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• Friday Fun: Favorite Games to Play in Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Online games can provide a perfect break while you are working and being able to choose from a multitude of games makes it even better. If you are a game addict then you will definitely want to have a look at the Game Button extension for Chrome. Game Button in Action Once the extension has finished installing you are ready to enjoy all that gaming goodness. To get started just click on the “Toolbar Button” and choose a game category. For our example we chose “Shooting Games”. Once you select a game category a new window will open. Towards the lower right corner you will be able to access a scrollable drop-down menu and choose the game that you would like to play. Note: Some of these games come with sounds that can not be turned off so you may want to have the volume lowered all the way or your speakers temporarily turned off if you are at work. For our first game we chose “Snowball Throw”. Notice that there is a nice variety such as “DinoKids – Archery” to games like “Secret Agent”. You can see that our game was nicely sized…not too small and not too large. Go go snowballs! This is definitely a fun one to try…the best approach for this one is to use one hand for clicking the mouse and the other hand for moving it at the same time. If desired you can post your score and see other high scores afterwards. For our second game we decided to try “Target Shooter Firing Range”. This one is definitely a little harder because you have to be extremely precise while moving as quickly as possible. Not too bad for the score but that is ok. You will certainly be able to have fun finding the games that will become your favorites while enjoying the nice variety. Conclusion If you love online games and want a good variety to choose from then the Game Button extension will make a nice addition to your browser. Links Download the Game Button extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Play a New Random Game Each Day in ChromeFriday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Go Retro with PacmanFriday Fun: Play Air Hockey in Google ChromeFriday Fun: Five More Time Wasting Online Games 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 Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems

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• SQL Server Editions and Integration Services

  The SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 product family has quite a few editions now, so what does this mean for SQL Server Integration Services? Starting from the bottom we have the free edition known as Express, and the entry level Workgroup edition, as well as the new Web edition. None of these three include the full SSIS product, but they do all include the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard, with access to basic data sources but nothing more, so for simple loading and extraction of data this should suffice. You will not be able to build packages though, this is just a one shot deal aimed at using the wizard on an ad-hoc basis. To get the full power of Integration Services you need to start with Standard edition. This includes the BI Development Studio, for building your own packages, and fully functional IDE integrated into Visual Studio. (You get the full VS 2005/2008 IDE with the product). All core functions will be available but with a restricted set of transformations and tasks. The SQL Server 2005 Features Comparison or Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2008 describes standard edition as having basic transforms, compared to Enterprise which includes the advanced transforms. I think basic is a little harsh considering the power you get with Standard, but the advanced covers the truly ground-breaking capabilities of data mining, text mining and cleansing or fuzzy transforms. The power of performing these operations within your ETL pipeline should not be underestimated, but not all processes will require these capabilities, so it seems like a reasonable delineation. Thankfully there are no feature limitations or artificial governors within Standard compared to Enterprise. The same control flow and data flow engines underpin both editions, with the same configuration and deployment options allowing you to work seamlessly between environments and editions if using the common components. In fact there are no govenors at all in SSIS, so whilst the SQL Database engine is limited to 4 CPUs in Standard edition, SSIS is only limited by the base operating system. The advanced transforms only available with Enterprise edition: Data Mining Training Destination Data Mining Query Component Fuzzy Grouping Fuzzy Lookup Term Extraction Term Lookup Dimension Processing Destination Partition Processing Destination The advanced tasks only available with Enterprise edition: Data Mining Query Task So in summary, if you want SQL Server Integration Services, you need SQL Server Standard edition, and for the more advanced tasks and transforms you need SQL Server Enterprise edition. To recap, the answer to the often asked question is no, SQL Server Integration Services is not available in SQL Server Express or Workgroup editions.

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• Using DEBUG Mode in Oracle SQL Developer to Log SQL

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Curious how we’re getting the data you see in SQL Developer when you click on something? While many of the dialogs provide a ‘SQL’ panel that shows you the SQL ABOUT to be generated, I’d rather see the SQL AS it’s executed. True, you could set a TRACE or fire up a Monitor Sessions report, but both of those solutions leave me hungry for more. Did you know that SQL Developer has a ‘debug’ mode? It slows the tool down a bit and spits out a lot of information you don’t care about, but it ALSO shows you ALL the SQL that is sent to the database, as you click around the tool! See ALL the SQL that SQL Developer sends to the database on your behalf Enable DEBUG Mode When you see the splash screen as SQL Developer fires up, frantically hit Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, SELECT, Start. Wait, wrong game. No, all you need to do is go to your SQL Developer directory and navigate down to the ‘bin’ directory. In that directory, find the ‘sqldeveloper.conf’ file. Install Directory - sqldeveloper - bin - sqldeveloper.conf Open it with a text editor. Find this line IncludeConfFile sqldeveloper-nondebug.conf And replace it with this line IncludeConfFile sqldeveloper-debug.conf Save the file. Start up SQL Developer. Observe the Logging Page – Log Panel for the SQL There’s going to be more than just SQL here. You’ll actually see a LOT of other information. If you’re having general problems with the tool and you want to see the nitty-gritty of what’s going on, then this is a good place to satisfy your curiosity and might help us diagnose your issue if you post to the forums or open a ticket with My Oracle Support. You’ll find ‘INFO’ entries that look a little something like this - This is the query used to populate your Tables list in the connection tree. You can double-click on the sql text and get a pop-up window that’s much easier to read. See all that typing we’re saving you? I don’t recommend running in DEBUG mode all the time. Capturing this information and displaying it is more expensive than not doing so. And it provides a lot of information you don’t normally need to see. But when you DO want to know what’s going on and why, this is an excellent way of getting that information. When you’re ready to go back to ‘normal’ mode, just close SQL Developer, go back to your .conf file, and add the ‘nondebug’ bit back.

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• Enhance GIMP’s Image Editing Power with Gimp Paint Studio

  - by Asian Angel

  Does your GIMP installation need a little super-charging? Using Gimp Paint Studio you can add a wonderful set of brushes, tools, and more to GIMP and take your work up to the next level. For our example we chose to install the beta version of Gimp Paint Studio on Ubuntu 10.10. Once you download the .zip file and unzip it, all that you need to do is manually transfer the contents shown here to the appropriate GIMP folders on your system. You can see the location of the destination folders here on our system… Note: Make certain to make a back-up copy of the “sessionrc and toolrc files” before you transfer Gimp Paint Studio into your installation (in case you would like to or need to revert back to the originals later). When you finish transferring the files start GIMP up and get ready to have fun. And if your experience is like ours then you should see a noticeable difference in window size and arrangement from the default settings. Here are some samples of the exceptional artwork done by Ramon Miranda and Mozart Couto using Gimp Paint Studio. Really impressive! Artwork by Ramon Miranda & Mozart Couto. Watch the introduction video and see Gimp Paint Studio in action. Download Gimp Paint Studio for Linux, Windows, and Mac [Gimp Paint Studio Homepage] *Keep in mind that there are stable and beta releases available, so choose the version that you are most comfortable with using. View the Installation Guides for Gimp Paint Studio *Page contains wonderful “video and written” versions for adding/installing Gimp Paint Studio to your system. Gimp Paint Studio Video Tutorials Library Visit the Gimp Paint Studio Gallery Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) Enhance GIMP’s Image Editing Power with Gimp Paint Studio Reclaim Vertical UI Space by Moving Your Tabs to the Side in Firefox Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles – An Awesome Game for Linux and Windows How Star Wars Changed the World [Infographic] Tabs Visual Manager Adds Thumbnailed Tab Switching to Chrome Daisies and Rye Swaying in the Summer Wind Wallpaper

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• Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template

  In the series the following parts have been published Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Add arguments and variables Part 3: Use more complex arguments Part 4: Create your own activity Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6: Use custom type for an argument Part 7: How is the custom assembly found Part 8: Send information to the build log Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials) Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template Part 12: How to debug my custom activities Part 13: Get control over the Build Output Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application       When you open the build process template, it takes 15 – 30 seconds until it opens. When you are in the process of creating your custom build process template, this can be very frustrating. Thanks to Ed Blankenship how has found a little trick to speed up the opening of the template. It now only takes a few seconds. Create a file called empty.xaml and place the following text in it: <Activity http://www.edsquared.com/ct.ashx?id=1746c587-59ce-45eb-85af-8ea167862617&url=http%3a%2f%2fschemas.microsoft.com%2fnetfx%2f2009%2fxaml%2factivities"http://schemas.microsoft.com/netfx/2009/xaml/activities"> </Activity> Open this file in Visual Studio. In the toolbox panel, add a new tab called “Team Foundation Build Activities”.  Note that it is important to get the tab name correct because if it is not correct then the activities will be reloaded. Inside the new tab, right click and select “Choose Items” Click the Browse button Load the file C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow\v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.dll Click OK to add the toolbox items to the tab. Create another new tab called “Team Foundation LabManagement Activities”. Inside the new tab, right click and select “Choose Items” Click the Browse button Load the file C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Workflow.Activities\v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Workflow.Activities.dll Click OK to add the toolbox items to the tab. You can download the full solution at BuildProcess.zip. It will include the sources of every part and will continue to evolve.

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• Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET ASMX AJAX Web Service

