screen readers - Page 304

11.10 desktop alerts (volume change and terminal bell) stopped working but all other audio still works

- by FlabbergastedPickle

All, My sound works just fine in 11.10 64-bit install on HP dm1-4050 Sandy Bridge notebook (e.g. audio works in Banshee, flash, games, browser, Thunderbird email notification, etc.), but the core desktop notifications (e.g. pressing a tab in a terminal where there is more than one option should trigger a terminal bell, or changing volume using volume keys should be accompanied with the supporting "quack" that the volume app makes) do not work. I've intentionally disabled login sound as explained here on ask ubuntu but even enabling it back makes no difference. These notifications did work before just fine and I am not sure when did the actually stop working but it must've been fairly recently. Only things I did were trying to install some ppa edge xorg drivers for my intel card (a separate issue) but also reverted them all with ppa-purge once I discovered they did not improve anything. Other thing I did was check volume settings with alsamixer and did alsactl store for the soundcard after I did some experimenting with volume settings for PCM (on my laptop PCM at 100% crackles so I had to lower it and make pulseaudio ignore its setting as per ask ubuntu's page). That said, neither of these should have any bearing on the said notifications since the volume is up and they clearly work everywhere else but the core desktop events. The system ready drum sound when Ubuntu boots and user reaches the login screen also does not work. The guest login behaves exactly same as mine. Audio works (including the login sound since I've not disabled it for the guest account), but no quacks when changing the volume or terminal bell sounds... I've tried copying ubuntu sounds to /usr/share/sounds/ as suggested on ask ubuntu and that did not work. I also tried using dconf-editor to check sound theme settings and tried both freedesktop (which is what it was set to) and ubuntu, as suggested on ask ubuntu. This did not work either. I tried purging the ~/.pulse folder and the /tmp/*pulse* entries, rebooting and restarting pulseaudio with -D flag. While audio came back on and behaved just fine in all aspects (e.g. one can adjust volume levels, play music, games, in-browser sound stuff, and other app alerts) except for the system ready drum sound (at the login screen), and any system event (terminal bell and volume change quack sound). It is interesting that the quack sound works inside system settings-sound when adjusting levels there, but it does not when volume is changed via top bar's volume settings... I do recall that at one point yesterday when I was restarting pulseaudio the quacks that accompany volume change did start working but I have no idea what caused that. This was also when I first realized those alerts were not working. After rebooting it was again gone. I did compile my own 3.0.14-rt31 kernel a little while ago as instructed on one of the wiki's for the 11.10 rt kernel. Everything works as before except for the said sound alerts. I am not sure if this began happening since I started using the rt kernel though and yesterday's momentary ability to hear those quacks while changing the volume make me believe that the kernel is not one responsible for this problem. One more thing I can think of is that I used alsoft-conf tool to configure buffering on the OpenAL (due to TA Spring's choppy audio) and changed in there default audio device to ALSA. I also tried reverting it to Pulseaudio as the only allowed output but the bottom part of the Backend tab always reverts to ALSA even when I select Pulseaudio. The pulseaudio does remain as the only active choice on top. This, however, once again does not make any sense in terms of preventing desktop audio alerts when everything else including OpenAL games plays sound just fine... So, there you have it, as verbose as I could make it :-). I tried all I could find on this issue and had no luck so far... Any ideas?

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SQLAuthority News – Live Virtual Classroom New Trend in Technology

- by nupurdave

This blog post is by Nupur Dave, who is housewife and works from home. Changing times and a super busy lifestyle have rendered most of us powerless when it comes to doing what we love to do. I feel that a man never ceases to learn and his sole aim is to seek knowledge, and keep growing. However, our tight schedules and packed calendars mean that we really have to struggle to take some time out and follow the path towards learning. Like all working professionals with a family to take care of, I hardly found time to pursue my interests. However, it was getting increasingly important for me to upgrade my skills, not only for my personal quest for knowledge but to also substantiate my professional standing. When I came to know about Koenig Live Virtual Classroom from friends, it piqued my interest. I felt like it was the answer to all my concerns. Without wasting a single minute, I contacted Koenig for a demo class. Here are some of the highlights of Koenig LVC which instantly struck a chord in me: Online Training – Koenig offers 1-on-1 Online Training with the instructor at the other end. Doesn’t matter where I am sitting, in my office or at home, I can connect to my trainer from anywhere. Flexible Timings – The most comfortable part is you get to choose the time that suits you best. Economical - No need to travel a thousand miles, the experts are right here on your computer screen. So no extra cost of travel, lodging and meals. 24X7 Lab Access: This is again a great feature that proved to be very beneficial in gaining a practical understanding of the subject. Powered by a data center, this facility offers students much to look forward to. 300+ Full Time Certified Experts: Be assured that you are learning from the best people in the industry. Customized Courses: Course material and training delivery is completely customized to suit your specific requirements. Official Courseware: The instructor teaches from official courseware of the vendor, depending on which course you have applied for – be it Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle or any other certification. Take Exam from Anywhere: Post completion of your IT training, you can take your certification exam from anywhere. Again, no need to travel a thousand miles to earn certified status. No Pre-Recorded Sessions: For those who still need clarification, it will be a live online classroom with trainers instructing you in real time. So you won’t get any surprises of getting pre-recorded sessions in place of your live instructor. Koenig’s Live Virtual Classroom methodology greatly exceeded my expectations. The instructor was highly skilled and very professional. I had concerns about the quality of AV on the computer screen, and whether I’ll be able to understand each topic in detail. However, the quality of video and sound, and the learning methodology used was impeccable. If you’re also facing time crunch and other commitment issues which are getting in the way of your professional development, LVC is the best solution to learn and grow. To know more about Student Experiences and Feedback of Koenig LVC, you can view their Testimonials. Reference: Nupur Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: SQL Authority

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Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 Announcement

- by Tim Murphy

Today Nokia and Microsoft had an event to officially introduce the Lumia 920. Below is a rundown of some of the things I found interesting. As a person who likes photography there was a lot to drool over. The main feature that caught my attention was PureView with its optical stabilization. This alone should improve the majority of you pictures. Add to that the SmartShoot Object remover that uses multiple images to remove unwanted people or objects that move through your picture and you never have to accept reality again. For the most part the lenses concept introduced in Windows Phone 8 just makes the usability of leveraging camera better. Of course that is Microsoft’s selling point. One lens that caught my attention was the Bing lens. I have to say it is about time that we can take pictures and use them to search for answers using Bing. There were a couple of features shown that involved augmented reality. One was similar to the yapf application that is already in the market which overlays restaurants and other destination over live camera views. The other was using the navigation directions with a live view. Then you get down to some of the physical features of the Lumia 920. The one that got the most stage time is that it has a great 2000mah battery which can be charged wirelessly. They also pointed out the improved glare reduction of the 4.5 in. curved glass screen. This hardware improvement is improved further with software that detects glare conditions and adjusts the display attributes to enhance viewing ease. Adding to the wireless cool factor of the Lumia 920 is the general NFC capabilities. This was demonstrated with NFC docking stations as well as JBL speakers and headphones. There was one more hardware feature that I applauded. The super sensitive touch screen did away with one of my pet peeves with capacitive touch screens. You will never have to remove you gloves to operate your phone again. The mittens that they did the demo with looked more like boxing gloves. I was disappointed with Joe Belfiore said that they were only going to show a couple of new features of the Windows Phone 8 and would hear more at future events. One of the things he did show is the ability to customize which buttons you preferred as defaults in IE10. For example you could have the folders button where the refresh button normally is. He also showed that at long last you can natively take screenshots on your phone. Hopefully he will be back quickly to give us the rest of the features. The most disappointing part of the event was that we never found out when they would be released or how much they would cost. Let’s hope this comes soon. Even with these couple of items still left on my wish list I can’t wait to get my hands on a Lumia 920. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Nokia,Lumia,Lumia 920,Microsoft

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XNA Multiplayer Games and Networking

- by JoshReuben

· XNA communication must by default be lightweight – if you are syncing game state between players from the Game.Update method, you must minimize traffic. That game loop may be firing 60 times a second and player 5 needs to know if his tank has collided with any player 3 and the angle of that gun turret. There are no WCF ServiceContract / DataContract niceties here, but at the same time the XNA networking stack simplifies the details. The payload must be simplistic - just an ordered set of numbers that you would map to meaningful enum values upon deserialization. Overview · XNA allows you to create and join multiplayer game sessions, to manage game state across clients, and to interact with the friends list · Dependency on Gamer Services - to receive notifications such as sign-in status changes and game invitations · two types of online multiplayer games: system link game sessions (LAN) and LIVE sessions (WAN). · Minimum dev requirements: 1 Xbox 360 console + Creators Club membership to test network code - run 1 instance of game on Xbox 360, and 1 on a Windows-based computer Network Sessions · A network session is made up of players in a game + up to 8 arbitrary integer properties describing the session · create custom enums – (e.g. GameMode, SkillLevel) as keys in NetworkSessionProperties collection · Player state: lobby, in-play Session Types · local session - for split-screen gaming - requires no network traffic. · system link session - connects multiple gaming machines over a local subnet. · Xbox LIVE multiplayer session - occurs on the Internet. Ranked or unranked Session Updates · NetworkSession class Update method - must be called once per frame. · performs the following actions: o Sends the network packets. o Changes the session state. o Raises the managed events for any significant state changes. o Returns the incoming packet data. · synchronize the session à packet-received and state-change events à no threading issues Session Config · Session host - gaming machine that creates the session. XNA handles host migration · NetworkSession properties: AllowJoinInProgress , AllowHostMigration · NetworkSession groups: AllGamers, LocalGamers, RemoteGamers Subscribe to NetworkSession events · GamerJoined · GamerLeft · GameStarted · GameEnded – use to return to lobby · SessionEnded – use to return to title screen Create a Session session = NetworkSession.Create( NetworkSessionType.SystemLink, maximumLocalPlayers, maximumGamers, privateGamerSlots, sessionProperties ); Start a Session if (session.IsHost) { if (session.IsEveryoneReady) { session.StartGame(); foreach (var gamer in SignedInGamer.SignedInGamers) { gamer.Presence.PresenceMode = GamerPresenceMode.InCombat; Find a Network Session AvailableNetworkSessionCollection availableSessions = NetworkSession.Find( NetworkSessionType.SystemLink, maximumLocalPlayers, networkSessionProperties); availableSessions.AllowJoinInProgress = true; Join a Network Session NetworkSession session = NetworkSession.Join( availableSessions[selectedSessionIndex]); Sending Network Data var packetWriter = new PacketWriter(); foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) { // Get the tank associated with this player. Tank myTank = gamer.Tag as Tank; // Write the data. packetWriter.Write(myTank.Position); packetWriter.Write(myTank.TankRotation); packetWriter.Write(myTank.TurretRotation); packetWriter.Write(myTank.IsFiring); packetWriter.Write(myTank.Health); // Send it to everyone. gamer.SendData(packetWriter, SendDataOptions.None); } Receiving Network Data foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) { // Keep reading while packets are available. while (gamer.IsDataAvailable) { NetworkGamer sender; // Read a single packet. gamer.ReceiveData(packetReader, out sender); if (!sender.IsLocal) { // Get the tank associated with this packet. Tank remoteTank = sender.Tag as Tank; // Read the data and apply it to the tank. remoteTank.Position = packetReader.ReadVector2(); … End a Session if (session.AllGamers.Count == 1) { session.EndGame(); session.Update(); } Performance • Aim to minimize payload, reliable in order messages • Send Data Options: o Unreliable, out of order -(SendDataOptions.None) o Unreliable, in order (SendDataOptions.InOrder) o Reliable, out of order (SendDataOptions.Reliable) o Reliable, in order (SendDataOptions.ReliableInOrder) o Chat data (SendDataOptions.Chat) • Simulate: NetworkSession.SimulatedLatency , NetworkSession.SimulatedPacketLoss • Voice support – NetworkGamer properties: HasVoice ,IsTalking , IsMutedByLocalUser

