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• Using ASP.NET Membership Provider with an ACL

  - by geekrutherford

  Up until recently one of my applications has used the membership provider within ASP.NET exclusively. However, it has been proposed that while the currently defined roles are beneficial, security needs to be more granular to restrict both access to certain pages and functionality present within a given page.   Unfortunately, the role based security ASP.NET gives you out of the box falls down in this area. This is not due to a lack of foresight by Microsoft, but rather it was simply not designed for implementing both role based security and any inherent ACL you may define within these roles. Mind you some would say an ACL is independent of the role to which a user belongs and is assigned to the user directly.   The application mentioned here has it's own User object (which encapsulates the membership provider user object as a property) and SQL Server table to store extended information not present in the aspnet_users table. While I could have modified the aspnet membership schema to suit the applications needs, it seemed smarter to simply create a separate table with a foreign key back to the aspnet_users table.   Since I have a separate object to store extended user information, I simply created an ACL object and expose it as a property of my user object.   This is all well and good, but it does not help in regards to the SiteMapProvider and restricting access at the page level based on the users ACL.   The straightforward answer would be to develop some code within the databound event for the menu that checks the page title and has hardcoded logic that dictates a user must have certain permissions turned on. The problem with this approach is that it's HARDCODED!!! If you need to change access to a page you'd need to do a build and go through your normal deployment process....ugh!!!   An alternative method, albeit not perfect, is to utilize the resourceKey property on the SiteMapNodes in the SiteMap file with the name of the required permission to view the page. Within the databound event for your menu you iterate the SiteMapNodes in the menus SiteMapProvider looking for a match at the page level based on title. When a match is detected, you have a switch/case on the SiteMapNodes resourceKey (the name of the ACL permission required). The case for the resourceKey ensures the users ACL permission is turned on and viola!!!   This is noteably not perfect in that it is using the resourceKey in a manner other than intended.  Since the application is not localized, using it in the manner described it not an issue.   Below is a sample SiteMap file with the resourceKey used as the ACL permission identifier:     Below is the ItemDataBound event. This application uses the Telerik Menu control:

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• How to host a site in another site - with little or no coding

  - by tunmise fasipe

  SUMMARY: All of these happens on Site A User visits site A User enter username and password User click on Login Button User authenticated on Site B behind the scene User is shown a page on Site A that contains his/her profile from Site B as layout/styled from Site B User can click links in the Profile page that links to other area in Site B Meaning: Session has to be maintained somehow I have web application where I store users' password and username. If you logon to this site, you can login with the password and username to have access to your profile. There is another option that requires you to login to my site from your site and have your profile displayed within your site. This is because you might already have a site that your clients know you with. This link is close to what I want to do: http://aspmessageboard.com/showthread.php?t=235069 A user on Site A login to Site B and have the information on site B showing in site A. He should not know whether Site B exists. It should be as if everything is happening in Site A This latter part is what I don't know to implement. I have these ideas: Have a fixed IFrame within your site to contain my site: but I am concerned about size/layout since different clients have different layout/size for their content section. I am thinking of how to maintain session too A webservice: I don't know how feasible this is since the Password and ID are on my server. You may have to send them back and forth. It means client would have to code with my API. But I am not just returning data, I have to show them a page that contains the profile details OpenID, Single-SignOn: Just guessing - but the authentication and data resides on my server. there is nothing to access on your side in this case Examples: like login into facebook within my site and still be able to do post updates, receive notifications Facebook implement some of these with IFrame e.g. the Like button *NOTE: * I have tested the IFrame option. It worked but I still have to remove my site specific content like my page Banner, Side Navigation etc. I was able to login normally as if I was actually on the site. This show my GUI but - style sheet was missing - content not styled with CSS - Any relative url won't work. It would look for that resource relative to the current server. Unless I change links to absolute - Clicking on the LogIn button produces this error: The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted. UPDATE: I was reading about REST webservice few days ago and I got this idea: What about the idea of returning an XML from a webservice [REST or SOAP] and providing an XSLT (that I can provide) to display it. Thus they won't have to do much coding?

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• Conflict between Change Control and ASL Mapping

  - by Jie Chen

  Yesterday I got one strange report that on Agile 9.3.1.2, adding a Supplier into Item's Supplier tab will always remove all the data from Item.PageTwo.MultiList01 field which is assigned to a User Group list. The detailed problem description is like below. In JavaClient, MultiList01 attribute on Parts class's PageTwo tab is enabled and assigned with User Group list. On WebClient, user created a new Part and assign MultiList01 with two UserGroups: "Global User Group Test1" and "Personal Group_Test1". Then go to Suppliers tab to add three Suppliers. Switch back to Part's TitleBlock, will see MultiList01 loses the User Group data. To confirm if MultiList01 really loses the data or it saves with other wrong data, I need to check the database and find strange data that MultiList01 saves wrong data ",7976911,7976907,7976959,", which are exactly the ID of these three Suppliers. Then I can suspect the Supplier attribute on Suppliers tab must be mapped to MultiList01. However when I check Supplier in JavaClient, the "ASL mapped to" is blank. More interesting thing is the database clearly shows Supplier attribute (Base ID =2000004219) is mapped to 2090, which is PageTwo.MultiList01 Base ID. Till now, we can get a conclusion that Supplier data is really mapped to MultiList01, though we assign MultiList01 to User Group list and Supplier does not set "ASL mapped to". It must be another function which overrides "ASL mapped to" visibility in JavaClient with high priority. That is the "Change Controlled" function. We immediately see "ASL mapped to" with value "MultiList01" when we disable Change Controlled for Multilist01 If one attribute is Change Controlled, Supplier data cannot be mapped to this attribute theoretically because Supplier could be dynamically modified by users, not by Changes. In real situation of Agile 9.3.1.2, it could be a Code Defect. We can imagine the scenario customer met. He setup Parts.PageTwo.Multilist01 assigned with Supplier list, then in Parts.Suppliers.Supplier attribute, he set "ASL mapped to" to "Multilist01". Later company business is changed, so he set Multilist01 with Change Controlled and re-assign with User Group list. He forgot to remove "ASL mapped to" before he did modifications to Multilist01. Finally we know the solution, it depends on real business. If still need to mapping Supplier to Parts.PageTwo attribute, should modify "ASL mapped to" to other one attribute which already has assigned with Suppliers list. If do not need "ASL mapped to" function, should delete the data from database level. We cannot do it from JavaClient UI. delete propertytable where id in (select p.id from propertytable p, nodetable n where p.parentid =n.id and n.inherit=2000004219 and propertyid=794)

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• How can I make my binary file is served as binary, not text when user choose "Save Linked File As..." in Safari?