  - by Rick Strahl

  The other day I got a question about how to call an ASP.NET ASMX Web Service or PageMethods with the POST data from a Web Form (or any HTML form for that matter). The idea is that you should be able to call an endpoint URL, send it regular urlencoded POST data and then use Request.Form[] to retrieve the posted data as needed. My first reaction was that you can’t do it, because ASP.NET ASMX AJAX services (as well as Page Methods and WCF REST AJAX Services) require that the content POSTed to the server is posted as JSON and sent with an application/json or application/x-javascript content type. IOW, you can’t directly call an ASP.NET AJAX service with regular urlencoded data. Note that there are other ways to accomplish this. You can use ASP.NET MVC and a custom route, an HTTP Handler or separate ASPX page, or even a WCF REST service that’s configured to use non-JSON inputs. However if you want to use an ASP.NET AJAX service (or Page Methods) with a little bit of setup work it’s actually quite easy to capture all the form variables on the client and ship them up to the server. The basic steps needed to make this happen are: Capture form variables into an array on the client with jQuery’s .serializeArray() function Use $.ajax() or my ServiceProxy class to make an AJAX call to the server to send this array On the server create a custom type that matches the .serializeArray() name/value structure Create extension methods on NameValue[] to easily extract form variables Create a [WebMethod] that accepts this name/value type as an array (NameValue[]) This seems like a lot of work but realize that steps 3 and 4 are a one time setup step that can be reused in your entire site or multiple applications. Let’s look at a short example that looks like this as a base form of fields to ship to the server: The HTML for this form looks something like this: <div id="divMessage" class="errordisplay" style="display: none"> </div> <div> <div class="label">Name:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /></div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Company:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtCompany"/></div> </div> <div> <div class="label" ></div> <div> <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="lstAttending"> <asp:ListItem Text="Attending" Value="Attending"/> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Attending" Value="NotAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Maybe Attending" Value="MaybeAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Sure Yet" Value="NotSureYet" /> </asp:DropDownList> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Special Needs:<br /> <small>(check all that apply)</small></div> <div> <asp:ListBox runat="server" ID="lstSpecialNeeds" SelectionMode="Multiple"> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegitarian" Value="Vegitarian" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegan" Value="Vegan" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Kosher" Value="Kosher" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Special Access" Value="SpecialAccess" /> <asp:ListItem Text="No Binder" Value="NoBinder" /> </asp:ListBox> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label"></div> <div> <asp:CheckBox ID="chkAdditionalGuests" Text="Additional Guests" runat="server" /> </div> </div> <hr /> <input type="button" id="btnSubmit" value="Send Registration" /> The form includes a few different kinds of form fields including a multi-selection listbox to demonstrate retrieving multiple values. Setting up the Server Side [WebMethod] The [WebMethod] on the server we’re going to call is going to be very simple and just capture the content of these values and echo then back as a formatted HTML string. Obviously this is overly simplistic but it serves to demonstrate the simple point of capturing the POST data on the server in an AJAX callback. public class PageMethodsService : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string SendRegistration(NameValue[] formVars) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.AppendFormat("Thank you {0}, <br/><br/>", HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(formVars.Form("txtName"))); sb.AppendLine("You've entered the following: <hr/>"); foreach (NameValue nv in formVars) { // strip out ASP.NET form vars like _ViewState/_EventValidation if (!nv.name.StartsWith("__")) { if (nv.name.StartsWith("txt") || nv.name.StartsWith("lst") || nv.name.StartsWith("chk")) sb.Append(nv.name.Substring(3)); else sb.Append(nv.name); sb.AppendLine(": " + HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(nv.value) + "<br/>"); } } sb.AppendLine("<hr/>"); string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs == null) sb.AppendLine("No Special Needs"); else { sb.AppendLine("Special Needs: <br/>"); foreach (string need in needs) { sb.AppendLine("&nbsp;&nbsp;" + need + "<br/>"); } } return sb.ToString(); } } The key feature of this method is that it receives a custom type called NameValue[] which is an array of NameValue objects that map the structure that the jQuery .serializeArray() function generates. There are two custom types involved in this: The actual NameValue type and a NameValueExtensions class that defines a couple of extension methods for the NameValue[] array type to allow for single (.Form()) and multiple (.FormMultiple()) value retrieval by name. The NameValue class is as simple as this and simply maps the structure of the array elements of .serializeArray(): public class NameValue { public string name { get; set; } public string value { get; set; } } The extension method class defines the .Form() and .FormMultiple() methods to allow easy retrieval of form variables from the returned array: /// <summary> /// Simple NameValue class that maps name and value /// properties that can be used with jQuery's /// $.serializeArray() function and JSON requests /// </summary> public static class NameValueExtensionMethods { /// <summary> /// Retrieves a single form variable from the list of /// form variables stored /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">formvar to retrieve</param> /// <returns>value or string.Empty if not found</returns> public static string Form(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).FirstOrDefault(); if (matches != null) return matches.value; return string.Empty; } /// <summary> /// Retrieves multiple selection form variables from the list of /// form variables stored. /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">The name of the form var to retrieve</param> /// <returns>values as string[] or null if no match is found</returns> public static string[] FormMultiple(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).Select(nv => nv.value).ToArray(); if (matches.Length == 0) return null; return matches; } } Using these extension methods it’s easy to retrieve individual values from the array: string name = formVars.Form("txtName"); or multiple values: string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs != null) { // do something with matches } Using these functions in the SendRegistration method it’s easy to retrieve a few form variables directly (txtName and the multiple selections of lstSpecialNeeds) or to iterate over the whole list of values. Of course this is an overly simple example – in typical app you’d probably want to validate the input data and save it to the database and then return some sort of confirmation or possibly an updated data list back to the client. Since this is a full AJAX service callback realize that you don’t have to return simple string values – you can return any of the supported result types (which are most serializable types) including complex hierarchical objects and arrays that make sense to your client code. POSTing Form Variables from the Client to the AJAX Service To call the AJAX service method on the client is straight forward and requires only use of little native jQuery plus JSON serialization functionality. To start add jQuery and the json2.js library to your page: <script src="Scripts/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> json2.js can be found here (be sure to remove the first line from the file): http://www.json.org/json2.js It’s required to handle JSON serialization for those browsers that don’t support it natively. With those script references in the document let’s hookup the button click handler and call the service: $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); $.ajax({ url: "PageMethodsService.asmx/SendRegistration", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }), dataType: "json", success: function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, error: function (xhr, status) { alert("An error occurred: " + status); } }); } The key feature in this code is the $("#form1").serializeArray();  call which serializes all the form fields of form1 into an array. Each form var is represented as an object with a name/value property. This array is then serialized into JSON with: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }) The format for the parameter list in AJAX service calls is an object with one property for each parameter of the method. In this case its a single parameter called formVars and we’re assigning the array of form variables to it. The URL to call on the server is the name of the Service (or ASPX Page for Page Methods) plus the name of the method to call. On return the success callback receives the result from the AJAX callback which in this case is the formatted string which is simply assigned to an element in the form and displayed. Remember the result type is whatever the method returns – it doesn’t have to be a string. Note that ASP.NET AJAX and WCF REST return JSON data as a wrapped object so the result has a ‘d’ property that holds the actual response: jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); Slightly simpler: Using ServiceProxy.js If you want things slightly cleaner you can use the ServiceProxy.js class I’ve mentioned here before. The ServiceProxy class handles a few things for calling ASP.NET and WCF services more cleanly: Automatic JSON encoding Automatic fix up of ‘d’ wrapper property Automatic Date conversion on the client Simplified error handling Reusable and abstracted To add the service proxy add: <script src="Scripts/ServiceProxy.js" type="text/javascript"></script> and then change the code to this slightly simpler version: <script type="text/javascript"> proxy = new ServiceProxy("PageMethodsService.asmx/"); $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); proxy.invoke("SendRegistration", { formVars: arForm }, function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, function (error) { alert(error.message); } ); } The code is not very different but it makes the call as simple as specifying the method to call, the parameters to pass and the actions to take on success and error. No more remembering which content type and data types to use and manually serializing to JSON. This code also removes the “d” property processing in the response and provides more consistent error handling in that the call always returns an error object regardless of a server error or a communication error unlike the native $.ajax() call. Either approach works and both are pretty easy. The ServiceProxy really pays off if you use lots of service calls and especially if you need to deal with date values returned from the server  on the client. Summary Making Web Service calls and getting POST data to the server is not always the best option – ASP.NET and WCF AJAX services are meant to work with data in objects. However, in some situations it’s simply easier to POST all the captured form data to the server instead of mapping all properties from the input fields to some sort of message object first. For this approach the above POST mechanism is useful as it puts the parsing of the data on the server and leaves the client code lean and mean. It’s even easy to build a custom model binder on the server that can map the array values to properties on an object generically with some relatively simple Reflection code and without having to manually map form vars to properties and do string conversions. Keep in mind though that other approaches also abound. ASP.NET MVC makes it pretty easy to create custom routes to data and the built in model binder makes it very easy to deal with inbound form POST data in its original urlencoded format. The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes functionality for AJAX callbacks using plain POST values. All that’s needed is a Method parameter to query/form value to specify the method to be called on the server. After that the content type is completely optional and up to the consumer. It’d be nice if the ASP.NET AJAX Service and WCF AJAX Services weren’t so tightly bound to the content type so that you could more easily create open access service endpoints that can take advantage of urlencoded data that is everywhere in existing pages. It would make it much easier to create basic REST endpoints without complicated service configuration. Ah one can dream! In the meantime I hope this article has given you some ideas on how you can transfer POST data from the client to the server using JSON – it might be useful in other scenarios beyond ASP.NET AJAX services as well. Additional Resources ServiceProxy.js A small JavaScript library that wraps $.ajax() to call ASP.NET AJAX and WCF AJAX Services. Includes date parsing extensions to the JSON object, a global dataFilter for processing dates on all jQuery JSON requests, provides cleanup for the .NET wrapped message format and handles errors in a consistent fashion. Making jQuery Calls to WCF/ASMX with a ServiceProxy Client More information on calling ASMX and WCF AJAX services with jQuery and some more background on ServiceProxy.js. Note the implementation has slightly changed since the article was written. ww.jquery.js The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes ServiceProxy.js in the West Wind jQuery extension library. This version is slightly different and includes embedded json encoding/decoding based on json2.js.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in jQuery  ASP.NET  AJAX  

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• Using JCA Adapter with OSB 11.1.1.3

  - by James Taylor

  In OSB 10g to use the JCA adapters you were required to use JDeveloper to create the necessary WSDLs and XSDs etc using the associated adapter wizard. These files were imported into Oracle Workshop (Eclipse) and used to create the business service as you would any other web service. In 11g unfortunately JDeveloper is still required. The process has changed slightly as described below. As an example I have used the JCA DB adapter as an example. Start JDeveloper 11.1.1.3 Create a new SOA Application Create a new SOA Project and call it DBAdapters. Choose the Empty Composite Template Drag a Database Adapter Component to the External References panel on the composite. Provide a service name. Create a new database connection, or use an existing one Take note of the JNDI Name, e.g. eis/DB/MyConnection This will be used to configure the DB connection in the WebLogic Console. In my example I use a stored procedure, but you can use what ever operation you require. Please refer to the following link for other options: User's Guide for Technology Adapters Select a schema and stored procedure Once the procedure has been selected, accept the defaults and finish. Startup your OEPE version of Eclipse. Create a new Oracle Service Bus Configuration Project (you can use an existing project if you have one) Create a new Oracle Service Bus Project in the configuration project created above. Instead of importing the WSDL and XSD files you import the jca file created in JDeveloper. In Eclipse right click the Oracle Service Bus Project and select Import –> Import    Choose File System Browse to the directory where JDeveloper stores its project Select the jca, wsdl, and xsd files based on the service you created in step 5. Also check the ‘Create selected folders only’ radio button. When you import you may have a little red x indicating the files are invalid. This is due to the location of the files. Open the invalid files and fix the path in relation to where you store your files in the OSB project.   Once you have the files all valid, Right-Click the jca file and select Oracle Service Bus –> Generate Service. This will create a new Business Service. In the WebLogic Console configure the JNDI name defined in step 7. You can now deploy your project and test

