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  • Using my custom colormap in Java for images

    - by John
    Hi everyone! I've got a question concering a colormapping via index. I tried this code found on http://www.podgoretsky.pri.ee/ftp/Docs/Java/Tricks%20of%20the%20Java%20Programming%20Gurus/ch12.htm // Gradient.java // Imports import java.applet.Applet; import java.awt.; import java.awt.image.; public class Gradient extends Applet { final int colors = 32; final int width = 200; final int height = 200; Image img; public void init() { // Create the color map byte[] rbmap = new byte[colors]; byte[] gmap = new byte[colors]; for (int i = 0; i < colors; i++) gmap[i] = (byte)((i * 255) / (colors - 1)); // Create the color model int bits = (int)Math.ceil(Math.log(colors) / Math.log(2)); IndexColorModel model = new IndexColorModel(bits, colors, rbmap, gmap, rbmap); // Create the pixels int pixels[] = new int[width * height]; int index = 0; for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) pixels[index++] = (x * colors) / width; // Create the image img = createImage(new MemoryImageSource(width, height, model, pixels, 0, width)); } public void paint(Graphics g) { g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, this); } } It worked great but I tried to load a custom image jpeg mapped on my own colormap but it didnt work right. I saw only a bunch of green and blue pixels drawn on a white background. My custom color map method here: public void inintByteArrays() { double[][] c = // basic color map { { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.5625 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.6250 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.6875 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.6875 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.7500 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.8125 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.8750 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.9375 }, { 0.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.0625, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.1250, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.1875, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.2500, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.3125, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.3750, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.4375, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.5000, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.5625, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.6250, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.6875, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.7500, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.8125, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.8750, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 0.9375, 1.0000 }, { 0.0000, 1.0000, 1.0000 }, { 0.0625, 1.0000, 0.9375 }, { 0.1250, 1.0000, 0.8750 }, { 0.1875, 1.0000, 0.8125 }, { 0.2500, 1.0000, 0.7500 }, { 0.3125, 1.0000, 0.6875 }, { 0.3750, 1.0000, 0.6250 }, { 0.4375, 1.0000, 0.5625 }, { 0.5000, 1.0000, 0.5000 }, { 0.5625, 1.0000, 0.4375 }, { 0.6250, 1.0000, 0.3750 }, { 0.6875, 1.0000, 0.3125 }, { 0.7500, 1.0000, 0.2500 }, { 0.8125, 1.0000, 0.1875 }, { 0.8750, 1.0000, 0.1250 }, { 0.9375, 1.0000, 0.0625 }, { 1.0000, 1.0000, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.9375, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.8750, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.8125, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.7500, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.6875, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.6250, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.5625, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.5000, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.4375, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.3750, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.3125, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.2500, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.1875, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.1250, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.0625, 0.0000 }, { 1.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.9375, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.8750, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.8125, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.7500, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.6875, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.6250, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.5625, 0.0000, 0.0000 }, { 0.5000, 0.0000, 0.0000 } }; for (int i = 0; i < c.length; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < c[i].length; j++) { if (j == 0) r[i] = (byte) ((byte) c[i][j]*255); if (j == 1) g[i] = (byte) ((byte) c[i][j]*255); if (j == 2) b[i] = (byte) ((byte) c[i][j]*255); } } My question is how I can use my colormap for any image I want to load and map in the right way. Thank you very much! Greetings, protein1.

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  • Planning to create PDF files in Ruby on Rails

    - by deau
    Hi there, A Ruby on Rails app will have access to a number of images and fonts. The images are components of a visual layout which will be stored separately as a set of rules. The rules specify document dimensions along with which images are used and where. The app needs to take these rules, fetch the images, and generate a PDF that is ready for local printing or emailing. The fonts will also be important. The user needs to customize the layout by inputting text which will be included in the PDF. The PDF must therefore also contain the desired font so that the document renders identically across different machines. Each PDF may have many pages. Each page may have different dimensions but this is not essential. Either way, the ability to manipulate the dimensions and margins given by the PDF is essential. The only thing that needs to be regularly changed is the text. If this is takes too much development then the app can store the layouts in 3rd party PDFs and edit the textual content directly. Eventually though, this will prove too restrictive on the apps intended functionality so I would prefer the app to generate the PDF's itself. I have never worked with PDFs before and, for the most part, I've never had to output anything to the user outside their monitor. A printed medium could require a very different approach to get the best results. If anyone has any advice on how to model the PDF format this it would be really appreciated. The technical aspects of printing such as bleed, resolution and colour have already been factored in to the layouts and images. I am aware that PDF is a proprietary file format and I want to use free or open source software. I have seen a number of Ruby libraries for generating PDF files but because I am new on this scene I have no way to reliably compare them and too little time to implement and test them all. I also have the option of using C to handle this feature and if this is process intensive then that might be preferred. What should I be thinking about and how should I be planning to implement this?

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  • ob_start() -> ob_flush() doesn't work

    - by MB34
    I am using ob_start()/ob_flush() to, hopefully, give me some progress during a long import operation. Here is a simple outline of what I'm doing: <?php ob_start (); echo "Connecting to download Inventory file.<br>"; $conn = ftp_connect($ftp_site) or die("Could not connect"); echo "Logging into site download Inventory file.<br>"; ftp_login($conn,$ftp_username,$ftp_password) or die("Bad login credentials for ". $ftp_site); echo "Changing directory on download Inventory file.<br>"; ftp_chdir($conn,"INV") or die("could not change directory to INV"); // connection, local, remote, type, resume $localname = "INV"."_".date("m")."_".date('d').".csv"; echo "Downloading Inventory file to:".$localname."<br>"; ob_flush(); flush(); sleep(5); if (ftp_get($conn,$localname,"INV.csv",FTP_ASCII)) { echo "New Inventory File Downloaded<br>"; $datapath = $localname; ftp_close($conn); } else { ftp_close($conn); die("There was a problem downloading the Inventory file."); } ob_flush(); flush(); sleep(5); $csvfile = fopen($datapath, "r"); // open csv file $x = 1; // skip the header line $line = fgetcsv($csvfile); $y = (feof($csvfile) ? 2 : 5); while ((!$debug) ? (!feof($csvfile)) : $x <= $y) { $x++; $line = fgetcsv($csvfile); // do a lot of import stuff here with $line ob_flush(); flush(); sleep(1); } fclose($csvfile); // important: close the file ob_end_clean(); However, nothing is being output to the screen at all. I know the data file is getting downloaded because I watch the directory where it is being placed. I also know that the import is happening, meaning that it is in the while loop, because I can monitor the DB and records are being inserted. Any ideas as to why I am not getting output to the screen?

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  • How to organize pictures on website using css? [on hold]

    - by user3624023
    Here is my website without any CSS: http://www.wmcicompsci.ca/cs20/students/theglowcloud/Bare%20bones%20website/classics_bare.html I am new to CSS and I would like to organize pictures these pictures in this fashion: http://css-tricks.com/examples/SlideinCaptions/ I would just like this layout for the pictures but I do not need the sliding of the captions(although I would like to but it does not work my browser). I would like the captions to be like titles on top of the pictures. Here is my current html code: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> My favourite Fantasy books</title> <meta charset = "utf-8"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css.css"> </head> <body> <nav id="main_nav"> <ul> <li><a href = " homepage_css.html"> Homepage</a></li> <li><a href="science_fiction_css.html">Science Fiction</a></li> <li><a href="classics_css.html">Classics</a></li> <li><a href="fantasy_css.html">Fantasy</a></li> </ul> </nav> <h1> Fantasy Genre</h1> <p> Here are my favourites:</p> <ul> <li> Goblet of Fire by J.K Rowling (4th book in the Harry Potter Series) </li> <li><img class= displayed src="pics/fantasy/goblet_of_fire.jpg" width="200" alt="Goblet of Fire book cover"></li> <li> Graceling by Kristan Cashore </li> <li><img src="pics/fantasy/graceling.jpg" width="200" alt = " Graceling book cover"></li> <li> Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan (3rd book in the Kane Chronicles) </li> <li><img src="pics/fantasy/serpents_shadow.jpg" width="200" alt="Serpent's Shadow book cover"></li> <li> The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein </li> <li><img src="pics/fantasy/the_hobbit.jpg" width="200" alt="The Hobbit book cover"></li> <li> The False Prince by Jennifer Neilson (1st book in the Ascendance Triology) </li> <li><img src="pics/fantasy/the_false_prince.jpg" width="200" alt="The False Prince book cover"></li> </ul>

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  • Where can I find "canonical" sample programs that give quick refreshers for any given language? [on hold]

    - by acheong87
    Note to those close-voting this question: I understand this isn't a conventional programming question and I can agree with the reasoning that it's in the subjective domain (like best-of lists). In other ways though I think it's appropriate because, though it's not a "a specific programming problem," nor concerning "a software algorithm", nor (strictly) concerning "software tools commonly used by programmers", I think it is a "practical, answerable [problem that is] unique to the programming profession," and I think it is "based on an actual [problem I] face." I've been wanting this for some time now, because both approaches of (a) Googling for samples as I write every other line of code and (b) just winging it and seeing what errors crop up, distract me from coding efficiently. This note will be removed if the question gains popularity; this question will be deleted otherwise. I spend most of my time developing in C++, PHP, or Javascript, and every once in a while I have to do something in, say, VBA. In those times, it'd be convenient if I could just put up some sample code on a second monitor, something in between a cheat sheet (often too compact; and doesn't resemble anything that could actually compile/run), and a language reference (often too verbose, or segmented; requires extra steps to search or click through an index), so I can just glance at it and recall things, like how to loop through non-empty cells in a column. I think there's a hidden benefit to seeing formed code, that triggers the right spots in our brains to get back into a language we only need to brush up on. Similar in spirit is how http://ideone.com lets you click "Template" in any given language so you can get started without even doing a search. That template alone tells a lot, sometimes! Case-sensitivity, whitespace conventions, identifier conventions, the spelling of certain types, etc. I couldn't find a resource that pulled together such samples, so if there indeed doesn't exist such a repository, I was hoping this question would inspire professionals and experts to contribute links to the most useful sample code they've used for just this purpose: a keep-on-the-side, form-as-well-as-content, compilable/executable, reminder of a language's basic and oft-used features. Personally I am interested in seeing "samplers" for: VBA, Perl, Python, Java, C# (though for some of these autocompleters in Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc. help enough), awk, and sed. I'm tagging c++, php, and javascript because these are languages for which I'd best be able to evaluate whether proffered sample code matches what I had in mind.

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  • Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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  • Oracle Enhances Oracle Social Cloud with Next-Generation User Experience

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Today’s enterprise must meet the technology standards of today’s consumer. According to a recent IDG Enterprise report, enterprises that invest in consumerized, easy-to-use technologies experience a 56 percent increase in employee productivity and a 46 percent increase in customer satisfaction. In order to deliver that simple and intuitive experience across even the most advanced social management capabilities, Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. With Social Station, users benefit from a personalized and intuitive user experience that helps increase both the productivity and performance of social business practices. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} News Facts Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform that helps organizations socially enable the way they do business. With an advanced yet intuitive user interface, Social Station delivers a compelling user experience that improves productivity and helps users more easily deliver on social objectives. To help users quickly and easily build out and configure their social workspaces, Social Station provides drag-and-drop capabilities that allow users to personalize their workspace with different social modules. With a new Custom Analytics module that mixes and matches more than 120 metrics with thousands of customizable reporting options, users can customize their view of social data and access constantly refreshed updates that support real-time understanding. One-click sharing capabilities and annotation functionality within the new Custom Analytics module also drives productivity by improving sharing and collaboration across teams, departments, and executives. Multiview layout capabilities further allows visibility into social insights by offering users the flexibility to monitor conversations by network, stream, metric, graph type, date range, and relative time period. Social Station also includes an Enhanced Calendar module that provides a clear visual representation of content, posts, networks, and views, helping users easily and efficiently understand information and toggle between various functions and views. To support different user personas and social business needs, Oracle plans to continue building out Social Station with additional modules, including content curation, influencer engagement, and command center creation. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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  • Using a WPF ListView as a DataGrid

