.Assert, we can also assert mocks directly though lamda expressions  but the more general Mock.Assert(mocked) will assert only the setups that are marked as "MustBeCalled()”. Now, coming back to the main topic , as we setup the mock, now its time to act on it. Therefore, first we create our account service class and create our from and to accounts respectively. var accountService = new AccountService(currencyService);   var canadianAccount = new Account(0, "CAD"); var britishAccount = new Account(0, "GBP"); Next, we add some money to the GBP  account: britishAccount.Deposit(100); Finally, we do our transfer by the following: accountService.TransferFunds(britishAccount, canadianAccount, 100); Once, everything is completed, we need to make sure that things were as it is we have expected, so its time for assertions.Here, we first do the general assertions: Assert.Equal(0, britishAccount.Balance); Assert.Equal(220, canadianAccount.Balance); Following, we do our mock assertion,  as have marked the call as “MustBeCalled” it will make sure that our mock is actually invoked. Moreover, we can add filters like how many times our expected mock call has occurred that will be covered in coming posts. Mock.Assert(currencyService); So far, that actually concludes our  first  mock with JustMock and do stay tuned for more. Enjoy!!

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• JustMock is here !!

  - by mehfuzh

  As announced earlier by Hristo Kosev at Telerik blogs , we have started giving out JustMock builds from today. This is the first of early builds before the official Q2 release and we are pretty excited to get your feedbacks. Its pretty early to say anything on it. It actually depends on your feedback. To add few, with JustMock we tried to build a mocking tool with simple and intuitive syntax as possible excluding more and more noises and avoiding any smell that can be made to your code [We are still trying everyday] and we want to make the tool even better with your help. JustMock can be used to mock virtually anything. Moreover, we left an option open that it can be used to reduce / elevate the features  just though a single click. We tried to make a strong API and make stuffs fluent and guided as possible so that you never have the chance to get de-railed. Our syntax is AAA (Arrange – Act – Assert) , we don’t believe in Record – Reply model which some of the smarter mocking tools are planning to remove from their coming release or even don’t have [its always fun to lean from each other]. Overall more signals equals more complexity , reminds me of 37 signals :-). Currently, here are the things you can do with JustMock ( will cover more in-depth in coming days) Proxied mode Mock interfaces and class with virtuals Mock properties that includes indexers Set raise event for specific calls Use matchers to control mock arguments Assert specific occurrence of a mocked calls. Assert using matchers Do recursive mocks Do Sequential mocking ( same method with argument returns different values or perform different tasks) Do strict mocking (by default and i prefer loose , so that i can use it as stubs) Elevated mode Mock static calls Mock final class Mock sealed classes Mock Extension methods Partially mock a  class member directly using Mock.Arrange Mock MsCorlib (we will support more and more members in coming days) , currently we support FileInfo, File and DateTime. These are few, you need to take a look at the test project that is provided with the build to find more [Along with the document]. Also, one of feature that will i will be using it for my next OS projects is the ability to run it separately in  proxied mode which makes it easy to redistribute and do some personal development in a more DI model and my option to elevate as it go.   I’ve surely forgotten tons of other features to mention that i will cover time but  don’t for get the URL : www.telerik.com/justmock   Finally a little mock code:   var lvMock = Mock.Create<ILoveJustMock>();    // set your goal  Mock.Arrange(() => lvMock.Response(Arg.Any<string>())).Returns((int result) => result);    //perform  string ret =  lvMock.Echo("Yes");    Assert.Equal(ret, "Yes");  // make sure everything is fine  Mock.Assert(() => lvMock.Echo("Yes"), Occurs.Once());   Hope that helps to get started,  will cover if not :-).

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• NDepend 4 – First Steps

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction Thanks to Patrick Smacchia I had the chance to test NDepend 4. I can only say: awesome! This will be the first of a series of posts on NDepend, where I will talk about my discoveries. Keep in mind that I am just starting to use it, so more experienced users may find these too basic, I just hope I don’t say anything foolish! I must say that I am in no way affiliated with NDepend and I never actually met Patrick. Installation No installation program – a curious decision, I’m not against it -, just unzip the files to a folder and run the executable. It will optionally register itself with Visual Studio 2008, 2010 and 11 as well as RedGate’s Reflector; also, it automatically looks for updates. NDepend can either be used as a stand-alone program (with or without a GUI) or from within Visual Studio or Reflector. Getting Started One thing that really pleases me is the Getting Started section of the stand-alone, with links to pages on NDepend’s web site, featuring detailed explanations, which usually include screenshots and small videos (<5 minutes). There’s also an How do I with hierarchical navigation that guides us to through the major features so that we can easily find what we want. Usage There are two basic ways to use NDepend: Analyze .NET solutions, projects or assemblies; Compare two versions of the same assembly. I have so far not used NDepend to compare assemblies, so I will first talk about the first option. After selecting a solution and some of its projects, it generates a single HTML page with an highly detailed report of the analysis it produced. This includes some metrics such as number of lines of code, IL instructions, comments, types, methods and properties, the calculation of the cyclomatic complexity, coupling and lots of others indicators, typically grouped by type, namespace and assembly. The HTML also includes some nice diagrams depicting assembly dependencies, type and method relative proportions (according to the number of IL instructions, I guess) and assembly analysis relating to abstractness and stability. Useful, I would say. Then there’s the rules; NDepend tests the target assemblies against a set of more than 120 rules, grouped in categories Code Quality, Object Oriented Design, Design, Architecture and Layering, Dead Code, Visibility, Naming Conventions, Source Files Organization and .NET Framework Usage. The full list can be configured on the application, and an explanation of each rule can be found on the web site. Rules can be validated, violated and violated in a critical manner, and the HTML will contain the violated rules, their queries – more on this later - and results. The HTML uses some nice JavaScript effects, which allow paging and sorting of tables, so its nice to use. Similar to the rules, there are some queries that display results for a number (about 200) questions grouped as Object Oriented Design, API Breaking Changes (for assembly version comparison), Code Diff Summary (also for version comparison) and Dead Code. The difference between queries and rules is that queries are not classified as passes, violated or critically violated, just present results. The queries and rules are expressed through CQLinq, which is a very powerful LINQ derivative specific to code analysis. All of the included rules and queries can be enabled or disabled and new ones can be added, with intellisense to help. Besides the HTML report file, the NDepend application can be used to explore all analysis results, compare different versions of analysis reports and to run custom queries. Comparison to Other Analysis Tools Unlike StyleCop, NDepend only works with assemblies, not source code, so you can’t expect it to be able to enforce brackets placement, for example. It is more similar to FxCop, but you don’t have the option to analyze at the IL level, that is, other that the number of IL instructions and the complexity. What’s Next In the next days I’ll continue my exploration with a real-life test case. References The NDepend web site is http://www.ndepend.com/. Patrick keeps an updated blog on http://codebetter.com/patricksmacchia/ and he regularly monitors StackOverflow for questions tagged NDepend, which you can find on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ndepend. The default list of CQLinq rules, queries and statistics can be found at http://www.ndepend.com/DefaultRules/webframe.html. The syntax itself is described at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Syntax.aspx and its features at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Features.aspx.