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• View Maps and Get Directions in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Every so often we all need to look at a map for reference purposes or to get directions. If you are looking for a great quick reference app then join us as we look at the Mini Google Maps extension for Google Chrome. Mini Google Maps in Action While this may look like a rather basic map extension there is more to it than meets the eye at first glance. Here is the default view when you open Mini Google Maps for the first time. Things that we really liked about this extension were: Three different aerial views available (Map, Satellite, & Terrain) Three different viewing sizes available (and the extension remembers your chosen size) The ability to get directions in combination with a map We decided to try each of the viewing sizes available…here you can see the “Medium Setting”. Notice that the scale stays the same but you get more territory included to view. Then the “Large Setting”…which we infinitely preferred to the others. Once again look at the amount of territory included by default…very nice. Switching over to the “Satellite View”… Followed by the “Terrain View”. For our first example we decided to peek at Vancouver, British Columbia. After zooming out a little bit we had a very nice looking map. For the next test we asked for directions from Vancouver to Toronto. Both the directions and map turned out very well. And just for fun we looked up Paris, France with the “Satellite View”. Conclusion If you find yourself needing to view a map or get directions often then the Mini Google Maps extension will be a very useful tool for you. Links Download the Mini Google Maps extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get Maps and Directions to Your Contacts in Outlook 2007Stupid Geek Tricks: Browse the Web from OutlookView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• PowerShell Script to Create PowerShell Profile

  - by Brian Jackett

  Utilizing a PowerShell profile can help any PowerShell user save time getting up and running with their work.  For those unfamiliar a PowerShell profile is a file you can store any PowerShell commands that you want to run when you fire up a PowerShell console (or ISE.)  In my typical profiles (example here) I load assemblies (like SharePoint 2007 DLL), set aliases, set environment variable values (such as max history), and perform other general customizations to make my work easier.  Below is a sample script that will check to see if a PowerShell profile (Console or ISE) exists and create it if not found.  The .ps1 script file version can also be downloaded from my SkyDrive here. Note: if downloading the .ps1 file, be sure you have enabled unsigned scripts to run on your machine as I have not signed mine.   $folderExists = test-path -path $Env:UserProfile\Documents\WindowsPowerShell if($folderExists -eq $false) { new-item -type directory -path $Env:UserProfile\Documents\WindowsPowerShell > $null echo "Containing folder for profile created at: $Env:UserProfile\Documents\WindowsPowerShell" }   $profileExists = test-path -path $profile if($profileExists -eq $false) { new-item -type file -path $profile > $null echo "Profile file created at: $profile" }     A few things to note while going through the above script. $Env:UserProfile represents the personal user folder (c:\documents and settings…. on older OSes like XP and c:\Users… on Win 7) so it adapts to whichever OS you are running but was tested against Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. “ > $null” sends the command to a null stream.  Essentially this is equivalent to DOS scripting of “@ECHO OFF” by suppressing echoing the command just run, but only for the specific command it is appended to.  I haven’t yet found a better way to accomplish command suppression, but this is definitely not required for the script to work. $profile represent a standard variable to the file path of the profile file.  It is dynamic based on whether you are running PowerShell Console or ISE.   Conclusion     In less than two weeks (Apr. 10th to be exact) I’ll be heading down to SharePoint Saturday Charlotte (SPSCLT) to give two presentations on using PowerShell with SharePoint.  Since I’ll be prepping a lot of material for PowerShell I thought it only appropriate to pass along this nice little script I recently created.  If you’ve never used a PowerShell profile this is a great chance to start using one.  If you’ve been using a profile before, perhaps you learned a trick or two to add to your toolbox.  For those of you in the Charlotte, NC area sign up for the SharePoint Saturday and see some great content and community with great folks.         -Frog Out

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• USB packets - receive wrong data

  - by regorianer

  i have a little python script which shows me the packets of an enocean device and does some events depending on the packet type. unfortunately it doesn't work because i'm getting wrong packets. Parts of the python script (used pySerial): Blockquote ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB1',57600,bytesize = serial.EIGHTBITS,timeout = 1, parity = serial.PARITY_NONE , rtscts = 0) print 'clearing buffer' s = ser.read(10000) print 'start read' while 1: s = ser.read(1) for character in s: sys.stdout.write(" %s" % character.encode('hex')) print 'end' ser.close() output baudrate 57600: e0 e0 00 e0 00 e0 e0 e0 e0 e0 00 e0 e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 e0 e0 00 00 00 00 e0 e0 e0 00 00 e0 e0 e0 e0 e0 00 e0 00 e0 e0 e0 e0 e0 00 e0 e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 e0 e0 00 00 00 00 e0 e0 e0 00 00 e0 e0 e0 output baudrate 9600: a5 5a 0b 05 10 00 00 00 00 15 c4 56 20 6f a5 5a 0b 05 00 00 00 00 00 15 c4 56 20 5f linux terminal baudrate 57600: $stty -F /dev/ttyUSB1 57600 $stty < /dev/ttyUSB1 speed 57600 baud; line = 0; eof = ^A; min = 0; time = 0; -brkint -icrnl -imaxbel -opost -onlcr -isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke $while (true) do cat -A /dev/ttyUSB1 ; done myfile $hexdump -C myfile 00000000 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 5e 40 4d 2d 60 5e 40 4d 2d 60 |M-M-^@M-^@M-| 00000010 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 5e 40 4d 2d |M-M-M-M-^@M-| 00000020 60 4d 2d 60 5e 40 5e 40 5e 40 5e 40 5e 40 5e 40 |M-^@^@^@^@^@^@| 00000030 5e 40 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 5e 40 5e 40 5e |^@M-M-M-`^@^@^| 00000040 40 5e 40 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 4d 2d 60 |@^@M-M-M-`| 0000004c linux terminal baudrate 9600: $hexdump -C myfile2 00000000 5e 40 5e 55 4d 2d 44 56 30 4d 2d 3f 5e 40 5e 40 |^@^UM-DV0M-?^@^@| 00000010 5e 55 4d 2d 44 56 20 5f |^UM-DV _| 00000018 the specification says: 0x55 sync byte 1st 0xNNNN data length bytes (2 bytes) 0x07 opt length byte 0x01 type byte CRC, data, opt data und nochmal CRC but I'm not getting this packet structure. The output of the python script differs from the one I get via the terminal. I also wrote the python part with C, but the output is the same as with python As the USB receiver a BSC-BoR USB Receiver/Sender is used The EnOcean device is a simple button

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• Naming PowerPoint Components With A VSTO Add-In

  - by Tim Murphy

  Note: Cross posted from Coding The Document. Permalink Sometimes in order to work with Open XML we need a little help from other tools.  In this post I am going to describe  a fairly simple solution for marking up PowerPoint presentations so that they can be used as templates and processed using the Open XML SDK. Add-ins are tools which it can be hard to find information on.  I am going to up the obscurity by adding a Ribbon button.  For my example I am using Visual Studio 2008 and creating a PowerPoint 2007 Add-in project.  To that add a Ribbon Visual Designer.  The new ribbon by default will show up on the Add-in tab. Add a button to the ribbon.  Also add a WinForm to collect a new name for the object selected.  Make sure to set the OK button’s DialogResult to OK. In the ribbon button click event add the following code. ObjectNameForm dialog = new ObjectNameForm(); Selection selection = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveWindow.Selection;   dialog.objectName = selection.ShapeRange.Name;   if (dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { selection.ShapeRange.Name = dialog.objectName; } This code will first read the current Name attribute of the Shape object.  If the user clicks OK on the dialog it save the string value back to the same place. Once it is done you can retrieve identify the control through Open XML via the NonVisualDisplayProperties objects.  The only problem is that this object is a child of several different classes.  This means that there isn’t just one way to retrieve the value.  Below are a couple of pieces of code to identify the container that you have named. The first example is if you are naming placeholders in a layout slide. foreach(var slideMasterPart in slideMasterParts) { var layoutParts = slideMasterPart.SlideLayoutParts; foreach(SlideLayoutPart slideLayoutPart in layoutParts) { foreach (assmPresentation.Shape shape in slideLayoutPart.SlideLayout.CommonSlideData.ShapeTree.Descendants<assmPresentation.Shape>()) { var slideMasterProperties = from p in shape.Descendants<assmPresentation.NonVisualDrawingProperties>() where p.Name == TokenText.Text select p;   if (slideMasterProperties.Count() > 0) tokenFound = true; } } } The second example allows you to find charts that you have named with the add-in. foreach(var slidePart in slideParts) { foreach(assmPresentation.Shape slideShape in slidePart.Slide.CommonSlideData.ShapeTree.Descendants<assmPresentation.Shape>()) { var slideProperties = from g in slidePart.Slide.Descendants<GraphicFrame>() where g.NonVisualGraphicFrameProperties.NonVisualDrawingProperties.Name == TokenText.Text select g;   if(slideProperties.Count() > 0) { tokenFound = true; } } } Together the combination of Open XML and VSTO add-ins make a powerful combination in creating a process for maintaining a template and generating documents from the template.

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• SQLAuthority News – MS Access Database is the Way to Go – April 1st Humor

  - by pinaldave

  First of all, today is April 1- April Fool’s Day, so I have written this post for some light entertainment. My friend has just sent me an email about why a person should go for Access Database. For a short background, I used to be an MS Access user once (I will not call myself MS Access DBA), and I must say I had a good time with Database at that time. As time passed by, I moved from MS Access to SQL Server. Well, as for my friend’s email, his reasons considering MS Access usage really made me laugh. MS Access may have a few points where it totally makes sense to use it. However, in the email that I received, there was not a single reason which was valid.  In fact, I thought it is an April 1st joke- just delivered a little earlier. Let us see some of the reasons from that email. Thanks to Mahesh Bhesania for sending this email to me. MS Access comes with lots of free stuff, e.g. MS Excel MS Access is the most preferred desktop database system MS Access can import data from MS Excel and SQL Server MS Access provides a real time database MS Access has a free IDE-to-VB Script MS Access fits well in your hard drive I actually think that the above points are either incorrect beliefs of some users, or someone just wrote them to give some laughter with such inaccurate data. And, for the same reason I decided to browse the Internet and do some research on MS Access database to verify my thoughts. While searching on this subject, I found the following two interesting statements from the site: Microsoft Access Database, Why Choose It? Other software manufacturers are more likely to provide interfaces to MS Access than any other desktop database system Microsoft Access consulting rates are typically lower for Access consultants compared to Oracle or SQL Server consultants The second one is may be the worst reason for you to switch to MS Access if you are already an SQL Server consultant. With this cartoon, have you ever felt like you were one of these chickens at some point in time? I guess that the moment might have just happened before the minute we say “I guess we were on the same page?” Does this mean we are IN the same table, or ON the same table?! (I accept bad joke!) It is All Fools’ Day after all, so just laugh! If you have something funny but non-offensive to share, just  leave your comment here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com), Cartoon source unknown. Filed under: Software Development, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Humor, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: MS ACCESS

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• Using linked servers, OPENROWSET and OPENQUERY