    - by psheriff
    Many people like to view data in a grid format of rows and columns. WPF did not come with a data grid control that automatically creates rows and columns for you based on the object you pass it. However, the WPF Toolkit can be downloaded from CodePlex.com that does contain a DataGrid control. This DataGrid gives you the ability to pass it a DataTable or a Collection class and it will automatically figure out the columns or properties and create all the columns for you and display the data.The DataGrid control also supports editing and many other features that you might not always need. This means that the DataGrid does take a little more time to render the data. If you want to just display data (see Figure 1) in a grid format, then a ListView works quite well for this task. Of course, you will need to create the columns for the ListView, but with just a little generic code, you can create the columns on the fly just like the WPF Toolkit’s DataGrid. Figure 1: A List of Data using a ListView A Simple ListView ControlThe XAML below is what you would use to create the ListView shown in Figure 1. However, the problem with using XAML is you have to pre-define the columns. You cannot re-use this ListView except for “Product” data. <ListView x:Name="lstData"          ItemsSource="{Binding}">  <ListView.View>    <GridView>      <GridViewColumn Header="Product ID"                      Width="Auto"               DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=ProductId}" />      <GridViewColumn Header="Product Name"                      Width="Auto"               DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=ProductName}" />      <GridViewColumn Header="Price"                      Width="Auto"               DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Price}" />    </GridView>  </ListView.View></ListView> So, instead of creating the GridViewColumn’s in XAML, let’s learn to create them in code to create any amount of columns in a ListView. Create GridViewColumn’s From Data TableTo display multiple columns in a ListView control you need to set its View property to a GridView collection object. You add GridViewColumn objects to the GridView collection and assign the GridView to the View property. Each GridViewColumn object needs to be bound to a column or property name of the object that the ListView will be bound to. An ADO.NET DataTable object contains a collection of columns, and these columns have a ColumnName property which you use to bind to the GridViewColumn objects. Listing 1 shows a sample of reading and XML file into a DataSet object. After reading the data a GridView object is created. You can then loop through the DataTable columns collection and create a GridViewColumn object for each column in the DataTable. Notice the DisplayMemberBinding property is set to a new Binding to the ColumnName in the DataTable. C#private void FirstSample(){  // Read the data  DataSet ds = new DataSet();  ds.ReadXml(GetCurrentDirectory() + @"\Xml\Product.xml");    // Create the GridView  GridView gv = new GridView();   // Create the GridView Columns  foreach (DataColumn item in ds.Tables[0].Columns)  {    GridViewColumn gvc = new GridViewColumn();    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.ColumnName);    gvc.Header = item.ColumnName;    gvc.Width = Double.NaN;    gv.Columns.Add(gvc);  }   // Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = gv;  // Display the Data  lstData.DataContext = ds.Tables[0];} VB.NETPrivate Sub FirstSample()  ' Read the data  Dim ds As New DataSet()  ds.ReadXml(GetCurrentDirectory() & "\Xml\Product.xml")   ' Create the GridView  Dim gv As New GridView()   ' Create the GridView Columns  For Each item As DataColumn In ds.Tables(0).Columns    Dim gvc As New GridViewColumn()    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.ColumnName)    gvc.Header = item.ColumnName    gvc.Width = [Double].NaN    gv.Columns.Add(gvc)  Next   ' Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = gv  ' Display the Data  lstData.DataContext = ds.Tables(0)End SubListing 1: Loop through the DataTable columns collection to create GridViewColumn objects A Generic Method for Creating a GridViewInstead of having to write the code shown in Listing 1 for each ListView you wish to create, you can create a generic method that given any DataTable will return a GridView column collection. Listing 2 shows how you can simplify the code in Listing 1 by setting up a class called WPFListViewCommon and create a method called CreateGridViewColumns that returns your GridView. C#private void DataTableSample(){  // Read the data  DataSet ds = new DataSet();  ds.ReadXml(GetCurrentDirectory() + @"\Xml\Product.xml");   // Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View =      WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(ds.Tables[0]);  lstData.DataContext = ds.Tables[0];} VB.NETPrivate Sub DataTableSample()  ' Read the data  Dim ds As New DataSet()  ds.ReadXml(GetCurrentDirectory() & "\Xml\Product.xml")   ' Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = _      WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(ds.Tables(0))  lstData.DataContext = ds.Tables(0)End SubListing 2: Call a generic method to create GridViewColumns. The CreateGridViewColumns MethodThe CreateGridViewColumns method will take a DataTable as a parameter and create a GridView object with a GridViewColumn object in its collection for each column in your DataTable. C#public static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(DataTable dt){  // Create the GridView  GridView gv = new GridView();  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = true;   // Create the GridView Columns  foreach (DataColumn item in dt.Columns)  {    GridViewColumn gvc = new GridViewColumn();    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.ColumnName);    gvc.Header = item.ColumnName;    gvc.Width = Double.NaN;    gv.Columns.Add(gvc);  }   return gv;} VB.NETPublic Shared Function CreateGridViewColumns _  (ByVal dt As DataTable) As GridView  ' Create the GridView  Dim gv As New GridView()  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = True   ' Create the GridView Columns  For Each item As DataColumn In dt.Columns    Dim gvc As New GridViewColumn()    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.ColumnName)    gvc.Header = item.ColumnName    gvc.Width = [Double].NaN    gv.Columns.Add(gvc)  Next   Return gvEnd FunctionListing 3: The CreateGridViewColumns method takes a DataTable and creates GridViewColumn objects in a GridView. By separating this method out into a class you can call this method anytime you want to create a ListView with a collection of columns from a DataTable. SummaryIn this blog you learned how to create a ListView that acts like a DataGrid. You are able to use a DataTable as both the source of the data, and for creating the columns for the ListView. In the next blog entry you will learn how to use the same technique, but for Collection classes. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code (in both VB and C#) at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "WPF ListView as a DataGrid" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free eBook on "Fundamentals of N-Tier".

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  • Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite Now Available

    - by chung.wu
    Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available. The management suite combines features that were available in the standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle's market leading real user monitoring and configuration management capabilities to provide the most complete solution for managing E-Business Suite applications. The features that were available in the standalone management packs are now packaged into Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0, which is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. This latest plug-in extends Grid Control with E-Business Suite specific management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. In addition, this latest release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite also includes numerous real user monitoring improvements. General Enhancements This new release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite offers the following key capabilities: Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control Support: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Discovery, Cloning, and User Monitoring that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. This feature improves the setup and configuration time to be up and operational. Lifecycle Automation Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized view to monitor and orchestrate changes (both functional and technical) across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems. In this latest release, it provides even more control and flexibility in managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes.Change Management: Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This latest release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Customization Manager, Patch Manager, and Setup Manager that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. Enhancing the setup time and configuration time to be up and operational. Customization Manager: Multi-Node Custom Application Registration: This feature automates the process of registering and validating custom products/applications on every node in a multi-node EBS system. Public/Private File Source Mappings and E-Business Suite Mappings: File Source Mappings & E-Business Suite Mappings can be created and marked as public or private. Only the creator/owner can define/edit his/her own mappings. Users can use public mappings, but cannot edit or change settings. Test Checkout Command for Versions: This feature allows you to test/verify checkout commands at the version level within the File Source Mapping page. Prerequisite Patch Validation: You can specify prerequisite patches for Customization packages and for Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite packages. Destination Path Population: You can now automatically populate the Destination Path for common file types during package construction. OAF File Type Support: Ability to package Oracle Application Framework (OAF) customizations and deploy them across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Extended PLL Support: Ability to distinguish between different types of PLLs (that is, Report and Forms PLL files). Providing better granularity when managing PLL objects. Enhanced Standard Checker: Provides greater and more comprehensive list of coding standards that are verified during the package build process (for example, File Driver exceptions, Java checks, XML checks, SQL checks, etc.) HTML Package Readme: The package Readme is in HTML format and includes the file listing. Advanced Package Search Capabilities: The ability to utilize more criteria within the advanced search package (that is, Public, Last Updated by, Files Source Mapping, and E-Business Suite Mapping). Enhanced Package Build Notifications: More detailed information on the results of a package build process. Better, more detailed troubleshooting guidance in the event of build failures. Patch Manager:Staged Patches: Ability to run Patch Manager with no external internet access. Customer can download Oracle E-Business Suite patches into a shared location for Patch Manager to access and apply. Supports highly secured production environments that prohibit external internet connections. Support for Superseded Patches: Automatic check for superseded patches. Allows users to easily add superseded patches into the Patch Run. More comprehensive and correct Patch Runs. Removes many manual and laborious tasks, frees up Apps DBAs for higher value-added tasks. Automatic Primary Node Identification: Users can now specify which is the "primary node" (that is, which node hosts the Shared APPL_TOP) during the Patch Run interview process, available for Release 12 only. Setup Manager:Preview Extract Results: Ability to execute an extract in "proof mode", and examine the query results, to determine accuracy. Used in conjunction with the "where" clause in Advanced Filtering. This feature can provide better and more accurate fine tuning of extracts. Use Uploaded Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate uploaded extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access extracts that have been uploaded. Allows customer to reuse uploaded extracts to provision new instances. Re-use Existing (that is, historical) Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate existing extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access point-in-time extracts (snapshots) of configuration data. Allows customer to reuse existing extracts to provision new instances. Allows comparative historical reporting of identical APIs, executed at different times. Support for BR100 formats: Setup Manager can now automatically produce reports in the BR100 format. Native support for industry standard formats. Concurrent Manager API Support: General Foundation now provides an API for management of "Concurrent Manager" configuration data. Ability to migrate Concurrent Managers from one instance to another. Complete the setup once and never again; no need to redefine the Concurrent Managers. User Experience Management Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes comprehensive capabilities for user experience management, supporting both real user and synthetic transaction based user monitoring techniques. This latest release of the management suite include numerous improvements in real user monitoring support. KPI Reporting: Configurable decimal precision for reporting of KPI and SLA values. By default, this is two decimal places. KPI numerator and denominator information. It is now possible to view KPI numerator and denominator information, and to have it available for export. Content Messages Processing: The application content message facility has been extended to distinguish between notifications and errors. In addition, it is now possible to specify matching rules that can be used to refine a selected content message specification. Note this is only available for XPath-based (not literal) message contents. Data Export: The Enriched data export facility has been significantly enhanced to provide improved performance and accessibility. Data is no longer stored within XML-based files, but is now stored within the Reporter database. However, it is possible to configure an alternative database for its storage. Access to the export data is through SQL. With this enhancement, it is now more easy than ever to use tools such as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to analyze correlated data collected from real user monitoring and business data sources. SNMP Traps for System Events: Previously, the SNMP notification facility was only available for KPI alerting. It has now been extended to support the generation of SNMP traps for system events, to provide external health monitoring of the RUEI system processes. Performance Improvements: Enhanced dashboard performance. The dashboard facility has been enhanced to support the parallel loading of items. In the case of dashboards containing large numbers of items, this can result in a significant performance improvement. Initial period selection within Data Browser and reports. The User Preferences facility has been extended to allow you to specify the initial period selection when first entering the Data Browser or reports facility. The default is the last hour. Performance improvement when querying the all sessions group. Technical Prerequisites, Download and Installation Instructions The Linux version of the plug-in is available for immediate download from Oracle Technology Network or Oracle eDelivery. For specific information regarding technical prerequisites, product download and installation, please refer to My Oracle Support note 1224313.1. The following certifications are in progress: * Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit) (9, 10) * HP-UX Itanium (11.23, 11.31) * HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit) (11.23, 11.31) * IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) (5.3, 6.1)

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  • Adding DTrace Probes to PHP Extensions

    - by cj
    The powerful DTrace tracing facility has some PHP-specific probes that can be enabled with --enable-dtrace. DTrace for Linux is being created by Oracle and is currently in tech preview. Currently it doesn't support userspace tracing so, in the meantime, Systemtap can be used to monitor the probes implemented in PHP. This was recently outlined in David Soria Parra's post Probing PHP with Systemtap on Linux. My post shows how DTrace probes can be added to PHP extensions and traced on Linux. I was using Oracle Linux 6.3. Not all Linux kernels are built with Systemtap, since this can impact stability. Check whether your running kernel (or others installed) have Systemtap enabled, and reboot with such a kernel: # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-`uname -r` # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-* When you install Systemtap itself, the package systemtap-sdt-devel is needed since it provides the sdt.h header file: # yum install systemtap-sdt-devel You can now install and build PHP as shown in David's article. Basically the build is with: $ cd ~/php-src $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace $ make (For me, running 'make' a second time failed with an error. The workaround is to do 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' and then rerun 'make'. See PHP Bug 63704) David's article shows how to trace the probes already implemented in PHP. You can also use Systemtap to trace things like userspace PHP function calls. For example, create test.php: <?php $c = oci_connect('hr', 'welcome', 'localhost/orcl'); $s = oci_parse($c, "select dbms_xmlgen.getxml('select * from dual') xml from dual"); $r = oci_execute($s); $row = oci_fetch_array($s, OCI_NUM); $x = $row[0]->load(); $row[0]->free(); echo $x; ?> The normal output of this file is the XML form of Oracle's DUAL table: $ ./sapi/cli/php ~/test.php <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> To trace the PHP function calls, create the tracing file functrace.stp: probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*") { printf("Started function %s\n", probefunc()); } probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*").return { printf("Ended function %s\n", probefunc()); } This makes use of the way PHP userspace functions (not builtins) like oci_connect() map to C functions with a "zif_" prefix. Login as root, and run System tap on the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/functrace.stp Started function zif_oci_connect Ended function zif_oci_connect Started function zif_oci_parse Ended function zif_oci_parse Started function zif_oci_execute Ended function zif_oci_execute Started function zif_oci_fetch_array Ended function zif_oci_fetch_array Started function zif_oci_lob_load <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Ended function zif_oci_lob_load Started function zif_oci_free_descriptor Ended function zif_oci_free_descriptor Each call and return is logged. The Systemtap scripting language allows complex scripts to be built. There are many examples on the web. To augment this generic capability and the PHP probes in PHP, other extensions can have probes too. Below are the steps I used to add probes to OCI8: I created a provider file ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d, enabling three probes. The first one will accept a parameter that runtime tracing can later display: provider php { probe oci8__connect(char *username); probe oci8__nls_start(); probe oci8__nls_done(); }; I updated ext/oci8/config.m4 with the PHP_INIT_DTRACE macro. The patch is at the end of config.m4. The macro takes the provider prototype file, a name of the header file that 'dtrace' will generate, and a list of sources files with probes. When --enable-dtrace is used during PHP configuration, then the outer $PHP_DTRACE check is true and my new probes will be enabled. I've chosen to define an OCI8 specific macro, HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE, which can be used in the OCI8 source code: diff --git a/ext/oci8/config.m4 b/ext/oci8/config.m4 index 34ae76c..f3e583d 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/config.m4 +++ b/ext/oci8/config.m4 @@ -341,4 +341,17 @@ if test "$PHP_OCI8" != "no"; then PHP_SUBST_OLD(OCI8_ORACLE_VERSION) fi + + if test "$PHP_DTRACE" = "yes"; then + AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/sdt.h], [ + PHP_INIT_DTRACE([ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d], + [ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace_gen.h],[ext/oci8/oci8.c]) + AC_DEFINE(HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE,1, + [Whether to enable DTrace support for OCI8 ]) + ], [ + AC_MSG_ERROR( + [Cannot find sys/sdt.h which is required for DTrace support]) + ]) + fi + fi In ext/oci8/oci8.c, I added the probes at, for this example, semi-arbitrary places: diff --git a/ext/oci8/oci8.c b/ext/oci8/oci8.c index e2241cf..ffa0168 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/oci8.c +++ b/ext/oci8/oci8.c @@ -1811,6 +1811,12 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char } } +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT(username); + } +#endif + /* Initialize global handles if they weren't initialized before */ if (OCI_G(env) == NULL) { php_oci_init_global_handles(TSRMLS_C); @@ -1870,11 +1876,22 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char size_t rsize = 0; sword result; +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START(); + } +#endif PHP_OCI_CALL_RETURN(result, OCINlsEnvironmentVariableGet, (&charsetid_nls_lang, 0, OCI_NLS_CHARSET_ID, 0, &rsize)); if (result != OCI_SUCCESS) { charsetid_nls_lang = 0; } smart_str_append_unsigned_ex(&hashed_details, charsetid_nls_lang, 0); + +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE(); + } +#endif } timestamp = time(NULL); The oci_connect(), oci_pconnect() and oci_new_connect() calls all use php_oci_do_connect_ex() internally. The first probe simply records that the PHP application made a connection call. I already showed a way to do this without needing a probe, but adding a specific probe lets me record the username. The other two probes can be used to time how long the globalization initialization takes. The relationships between the oci8_dtrace.d names like oci8__connect, the probe guards like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED() and probe names like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT() are obvious after seeing the pattern of all three probes. I included the new header that will be automatically created by the dtrace tool when PHP is built. I did this in ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h: diff --git a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h index b0d6516..c81fc5a 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h +++ b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h @@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ # endif # endif /* osf alpha */ +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE +#include "oci8_dtrace_gen.h" +#endif + #if defined(min) #undef min #endif Now PHP can be rebuilt: $ cd ~/php-src $ rm configure && ./buildconf --force $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace \ --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/cjones/instantclient $ make If 'make' fails, do the 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' trick I mentioned. The new probes can be seen by logging in as root and running: # stap -l 'process.provider("php").mark("oci8*")' -c 'sapi/cli/php -i' process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__connect") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_done") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_start") To test them out, create a new trace file, oci.stp: global numconnects; global start; global numcharlookups = 0; global tottime = 0; probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-connect") { printf("Connected as %s\n", user_string($arg1)); numconnects += 1; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_start") { start = gettimeofday_us(); numcharlookups++; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_done") { tottime += gettimeofday_us() - start; } probe end { printf("Connects: %d, Charset lookups: %ld\n", numconnects, numcharlookups); printf("Total NLS charset initalization time: %ld usecs/connect\n", (numcharlookups 0 ? tottime/numcharlookups : 0)); } This calculates the average time that the NLS character set lookup takes. It also prints out the username of each connection, as an example of using parameters. Login as root and run Systemtap over the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/oci.stp Connected as cj <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Connects: 1, Charset lookups: 1 Total NLS charset initalization time: 164 usecs/connect This shows the time penalty of making OCI8 look up the default character set. This time would be zero if a character set had been passed as the fourth argument to oci_connect() in test.php.