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• SQL SERVER – Performance Tuning Resolution

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is written in response to T-SQL Tuesday hosted by MidnightDBAs. Taking resolutions is such an interesting subject. I think just like records, these are broken way more often. I find this is the funniest thing as we all take resolutions every year but not every year, we can manage to keep them. Well, does it mean we should not take resolutions? In fact I support resolutions. Every year, I take a resolution that I will strive reduce my body weight and I usually manage to keep eating healthy till the end of January. When February begins, I begin to loose focus from my goal and as March starts, the “As usual” eating habits begin. Looking at the positive side, what would happen if every year I do not eat healthy in January, I think that might cause terrible consequences to my health in the long run. So keeping resolutions is a good practise and following them to the extent one can is commendable. Let us come back to the world of SQL Server. What is my resolution for year 2011 for SQL Server? There are many, I am going to list three of very important resolutions that I have taken this new year over here. To understand SQL Server Performance Tuning at a deeper Level I think I am already half way through. I have been being very much busy during any given month doing hands-on performance tuning for at least 12 days on an average. That means, I am doing this activity for almost doing 2 weeks a month. I believe that I have a good understanding of the subject. Note that the word that I have used is “good,” and not “best.” There are often cases when I am stumped, and I have no clue of what to do next. Then, I usually go for my “trial and error” method - whichever method works, I make sure to keep a note on my blog. My goal is that I should never ever go for the trial and error method again to achieve the same solution. I should know the solution right away when I see the problem. I do understand that Performance Tuning can be a strange animal at times and one cannot guess the right step every time. However, aiming a high goal never hurts and I am going to learn more and more in this focused area. Going further from Basic BI understanding I do fairly decent with BI concepts. I know the nbasics of SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, PowerPivot and SharePoint (and few other things MDS, StreamInsight, etc). However, I still consider myself as a beginner. I do not have hands-on experience like many other BI Gurus around. I think I want to take my learning further in this direction. I do not want to be a BI expert as the first step but the goal is to move ahead from basic level towards an advanced level. I am going to start presenting in User Group Sessions and other places on this subject. When I have to prepare new subject for presentations, I think I force myself to learn more. I am committed to learn a bit more in this direction. Learning new features SQL Server 2011 Denali This is new thing from “Microsoft” for all the SQL Geeks. I am eagerly waiting for final product later this year and I am planning to learn it well. I think if I follow my above two goals, I think this goal will be automatically covered. I am eager and excited for this new offering from Microsoft. I guess, these are my resolutions; may be next year about the same time, I must revisit this post and see how much successful I am in following my goal. On a lighter note, I am particularly fan of following cartoon strip (Courtesy: Calvin and Hobbes). I think when we cannot resolve our resolutions, we tend to act like Calvin. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Improve Playback Using Enhancements in Windows Media Player 12