  - by BuckWoody

  SQL Server has a few mechanisms to reach out to another server (even another server type) and query data from within a Transact-SQL statement. Among them are a set of stored credentials and information (called a Linked Server), a statement that uses a linked server called called OPENQUERY, another called OPENROWSET, and one called OPENDATASOURCE. This post isn’t about those particular functions or statements – hit the links for more if you’re new to those topics. I’m actually more concerned about where I see these used than the particular method. In many cases, a Linked server isn’t another Relational Database Management System (RDMBS) like Oracle or DB2 (which is possible with a linked server), but another SQL Server. My concern is that linked servers are the new Data Transformation Services (DTS) from SQL Server 2000 – something that was designed for one purpose but which is being morphed into something much more. In the case of DTS, most of us turned that feature into a full-fledged job system. What was designed as a simple data import and export system has been pressed into service doing logic, routing and timing. And of course we all know how painful it was to move off of a complex DTS system onto SQL Server Integration Services. In the case of linked servers, what should be used as a method of running a simple query or two on another server where you have occasional connection or need a quick import of a small data set is morphing into a full federation strategy. In some cases I’ve seen a complex web of linked servers, and when credentials, names or anything else changes there are huge problems. Now don’t get me wrong – linked servers and other forms of distributing queries is a fantastic set of tools that we have to move data around. I’m just saying that when you start having lots of workarounds and when things get really complicated, you might want to step back a little and ask if there’s a better way. Are you able to tolerate some latency? Perhaps you’re able to use Service Broker. Would you like to be platform-independent on the data source? Perhaps a middle-tier might make more sense, abstracting the queries there and sending them to the proper server. Designed properly, I’ve seen these systems scale further and be more resilient than loading up on linked servers. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Windows CE Chat Transcript (March 30, 2010)

  - by Bruce Eitman

  For those of you who missed the chat today, here is the raw transcript.   By raw, I mean that I copied and pasted the discussion without any edits. This is divided into two parts, the top part is the answers from the Microsoft Experts and the bottom part is the questions from the audience. Answers from Microsoft:   Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi everyone, my name is Karel Danihelka and I am developer in partner response team. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Sing Wee, part of the CoreOS/BSP Test Team. GLanger_MS (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Glen Langer, program manager on the Core Team. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? A: Until you are using CPU with GHz frequency your only chance is use interrupt handler and implement all funcionality there. But it will be really tricky and may reduce system performance. If period will be near to millisecond timeframe you can use normal thread wait for event pattern. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? A: It need to be set in registry - generally you need mark this partition as boot partition. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. A: In this case you can try use normal approach - in interrupt handler return SYSINTR and start thread in device driver which will spin thread waiting on event attached to this SYSINTR. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? A: Good quesiton - I would recommend documentation and there was BSP development book to download for free. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: Using product support is the formal way to report bugs/issues - Product support can then create an issue that can be tracked. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:9]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? A: This is tricky - if you will make it autopartition & autoformat it will be created by filesystem. But generally it depends on your boot loader. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: At MIX 2010 Charlie Kindel presented a session that described some of the core technologies that make up Windows Phone 7 Series, including the underlying operating system (Windows CE) and the new ISV programming model based on Silverlight and .NET - check out the Mix Online Videos to get more information. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: This forum is to discussed released products in the industry. Windows Mobile & Windows CE are based on the same Windows CE Kernel/system. Windows CE is focused on deliverying the OS for embedded customers in the market where Windows Mobile is focused on deliverying compelling Windows Phone platform. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE Wikipedia gives a good breakdown of the version history. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:13]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. A: One possibility is that a rogue cesvchost.exe has co-opted the debugger. I am assuming this is CE 6.0? Can you try exiting visual studio and manually killing the cesvchost.exe process from the Task Manager? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:14]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: For info on contacting Microsoft support refer to the support page on the Embedded website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/dd897633.aspx Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? A: A good introduction to interrupts in WinCE 6.0 can be found here (aside from the documentation on MSDN): http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/f/9cffaa58-4000-48d6-a4b2-5fed9e4e6410/Chapter%206%20-%20Developing%20Device%20Drivers.pdf mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? A: Unfortunately we cannot discuss unreleased products on this chat - keep an eye on the Windows Embedded web site and blogs to keep up to date with product announcements. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. A: What operating system are you using? Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... A: You don't need to modify code, there are registry settings to achive this (look to documentation). But you may need to create partition table in boot loader. Unfortunatelly there isn't simple way how to do it. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:18]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 includes Sliverlight for Windows Embedded. Refer to New Features overview on the embedded web site. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/default.mspx. Silverlight - The power of Silverlight brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces is new part of Windows CE Embedded. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms923714.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Sorry misunderstood the question I thought you were asking if embedded CE could handle Silverlight. Please repost so that the question goes back into the active queue because once answered no way to put the status back to open. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 A: Can you try exiting VS2005 and confirming cesvchost.exe is not running, then renaming C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0 to 1.0_backup, then restarting VS2005? Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: I believe the downloadable version is related to the last link I sent. If you go to the following website, I believe you can download the whole thing: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/cc294468.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: change the URI of the image or use a writeable bitmap if they want to manually toggle the pixels Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? A: Yes - on boot flash abstraction library (old one) read metadata from all sectors to rebuild physical - logical mapping table. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Need addition info on this question. Can you provide more details on what you are trying to do in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: Additonal Info: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? A: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Can I get more information about this question about what you are trying to accomplish in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, A: Your welcome Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link A: No problem. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:32]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. A: There are a couple workarounds I can think of. I believe the Module element is only used when doing SYSGEN parsing to make sure dependent SYSGENs are present when the item is selected, so I believe it is optional to the catalog. The other obvious workaround is to shorten the soc name. I realize neither of these solutions is ideal. This is not something we anticipated when we tested CE6.0, sorry. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. A: Right, but KdStub is the debugger that you should use. Have you tried the steps I suggested? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. A: Can you look at the serial debug output and see what is happening there? Often it can give you a clue to the KITL driver malfunctioning. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:38]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. A: I am assuming you have a device created in Target -> Connectivity Options in Platform Builder. What are the Kernel download / Kernel transport for your device? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:40]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: This looks reasonable and does not give clues as to why boot would halt at that point. If you capture a network trace or turn on KITL debug zones via dpCurSettings in kitl.dll, do you see KITL active after this? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:41]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. A: Only thing I have left to suggest is a Platform Builder installation Repair, then. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? A: If I remember correctly sample code has support for some specific hardware controllers (little obsolete now). This should be good start point (if you will not decide take existing driver as sample and write you own). Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:44]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. A: I think that's the next valid step. You need to figure out whether KITL is hanging or the device - use instrumented serial debug messages and network trace to determine this. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: Neo, have you by any chance tried looking into your firewall to see if it might be blocking traffic on any particular ports? Wireshark/netmon might be able to help you here if that's the issue. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back A: Hello - can you give additional details about your question? Is this related to a Windows CE Embedded application? masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? A: Hi Pev, what version of Windows CE and CETK are you using? I do not have the expertise to answer this question, but can find somebody who can. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? A: kitl.dll should be all that's needed, kitlcore.lib is linked into that. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... A: You can make a 'proper' driver that calls down into the OAL to do the actual I2C transactions. Alternatively you can build an interrupt-based version in the OAL where you handle everything in the ISR. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the rest of your drivers and app threads can handle longer times with interrupts off while you are servicing I2C interrupts. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! A: Sorry, this current chat is about Windows Embedded Compact. Hope you're able to find an answer to your question elsewhere. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? A: Spline - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx<BR< a>>   masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Spline- bad link A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" A: No Worries http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. A: I will follow up with the Networking Team for a response. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? A: I will follow up with the tools team for a response and post with the transcript. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? A: Make sure you have SYSGEN_SHELL=1 set in your build environment. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:3]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? A: I will follow up with the Core Team and get a response posted with the transcript to MSDN  The Questions   [2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. [2010-3-30 12:59]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:3]: neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi all KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: I have a question unrelated to windows Ce embedded, can you please help me?? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals! c neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: yes. post it. May be i cud give a try KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: My Product key listed on my tower is not the product key I need for microsoft office, but that is the only product key listed. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: I hope this is a chat for windows embedded. please post ur queries in office forums KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: it is but i could not find a forum for office neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:40]: I think moderators will help u out. @ davbo-msft: can u help this guy? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:41]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:50]: Our chat today covers the topic of Windows Embedded CE! 1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there may be some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public. 2. We encourage you to submit questions for our Experts. To do so, type your questions in the send box, select the “ask the Experts” box and click SEND. Questions sent directly to the Guest Chat room will not be answered by the Experts, but we encourage other community members to assist. 3. We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. This helps the Guests and Experts follow the conversation more easily. We invite you to ask off topic questions after this chat is over, but not during. 4. Please abide by the Chat Code of Conduct. Chat code of conduct: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/chatroom.aspx?ctl=hlp#Conduct>; Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Evening! davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Hello everyone this is Dave Boyce - I worked in the Multimedia area for Windows CE. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: hello dave neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: The chat code of conduct link is not working! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: Best be polite just in case then ;-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:57]: I'll check out the issue w/ the link paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:0]: Hello davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:0]: We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now. Chat will begin in a couple of minutes. <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Hello Experts ! neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Welcome all! paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: neo: if your silicon has multiple general purpose timers, pick one that's not in use for the system timer / profiler and set it up to trigger irqs for your purpose. You can't guarantee hard realtime type responses though... GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Can I have the book's name please? kiefs_dev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: neo: I'd say that you really need the docs for YOUR BSP, not generic documents for BSPs in general. Each BSP may be architected differently. If you're using the CEPC BSP, then the documentation that comes with Platform Builder is a reasonable place to look. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? Elektrobit (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:12]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. alexquisi (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Windows XP service pack 1 Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:19]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Hi all, Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: oops Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: :-D Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: sorry, messed up submission there! GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: GPM: You don't have to keep submitting the questions. The chat experts have an application that they're using to follow the chat and all Ask the Experts questions are logged. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:30]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Hm, did those two I submitted get picked up by anyone? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:34]: Pev: PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:35]: Pev: I'm sure they did. The guys who are actually on the chat may not be experts in that part of things. That's usually the explanation when you don't get an answer in 10 minutes or so. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Ah, fair enough Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: My Outlook Express incoming mail is corrput. No ONE has been able to fix the problem, Dell or Norton. I have dial up I'm in a rural area Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie : Use Thunderbird instead :-D PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie: Sorry, but this chat is not about Windows, but Embedded (like what runs on a phone). Your best chance is to find a local expert or talk to your ISP. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: My computer knowlege is very limited, what is Thunderbird? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: A different email client :-D neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Do I need to uninstall Outlook Express youngboyzie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: I need to start battery calibration for my new battery for my dell inspiron 1525 laptop and should be able to reach the BIOS screen by hitting f2 but this isnt working... help? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Nah, you can run it instead - you'll still need help from your ISP to configure it I expect Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:40]: youngboyzie: You're off-topic. This is not a general chat for Windows and certainly not for Dell. You'll have to ask Dell how to get to setup; it's their machine. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:41]: I lost spell check, how can i get et back neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: Ok. I will do it then. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:44]: bill: This isn't a general Windows chat. There are some Web forums that you might try. GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Thanks, I found the Phone 7 presentation at http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL13 GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: ok. I'll do it. thanks Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Whowever was asking about KITL connection : I've had this loads in the past. I think I started debugging last time by using wireshark to see what was happening on the network then setting up the OAL_ETHER and OAL_FUNC and OAL_VERBOSE as well as OAL_KITL flags to see what was actually happening in the driver.... Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:47]: I'd generally make sure that you're testing though a 10baseT hub (instead of anything faster) and forcing Active KITL in polled mode too... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I disabled the firewall in my PC. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:50]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: Hi masatos, I'm using Windows Embedded CE 6.0 with R3 and patched to feb 2010's QFE's (with it's associated CETK version) this is a machine with only CE 6.0 on (no conflicts with earlier CE or WM...) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: ok. Got it neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: Q: ok. Got it Roundman (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Hey neo, debugging kitl issues is really frustrating but dont lose heart :-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: @ pev : u fixed the problem of KITL after that? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I am getting the same error again and again. I even cleaned my environment and tried in a fresh PC. But didn't succeed yet Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Well, eventually - my experiences probably won't help you as different platforms have different reasons for doing that neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I think so PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: neo: Have you searched the old messages in microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder? It seems to me that there was a packet size situation where it was possible to have problems with KITL connections based on a setting on the PC. Google Groups, groups.google.com, Advanced Groups Search will allow you to search a single newsgroup or a set of newsgroups easily. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: Q: Spline- bad link PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: GPM: without the > at the end does it work? It seems to for me... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: But some times if i try to connect to the device again. The Image information is seen in the serial debug. what does that mean?Download BIN file information: ----------------------------------------------------- [0]: Base Address=0x220000 Length=0x18DAADC Received a broadcast message !CheckUDP: Not UDP (proto = 0x00000001) after this i am getting the old errors. PB debugger cannot initialize ... GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: ok paul. I ll look into that. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Sure, if KITL isn't connected target control won't work as it runs over kitl... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: ok .thanks pev neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 Marcelovk (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: Is there any way to extract the default command lines of the tests in CETK? I want to have it running unconnected from the desktop.   Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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• Dynamic Unpivot : SSIS Nugget