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  • WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 2

    - by psheriff
    In my last blog post I showed you how to create GridViewColumn objects on the fly from the meta-data in a DataTable. By doing this you can create columns for a ListView at runtime instead of having to pre-define each ListView for each different DataTable. Well, many of us use collections of our classes and it would be nice to be able to do the same thing for our collection classes as well. This blog post will show you one approach for using collection classes as the source of the data for your ListView.  Figure 1: A List of Data using a ListView Load Property NamesYou could use reflection to gather the property names in your class, however there are two things wrong with this approach. First, reflection is too slow, and second you may not want to display all your properties from your class in the ListView. Instead of reflection you could just create your own custom collection class of PropertyHeader objects. Each PropertyHeader object will contain a property name and a header text value at a minimum. You could add a width property if you wanted as well. All you need to do is to create a collection of property header objects where each object represents one column in your ListView. Below is a simple example: PropertyHeaders coll = new PropertyHeaders(); coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"));coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"));coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("Price", "Price")); Once you have this collection created, you could pass this collection to a method that would create the GridViewColumn objects based on the information in this collection. Below is the full code for the PropertyHeader class. Besides the PropertyName and Header properties, there is a constructor that will allow you to set both properties when the object is created. C#public class PropertyHeader{  public PropertyHeader()  {  }   public PropertyHeader(string propertyName, string headerText)  {    PropertyName = propertyName;    HeaderText = headerText;  }   public string PropertyName { get; set; }  public string HeaderText { get; set; }} VB.NETPublic Class PropertyHeader  Public Sub New()  End Sub   Public Sub New(ByVal propName As String, ByVal header As String)    PropertyName = propName    HeaderText = header  End Sub   Private mPropertyName As String  Private mHeaderText As String   Public Property PropertyName() As String    Get      Return mPropertyName    End Get    Set(ByVal value As String)      mPropertyName = value    End Set  End Property   Public Property HeaderText() As String    Get      Return mHeaderText    End Get    Set(ByVal value As String)      mHeaderText = value    End Set  End PropertyEnd Class You can use a Generic List class to create a collection of PropertyHeader objects as shown in the following code. C#public class PropertyHeaders : List<PropertyHeader>{} VB.NETPublic Class PropertyHeaders  Inherits List(Of PropertyHeader)End Class Create Property Header Objects You need to create a method somewhere that will create and return a collection of PropertyHeader objects that will represent the columns you wish to add to your ListView prior to binding your collection class to that ListView. Below is a sample method called GetProperties that builds a list of PropertyHeader objects with properties and headers for a Product object. C#public PropertyHeaders GetProperties(){  PropertyHeaders coll = new PropertyHeaders();   coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"));  coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"));  coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("Price", "Price"));   return coll;} VB.NETPublic Function GetProperties() As PropertyHeaders  Dim coll As New PropertyHeaders()   coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"))  coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"))  coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("Price", "Price"))   Return collEnd Function WPFListViewCommon Class Now that you have a collection of PropertyHeader objects you need a method that will create a GridView and a collection of GridViewColumn objects based on this PropertyHeader collection. Below is a static/Shared method that you might put into a class called WPFListViewCommon. C#public static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(  PropertyHeaders properties){  GridView gv;  GridViewColumn gvc;   // Create the GridView  gv = new GridView();  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = true;   // Create the GridView Columns  foreach (PropertyHeader item in properties)  {    gvc = new GridViewColumn();    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.PropertyName);    gvc.Header = item.HeaderText;    gvc.Width = Double.NaN;    gv.Columns.Add(gvc);  }   return gv;} VB.NETPublic Shared Function CreateGridViewColumns( _    ByVal properties As PropertyHeaders) As GridView  Dim gv As GridView  Dim gvc As GridViewColumn   ' Create the GridView  gv = New GridView()  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = True   ' Create the GridView Columns  For Each item As PropertyHeader In properties    gvc = New GridViewColumn()    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.PropertyName)    gvc.Header = item.HeaderText    gvc.Width = [Double].NaN    gv.Columns.Add(gvc)  Next   Return gvEnd Function Build the Product Screen To build the window shown in Figure 1, you might write code like the following: C#private void CollectionSample(){  Product prod = new Product();   // Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(       prod.GetProperties());  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts();} VB.NETPrivate Sub CollectionSample()  Dim prod As New Product()   ' Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns( _       prod.GetProperties())  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts()End Sub The Product class contains a method called GetProperties that returns a PropertyHeaders collection. You pass this collection to the WPFListViewCommon’s CreateGridViewColumns method and it will create a GridView for the ListView. When you then feed the DataContext property of the ListView the Product collection the appropriate columns have already been created and data bound. Summary In this blog you learned how to create a ListView that acts like a DataGrid using a collection class. While it does take a little code to do this, it is an alternative to creating each GridViewColumn in XAML. This gives you a lot of flexibility. You could even read in the property names and header text from an XML file for a truly configurable ListView. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code (in both VB and C#) at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 2" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free eBook on "Fundamentals of N-Tier".  

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  • Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard Drive

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    Deleting files or quickly formatting a drive isn’t enough for sensitive personal information. We’ll show you how to get rid of it for good using a Ubuntu Live CD. When you delete a file in Windows, Ubuntu, or any other operating system, it doesn’t actually destroy the data stored on your hard drive, it just marks that data as “deleted.” If you overwrite it later, then that data is generally unrecoverable, but if the operating system don’t happen to overwrite it, then your data is still stored on your hard drive, recoverable by anyone who has the right software. By securely delete files or entire hard drives, your data will be gone for good. Note: Modern hard drives are extremely sophisticated, as are the experts who recover data for a living. There is no guarantee that the methods covered in this article will make your data completely unrecoverable; however, they will make your data unrecoverable to the majority of recovery methods, and all methods that are readily available to the general public. Shred individual files Most of the data stored on your hard drive is harmless, and doesn’t reveal anything about you. If there are just a few files that you know you don’t want someone else to see, then the easiest way to get rid of them is a built-in Linux utility called shred. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications at the top-left of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. Navigate to the file that you want to delete using cd to change directories and ls to list the files and folders in the current directory. As an example, we’ve got a file called BankInfo.txt on a Windows NTFS-formatted hard drive. We want to delete it securely, so we’ll call shred by entering the following in the terminal window: shred <file> which is, in our example: shred BankInfo.txt Notice that our BankInfo.txt file still exists, even though we’ve shredded it. A quick look at the contents of BankInfo.txt make it obvious that the file has indeed been securely overwritten. We can use some command-line arguments to make shred delete the file from the hard drive as well. We can also be extra-careful about the shredding process by upping the number of times shred overwrites the original file. To do this, in the terminal, type in: shred –remove –iterations=<num> <file> By default, shred overwrites the file 25 times. We’ll double this, giving us the following command: shred –remove –iterations=50 BankInfo.txt BankInfo.txt has now been securely wiped on the physical disk, and also no longer shows up in the directory listing. Repeat this process for any sensitive files on your hard drive! Wipe entire hard drives If you’re disposing of an old hard drive, or giving it to someone else, then you might instead want to wipe your entire hard drive. shred can be invoked on hard drives, but on modern file systems, the shred process may be reversible. We’ll use the program wipe to securely delete all of the data on a hard drive. Unlike shred, wipe is not included in Ubuntu by default, so we have to install it. Open up the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on System in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Administration folder and clicking on Synaptic Package Manager. wipe is part of the Universe repository, which is not enabled by default. We’ll enable it by clicking on Settings > Repositories in the Synaptic Package Manager window. Check the checkbox next to “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click Close. You’ll need to reload Synaptic’s package list. Click on the Reload button in the main Synaptic Package Manager window. Once the package list has been reloaded, the text over the search field will change to “Rebuilding search index”. Wait until it reads “Quick search,” and then type “wipe” into the search field. The wipe package should come up, along with some other packages that perform similar functions. Click on the checkbox to the left of the label “wipe” and select “Mark for Installation”. Click on the Apply button to start the installation process. Click the Apply button on the Summary window that pops up. Once the installation is done, click the Close button and close the Synaptic Package Manager window. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left of the screen, then Accessories > Terminal. You need to figure our the correct hard drive to wipe. If you wipe the wrong hard drive, that data will not be recoverable, so exercise caution! In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk -l A list of your hard drives will show up. A few factors will help you identify the right hard drive. One is the file system, found in the System column of  the list – Windows hard drives are usually formatted as NTFS (which shows up as HPFS/NTFS). Another good identifier is the size of the hard drive, which appears after its identifier (highlighted in the following screenshot). In our case, the hard drive we want to wipe is only around 1 GB large, and is formatted as NTFS. We make a note of the label found under the the Device column heading. If you have multiple partitions on this hard drive, then there will be more than one device in this list. The wipe developers recommend wiping each partition separately. To start the wiping process, type the following into the terminal: sudo wipe <device label> In our case, this is: sudo wipe /dev/sda1 Again, exercise caution – this is the point of no return! Your hard drive will be completely wiped. It may take some time to complete, depending on the size of the drive you’re wiping. Conclusion If you have sensitive information on your hard drive – and chances are you probably do – then it’s a good idea to securely delete sensitive files before you give away or dispose of your hard drive. The most secure way to delete your data is with a few swings of a hammer, but shred and wipe from a Ubuntu Live CD is a good alternative! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDScan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CDRecover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CDCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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  • Thursday Community Keynote: "By the Community, For the Community"

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Sharat Chander, JavaOne Community Chairperson, began Thursday's Community Keynote. As part of the morning’s theme of "By the Community, For the Community," Chander noted that 60% of the material at the 2012 JavaOne conference was presented by Java Community members. "So next year, when the call for papers starts, put-in your submissions," he urged.From there, Gary Frost, Principal Member of Technical Staff, AMD, expanded upon Sunday's Strategy Keynote exploration of Project Sumatra, an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to heterogeneous computing platforms (which combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon). Sumatra entails enhancing the JVM to make maximum use of these advanced platforms. Within this development space, AMD created the Aparapi API, which converts Java bytecode into OpenCL for execution on such GPU devices. The Aparapi API was open sourced in September 2011.Whether it was zooming-in on a Mandelbrot set, "the game of life," or a swarm of 10,000 Dukes in a space-bound gravitational dance, Frost's demos, using an Aparapi/OpenCL implementation, produced stunningly faster display results. He indicated that the Java 9 timeframe is where they see Project Sumatra coming to ultimate fruition, employing the Lamdas of Java 8.Returning to the theme of the keynote, Donald Smith, Director, Java Product Management, Oracle, explored a mind map graphic demonstrating the importance of Community in terms of fostering innovation. "It's the sharing and mixing of culture, the diversity, and the rapid prototyping," he said. Within this topic, Smith, brought up a panel of representatives from Cloudera, Eclipse, Eucalyptus, Perrone Robotics, and Twitter--ideal manifestations of community and innovation in the world of Java.Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems, explored his company's open source cloud software platform, written in Java, and used by gaming companies, technology companies, media companies, and more. Chris Aniszczyk, Operations Engineering,Twitter, noted the importance of the JVM in terms of their multiple-language development environment. Mike Olson, CEO, Cloudera, described his company's Apache Hadoop-based software, support, and training. Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation, noted that they have about 270 tools projects at Eclipse, with 267 of them written in Java. Milinkovich added that Eclipse will even be going into space in 2013, as part of the control software on various experiments aboard the International Space Station. Lastly, Paul Perrone, CEO, Perrone Robotics, detailed his company's robotics and automation software platform built 100% on Java, including Java SE and Java ME--"on rat, to cat, to elephant-sized systems." Milinkovic noted that communities are by nature so good at innovation because of their very openness--"The more open you make your innovation process, the more ideas are challenged, and the more developers are focused on justifying their choices all the way through the process."From there, Georges Saab, VP Development Java SE OpenJDK, continued the topic of innovation and helping the Java Community to "Make the Future Java." Martijn Verburg, representing the London Java Community (winner of a Duke's Choice Award 2012 for their activity in OpenJDK and JCP), soon joined Saab onstage. Verburg detailed the LJC's "Adopt a JSR" program--"to get day-to-day developers more involved in the innovation that's happening around them."  From its London launching pad, the innovative program has spread to Brazil, Morocco, Latvia, India, and more.Other active participants in the program joined Verburg onstage--Ben Evans, London Java Community; James Gough, Stackthread; Bruno Souza, SOUJava; Richard Warburton, jClarity; and Cecelia Borg, Oracle--OpenJDK Onboarding. Together, the group explored the goals and tasks inherent in the Adopt a JSR program--from organizing hack days (testing prototype implementations), to managing mailing lists and forums, to triaging issues, to evangelism—all with the goal of fostering greater community/developer involvement, but equally importantly, building better open standards. “Come join us, and make your ecosystem better!" urged Verburg.Paul Perrone returned to profile the latest in his company's robotics work around Java--including the AARDBOTS family of smaller robotic vehicles, running the Perrone MAX platform on top of the Java JVM. Perrone took his "Rumbles" four-wheeled robot out for a spin onstage--a roaming, ARM-based security-bot vehicle, complete with IR, ultrasonic, and "cliff" sensors (the latter, for the raised stage at JavaOne). As an ultimate window into the future of robotics, Perrone displayed a "head-set" controller--a sensor directed at the forehead to monitor brainwaves, for the someday-implementation of brain-to-robot control.Then, just when it seemed this might be the end of the day's futuristic offerings, a mystery voice from offstage pronounced "I've got some toys"--proving to be guest-visitor James Gosling, there to explore his cutting-edge work with Liquid Robotics. While most think of robots as something with wheels or arms or lasers, Gosling explained, the Liquid Robotics vehicle is an entirely new and innovative ocean-going 'bot. Looking like a floating surfboard, with an attached set of underwater wings, the autonomous devices roam the oceans using only the energy of ocean waves to propel them, and a single actuated rudder to steer. "We have to accomplish all guidance just by wiggling the rudder," Gosling said. The devices offer applications from self-installing weather buoy, to pollution monitoring station, to marine mammal monitoring device, to climate change data gathering, to even ocean life genomic sampling. The early versions of the vehicle used C code on very tiny industrial micro controllers, where they had to "count the bytes one at a time."  But the latest generation vehicles, which just hit the water a week or so ago, employ an ARM processor running Linux and the ARM version of JDK 7. Gosling explained that vehicle communication from remote locations is achieved via the Iridium satellite network. But because of the costs of this communication path, the data must be sent in very small bursts--using SBD short burst data. "It costs $1/kb, so that rules everything in the software design,” said Gosling. “If you were trying to stream a Netflix video over this, it would cost a million dollars a movie. …We don't have a 'big data' problem," he quipped. There are currently about 150 Liquid Robotics vehicles out traversing the oceans. Gosling demonstrated real time satellite tracking of several vehicles currently at sea, noting that Java is actually particularly good at AI applications--due to the language having garbage collection, which facilitates complex data structures. To close-out his time onstage, Gosling of course participated in the ceremonial Java tee-shirt toss out to the audience…In parting, Chander passed the JavaOne Community Chairperson baton to Stephen Chin, Java Technology Evangelist, Oracle. Onstage in full motorcycle gear, Chin noted that he'll soon be touring Europe by motorcycle, meeting Java Community Members and streaming live via UStream--the ultimate manifestation of community and technology!  He also reminded attendees of the upcoming JavaOne Latin America 2012, São Paulo, Brazil (December 4-6, 2012), and stated that the CFP (call for papers) at the conference has been extended for one more week. "Remember, December is summer in Brazil!" Chin said.