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for ways to improve the playback of your media in Windows Media Player 12? We’ll show you how to do that by using the enhancements in WMP 12. If you are in Library mode, you’ll need to click the icon at the lower right to switch to Now Playing mode. Right-click anywhere in Media Player while in Now Playing mode, select Enhancements, and select any of the available options.   You can switch between the individual enhancements by clicking the right and left buttons at the top left.   Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling The Auto Volume Leveling setting is just a simple toggle on and off. If your MP3 or WMA files have volume leveling information values.   You can automatically add volume leveling information values to all files you add to your library by switching to Library view, going to Tools > Options, and selecting Add volume leveling information values for new files on the Library tab. Click OK when finished.   Crossfading will gradually decrease the volume of the song that is ending (fade out) and increase volume of the song that is beginning. Click Turn on Crossfading and then click and drag the slider left or right change the amount of overlap between tracks. Graphic Equalizer The graphic equalizer is toggled on and off by clicking Turn on / Turn off at the top left. You can select pre-defined equalizer settings by music genre by clicking the Default list. The radio buttons on the left allow you to move the sliders individually, in a loose group or a tight group. You can always return to the default settings by clicking Reset. Play Speed Settings Choose a pre-defined settings by clicking Slow, Normal, or Fast. Uncheck the Snap slider to common speeds the move the slider right and left to your desired speed. If nothing else, these settings provide a little fun and amusement. Quiet Mode Quiet mode will level out any sharp volume highs and lows within a single track. Simply toggle the setting on or off and select whether you prefer Medium difference or Little difference by selecting one of the radio buttons. SRS WOW effects SRS WOW effects enhance low-frequency and stereo sound performance. Click Turn on to enable the TruBass and WOW Effect sliders. You can also optimize for your speaker type. Click to switch between Regular, Large, and Headphones. Video Settings Video Settings allow you to adjust the Hue, Brightness, Saturation, and Contrast.   You can also adjust the zoom settings by clicking Select video zoom settings.   Dolby Digital Settings Choose between Normal, Night, and Theater settings to adjust the audio for Dolby Digital content. This setting will only effect media with Dolby Digital sound. Looking for more ways to improve your media experience in WMP 12? Check out how to update metadata and cover art and how to share media with other Windows 7 computers on your home network. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesInstall and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxHow To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterStream Media from Windows 7 to XP with VLC Media PlayerInstalling Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor

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• Changing the Game: Why Oracle is in the IT Operations Management Business

  - by DanKoloski

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Next week, in Orlando, is the annual Gartner IT Operations Management Summit. Oracle is a premier sponsor of this annual event, which brings together IT executives for several days of high level talks about the state of operational management of enterprise IT. This year, Sushil Kumar, VP Product Strategy and Business Development for Oracle’s Systems & Applications Management, will be presenting on the transformation in IT Operations required to support enterprise cloud computing. IT Operations transformation is an important subject, because year after year, we hear essentially the same refrain – large enterprises spend an average of two-thirds (67%!) of their IT resources (budget, energy, time, people, etc.) on running the business, with far too little left over to spend on growing and transforming the business (which is what the business actually needs and wants). In the thirtieth year of the distributed computing revolution (give or take, depending on how you count it), it’s amazing that we have still not moved the needle on the single biggest component of enterprise IT resource utilization. Oracle is in the IT Operations Management business because when management is engineered together with the technology under management, the resulting efficiency gains can be truly staggering. To put it simply – what if you could turn that 67% of IT resources spent on running the business into 50%? Or 40%? Imagine what you could do with those resources. It’s now not just possible, but happening. This seems like a simple idea, but it is a radical change from “business as usual” in enterprise IT Operations. For the last thirty years, management has been a bolted-on afterthought – we pick and deploy our technology, then figure out how to manage it. This pervasive dysfunction is a broken cycle that guarantees high ongoing operating costs and low agility. If we want to break the cycle, we need to take a more tightly-coupled approach. As a complete applications-to-disk platform provider, Oracle is engineering management together with technology across our stack and hooking that on-premise management up live to My Oracle Support. Let’s examine the results with just one piece of the Oracle stack – the Oracle Database. Oracle began this journey with the Oracle Database 9i many years ago with the introduction of low-impact instrumentation in the database kernel (“tell me what’s wrong”) and through Database 10g, 11g and 11gR2 has successively added integrated advisory (“tell me how to fix what’s wrong”) and lifecycle management and automated self-tuning (“fix it for me, and do it on an ongoing basis for all my assets”). When enterprises take advantage of this tight-coupling, the results are game-changing. Consider the following (for a full list of public references, visit this link): British Telecom improved database provisioning time 1000% (from weeks to minutes) which allows them to provide a new DBaaS service to their internal customers with no additional resources Cerner Corporation Saved $9.5 million in CapEx and OpEx AND launched a brand-new cloud business at the same time Vodafone Group plc improved response times 50% and reduced maintenance planning times 50-60% while serving 391 million registered mobile customers Or the recent Database Manageability and Productivity Cost Comparisons: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 vs. SAP Sybase ASE 15.7, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and IBM DB2 9.7 as conducted by independent analyst firm ORC. In later entries, we’ll discuss similar results across other portions of the Oracle stack and how these efficiency gains are required to achieve the agility benefits of Enterprise Cloud. Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• Type of computer for a developer on the road