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Setup and configure a MVC4 project for Cloud Service(web role) and SQL Azure

- by MagnusKarlsson

I aim at keeping this blog post updated and add related posts to it. Since there are a lot of these out there I link to others that has done kind of the same before me, kind of a blog-DRY pattern that I'm aiming for. I also keep all mistakes and misconceptions for others to see. As an example; if I hit a stacktrace I will google it if I don't directly figure out the reason for it. I will then probably take the most plausible result and try it out. If it fails because I misinterpreted the error I will not delete it from the log but keep it for future reference and for others to see. That way people that finds this blog can see multiple solutions for indexed stacktraces and I can better remember how to do stuff. To avoid my errors I recommend you to read through it all before going from start to finish.The steps:Setup project in VS2012. (msdn blog)Setup Azure Services (half of mpspartners.com blog)Setup connections strings and configuration files (msdn blog + notes)Export certificates.Create Azure package from vs2012 and deploy to staging (same steps as for production).Connections string error Set up the visual studio project:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2011/11/08/developing-asp-net-mvc4-based-windows-azure-web-role.aspx Then login in to Azure to setup the services:Stop following this guide at the "publish website" part since we'll be uploading a package.http://www.mpspartners.com/2012/09/ConfiguringandDeployinganMVC4applicationasaCloudServicewithAzureSQLandStorage/ When set up (connection strings for debug and release and all), follow this guide to set up the configuration files:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh369931.aspxTrying to package our application at this step will generate the following warning:3>MvcWebRole1(0,0): warning WAT170: The configuration setting 'Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString' is set up to use the local storage emulator for role 'MvcWebRole1' in configuration file 'ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg'. To access Windows Azure storage services, you must provide a valid Windows Azure storage connection string. Right click the web role under roles in solution manager and choose properties. Choose "Service configuration: Cloud". At "specify storage account credentials" we will copy/paste our account name and key from the Azure management platform.3.1 4. Right click Remote desktop Configuration and select certificate and export to file. We need to allow it in Portal manager.4.15 Now right click the cloud project and select package.5.1 Showing dialogue box. 5.2 Package success Now copy the path to the packaged file and go to management portal again. Click your web role and choose staging (or production). Upload. 5.3Tick the box about the single instance if that's what you want or you don't know what it means. Otherwise the following will happen (see image 4.6)5.4 Dialogue box When you have clicked the symbol for accept- button you will see the following screen with some green indicators down at the right corner. Click them if you want to see status.5.5 Information screen.5.6 "Failed to deploy application. The upload application has at least one role with only one instance. We recommend that you deploy at least two instances per role to ensure high availability in case one of the instances becomes unavailable. "To fix, go to step 5.4If you forgot to (or just didn't know you were supposed to) export your certificates. The following error will occur. Side note, the following thread suggests. To prevent: "Enable Remote Desktop for all roles" when right-clicking BIAB and choosing "Package". But in my case it was the not so present certificates. I fund the solution here.http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dotnetstocktradersampleapplication/thread/0e94c2b5-463f-4209-86b9-fc257e0678cd5.75.8 Success! 5.9 Nice URL n' all. (More on that at another blog post).6. If you try to login and getWhen this error occurs many web sites suggest this is because you need:http://nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.AspNet.Providers.LocalDBOr : http://nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.AspNet.ProvidersBut it can also be that you don't have the correct setup for converting connectionstrings between your web.config to your debug.web.config(or release.web.config, whichever your using).Run as suggested in the "ordinary project in your solution. Go to the management portal and click update.

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Make your TSQL easier to read during a presentation

- by Jonathan Allen

SQL Server Management Studio 2012 has some neat settings that you can use to help your presentations at a SQL event better for the attendees if you are willing to spend a few minutes making some settings changes. Historically, I have been reluctant to make changes to my SSMS settings as it is such a tedious process and it’s not 100% clear that what you think you are changing is actually what gets changed. With SSMS 2012 this has become a lot easier and a lot less risky. In any session that involves TSQL there is a trade off between the speaker having all the code on screen and the attendees being able to read any of what is on screen. You (the speaker) might be able to read this when you are working on the code but plenty of your audience wont be able to make head or tail of it. SSMS 2012 has a zoom facility that can help: but don’t go nuts … Having the font too big means you will be scrolling a lot and the code will again be rendered unreadable. There is more though but you need to take a deep breath and open the Tools menu and delve into the SSMS options. In previous versions of SSMS this is a deep, dark and scary place where changing values can be obscure and sometimes catastrophic to the UI when you get back to the code editor. First things first, we set out as a good DBA and save our current (and presumably acceptable) SSMS configuration. From the import and Export Settings you can set up a file to hold all of the settings that you currently have. The wizard will open and ask you to pick an option. This time around choose to export settings. hit next and next again and then name your settings profile in the final step of the wizard and then click Finish. Once this is done then you can change whatever you like and always get back to this configuration in a couple of clicks. So what can you change to make for a good experience? Well there are plenty of things that can be altered but don’t go too mad and change too many things without taking a look at the results for every item on the list above you can change font, size, weight, colour, background colour etc. etc. but consider what you are trying to achieve and take it slowly. I have seen presenters with their settings set to have a yellow highlight and black font rather than the default pale blue background and slightly darker font so to achieve that select Text Editor and then select “Selected Text” in the Display Items listbox. As you change things the Sample area give you an idea of what effect you are going to have. Black and yellow is the colour combination with the highest contrast – that’s why bees and wasps# are that colour. What next? how about increasing the default font for your demo scripts? This means that any script you open and any new ones that you start will take on this font. No more zooming (or forgetting to) in the middle of sessions. now don’t forget to save this profile – follow the same steps as above but give the profile a different name, something like PresentationBigFontHighContrast might be appropriate. Once you are done making changes, export the settings once more and then go into the Import Export wizard and import settings from the first profile you created. Everything will be back to normal. Now making changes to suit your environment can be done very easily and with confidence. * – and warning tape and safety signs and so forth – Health and Safety officers simply copy nature!

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Help Me Help You Fix That

- by BuckWoody

If you've been redirected here because you posted on a forum, or asked a question in an e-mail, the person wanted you to know how to get help quickly from a group of folks who are willing to do so - but whose time is valuable. You need to put a little effort into the question first to get others to assist. This is how to do that. It will only take you a moment to read... 1. State the problem succinctly in the title When an e-mail thread starts, or a forum post is the "head" of the conversation, you'll attract more helpers by using a descriptive headline than a vague one. This: "Driver for Epson Line Printer Not Installing on Operating System XYZ" Not this: "Can't print - PLEASE HELP" 2. Explain the Error Completely Make sure you include all pertinent information in the request. More information is better, there's almost no way to add too much data to the discussion. What you were doing, what happened, what you saw, the error message, visuals, screen shots, whatever you can include. This: "I'm getting error '5203 - Driver not compatible with Operating System since about 25 years ago' in a message box on the screen when I tried to run the SETUP.COM file from my older computer. It was a 1995 Compaq Proliant and worked correctly there.." Not this: "I get an error message in a box. It won't install." 3. Explain what you have done to research the problem If the first thing you do is ask a question without doing any research, you're lazy, and no one wants to help you. Using one of the many fine search engines you can most always find the answer to your problem. Sometimes you can't. Do yourself a favor - open a notepad app, and paste the URL's as you look them up. If you get your answer, don't save the note. If you don't get an answer, send the list along with the problem. It will show that you've tried, and also keep people from sending you links that you've already checked. This: "I read the fine manual, and it doesn't mention Operating System XYZ for some reason. Also, I checked the following links, but the instructions there didn't fix the problem: " Not this: <NULL> 4. Say "Please" and "Thank You" Remember, you're asking for help. No one owes you their valuable time. Ask politely, don't pester, endure the people who are rude to you, and when your question is answered, respond back to the thread or e-mail with a thank you to close it out. It helps others that have your same problem know that this is the correct answer. This: "I could really use some help here - if you have any pointers or things to try, I'd appreciate it." Not this: "I really need this done right now - why are there no responses?" This: "Thanks for those responses - that last one did the trick. Turns out I needed a new printer anyway, didn't realize they were so inexpensive now." Not this: <NULL> There are a lot of motivated people that will help you. Help them do that.

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Libgdx 2D Game, Random generated World of random size, how to get mouse coordinates?

- by Solom

I'm a noob and English is not my mothertongue, so please bear with me! I'm generating a map for a Sidescroller out of a 2D-array. That is, the array holds different values and I create blocks based on that value. Now, my problem is to match mouse coordinates on screen with the actual block the mouse is pointing at. public class GameScreen implements Screen { private static final int WIDTH = 100; private static final int HEIGHT = 70; private OrthographicCamera camera; private Rectangle glViewport; private Spritebatch spriteBatch; private Map map; private Block block; ... @Override public void show() { camera = new OrthographicCamera(WIDTH, HEIGHT); camera.position.set(WIDTH/2, HEIGHT/2, 0); glViewport = new Rectangle(0, 0, WIDTH, HEIGHT); map = new Map(16384, 256); map.printTileMap(); // Debugging only spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(); } @Override public void render(float delta) { // Clear previous frame Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 1, 1, 1 ); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); GL30 gl = Gdx.graphics.getGL30(); // gl.glViewport((int) glViewport.x, (int) glViewport.y, (int) glViewport.width, (int) glViewport.height); spriteBatch.setProjectionMatrix(camera.combined); camera.update(); spriteBatch.begin(); // Draw Map this.drawMap(); // spriteBatch.flush(); spriteBatch.end(); } private void drawMap() { for(int a = 0; a < map.getHeight(); a++) { // Bounds check (y) if(camera.position.y + camera.viewportHeight < a)// || camera.position.y - camera.viewportHeight > a) break; for(int b = 0; b < map.getWidth(); b++) { // Bounds check (x) if(camera.position.x + camera.viewportWidth < b)// || camera.position.x > b) break; // Dynamic rendering via BlockManager int id = map.getTileMap()[a][b]; Block block = BlockManager.map.get(id); if(block != null) // Check if Air { block.setPosition(b, a); spriteBatch.draw(block.getTexture(), b, a, 1 ,1); } } } } As you can see, I don't use the viewport anywhere. Not sure if I need it somewhere down the road. So, the map is 16384 blocks wide. One block is 16 pixels in size. One of my naive approaches was this: if(Gdx.input.isButtonPressed(Input.Buttons.LEFT)) { Vector3 mousePos = new Vector3(); mousePos.set(Gdx.input.getX(), Gdx.input.getY(), 0); camera.unproject(mousePos); System.out.println(Math.round(mousePos.x)); // *16); // Debugging // TODO: round // map.getTileMap()[mousePos.x][mousePos.y] = 2; // Draw at mouse position } I confused myself somewhere down the road I fear. What I want to do is, update the "block" (or rather the information in the Map/2D-Array) so that in the next render() there is another block. Basically drawing on the spriteBatch g So if anyone could point me in the right direction this would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