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  • Ops Center Solaris 11 IPS Repository Management: Using ISO Images

    - by S Stelting
    Please join us for a live WebEx presentation of this topic on Tuesday, November 20th at 9am MDT. Details for the call are provided below: https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=209834017&UID=1512096072&PW=NYTVlZTYxMzdm&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D Meeting password: oracle123 Call-in toll-free number: 1-866-682-4770 International numbers: http://www.intercall.com/oracle/access_numbers.htm Conference Code: 762 9343 # Security Code: 7777 # With Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c, you can provision, patch, monitor and manage Oracle Solaris 11 instances. To do this, Ops Center creates and maintains a Solaris 11 Image Packaging System (IPS) repository on the Enterprise Controller. During the Enterprise Controller configuration, you can load repository content directly from Oracle's Support Web site and subsequently synchronize the repository as new content becomes available. Of course, you can also use Solaris 11 ISO images to create and update your Ops Center repository. There are a few excellent reasons for doing this: You're running Ops Center in disconnected mode, and don't have Internet access on your Enterprise Controller You'd rather avoid the bandwidth associated with live synchronization of a Solaris 11 package repository This demo will show you how to use Solaris 11 ISO images to set up and update your Ops Center repository. Prerequisites This tip assumes that you've already installed the Enterprise Controller on a Solaris 11 OS instance and that you're ready for post-install configuration. In addition, there are specific Ops Center and OS version requirements depending on which version of Solaris 11 you plan to install.You can get full details about the requirements in the Release Notes for Ops Center 12c update 2. Additional information is available in the Ops Center update 2 Readme document. Part 1: Using a Solaris 11 ISO Image to Create an Ops Center Repository Step 1 – Download the Solaris 11 Repository Image The Oracle Web site provides a number of download links for official Solaris 11 images. Among those links is a two-part downloadable repository image, which provides repository content for Solaris 11 SPARC and X86 architectures. In this case, I used the Solaris 11 11/11 image. First, navigate to the Oracle Web site and accept the OTN License agreement: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html Next, download both parts of the Solaris 11 repository image. I recommend using the Solaris 11 11/11 image, and have provided the URLs here: http://download.oracle.com/otn/solaris/11/sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso-ahttp://download.oracle.com/otn/solaris/11/sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso-b Finally, use the cat command to generate an ISO image you can use to create your repository: # cat sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso-a sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso-b > sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso The process is very similar if you plan to set up a Solaris 11.1 release in Ops Center. In that case, navigate to the Solaris 11 download page, accept the license agreement and download both parts of the Solaris 11.1 repository image. Use the cat command to create a single ISO image for Solaris 11.1 Step 2 – Mount the Solaris 11 ISO Image in your Local Filesystem Once you have created the Solaris 11 ISO file, use the mount command to attach it to your local filesystem. After the image has been mounted, you can browse the repository from the ./repo subdirectory, and use the pkgrepo command to verify that Solaris 11 recognizes the content: Step 3 – Use the Image to Create your Ops Center Repository When you have confirmed the repository is available, you can use the image to create the Enterprise Controller repository. The operation will be slightly different depending on whether you configure Ops Center for Connected or Disconnected Mode operation.For connected mode operation, specify the mounted ./repo directory in step 4.1 of the configuration wizard, replacing the default Web-based URL. Since you're synchronizing from an OS repository image, you don't need to specify a key or certificate for the operation. For disconnected mode configuration, specify the Solaris 11 directory along with the path to the disconnected mode bundle downloaded by running the Ops Center harvester script: Ops Center will run a job to import package content from the mounted ISO image. A synchronization job can take several hours to run – in my case, the job ran for 3 hours, 22 minutes on a SunFire X4200 M2 server. During the job, Ops Center performs three important tasks: Synchronizes all content from the image and refreshes the repository Updates the IPS publisher information Creates OS Provisioning profiles and policies based on the content When the job is complete, you can unmount the ISO image from your Enterprise Controller. At that time, you can view the repository contents in your Ops Center Solaris 11 library. For the Solaris 11 11/11 release, you should see 8,668 packages and patches in the contents. You should also see default deployment plans for Solaris 11 provisioning. As part of the repository import, Ops Center generates plans and profiles for desktop, small and large servers for the SPARC and X86 architecture. Part 2: Using a Solaris 11 SRU to update an Ops Center Repository It's possible to use the same approach to upgrade your Ops Center repository to a Solaris 11 Support Repository Update, or SRU. Each SRU provides packages and updates to Solaris 11 - for example, SRU 8.5 provided the packaged for Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.2 SRUs are available for download as ISO images from My Oracle Support, under document ID 1372094.1. The document provides download links for all SRUs which have been released by Oracle for Solaris 11. SRUs are cumulative, so later versions include the packages from earlier SRUs. After downloading an ISO image for an SRU, you can mount it to your local filesystem using a mount command similar to the one shown for Solaris 11 11/11. When the ISO image is mounted to the file system, you can perform the Add Content action from the Solaris 11 Library to synchronize packages and patches from the mounted image. I used the same mount point, so the repository URL was file://mnt/repo once again: After the synchronization of an SRU is complete, you can verify its content in the Solaris 11 library using the search function. The version pattern is 0.175.0.#, where the # is the same value as the SRU. In this example, I upgraded to SRU 1. The update job ran in just under 8 minutes, and a quick search shows that 22 software components were added to the repository: It's also possible to search for "Support Repository Update" to confirm the SRU was successfully added to the repository. Details on any of the update content are available by clicking the "View Details" button under the Packages/Patches entry.

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  • Productivity Tips

    - by Brian T. Jackett
    A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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  • New Skool Crosstabbing

    - by Tim Dexter
    A while back I spoke about having to go back to BIP's original crosstabbing solution to achieve a certain layout. Hok Min has provided a 'man' page for the new crosstab/pivot builder for 10.1.3.4.1 users. This will make the documentation drop but for now, get it here! The old, hand method is still available but this new approach, is more efficient and flexible. That said you may need to get into the crosstab code to tweak it where the crosstab dialog can not help. I had to do this, this week but more on that later. The following explains how the crosstab wizard builds the crosstab and what the fields inside the resulting template structure are there for. To create the crosstab a new XDO command "<?crosstab:...?>" has been created. XDO Command: <?crosstab: ctvarname; data-element; rows; columns; measures; aggregation?> Parameter Description Example Ctvarname Crosstab variable name. This is automatically generated by the Add-in. C123 data-element This is the XML data element that contains the data. "//ROW" Rows This contains a list of XML elements for row headers. The ordering information is specified within "{" and "}". The first attribute is the sort element. Leaving it blank means the sort element is the same as the row header element. The attribute "o" means order. Its value can be "a" for ascending, or "d" for descending. The attribute "t" means type. Its value can be "t" for text, and "n" for numeric. There can be more than one sort elements, example: "emp-full-name {emp-lastname,o=a,t=n}{emp-firstname,o=a,t=n}. This will sort employee by last name and first name. "Region{,o=a,t=t}, District{,o=a,t=t}" In the example, the first row header is "Region". It is sort by "Region", order is ascending, and type is text. The second row header is "District". It is sort by "District", order is ascending, and type is text. Columns This contains a list of XML elements for columns headers. The ordering information is specified within "{" and "}". The first attribute is the sort element. Leaving it blank means the sort element is the same as the column header element. The attribute "o" means order. Its value can be "a" for ascending, or "d" for descending. The attribute "t" means type. Its value can be "t" for text, and "n" for numeric. There can be more than one sort elements, example: "emp-full-name {emp-lastname,o=a,t=n}{emp-firstname,o=a,t=n}. This will sort employee by last name and first name. "ProductsBrand{,o=a,t=t}, PeriodYear{,o=a,t=t}" In the example, the first column header is "ProductsBrand". It is sort by "ProductsBrand", order is ascending, and type is text. The second column header is "PeriodYear". It is sort by "District", order is ascending, and type is text. Measures This contains a list of XML elements for measures. "Revenue, PrevRevenue" Aggregation The aggregation function name. Currently, we only support "sum". "sum" Using the Oracle BI Publisher Template Builder for Word add-in, we are able to construct the following Pivot Table: The generated XDO command for this Pivot Table is as follow: <?crosstab:c547; "//ROW";"Region{,o=a,t=t}, District{,o=a,t=t}"; "ProductsBrand{,o=a,t=t},PeriodYear{,o=a,t=t}"; "Revenue, PrevRevenue";"sum"?> Running the command on the give XML data files generates this XML file "cttree.xml". Each XPath in the "cttree.xml" is described in the following table. Element XPath Count Description C0 /cttree/C0 1 This contains elements which are related to column. C1 /cttree/C0/C1 4 The first level column "ProductsBrand". There are four distinct values. They are shown in the label H element. CS /cttree/C0/C1/CS 4 The column-span value. It is used to format the crosstab table. H /cttree/C0/C1/H 4 The column header label. There are four distinct values "Enterprise", "Magicolor", "McCloskey" and "Valspar". T1 /cttree/C0/C1/T1 4 The sum for measure 1, which is Revenue. T2 /cttree/C0/C1/T2 4 The sum for measure 2, which is PrevRevenue. C2 /cttree/C0/C1/C2 8 The first level column "PeriodYear", which is the second group-by key. There are two distinct values "2001" and "2002". H /cttree/C0/C1/C2/H 8 The column header label. There are two distinct values "2001" and "2002". Since it is under C1, therefore the total number of entries is 4 x 2 => 8. T1 /cttree/C0/C1/C2/T1 8 The sum for measure 1 "Revenue". T2 /cttree/C0/C1/C2/T2 8 The sum for measure 2 "PrevRevenue". M0 /cttree/M0 1 This contains elements which are related to measures. M1 /cttree/M0/M1 1 This contains summary for measure 1. H /cttree/M0/M1/H 1 The measure 1 label, which is "Revenue". T /cttree/M0/M1/T 1 The sum of measure 1 for the entire xpath from "//ROW". M2 /cttree/M0/M2 1 This contains summary for measure 2. H /cttree/M0/M2/H 1 The measure 2 label, which is "PrevRevenue". T /cttree/M0/M2/T 1 The sum of measure 2 for the entire xpath from "//ROW". R0 /cttree/R0 1 This contains elements which are related to row. R1 /cttree/R0/R1 4 The first level row "Region". There are four distinct values, they are shown in the label H element. H /cttree/R0/R1/H 4 This is row header label for "Region". There are four distinct values "CENTRAL REGION", "EASTERN REGION", "SOUTHERN REGION" and "WESTERN REGION". RS /cttree/R0/R1/RS 4 The row-span value. It is used to format the crosstab table. T1 /cttree/R0/R1/T1 4 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each distinct "Region" value. T2 /cttree/R0/R1/T2 4 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each distinct "Region" value. R1C1 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1 16 This contains elements from combining R1 and C1. There are 4 distinct values for "Region", and four distinct values for "ProductsBrand". Therefore, the combination is 4 X 4 è 16. T1 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1/T1 16 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each combination of "Region" and "ProductsBrand". T2 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1/T2 16 The sum of measure 2 "PrevRevenue" for each combination of "Region" and "ProductsBrand". R1C2 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1/R1C2 32 This contains elements from combining R1, C1 and C2. There are 4 distinct values for "Region", and four distinct values for "ProductsBrand", and two distinct values of "PeriodYear". Therefore, the combination is 4 X 4 X 2 è 32. T1 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1/R1C2/T1 32 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each combination of "Region", "ProductsBrand" and "PeriodYear". T2 /cttree/R0/R1/R1C1/R1C2/T2 32 The sum of measure 2 "PrevRevenue" for each combination of "Region", "ProductsBrand" and "PeriodYear". R2 /cttree/R0/R1/R2 18 This contains elements from combining R1 "Region" and R2 "District". Since the list of values in R2 has dependency on R1, therefore the number of entries is not just a simple multiplication. H /cttree/R0/R1/R2/H 18 The row header label for R2 "District". R1N /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R1N 18 The R2 position number within R1. This is used to check if it is the last row, and draw table border accordingly. T1 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/T1 18 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each combination "Region" and "District". T2 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/T2 18 The sum of measure 2 "PrevRevenue" for each combination of "Region" and "District". R2C1 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1 72 This contains elements from combining R1, R2 and C1. T1 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1/T1 72 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue" for each combination of "Region", "District" and "ProductsBrand". T2 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1/T2 72 The sum of measure 2 "PrevRevenue" for each combination of "Region", "District" and "ProductsBrand". R2C2 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1/R2C2 144 This contains elements from combining R1, R2, C1 and C2, which gives the finest level of details. M1 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1/R2C2/M1 144 The sum of measure 1 "Revenue". M2 /cttree/R0/R1/R2/R2C1/R2C2/M2 144 The sum of measure 2 "PrevRevenue". Lots to read and digest I know! Customization One new feature I discovered this week is the ability to show one column and sort by another. I had a data set that was extracting month abbreviations, we wanted to show the months across the top and some row headers to the side. As you may know XSL is not great with dates, especially recognising month names. It just wants to sort them alphabetically, so Apr comes before Jan, etc. A way around this is to generate a month number alongside the month and use that to sort. We can do that in the crosstab, sadly its not exposed in the UI yet but its doable. Go back up and take a look a the initial crosstab command. especially the Rows and Columns entries. In there you will find the sort criteria. "ProductsBrand{,o=a,t=t}, PeriodYear{,o=a,t=t}" Notice those leading commas inside the curly braces? Because there is no field preceding them it means that the crosstab should sort on the column before the brace ie PeriodYear. But you can insert another column in the data set to sort by. To get my sort working how I needed. <?crosstab:c794;"current-group()";"_Fund_Type_._Fund_Type_Display_{_Fund_Type_._Fund_Type_Sort_,o=a,t=n}";"_Fiscal_Period__Amount__._Amt_Fm_Disp_Abbr_{_Fiscal_Period__Amount__._Amt_Fiscal_Month_Sort_,o=a,t=n}";"_Execution_Facts_._Amt_";"sum"?> Excuse the horribly verbose XML tags, good ol BIEE :0) The emboldened columns are not in the crosstab but are in the data set. I just opened up the field, dropped them in and changed the type(t) value to be 'n', for number, instead of the default 'a' and my crosstab started sorting how I wanted it. If you find other tips and tricks, please share in the comments.