  - by Eonil

  I'm serving a binary file (.IPA) with Ubuntu/Apache 2.2. When I have chosen Save Linked File As... in Safari, it says it's text file. And it guides me to add .txt extension. However it does not add any extra extension when I download it just clicking link. I added line AddType application/octet-stream .ipa in apache configuration file. I don't know what's wrong with this. Is this a bug of Safari or my misconfiguration? (1) If it caused by bug, how can I avoid this? (2) Or if it caused by misconfiguration, what should I do?

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• How can I make my binary file is served as binary and not text when user choose "Save Linked File As..." in Safari?

  - by Eonil

  I'm serving a binary file (.IPA) with Ubuntu/Apache 2.2. When I have chosen Save Linked File As... in Safari, it says it's text file. And it guides me to add .txt extension. However it does not add any extra extension when I download it just clicking link. I added line AddType application/octet-stream .ipa in apache configuration file. I don't know what's wrong with this. Is this a bug of Safari or my misconfiguration? (1) If it caused by bug, how can I avoid this? (2) Or if it caused by misconfiguration, what should I do?

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• We need you! Sign up now to give Oracle your feedback on future product design trends at OpenWorld 2012

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema, Oracle Applications User Experience Get the most from your Oracle OpenWorld 2012 experience and participate in a usability feedback session, where your expertise will help Oracle develop unbeatable products and solutions. Sign up to attend a one-hour session during Oracle OpenWorld. You’ll learn about Oracle’s future design trends -- including mobile applications and social networking -- and how these trends will affect your users down the road. A street scene from Oracle OpenWorld 2011. Oracle’s usability experts will guide you through practical learning sessions on the user experience of various business applications, middleware, and more. All user feedback sessions will be conducted October 1–3 at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel on Howard Street, just a few steps away from the Moscone Center. To best match you with a user feedback activity, we will ask you about your role at your company. Our user feedback opportunities include focus groups, surveys, and one-on-one sessions with usability engineers. What do you get out of it? Customer and partner participants in the past have been surprised to learn how tuned in Oracle is to work that their applications users do every day. Oracle’s User Experience team members are trained to listen carefully, ask specific questions, interpret your answers, and work with designers to create products and solutions that suit your needs. Our goal is to help make you and your users more productive and efficient. Learn about Oracle’s process, and take advantage of the chance to give your specific feedback to the designers who create the enterprise applications of your future. See for yourself how Oracle collects feedback and measures its designs for turning them into code. Seats are limited for Oracle’s user feedback sessions, so sign up now by sending an e-mail to [email protected] with the subject line: Sign Me Up for an Oracle OpenWorld 2012 UX Session. For more information about customer feedback sessions and what you can learn from them, please visit the Usable Apps website. When: Monday-Wednesday during OpenWorld 2012, Oct. 1-3 Where: The InterContinental San Francisco Hotel How to sign up: RSVP now by sending an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Sign me up for an OOW 2012 UX Session.” Learn more: Visit the Usable Apps website at Get Involved.

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• Using the @ in SQL Azure Connections

  - by BuckWoody

  The other day I was working with a client on an application they were changing to a hybrid architecture – some data on-premise and other data in SQL Azure and Windows Azure Blob storage. I had them make a couple of corrections - the first was that all communications to SQL Azure need to be encrypted. It’s a simple addition to the connection string, depending on the library you use. Which brought up another interesting point. They had been using something that looked like this, using the .NET provider: Server=tcp:[serverName].database.windows.net;Database=myDataBase; User ID=LoginName;Password=myPassword; Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True; This includes most of the formatting needed for SQL Azure. It specifies TCP as the transport mechanism, the database name is included, Trusted_Connection is off, and encryption is on. But it needed one more change: Server=tcp:[serverName].database.windows.net;Database=myDataBase; User ID=[LoginName]@[serverName];Password=myPassword; Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True; Notice the difference? It’s the User ID parameter. It includes the @ symbol and the name of the server – not the whole DNS name, just the server name itself. The developers were a bit surprised, since it had been working with the first format that just used the user name. Why did both work, and why is one better than the other? It has to do with the connection library you use. For most libraries, the user name is enough. But for some libraries (subject to change so I don’t list them here) the server name parameter isn’t sent in the way the load balancer understands, so you need to include the server name right in the login, so the system can parse it correctly. Keep in mind, the string limit for that is 128 characters – so take the @ symbol and the server name into consideration for user names. The user connection info is detailed here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336268.aspx Upshot? Include the @servername on your connection string just to be safe. And plan for that extra space…  

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• Does HTML5 have a feature that enables a user to add an icon to the Apps screen when "installing", and if not, when are they planning to add it?

  - by Jason Livesay

  I know that the mobile bookmark bubble might sort of work for iOS, but it isn't going in the same section. And for Android, bookmarking is really not going to cut it for a mobile HTML5 application install since users just don't think to go to their bookmarks and that bookmark process takes two or three steps. To me this issue of getting the application (bookmark) installed pretty much makes the rest of the HTML 5 features aimed at mobile HTML much less useful. I can't realistically expect users to prefer the bookmark install and launch process over regular apps, so I can realistically expect them to ignore my mobile HTML5 application and use a native app. The groups behind mobile HTML 5 features do seem to be pushing for HTML 5 apps adoption with things like Application Cache etc. To me it seems obvious that the bookmark bubble is not going to cut it. Someone please tell me they have addressed this or at least are working on it?

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• To make or not to make...python-nautilus a dependency?