  - by nabucosound

  Hi developers: I am planning to be traveling through eurasia and asia (russia, china, korea, japan, south east asia...) for a while and, although there are plenty of marvelous things to see and to do, I must keep on working :(. I am a python developer, dedicated mainly to web projects. I use django, sqlite3, browsers, and ocassionaly (only if I have no choice) I install postgres, mysql, apache or any other servers commonly used in the internets. I do my coding on vim, use ssh to connect, lftp to transfer files, IRC, grep/ack... So I spend most of my time in the terminal shells. But I also use IM or Skype to communicate with my clients and peers, as well as some other software (that after all is not mandatory for my day-to-day work). I currently work with a Macbook Pro (3 years old now) and so far I am very happy with the performance. But I don't want to carry it if I am going to be "on transit" for long time, it is simply huge and heavy for what I am planning to load in my rather small backpack (while traveling, less is more, you know). So here I am reading all kind of opinions about netbooks, because at first sight this is the kind of computer I thought I had to choose. I am going to use Linux for it, Microsoft is not my cup of tea and Mac is not available for them, unless I were to buy a Macbook air, something that I won't do because if I am robbed or rain/dust/truck loaders break it I would burst in tears. I am concerned about wifi performance and connectivity, I am going to use one of those linux distros/tools to hack/test on "open" networks (if you know what I mean) in case I am not in a place with real free wifi access and I find myself in an emergency. CPU speed should be acceptable, but since I don't plan to run Photoshop or expensive IDEs, I guess most of the time I won't be overloading the machine. Apart from this, maybe (surely) I am missing other features to consider. With that said (sorry about the length) here it comes my question, raised from a deep ignorance regarding the wars betweeb betbooks vs notebooks (I assume tablet PCs are not for programming yet): If I buy a netbook will I have to throw it away after 1 month on the road and buy a notebook? Or will I be OK? Thanks! Hector Update I have received great feedback so far! I would like to insist on the fact that I will be traveling through many different countries and scenarios. I am sure that while in Japan I will be more than fine with anything related to technology, connectivity, etc. But consider that I will be, for example, on a train through Russia (transsiberian) and will cross Mongolia as well. I will stay in friends' places sometimes, but most of the time I will have to work from hostel rooms, trains, buses, beaches (hey this last one doesn't sound too bad hehe!). I think some of your answers guys seem to focus on the geek part but loose the point of this "on the road" fact. I am very aware and agree that netbooks suck compared to notebooks, but what I am trying to do here is to find a balance and discover your experiences with netbooks to see first hand if a netbook will be a fail in the mid-long term of the trip for my purposes. So I have resumed the main concepts expressed here on this small list, in no particular order: keyboard/touchpad feel: I use vim so no need of moving mouse pointers that much, unless I am browsing the web, but intensive use of keyboard screen real state: again, terminal work for most of the time battery life: I think something very important weight/size: also very important looks not worth stealing it, don't give a shit if it is lost/stolen/broken: this may depend on kind of person, your economy, etc. Also to prevent losing work, I will upload EVERYTHING to the cloud whenever I'll have a chance. wifi: don't want to discover my wifi is one of those that cannot deal with half the routers on this planet or has poor connectivity. Thanks again for your answers and comments!

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• What Color is your Jetpack ?

  - by JoshReuben

  I’m a programmer, Im approaching 40, and I’m fairly decent at my job – I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for as long as they let me!   So what are your career options if you know how to code? A Programmer could be ..   An Algorithm developer Pros Interesting High barriers of entry, potential for startup competitive factor Cons Do you have the skill, qualifications? What are working conditions n this mystery niche ? micro-focus An Academic Pros Low pressure Job security – or is this an illusion ? Cons Low Pay Need a PhD A Software Architect Pros: strategic, rather than tactical Setting technology platform and high level vision You say how it should work, others have to figure out why its not working the way its supposed to ! broad view – you are paid to learn (how do you con people into paying for you to learn ??) Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! competitive – everyone wants to do it ! loose touch with underlying tech in tough times, first guy to get the axe ! A Software Engineer Pros: interesting, always more to learn fun I can do it Fallback Cons: Nothing new under the sun – been there, done that Dealing with poor requirements, deadlines, other peoples code, overtime C#, XAML, Web - Low barriers of entry –> à race to the bottom A Team leader Pros: Setting code standards and proposing technology choices Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! Inspecting other peoples code and debugging the problems they cannot fix Dealing with mugbies and prima donas Responsible for QA of others A Project Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Cons Low barrier of entry High pressure Responsible for QA of others Loosing touch with technology A lot of bullshit meetings Have to be an asshole A Product Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Learning new skillset of sales and marketing Cons Travel (I'm a family man) May need to know the bs details of an uninteresting product things I want to work with: AI, algorithms, Numerical Computing, Mathematica, C++ AMP – unfortunately, the work here is few & far between. VS & TFS Extensibility, DSLs (Workflow , Lightswitch), Code Generation – one day, code will write code ! Unity3D, WebGL – fun, fun, fun ! Modern Web – Knockout, SignalR, MVC, Node.Js ??? (tentative – I'll wait until things stabilize as this area is undergoing a pre-Cambrian explosion) Things I don’t want to work with: (but will if I'm asked to !) C# – same old, same old – not learning anything new here Old code – blech ! Environment with code & fix mentality , ad hoc requirements, excessive overtime Pc support, System administration – even after 20 years, people still ask you to do this sometimes ! debugging – my skills are just not there yet Oracle Old tech: VB 6, XSLT, WinForms, Net 3.51 or less Old style Web dev Information Systems: ASP.NET webforms, Reporting services / crystal reports, SQL Server CRUD with manual data layer, XAML MVVM – variations of the same concept, ad nauseaum. Low barriers of entry –> race to the bottom.  Metro – an elegant API coupled to a horrendous UX – I'll wait for market penetration viability before investing further in this.   Conclusion So if you are in a slump, take heart: Programming is a great career choice compared to every other job !

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• Web Safe Area (optimal resolution) for web app design?