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  • Do’s and Don’ts Building SharePoint Applications

    - by Bil Simser
    SharePoint is a great platform for building quick LOB applications. Simple things from employee time trackers to server and software inventory to full blown Help Desks can be crafted up using SharePoint from just customizing Lists. No programming necessary. However there are a few tricks I’ve painfully learned over the years that you can use for your own solutions. DO What’s In A Name? When you create a new list, column, or view you’ll commonly name it something like “Expense Reports”. However this has the ugly effect of creating a url to the list as “Expense%20Reports”. Or worse, an internal field name of “Expense_x0x0020_Reports” which is not only cryptic but hard to remember when you’re trying to find the column by internal name. While “Expense Reports 2011” is user friendly, “ExpenseReports2011” is not (unless you’re a programmer). So that’s not the solution. Well, not entirely. Instead when you create your column or list or view use the scrunched up name (I can’t think of the technical term for it right now) of “ExpenseReports2011”, “WomenAtTheOfficeThatAreMen” or “KoalaMeatIsGoodWhenBroiled”. After you’ve created it, go back and change the name to the more friendly “Silly Expense Reports That Nobody Reads”. The original internal name will be the url and code friendly one without spaces while the one used on data entry forms and view headers will be the human version. Smart Columns When building a view include columns that make sense. By default when you add a column the “Add to default view” is checked. Resist the urge to be lazy and leave it checked. Uncheck that puppy and decide consciously what columns should be included in the view. Pick columns that make sense to what the user is trying to do. This means you have to talk to the user. Yes, I know. That can be trying at times and even painful. Go ahead, talk to them. You might learn something. Find out what’s important to them and why. If they’re doing something repetitively as part of their job, try to make their life easier by including what’s most important to them. Do they really need to see the Created *and* Modified date of a document or do they just need the title and author? You’ll only find out after talking to them (or getting them drunk in a bar and leaving them in the back alley handcuffed to a garbage bin, don’t ask). Gotta Keep it Separated Hey, views are there for a reason. Use them. While “All Items” is a fine way to present a list of well, all items, it’s hardly sufficient to present a list of servers built before the Y2K bug hit. You’ll be scrolling the list for hours finally arriving at Page 387 of 12,591 and cursing that SharePoint guy for convincing you that putting your hardware into a list would be of any use to anyone. Next to collecting the data, presenting it is just as important. Views are often overlooked and many times ignored or misused. They’re the way you can slice and dice the data up so that you’re not trying to consume 3,000 years of human evolution on a single web page. Remember views can be filtered so feel free to create a view for each status or one for each operating system or one for each species of Information Worker you might be putting in that list or document library. Not only will it reduce the number of items someone sees at one time, it’ll also make the information that much more relevant. Also remember that each view is a separate page. Use it in navigation by creating a menu on the Quick Launch to each view. The discoverability of the Views menu isn’t overly obvious and if you violate the rule of columns (see Horizontally Scrolling below) the view menu doesn’t even show up until you shuffle the scroll bar to the left. Navigation links, big giant buttons, a screaming flashing “CLICK ME NOW” will help your users find their way. Sort It! Views are great so we’re building nice, rich views for the user. Awesomesauce. However sort is not very discoverable by the user. For example when you’re looking at a view how do you know if it’s ascending or descending and what is it sorted on. Maybe it’s sorted using two fields so what’s that all about? Help your users by letting them know the information they’re looking at is sorted. Maybe you name the view something appropriate like “Bogus Expense Claims Sorted By Deadbeats”. If you use the naming strategy just make sure you keep the name consistent with the description. In the previous example their better be a Deadbeat column so I can see the sort in action. Having a “Loser” column, while equally correct, is a little obtuse to the average Information Worker. Remember, they usually don’t use acronyms and even if they knew how to, it’s not immediately obvious to them that’s what you’re trying to convey. Another option is to simply drop a Content Editor Web Part above the list and explain exactly the view they’re looking at. Each view is it’s own page so one CEWP won’t be used across the board. Be descriptive in what the user is seeing but try to keep it brief. Dumping the first chapter of I, Claudius might be informative to the data but can gobble up screen real estate and miss the point of having the list. DO NOT Useless Attachments The attachments column is, in a word, useless. For the most part. Sure it indicates there’s an attachment on the list item but in the grand scheme of things that’s not overly informative. Maybe it is and by all means, if it makes sense to you include it. Colour it. Make it shine and stand like the Return of Clippy on every SharePoint list. Without it being functional it can be boring. EndUserSharePoint.com has an article to make the son of Clippy that much more useful so feel free to head over and check out this blog post by Paul Grenier on the task (Warning code ahead! Danger Will Robinson!) In any case, I would suggest you remove it from your views. Again if it’s important then include it but consider the jQuery solution above to make it functional. It’s added by default to views and one of things that people forget to clean up. Horizontal Scrolling Screen real estate is premium so building a list that contains 8,000 columns and stretches horizontally across 15 screens probably isn’t the most user friendly experience. Most users can’t figure out how to scroll vertically let alone horizontally so don’t make it even that more confusing for them. Take the Steve Krug approach in your view designs and try not to make the user think. Again views are your friend. Consider splitting up the data into views where one view contains 10 columns and other view contains the other 10. Okay, maybe your information doesn’t work that way but humans can only process 7 pieces of data at a time, 10 at most (then their heads explode and you don’t want to clean that mess up, especially on a Friday night before the big dance). It drives me batshit crazy when I see a view with 80 columns of data. I often ask the user “So what do you do with all this information”. The response is usually “With this data [the first 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to fire everyone, and with this data [the next 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to set the building on fire and collect the insurance”. It’s at that point I show them how to create two new views “People Who Are About To Get The Axe” and “Beach Time For The Executives”. Again, talk to your users and try to reason with them on cutting down the number of columns they see at once. Vertical Scrolling Another big faux pas I find is the use of multi-line comment fields in views. It’s not so bad when you have a statement like this in your view: “I really like, oh my god, thought I was going to scream when I saw this turtle then I decided what I was going to have for dinner and frankly I hate having to work late so when I was talking to the customer I thought, oh my god, what if the customer has turtles and then it appeared to me that I really was hungry so I'm going to have lunch now.” It’s fine if that’s the only column along with two or three others, but once you slap those 20 columns of data into the list, the comment field wraps and forms a new multi-page novel that takes up your entire screen. Do everyone a favour and just avoid adding the column to views. Train the user to just click through to the item if they need to see the contents. Duplicate Information Duplication is never good. Views and great as you can group data together. For example create a view of project status reports grouped by author. Then you can see what project manager is being a dip and not submitting their report. However if you group by author do you really need the Created By field as well in the view? Or if the view is grouped by Project then Author do you need both. Horizontal real estate is always at a premium so try not to clutter up the view with duplicate data like this. Oh  yeah, if you’re scratching your head saying “But Bil, if I don’t include the Project name in the view and I have a lot of items then how do I know which one I’m looking at”. That’s a hint that your grouping is too vague or you have too much data in the view based on that criteria. Filter it down a notch, create some views, and try to keep the group down to a single screen where you can see the group header at the top of the page. Again it’s just managing the information you have. Redundant, See Redundant This partially relates to duplicate information and smart columns but basically remember to not include the obvious in a view. Remember, don’t make me think. If you’ve gone to the trouble (and it was a lot of trouble wasn’t it?) to create separate views of your data by creating a “September Zombie Brain Sales”, “October Zombie Brain Sales”, etc. then please for the love of all that is holy do not include the Month and Product columns in your view. Similarly if you create a “My” view of anything (“My Favourite Brands of Spandex”, “My Co-Workers I Find The Urge To Disinfect”) then again, do not include the owner or author field (or whatever field you use to identify “My”). That’s just silly. Hope that helps! Happy customizing!

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  • top Tweets SOA Partner Community – August 2012

    - by JuergenKress
    Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity Lucas Jellema ?Published an article about organizing Fusion Middleware Administration: http://technology.amis.nl/2012/07/31/organizing-fusion-middleware-administration-in-a-smart-and-frugal-way … - many organizations are struggling with this. ServiceTechSymposium Countdown to the Early Bird Registration Discount deadline. Only 4 days left! http://ow.ly/cBCiv demed ?Good chatting w Bob Rhubart, Thomas Erl & Tim Hall on SOA & Cloud Symposium https://blogs.oracle.com/archbeat/entry/podcast_show_notes_thomas_erl … @soaschool @OTNArchBeat -- CU in London! SOA Community top Tweets SOA Partner Community July 2012 - are you one of them? If yes please rt! https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/top-tweets-soa-partner-community-july-2012/ … #soacommunity SOA Community ?Are You a facebook member - do You follow http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity ? #soacommunity #soa SOA Community ?SOA 24/7 - Home Page: http://soa247.com/#.UBJsN8n3kyk.twitter … #soacommunity OracleBlogs ?Handling Large Payloads in SOA Suite 11g http://ow.ly/1lFAih OracleBlogs ?SOA Community Newsletter July 2012 http://ow.ly/1lFx6s OTNArchBeat Podcast Show Notes: Thomas Erl on SOA, Cloud, and Service Technology http://bit.ly/OOHTUJ SOA Community SOA Community Newsletter July 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-s7 OTNArchBeat ?OTN ArchBeat Podcast: Thomas Erl on SOA, Cloud, and Service Technology - Part 1 http://pub.vitrue.com/fMti OProcessAccel ?Just released! White Paper: Oracle Process Accelerators Best Practices http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpm/learnmore/processaccelbestpracticeswhitepaper-1708910.pdf … OTNArchBeat ?SOA, Cloud, and Service Technologies - Part 1 of 4 - A conversation with SOA, Cloud, and Service Technology Symposiu... http://ow.ly/1lDyAK OracleBlogs ?SOA Suite 11g PS5 Bundled Patch 3 (11.1.1.6.3) http://ow.ly/1lCW1S Simon Haslam My write-up of the virtues of the #ukoug App Server & Middleware SIG http://bit.ly/LMWdfY What's important to you for our next meeting? SOA Community SOA Partner Community Survey 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-qY Simone Geib ?RT @jswaroop: #Oracle positioned in the Leader's quadrant - Gartner Magic Quadrants for Application Infrastructure (SOA & SOA Gov)... ServiceTechSymposium New Supporting Organization, IBTI has joined the Symposium! http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/ orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: BPM 11g Task Form Version Considerations http://ow.ly/1lA7XS OTNArchBeat Oracle content at SOA, Cloud and Service Technology Symposium (and discount code!) http://pub.vitrue.com/FPcW OracleBlogs ?BPM 11g Task Form Version Considerations http://ow.ly/1lzOrX OTNArchBeat BPM 11g #ADF Task Form Versioning | Christopher Karl Chan #fusionmiddleware http://pub.vitrue.com/0qP2 OTNArchBeat Lightweight ADF Task Flow for BPM Human Tasks Overview | @AndrejusB #fusionmiddleware http://pub.vitrue.com/z7x9 SOA Community Oracle Fusion Middleware Summer Camps in Lisbon report by Link Consulting http://middlewarebylink.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/oracle-fusion-middleware-summer-camps-in-lisbon/ … #ofmsummercamps #soa #bpm SOA Community ?Clemens Utschig-Utschig & Manas Deb The Successful Execution of the SOA and BPM Vision Using a Business Capability Framework: Concepts… Simone Geib ?RT @oprocessaccel: Just released! White Paper: Oracle Process Accelerators Best Practices http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpm/learnmore/processaccelbestpracticeswhitepaper-1708910.pdf … jornica ?Report from Oracle Fusion Middleware Summer Camps in Munich: SOA Suite 11g advanced training experiences @soacommunity http://bit.ly/Mw3btE Simone Geib ?Bruce Tierney: Update - SOA & BPM Customer Insights Webcast Series: | https://blogs.oracle.com/SOA/entry/update_soa_bpm_customer_insights … OTNArchBeat Business SOA: Thinking is Dead | @mosesjones http://pub.vitrue.com/k8mw esentri ?had 3 great days in Munich at #Oracle #soacommunity Summercamp! Special thanks to Geoffroy de Lamalle from eProseed! Danilo Schmiedel ?Used my time in train to setup the ps5 soa/bpm vbox-image.Works like a dream. Setup-Readme is perfect! Saves a lot of time!!! @soacommunity 18 Jul SOA Community ?THANKS for the excellent OFM summer camps - save trip home - share your pictures at http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity #ofmsummercamps #soacommunity doors BBQ-party with Oracle @soacommunity. 5Star! #lovemunich #ofmsummercamps pic.twitter.com/ztfcGn2S leonsmiers ?New #Capgemini blog post "Continuous Improvement of Business Agility" http://bit.ly/Lr0EwG #bpm #yam Eric Elzinga ?MDS Explorer utility, http://see.sc/4qdb43 #soasuite ServiceTechSymposium ?@techsymp New speaker Demed L’Her from Oracle has been added to the symposium calendar. http://ow.ly/cjnyw SOA Community ?Last day of the Fusion Middleware summer camps - we continue at 9.00 am. send us your barbecue pictures! #ofmsummercamps #soacommunity SOA Community ?Delivering SOA Governance with EAMS and Oracle Enterprise Repository by Link Consulting http://middlewarebylink.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/delivering-soa-governance-with-eams-and-oracle-enterprise-repository/ … #soacommunity #soa #oer OracleBlogs ?Process Accelerator Kit http://ow.ly/1loaCw 15 Jul SOA Community ?Sun is back in Munich! Send your pictures Middleware summer camps! #ofmsummercamps We start tomorrow 11.00 at Oracle pic.twitter.com/6FStxomk Walter Montantes ?Gracias, Obrigado, Thank you, Danke a Lisboa y a @soacommunity @wlscommunity. From the Mexican guys!! cc @mikeintoch #ofmsummercamps Andrejus Baranovskis Tips & Tricks How to Run Oracle BPM 11g PS5 Workspace from Custom ADF 11g Application http://fb.me/1zOf3h2K8 JDeveloper & ADF ?Fusion Apps Enterprise Repository - Explained http://dlvr.it/1rpjWd Steve Walker ?Oracle #Exalogic is the logical choice for running business applications. Exalogic Software 2.0 launches 7/25. Reg at http://bit.ly/NedQ9L A. Chatziantoniou ?Landed in rainy Amsterdam after a great week in Lisbon for the #ofmsummercamps - multo obrigado for Jürgen for another fantastic event SOA Community ?Teams present #BPM11g POC results at #ofmsummercamps - great job! #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/0d4txkWF Sabine Leitner ?#DOAG SIG Middleware 29.08.2012 Köln über MW, Administration, Monitoring http://bit.ly/P47w82 @soacommunity @OracleMW @OracleFMW 12 Jul philmulhall ?Thanks @soacommunity for a great week at the #ofmsummercamps. Hard work done so time for a few cold ones in Lisboa. pic.twitter.com/LVUUuwTh peter230769 ?RT: andrea_rocco_31: RT @soacommunity: Enjoy the networking event at #ofmsummercamps want to attend next time ... pic.twitter.com/D1HRndi4 Niels Gorter ?#ofmsummercamps dinner in Lisbon. Great weather, scenery, training, people, on and on. Big THANKS @soacommunity JDeveloper & ADF ?Running Oracle BPM 11g PS5 Worklist Task Flow and Human Task Form on Non-SOA Domain http://dlvr.it/1r0c2j Andrea Rocco ?RT @soacommunity: Jamy pastry at cafe Belem - who is the ghost there?!? http://via.me/-2x33uk6 Simon Haslam ?Sounds great - sorry I couldn't make it. RT @soacommunity: 6pm BPM advanced training hard work to build the POC #ofmsummercamps philmulhall ?A well earned rest after a hard days work @soacommunity #summercamps pic.twitter.com/LKK7VOVS philmulhall ?Some more hard working delegates @soacommunity #summercamps pic.twitter.com/gWpk1HZh SOA Community ?Error message at the BPM POC - will The #ace director understand the message and solve it? #ofmsummercamps pic.twitter.com/LFTEzNck Daniel Kleine-Albers ?posted on the #thecattlecrew blog: Assigning more memory to JDeveloper http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/jdeveloper-quicktip-assigning-more-memory/ … OTNArchBeat ?BAM design pointers | Kavitha Srinivasan http://pub.vitrue.com/TOhP SOA Community ?Did you receive the July SOA community newsletter? read it! Want to become a member http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa #soacommunity #soa #opn OracleBlogs ?Markus Zirn, Big Data with CEP and SOA @ SOA, Cloud &amp; Service Technology Symposium 2012 http://ow.ly/1lcSkb Andrejus Baranovskis Running Oracle BPM 11g PS5 Worklist Task Flow and Human Task Form on Non-SOA Eric Elzinga ?Service Facade design pattern in OSB, http://bit.ly/NnOExN Eric Elzinga ?New BPEL Thread Pool in SOA 11g for Non-Blocking Invoke Activities from 11.1.1.6 (PS5), http://bit.ly/NnOc2G Gilberto Holms New Post: Siebel Connection Pool in Oracle Service Bus 11g http://wp.me/pRE8V-2z Oracle UPK & Tutor ?UPK Pre-Built Content Update: UPK pre-built content development efforts are always underway and growing. Ove... http://bit.ly/R2HeTj JDeveloper & ADF ?Troubleshooting BPMN process editor problems in 11.1.1.6 http://dlvr.it/1p0FfS orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: BAM design pointers - In working recently with a large Oracle customer on SOA and BAM, I discove... http://ow.ly/1kYqES SOA Community BPMN process editor problems in 11.1.1.6 by Mark Nelson http://redstack.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/bpmn-process-editor-problems-in-11-1-1-6 … #soacommunity #bpm OTNArchBeat ?SOA Learning Library: free short, topic-focused training on Oracle SOA & BPM products | @SOACommunity http://pub.vitrue.com/NE1G Andrejus Baranovskis ?ADF 11g PS5 Application with Customized BPM Worklist Task Flow (MDS Seeded Customization) http://fb.me/1coX4r1X1 OTNArchBeat ?A Universal JMX Client for Weblogic –Part 1: Monitoring BPEL Thread Pools in SOA 11g | Stefan Koser http://pub.vitrue.com/mQVZ OTNArchBeat ?BPM – Disable DBMS job to refresh B2B Materialized View | Mark Nelson http://pub.vitrue.com/3PR0 SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. 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  • You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development Expert if&hellip;