  - by jamiet

  A question on the SSIS forum earlier today asked: I need to dynamically unpivot some set of columns in my source file. Every month there is one new column and its set of Values. I want to unpivot it without editing my SSIS packages that is deployed Let’s be clear about what we mean by Unpivot. It is a normalisation technique that basically converts columns into rows. By way of example it converts something like this: AccountCode Jan Feb Mar AC1 100.00 150.00 125.00 AC2 45.00 75.50 90.00 into something like this: AccountCode Month Amount AC1 Jan 100.00 AC1 Feb 150.00 AC1 Mar 125.00 AC2 Jan 45.00 AC2 Feb 75.50 AC2 Mar 90.00 The Unpivot transformation in SSIS is perfectly capable of carrying out the operation defined in this example however in the case outlined in the aforementioned forum thread the problem was a little bit different. I interpreted it to mean that the number of columns could change and in that scenario the Unpivot transformation (and indeed the SSIS dataflow in general) is rendered useless because it expects that the number of columns will not change from what is specified at design-time. There is a workaround however. Assuming all of the columns that CAN exist will appear at the end of the rows, we can (1) import all of the columns in the file as just a single column, (2) use a script component to loop over all the values in that “column” and (3) output each one as a column all of its own. Let’s go over that in a bit more detail.   I’ve prepared a data file that shows some data that we want to unpivot which shows some customers and their mythical shopping lists (it has column names in the first row): We use a Flat File Connection Manager to specify the format of our data file to SSIS: and a Flat File Source Adapter to put it into the dataflow (no need a for a screenshot of that one – its very basic). Notice that the values that we want to unpivot all exist in a column called [Groceries]. Now onto the script component where the real work goes on, although the code is pretty simple: Here I show a screenshot of this executing along with some data viewers. As you can see we have successfully pulled out all of the values into a row all of their own thus accomplishing the Dynamic Unpivot that the forum poster was after. If you want to run the demo for yourself then I have uploaded the demo package and source file up to my SkyDrive: http://cid-550f681dad532637.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/BlogShare/20100529/Dynamic%20Unpivot.zip Simply extract the two files into a folder, make sure the Connection Manager is pointing to the file, and execute! Hope this is useful. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Rounded Corners and Shadows &ndash; Dialogs with CSS

  - by Rick Strahl

  Well, it looks like we’ve finally arrived at a place where at least all of the latest versions of main stream browsers support rounded corners and box shadows. The two CSS properties that make this possible are box-shadow and box-radius. Both of these CSS Properties now supported in all the major browsers as shown in this chart from QuirksMode: In it’s simplest form you can use box-shadow and border radius like this: .boxshadow { -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; } .roundbox { -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; -webkit-border-radius: 6px; border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; } box-shadow: horizontal-shadow-pixels vertical-shadow-pixels blur-distance shadow-color box-shadow attributes specify the the horizontal and vertical offset of the shadow, the blur distance (to give the shadow a smooth soft look) and a shadow color. The spec also supports multiple shadows separated by commas using the attributes above but we’re not using that functionality here. box-radius: top-left-radius top-right-radius bottom-right-radius bottom-left-radius border-radius takes a pixel size for the radius for each corner going clockwise. CSS 3 also specifies each of the individual corner elements such as border-top-left-radius, but support for these is much less prevalent so I would recommend not using them for now until support improves. Instead use the single box-radius to specify all corners. Browser specific Support in older Browsers Notice that there are two variations: The actual CSS 3 properties (box-shadow and box-radius) and the browser specific ones (-moz, –webkit prefixes for FireFox and Chrome/Safari respectively) which work in slightly older versions of modern browsers before official CSS 3 support was added. The goal is to spread support as widely as possible and the prefix versions extend the range slightly more to those browsers that provided early support for these features. Notice that box-shadow and border-radius are used after the browser specific versions to ensure that the latter versions get precedence if the browser supports both (last assignment wins). Use the .boxshadow and .roundbox Styles in HTML To use these two styles create a simple rounded box with a shadow you can use HTML like this: <!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow --> <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="boxcontenttext"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> which looks like this in the browser: This works across browsers and it’s pretty sweet and simple. Watch out for nested Elements! There are a couple of things to be aware of however when using rounded corners. Specifically, you need to be careful when you nest other non-transparent content into the rounded box. For example check out what happens when I change the inside <div> to have a colored background: <!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow --> <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="boxcontenttext" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> which renders like this:   If you look closely you’ll find that the inside <div>’s corners are not rounded and so ‘poke out’ slightly over the rounded corners. It looks like the rounded corners are ‘broken’ up instead of a solid rounded line around the corner, which his pretty ugly. The bigger the radius the more drastic this effect becomes . To fix this issue the inner <div> also has have rounded corners at the same or slightly smaller radius than the outer <div>. The simple fix for this is to simply also apply the roundbox style to the inner <div> in addition to the boxcontenttext style already applied: <div class="boxcontenttext roundbox" style="background: khaki;"> The fixed display now looks proper: Separate Top and Bottom Elements This gets even a little more tricky if you have an element at the top or bottom only of the rounded box. What if you need to add something like a header or footer <div> that have non-transparent backgrounds which is a pretty common scenario? In those cases you want only the top or bottom corners rounded and not both. To make this work a couple of additional styles to round only the top and bottom corners can be created: .roundbox-top { -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; } .roundbox-bottom { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; } Notice that radius used for the ‘inside’ rounding is smaller (4px) than the outside radius (6px). This is so the inner radius fills into the outer border – if you use the same size you may have some white space showing between inner and out rounded corners. Experiment with values to see what works – in my experimenting the behavior across browsers here is consistent (thankfully). These styles can be applied in addition to other styles to make only the top or bottom portions of an element rounded. For example imagine I have styles like this: .gridheader, .gridheaderbig, .gridheaderleft, .gridheaderright { padding: 4px 4px 4px 4px; background: #003399 url(images/vertgradient.png) repeat-x; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: khaki; } .gridheaderleft { text-align: left; } .gridheaderright { text-align: right; } .gridheaderbig { font-size: 135%; } If I just apply say gridheader by itself in HTML like this: <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="gridheaderleft">Box with a Header</div> <div class="boxcontenttext" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> This results in a pretty funky display – again due to the fact that the inner elements render square rather than rounded corners: If you look close again you can see that both the header and the main content have square edges which jumps out at the eye. To fix this you can now apply the roundbox-top and roundbox-bottom to the header and content respectively: <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="gridheaderleft roundbox-top">Box with a Header</div> <div class="boxcontenttext roundbox-bottom" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> Which now gives the proper display with rounded corners both on the top and bottom: All of this is sweet to be supported – at least by the newest browser – without having to resort to images and nasty JavaScripts solutions. While this is still not a mainstream feature yet for the majority of actually installed browsers, the majority of browser users are very likely to have this support as most browsers other than IE are actively pushing users to upgrade to newer versions. Since this is a ‘visual display only feature it degrades reasonably well in non-supporting browsers: You get an uninteresting square and non-shadowed browser box, but the display is still overall functional. The main sticking point – as always is Internet Explorer versions 8.0 and down as well as older versions of other browsers. With those browsers you get a functional view that is a little less interesting to look at obviously: but at least it’s still functional. Maybe that’s just one more incentive for people using older browsers to upgrade to a  more modern browser :-) Creating Dialog Related Styles In a lot of my AJAX based applications I use pop up windows which effectively work like dialogs. Using the simple CSS behaviors above, it’s really easy to create some fairly nice looking overlaid windows with nothing but CSS. Here’s what a typical ‘dialog’ I use looks like: The beauty of this is that it’s plain CSS – no plug-ins or images (other than the gradients which are optional) required. Add jQuery-ui draggable (or ww.jquery.js as shown below) and you have a nice simple inline implementation of a dialog represented by a simple <div> tag. Here’s the HTML for this dialog: <div id="divDialog" class="dialog boxshadow" style="width: 450px;"> <div class="dialog-header"> <div class="closebox"></div> User Sign-in </div> <div class="dialog-content"> <label>Username:</label> <input type="text" name="txtUsername" value=" " /> <label>Password</label> <input type="text" name="txtPassword" value=" " /> <hr /> <input type="button" id="btnLogin" value="Login" /> </div> <div class="dialog-statusbar">Ready</div> </div> Most of this behavior is driven by the ‘dialog’ styles which are fairly basic and easy to understand. They do use a few support images for the gradients which are provided in the sample I’ve provided. Here’s what the CSS looks like: .dialog { background: White; overflow: hidden; border: solid 1px steelblue; -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 4px 4px; -webkit-border-radius: 6px 6px 4px 4px; border-radius: 6px 6px 3px 3px; } .dialog-header { background-image: url(images/dialogheader.png); background-repeat: repeat-x; text-align: left; color: cornsilk; padding: 5px; padding-left: 10px; font-size: 1.02em; font-weight: bold; position: relative; -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; } .dialog-top { -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; } .dialog-bottom { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; } .dialog-content { padding: 15px; } .dialog-statusbar, .dialog-toolbar { background: #eeeeee; background-image: url(images/dialogstrip.png); background-repeat: repeat-x; padding: 5px; padding-left: 10px; border-top: solid 1px silver; border-bottom: solid 1px silver; font-size: 0.8em; } .dialog-statusbar { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; padding-right: 10px; } .closebox { position: absolute; right: 2px; top: 2px; background-image: url(images/close.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 14px; height: 14px; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.60; filter: alpha(opacity="80"); } .closebox:hover { opacity: 1; filter: alpha(opacity="100"); } The main style is the dialog class which is the outer box. It has the rounded border that serves as the outline. Note that I didn’t add the box-shadow to this style because in some situations I just want the rounded box in an inline display that doesn’t have a shadow so it’s still applied separately. dialog-header, then has the rounded top corners and displays a typical dialog heading format. dialog-bottom and dialog-top then provide the same functionality as roundbox-top and roundbox-bottom described earlier but are provided mainly in the stylesheet for consistency to match the dialog’s round edges and making it easier to  remember and find in Intellisense as it shows up in the same dialog- group. dialog-statusbar and dialog-toolbar are two elements I use a lot for floating windows – the toolbar serves for buttons and options and filters typically, while the status bar provides information specific to the floating window. Since the the status bar is always on the bottom of the dialog it automatically handles the rounding of the bottom corners. Finally there’s  closebox style which is to be applied to an empty <div> tag in the header typically. What this does is render a close image that is by default low-lighted with a low opacity value, and then highlights when hovered over. All you’d have to do handle the close operation is handle the onclick of the <div>. Note that the <div> right aligns so typically you should specify it before any other content in the header. Speaking of closable – some time ago I created a closable jQuery plug-in that basically automates this process and can be applied against ANY element in a page, automatically removing or closing the element with some simple script code. Using this you can leave out the <div> tag for closable and just do the following: To make the above dialog closable (and draggable) which makes it effectively and overlay window, you’d add jQuery.js and ww.jquery.js to the page: <script type="text/javascript" src="../../scripts/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../../scripts/ww.jquery.min.js"></script> and then simply call: <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { $("#divDialog") .draggable({ handle: ".dialog-header" }) .closable({ handle: ".dialog-header", closeHandler: function () { alert("Window about to be closed."); return true; // true closes - false leaves open } }); }); </script> * ww.jquery.js emulates base features in jQuery-ui’s draggable. If jQuery-ui is loaded its draggable version will be used instead and voila you have now have a draggable and closable window – here in mid-drag:   The dragging and closable behaviors are of course optional, but it’s the final touch that provides dialog like window behavior. Relief for older Internet Explorer Versions with CSS Pie If you want to get these features to work with older versions of Internet Explorer all the way back to version 6 you can check out CSS Pie. CSS Pie provides an Internet Explorer behavior file that attaches to specific CSS rules and simulates these behavior using script code in IE (mostly by implementing filters). You can simply add the behavior to each CSS style that uses box-shadow and border-radius like this: .boxshadow {     -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;     -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;           box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;     behavior: url(scripts/PIE.htc);           } .roundbox {      -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;     -webkit-border-radius: 6px;      border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;     behavior: url(scripts/PIE.htc); } CSS Pie requires the PIE.htc on your server and referenced from each CSS style that needs it. Note that the url() for IE behaviors is NOT CSS file relative as other CSS resources, but rather PAGE relative , so if you have more than one folder you probably need to reference the HTC file with a fixed path like this: behavior: url(/MyApp/scripts/PIE.htc); in the style. Small price to pay, but a royal pain if you have a common CSS file you use in many applications. Once the PIE.htc file has been copied and you have applied the behavior to each style that uses these new features Internet Explorer will render rounded corners and box shadows! Yay! Hurray for box-shadow and border-radius All of this functionality is very welcome natively in the browser. If you think this is all frivolous visual candy, you might be right :-), but if you take a look on the Web and search for rounded corner solutions that predate these CSS attributes you’ll find a boatload of stuff from image files, to custom drawn content to Javascript solutions that play tricks with a few images. It’s sooooo much easier to have this functionality built in and I for one am glad to see that’s it’s finally becoming standard in the box. Still remember that when you use these new CSS features, they are not universal, and are not going to be really soon. Legacy browsers, especially old versions of Internet Explorer that can’t be updated will continue to be around and won’t work with this shiny new stuff. I say screw ‘em: Let them get a decent recent browser or see a degraded and ugly UI. We have the luxury with this functionality in that it doesn’t typically affect usability – it just doesn’t look as nice. Resources Download the Sample The sample includes the styles and images and sample page as well as ww.jquery.js for the draggable/closable example. Online Sample Check out the sample described in this post online. Closable and Draggable Documentation Documentation for the closeable and draggable plug-ins in ww.jquery.js. You can also check out the full documentation for all the plug-ins contained in ww.jquery.js here. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in HTML  CSS  