  - by M.A.X

  I'm in the process of designing a new web app and I'm wondering for what 'Web Safe Area' should I optimize the app layout and design. By Web Safe Area I mean the actual area available to display the website in the browser (which is influenced by monitor resolution as well as the space taken up by the browser and OS) I did some investigation and thinking on my own but wanted to share this to see what the general opinion is. Here is what I found: Optimal Display Resolution: w3schools web stats seems to be the most referenced source (however they state that these are results from their site and is biased towards tech savvy users) http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php (aggregate data from something like 15,000 different sites that use their tracking services) StatCounter Global Stats Display Resolution (Stats are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 15 billion pageviews per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites) NetMarketShare Screen Resolutions (marketshare.hitslink.com) (a web analytics consulting firm, they get data from browsers of site visitors to their on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month) Display Resolution Summary: There is a bit of variation between the above sources but in general as of Jan 2011 looks like 1024x768 is about 20%, while ~85% have a higher resolution of at least 1280x768 (1280x800 is the most common of these with 15-20% of total web, depending on the source; 1280x1024 and 1366x768 follow behind with 9-14% of the share). My guess would be that the higher resolution values will be even more common if we filter on North America, and even higher if we filter on N.American corporate users (unfortunately I couldn't find any free geographically filtered statistics). Another point to note is that the 1024x768 desktop user population is likely lower than the aforementioned 20%, seeing as the iPad (1024x768 native display) is likely propping up those number (the app I'm designing is flash based, Apple mobile devices don't support flash so iPad support isn't a concern). My recommendation would be to optimize around the 1280x768 constraint (*note: 1280x768 is actually a relatively rare resolution, but I think it's a valid constraint range considering that 1366x768 is relatively common and 1280 is the most common horizontal resolution). Browser + OS Constraints: To further add to the constraints we have to subtract the space taken up by the browser (assuming IE, which is the most space consuming) and the OS (assuming WinXP-Win7): Win7 has the biggest taskbar footprint at a height of 40px (XP's and Vista's is 30px) The default IE8 view uses up 25px at the bottom of the screen with the status bar and a further 120px at the top of the screen with the windows title bar and the browser UI (assuming the default 'favorites' toolbar is present, it would instead be 91px without the favorites toolbar). Assuming no scrollbar, we also loose a total of 4px horizontally for the window outline. This means that we are left with 583px of vertical space and 1276px of horizontal. In other words, a Web Safe Area of 1276 x 583 Is this a correct line of thinking? I'm really surprised that I couldn't find this type of investigation anywhere on the web. Lots of websites talk about designing for 1024x768, but that's only half the equation! There is no mention of browser/OS influences on the actual area you have to display the site/app. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. EDIT Another caveat to my line of thinking above is that different browsers actually take up different amounts of pixels based on the OS they're running on. For example, under WinXP IE8 takes up 142px on top of the screen (instead the aforementioned 120px for Win7) because the file menu shows up by default on XP while in Win7 the file menu is hidden by default. So it looks like on WinXP + IE8 the Web Safe Area would be a mere 572px (768px-142-30-24=572)

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• The best computer ever

  - by Jeff

  (This is a repost from my personal blog… wow… I need to write more technical stuff!) About three years and three months ago, I bought a 17" MacBook Pro, and it turned out to be the best computer I've ever owned. You might think that every computer with better specs is automatically better than the last, but that hasn't been my experience. My first one was a Sony, back in the Pentium III days, and it cost an astonishing $2,500. That was even more ridiculous in 1999 dollars. It had a dial-up modem, and a CD-ROM, built-in! It may have even played DVD's. A few years later I bought an HP, and it ended up being a pile of shit. The power connector inside came loose from the board, and on occasion would even short. In 2005, I bought a Dell, and it wasn't bad. It had a really high resolution screen (complete with dead pixels, a problem in those days), and it was the first laptop I felt I could do real work on. When 2006 rolled around, Apple started making computers with Intel CPU's, and I bought the very first one the week it came out. I used Boot Camp to run Windows. I still have it in its box somewhere, and I used it for three years. The current 17" was new in 2009. The goodness was largely rooted in having a big screen with lots of dots. This computer has been the source of hundreds of blog posts, tens of thousands of lines of code, video and photo editing, and of course, a whole lot of Web surfing. It connected to corpnet at Microsoft, WiFi in Hawaii and has presented many a deck. It has traveled with me tens of thousands of miles. Last year, I put a solid state drive in it, and it was like getting a new computer. I can boot up a Windows 7 VM in about 19 seconds. Having 8 gigs of RAM has always been fantastic. Everything about it has been fast and fun. When new, the battery (when not using VM's) could get as much as 10 hours. I can still do 7 without much trouble. After 460 charge cycles, the battery health is still between 85 and 90%. The only real negative has been the size and weight. It's only an inch thick, but naturally it's pretty big with a 17" screen. You don't get battery life like that without a huge battery, either, so it's heavy. It was never a deal breaker, but sometimes a long haul across a large airport, you know you're carrying it. Today, Apple announced a new, thinner and lighter 15" laptop, with twice the RAM and CPU cores, and four times the screen resolution. It basically handles my size and weight issues while retaining the resolution, and it still costs less than my 17" did. So I ordered one. Three years is an excellent run, but I kind of budgeted for a new workhorse this year anyway. So if you're interested in a 17" MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz CPU, 8 gigs of RAM and a 320 gig hard drive (sorry, I'm keeping the SSD), I have one to sell. They've apparently discontinued the 17", which is going to piss off the video community. It's in excellent condition, with a few minor scratches, but I take care of my stuff.

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• Red Meat's Music is Rare - and Well Done

  - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team

  By Karen Shamban The blogger has questions; San Francisco-based country band Red Meat has answers. Although we forgot to ask how they got their band name, dang it. Read on and enjoy the honesty and insight. Q. What do you like best about performing in front of a live audience?A. Probably just having fun and entertaining the audience. We've been together for almost two decades, and in that time we've played for crowds of five people, and for crowds of more than 15,000. Both are equally important to us, and just as fun. We turn Jill and Smelley loose on the between-songs repartee, and let the songs shine through. On the best night, we feed on the audience's love and vice-versa. It's emotional vampirism of the best sort. [Blogger's note: now that whole "red meat" thing is starting to make sense ...] Q. Do you prefer smaller, intimate venues or larger, louder ones? Why?A. We love both. Whether it's a chance to connect with a small room or huge audience, we always try to hit 'em between the eyes! Q. What about your fans surprises you?A. Since we've been together for so long, we're pretty much on our third generation of fans now. We're excited that the Bakersfield sound has that same effect on the new, younger fans as it did on the punk rockers that we played to 20 years ago. And we still see them at our shows too! Q. What about your live act surprises your fans?A. For people who haven't seen Red Meat before, they may be dragged to a show thinking they don't like country music. But they're surprised to hear it done in a way that excites them so much. We get a lot of first-timers coming up to us after a performance and asking, "Wait, THAT'S what country music can sound like?" Q. There are going to be a lot of technical people (you could call them geeks) in the Oracle crowd - what are they going to love about your performance?A. Just what everyone loves about a Red Meat show - the chance to drink beer, dance, get rowdy, and have a great time. Q. Have you been on tour recently? If so, what do you like about touring, and what do you dislike?A. Actually, we're going to be coming off the road immediately into the Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival, having just played some Texas dates. On tour, we love playing for fans who don't get to see us as often as our California fans do. And food. Most of our conversations in the van center around food. Q. Ever think about playing another kind of music? If so, what, and why?A. Our tastes and influences in the band run all over the place. Obviously we love the Bakersfield artists - Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam - but we love other types of roots music as well, along with the Beatles, NRBQ, MC5, punk/new wave, and countless bar bands that we've had the privilege of playing with through the years. But as far as playing a different kind of music as Red Meat? Nah. We love what we're doing. Q. What are the top three things people should know about your music?A1. Country music, done right, has unlimited soul.A2. Red Meat is a modern band, playing original material, with a great debt to the Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.A3. It's FUN. More details on the Festival and the band: Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival Red Meat

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• SEO/Google: How should I handle multiple countries and domains?

  - by Valorized

  Hello. I'm the webmaster of an online shop based in Austria (Europe). Therefore we registered "example.at". We also own different other domain names like "example-shop.com" and "example.info". Currently all those domains are redirected (301) to the .at one. Still available is: "example.net" and "example.org" (and .ws/.cc), unfortunately not available: .de/.eu The .com is currently owned by one of our partners, the contract ends in 2012 but until then we have no chance to get this one. Recently I read more about geo-targeting and I noticed ONE big deal. The tld ".at" is hardly recognised in Germany (google.de) whereas it is excellently listed in Austria (google.at). As a result of the .at I cannot set the target location manually (or to unlisted). More info: https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=62399&hl=en This is a big problem. I looked at Google Analytics and - although Germany is 10x as big as Austria - there are more visits from Austria. So, how should I config the domain in order to get the best results in both, Germany and Austria? I thought of some solutions: First I could stop redirecting the .info. Then there would be a duplicate of the .at one. Moreover, in Webmastertools, I could set the target location of the .info to Germany. As the .at still targets Austria, both would be targeted - however I don't now if google punishes one of them because of the duplicate content? Same as 1. but with .net or .org (I think .info is not a "nice" domain and moreover I think search engines prefer .com, .net or .org to .info). Same as 1. (or 2.) but with a rel="canonical" on the new one (pointing to the .at). Con: I don't think this will improve the situation, because it still tells google that the .at one is more important, like: "if .info points to .at, the target may still be Austria". rel="canonical" on the .at pointing to the new (.info or .net or .org). However I fear that this will have a negative impact on the listing on google.at because: "Hey, the well-known .at is not important anymore, so let's focus on the .info which is not well-known." - Therefore: bad position in search results. Redirect .at to the new (.info or .net or .org) with a 301-Redirect. Con: Might be worse than 4, we might loose Page-Rank (or "the value of the page", because google says that page rank is not important anymore). Moreover this might be even more confusing for the customers. In 3. or 4. customers don't get redirected, they do not see the canonical-meta-tag. So, dear experts, please tell me what the best option would be! Thank you very much for your advice in advance and please excuse the long question. I really appreciate this network! Please note: It's exactly the same content AND language. In Austria we speak German.

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• Laptop LCD sometimes stops working on reboot. Please help.

  - by J Ringle

  I have a Gateway P-6831FX Laptop with Vista Ultimate. The Laptop LCD will sometimes not come on after I reboot the computer. I don't even close the lid and it happens. It isn't dim, it doesn't come on at all. No posting of CMOS (BIOS), nothing. Please note... this happens sometimes, not every time. Frustrating! When plugged into an external monitor, which works fine, Vista display properties can't even "sense" the laptop LCD. I try to enable the laptop LCD for dual display, turning on the laptop LCD, and it does nothing. It's like the laptop LCD is not even there. Manually taking a magnet in my hand to the laptop lid sensing switch (the sensor that turns off display/sleep mode when you close lid), sometimes causes the LCD backlight to "turn on" but not display any images. By "turn on" I mean I can see the screen backlight turn on to a 'dark gray' screen instead of pitch black. Subsequent reboot the laptop display is not working again! Here are the facts: Only happens at random and only after a reboot. Waking from Sleep mode isn't a problem. Pressing F4 function key for dual display does nothing when this happens. Closing lid doesn't seem to be related. (unless it is only after reboot.) using external magnet from laptop screen sensor sometimes triggers backlight to turn on but reboot back to square one with no LCD display. an external display always works fine. I have taken apart LCD, checked all wires and ribbons for loose connections or damage. I have replaced the Inverter. It doesn't seem to be heat related as I can put in sleep mode and resume fine when very hot. (external monitor works fine too). Sometimes the screen works fine as if there is not a problem at all. Even after a reboot... This is random. Any ideas out there? If it is a bad part... which one? The LCD seems to be fine. What are the odds of 2 bad inverters? The backlight is fine. The LCD wires/ribbons seem to be fine. I am at a loss. No warranty left and Gateway tech support is clueless. Thanks for any feedback that might help.