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Web Services Example - Part 1: Declarative

- by Denis T

In this edition of the ADF Mobile blog we'll tackle part 1 of our Web Service examples. In this posting we'll take a look at using a declarative SOAP Web Service. Getting the sample code: Just click here to download a zip of the entire project. You can unzip it and load it into JDeveloper and deploy it either to iOS or Android. Please follow the previous blog posts if you need help getting JDeveloper or ADF Mobile installed. Defining our Web Service: First off, we should mention that this sample code is using a public web service provided free by CDYNE Corporation that provides weather forecasts by zipcode. Sometimes this service goes down so please ensure you know it's up before reporting this example isn't working. Let's take a look at the web service. We created this by using the "Web Service Data Control" from the New Gallery and using this link to this wsdl: "http://wsf.cdyne.com/WeatherWS/Weather.asmx?WSDL" This web service has several methods but we're interested in GetCityForecastByZIP which takes a single string parameter for the zipcode and the second method, GetWeatherInformation that enumerates all possible forecast descriptions and associated image URLs. The latter we'll use in the next edition but we included it here for completeness. Defing the Application: After adding a feature to the adfmf-feature.xml file, we added a taskflow to host the application flow. This comprises of a home screen with a list with items for each method in the web service, "Forecast by Zip" and "Weather Info". In this application we've also decided to hide the navigation bar since there is only one feature in the application. Forecast by Zip: The "Forecast By ZIP" option first presents the user with a screen where they can enter a zipcode and when the "Search" button is tapped, it executes the GetCityForecastByZIP method. This is done by binding an Action binding to that method. The easiest way to accomplish this is to just drag & drop the method from the Data Control palette to the AMX page and drop it as a button and let the framework hook it up for you. There is an inputText component on the page that is bound to a pageFlowScope variable called "zip". This is used as the parameter to the Action binding when it is executed. Because the actionListener attribute of the commandButton executes the Web Service each time, we ensure that the method is invoked every time the button is clicked. Weather Info: Unlike the previous method, this time instead of explictly executing the web service method we are using deferred invocation. What this means is that we will bind to the results of the method and the framework will execute the method when it the data is required to be rendered. We do this by simply doing a drag & drop of the results of the GetWeatherInformation to the AMX page. When the page is rendered and the bindings are resolved the framework invokes the method. This executes the method only when it is needed and fills the Data Control provider. Because we never re-execute the method, you can click from Home to Weather Info and back many times and the web service is only ever invoked once. Issues and Possible Improvements: One thing you will quickly realize with this example is that the error handling is done by the framework for you. For simple examples this is fine but for real applications you'll want to customize these error messages. With the declarative invocation of web services, this is difficult. This is one aspect we'll address in the second installment of the web service examples where we will show you how to do programmatic invocation which allows you better error handling. Another issue you will notice with this example is that we can enumerate the weather information but there isn't an easy way to use that information to show the corresponding description and image as part of the forecast results. We'll show you how to do this in the next example.

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Improving the efficiency of frustum culling

- by DeadMG

I've got some code which performs frustum culling. However, this defines the "frustum" way too broadly- when I have ~10 objects on screen, the code returns 42 objects to be rendered. I've tried taking "slices" through the frustum to attempt to increase the accuracy of the technique, but it doesn't seem to have made much impact. I also significantly reduced the far plane, so that the objects are barely at the edge. Here's my code (where size is the size in screen space- the resolution of the client area of the window I'm rendering into). Any suggestions? auto&& size = GetDimensions(); D3DVIEWPORT9 vp = { 0, 0, size.x, size.y, 0, 1 }; D3DCALL(device->SetViewport(&vp)); static const int slices = 10; std::vector<Object*> result; for(int i = 0; i < slices; i++) { D3DXVECTOR3 WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints[8] = { D3DXVECTOR3(0, size.y, static_cast<float>(i) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(size.x, 0, static_cast<float>(i) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(size.x, size.y, static_cast<float>(i) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(0, 0, static_cast<float>(i) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(0, 0, static_cast<float>(i + 1) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(size.x, 0, static_cast<float>(i + 1) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(size.x, size.y, static_cast<float>(i + 1) / slices), D3DXVECTOR3(0, size.y, static_cast<float>(i + 1) / slices) }; D3DXMATRIXA16 Identity; D3DXMatrixIdentity(&Identity); D3DXVec3UnprojectArray( WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints, sizeof(D3DXVECTOR3), WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints, sizeof(D3DXVECTOR3), &vp, &Projection, &View, &Identity, 8 ); Math::AABB Frustrum; auto world_begin = std::begin(WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints); auto world_end = std::end(WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints); auto world_initial = WorldSpaceFrustrumPoints[0]; Frustrum.BottomLeftClosest.x = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.x < rhs.x ? lhs : rhs; }).x; Frustrum.BottomLeftClosest.y = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.y < rhs.y ? lhs : rhs; }).y; Frustrum.BottomLeftClosest.z = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.z < rhs.z ? lhs : rhs; }).z; Frustrum.TopRightFurthest.x = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.x > rhs.x ? lhs : rhs; }).x; Frustrum.TopRightFurthest.y = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.y > rhs.y ? lhs : rhs; }).y; Frustrum.TopRightFurthest.z = std::accumulate(world_begin, world_end, world_initial, [](D3DXVECTOR3 lhs, D3DXVECTOR3 rhs) { return lhs.z > rhs.z ? lhs : rhs; }).z; auto slices_result = ObjectTree.collision(Frustrum); result.insert(result.end(), slices_result.begin(), slices_result.end()); } return result;

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Managing software projects - advice needed

- by Callum

I work for a large government department as part of an IT team that manages and develops websites as well as stand alone web applications. We’re running in to problems somewhere in the SDLC that don’t rear their ugly head until time and budget are starting to run out. We try to be “Agile” (software specifications are not as thorough as possible, clients have direct access to the developers any time they want) and we are also in a reasonably peculiar position in that we are not allowed to make profit from the services we provide. We only service the divisions within our government department, and can only charge for the time and effort we actually put in to a project. So if we deliver a project that we have over-quoted on, we will only invoice for the actual time spent. Our software specifications are not as thorough as they could be, but they always include at a minimum: Wireframe mockups for every form view A data dictionary of all field inputs Descriptions of any business rules that affect the system Descriptions of the outputs I’m new to software management, but I’ve overseen enough software projects now to know that as soon as users start observing demos of the system, they start making a huge amount of requests like “Can we add a few more fields to this report.. can we redesign the look of this interface.. can we send an email at this part of the workflow.. can we take this button off this view.. can we make this function redirect to a different screen.. can we change some text on this screen… can we create a special account where someone can log in and get access to X… this report takes too long to run can it be optimised.. can we remove this step in the workflow… there’s got to be a better image we can put here…” etc etc etc. Some changes are tiny and can be implemented reasonably quickly.. but there could be up to 50-100 or so of such requests during the course of the SDLC. Other change requests are what clients claim they “just assumed would be part of the system” even if not explicitly spelled out in the spec. We are having a lot of difficulty managing this process. With no experienced software project managers in our team, we need to come up with a better way to both internally identify whether work being requested is “out of spec”, and be able to communicate this to a client in such a manner that they can understand why what they are asking for is “extra” work. We need a way to track this work and be transparent with it. In the spirit of Agile development where we are not spec'ing software systems in to the ground and back again before development begins, and bearing in mind that clients have access to any developer any time they want it, I am looking for some tips and pointers from experienced software project managers on how to handle this sort of "scope creep" problem, in tracking it, being transparent with it, and communicating it to clients such that they understand it. Happy to clarify anything as needed. I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to offer some advice. Thanks.

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A .NET Developers day with the iPad.

- by mbcrump

The Apple iPad is currently getting a lot of buzz because of the app store, the book store and of course iTunes. I had the chance to play with one and this is what I have learned about the device. Let’s get this out of the way first, the iPad is awesome. It is the device for media consumption and casual web browsing. But how does it measure up to those of us with .NET on our brains all days. Let’s find out… Main Screen – you can customize everything on this page. I guess I should replace that image with a C# or VS logo. Its pretty standard stuff if you have an iPhone. Programming Books If you have a subscription to Safari Books Online, then you are in luck, its very easy to read the books on the iPad. Just fire up Safari web browser and goto the Safari Books Online. The biggest benefit that I can see with the iPad is the ability to read books wherever and not have to worry about purchasing books that I already have the .PDF for. Below is a sample from Code Complete 2nd Edition. Below is a PDF of the ECMA-334 C# Language Specification. As you can see its very readable and you should have no problem reading actual code. Example of Code shown below: It is however easier to read the PDF and store them with a 3rd party PDF reader. I have seen several for .99 cents or less. You can however switch the screen to vertical to get more viewing space as shown below: I was disappointed with the iBooks application. I could not find a single .NET programming book anywhere. I was able to download the excellent sci-fi book “A memory of Wind” for free though. If I just overlooked them, then please email me with the names and titles. I couldn’t even find a technology category in the categories list. Web Surfing – Technical Sites Below is an example of my site in Safari. The code is very readable and the experience was identical to viewing it in Firefox. I tried multiple programming site and the pages looked great except those that used flash and of course it did not display on those pages. News Apps - Technical Content The standard NY Times and USA Today looked great, but the Technical Content was lacking. It would probably be better to use Google Reader for online technical news. YouTube Videos – Technical Content Since its YouTube, we already know that a lot of technical content exist and it plays great on the iPad. I watched several programming videos and could clearly see the code being written. Taking Technical Notes The iPad comes with a great notepad for taking notes. I found that it was easy to take notes regarding projects that I am currently working on. Calendar The calendar that ships with the iPad is great for organizing. You can setup exchange server or manually enter the information. Pretty standard stuff. Random Applications that I like: TweetDeck. and Adobe Ideas. Adobe Ideas is kinda like SketchFlow except you use your finger to mock up the sketches. Don’t forget that the iPad is great for any type of podcasting. That pretty much sums it up, I would definitely recommend this device as it will only get better. I believe the iOS4 comes out on the 24th and the iPad will only get more and more apps. You could save a few bucks by waiting for the 2nd generation, but that’s a call that only you can make.