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• ADNOC talks about 50x increase in performance

  - by KLaker

  If you are still wondering about how Exadata can revolutionise your business then I would recommend watching this great video which was recorded at this year's OpenWorld. First a little background...The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for Distribution (ADNOC) is an integrated energy company that was founded in 1973. ADNOC Distribution markets and distributes petroleum products and services within the United Arab Emirates and internationally. As one of the largest and most innovative government-owned petroleum companies in the Arab Gulf, ADNOC Distribution is renowned and respected for the exceptional quality and reliability of its products and services. Its five corporate divisions include more than 200 filling stations (a number that is growing at 8% annually), more than 150 convenience stores, 10 vehicle inspection stations, as well as wholesale and retail sales of bulk fuel, gas, oil, diesel, and lubricants. ADNOC selected Oracle Exadata Database Machine after extensive research because it provided them with a single platform that can run mixed workloads in a single unified machine: "We chose Oracle Exadata Database Machine because it.offered a fully integrated and highly engineered system that was ready to deploy. With our infrastructure running all the same technology, we can operate any type of Oracle Database without restrictions and be prepared for business growth," said Ali Abdul Aziz Al-Ali, IT division manager, ADNOC Distribution. ".....we could consolidate our transaction processing and business intelligence onto one platform. Competing solutions are just not capable of doing that." - Awad Ahmed Ali El-Sidiq, Senior Database Administrator, ADNOC Distribution In this new video Awad Ahmen Ali El Sidddig, Senior DBA at ADNOC, talks about the impact that Exadata has had on his team and the whole business. ADNOC is using our engineered systems to drive and manage all their workloads: from transaction systems to payments system to data warehouse to BI environment. A true Disk-to-Dashboard revolution using Engineered Systems. This engineered approach is delivering 50x improvement in performance with one queries running 100x faster! The IT has even revolutionised some of their data warehouse related processes with the help of Exadata and now jobs that were taking over 4 hours now run in a few minutes.  To watch the video click on the image below which will take you to our Oracle YouTube page: (if the above link does not work, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcRpxc6u5Ic) Now that queries are running 100x faster and jobs are completing in minutes not hours, what is next for the IT team at ADNOC? Like many of our customers ADNOC is now looking to take advantage of big data to help them better align their business operations with customer behaviour and customer insights. To help deliver this next level of insight the IT team is looking at the new features in Oracle Database 12c such as the new in-memory feature to deliver even more performance gains.  The great news is that Awad Ahmen Ali El Sidddig was awarded DBA of the Year - EMEA within our Data Warehouse Global Leaders programme and you can see the badge for this award pop-up at the start of video. Well done to everyone at ADNOC and thanks for spending the time with us at OOW to create this great video.

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• Windows Phone 7 Design using Expression Blend - Resources

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  I’ve been doing a series of talks across Florida regarding Windows Phone 7 Design using Microsoft Expression Blend 4. I discuss the WP7 phone and application experience; show how to use Expression Blend toolset to effectively design such apps. Next presentation is on 5/4/2010 at 6:30PM EST will be a webcast format over LiveMeeting at Ft. Lauderdale Online group. Registration and the LiveMeeting link are both here: http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=459 [I will post a link if it’s recorded]   Here are the resources from my presentations: The Biggest source is the Windows Phone UI and Design Language video from MIX10 Windows Phone 7 Design Guide as it’s found on the WP7 Dev Home Page Study The Silverlight Mobile Tutorials on official Silverlight website I will be blogging a separate entry for a new demo app that will showcase the elements I presented. I suggest you actually watch all of the MIX videos about SL and Design as great primer to get you thinking the WP7 way.   A lot happening with WP7Dev and it’s just the beginning! So watch these Twitter accounts and blogs: @Ckindel - Charlie Kindel - WP7 Dev Head http://blogs.msdn.com/ckindel @WP7Dev - Official Dev Twitter @WP7 - Official WP7 Twitter Peter Torr - http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr Mike Harsh - http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh Shawn Oster - http://www.shawnoster.com   Other worthwhile mention my local friends speaking and blogging about Windows Phone 7: Bill Reiss is doing great presentations on Building games with XNA for Windows Phone 7. Be on the lookout for those around Florida. Bill is a Silverlight MVP and has a legacy of XNA and Silverlight games, see his site. Kevin Wolf aka ByteMaster he is a Device Application Developer MVP with tremendous experience building mobile applications. He has developed WinMo-GF a multi-platform gaming framework. Get these tools and get creating! You will need the following components installed in this order: Expression Blend 4 Beta Windows Phone Developer Tools Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone Microsoft Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone Want more training? Don’t forget that Channel 9 has complete walkthroughs of their WP7 Training Kit posted online. PS: To continue with all this design talk check out Microsoft .toolbox “Learn to create Silverlight applications using Expression Studio and to apply fundamental design principles.” A great website with a lot of design tutorials set up as a wonderful full course on design all for free, including a great forum community and neat little avatars you can build yourself.