    - by Mark Rackley
    So, all you aspiring SharePoint experts out there (especially those of you who put “expert” in your resumes).  It’s time for a cold cool splash of reality. More than likely you are NOT an expert (I know I’m not). Yes, you may have some expertise in certain aspects in SharePoint (it’s questionable if I have THAT some days), but make sure you’ve got the basics down before you start throwing that word “expert” around. I know that it becomes frustrating to those looking to hire SharePoint people and having to sift through all the resumes of those who think very highly of themselves and their skills only to find those gaping holes in common best practices. I’m much more willing to hire a decent dev who KNOWS they are not an expert than to hire a decent+ dev who THINKS they are an expert.  So… I’ve compiled a small reality check for you SharePoint Devs. and a “red flag” check for those of you wishing to hire a SharePoint developer. If any of these apply to you, you are probably not a SharePoint Development Expert. You are not a SharePoint Development Expert if you manually copy your DLLs Seriously, I don’t care if you write the best code in the world. If you are manually copying files to each web front end you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert. Yes, I realize the admins are generally the ones who do the actual deployments, but if you don’t know how to create solution packages for your admins, you are going to end up doing more damage than good some day. There are TONS of tools out there to help generate deployable solutions for you. You have ZERO excuse. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you can’t tell me the main artifacts of a solution package Directly related to the first one. If you don’t know what the Manifest, DDF, WSP, and Feature files are and how they are used in a solution package, you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. I’m not asking you to be able to write them all from scratch (heck, I can’t even do that), but you MUST know what they are and how to tweak them if necessary. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know what a Content Type or a Site Column is You would be absolutely amazed at how many “Expert” SharePoint Developers have NEVER EVER created a Content Type or Site Column or even know what they are. I mean, why would you ever want to create those when you can just do everything as a custom list or custom field? right???? (that’s sarcasm). You also need to know how to package a Content Type and a Site Column into a deployable package by the way. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you have not created at least one Web Part, Workflow, Timer Job, and Event Handler. If you haven’t written at least one of each, you don’t fully understand what they do or their limitations. Again, I expect NO ONE to be able to write these things blind. I think the last time I wrote an application from scratch without copying and pasting from another project I had done before was back in 1994? Seriously, coding is like a Sour Dough starter, you get it from someone else and keep adding to it. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know how to properly dispose of objects Another biggie with zero excuse for getting it wrong. It is so well known that you must dispose of your SPWeb and SPSite objects that if you aren’t doing it then you are not an expert. Heck, if you utilize “using” when handling SPWeb and SPSite objects and don’t realize that it disposes of those objects for you, then you are not a SharePoint Development expert. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you do not know how to properly elevate privileges Just one of those development basics that any decent SharePoint Developer has got to have down and understand how and why it’s used You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know all of the development options available to SharePoint and when they should be used Okay… so all you hard core .NET SharePoint dev geeks take a moment to listen. You may be the most top not SharePoint .NET developer in the world, but if you are opening Visual Studio to solve every problem in SharePoint, then you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. The SharePoint developer’s tool kit is growing every day with tools like Visual Studio, Data View Web Parts, XSL, jQuery, SPServices, etc. etc… If you don’t have the ability to at least recognize that “hey, you can basically do the same thing here but just dropping in Easy Tabs instead of writing some weird web part” then you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert AND you are doing a huge disservice to your clients and customers. You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development expert if you call yourself an Expert So, truth telling time. I’m not an expert. There, I said it. I feel so much better. Now, I realize the word “expert” has been used with my name before, but I am quick to point out that I KNOW the experts and know that they will help me if I need it, but I’m not an expert in all things SharePoint. The minute you take on that moniker you are setting yourself up for a fall. It’s too big, there’s too much to know, and there’s WAY too much you can do wrong. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you are not involved in the community I expect to get the most flack for this one, but it’s always a huge red flag for me when someone says they are an expert and has ZERO knowledge of the SharePoint community. The SharePoint community is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to be an effective SharePoint developer, admin, architect, power user or whatever the heck you are!! The community keeps you sane, tells you when you are NOT using a best practice, recommends the best practice, and even knows when Microsoft is giving you the wrong information (*gasp* it does happen). If you can’t tell me who you are following on twitter, who's blog you read, what conferences you attend, or name the experts who you monitor to make sure you are not doing something stupid, then you are probably doing something stupid. Again, not asking you to be a speaker, blogger, or the least bit extroverted but you should be at LEAST stalking the experts. So… what’s the point? So… yeah… what’s my point in all this. Well, first of all let me point out that this is by far not a finished list and I could come up with a LOT more specific “deep dive” questions, but these should be high enough level that even non experts can recognize and ask them. If you have some common ones you run into let me know and add them in the comments below. Also, keep in mind I’m not saying you as a developer HAVE to know EVERYTHING, but you DO need to know what you don’t know and proudly and honestly state “I don’t know, but I’ll learn and find out”.  Those of us hiring SharePoint developers and know and have a passion for SharePoint are not looking for that elusive “expert” who knows everything. We are looking for someone who “gets it”, has a similar passion, great attitude, an understanding that they DON’T know everything, and a desire to do it right.  I would bet money that most SharePoint development disasters happen because of “experts” who think they know everything rather than the developer who is cautious and knows he doesn’t. Lastly, I know there’s a raging debate over what a “SharePoint Developer” is (I should know, as I keep bringing it up). So, obviously this blog post is more closely tied to the .NET side of SharePoint development and less towards the client side, middle tier, or whatever you want to call it. So, let’s please not get that argument going here as well…  Thanks

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  • Quotas - Using quotas on ZFSSA shares and projects and users

    - by Steve Tunstall
    So you don't want your users to fill up your entire storage pool with their MP3 files, right? Good idea to make some quotas. There's some good tips and tricks here, including a helpful workflow (a script) that will allow you to set a default quota on all of the users of a share at once. Let's start with some basics. I mad a project called "small" and inside it I made a share called "Share1". You can set quotas on the project level, which will affect all of the shares in it, or you can do it on the share level like I am here. Go the the share's General property page. First, I'm using a Windows client, so I need to make sure I have my SMB mountpoint. Do you know this trick yet? Go to the Protocol page of the share. See the SMB section? It needs a resource name to make the UNC path for the SMB (Windows) users. You do NOT have to type this name in for every share you make! Do this at the Project level. Before you make any shares, go to the Protocol properties of the Project, and set the SMB Resource name to "On". This special code will automatically make the SMB resource name of every share in the project the same as the share name. Note the UNC path name I got below. Since I did this at the Project level, I didn't have to lift a finger for it to work on every share I make in this project. Simple. So I have now mapped my Windows "Z:" drive to this Share1. I logged in as the user "Joe". Note that my computer shows my Z: drive as 34GB, which is the entire size of my Pool that this share is in. Right now, Joe could fill this drive up and it would fill up my pool.  Now, go back to the General properties of Share1. In the "Space Usage" area, over on the right, click on the "Show All" text under the Users & Groups section. Sure enough, Joe and some other users are in here and have some data. Note this is also a handy window to use just to see how much space your users are using in any given share.  Ok, Joe owes us money from lunch last week, so we want to give him a quota of 100MB. Type his name in the Users box. Notice how it now shows you how much data he's currently using. Go ahead and give him a 100M quota and hit the Apply button. If I go back to "Show All", I can see that Joe now has a quota, and no one else does. Sure enough, as soon as I refresh my screen back on Joe's client, he sees that his Z: drive is now only 100MB, and he's more than half way full.  That was easy enough, but what if you wanted to make the whole share have a quota, so that the share itself, no matter who uses it, can only grow to a certain size? That's even easier. Just use the Quota box on the left hand side. Here, I use a Quota on the share of 300MB.  So now I log off as Joe, and log in as Steve. Even though Steve does NOT have a quota, it is showing my Z: drive as 300MB. This would effect anyone, INCLUDING the ROOT user, becuase you specified the Quota to be on the SHARE, not on a person.  Note that back in the Share, if you click the "Show All" text, the window does NOT show Steve, or anyone else, to have a quota of 300MB. Yet we do, because it's on the share itself, not on any user, so this panel does not see that. Ok, here is where it gets FUN.... Let's say you do NOT want a quota on the SHARE, because you want SOME people, like Root and yourself, to have FULL access to it and you want the ability to fill the whole thing up if you darn well feel like it. HOWEVER, you want to give the other users a quota. HOWEVER you have, say, 200 users, and you do NOT feel like typing in each of their names and giving them each a quota, and they are not all members of a AD global group you could use or anything like that.  Hmmmmmm.... No worries, mate. We have a handy-dandy script that can do this for us. Now, this script was written a few years back by Tim Graves, one of our ZFSSA engineers out of the UK. This is not my script. It is NOT supported by Oracle support in any way. It does work fine with the 2011.1.4 code as best as I can tell, but Oracle, and I, are NOT responsible for ANYTHING that you do with this script. Furthermore, I will NOT give you this script, so do not ask me for it. You need to get this from your local Oracle storage SC. I will give it to them. I want this only going to my fellow SCs, who can then work with you to have it and show you how it works.  Here's what it does...Once you add this workflow to the Maintenance-->Workflows section, you click it once to run it. Nothing seems to happen at this point, but something did.   Go back to any share or project. You will see that you now have four new, custom properties on the bottom.  Do NOT touch the bottom two properties, EVER. Only touch the top two. Here, I'm going to give my users a default quota of about 40MB each. The beauty of this script is that it will only effect users that do NOT already have any kind of personal quota. It will only change people who have no quota at all. It does not effect the Root user.  After I hit Apply on the Share screen. Nothing will happen until I go back and run the script again. The first time you run it, it creates the custom properties. The second and all subsequent times you run it, it checks the shares for any users, and applies your quota number to each one of them, UNLESS they already have one set. Notice in the readout below how it did NOT apply to my Joe user, since Joe had a quota set.  Sure enough, when I go back to the "Show All" in the share properties, all of the users who did not have a quota, now have one for 39.1MB. Hmmm... I did my math wrong, didn't I?    That's OK, I'll just change the number of the Custom Default quota again. Here, I am adding a zero on the end.  After I click Apply, and then run the script again, all of my users, except Joe, now have a quota of 391MB  You can customize a person at any time. Here, I took the Steve user, and specifically gave him a Quota of zero. Now when I run the script again, he is different from the rest, so he is no longer effected by the script. Under Show All, I see that Joe is at 100, and Steve has no Quota at all. I can do this all day long. es, you will have to re-run the script every time new users get added. The script only applies the default quota to users that are present at the time the script is ran. However, it would be a simple thing to schedule the script to run each night, or to make an alert to run the script when certain events occur.  For you power users, if you ever want to delete these custom properties and remove the script completely, you will find these properties under the "Schema" section under the Shares section. You can remove them here. There's no need to, however, they don't hurt a thing if you just don't use them.  I hope these tips have helped you out there. Quotas can be fun. 