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D’Arcy’s Book Club - The New Strategic Selling

- by D'Arcy Lussier

The New Strategic Selling Miller and Heiman Amazon.ca Amazon.com Chapters Everybody is a salesmen. Every day, without knowing it, we sell something to someone. Now, the typical vision people think of when they hear the word “sales” is the sleazy used car salesperson who does whatever they can to get you to buy the clunker on their lot. But selling is not an action tied to money and products. Selling is about convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. If you want your company to cover a trip to a conference, you may have to sell the idea to your boss. If you want to buy that new big screen TV, you have to sell the idea to your significant other. If you want to go on a weekend fishing trip with the boys you might be called in to help sell the idea to your buddies wife. We all sell, but we don’t all sell very well. So enter The New Strategic Selling, a book based on the sales course put on by the Miller-Heiman group. In fact, this isn’t really a “New” strategy to selling as its been around for a number of years. But the concepts they present, the ideas about selling, these are still very radical based on what most of us have experienced. Gone are the high pressure, win at all cost, GlenGarry-GlenRoss style of sales…instead the book presents a framework to switch to need-based selling. It’s the idea that instead of going in raving about a product or service, you build a relationship where the buyer expresses what their needs are and your response is to present a solution that best fits that need. Instead of focussing on the amount of money you can squeeze out of a client, you focus on whether everyone wins, that they receive win-results from the engagement, that repeat business is developed over time delivering value over and over again. The great thing about the book is that what it teaches…things like how to identify different buying influencers, how to prepare for meetings, techniques to solicit information about what the buyer is really thinking/feeling…these things are entirely applicable in *any* situation that you need to sell to someone…and remember: selling is convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. So that new big screen TV you want to buy but need to convince your wife on? This book can help you. That training opportunity you want your company to send you on? This book can help you. The upgrade to your community park that you want to lobby the local civic authorities for? This book can help you. The book is a bit wordy. I found that the length could have been reduced and the points still have gotten across. That’s really the only knock that I have though; the insight that it provides is so worthwhile that having to chew through extra words is well worth it. You definitely don’t have to be a professional salesperson to benefit from this book. Rating: 4/5

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Html.ValidationSummary and Multiple Forms

- by MightyZot

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/MightyZot/archive/2013/11/11/html.validationsummary-and-multiple-forms.aspxThe Html.ValidationSummary helper writes a div with a list of general errors added to the model state while a request is being serviced. There is generally one form per view or partial view, I think, so often there is only one call to Html.ValidationSummary in the page resulting from the assembly of your views. And, consequently, there is no problem with the markup that Html.ValidationSummary spits out as a result. What if you want to put multiple forms in one view? Even if you create a view model that’s an aggregate of the view models for each form, the error validation summary is going to contain errors from both forms. Check out this screen shot, which shows a page with multiple forms. Notice how the error validation summary shows up twice. Grrr! Errors for the login form also show up in the registration form. Luckily, there is an easy way around this. Pull the errors out of the model state and separate them for each form. You’ll need to identify the appropriate form by setting the key when you make calls to ModelState.AddModelError. Assume in my example that errors for the login form are added to model state using the “LoginForm” key. And, likewise, assume that errors for the registration form are added to model state using the “RegistrationForm” key. An example of that might look like this… // If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form ModelState.AddModelError("LoginForm", "User name or password is not right..."); return View(model); Over in the code for your View, you can pull each form’s errors from the model state using lambda expressions that look like these… var LoginFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "LoginForm"); var RegistrationFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "RegistrationForm"); Now that you have two collections containing errors, you can display only the errors specific to each form. I’m doing that in my code by removing the calls to Html.ValidationSummary and replacing them with enumerators that look like this… if(LoginFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list"> <ul> @foreach (var entry in LoginFormErrors) { foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors) { <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li> } } </ul> </div> } …and for the registration form, the code looks like this… @if(RegistrationFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list"> <ul> @foreach (var entry in RegistrationFormErrors) { foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors) { <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li> } } </ul> </div> } The result is a nice clean separation of the list of errors that are specific to each form. And, this is important because each form is submitted separately in my case, so both forms don’t generate errors in the same context. As you’ll see in the screen shot below, errors added to the model state when the login form is submitted do not show up in the registration form’s validation summary.

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Migrating VB6 to HTML5 is not a fiction - Customer success story

- by Webgui

All of you VB developers in the present or past would probably find it hard to believe that the old VB code can be migrated and modernized into the latest .NET based HTML5 without having to rewrite the application. But we have been working on such tools for the past couple of years and already have several real world applications that were fully 'transposed' from VB6. The solution is called Instant CloudMove and its main tool is called the TranspositionStudio. It is a unique solution that relies on the concept of transposition. Transposition comes from mathematics and music and refers to exchanging elements while everything else remains the same or moving an element as is from one environment to another. This means that we are taking the source code and put it in a modern technological environment with relatively few adjustments.The concept is based on a set of Mapping Expressions which are basically links between an element in the source environment and one in the target environment that has the same functionality. About 95% of the code is usually mapped out-of-the-box and the rest is handled with easy-to-use mapping tools designed for Visual Studio developers providing them with a familiar environment and concepts for completing the mapping and allowing them to extend and customize existing mapping expressions. The solution is also based on a circular workflow that enables developers to make any changes as required until the result is satisfying.As opposed to existing migration solutions that offer automation are usually a “black box” to the user, the transposition concept enables full visibility, flexibility and control over the code and process at all times allowing to also add/change functionalities or upgrade the UI within the process and tools.This is exactly the case with our customer’s aging VB6 PMS (Property Management System) which needed a technological update as well as a design refresh. The decision was to move the VB6 application which had about 1 million lines of code into the latest web technology. Since the application was initially written 13 years ago and had many upgrades since the code must be very patchy and includes unused sections. As a result, the company Mihshuv Group considered rewriting the entire application in Java since it already had the knowledge. Rewrite would allow starting with a clean slate and designing functionality, database architecture, UI without any constraints. On the other hand, rewrite entitles a long and detailed specification work as well as a thorough QA and this translates into a long project with high risk and costs.So the company looked for a migration solution as an alternative; the research lead to Gizmox and after examining the technology it was decided to perform a hybrid project which would include an automatic transposition of the core of the VB6 application (200,000 lines of code) while they redesigning the UI, adding new functionality, deleting unused code and rewriting about 140 reports with Crystal Reports will be done manually using Visual WebGui development tools.The migration part of the project was completed in 65 days by 3 developers from Mihshuv Group guided by Gizmox migration experts while the rewrite and UI upgrade tasks took about the same. So in only a few months period Mihshuv Group generated an up-to-date product, written in the latest Web technology with modern, friendly UI and improved functionality. Guest selection screen of the original VB6 PMS Guest selection screen on the new web–based PMS Compared to the initial plan to rewrite the entire application in Java, the hybrid migration/rewrite approach taken by Mihshuv Group using Gizmox technology proved as a great decision. In terms of time and cost there were substantial savings; from a project that was priced for at least a year (without taking into account the huge risk and uncertainty) it became a few months project only. More about this and other customer stories can be found here

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Problem with sprite direction and rotation

- by user2236165

I have a sprite called Tool that moves with a speed represented as a float and in a direction represented as a Vector2. When I click the mouse on the screen the sprite change its direction and starts to move towards the mouseclick. In addition to that I rotate the sprite so that it is facing in the direction it is heading. However, when I add a camera that is suppose to follow the sprite so that the sprite is always centered on the screen, the sprite won't move in the given direction and the rotation isn't accurate anymore. This only happens when I add the Camera.View in the spriteBatch.Begin(). I was hoping anyone could maybe shed a light on what I am missing in my code, that would be highly appreciated. Here is the camera class i use: public class Camera { private const float zoomUpperLimit = 1.5f; private const float zoomLowerLimit = 0.1f; private float _zoom; private Vector2 _pos; private int ViewportWidth, ViewportHeight; #region Properties public float Zoom { get { return _zoom; } set { _zoom = value; if (_zoom < zoomLowerLimit) _zoom = zoomLowerLimit; if (_zoom > zoomUpperLimit) _zoom = zoomUpperLimit; } } public Rectangle Viewport { get { int width = (int)((ViewportWidth / _zoom)); int height = (int)((ViewportHeight / _zoom)); return new Rectangle((int)(_pos.X - width / 2), (int)(_pos.Y - height / 2), width, height); } } public void Move(Vector2 amount) { _pos += amount; } public Vector2 Position { get { return _pos; } set { _pos = value; } } public Matrix View { get { return Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-_pos.X, -_pos.Y, 0)) * Matrix.CreateScale(new Vector3(Zoom, Zoom, 1)) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(ViewportWidth * 0.5f, ViewportHeight * 0.5f, 0)); } } #endregion public Camera(Viewport viewport, float initialZoom) { _zoom = initialZoom; _pos = Vector2.Zero; ViewportWidth = viewport.Width; ViewportHeight = viewport.Height; } } And here is my Update and Draw-method: protected override void Update (GameTime gameTime) { float elapsed = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; TouchCollection touchCollection = TouchPanel.GetState (); foreach (TouchLocation tl in touchCollection) { if (tl.State == TouchLocationState.Pressed || tl.State == TouchLocationState.Moved) { //direction the tool shall move towards direction = touchCollection [0].Position - toolPos; if (direction != Vector2.Zero) { direction.Normalize (); } //change the direction the tool is moving and find the rotationangle the texture must rotate to point in given direction toolPos += (direction * speed * elapsed); RotationAngle = (float)Math.Atan2 (direction.Y, direction.X); } } if (direction != Vector2.Zero) { direction.Normalize (); } //move tool in given direction toolPos += (direction * speed * elapsed); //change cameracentre to the tools position Camera.Position = toolPos; base.Update (gameTime); } protected override void Draw (GameTime gameTime) { graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear (Color.Blue); spriteBatch.Begin (SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend, null, null, null, null, Camera.View); spriteBatch.Draw (tool, new Vector2 (toolPos.X, toolPos.Y), null, Color.White, RotationAngle, originOfToolTexture, 1, SpriteEffects.None, 1); spriteBatch.End (); base.Draw (gameTime); }

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Java Dragging an object from one area to another [on hold]

- by user50369

Hello I have a game where you drag bits of food around the screen. I want to be able to click on an ingredient and drag it to another part of the screen where I release the mouse. I am new to java so I do not really know how to do this please help me Here is me code. This is the class with the mouse listeners in it: public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) { if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON1) { Comp.ml = true; // placing if (manager.title == true) { if (title.r.contains(Comp.mx, Comp.my)) { title.overview = true; } else if (title.r1.contains(Comp.mx, Comp.my)) { title.options = true; } else if (title.r2.contains(Comp.mx, Comp.my)) { System.exit(0); } } if (manager.option == true) { optionsMouse(e); } mouseinventory(e); } else if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON3) { Comp.mr = true; } } private void mouseinventory(MouseEvent e) { if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON1) { } else if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON1) { } } @Override public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) { if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON1) { Comp.ml = false; } else if (e.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON3) { Comp.mr = false; } } @Override public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) { for(int i = 0; i < overview.im.ing.toArray().length; i ++){ if(overview.im.ing.get(i).r.contains(Comp.mx,Comp.my)){ overview.im.ing.get(i).newx = Comp.mx; overview.im.ing.get(i).newy = Comp.my; overview.im.ing.get(i).dragged = true; }else{ overview.im.ing.get(i).dragged = false; } } } @Override public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) { Comp.mx = e.getX(); Comp.my = e.getY(); // System.out.println("" + Comp.my); } This is the class called ingredient public abstract class Ingrediant { public int x,y,id,lastx,lasty,newx,newy; public boolean removed = false,dragged = false; public int width; public int height; public Rectangle r = new Rectangle(x,y,width,height); public Ingrediant(){ r = new Rectangle(x,y,width,height); } public abstract void tick(); public abstract void render(Graphics g); } and this is a class which extends ingredient called hagleave public class HagLeave extends Ingrediant { private Image img; public HagLeave(int x, int y, int id) { this.x = x; this.y = y; this.newx = x; this.newy = y; this.id = id; width = 75; height = 75; r = new Rectangle(x,y,width,height); } public void tick() { r = new Rectangle(x,y,width,height); if(!dragged){ x = newx; y = newy; } } public void render(Graphics g) { ImageIcon i2 = new ImageIcon("res/ingrediants/hagleave.png"); img = i2.getImage(); g.drawImage(img, x, y, null); g.setColor(Color.red); g.drawRect(r.x, r.y, r.width, r.height); } } The arraylist is in a class called ingrediantManager: public class IngrediantsManager { public ArrayList<Ingrediant> ing = new ArrayList<Ingrediant>(); public IngrediantsManager(){ ing.add(new HagLeave(100,200,1)); ing.add(new PigHair(70,300,2)); ing.add(new GiantsToe(100,400,3)); } public void tick(){ for(int i = 0; i < ing.toArray().length; i ++){ ing.get(i).tick(); if(ing.get(i).removed){ ing.remove(i); i--; } } } public void render(Graphics g){ for(int i = 0; i < ing.toArray().length; i ++){ ing.get(i).render(g); } } }