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• Setting up a local AI server - easy with Solaris 11

  - by Stefan Hinker

  Many things are new in Solaris 11, Autoinstall is one of them.  If, like me, you've known Jumpstart for the last 2 centuries or so, you'll have to start from scratch.  Well, almost, as the concepts are similar, and it's not all that difficult.  Just new. I wanted to have an AI server that I could use for demo purposes, on the train if need be.  That answers the question of hardware requirements: portable.  But let's start at the beginning. First, you need an OS image, of course.  In the new world of Solaris 11, it is now called a repository.  The original can be downloaded from the Solaris 11 page at Oracle.   What you want is the "Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Repository Image", which comes in two parts that can be combined using cat.  MD5 checksums for these (and all other downloads from that page) are available closer to the top of the page. With that, building the repository is quick and simple: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/repo rpool/ai/repo # zfs create rpool/ai/repo/s11 # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso /mnt # rsync -aP /mnt/repo /export/repo/s11 # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@fcs # pkgrepo info -s /export/repo/sol11/repo PUBLISHER PACKAGES STATUS UPDATED solaris 4292 online 2012-03-12T20:47:15.378639Z That's all there's to it.  Let's make a snapshot, just to be on the safe side.  You never know when one will come in handy.  To use this repository, you could just add it as a file-based publisher: # pkg set-publisher -g file:///export/repo/sol11/repo solaris In case I'd want to access this repository through a (virtual) network, i'll now quickly activate the repository-service: # svccfg -s application/pkg/server \ setprop pkg/inst_root=/export/repo/sol11/repo # svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/readonly=true # svcadm refresh application/pkg/server # svcadm enable application/pkg/server That's all you need - now point your browser to http://localhost/ to view your beautiful repository-server. Step 1 is done.  All of this, by the way, is nicely documented in the README file that's contained in the repository image. Of course, we already have updates to the original release.  You can find them in MOS in the Oracle Solaris 11 Support Repository Updates (SRU) Index.  You can simply add these to your existing repository or create separate repositories for each SRU.  The individual SRUs are self-sufficient and incremental - SRU4 includes all updates from SRU2 and SRU3.  With ZFS, you can also get both: A full repository with all updates and at the same time incremental ones up to each of the updates: # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-sru4-05-incr-repo.iso /mnt # pkgrecv -s /mnt/repo -d /export/repo/sol11/repo '*' # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@sru4 # zfs set snapdir=visible rpool/ai/repo/sol11 # svcadm restart svc:/application/pkg/server:default The normal repository is now updated to SRU4.  Thanks to the ZFS snapshots, there is also a valid repository of Solaris 11 11/11 without the update located at /export/repo/sol11/.zfs/snapshot/fcs . If you like, you can also create another repository service for each update, running on a separate port. But now lets continue with the AI server.  Just a little bit of reading in the dokumentation makes it clear that we will need to run a DHCP server for this.  Since I already have one active (for my SunRay installation) and since it's a good idea to have these kinds of services separate anyway, I decided to create this in a Zone.  So, let's create one first: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/install rpool/ai/install # zfs create -o mountpoint=/zones rpool/zones # zonecfg -z ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> create create: Using system default template 'SYSdefault' zonecfg:ai-server> set zonepath=/zones/ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> add dataset zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set name=rpool/ai/install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set alias=install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> end zonecfg:ai-server> commit zonecfg:ai-server> exit # zoneadm -z ai-server install # zoneadm -z ai-server boot ; zlogin -C ai-server Give it a hostname and IP address at first boot, and there's the Zone.  For a publisher for Solaris packages, it will be bound to the "System Publisher" from the Global Zone.  The /export/install filesystem, of course, is intended to be used by the AI server.  Let's configure it now: #zlogin ai-server root@ai-server:~# pkg install install/installadm root@ai-server:~# installadm create-service -n x86-fcs -a i386 \ -s pkg://solaris/install-image/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482 \ -d /export/install/fcs -i 192.168.2.20 -c 3 With that, the core AI server is already done.  What happened here?  First, I installed the AI server software.  IPS makes that nice and easy.  If necessary, it'll also pull in the required DHCP-Server and anything else that might be missing.  Watch out for that DHCP server software.  In Solaris 11, there are two different versions.  There's the one you might know from Solaris 10 and earlier, and then there's a new one from ISC.  The latter is the one we need for AI.  The SMF service names of both are very similar.  The "old" one is "svc:/network/dhcp-server:default". The ISC-server comes with several SMF-services. We at least need "svc:/network/dhcp/server:ipv4".  The command "installadm create-service" creates the installation-service. It's called "x86-fcs", serves the "i386" architecture and gets its boot image from the repository of the system publisher, using version 5.11,5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482, which is Solaris 11 11/11.  (The option "-a i386" in this example is optional, since the installserver itself runs on a x86 machine.) The boot-environment for clients is created in /export/install/fcs and the DHCP-server is configured for 3 IP-addresses starting at 192.168.2.20.  This configuration is stored in a very human readable form in /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  An AI-service for SPARC systems could be created in the very same way, using "-a sparc" as the architecture option. Now we would be ready to register and install the first client.  It would be installed with the default "solaris-large-server" using the publisher "http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release" and would query it's configuration interactively at first boot.  This makes it very clear that an AI-server is really only a boot-server.  The true source of packets to install can be different.  Since I don't like these defaults for my demo setup, I did some extra config work for my clients. The configuration of a client is controlled by manifests and profiles.  The manifest controls which packets are installed and how the filesystems are layed out.  In that, it's very much like the old "rules.ok" file in Jumpstart.  Profiles contain additional configuration like root passwords, primary user account, IP addresses, keyboard layout etc.  Hence, profiles are very similar to the old sysid.cfg file. The easiest way to get your hands on a manifest is to ask the AI server we just created to give us it's default one.  Then modify that to our liking and give it back to the installserver to use: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# installadm export -n x86-fcs -m orig_default \ -o orig_default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp orig_default.xml s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# vi s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# more s11-fcs.small.local.xml <!DOCTYPE auto_install SYSTEM "file:///usr/share/install/ai.dtd.1"> <auto_install> <ai_instance name="S11 Small fcs local"> <target> <logical> <zpool name="rpool" is_root="true"> <filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/> <filesystem name="export/home"/> <be name="solaris"/> </zpool> </logical> </target> <software type="IPS"> <destination> <image> <!-- Specify locales to install --> <facet set="false">facet.locale.*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de_DE</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en_US</facet> </image> </destination> <source> <publisher name="solaris"> <origin name="http://192.168.2.12/"/> </publisher> </source> <!-- By default the latest build available, in the specified IPS repository, is installed. If another build is required, the build number has to be appended to the 'entire' package in the following form: <name>pkg:/[email protected]#</name> --> <software_data action="install"> <name>pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0</name> <name>pkg:/group/system/solaris-small-server</name> </software_data> </software> </ai_instance> </auto_install> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-manifest -n x86-fcs -d \ -f ./s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -m -n x86-fcs Manifest Status Criteria -------- ------ -------- S11 Small fcs local Default None orig_default Inactive None The major points in this new manifest are: Install "solaris-small-server" Install a few locales less than the default.  I'm not that fluid in French or Japanese... Use my own package service as publisher, running on IP address 192.168.2.12 Install the initial release of Solaris 11:  pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0 Using a similar approach, I'll create a default profile interactively and use it as a template for a few customized building blocks, each defining a part of the overall system configuration.  The modular approach makes it easy to configure numerous clients later on: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# sysconfig create-profile -o default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml general.xml; cp default.xml mars.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# vi general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# more general.xml mars.xml user.xml :::::::::::::: general.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/timezone"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="timezone"> <propval type="astring" name="localtime" value="Europe/Berlin"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/environment"> <instance enabled="true" name="init"> <property_group type="application" name="environment"> <propval type="astring" name="LANG" value="C"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/keymap"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="system" name="keymap"> <propval type="astring" name="layout" value="US-English"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/console-login"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="ttymon"> <propval type="astring" name="terminal_type" value="vt100"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/physical"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="netcfg"> <propval type="astring" name="active_ncp" value="DefaultFixed"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/switch"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="default" value="files"/> <propval type="astring" name="host" value="files dns"/> <propval type="astring" name="printer" value="user files"/> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/cache"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/dns/client"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <property type="net_address" name="nameserver"> <net_address_list> <value_node value="192.168.2.1"/> </net_address_list> </property> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: mars.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/install"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv4_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="static"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="static_address" value="192.168.2.100/24"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v4"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="default_route" value="192.168.2.1"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv6_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="stateful" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="stateless" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="addrconf"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v6"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/identity"> <instance enabled="true" name="node"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="nodename" value="mars"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: user.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/config-user"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="root_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="role"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="user_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="stefan"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="normal"/> <propval type="astring" name="description" value="Stefan Hinker"/> <propval type="count" name="uid" value="12345"/> <propval type="count" name="gid" value="10"/> <propval type="astring" name="shell" value="/usr/bin/bash"/> <propval type="astring" name="roles" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="profiles" value="System Administrator"/> <propval type="astring" name="sudoers" value="ALL=(ALL) ALL"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f general.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f mars.xml \ -c ipv4=192.168.2.100 root@ai-server:~# installadm list -p Service Name Profile ------------ ------- x86-fcs general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -n x86-fcs -p Profile Criteria ------- -------- general.xml None mars.xml ipv4 = 192.168.2.100 user.xml None Here's the idea behind these files: "general.xml" contains settings valid for all my clients.  Stuff like DNS servers, for example, which in my case will always be the same. "user.xml" only contains user definitions.  That is, a root password and a primary user.Both of these profiles will be valid for all clients (for now). "mars.xml" defines network settings for an individual client.  This profile is associated with an IP-Address.  For this to work, I'll have to tweak the DHCP-settings in the next step: root@ai-server:~# installadm create-client -e 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1 -n x86-fcs root@ai-server:~# vi /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf root@ai-server:~# tail -5 /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf host 080027AA3DB1 { hardware ethernet 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1; fixed-address 192.168.2.100; filename "01080027AA3DB1"; } This completes the client preparations.  I manually added the IP-Address for mars to /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  This is needed for the "mars.xml" profile.  Disabling arbitrary DHCP-replies will shut up this DHCP server, making my life in a shared environment a lot more peaceful ;-)Now, I of course want this installation to be completely hands-off.  For this to work, I'll need to modify the grub boot menu for this client slightly.  You can find it in /etc/netboot.  "installadm create-client" will create a new boot menu for every client, identified by the client's MAC address.  The template for this can be found in a subdirectory with the name of the install service, /etc/netboot/x86-fcs in our case.  If you don't want to change this manually for every client, modify that template to your liking instead. root@ai-server:~# cd /etc/netboot root@ai-server:~# cp menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org root@ai-server:~# vi menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 root@ai-server:~# diff menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org 1,2c1,2 < default=1 < timeout=10 --- > default=0 > timeout=30 root@ai-server:~# more menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 default=1 timeout=10 min_mem64=0 title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Text Installer and command line kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install_media=htt p://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,install_svc_addre ss=$serverIP:5555 module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Automated Install kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install=true,inst all_media=http://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,inst all_svc_address=$serverIP:5555,livemode=text module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive Now just boot the client off the network using PXE-boot.  For my demo purposes, that's a client from VirtualBox, of course.  That's all there's to it.  And despite the fact that this blog entry is a little longer - that wasn't that hard now, was it?