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  • HDMI video connection cuts top and bottom borders of screen

    - by Luis Alvarado
    Ok this is an extension of another problem I had with a VGA connection and an Nvidia Geforce GT 440 card. Here is goes the explanation of this particular problem: I have a Soneview 32' TV. This TV has many connections including VGA (First reason I bought it), HDMI (Second reason but did not have a HDMI cable at that time) and DVI. I have had this TV for little over a month now, actually I had it to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 11.10 and started using it exactly on that date (I know too much fan there but hey, I like geek stuff). I started using it with the VGA cable. After 2 weeks I bought an Nvidia GT440 card. The previous 9500GT was working correctly with no problems whatsoever. I installed the GT440 and the first problem that I encountered using this latest card is mentioned here: Nvidia GT 440 black screen problem when loading lightdm greeter. The solution to this problem was to actually disconnect then connect again the VGA cable. This would result in the screen showing me the lightdm screen for my login. If I did not disconnect then connect the cable I could be there forever thinking that there is no video signal. I got tired of looking for answers that did not work and for solutions that made me literally have to install Ubuntu again. I just went and bought a HDMI cable and changed the VGA one for that one. It worked and I did not have to disconnect/connect the cable but now I have this problem when using any resolution. My normal resolution is 1920x1080 (This TV is 1080HD) so in VGA I could use this resolution with no problem, but on HDMI am getting the borders cut out. Here is a pic: As you can see from the PIC, the Launcher icons only show less than 50% of their witdh. Forget about the top and bottom parts, I can access them with the mouse but I can not visualize them in the screen. It is like it's outside of the TVs view. Basically there is like 20 to 30 pixels gone from all sides. I searched around and came to running xrand --verbose to see what it could detect from the TV. I got this: cyrex@cyrex:~$ xrandr --verbose xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default Screen 0: minimum 320 x 175, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1080 default connected 1920x1080+0+0 (0x164) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm Identifier: 0x163 Timestamp: 465485 Subpixel: unknown Clones: CRTC: 0 CRTCs: 0 Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 filter: 1920x1080 (0x164) 103.7MHz *current h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 54.0KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 50.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x165) 105.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 55.1KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 51.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x166) 107.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 56.2KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 52.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x167) 109.9MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 57.2KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 53.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x168) 112.0MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 58.3KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 54.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x169) 114.0MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 55.0Hz 1680x1050 (0x16a) 98.8MHz h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 58.8KHz v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 56.0Hz 1680x1050 (0x16b) 100.5MHz h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 59.9KHz v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 57.0Hz 1600x1024 (0x16c) 95.0MHz h: width 1600 start 0 end 0 total 1600 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 58.0Hz 1440x900 (0x16d) 76.5MHz h: width 1440 start 0 end 0 total 1440 skew 0 clock 53.1KHz v: height 900 start 0 end 0 total 900 clock 59.0Hz 1360x768 (0x171) 65.8MHz h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 48.4KHz v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 63.0Hz 1360x768 (0x172) 66.8MHz h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 49.2KHz v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 64.0Hz 1280x1024 (0x173) 85.2MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.6KHz v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 65.0Hz 1280x960 (0x176) 83.6MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 65.3KHz v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 68.0Hz 1280x960 (0x177) 84.8MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.2KHz v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 69.0Hz 1280x720 (0x178) 64.5MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 50.4KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 70.0Hz 1280x720 (0x179) 65.4MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.1KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 71.0Hz 1280x720 (0x17a) 66.4MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.8KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 72.0Hz 1152x864 (0x17b) 72.7MHz h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.1KHz v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 73.0Hz 1152x864 (0x17c) 73.7MHz h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.9KHz v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 74.0Hz ....Many Resolutions later... 320x200 (0x1d1) 10.2MHz h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 31.8KHz v: height 200 start 0 end 0 total 200 clock 159.0Hz 320x175 (0x1d2) 9.0MHz h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 28.0KHz v: height 175 start 0 end 0 total 175 clock 160.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x1dd) 333.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 173.9KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 161.0Hz If it helps, the Refresh Rate at 1920x1080 is 60. There is a flickering effect at this resolution using HDMI but not VGA which I imagine is related to the borders cut off issue am asking here. I have also done the following but this will only solve the problem on lower resolutions than 1920x1080 or on others TV (My father has a Sony TV where this problem is also solved): NVIDIA WAY Go to Nvidia-Settings and there will be an option that will have more features if a HDMI cable is connected. In the next pic the option is DFP-1 (CNDLCD) but this name changes depending on what device the PC is connected to: Uncheck Force Full GPU Scaling What this will do for resolutions LOWER than 1920x1080 (At least in my case) is solve the flickering problem and fix the borders cut by the monitor. Save to Xorg.conf file the changes made after changing to a resolution acceptable to your eyes. TV WAY If you TV has OSD Menu and this menu has options for scanning the screen resolution or auto adjusting to it, disable them. Specifically the option about SCAN. If you have an option for AV Mode disable it. Basically disable any option that needs to scan and scale the resolution. Test one by one. In the case of my father's TV this did it. In my case, the Nvidia solved it for lower resolutions. NOTE: In the case this is not solved in the next couple of weeks I will add this as the answer but take into consideration that the issue is still active with 1920x1080 resolutions.

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  • [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 1: Securing User Accounts and Passwords in Windows

    - by Matt Klein
    This How-To Geek School class is intended for people who want to learn more about security when using Windows operating systems. You will learn many principles that will help you have a more secure computing experience and will get the chance to use all the important security tools and features that are bundled with Windows. Obviously, we will share everything you need to know about using them effectively. In this first lesson, we will talk about password security; the different ways of logging into Windows and how secure they are. In the proceeding lesson, we will explain where Windows stores all the user names and passwords you enter while working in this operating systems, how safe they are, and how to manage this data. Moving on in the series, we will talk about User Account Control, its role in improving the security of your system, and how to use Windows Defender in order to protect your system from malware. Then, we will talk about the Windows Firewall, how to use it in order to manage the apps that get access to the network and the Internet, and how to create your own filtering rules. After that, we will discuss the SmartScreen Filter – a security feature that gets more and more attention from Microsoft and is now widely used in its Windows 8.x operating systems. Moving on, we will discuss ways to keep your software and apps up-to-date, why this is important and which tools you can use to automate this process as much as possible. Last but not least, we will discuss the Action Center and its role in keeping you informed about what’s going on with your system and share several tips and tricks about how to stay safe when using your computer and the Internet. Let’s get started by discussing everyone’s favorite subject: passwords. The Types of Passwords Found in Windows In Windows 7, you have only local user accounts, which may or may not have a password. For example, you can easily set a blank password for any user account, even if that one is an administrator. The only exception to this rule are business networks where domain policies force all user accounts to use a non-blank password. In Windows 8.x, you have both local accounts and Microsoft accounts. If you would like to learn more about them, don’t hesitate to read the lesson on User Accounts, Groups, Permissions & Their Role in Sharing, in our Windows Networking series. Microsoft accounts are obliged to use a non-blank password due to the fact that a Microsoft account gives you access to Microsoft services. Using a blank password would mean exposing yourself to lots of problems. Local accounts in Windows 8.1 however, can use a blank password. On top of traditional passwords, any user account can create and use a 4-digit PIN or a picture password. These concepts were introduced by Microsoft to speed up the sign in process for the Windows 8.x operating system. However, they do not replace the use of a traditional password and can be used only in conjunction with a traditional user account password. Another type of password that you encounter in Windows operating systems is the Homegroup password. In a typical home network, users can use the Homegroup to easily share resources. A Homegroup can be joined by a Windows device only by using the Homegroup password. If you would like to learn more about the Homegroup and how to use it for network sharing, don’t hesitate to read our Windows Networking series. What to Keep in Mind When Creating Passwords, PINs and Picture Passwords When creating passwords, a PIN, or a picture password for your user account, we would like you keep in mind the following recommendations: Do not use blank passwords, even on the desktop computers in your home. You never know who may gain unwanted access to them. Also, malware can run more easily as administrator because you do not have a password. Trading your security for convenience when logging in is never a good idea. When creating a password, make it at least eight characters long. Make sure that it includes a random mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Ideally, it should not be related in any way to your name, username, or company name. Make sure that your passwords do not include complete words from any dictionary. Dictionaries are the first thing crackers use to hack passwords. Do not use the same password for more than one account. All of your passwords should be unique and you should use a system like LastPass, KeePass, Roboform or something similar to keep track of them. When creating a PIN use four different digits to make things slightly harder to crack. When creating a picture password, pick a photo that has at least 10 “points of interests”. Points of interests are areas that serve as a landmark for your gestures. Use a random mixture of gesture types and sequence and make sure that you do not repeat the same gesture twice. Be aware that smudges on the screen could potentially reveal your gestures to others. The Security of Your Password vs. the PIN and the Picture Password Any kind of password can be cracked with enough effort and the appropriate tools. There is no such thing as a completely secure password. However, passwords created using only a few security principles are much harder to crack than others. If you respect the recommendations shared in the previous section of this lesson, you will end up having reasonably secure passwords. Out of all the log in methods in Windows 8.x, the PIN is the easiest to brute force because PINs are restricted to four digits and there are only 10,000 possible unique combinations available. The picture password is more secure than the PIN because it provides many more opportunities for creating unique combinations of gestures. Microsoft have compared the two login options from a security perspective in this post: Signing in with a picture password. In order to discourage brute force attacks against picture passwords and PINs, Windows defaults to your traditional text password after five failed attempts. The PIN and the picture password function only as alternative login methods to Windows 8.x. Therefore, if someone cracks them, he or she doesn’t have access to your user account password. However, that person can use all the apps installed on your Windows 8.x device, access your files, data, and so on. How to Create a PIN in Windows 8.x If you log in to a Windows 8.x device with a user account that has a non-blank password, then you can create a 4-digit PIN for it, to use it as a complementary login method. In order to create one, you need to go to “PC Settings”. If you don’t know how, then press Windows + C on your keyboard or flick from the right edge of the screen, on a touch-enabled device, then press “Settings”. The Settings charm is now open. Click or tap the link that says “Change PC settings”, on the bottom of the charm. In PC settings, go to Accounts and then to “Sign-in options”. Here you will find all the necessary options for changing your existing password, creating a PIN, or a picture password. To create a PIN, press the “Add” button in the PIN section. The “Create a PIN” wizard is started and you are asked to enter the password of your user account. Type it and press “OK”. Now you are asked to enter a 4-digit pin in the “Enter PIN” and “Confirm PIN” fields. The PIN has been created and you can now use it to log in to Windows. How to Create a Picture Password in Windows 8.x If you log in to a Windows 8.x device with a user account that has a non-blank password, then you can also create a picture password and use it as a complementary login method. In order to create one, you need to go to “PC settings”. In PC Settings, go to Accounts and then to “Sign-in options”. Here you will find all the necessary options for changing your existing password, creating a PIN, or a picture password. To create a picture password, press the “Add” button in the “Picture password” section. The “Create a picture password” wizard is started and you are asked to enter the password of your user account. You are shown a guide on how the picture password works. Take a few seconds to watch it and learn the gestures that can be used for your picture password. You will learn that you can create a combination of circles, straight lines, and taps. When ready, press “Choose picture”. Browse your Windows 8.x device and select the picture you want to use for your password and press “Open”. Now you can drag the picture to position it the way you want. When you like how the picture is positioned, press “Use this picture” on the left. If you are not happy with the picture, press “Choose new picture” and select a new one, as shown during the previous step. After you have confirmed that you want to use this picture, you are asked to set up your gestures for the picture password. Draw three gestures on the picture, any combination you wish. Please remember that you can use only three gestures: circles, straight lines, and taps. Once you have drawn those three gestures, you are asked to confirm. Draw the same gestures one more time. If everything goes well, you are informed that you have created your picture password and that you can use it the next time you sign in to Windows. If you don’t confirm the gestures correctly, you will be asked to try again, until you draw the same gestures twice. To close the picture password wizard, press “Finish”. Where Does Windows Store Your Passwords? Are They Safe? All the passwords that you enter in Windows and save for future use are stored in the Credential Manager. This tool is a vault with the usernames and passwords that you use to log on to your computer, to other computers on the network, to apps from the Windows Store, or to websites using Internet Explorer. By storing these credentials, Windows can automatically log you the next time you access the same app, network share, or website. Everything that is stored in the Credential Manager is encrypted for your protection.

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  • Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: REST API Integration