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OpenGL Fast-Object Instancing Error

- by HJ Media Studios

I have some code that loops through a set of objects and renders instances of those objects. The list of objects that needs to be rendered is stored as a std::map, where an object of class MeshResource contains the vertices and indices with the actual data, and an object of classMeshRenderer defines the point in space the mesh is to be rendered at. My rendering code is as follows: glDisable(GL_BLEND); glEnable(GL_CULL_FACE); glDepthMask(GL_TRUE); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); for (std::map<MeshResource*, std::vector<MeshRenderer*> >::iterator it = renderables.begin(); it != renderables.end(); it++) { it->first->setupBeforeRendering(); cout << "<"; for (unsigned long i =0; i < it->second.size(); i++) { //Pass in an identity matrix to the vertex shader- used here only for debugging purposes; the real code correctly inputs any matrix. uniformizeModelMatrix(Matrix4::IDENTITY); /** * StartHere fix rendering problem. * Ruled out: * Vertex buffers correctly. * Index buffers correctly. * Matrices correct? */ it->first->render(); } it->first->cleanupAfterRendering(); } geometryPassShader->disable(); glDepthMask(GL_FALSE); glDisable(GL_CULL_FACE); glDisable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); The function in MeshResource that handles setting up the uniforms is as follows: void MeshResource::setupBeforeRendering() { glEnableVertexAttribArray(0); glEnableVertexAttribArray(1); glEnableVertexAttribArray(2); glEnableVertexAttribArray(3); glEnableVertexAttribArray(4); glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, iboID); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vboID); glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, sizeof(Vertex), 0); // Vertex position glVertexAttribPointer(1, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, sizeof(Vertex), (const GLvoid*) 12); // Vertex normal glVertexAttribPointer(2, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, sizeof(Vertex), (const GLvoid*) 24); // UV layer 0 glVertexAttribPointer(3, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, sizeof(Vertex), (const GLvoid*) 32); // Vertex color glVertexAttribPointer(4, 1, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, GL_FALSE, sizeof(Vertex), (const GLvoid*) 44); //Material index } The code that renders the object is this: void MeshResource::render() { glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLES, geometry->numIndices, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, 0); } And the code that cleans up is this: void MeshResource::cleanupAfterRendering() { glDisableVertexAttribArray(0); glDisableVertexAttribArray(1); glDisableVertexAttribArray(2); glDisableVertexAttribArray(3); glDisableVertexAttribArray(4); } The end result of this is that I get a black screen, although the end of my rendering pipeline after the rendering code (essentially just drawing axes and lines on the screen) works properly, so I'm fairly sure it's not an issue with the passing of uniforms. If, however, I change the code slightly so that the rendering code calls the setup immediately before rendering, like so: void MeshResource::render() { setupBeforeRendering(); glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLES, geometry->numIndices, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, 0); } The program works as desired. I don't want to have to do this, though, as my aim is to set up vertex, material, etc. data once per object type and then render each instance updating only the transformation information. The uniformizeModelMatrix works as follows: void RenderManager::uniformizeModelMatrix(Matrix4 matrix) { glBindBuffer(GL_UNIFORM_BUFFER, globalMatrixUBOID); glBufferSubData(GL_UNIFORM_BUFFER, 0, sizeof(Matrix4), matrix.ptr()); glBindBuffer(GL_UNIFORM_BUFFER, 0); }

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XNA WP7 Texture memory and ContentManager

- by jlongstreet

I'm trying to get my WP7 XNA game's memory under control and under the 90MB limit for submission. One target I identified was UI textures, especially fullscreen ones, that would never get unloaded. So I moved UI texture loads to their own ContentManager so I can unload them. However, this doesn't seem to affect the value of Microsoft.Phone.Info.DeviceExtendedProperties.GetValue("ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage"), so it doesn't look like the memory is actually being released. Example: splash screens. In Game.LoadContent(): Application.Instance.SetContentManager("UI"); // set the current content manager for (int i = 0; i < mSplashTextures.Length; ++i) { // load the splash textures mSplashTextures[i] = Application.Instance.Content.Load<Texture2D>(msSplashTextureNames[i]); } // set the content manager back to the global one Application.Instance.SetContentManager("Global"); When the initial load is done and the title screen starts, I do: Application.Instance.GetContentManager("UI").Unload(); The three textures take about 6.5 MB of memory. Before unloading the UI ContentManager, I see that ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage is at 34.29 MB. After unloading the ContentManager (and doing a full GC.Collect()), it's still at 34.29 MB. But after that, I load another fullscreen texture (for the title screen background) and memory usage still doesn't change. Could it be keeping the memory for these textures allocated and reusing it? edit: very simple test: protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); PrintMemUsage("Before texture load: "); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here red = this.Content.Load<Texture2D>("Untitled"); PrintMemUsage("After texture load: "); } private void PrintMemUsage(string tag) { Debug.WriteLine(tag + Microsoft.Phone.Info.DeviceExtendedProperties.GetValue("ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage")); } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here if (count++ == 100) { GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("Before CM unload: "); this.Content.Dispose(); GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("After CM unload: "); red = null; spriteBatch.Dispose(); GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("After SpriteBatch Dispose(): "); } base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); // TODO: Add your drawing code here if (red != null) { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(red, new Vector2(0,0), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } This prints something like (it changes every time): Before texture load: 7532544 After texture load: 10727424 Before CM unload: 9875456 After CM unload: 9953280 After SpriteBatch Dispose(): 9953280

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Cannot establish maximum resolution on ASUS PB278Q

- by dentuzhik

I've recently bought brand new ASUS PB278Q monitor. When trying to connect to my laptop, everything works great, except that I can't get the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) working. The automatic is 1920x1080. My graphic card is Nvidia GeForce 320m. Here's output from lspci for it: ~$ lspci | grep VGA 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216M [GeForce GT 320M] (rev a2) and also xrandr: ~$ xrandr Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3286 x 1437, maximum 8192 x 8192 VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) LVDS-0 connected primary 1366x768+0+669 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm 1366x768 60.0*+ HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 600mm x 340mm 1920x1080 60.0*+ 59.9 50.0 30.0 25.0 24.0 60.0 50.0 1680x1050 60.0 1440x900 59.9 1280x1024 75.0 60.0 1280x960 60.0 1280x800 59.8 1280x720 60.0 59.9 50.0 1152x864 75.0 1024x768 75.0 70.1 60.0 800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3 56.2 720x576 50.0 720x480 59.9 640x480 75.0 59.9 59.9 480x576 50.0 480x480 59.9 I have proprietary drivers installed on my machine, here's the info about the monitor from nvidia-settings (Actually I don't have enough reputation to post images, so here's the text): Chip Location: Internal Signal: TDMS Connection link: Single Native resolution: 2560x1440 Refresh rate: 60.00 Hz The monitor is connected to laptop via HDMI cable, and honestly I have no idea what version it is, and what version is my HDMI output of my graphics card. I tried to find how I can figure it out on the web, but had no luck. Also my video card has only VGA and HDMI outs so I can't test neither DVI-D cable nor DisplayPort. So apparently, there's some problem over there. At least I want to know exactly what's going on. I've tried to see if it a linux-specific problem, but windows also gave me the same resolution by default. What I've already tried: Connect through VGA (stupid one, of course it gave me 1920x1080). Checked two HDMI cables (not sure if they're the same or not, as mentioned above). Played around with xrandr and adding custom modes. Didn't help. Surfed for the info a lot on the web, but couldn't get appropriate results. Actually xrandr gives me the following: ~$ cvt 2560 1440 60 # 2560x1440 59.96 Hz (CVT 3.69M9) hsync: 89.52 kHz; pclk: 312.25 MHz Modeline "2560x1440_60.00" 312.25 2560 2752 3024 3488 1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync ~$ xrandr --newmode "2560x1440_60.00" 312.25 2560 2752 3024 3488 1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync ~$ xrandr Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3286 x 1437, maximum 8192 x 8192 VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) LVDS-0 connected 1366x768+0+669 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm 1366x768 60.0*+ HDMI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 600mm x 340mm 1920x1080 60.0*+ 59.9 50.0 30.0 25.0 24.0 60.0 50.0 1680x1050 60.0 1440x900 59.9 1280x1024 75.0 60.0 1280x960 60.0 1280x800 59.8 1280x720 60.0 59.9 50.0 1152x864 75.0 1024x768 75.0 70.1 60.0 800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3 56.2 720x576 50.0 720x480 59.9 640x480 75.0 59.9 59.9 480x576 50.0 480x480 59.9 2560x1440_60.00 (0x34f) 312.2MHz h: width 2560 start 2752 end 3024 total 3488 skew 0 clock 89.5KHz v: height 1440 start 1443 end 1448 total 1493 clock 60.0Hz ~$ xrandr --addmode HDMI-0 2560x1440_60.00 X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) Major opcode of failed request: 140 (RANDR) Minor opcode of failed request: 18 (RRAddOutputMode) Serial number of failed request: 29 Current serial number in output stream: 30 What I intend to do next: Try another HDMI cable? Try HDMI to DVI-D cable? Try HDMI to DisplayPort cable? Another type of adapters? VGA to DVI-D? Buy another laptop with another graphic card. Damn. My ideas pretty much end here. Any ideas? Any explanations why it isn't working are appreciated.