  - by George Edison

  That is the question! Okay, all silliness aside, I really am forced to make a difficult decision here. My application is written in C++ and allows other scripts to invoke methods via XML-RPC. One of these scripts is a Nautilus extension written in Python. The extension is packaged with the rest of the application and copied to the appropriate place when installed (/usr/share/nautilus-python/extensions). Now the problem is that the Nautilus extension requires the python-nautilus package to be installed to be operational. So therefore I have three options: Make the python-nautilus package a dependency. This option will ensure that anyone who installs my package will be able to use the Nautilus extension. However, this option will not be attractive to XFCE or KDE users - a ton of python-nautilus's dependencies will be installed on their machines and take up a lot of space - even if they never use Nautilus. Put the python-nautilus package in the suggests: or recommends: field. This option provides the end-user with a way to avoid installing the python-nautilus package (by providing the --no-install-suggests or --no-install-recommends argument to apt-get). However, this won't work when the user installs the package in the Software Center. (I always get mixed up as to which of those two fields are installed by default.) Prompt the user when the application is installed or first launched. This option is more complicated than the others but offers the best compromise between making it easy for the user to install python-nautilus (without going into a technical explanation) and not installing it when the user doesn't need it (or want it). I guess the best way to implement this is a simple prompt that invokes apt-get if the user would like the package installed. Don't install the package at all. This option ensures that nobody has python-nautilus installed on their machine unless they want it. However, this also means that my Nautilus extension will simply not run on the end-user's machine unless they manually install the package. Which of these options seems the best choice? Have I missed any pros and cons for each of the options?

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• How can I make a collection of mini-games in XNA where the user can download packs of minigames and the main .exe can run them without being altered?

  - by Pyroka

  I'm currently making a PC game in XNA. It's actually a collection of mini-games (there's 3 mini-games at the moment) however I plan to make and add more, in downloadable 'packs'. My question is, what's the best way to achieve this? Currently my thoughts are: Create a 'game' interface Build games to this interface but create them as .dlls Have the main .exe file scan a directory and load in the .dlls at runtime. I've not messed around with the idea much, but I know there are applications at-least that use this plug-in approach (Notepad++ seems to), but I'm not sure of any games that do (although I'm sure they must exist). However it seems that this is a problem that has been solved previously, so I'm wondering if there's any form of established best-practice.

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• Windows XP - Security Update for Windows XP (KB923561) (KB946648) (KB956572) (KB958644)

  - by leeand00

  My father's computer has Windows XP, but when I try to install the service packs it always fails. What gives? Here are the errors that I get in the event log: Date: 2/6/2010 Time: 12:02:18 AM Type: Error User: N/A Computer: EVO Source: Windows Update Agent Category: Installation Event ID: 20 Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80070002: Security Update for Windows XP (KB946648). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. 0000: 57 69 6e 33 32 48 52 65 Win32HRe 0008: 73 75 6c 74 3d 30 78 38 sult=0x8 0010: 30 30 37 30 30 30 32 20 0070002 0018: 55 70 64 61 74 65 49 44 UpdateID 0020: 3d 7b 38 33 44 31 41 44 ={83D1AD 0028: 46 35 2d 37 37 39 44 2d F5-779D- 0030: 34 30 31 36 2d 38 43 33 4016-8C3 0038: 31 2d 35 34 39 32 37 30 1-549270 0040: 46 36 37 42 33 46 7d 20 F67B3F} 0048: 52 65 76 69 73 69 6f 6e Revision 0050: 4e 75 6d 62 65 72 3d 31 Number=1 0058: 30 34 20 00 04 . Date: 2/6/2010 Time: 12:02:18 AM Type: Error User: N/A Computer: EVO Source: Windows Update Agent Catagory: Installation Event ID: 20 Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80070002: Security Update for Windows XP (KB956572). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. 0000: 57 69 6e 33 32 48 52 65 Win32HRe 0008: 73 75 6c 74 3d 30 78 38 sult=0x8 0010: 30 30 37 30 30 30 32 20 0070002 0018: 55 70 64 61 74 65 49 44 UpdateID 0020: 3d 7b 44 46 32 46 30 41 ={DF2F0A 0028: 39 38 2d 36 45 33 35 2d 98-6E35- 0030: 34 33 37 39 2d 41 42 33 4379-AB3 0038: 33 2d 41 30 33 30 33 45 3-A0303E 0040: 46 37 34 42 32 41 7d 20 F74B2A} 0048: 52 65 76 69 73 69 6f 6e Revision 0050: 4e 75 6d 62 65 72 3d 31 Number=1 0058: 30 32 20 00 02 . Date: 2/6/2010 Time: 12:02:18 AM Type: Error User: N/A Computer EVO Source: Windows Update Agent Event ID: 20 Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80070002: Security Update for Windows XP (KB958644). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. 0000: 57 69 6e 33 32 48 52 65 Win32HRe 0008: 73 75 6c 74 3d 30 78 38 sult=0x8 0010: 30 30 37 30 30 30 32 20 0070002 0018: 55 70 64 61 74 65 49 44 UpdateID 0020: 3d 7b 39 33 39 37 41 32 ={9397A2 0028: 31 46 2d 32 34 36 43 2d 1F-246C- 0030: 34 35 33 42 2d 41 43 30 453B-AC0 0038: 35 2d 36 35 42 46 34 46 5-65BF4F 0040: 43 36 42 36 38 42 7d 20 C6B68B} 0048: 52 65 76 69 73 69 6f 6e Revision 0050: 4e 75 6d 62 65 72 3d 31 Number=1 0058: 30 31 20 00 01 . Date: 2/6/2010 Time: 12:02:18 AM Type: Error User: N/A Computer: EVO Source: Windows Update Agent Category: Installation Event ID: 20 Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80070002: Security Update for Windows XP (KB923561). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. 0000: 57 69 6e 33 32 48 52 65 Win32HRe 0008: 73 75 6c 74 3d 30 78 38 sult=0x8 0010: 30 30 37 30 30 30 32 20 0070002 0018: 55 70 64 61 74 65 49 44 UpdateID 0020: 3d 7b 33 31 30 41 34 43 ={310A4C 0028: 30 38 2d 35 39 33 44 2d 08-593D- 0030: 34 31 41 33 2d 42 42 35 41A3-BB5 0038: 37 2d 38 33 42 33 38 36 7-83B386 0040: 44 37 37 33 42 35 7d 20 D773B5} 0048: 52 65 76 69 73 69 6f 6e Revision 0050: 4e 75 6d 62 65 72 3d 31 Number=1 0058: 30 33 20 00 03 . Thank you, Andrew