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• Fan not working on thinkpad L430, laptop overheating

  - by Dirk B.

  I'm having problems controlling the fan of my Lenovo Thinkpad L430. The fan doesn't start. Without any fan control installed the fan just doesn't run. If I run stress, it does run a little, but it's nowhere near the speed it should be. After a while, the laptop just overheats and stops. I Tried to install tp-fancontrol, and enabled thinkpad_acpi fancontrol=1, but to no avail. If I try to set the fan speed manually, it doesn't start up. In windows, there's a program called TPFanControl. It turns out that this laptop uses a different scheme to control the fan than other thinkpads. The level runs from 0 to 255, and max = 0 and min=255. Now I'm looking for a fan control program that works for linux. Does anyone know if it actually exists? Anyone with any experience on fan control on a L430? Update: sudo pwmconfig gives the following output: # pwmconfig revision 5857 (2010-08-22) This program will search your sensors for pulse width modulation (pwm) controls, and test each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. Note that many motherboards do not have pwm circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports pwm. We will attempt to briefly stop each fan using the pwm controls. The program will attempt to restore each fan to full speed after testing. However, it is ** very important ** that you physically verify that the fans have been to full speed after the program has completed. Found the following devices: hwmon0 is acpitz hwmon1/device is coretemp hwmon2/device is thinkpad Found the following PWM controls: hwmon2/device/pwm1 hwmon2/device/pwm1 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) y Giving the fans some time to reach full speed... Found the following fan sensors: hwmon2/device/fan1_input current speed: 0 ... skipping! There are no working fan sensors, all readings are 0. Make sure you have a 3-wire fan connected. You may also need to increase the fan divisors. See doc/fan-divisors for more information. regards, Dirk

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• Friday Fun: Play Tetris in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Do you prefer playing classic games rather than the newer ones? Then get ready for some classic goodness with the JC-Tetris extension for Google Chrome. JC-Tetris in Action When you click on your new “JC-Tetris Toolbar Button” a new mini-Chrome window will open with the game displayed inside. This could be very convenient for those who would like or need to pause the game, minimize the window, and finish the game later. All that is needed to play are the four “Arrow Keys & the Space Bar”. Note: The text was small when the window first opened during our test so we used the “Ctrl +” keyboard shortcut twice to enlarge it. You may or may not experience similar text size results. Like any Tetris game things start out “quietly enough” but this one speeds up quickly, so be prepared! Notice that you do get a warning of what is waiting to drop onto the game board on the left side. Whenever you complete a game you will see this small window asking if you would like to enter a name for the score…you can easily ignore/bypass the window by clicking “Cancel”. Another game and a much better result. Do not be surprised if you feel that little burst of “rushed panic” at the end! Conclusion JC-Tetris is an enjoyable way to relax when you need a break. The ability to pause the game and minimize it for later makes it even better. Have fun! Links Download the JC-Tetris extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Friday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: First Person TetrisFriday Fun: Play MineSweeper in Google ChromeFriday Fun: Play 3D Rally Racing in Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser 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 Dark Side of the Moon (8-bit) Norwegian Life If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transportation Google Translate (for animals) Out of 100 Tweeters Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports

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• Suggestions on switching from lamp based web design-development to game design-development

  - by Sandeepan Nath

  I have around 2.5 years of experience as a web developer cum designer working mainly on the LAMP platform. Now, I want to try out game development (of the likes of First Person Shooter games like Call of Duty (COD)). It is one of my dreams to some day succeed in making a profitable, popular, commercial game of this type. However, I have never done any kind of business nor even freelancing yet even in the web domain. Okay, first things first, I am just starting and I don't yet have any idea about the technologies, languages, engines (game engines) etc involved in that. I would like this question to be a complete guide for people with similar interests. Best resources for getting hold really fast What would be the best approach to get the basic hold of the domain really fast? Any resource(s) for programmers coming from other domains/experienced in other domains would be the ideal ones for me. E.g., if anybody would ask me some good resource for quickly learning PHP/Mysql, I would suggest books like "How to do everything with PHP & MySql" - because - it introduces all the basics of the domain (not the advanced things which can be later learnt by practice and also a lot by searching in stackoverflow questions) it contains some very nice working projects in the end, which help in applying the skills learnt in the chapters of the book. This is the best way for self learners, I feel. I would appreciate some similar resource which connects all concepts together to get the bigger picture. I have read about C, C++, C#, JAVA being used in game programming but not sure which language to go for (I have previously learnt a little of C and JAVA). I have also read about game engines but there would be various other concepts. Commonly accepted ways of learning Should 3D games like these be tried after 2D games? Are there some commonly accepted ways of learning such kind of games? Like in web development, we should go for frameworks after practising well with basic language, AJAX after getting properly done with simple page-reload processing etc. Apart from these, any useful tips (like language choices etc.) would be much appreciated. Like it is highly recommended to contribute to open source web projects for getting recognition, are there similar open source game projects? Thanks, Sandeepan

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• Deciding which technology to use is a big decision when no technology is an obvious choice

  Deciding which technology to use in a new venture or project is a big decision for any company when no technology is an obvious choice. It is always best to analyze the current requirements of the project, and also evaluate the existing technology climate so that the correct technology based on the situation at the time is selected. When evaluation the requirements of a new project it is best to be open to as many technologies as possible initially so a company can be sure that the right decision gets made. Another important aspect of the technology decision is what can the current network and  hardware environment handle, and what would be needed to be adjusted if a specific technology was selected. For example if the current network operating system is Linux then VB6 would force  a huge change in the current computing environment. However if the current network operation system was windows based then very little change would be needed to allow for VB6 if any change had to be done at all. Finally and most importantly an analysis should be done regarding the current technical employees pertaining to their skills and aspirations. For example if you have a team of Java programmers then forcing them to build something in C# might not be an ideal situation. However having a team of VB.net developers who want to develop something in C# would be a better situation based on this example because they are already failure with the .Net Framework and have a desire to use the new technology. In addition to this analysis the cost associated with building and maintaining the project is also a key factor. If two languages are ideal for a project but one technology will increase the budget or timeline by 50% then it might not be the best choice in that situation. An ideal situation for developing in C# applications would be a project that is built on existing Microsoft technologies. An example of this would be a company who uses Windows 2008 Server as their network operating system, Windows XP Pro as their main operation system, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as their primary database, and has a team of developers experience in the .net framework. In the above situation Java would be a poor technology decision based on their current computing environment and potential lack of Java development by the company’s developers. It would take the developers longer to develop the application due the fact that they would have to first learn the language and then become comfortable with the language. Although these barriers do exist, it does not mean that it is not due able if the company and developers were committed to the project.

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• JMX Based Monitoring - Part Two - JVM Monitoring

  - by Anthony Shorten

  This the second article in the series focussing on the JMX based monitoring capabilities possible with the Oracle Utilities Application Framework. In all versions of the Oracle utilities Application Framework, it is possible to use the basic JMX based monitoring available with the Java Virtual Machine to provide basic statistics ablut the JVM. In Java 5 and above, the JVM automatically allowed local monitoring of the JVM statistics from an approporiate console. When I say local I mean the monitoring tool must be executed from the same machine (and in some cases the same user that is running the JVM) to connect to the JVM directly. If you are using jconsole, for example, then you must have access to a GUI (X-Windows or Windows) to display the jconsole output. This is the easist way of monitoring without doing too much configration but is not always practical. Java offers a remote monitorig capability to allow yo to connect to a remotely executing JVM from a console (like jconsole). To use this facility additional JVM options must be added to the command line that started the JVM. Details of the additional options for the version of the Java you are running is located at the JMX information site. Typically to remotely connect to a running JVM that JVM must be configured with the following categories of options: JMX Port - The JVM must allow connections on a listening port specified on the command line Connection security - The connection to the JVM can be secured. This is recommended as JMX is not just a monitoring protocol it is a managemet protocol. It is possible to change values in a running JVM using JMX and there are NO "Are you sure?" safeguards. For a Oracle Utilities Application Framework based application there are a few guidelines when configuring and using this JMX based remote monitoring of the JVM's: Online JVM - The JVM used to run the online system is embedded within the J2EE Web Application Server. To enable JMX monitoring on this JVM you can either change the startup script that starts the Web Application Server or check whether your J2EE Web Application natively supports JVM statistics collection. Child JVM's (COBOL only) - The Child JVM's should not be monitored using this method as they are recycled regularly by the configuration and therefore statistics collected are of little value. Batch Threadpoools - Batch already has a JMX interface (which will be covered in another article). Additional monitoring can be enabled but the base supported monitoring is sufficient for most needs. If you are an Oracle Utilities Application Framework site, then you can specify the additional options for JMX Java monitoring on the OPTS paramaters supported for each component of the architecture. Just ensure the port numbers used are unique for each JVM running on any machine.

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• Measuring Social Media Efforts

  - by David Dorf

  So you're on the bandwagon and you've created a Facebook page, you're tweeting everyday, and maybe you've even got a YouTube channel. Now what? After you put any program in place, you need to measure, set new goals, then execute and this is no different. But how does one measure social media efforts? First, I guess we need some goals. Typical ones might be to acquire customers, engage them, then convert them. So that translates to: Increase Facebook fans and Twitter followers Increase comments/posting and retweets Increase redemption of offers via Facebook and Twitter Counting fans and followers is easy, and tracking the redemption of coupons isn't that hard either, but measuring engagement is a tough one. How do you know whether your fans are reading your posts, and whether your posts have any meaning to them? For Facebook, the fan page administrator has access to analytics called Facebook Insights. There you can check weekly metrics such as total fans, new fans, lost fans, demographics of fans, number of postings, numbers clicks, etc. Not nearly as comprehensive as Google Analytics, but well on its way. For Twitter, getting information is a little tougher. Again, its easy to track followers and you can use tools like TweetMeme to encourage and track retweets. An interesting website called WeFollow tries to measure influence for certain topics. For example, the top three influencers for the topic "retail" are retailweek, retailwire, and retailerdaily. Other notables are #10 BestBuy, #11 GapOfficial, #12 JeffPR, and #17 OracleRetail. I assume influence is calculated based on number of followers, number of retweets, frequency of tweets, and perhaps depth of dialogs. If you want to get serious about monitoring and measuring social marketing efforts, you'd be wise to invest in a strong tool. Several are listed on this wiki, including big ones like Radian6, Nielsen, Omniture, and Buzzient. Buzzient might be particularly interesting because its integrated with Oracle CRM OnDemand -- see the demo. As always, I'm interested in hearing how others approach goal setting and monitoring of social media efforts, so feel free to post comments.

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