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CHAT ROOMs 7 by 6

- by user2939942

I am looking for chatroom on one page with 7 loggedin users and 6+rows for say 42 users.these users will keep on adding wthnew users.Need urgent help.A PRETTY UNUSUAL Q FOR MOST OF U.What is MORE REQ new features: Usernames are unique to users currently chatting You can see a "currently chatting" user list There are multiple rooms for chatting <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <title>Simpla Admin</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/reset.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/invalid.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/simpla.jquery.configuration.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/facebox.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/jquery.wysiwyg.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/jquery.datePicker.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="resources/scripts/jquery.date.js"></script> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="suggest3.js"></script><script language="javascript"> function popitappup4() { var aid=document.a.cid.value; var url="followup.php?id="+aid; alert(url); newwindow=window.open(url,'name','height=480,width=480, scrollbars=yes'); if (window.focus) {newwindow.focus()} return false; } </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="highslide-with-html.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="highslide.css" /> <script type="text/javascript"> hs.graphicsDir = 'graphics/'; hs.outlineType = 'rounded-white'; hs.wrapperClassName = 'draggable-header'; </script> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" href="css/chat.css" /> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" href="css/screen.css" /> </head> <body onload="fnew()"><div id="body-wrapper">  <div id="sidebar"> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" href="css/chat.css" /> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" href="css/screen.css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/chat.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> function fnew() { document.getElementById("psearch").focus(); } </script> <div id="sidebar-wrapper">  <h1 id="sidebar-title"><a href="#"></a></h1>  <a href="#"><img id="logo" src="resources/images/logo.png" alt="Simpla Admin logo" /></a>  <form name="frm" action="opd_view1.php"> <table width="240" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="210"><div align="right" style="font-size:22px; color:#FFFFFF"><b>OPD Search</b></div></td> <td width="30"><div align="right"></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right"> </td> <td align="right"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right"><div align="right"> <input type="text" name="psearch" id="psearch" class="text-input" style="width:45mm;" /> </div></td> <td align="right"><div align="right"></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><div align="right"></div></td> <td><div align="right"></div></td> </tr> </table> </form> <div id="profile-links"> <a href="welcome.php" title="Sign Out" style="font-size:16px" ><b> </b></a> <br /> <a href="sample.php" title="Chat">Chat</a> </div></div>  <div id="main-content">  <noscript>  </noscript> <div style="width:100%; height: 600px; overflow-x: scroll; scrollbar-arrow-color: blue; scrollbar-face-color: #e7e7e7; scrollbar-3dlight-color: #a0a0a0; scrollbar-darkshadow-color: #888888; background-color:#FFFFFF "> <ul class="shortcut-buttons-set">  <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drabhinit')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drabhinit</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drvarun')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drvarun</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('sameer')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>sameer</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drchetan')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drchetan</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neema')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neema</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drpriya')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drpriya</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drchhavi')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drchhavi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drsanjay')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drsanjay</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('ruchi')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>ruchi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drarchana')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drarchana</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drshraddha')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drshraddha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('sunita')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>sunita</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('reshma')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>reshma</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('riya')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>riya</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drritesh')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drritesh</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('rachana')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>rachana</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('sunita')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>sunita</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('kavye')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>kavye</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('paridhi')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>paridhi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('paridhi')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>paridhi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drsonika')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drsonika</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('anny')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>anny</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('nitansh')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>nitansh</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drekta')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drekta</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drritesh')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drritesh</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neeraj')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neeraj</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neeraj')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neeraj</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drneha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drneha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('kirti')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>kirti</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drratna')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drratna</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drratana')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drratana</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drnoopur')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drnoopur</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('admin k')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>admin k</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('web')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>web</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drarti')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drarti</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drsaqib')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drsaqib</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neelesh')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neelesh</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('pooja')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>pooja</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drneha')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drneha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drnupur')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drnupur</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('isha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>isha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('isha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>isha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drnamrata')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drnamrata</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('ashish')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>ashish</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('ambrish')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>ambrish</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drrashmi')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drrashmi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drsapna')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drsapna</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('manisha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>manisha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('Isha')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>Isha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drrashmi')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drrashmi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('Dr Meghna')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>Dr Meghna</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('akanksha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>akanksha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drashish')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drashish</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drpriya')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drpriya</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drnitya')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drnitya</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drmanoj')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drmanoj</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('sonali')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>sonali</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drkhushbu')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drkhushbu</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drpriyanka')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drpriyanka</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drabhishek')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drabhishek</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drpoonam')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drpoonam</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drprachi')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drprachi</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drpeenal')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drpeenal</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neerajpune')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neerajpune</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('paridhipune')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>paridhipune</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('faeem')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>faeem</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('rahul')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>rahul</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('DrNeha')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>DrNeha</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drmrigendra')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drmrigendra</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('neetu')" rel="modal" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>neetu</span></a></li> <li> <a class="shortcut-button" href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:chatWith('drriteshpawar')" rel="modal" style=" background-color:#00FF00" ><span><img src="resources/images/icons/comment_48.png" alt="icon" width="48" height="48" /> <br/>drriteshpawar</span></a></li> </ul> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/chat.js"></script>  <div class="clear"></div> <div class="clear"></div>

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Windows Phone 7 development: reading RSS feeds

- by DigiMortal

One limitation on Windows Phone 7 is related to System.Net namespace classes. There is no convenient way to read data from web. There is no WebClient class. There is no GetResponse() method – we have to do it all asynchronously because compact framework has limited set of classes we can use in our applications to communicate with internet. In this posting I will show you how to read RSS-feeds on Windows Phone 7. NB! This is my draft code and it may contain some design flaws and some questionable solutions. This code is intended to use as test-drive for Windows Phone 7 CTP developer tools and I don’t suppose you are going to use this code in production environment. Current state of my RSS-reader Currently my RSS-reader for Windows Phone 7 is very simple, primitive and uses almost all defaults that come out-of-box with Windows Phone 7 CTP developer tools. My first goal before going on with nicer user interface design was making RSS-reading work because instead of convenient classes from .NET Framework we have to use very limited classes from .NET Framework CE. This is why I took the reading of RSS-feeds as my first task. There are currently more things to solve regarding user-interface. As I am pretty new to all this Silverlight stuff I am not very sure if I can modify default controls easily or should I write my own controls that have better look and that work faster. The image on right shows you how my RSS-reader looks like right now. Upper side of screen is filled with list that shows headlines from this blog. The bottom part of screen is used to show description of selected posting. You can click on the image to see it in original size. In my next posting I will show you some improvements of my RSS-reader user interface that make it look nicer. But currently it is nice enough to make sure that RSS-feeds are read correctly. FeedItem class As this is most straight-forward part of the following code I will show you RSS-feed items class first. I think we have to stop on it because it is simple one. public class FeedItem { public string Title { get; set; } public string Description { get; set; } public DateTime PublishDate { get; set; } public List<string> Categories { get; set; } public string Link { get; set; } public FeedItem() { Categories = new List<string>(); } } RssClient RssClient takes feed URL and when asked it loads all items from feed and gives them back to caller through ItemsReceived event. Why it works this way? Because we can make responses only using asynchronous methods. I will show you in next section how to use this class. Although the code here is not very good but it works like expected. I will refactor this code later because it needs some more efforts and investigating. But let’s hope I find excellent solution. :) public class RssClient { private readonly string _rssUrl; public delegate void ItemsReceivedDelegate(RssClient client, IList<FeedItem> items); public event ItemsReceivedDelegate ItemsReceived; public RssClient(string rssUrl) { _rssUrl = rssUrl; } public void LoadItems() { var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(_rssUrl); var result = (IAsyncResult)request.BeginGetResponse(ResponseCallback, request); } void ResponseCallback(IAsyncResult result) { var request = (HttpWebRequest)result.AsyncState; var response = request.EndGetResponse(result); var stream = response.GetResponseStream(); var reader = XmlReader.Create(stream); var items = new List<FeedItem>(50); FeedItem item = null; var pointerMoved = false; while (!reader.EOF) { if (pointerMoved) { pointerMoved = false; } else { if (!reader.Read()) break; } var nodeName = reader.Name; var nodeType = reader.NodeType; if (nodeName == "item") { if (nodeType == XmlNodeType.Element) item = new FeedItem(); else if (nodeType == XmlNodeType.EndElement) if (item != null) { items.Add(item); item = null; } continue; } if (nodeType != XmlNodeType.Element) continue; if (item == null) continue; reader.MoveToContent(); var nodeValue = reader.ReadElementContentAsString(); // we just moved internal pointer pointerMoved = true; if (nodeName == "title") item.Title = nodeValue; else if (nodeName == "description") item.Description = Regex.Replace(nodeValue,@"<(.|\n)*?>",string.Empty); else if (nodeName == "feedburner:origLink") item.Link = nodeValue; else if (nodeName == "pubDate") { if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(nodeValue)) item.PublishDate = DateTime.Parse(nodeValue); } else if (nodeName == "category") item.Categories.Add(nodeValue); } if (ItemsReceived != null) ItemsReceived(this, items); } } This method is pretty long but it works. Now let’s try to use it in Windows Phone 7 application. Using RssClient And this is the fragment of code behing the main page of my application start screen. You can see how RssClient is initialized and how items are bound to list that shows them. public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); SupportedOrientations = SupportedPageOrientation.Portrait | SupportedPageOrientation.Landscape; listBox1.Width = Width; var rssClient = new RssClient("http://feedproxy.google.com/gunnarpeipman"); rssClient.ItemsReceived += new RssClient.ItemsReceivedDelegate(rssClient_ItemsReceived); rssClient.LoadItems(); } void rssClient_ItemsReceived(RssClient client, IList<FeedItem> items) { Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(delegate() { listBox1.ItemsSource = items; }); } Conclusion As you can see it was not very hard task to read RSS-feed and populate list with feed entries. Although we are not able to use more powerful classes that are part of full version on .NET Framework we can still live with limited set of classes that .NET Framework CE provides.

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jqgrid sample using array data, what am I missing

- by Dennis

Hello. I'm new in jqgrid, I'm just trying thes example to work. I have a html file only, nothing more. When I ran this file, array data is not showing. What am I missing here? Thanks in advance. <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>jqGrid Demos</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="lib/jquery-ui-1.7.1.custom.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="lib/ui.jqgrid.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="lib/ui.multiselect.css" /> <style type="text/css"> html, body { margin: 0; /* Remove body margin/padding */ padding: 0; overflow: hidden; /* Remove scroll bars on browser window */ font-size: 75%; } /*Splitter style */ #LeftPane { /* optional, initial splitbar position */ overflow: auto; } /* * Right-side element of the splitter. */ #RightPane { padding: 2px; overflow: auto; } .ui-tabs-nav li {position: relative;} .ui-tabs-selected a span {padding-right: 10px;} .ui-tabs-close {display: none;position: absolute;top: 3px;right: 0px;z-index: 800;width: 16px;height: 14px;font-size: 10px; font-style: normal;cursor: pointer;} .ui-tabs-selected .ui-tabs-close {display: block;} .ui-layout-west .ui-jqgrid tr.jqgrow td { border-bottom: 0px none;} .ui-datepicker {z-index:1200;} </style> <script src="lib/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/jquery-ui-1.7.2.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/jquery.layout.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/grid.locale-en.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/jquery.jqGrid.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/jquery.tablednd.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/jquery.contextmenu.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="lib/ui.multiselect.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // We use a document ready jquery function. jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery("#list").jqGrid({ datatype: "local", height: 250, colNames:['Inv No','Date', 'Client', 'Amount','Tax','Total', 'Notes'], colModel:[ {name:'id',index:'id', width:60, sorttype:"int"}, {name:'invdate',index:'invdate', width:90, sorttype:"date"}, {name:'name',index:'name', width:100}, {name:'amount',index:'amount', width:80, align:"right",sorttype:"float"}, {name:'tax',index:'tax', width:80, align:"right",sorttype:"float"}, {name:'total',index:'total', width:80,align:"right",sorttype:"float"}, {name:'note',index:'note', width:150, sortable:false} ], pager: '#pager', rowNum:10, rowList:[10,20,30], sortname: 'id', sortorder: 'desc', viewrecords: true, multiselect: true, imgpath: "lib/basic/images", caption: "Manipulating Array Data" }); }); var mydata = [ {id:"1",invdate:"2007-10-01",name:"test",note:"note",amount:"200.00",tax:"10.00",total:"210.00"}, {id:"2",invdate:"2007-10-02",name:"test2",note:"note2",amount:"300.00",tax:"20.00",total:"320.00"}, {id:"3",invdate:"2007-09-01",name:"test3",note:"note3",amount:"400.00",tax:"30.00",total:"430.00"}, {id:"4",invdate:"2007-10-04",name:"test",note:"note",amount:"200.00",tax:"10.00",total:"210.00"}, {id:"5",invdate:"2007-10-05",name:"test2",note:"note2",amount:"300.00",tax:"20.00",total:"320.00"}, {id:"6",invdate:"2007-09-06",name:"test3",note:"note3",amount:"400.00",tax:"30.00",total:"430.00"}, {id:"7",invdate:"2007-10-04",name:"test",note:"note",amount:"200.00",tax:"10.00",total:"210.00"}, {id:"8",invdate:"2007-10-03",name:"test2",note:"note2",amount:"300.00",tax:"20.00",total:"320.00"}, {id:"9",invdate:"2007-09-01",name:"test3",note:"note3",amount:"400.00",tax:"30.00",total:"430.00"} ]; for(var i=0;i<=mydata.length;i++) jQuery("#list").jqGrid('addRowData',i + 1, mydata1[i]); </script> </head> <body> <table id="list" class="scroll"></table> <div id="pager" class="scroll" style="text-align:center;"></div> </body>