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• Capistrano asks for SSH password when deploying from local machine to server

  - by GhostRider

  When I try to ssh to a server, I'm able to do it as my id_rsa.pub key is added to the authorized keys in the server. Now when I try to deploy my code via Capistrano to the server from my local project folder, the server asks for a password. I'm unable to understand what could be the issue if I'm able to ssh and unable to deploy to the same server. $ cap deploy:setup "no seed data" triggering start callbacks for `deploy:setup' * 13:42:18 == Currently executing `multistage:ensure' *** Defaulting to `development' * 13:42:18 == Currently executing `development' * 13:42:18 == Currently executing `deploy:setup' triggering before callbacks for `deploy:setup' * 13:42:18 == Currently executing `db:configure_mongoid' * executing "mkdir -p /home/deploy/apps/development/flyingbird/shared/config" servers: ["dev1.noob.com", "176.9.24.217"] Password: Cap script: # gem install capistrano capistrano-ext capistrano_colors begin; require 'capistrano_colors'; rescue LoadError; end require "bundler/capistrano" # RVM bootstrap # $:.unshift(File.expand_path('./lib', ENV['rvm_path'])) require 'rvm/capistrano' set :rvm_ruby_string, 'ruby-1.9.2-p290' set :rvm_type, :user # or :user # Application setup default_run_options[:pty] = true # allow pseudo-terminals ssh_options[:forward_agent] = true # forward SSH keys (this will use your SSH key to get the code from git repository) ssh_options[:port] = 22 set :ip, "dev1.noob.com" set :application, "flyingbird" set :repository, "repo-path" set :scm, :git set :branch, fetch(:branch, "master") set :deploy_via, :remote_cache set :rails_env, "production" set :use_sudo, false set :scm_username, "user" set :user, "user1" set(:database_username) { application } set(:production_database) { application + "_production" } set(:staging_database) { application + "_staging" } set(:development_database) { application + "_development" } role :web, ip # Your HTTP server, Apache/etc role :app, ip # This may be the same as your `Web` server role :db, ip, :primary => true # This is where Rails migrations will run # Use multi-staging require "capistrano/ext/multistage" set :stages, ["development", "staging", "production"] set :default_stage, rails_env before "deploy:setup", "db:configure_mongoid" # Uncomment if you use any of these databases after "deploy:update_code", "db:symlink_mongoid" after "deploy:update_code", "uploads:configure_shared" after "uploads:configure_shared", "uploads:symlink" after 'deploy:update_code', 'bundler:symlink_bundled_gems' after 'deploy:update_code', 'bundler:install' after "deploy:update_code", "rvm:trust_rvmrc" # Use this to update crontab if you use 'whenever' gem # after "deploy:symlink", "deploy:update_crontab" if ARGV.include?("seed_data") after "deploy", "db:seed" else p "no seed data" end #Custom tasks to handle resque and redis restart before "deploy", "deploy:stop_workers" after "deploy", "deploy:restart_redis" after "deploy", "deploy:start_workers" after "deploy", "deploy:cleanup" 'Create symlink for public uploads' namespace :uploads do task :symlink do run <<-CMD rm -rf #{release_path}/public/uploads && mkdir -p #{release_path}/public && ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/uploads #{release_path}/public/uploads CMD end task :configure_shared do run "mkdir -p #{shared_path}/public" run "mkdir -p #{shared_path}/public/uploads" end end namespace :rvm do desc 'Trust rvmrc file' task :trust_rvmrc do run "rvm rvmrc trust #{current_release}" end end namespace :db do desc "Create mongoid.yml in shared path" task :configure_mongoid do db_config = <<-EOF defaults: &defaults host: localhost production: <<: *defaults database: #{production_database} staging: <<: *defaults database: #{staging_database} EOF run "mkdir -p #{shared_path}/config" put db_config, "#{shared_path}/config/mongoid.yml" end desc "Make symlink for mongoid.yml" task :symlink_mongoid do run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/config/mongoid.yml #{release_path}/config/mongoid.yml" end desc "Fill the database with seed data" task :seed do run "cd #{current_path}; RAILS_ENV=#{default_stage} bundle exec rake db:seed" end end namespace :bundler do desc "Symlink bundled gems on each release" task :symlink_bundled_gems, :roles => :app do run "mkdir -p #{shared_path}/bundled_gems" run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/bundled_gems #{release_path}/vendor/bundle" end desc "Install bundled gems " task :install, :roles => :app do run "cd #{release_path} && bundle install --deployment" end end namespace :deploy do task :start, :roles => :app do run "touch #{current_path}/tmp/restart.txt" end desc "Restart the app" task :restart, :roles => :app do run "touch #{current_path}/tmp/restart.txt" end desc "Start the workers" task :stop_workers do run "cd #{current_path}; RAILS_ENV=#{default_stage} bundle exec rake resque:stop_workers" end desc "Restart Redis server" task :restart_redis do "/etc/init.d/redis-server restart" end desc "Start the workers" task :start_workers do run "cd #{current_path}; RAILS_ENV=#{default_stage} bundle exec rake resque:start_workers" end end

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• IIS Strategies for Accessing Secured Network Resources