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• Weird random application hang problem

  - by haridsv

  I am trying to understand an application hang problem that started up lately on my windows xp system. The system runs fine for days (sometimes) without ever shutting down or putting it to sleep, but the problem first shows up as one of the apps hanging. The application's UI stops responding or one or more background threads hang, so even though the GUI is responding, it is not doing anything (e.g., in VirtualDub's case, the UI responds fine, but the job doesn't progress and I won't even be able to abort it). The weirdness part comes from the fact that if I try to kill such an app, the program that is used to kill it goes into the same mode (i.e, that hangs instead of the original). E.g., if I use Process Explorer to kill it, the original program exits, but procexp now hangs. If I use another instance of procexp to kill the one that is hanging, this repeats, so there is always at least one program hanging in that state. This is not specific to procexp, I tried the native task manager and even the "End Process" dialog from windows explorer that shows up when you try to close a non-responsive GUI (in this case, the explorer itself hangs). The only program that didn't hang after the kill, is the command line taskkill. However, in this case, explorer hangs instead of taskkill. Also, once this problem starts manifesting, it soon ends up freezing the whole system to the extent that even a clean shutdown is not possible, so I have learned to reboot as soon as I notice this problem, however this is very inconvenient, as I often have encoding batch jobs going on which can't continue the job after the restart. The longer I leave the system running after seeing this problem, the more applications get into this state. I have tried to do a repair install but that didn't make any difference. I also uninstalled some of the newer installs, but again no difference. I tried to search online, but got inundating results for generic hang and crash related problems. Though I couldn't notice any pattern, it seems as though the problem is more frequent if I have some video encoding going on at that time. I had the system running for days when I only do browsing and internet audio/video chat before I decide to start encoding something and the problem starts to show up. I am not too sure if it is the encoding program that first hangs, though I almost always noticed that too hanging (like the VirtualDub stopping to make progress). I also had to reboot 3 times on one day when I was heavily experimenting with encoding. I would appreciate any help in narrowing down this problem and save me the trouble of reinstalling. I don't especially want to loose my gotd installs.

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• Issue with Netgear GS108T Managed Switch and Jumbo Frames

  - by Richie086

  I recently purchased a Netgear GS108T managed switch and I am trying to configure jumbo packets between my NAS (Thecus N4100Pro), PC and managed switch. I should mention the fact that I was able to use jumbo frames between my PC and NAS before I purchased the switch without issue. My Desktop has a wired gigabit NIC (Intel 82579V Gigabit) and has the ability to configure jumbo frames (see pic) that are either 9014 bytes or 4088 bytes. I choose 9014 bytes for the jumbo frame size My NAS supports jumbo frames as well, and is configured to use 9014 as the frame size. When I go into my Netgear managed switch and set the frame size to 9014 on the ports I am using for my PC and NAS. See image As soon as I hit apply in the web interface, I loose my connection to the SMB shares on my NAS and I can no longer connect to the web admin interface for my NAS. The really strange thing is I can ping my NAS via the ping command, but when I try to connect to the web interface on port 80 or port 443 the page never loads. I did a scan from my PC to my NAS using nmap and I can see the following ports open PORT STATE SERVICE 22/tcp open ssh 80/tcp open http 111/tcp open rpcbind 139/tcp open netbios-ssn 443/tcp open https 445/tcp open microsoft-ds 631/tcp open ipp 2000/tcp open cisco-sccp 2049/tcp open nfs 3260/tcp open iscsi 49152/tcp open unknown MAC Address: 00:14:FD:15:00:44 (Thecus Technology) Read data files from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Nmap Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 211.97 seconds Raw packets sent: 1 (28B) | Rcvd: 1 (28B) Anyone have any idea what is going on here? Why is nmap able to detect the ports are open and listening for http, https and file sharing but I cant connect when all devices have jumbo packets enabled? Stranger still - I did a packet capture using wireshark while the nmap scan was running and filtered so I only saw converstations between my PC and my NAS. Here are the packet details from my scan Only 4 packets over 5k bytes? What is going on here? Do I not need to configure jumbo frame sizes on the switch? I have an internet connection from my pc to the switch to my router - I just cannot connect to my NAS. I just checked on my iPhone and I am able to open my NAS web admin interface without issue on my iPhone! WTF!!!!!! Let me know if you need more details..

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• Why won't vyatta allow SMTP through my firewall?