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Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate 2010-Part 3

- by Tarun Arora

Welcome back once again, in Part 1 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I talked about why Performance Testing the application is important, the test tools available in Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 and various test rig topologies, in Part 2 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I discussed the details of web performance & load tests as well as why it’s important to follow a goal based pattern while performance testing your application. In part 3 I’ll be discussing Test Result Analysis, Test Result Drill through, Test Report Generation, Test Run Comparison, Asp.net Profiler and some closing thoughts. Test Results – I see some creepy worms! In Part 2 we put together a web performance test and a load test, lets run the test to see load test to see how the Web site responds to the load simulation. While the load test is running you will be able to see close to real time analysis in the Load Test Analyser window. You can use the Load Test Analyser to conduct load test analysis in three ways: Monitor a running load test - A condensed set of the performance counter data is maintained in memory. To prevent the results memory requirements from growing unbounded, up to 200 samples for each performance counter are maintained. This includes 100 evenly spaced samples that span the current elapsed time of the run and the most recent 100 samples. After the load test run is completed - The test controller spools all collected performance counter data to a database while the test is running. Additional data, such as timing details and error details, is loaded into the database when the test completes. The performance data for a completed test is loaded from the database and analysed by the Load Test Analyser. Below you can see a screen shot of the summary view, this provides key results in a format that is compact and easy to read. You can also print the load test summary, this is generated after the test has completed or been stopped. Analyse the load test results of a previously run load test – We’ll see this in the section where i discuss comparison between two test runs. The performance counters can be plotted on the graphs. You also have the option to highlight a selected part of the test and view details, drill down to the user activity chart where you can hover over to see more details of the test run. Generate Report => Test Run Comparisons The level of reports you can generate using the Load Test Analyser is astonishing. You have the option to create excel reports and conduct side by side analysis of two test results or to track trend analysis. The tools also allows you to export the graph data either to MS Excel or to a CSV file. You can view the ASP.NET profiler report to conduct further analysis as well. View Data and Diagnostic Attachments opens the Choose Diagnostic Data Adapter Attachment dialog box to select an adapter to analyse the result type. For example, you can select an IntelliTrace adapter, click OK and open the IntelliTrace summary for the test agent that was used in the load test. Compare results This creates a set of reports that compares the data from two load test results using tables and bar charts. I have taken these screen shots from the MSDN documentation, I would highly recommend exploring the wealth of knowledge available on MSDN. Leaving Thoughts While load testing the application with an excessive load for a longer duration of time, i managed to bring the IIS to its knees by piling up a huge queue of requests waiting to be processed. This clearly means that the IIS had run out of threads as all the threads were busy processing existing request, one easy way of fixing this is by increasing the default number of allocated threads, but this might escalate the problem. The better suggestion is to try and drill down to the actual root cause of the problem. When ever the garbage collection runs it stops processing any pages so all requests that come in during that period are queued up, but realistically the garbage collection completes in fraction of a a second. To understand this better lets look at the .net heap, it is divided into large heap and small heap, anything greater than 85kB in size will be allocated to the Large object heap, the Large object heap is non compacting and remember large objects are expensive to move around, so if you are allocating something in the large object heap, make sure that you really need it! The small object heap on the other hand is divided into generations, so all objects that are supposed to be short-lived are suppose to live in Gen-0 and the long living objects eventually move to Gen-2 as garbage collection goes through. As you can see in the picture below all < 85 KB size objects are first assigned to Gen-0, when Gen-0 fills up and a new object comes in and finds Gen-0 full, the garbage collection process is started, the process checks for all the dead objects and assigns them as the valid candidate for deletion to free up memory and promotes all the remaining objects in Gen-0 to Gen-1. So in the future when ever you clean up Gen-1 you have to clean up Gen-0 as well. When you fill up Gen – 0 again, all of Gen – 1 dead objects are drenched and rest are moved to Gen-2 and Gen-0 objects are moved to Gen-1 to free up Gen-0, but by this time your Garbage collection process has started to take much more time than it usually takes. Now as I mentioned earlier when garbage collection is being run all page requests that come in during that period are queued up. Does this explain why possibly page requests are getting queued up, apart from this it could also be the case that you are waiting for a long running database process to complete. Lets explore the heap a bit more… What is really a case of crisis is when the objects are living long enough to make it to Gen-2 and then dying, this is definitely a high cost operation. But sometimes you need objects in memory, for example when you cache data you hold on to the objects because you need to use them right across the user session, which is acceptable. But if you wanted to see what extreme caching can do to your server then write a simple application that chucks in a lot of data in cache, run a load test over it for about 10-15 minutes, forcing a lot of data in memory causing the heap to run out of memory. If you get to such a state where you start running out of memory the IIS as a mode of recovery restarts the worker process. It is great way to free up all your memory in the heap but this would clear the cache. The problem with this is if the customer had 10 items in their shopping basket and that data was stored in the application cache, the user basket will now be empty forcing them either to get frustrated and go to a competitor website or if the customer is really patient, give it another try! How can you address this, well two ways of addressing this; 1. Workaround – A x86 bit processor only allows a maximum of 4GB of RAM, this means the machine effectively has around 3.4 GB of RAM available, the OS needs about 1.5 GB of RAM to run efficiently, the IIS and .net framework also need their share of memory, leaving you a heap of around 800 MB to play with. Because Team builds by default build your application in ‘Compile as any mode’ it means the application is build such that it will run in x86 bit mode if run on a x86 bit processor and run in a x64 bit mode if run on a x64 but processor. The problem with this is not all applications are really x64 bit compatible specially if you are using com objects or external libraries. So, as a quick win if you compiled your application in x86 bit mode by changing the compile as any selection to compile as x86 in the team build, you will be able to run your application on a x64 bit machine in x86 bit mode (WOW – By running Windows on Windows) and what that means is, you could use 8GB+ worth of RAM, if you take away everything else your application will roughly get a heap size of at least 4 GB to play with, which is immense. If you need a heap size of more than 4 GB you have either build a software for NASA or there is something fundamentally wrong in your application. 2. Solution – Now that you have put a workaround in place the IIS will not restart the worker process that regularly, which means you can take a breather and start working to get to the root cause of this memory leak. But this begs a question “How do I Identify possible memory leaks in my application?” Well i won’t say that there is one single tool that can tell you where the memory leak is, but trust me, ‘Performance Profiling’ is a great start point, it definitely gets you started in the right direction, let’s have a look at how. Performance Wizard - Start the Performance Wizard and select Instrumentation, this lets you measure function call counts and timings. Before running the performance session right click the performance session settings and chose properties from the context menu to bring up the Performance session properties page and as shown in the screen shot below, check the check boxes in the group ‘.NET memory profiling collection’ namely ‘Collect .NET object allocation information’ and ‘Also collect the .NET Object lifetime information’. Now if you fire off the profiling session on your pages you will notice that the results allows you to view ‘Object Lifetime’ which shows you the number of objects that made it to Gen-0, Gen-1, Gen-2, Large heap, etc. Another great feature about the profile is that if your application has > 5% cases where objects die right after making to the Gen-2 storage a threshold alert is generated to alert you. Since you have the option to also view the most expensive methods and by capturing the IntelliTrace data you can drill in to narrow down to the line of code that is the root cause of the problem. Well now that we have seen how crucial memory management is and how easy Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 makes it for us to identify and reproduce the problem with the best of breed tools in the product. Caching One of the main ways to improve performance is Caching. Which basically means you tell the web server that instead of going to the database for each request you keep the data in the webserver and when the user asks for it you serve it from the webserver itself. BUT that can have consequences! Let’s look at some code, trust me caching code is not very intuitive, I define a cache key for almost all searches made through the common search page and cache the results. The approach works fine, first time i get the data from the database and second time data is served from the cache, significant performance improvement, EXCEPT when two users try to do the same operation and run into each other. But it is easy to handle this by adding the lock as you can see in the snippet below. So, as long as a user comes in and finds that the cache is empty, the user locks and starts to get the cache no more concurrency issues. But lets say you are processing 10 requests per second, by the time i have locked the operation to get the results from the database, 9 other users came in and found that the cache key is null so after i have come out and populated the cache they will still go in to get the results again. The application will still be faster because the next set of 10 users and so on would continue to get data from the cache. BUT if we added another null check after locking to build the cache and before actual call to the db then the 9 users who follow me would not make the extra trip to the database at all and that would really increase the performance, but didn’t i say that the code won’t be very intuitive, may be you should leave a comment you don’t want another developer to come in and think what a fresher why is he checking for the cache key null twice !!! The downside of caching is, you are storing the data outside of the database and the data could be wrong because the updates applied to the database would make the data cached at the web server out of sync. So, how do you invalidate the cache? Well if you only had one way of updating the data lets say only one entry point to the data update you can write some logic to say that every time new data is entered set the cache object to null. But this approach will not work as soon as you have several ways of feeding data to the system or your system is scaled out across a farm of web servers. The perfect solution to this is Micro Caching which means you cache the query for a set time duration and invalidate the cache after that set duration. The advantage is every time the user queries for that data with in the time span for which you have cached the results there are no calls made to the database and the data is served right from the server which makes the response immensely quick. Now figuring out the appropriate time span for which you micro cache the query results really depends on the application. Lets say your website gets 10 requests per second, if you retain the cache results for even 1 minute you will have immense performance gains. You would reduce 90% hits to the database for searching. Ever wondered why when you go to e-bookers.com or xpedia.com or yatra.com to book a flight and you click on the book button because the fare seems too exciting and you get an error message telling you that the fare is not valid any more. Yes, exactly => That is a cache failure! These travel sites or price compare engines are not going to hit the database every time you hit the compare button instead the results will be served from the cache, because the query results are micro cached, its a perfect trade-off, by micro caching the results the site gains 100% performance benefits but every once in a while annoys a customer because the fare has expired. But the trade off works in the favour of these sites as they are still able to process up to 30+ page requests per second which means cater to the site traffic by may be losing 1 customer every once in a while to a competitor who is also using a similar caching technique what are the odds that the user will not come back to their site sooner or later? Recap Resources Below are some Key resource you might like to review. I would highly recommend the documentation, walkthroughs and videos available on MSDN. You can always make use of Fiddler to debug Web Performance Tests. Some community test extensions and plug ins available on Codeplex might also be of interest to you. The Road Ahead Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post, you may also want to read Part I and Part II if you haven’t so far. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Questions/Feedback/Suggestions, etc please leave a comment. Next ‘Load Testing in the cloud’, I’ll be working on exploring the possibilities of running Test controller/Agents in the Cloud. See you on the other side! Thank You! Share this post : CodeProject