  - by ErikE

  Problem: A user connects to a service on a machine, such as an IIS web site or a SQL Server database. The site or the database need to gain access to network resources such as file shares (the most common) or a database on a different server. Permission is denied. This is because the user the service is running under doesn't have network permissions in the first place, or if it does, it doesn't have rights to access the remote resource. I keep running into this problem over and over again and am tired of not having a really solid way of handling it. Here are some workarounds I'm aware of: Run IIS as a custom-created domain user who is granted high permissions If permissions are granted one file share at a time, then every time I want to read from a new share, I would have to ask a network admin to add it for me. Eventually, with many web sites reading from many shares, it is going to get really complicated. If permissions are just opened up wide for the user to access any file shares in our domain, then this seems like an unnecessary security surface area to present. This also applies to all the sites running on IIS, rather than just the selected site or virtual directory that needs the access, a further surface area problem. Still use the IUSR account but give it network permissions and set up the same user name on the remote resource (not a domain user, a local user) This also has its problems. For example, there's a file share I am using that I have full rights to for sharing, but I can't log in to the machine. So I have to find the right admin and ask him to do it for me. Any time something has to change, it's another request to an admin. Allow IIS users to connect as anonymous, but set the account used for anonymous access to a high-privilege one This is even worse than giving the IIS IUSR full privileges, because it means my web site can't use any kind of security in the first place. Connect using Kerberos, then delegate This sounds good in principle but has all sorts of problems. First of all, if you're using virtual web sites where the domain name you connect to the site with is not the base machine name (as we do frequently), then you have to set up a Service Principal Name on the webserver using Microsoft's SetSPN utility. It's complicated and apparently prone to errors. Also, you have to ask your network/domain admin to change security policy for both the web server and the domain account so they are "trusted for delegation." If you don't get everything perfectly right, suddenly your intended Kerberos authentication is NTLM instead, and you can only impersonate rather than delegate, and thus no reaching out over the network as the user. Also, this method can be problematic because sometimes you need the web site or database to have permissions that the connecting user doesn't have. Create a service or COM+ application that fetches the resource for the web site Services and COM+ packages are run with their own set of credentials. Running as a high-privilege user is okay since they can do their own security and deny requests that are not legitimate, putting control in the hands of the application developer instead of the network admin. Problems: I am using a COM+ package that does exactly this on Windows Server 2000 to deliver highly sensitive images to a secured web application. I tried moving the web site to Windows Server 2003 and was suddenly denied permission to instantiate the COM+ object, very likely registry permissions. I trolled around quite a bit and did not solve the problem, partly because I was reluctant to give the IUSR account full registry permissions. That seems like the same bad practice as just running IIS as a high-privilege user. Note: This is actually really simple. In a programming language of your choice, you create a class with a function that returns an instance of the object you want (an ADODB.Connection, for example), and build a dll, which you register as a COM+ object. In your web server-side code, you create an instance of the class and use the function, and since it is running under a different security context, calls to network resources work. Map drive letters to shares This could theoretically work, but in my mind it's not really a good long-term strategy. Even though mappings can be created with specific credentials, and this can be done by others than a network admin, this also is going to mean that there are either way too many shared drives (small granularity) or too much permission is granted to entire file servers (large granularity). Also, I haven't figured out how to map a drive so that the IUSR gets the drives. Mapping a drive is for the current user, I don't know the IUSR account password to log in as it and create the mappings. Move the resources local to the web server/database There are times when I've done this, especially with Access databases. Does the database have to live out on the file share? Sometimes, it was just easiest to move the database to the web server or to the SQL database server (so the linked server to it would work). But I don't think this is a great all-around solution, either. And it won't work when the resource is a service rather than a file. Move the service to the final web server/database I suppose I could run a web server on my SQL Server database, so the web site can connect to it using impersonation and make me happy. But do we really want random extra web servers on our database servers just so this is possible? No. Virtual directories in IIS I know that virtual directories can help make remote resources look as though they are local, and this supports using custom credentials for each virtual directory. I haven't been able to come up with, yet, how this would solve the problem for system calls. Users could reach file shares directly, but this won't help, say, classic ASP code access resources. I could use a URL instead of a file path to read remote data files in a web page, but this isn't going to help me make a connection to an Access database, a SQL server database, or any other resource that uses a connection library rather than being able to just read all the bytes and work with them. I wish there was some kind of "service tunnel" that I could create. Think about how a VPN makes remote resources look like they are local. With a richer aliasing mechanism, perhaps code-based, why couldn't even database connections occur under a defined security context? Why not a special Windows component that lets you specify, per user, what resources are available and what alternate credentials are used for the connection? File shares, databases, web sites, you name it. I guess I'm almost talking about a specialized local proxy server. Anyway, so there's my list. I may update it if I think of more. Does anyone have any ideas for me? My current problem today is, yet again, I need a web site to connect to an Access database on a file share. Here we go again...

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• IIS Strategies for Accessing Secured Network Resources