  - by Solignis

  I am setting up a vyatta router on VMware ESXi, But I see to have hit a major snag, I could not get my firewall and NAT to work correctly. I am not sure what was wrong with NAT but it "seems" to be working now. But the firewall is not allowing traffic from my WAN interface (eth0) to my LAN (eth1). I can confirm its the firewall because I disabled all firewall rules and everything worked with just NAT. If put the firewalls (WAN and LAN) back in place nothing can get through to port 25. I am not really sure what the issue could be I am using pretty basic firewall rules, I wrote the rules while looking at the vyatta docs so unless there is something odd with the documentation they "should" be working. Here is my NAT rules so far; vyatta@gateway# show service nat rule 20 { description "Zimbra SNAT #1" outbound-interface eth0 outside-address { address 74.XXX.XXX.XXX } source { address 10.0.0.17 } type source } rule 21 { description "Zimbra SMTP #1" destination { address 74.XXX.XXX.XXX port 25 } inbound-interface eth0 inside-address { address 10.0.0.17 } protocol tcp type destination } rule 100 { description "Default LAN -> WAN" outbound-interface eth0 outside-address { address 74.XXX.XXX.XXX } source { address 10.0.0.0/24 } type source } Then here is my firewall rules, this is where I believe the problem is. vyatta@gateway# show firewall all-ping enable broadcast-ping disable conntrack-expect-table-size 4096 conntrack-hash-size 4096 conntrack-table-size 32768 conntrack-tcp-loose enable ipv6-receive-redirects disable ipv6-src-route disable ip-src-route disable log-martians enable name LAN_in { rule 100 { action accept description "Default LAN -> any" protocol all source { address 10.0.0.0/24 } } } name LAN_out { } name LOCAL { rule 100 { action accept state { established enable } } } name WAN_in { rule 20 { action accept description "Allow SMTP connections to MX01" destination { address 74.XXX.XXX.XXX port 25 } protocol tcp } rule 100 { action accept description "Allow established connections back through" state { established enable } } } name WAN_out { } receive-redirects disable send-redirects enable source-validation disable syn-cookies enable SIDENOTE To test for open ports I have using this website, http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/, it showed port 25 as open without the firewall rules and closed with the firewall rules. UPDATE Just to see if the firewall was working properly I made a rule to block SSH from the WAN interface. When I checked for port 22 on my primary WAN address it said it was still open even though I outright blocked the port. Here is the rule I used; rule 21 { action reject destination { address 74.219.80.163 port 22 } protocol tcp } So now I am convinced either I am doing something wrong or the firewall is not working like it should.

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• Effecient organization of spare cables and hardware

  - by Jake Wharton

  As many of you also likely do, I have a growing collection of cables, hardware, and spare parts (screws, connectors, etc.). I'm looking to find a good system of organization so that everything isn't a tangled mess, mismatched, and potentially able to be damaged. Since the the three things listed above are all have varying sizes and degrees of delicacy this poises an interesting problem. Presently I have those cheap plastic storage bins you find at Wal-mart for everything. Cables that were once wrapped neatly have become tangled due to numerous "I know I have a cable for this" moments. Hardware is mixed in other bins with odds and ends with no protection from each other. NICs, CPUs, and HDDs are all interacting and likely causing damage. Finally there are stray parts sprinkled amongst these two both in plastic bags and loose. I'm looking to unify this storage into a controlled chaos. Here are my thoughts: Odds and ends are the easiest. Screws, connectors, and small electronic parts lend themselves perfectly to tackle boxes and jewelry boxes. Since these are usually dynamically compartmentalized I can adjust for the contents and label them on the outside or inside of the lid. Cables are easily wrangled with short velcro strips but that doesn't stop them from being all mixed in together. Hardware is the worst offender. Size, shape, and degree of delicacy changes with nearly every piece. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of organization for a somewhat efficient manner. What are all your thoughts? What is the best type of tackle or jewelry box to use? Most of them are cheap and flimsy. Is there a better alternative? How can I organize cables to know exactly (within reason) where one is? What about associating cables with hardware (Wall adapter to router, etc.)? What kind of storage unit lends itself to all shapes of hardware? Do I need to separate by size or degree of delicacy for better organization?

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• MBPro, mid 2010 can't see Dlink DIR655 signal after sleep etc

  - by user88114

  This is my son's MBP 7,1 running Snow Leopard 10.6.7. Router signal is fine since iPad, Wintel on same table 20 feet from router are fine. the MBP however frequently wakes and fails to find the internet. iStumbler can see 1 neighbours hub and my garden hub are there but can't get to the normal DIR655 wifi... no ping no en0 or en1 device seems to exist. Airport off and on does not help. He just resets router and it all works but this does not please me! I must admit the winter sometimes seems to loose connect too, but less so. The DIR655 (hardware rev A3) is on the original EU firmware 1.10, I'm cautious about jumping to latest 1.31EU since no downgrade seems to be possible and that feels a bit risky as so much is set up and working fine. If I use the DIR655 admin web and release the lease the MBP has then wake it all worked OK. So I suspect lease timing/locking issue but unsure how to check up, plus why iStumbler seems to say the network is not visible at all when I sit on the iPad right next to it just fine.. I do not think there are any channel overlaps and we also have RFquiet DECT phones (Orchid) that are silent until lifted or called. Anyway signals all show low interference and high throughput except for this failure to connect. Just walked the MBP to the garden office and iStumbler now sees the more distant DIR655 signal although it will not connect to it (does not show under Sys Prefs NetNetwork names) even after airport off & on... It also refuses to connect to my garden network (an old Belkin acting as AP wired to DIR655), the signal it can see and even net name in Sys Prefs NetNetwork names (2 mins later):NOW both names ARE visible, but both fail to accept the correct WPA2 password and keep asking again after failing to connect. IT ALL MAKES NO SENSE TO ME. Just revoked the lease for the MBP on DIR655 and no changes although this seemed to help MBP wake into connection 1 hour ago. OK a bit of walking about to report. Carried MBP across garden towards DIR655, a few other wifis show up on iStumbler, low signals all channel 1. Right next to DIR655 but iStumbler not showing it, although most other wifi's have gone. I'd say iStubler is suffering timeouts&hangs but hard to be sure. Lots of attempts to Airport on/off, join other etc and suddenly I get to connect, get given new IP (I revoked), can browse. Walk away, connection drops quite soon at 30 feet then reconnected briefly then died again. MUST ATTEND ELSEWHERE FOR A BIT...

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