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Continuous Integration for SQL Server Part II – Integration Testing

- by Ben Rees

My previous post, on setting up Continuous Integration for SQL Server databases using GitHub, Bamboo and Red Gate’s tools, covered the first two parts of a simple Database Continuous Delivery process: Putting your database in to a source control system, and, Running a continuous integration process, each time changes are checked in. However there is, of course, a lot more to to Continuous Delivery than that. Specifically, in addition to the above: Putting some actual integration tests in to the CI process (otherwise, they don’t really do much, do they!?), Deploying the database changes with a managed, automated approach, Monitoring what you’ve just put live, to make sure you haven’t broken anything. This post will detail how to set up a very simple pipeline for implementing the first of these (continuous integration testing). NB: A lot of the setup in this post is built on top of the configuration from before, so it might be difficult to implement this post without running through part I first. There’ll then be a third post on automated database deployment followed by a final post dealing with the last item – monitoring changes on the live system. In the previous post, I used a mixture of Red Gate products and other 3rd party software – GitHub and Atlassian Bamboo specifically. This was partly because I believe most people work in an heterogeneous environment, using software from different vendors to suit their purposes and I wanted to show how this could work for this process. For example, you could easily substitute Atlassian’s BitBucket or Stash for GitHub, depending on your needs, or use an alternative CI server such as TeamCity, TFS or Jenkins. However, in this, post, I’ll be mostly using Red Gate products only (other than tSQLt). I would do this, firstly because I work for Red Gate. However, I also think that in the area of Database Delivery processes, nobody else has the offerings to implement this process fully – so I didn’t have any choice! Background on Continuous Delivery For me, a great source of information on what makes a proper Continuous Delivery process is the Jez Humble and David Farley classic: Continuous Delivery – Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation This book is not of course, primarily about databases, and the process I outline here and in the previous article is a gross simplification of what Jez and David describe (not least because it’s that much harder for databases!). However, a lot of the principles that they describe can be equally applied to database development and, I would argue, should be. As I say however, what I describe here is a very simple version of what would be required for a full production process. A couple of useful resources on handling some of these complexities can be found in the following two references: Refactoring Databases – Evolutionary Database Design, by Scott J Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage Versioning Databases – Branching and Merging, by Scott Allen In particular, I don’t deal at all with the issues of multiple branches and merging of those branches, an issue made particularly acute by the use of GitHub. The other point worth making is that, in the words of Martin Fowler: Continuous Delivery is about keeping your application in a state where it is always able to deploy into production. I.e. we are not talking about continuously delivery updates to the production database every time someone checks in an amendment to a stored procedure. That is possible (and what Martin calls Continuous Deployment). However, again, that’s more than I describe in this article. And I doubt I need to remind DBAs or Developers to Proceed with Caution! Integration Testing Back to something practical. The next stage, building on our set up from the previous article, is to add in some integration tests to the process. As I say, the CI process, though interesting, isn’t enormously useful without some sort of test process running. For this we’ll use the tSQLt framework, an open source framework designed specifically for running SQL Server tests. tSQLt is part of Red Gate’s SQL Test found on http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ or can be downloaded separately from www.tsqlt.org - though I’ll provide a step-by-step guide below for setting this up. Getting tSQLt set up via SQL Test Click on the link http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ and click on the blue Download button to download the Red Gate SQL Test product, if not already installed. Follow the install process for SQL Test to install the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) plugin on to your machine, if not already installed. Open SSMS. You should now see SQL Test under the Tools menu: Clicking this link will give you the basic SQL Test dialogue: As yet, though we’ve installed the SQL Test product we haven’t yet installed the tSQLt test framework on to any particular database. To do this, we need to add our RedGateApp database using this dialogue, by clicking on the + Add Database to SQL Test… link, selecting the RedGateApp database and clicking the Add Database link: In the next screen, SQL Test describes what will be installed on the database for the tSQLt framework. Also in this dialogue, uncheck the “Add SQL Cop tests” option (shown below). SQL Cop is a great set of pre-defined tests that work within the tSQLt framework to check the general health of your SQL Server database. However, we won’t be using them in this particular simple example: Once you’ve clicked on the OK button, the changes described in the dialogue will be made to your database. Some of these are shown in the left-hand-side below: We’ve now installed the framework. However, we haven’t actually created any tests, so this will be the next step. But, before we proceed, we’ve made an update to our database so should, again check this in to source control, adding comments as required: Also worth a quick check that your build still runs with the new additions!: (And a quick check of the RedGateAppCI database shows that the changes have been made). Creating and Testing a Unit Test There are, of course, a lot of very interesting unit tests that you could and should set up for a database. The great thing about the tSQLt framework is that you can write these in SQL. The example I’m going to use here is pretty Mickey Mouse – our database table is going to include some email addresses as reference data and I want to check whether these are all in a correct email format. Nothing clever but it illustrates the process and hopefully shows the method by which more interesting tests could be set up. Adding Reference Data to our Database To start, I want to add some reference data to my database, and have this source controlled (as well as the schema). First of all I need to add some data in to my solitary table – this can be done a number of ways, but I’ll do this in SSMS for simplicity: I then add some reference data to my table: Currently this reference data just exists in the database. For proper integration testing, this needs to form part of the source-controlled version of the database – and so needs to be added to the Git repository. This can be done via SQL Source Control, though first a Primary Key needs to be added to the table. Right click the table, select Design, then right-click on the first “id” row. Then click on “Set Primary Key”: NB: once this change is made, click Save to save the change to the table. Then, to source control this reference data, right click on the table (dbo.Email) and selecting the following option: In the next screen, link the data in the Email table, by selecting it from the list and clicking “save and close”: We should at this point re-commit the changes (both the addition of the Primary Key, and the data) to the Git repo. NB: From here on, I won’t show screenshots for the GitHub side of things – it’s the same each time: whenever a change is made in SQL Source Control and committed to your local folder, you then need to sync this in the GitHub Windows client (as this is where the build server, Bamboo is taking it from). An interesting point to note here, when these changes are committed in SQL Source Control (right-click database and select “Commit Changes to Source Control..”): The display gives a warning about possibly needing a migration script for the “Add Primary Key” step of the changes. This isn’t actually necessary in this case, but this mechanism would allow you to create override scripts to replace the default change scripts created by the SQL Compare engine (which runs underneath SQL Source Control). Ignoring this message (!), we add a comment and commit the changes to Git. I then sync these, run a build (or the build gets run automatically), and check that the data is being deployed over to the target RedGateAppCI database: Creating and Running the Test As I mention, the test I’m going to use here is a very simple one - are the email addresses in my reference table valid? This isn’t of course, a full test of email validation (I expect the email addresses I’ve chosen here aren’t really the those of the Fab Four) – but just a very basic check of format used. I’ve taken the relevant SQL from this Stack Overflow article. In SSMS select “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click on + New Test: In the next screen, give your new test a name, and also enter a name in the Test Class box (test classes are schemas that help you keep things organised). Also check that the database in which the test is going to be created is correct – RedGateApp in this example: Click “Create Test”. After closing a couple of subsequent dialogues, you’ll see a dummy script for the test, that needs filling in: We now need to define the SQL for our test. As mentioned before, tSQLt allows you to write your unit tests in T-SQL, and the code I’m going to use here is as below. This needs to be copied and pasted in to the query window, to replace the default given by tSQLt: – Basic email check test ALTER PROCEDURE [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] AS BEGIN SET NOCOUNT ON Declare @Output VarChar(max) Set @Output = ” SELECT @Output = @Output + Email +Char(13) + Char(10) FROM dbo.Email WHERE email NOT LIKE ‘%_@__%.__%’ If @Output > ” Begin Set @Output = Char(13) + Char(10) + @Output EXEC tSQLt.Fail@Output End END; Once this script is entered, hit execute to add the Stored Procedure to the database. Before committing the test to source control, it’s worth just checking that it works! For a positive test, click on “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click Run Tests. You should see output like the following: - a green tick to indicate success! But of course, what we also need to do is test that this is actually doing something by showing a failed test. Edit one of the email addresses in your table to an incorrect format: Now, re-run the same SQL Test as before and you’ll see the following: Great – we now know that our test is really doing something! You’ll also see a useful error message at the bottom of SSMS: (leave the email address as invalid for now, for the next steps). The next stage is to check this new test in to source control again, by right-clicking on the database and checking in the changes with a commit message (and not forgetting to sync in the GitHub client): Checking that the Tests are Running as Integration Tests After the changes above are made, and after a build has run on Bamboo (manual or automatic), looking at the Stored Procedures for the RedGateAppCI, the SPROC for the new test has been moved over to the database. However this is not exactly what we were after. We didn’t want to just copy objects from one database to another, but actually run the tests as part of the build/integration test process. I.e. we’re continuously checking any changes we make (in this case, to the reference data emails), to ensure we’re not breaking a test that we’ve set up. The behaviour we want to see is that, if we check in static data that is incorrect (as we did in step 9 above) and we have the tSQLt test set up, then our build in Bamboo should fail. However, re-running the build shows the following: - sadly, a successful build! To make sure the tSQLt tests are run as part of the integration test, we need to amend a switch in the Red Gate CI config file. First, navigate to file sqlCI.targets in your working folder: Edit this document, make the following change, save the document, then commit and sync this change in the GitHub client:    <enableTsqlt>true</enableTsqlt> Now, if we re-run the build in Bamboo (NB: I’ve moved to a new server here, hence different address and build number): - superb, a broken build!! The error message isn’t great here, so to get more detailed info, click on the full build log link on this page (below the fold). The interesting part of the log shown is towards the bottom. Pulling out this part: 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 Build FAILED. 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 "C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj" (default target) (1) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 (sqlCI target) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: RedGate.Deploy.SqlServerDbPackage.Shared.Exceptions.InvalidSqlException: Test Case Summary: 1 test case(s) executed, 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 errored. [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] failed: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: ringo.starr@beatles [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: +----------------------+ [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: |Test Execution Summary| [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] As a final check, we should make sure that, if we now fix this error, the build succeeds. So in SSMS, I’m going to correct the invalid email address, then check this change in to SQL Source Control (with a comment), commit to GitHub, and re-run the build: This should have fixed the build: It worked! Summary This has been a very quick run through the implementation of CI for databases, including tSQLt tests to test whether your database updates are working. The next post in this series will focus on automated deployment – we’ve tested our database changes, how can we now deploy these to target sites?

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