  - by Emtucifor

  Problem: A user connects to a service on a machine, such as an IIS web site or a SQL Server database. The site or the database need to gain access to network resources such as file shares (the most common) or a database on a different server. Permission is denied. This is because the user the service is running as doesn't have network permissions in the first place, or if it does, it doesn't have rights to access the remote resource. I keep running into this problem over and over again and am tired of not having a really solid way of handling it. Here are some workarounds I'm aware of: Run IIS as a custom-created domain user who is granted high permissions If permissions are granted one file share at a time, then every time I want to read from a new share, I would have to ask a network admin to add it for me. Eventually, with many web sites reading from many shares, it is going to get really complicated. If permissions are just opened up wide for the user to access any file shares in our domain, then this seems like an unnecessary security surface area to present. This also applies to all the sites running on IIS, rather than just the selected site or virtual directory that needs the access, a further surface area problem. Still use the IUSR account but give it network permissions and set up the same user name on the remote resource (not a domain user, a local user) This also has its problems. For example, there's a file share I am using that I have full rights to for sharing, but I can't log in to the machine. So I have to find the right admin and ask him to do it for me. Any time something has to change, it's another request to an admin. Allow IIS users to connect as anonymous, but set the account used for anonymous access to a high-privilege one This is even worse than giving the IIS IUSR full privileges, because it means my web site can't use any kind of security in the first place. Connect using Kerberos, then delegate This sounds good in principle but has all sorts of problems. First of all, if you're using virtual web sites where the domain name you connect to the site with is not the base machine name (as we do frequently), then you have to set up a Service Principal Name on the webserver using Microsoft's SetSPN utility. It's complicated and apparently prone to errors. Also, you have to ask your network/domain admin to change security policy for the web server so it is "trusted for delegation." If you don't get everything perfectly right, suddenly your intended Kerberos authentication is NTLM instead, and you can only impersonate rather than delegate, and thus no reaching out over the network as the user. Also, this method can be problematic because sometimes you need the web site or database to have permissions that the connecting user doesn't have. Create a service or COM+ application that fetches the resource for the web site Services and COM+ packages are run with their own set of credentials. Running as a high-privilege user is okay since they can do their own security and deny requests that are not legitimate, putting control in the hands of the application developer instead of the network admin. Problems: I am using a COM+ package that does exactly this on Windows Server 2000 to deliver highly sensitive images to a secured web application. I tried moving the web site to Windows Server 2003 and was suddenly denied permission to instantiate the COM+ object, very likely registry permissions. I trolled around quite a bit and did not solve the problem, partly because I was reluctant to give the IUSR account full registry permissions. That seems like the same bad practice as just running IIS as a high-privilege user. Note: This is actually really simple. In a programming language of your choice, you create a class with a function that returns an instance of the object you want (an ADODB.Connection, for example), and build a dll, which you register as a COM+ object. In your web server-side code, you create an instance of the class and use the function, and since it is running under a different security context, calls to network resources work. Map drive letters to shares This could theoretically work, but in my mind it's not really a good long-term strategy. Even though mappings can be created with specific credentials, and this can be done by others than a network admin, this also is going to mean that there are either way too many shared drives (small granularity) or too much permission is granted to entire file servers (large granularity). Also, I haven't figured out how to map a drive so that the IUSR gets the drives. Mapping a drive is for the current user, I don't know the IUSR account password to log in as it and create the mappings. Move the resources local to the web server/database There are times when I've done this, especially with Access databases. Does the database have to live out on the file share? Sometimes, it was just easiest to move the database to the web server or to the SQL database server (so the linked server to it would work). But I don't think this is a great all-around solution, either. And it won't work when the resource is a service rather than a file. Move the service to the final web server/database I suppose I could run a web server on my SQL Server database, so the web site can connect to it using impersonation and make me happy. But do we really want random extra web servers on our database servers just so this is possible? No. Virtual directories in IIS I know that virtual directories can help make remote resources look as though they are local, and this supports using custom credentials for each virtual directory. I haven't been able to come up with, yet, how this would solve the problem for system calls. Users could reach file shares directly, but this won't help, say, classic ASP code access resources. I could use a URL instead of a file path to read remote data files in a web page, but this isn't going to help me make a connection to an Access database, a SQL server database, or any other resource that uses a connection library rather than being able to just read all the bytes and work with them. I wish there was some kind of "service tunnel" that I could create. Think about how a VPN makes remote resources look like they are local. With a richer aliasing mechanism, perhaps code-based, why couldn't even database connections occur under a defined security context? Why not a special Windows component that lets you specify, per user, what resources are available and what alternate credentials are used for the connection? File shares, databases, web sites, you name it. I guess I'm almost talking about a specialized local proxy server. Anyway, so there's my list. I may update it if I think of more. Does anyone have any ideas for me? My current problem today is, yet again, I need a web site to connect to an Access database on a file share. Here we go again...

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• How can I make subversion reset the stored passwords/users and remember my authentication credential

  - by NicDumZ

  Hello folks! Background: I used to have everything working just fine on my fresh install: $ svn co https://domain:443/ test1 Error validating server certificate for 'https://domain:443': - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the fingerprint to validate the certificate manually! Certificate information: - Hostname: **REMOVED** - Valid: **REMOVED** - Issuer: **REMOVED** - Fingerprint: **checked with issuer and REMOVED** (R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently? p Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Password for 'nicdumz-machine-hostname': Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Username: nicdumz Password for 'nicdumz': # proceeds to checkout correctly $ svn co https://domain:443/ test2 # checkouts nicely, without asking for my password. At some point I needed to commit stuff using a different account. So I did that $ svn ci --username other.user Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Password for 'other.user': # works fine But since then, everytime I want to commit as 'nicdumz' (default user, all repos have been checked-out with that user), it prompts me for my password: $ svn ci Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Password for 'nicdumz': Hey come on, why :) The same happens if I want a fresh checkout, since read-access is also protected. So I tried fixing the issue by myself. I read around that ~/.subversion/auth was storing credentials, so I removed it from the way: $ cd ~/.subversion $ mv auth oldauth $ mkdir auth It seemed to work at first, because svn had forgotten about certificate validation: $ svn co https://domain:443/ test3 Error validating server certificate for 'https://domain:443': - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the fingerprint to validate the certificate manually! Certificate information: - Hostname: **REMOVED** - Valid: **REMOVED** - Issuer: **REMOVED** - Fingerprint: **checked with issuer and REMOVED** (R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently? p Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Password for 'nicdumz-machine-hostname': Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Username: nicdumz Password for 'nicdumz': # proceeds to checkout correctly $ svn up Authentication realm: <https://domain:443> Subversion repository Password for 'nicdumz': What? how is this happening? If you have suggestions to investigate more about the behaviour, I am very interested. If I'm correct, there is no way to do a verbose svn up or anything of the like, so I'm not sure should I go for investigation. Oh, and for what it's worth: $ svn --version svn, version 1.6.6 (r40053) compiled Oct 26 2009, 06:19:08 Copyright (C) 2000-2009 CollabNet. Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.tigris.org/ This product includes software developed by CollabNet (http://www.Collab.Net/). The following repository access (RA) modules are available: * ra_neon : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using Neon. - handles 'http' scheme - handles 'https' scheme * ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol. - with Cyrus SASL authentication - handles 'svn' scheme * ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk. - handles 'file' scheme * ra_serf : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using serf. - handles 'http' scheme - handles 'https' scheme

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• Hosed Windows 7 permissons