    - by Nino Guarnacci
    This post aims to highlight one of the features found in Oracle Coherence which allows it to be easily added and integrated inside a wider variety of projects.  The features in question are the REST API exposed by the Coherence nodes, with which you can interact in the wider mode in memory data grid.Oracle Coherence and Oracle Service Bus are natively integrated through a feature found in the Oracle Service Bus, which allows you to use the coherence grid cache during the configuration phase of a business service. This feature allows you to use an intermediate layer of cache to retrieve the answers from previous invocations of the same service, without necessarily having to invoke the real business service again. Directly from the web console of Oracle Service Bus, you can decide the policies of eviction of the objects / answers and define the discriminating parameters that identify their uniqueness.The coherence REST APIs, however, allow you to integrate both products for other necessities enabling realization of new architectures design.  Consider coherence’s node as a simple service which interoperates through the stardard services and in particular REST (with JSON and XML). Thinking of coherence as a company’s shared service, able to have an implementation of a centralized “map and reduce” which you can access  by a huge variety of protocols (transport and envelopes).An amazing step forward for those who still imagine connectors and code. This type of integration does not require writing custom code or complex implementation to be self-supported. The added value is made unique by the incredible value of both products independently, and still more out of their simple and robust integration.As already mentioned this scenario discovers a hidden new door behind the columns of these two products. The door leads to new ideas and perspectives for enterprise architectures that increasingly wink to next-generation applications: simple and dynamic, perhaps towards the mobile and web 2.0.Below, a small and simple demo useful to demonstrate how easily is to integrate these two products using the Coherence REST API. This demo is also intended to imagine new enterprise architectures using this approach.The idea is to create a centralized system of alerting, fed easily from any company’s application, regardless of the technology with which they were built . Then use a representation standard protocol: RSS, using a service exposed by the service bus; So you can browse and search only the alerts that you are interested on, by category, author, title, date, etc etc.. The steps needed to implement this system are very simple and very few. Here they are listed below and described to be easily replicated within your environment. I would remind you that the demo is only meant to demonstrate how easily is to integrate Oracle Coherence and the Oracle Service Bus, and stimulate your imagination to new technological approaches.1) Install the two products: In this demo used (if necessary, consult the installation guides of 2 products)  - Oracle Service Bus ver. 11.1.1.5.0 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/service-bus/downloads/index.html - Oracle Coherence ver. 3.7.1 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/coherence/downloads/index.html 2) Because you choose to create a centralized alerting system, we need to define a structure type containing some alerting attributes useful to preserve and organize the information of the various alerts sent by the different applications. Here, then it was built a java class named Alert containing the canonical properties of an alarm information:- Title- Description- System- Time- Severity 3) Therefore, we need to create two configuration files for the coherence node, in order to save the Alert objects within the grid, through the rest/http protocol (more than the native API for Java, C + +, C,. Net). Here are the two minimal configuration files for Coherence:coherence-rest-config.xml resty-server-config.xml This minimum configuration allows me to use a distributed cache named "alerts" that can  also be accessed via http - rest on the host "localhost" over port "8080", objects are of type “oracle.cohsb.Alert”. 4) Below  a simple Java class that represents the type of alert messages: 5) At this point we just need to startup our coherence node, able to listen on http protocol to manage the “alerts” cache, which will receive incoming XML or JSON objects of type Alert. Remember to include in the classpath of the coherence node, the Alert java class and the following coherence libraries and configuration files:  At this point, just run the coherence class node “com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer”advising you to set the following parameters:-Dtangosol.coherence.log.level=9 -Dtangosol.coherence.log=stdout -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=[PATH_TO_THE_FILE]\resty-server-config.xml 6) Let's create a procedure to test our configuration of Coherence and in order to insert some custom alerts in our cache. The technology with which you want to achieve this functionality is fully not considerable: Javascript, Python, Ruby, Scala, C + +, Java.... Because the protocol to communicate with Coherence is simply HTTP / JSON or XML. For this little demo i choose Java: A method to send/put the alert to the cache: A method to query and view the content of the cache: Finally the main method that execute our methods:  No special library added in the classpath for our class (json struct static defined), when it will be executed, it asks some information such as title, description,... in order to compose and send an alert to the cache and then it will perform an inquiry, to the same cache. At this point, a good exercise at this point, may be to create the same procedure using other technologies, such as a simple html page containing some JavaScript code, and then using Python, Ruby, and so on.7) Now we are ready to start configuring the Oracle Service Bus in order to integrate the two products. First integrate the internal alerting system of Oracle Service Bus with our centralized alerting system based on coherence node. This ensures that by monitoring, or directly from within our Proxy Message Flow, we can throw alerts and save them directly into the Coherence node. To do this I choose to use the jms technology, natively present inside the Oracle Weblogic / Service Bus. Access to the Oracle WebLogic Administration console and create and configure a new JMS connection factory and a new jms destination (queue). Now we should create a new resource of type “alert destination” within our Oracle Service Bus project. The new “alert destination” resource should be configured using the newly created connection factory jms and jms destination. Finally, in order to withdraw the message alert enqueued in our JMS destination and send it to our coherence node, we just need to create a new business service and proxy service within our Oracle Service Bus project.Our business service is responsible for sending a message to our REST service Coherence using as a method action: PUT Finally our proxy service have to collect all messages enqueued on the destination, execute an xquery transformation on those messages  in order to translate them into valid XML / alert objects useful to be sent to our coherence service, through the newly created business service. The message flow pipeline containing the xquery transformation: Incredibly,  we just did a basic first integration between the native alerting system of Oracle Service Bus and our centralized alerting system by simply configuring our coherence node without developing anything.It's time to test it out. To do this I create a proxy service able to generate an alert using our "alert destination", whenever the proxy is invoked. After some invocation to our proxy that generates fake alerts, we could open an Internet browser and type the URL  http://localhost: 8080/alerts/  so we could see what has been inserted within the coherence node. 8) We are ready for the final step.  We would create a new message flow, that can be used to search and display the results in standard mode. To do this I choosen the standard representation of RSS, to display a formatted result on a huge variety of devices such as readers for the iPhone and Android. The inquiry may be defined already at the time of the request able to return only feed / items related to our needs. To do this we need to create a new business service, a new proxy service, and finally a new XQuery Transformation to take care of translating the collection of alerts that will be return from our coherence node in a nicely formatted RSS standard document.So we start right from this resource (xquery), which has the task of transforming a collection of alerts / xml returned from the node coherence in a type well-formatted feed RSS 2.0 our new business service that will search the alerts on our coherence node using the Rest API. And finally, our last resource, the proxy service that will be exposed as an RSS / feeds to various mobile devices and traditional web readers, in which we will intercept any search query, and transform the result returned by the business service in an RSS feed 2.0. The message flow with the transformation phase (Alert TO Feed Items): Finally some little tricks to follow during the routing to the business service, - check for any queries present in the url to require a subset of alerts  - the http header "Accept" to help get an answer XML instead of JSON: In our little demo we also static added some coherence parameters to the request:sort=time:desc;start=0;count=100I would like to get from Coherence that the results will be sorted by date, and starting from 1 up to a maximum of 100.Done!!Just incredible, our centralized alerting system is ready. Inheriting all the qualities and capabilities of the two products involved Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: - RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, Performance)Now try to use your mobile device, or a normal Internet browser by accessing the RSS just published: Some urls you may test: Search for the last 100 alerts : http://localhost:7001/alarmsSearch for alerts that do not have time set to null (time is not null):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=time+is+not+nullSearch for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” (system = ‘Web Browser’):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27Search for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” and the severity property is “Fatal” and the title property contain the word “Javascript”  (system = ‘Web Broser’ and severity = ‘Fatal’ and title like ‘%Javascript%’)http://localhost:8080/alerts?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27+AND+severity+%3D+%27Fatal%27+AND+title+LIKE+%27%25Javascript%25%27 To compose more complex queries about your need I would suggest you to read the chapter in the coherence documentation inherent the Cohl language (Coherence Query Language) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22837/api_cq.htm . Some useful links: - Oracle Coherence REST API Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22839/rest_intro.htm - Oracle Service Bus Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/soa.htm#osb - REST explanation from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer At this URL could be downloaded the whole materials of this demo http://blogs.oracle.com/slc/resource/cosb/coh-sb-demo.zip Author: Nino Guarnacci.

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  • Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista

    - by Matthew Guay
    Windows 7 and Vista include a nice set of backgrounds, but unfortunately most of them aren’t configurable by default.  Thanks to a free app and some registry changes, however, you can make the default screensavers uniquely yours! Customize the default screensavers If you’ve ever pressed the Customize button on most of the default screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista, you were probably greeted with this message: A little digging in the registry shows that this isn’t fully correct.  The default screensavers in Vista and 7 do have options you can set, but they’re not obvious.  With the help of an app or some registry tips, you can easily customize the screensavers to be uniquely yours.  Here’s how you can do it with an app or in the registry. Customize Windows Screensavers with System Screensavers Tweaker Download the System Screensavers Tweaker (link below), and unzip the folder.  Run nt6srccfg.exe in the folder to tweak your screensavers.  This application lets you tweak the screensavers’ registry settings graphically, and it works great in all editions of Windows Vista and 7, including x64 versions. Change any of the settings you want in the screensaver tweaker, and click Apply. To preview the changes to your screensaver, open the Screen Saver settings window as normal by right-clicking on the desktop, and selecting Personalize. Click on the Screensaver button on the bottom right. Now, select your modified screensaver, and click Preview to see your changes. You can change a wide variety of settings for the Bubbles, Ribbons, and Mystify screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista, as well as the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista.  The tweaks to the Bubbles screensaver are especially nice.  Here’s how the Bubbles look without transparency. And, by tweaking a little more, you get a screensaver that looks more like a screen full of marbles. Ribbons and Mystify each have less settings, but still can produce some unique effects.   How’s that for a brilliant screensaver? And, if you want to return your screensavers to their default settings, simply run the System Screensavers Tweaker and select Reset to defaults on any screensaver you wish to reset. Customize Windows Screensavers in the Registry If you prefer to roll up your sleeves and tweak Windows under-the-hood, then here’s how you can customize the screensavers yourself in the Registry.  Type regedit into the search box in the Start menu, browse to the key for each screensaver, and add or modify the DWORD values listed for that screensaver using the Decimal base. Please Note: Tweaking the Registry can be difficult, so if you’re unsure, just use the tweaking application above. Also, you’ll probably want to create a System Restore Point.   Bubbles To edit the Bubbles screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Bubbles Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: MaterialGlass – enter 0 for solid or 1 for transparent bubbles Radius – enter a number between 1090000000 and 1130000000; the larger the number, the larger the bubbles’ radius ShowBubbles – enter 0 to show a black background or 1 to show the current desktop behind the bubbles ShowShadows – enter 0 for no shadow or 1 for shadows behind the bubbles SphereDensity – enter a number from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the number, the more bubbles on the screen. TurbulenceNumOctaves – enter a number from 1 to 255; the higher the number, the faster the bubble colors will change. Ribbons To edit the Ribbons screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Ribbons Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Blur – enter 0 to prevent ribbons from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few moments. Numribbons – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the number, the more ribbons on the screen. RibbonWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the thicker the ribbons. Mystify To edit the Mystify screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Mystify Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Blur – enter 0 to prevent lines from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few moments. LineWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the wider the lines. NumLines – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the value, the more lines on the screen. Aurora – Windows Vista only To edit the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Aurora Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Amplitude – enter a value from 500000000 to 2000000000; the higher the value, the slower the motion. Brightness – enter a value from 1000000000 to 1050000000; the higher the value, the brighter the affect. NumLayers – enter a value from 1 to 15; the higher the value, the more aurora layers displayed. Speed – enter a value from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the value, the faster the cycling. Conclusion Although the default screensavers are nice, they can be boring after awhile with their default settings.  But with these tweaks, you can create a variety of vibrant screensavers that should keep your desktop fresh and interesting. Link Download the System Screensavers Tweaker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create Icons to Start the Screensaver on Windows 7 or VistaMake Your Windows XP Logon Screen Look Like Windows VistaSpeed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting ResultsRoundup: 16 Tweaks to Windows Vista Look & FeelSet XP as the Default OS in a Windows Vista Dual-Boot Setup TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor

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  • The Proper Use of the VM Role in Windows Azure

    - by BuckWoody
    At the Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC) in 2010 we announced an addition to the Computational Roles in Windows Azure, called the VM Role. This new feature allows a great deal of control over the applications you write, but some have confused it with our full infrastructure offering in Windows Hyper-V. There is a proper architecture pattern for both of them. Virtualization Virtualization is the process of taking all of the hardware of a physical computer and replicating it in software alone. This means that a single computer can “host” or run several “virtual” computers. These virtual computers can run anywhere - including at a vendor’s location. Some companies refer to this as Cloud Computing since the hardware is operated and maintained elsewhere. IaaS The more detailed definition of this type of computing is called Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) since it removes the need for you to maintain hardware at your organization. The operating system, drivers, and all the other software required to run an application are still under your control and your responsibility to license, patch, and scale. Microsoft has an offering in this space called Hyper-V, that runs on the Windows operating system. Combined with a hardware hosting vendor and the System Center software to create and deploy Virtual Machines (a process referred to as provisioning), you can create a Cloud environment with full control over all aspects of the machine, including multiple operating systems if you like. Hosting machines and provisioning them at your own buildings is sometimes called a Private Cloud, and hosting them somewhere else is often called a Public Cloud. State-ful and Stateless Programming This paradigm does not create a new, scalable way of computing. It simply moves the hardware away. The reason is that when you limit the Cloud efforts to a Virtual Machine, you are in effect limiting the computing resources to what that single system can provide. This is because much of the software developed in this environment maintains “state” - and that requires a little explanation. “State-ful programming” means that all parts of the computing environment stay connected to each other throughout a compute cycle. The system expects the memory, CPU, storage and network to remain in the same state from the beginning of the process to the end. You can think of this as a telephone conversation - you expect that the other person picks up the phone, listens to you, and talks back all in a single unit of time. In “Stateless” computing the system is designed to allow the different parts of the code to run independently of each other. You can think of this like an e-mail exchange. You compose an e-mail from your system (it has the state when you’re doing that) and then you walk away for a bit to make some coffee. A few minutes later you click the “send” button (the network has the state) and you go to a meeting. The server receives the message and stores it on a mail program’s database (the mail server has the state now) and continues working on other mail. Finally, the other party logs on to their mail client and reads the mail (the other user has the state) and responds to it and so on. These events might be separated by milliseconds or even days, but the system continues to operate. The entire process doesn’t maintain the state, each component does. This is the exact concept behind coding for Windows Azure. The stateless programming model allows amazing rates of scale, since the message (think of the e-mail) can be broken apart by multiple programs and worked on in parallel (like when the e-mail goes to hundreds of users), and only the order of re-assembling the work is important to consider. For the exact same reason, if the system makes copies of those running programs as Windows Azure does, you have built-in redundancy and recovery. It’s just built into the design. The Difference Between Infrastructure Designs and Platform Designs When you simply take a physical server running software and virtualize it either privately or publicly, you haven’t done anything to allow the code to scale or have recovery. That all has to be handled by adding more code and more Virtual Machines that have a slight lag in maintaining the running state of the system. Add more machines and you get more lag, so the scale is limited. This is the primary limitation with IaaS. It’s also not as easy to deploy these VM’s, and more importantly, you’re often charged on a longer basis to remove them. your agility in IaaS is more limited. Windows Azure is a Platform - meaning that you get objects you can code against. The code you write runs on multiple nodes with multiple copies, and it all works because of the magic of Stateless programming. you don’t worry, or even care, about what is running underneath. It could be Windows (and it is in fact a type of Windows Server), Linux, or anything else - but that' isn’t what you want to manage, monitor, maintain or license. You don’t want to deploy an operating system - you want to deploy an application. You want your code to run, and you don’t care how it does that. Another benefit to PaaS is that you can ask for hundreds or thousands of new nodes of computing power - there’s no provisioning, it just happens. And you can stop using them quicker - and the base code for your application does not have to change to make this happen. Windows Azure Roles and Their Use If you need your code to have a user interface, in Visual Studio you add a Web Role to your project, and if the code needs to do work that doesn’t involve a user interface you can add a Worker Role. They are just containers that act a certain way. I’ll provide more detail on those later. Note: That’s a general description, so it’s not entirely accurate, but it’s accurate enough for this discussion. So now we’re back to that VM Role. Because of the name, some have mistakenly thought that you can take a Virtual Machine running, say Linux, and deploy it to Windows Azure using this Role. But you can’t. That’s not what it is designed for at all. If you do need that kind of deployment, you should look into Hyper-V and System Center to create the Private or Public Infrastructure as a Service. What the VM Role is actually designed to do is to allow you to have a great deal of control over the system where your code will run. Let’s take an example. You’ve heard about Windows Azure, and Platform programming. You’re convinced it’s the right way to code. But you have a lot of things you’ve written in another way at your company. Re-writing all of your code to take advantage of Windows Azure will take a long time. Or perhaps you have a certain version of Apache Web Server that you need for your code to work. In both cases, you think you can (or already have) code the the software to be “Stateless”, you just need more control over the place where the code runs. That’s the place where a VM Role makes sense. Recap Virtualizing servers alone has limitations of scale, availability and recovery. Microsoft’s offering in this area is Hyper-V and System Center, not the VM Role. The VM Role is still used for running Stateless code, just like the Web and Worker Roles, with the exception that it allows you more control over the environment of where that code runs.

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