  - by Anthony

  Here is the most interesting thing I've noticed since the problems started: If I go into a control panel/system module (in this case the Resource Monitor) that has a "Check Online" type option, Firefox (my default browser) opens right up without a problem. But if I just start Firefox from any shortcuts (start menu, desktop, etc), the Firefox process starts up (and the start menu icon starts glowing) only to end without notice a few seconds later. Possibly related: If I start up in Safe-Mode (w/o Networking, but haven't tried with yet), I can start up FF or Chrome just fine, but if I attempt to open Chrome normally, I get a permissions error. Opera and Safari seem to be okay (mostly). Safari crashes when I try to download any files. All of the above leads me to believe that some (but clearly not all) core files have messed up permissions. Or rather, that I no longer have permission. System still does, based on Firefox opening without fail when the system initiates it. I've run MS Forefront once in normal mode, Malwarebytes twice in normal mode and once in safe-mode. One trojan found and deleted, but the problem persists. Two other things worth mentioning: I accidentally duplicated my library... I thought I'd try to add the "Internet" folder to my start menu, next to music and downloads. The first advanced thing I tried was "create new library". I clearly misunderstood what this means. I thought it was a way to add virtual folders to the library (which I thought, in turn, would allow me to choose it as a link on the start menu), but instead it recreated my already existing user folder, AppData and all. I didn't notice this until today. Then I tried setting permissions for my User folder to full control, recursively... Confused but not giving up,I thought I could maybe create a shortcut to the NetHood folder manually, but instead got hit with an access denied error. So I tried to change the permission levels for all sub-folders to my user folder so that I had full control. I got several access denied errors along the way. At this point I gave up, went out, ended up caught in the rain and stuck on a friend's couch and showing up late for work the next day. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft. When I finally got home today (20 hours later), I noticed that Firefox was acting really strange. I tried opening Chrome to see if the problem was client side or server side, and instead got the above-mentioned "you don't have permission to open this program" alert. And I think that's the whole story. Oh, I also did a system restore, but not chose a point from this morning (an auto update), and it worked but the problem wasn't fixed. And then all the earlier restore points were gone. So the questions are: a) is there a way to set the admin and user privs back to "default"? b) would this, in anyone's expert opinion, fix the problems I'm having? c) how come being logged in as an admin isn't the same as being logged in with admin privs? It seems that half the time I have to do run as admin for fairy standard things because i'm being treated as me-theuser and not me-theadmin. Thanks for reading.

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• Search Alternative Search Engines from within Bing’s Search Page

  - by Asian Angel

  So you love using Bing Search but may still be curious to see what another search engine will provide if used. Now you can search using another search engine from within the Bing Search page and enjoy numbered results using two simple user scripts. Note: These user scripts may also be added to other browsers as well (i.e. Iron, Opera, etc.). Before Bing Search does nicely on searches but what if you would like to try the same search with another search engine? Having to manually open a new tab, navigate to the appropriate website, and then start a new search is not too convenient. Another possible frustration for some people may be knowing just how many search results that they have looked through. Well, both of these small problems are easy to fix with two wonderful user scripts. Installing the Scripts The first script that we installed (you may do either one first) was for adding alternative search engine links. Click “Install” to get started… Note: For our example we had the Greasemonkey extension installed. When the confirmation window pops up click on “Install” to finish adding the user script to Firefox. Repeating the same procedure as above add your second script to Firefox. Confirm the second user script installation and you are ready to enjoy nicer Bing Search results. After As you can see there are two small unobtrusive differences in our search results. The alternative search engine links are conveniently located at the top of the page and now you can easily know just how many search results that you have looked through. The results when we decided to try the search in a transfer over to Yahoo. Our search transferred to Ask Search. The alternative search links can be very helpful if Bing is not providing the kind of search results that you are hoping for. Still going very nicely past the 100 mark… Conclusion If you have been wanting a small booster to searching with Bing then these two scripts will get you on your way. Using Opera Browser? See our how-to for adding user scripts to Opera here. Links Install the Bing (Alternate Search Engine Links) User Script Install the Bing Numbered Search Results User Script Download the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox (Mozilla Add-ons) Download the Stylish extension for Firefox (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Organize Your Firefox Search Engines Into FoldersFix for Slow "Instant Search" In Outlook 2007Gain Access to a Search Box in Google ChromeManage Web Searches In SafariModify Firefox’s Search Bar Behavior with SearchLoad Options 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 Heaven & Hell Finder Icon Using TrueCrypt to Secure Your Data Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain

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• RegexClean Transformation

  Use the power of regular expressions to cleanse your data right there inside the Data Flow. This transformation includes a full user interface for simple configuration, as well as advanced features such as error output configuration. Two regular expressions are used, a match expression and a replace expression. The transformation is designed around the named capture groups or match groups, and even supports multiple expressions. This allows for rich and complex expressions to be built, all through an easy to reuse transformation where a bespoke Script Component was previously the only alternative. Some simple properties are available for each column selected – Behaviour The two behaviour modes offer similar functionality but with a difference. Replace, replaces tokens with the input, and Emit overwrites the whole string. Cascade Cascade allows you to define multiple expressions, each on a new line. The match expression will be processed into one operation per line, which are then processed in order at run-time. Multiple replace expressions can also be specified, again each on a new line. If there is no corresponding replace expression for a match expression line, then the last replace expression will be used instead. It is common to have multiple match expressions, but only a single replace expression. Match Expression The expression used to define the named capture groups. This is where you can analyse the data, and tag or name elements within it as found by the match expression. Replace Expression The replace determines the final output. It will reference the named groups from the match expression and assembles them into the final output. If you want to use regular expressions to validate data then try the Regular Expression Transformation. Quick Start Guide Select a column. A new output column is created for each selected column; there is no option for in-place replacement of column values. One input column can be used to populate multiple output columns, just select the column again in the lower grid, using the Input Columns drop-down selector. Amend the output column name and size as required. They default to the same as the input column selected. Amend the behaviour as required, the default is Replace. Amend the cascade option as required, the default is true. Finally enter your match and replace regular expressions Quick Sample #1 Parse an email address and extract the user and domain portions. Format as a web address passing the user portion as a URL parameter. This uses two match groups, user and host, which correspond to the text before the @ and after it respectively. Behaviour is Emit, and cascade of false, we only have a single match expression. Match Expression ^(?<user>[^@]+)@(?<host>.+)$ Replace Expression - http://www.${host}?user=${user} Results Sample Input Sample Output [email protected] http://www.adventure-works.com?user=zheng0 The component is provided as an MSI file, however to complete the installation, you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the RegexClean Transformation from the list. Downloads The RegexClean Transformation is available for both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Please choose the version to match your SQL Server version, or you can install both versions and use them side by side if you have both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 installed. RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2005 RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) Screenshot

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• How to Install Oracle Software on Remote Linux Server

  - by James Taylor

  It is becoming more common these days to install Oracle software on remote Linux servers. This issue has always existed but was generally resolved either by silent installs or by someone physically going to the server to install the software. This is becoming more difficult with the popular virtualisation and cloud deployment strategies. This post provides the steps involved to install Oracle Software using the GUI interface on a remote Linux server. There are many ways to achieve this, the way I resolve this issue is via Virtual Network Computing (VNC) as it is shipped with RedHat and OEL out of the box. For this post I’m using OEL 5 deployed on a OVM guest. If not already done so download and install a client version of VNC so you can connect to the server. There are many out there, for the purpose of this post I use UltraVNC. You can download a free version from http://www.uvnc.com/download/index.html By default VNC Server is installed in your RedHat and OEL OS, but it is not configured. The way VNC works is when started it creates a client instance for the user and binds it to a specific port. So if have an account on the Linux box you can setup a VNC Server session for that user, you don’t need to be root. For the purpose of this document I’m going to use oracle as the user to setup a VNC Session as this is the user I want use to install the software. However to start the VNC Service you must be root. As the root user run the following command: service vncserver start Starting VNC server: no displays configured                [  OK  ] Login to the Linux box as the user  you wan to install the Oracle software [oracle@lisa ~]$ Run the command to create a new VNC server instance for the oracle user: vncserver You will be ask to supply password information. This is what you will enter when connecting from your desktop client. This password is also independent of the actual Linux user password. The VNC Server is acting as a proxy to this instance. You will require a password to access your desktops. Password: Verify: xauth:  creating new authority file /home/oracle/.Xauthority New 'lisa.nz.oracle.com:1 (oracle)' desktop is lisa.nz.oracle.com:1 Creating default startup script /home/oracle/.vnc/xstartup Starting applications specified in /home/oracle/.vnc/xstartup Log file is /home/oracle/.vnc/lisa.nz.oracle.com:1.log As you can see a new instance lisa.nz.oracle.com:1 has been created. If you were to run the vncserver command again another instance lisa.nz.oracle.com:2 will be created. If you are going through a firewall you will need to ensure that the port 5901 (port 1) is open between your client desktop and the Linux Server. Depending on the options chosen at install time a firewall could be in place. The simplest way to disable this is using the command. You will need to be root. service iptables stop This will stop the firewall while you install. If you just want to add a port to the accepted lists use the firewall UI. You will need to be root. system-config-security-level Now you are ready to connect to the server via the VNC. Using the software installed in step one start the VNC Client. You should be prompted for the server and port. If connectivity is established, you will be prompted for the password entered in step 5. You should now be presented with a terminal screen ready to install software Go to the location of the oracle install software and start the Oracle Universal Installer

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• Book Reviews: Art of Community and Eyetracking Web Usability

  - by ultan o'broin

  Holidays time offers a chance to catch up on some user experience and user assistance related material. So, two short book reviews (which I considered using my new Tumblr blog for. More about that another time) coming up. The Art of Community by Jono Bacon Excellent starting point for anyone wanting to get going in the community software (FLOSS, for example) space or understand how to set up, manage, and leverage the collective intelligence of communities for whatever ends. The book is a little too long in my opinion, and of course, usage of what Jono is recommending needs to be nuanced and adapted for enterprise applications space (hardly surprising there is a lot about Ubuntu, Lug Radio, and so on given Jono's interests). Shame there wasn't more information on international, non-English community considerations too. Still, some great ideas and insight into setting up and managing communities that I will leverage (watch out for the results on this blog, later in 2011). One section, on collaborative writing really jumped out. It reinforced the whole idea that to successful community initiatives are based on instigators knowing what makes the community tick in the first place. How about this for insight into user profiles for people who write community user assistance (OK then, "doc") and what tools they might use (in this case, we're talking about Jokosher): "Most people who write documentation for open source software projects would fall into the category of power user. They are technology enthusiasts who are not interested in the super-technical avenues of programming, but want to help out. Many of these people have good writing skills and a good knowledge of using the software, so the documentation fit is natural. With Jokosher we wanted to acknowledge this profile of user. As such, instead of focussing on complex text processing tools, we encouraged our documentation contributors to use a wiki." The book is available for free here, and well as being available from usual sources. Eyetracking Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Prentice Another fine book by established experts. I have some field experience of eyetracking studies myself --in the user assistance for enterprise applications space--though Jakob and Kara concentrate on websites for their research here. I would caution how much about websites transfers easily to the applications space, especially enterprise applications, as claimed in the book too. However, Jakob and Kara do make the case very well that understanding design goals (for example, productivity improvement in the case of applications) and the context of the software use is critical. Executing a study using eyetracking technology requires that you know what you want to test, can set up realistic tasks for testing by representative testers, and then analyze the results. Be precise, as lots of data will be generated (I think the authors underplay the effort in analyzing data too). What I found disappointing was the lack of emphasis on eyetracking as only part of the usability solution. It's really for fine-tuning designs in my opinion, and should be used after other design reviews. I also wasn't that crazy about the level of disengagement between the qualitative and quantitative side of this kind of testing that the book indicated. I think it is useful to have testers verbalize their thoughts and for test engineers to prompt, intervene, or guide as necessary. More on cultural or international aspects to usability testing might have been included too (websites are available to everyone). To conclude, I enjoyed the book, took on board some key takeaways about methodologies and found the recommendations sensible and easy to follow (for example about Forms layouts). Applying enterprise applications requirements such as those relating to user profiles, design goals, and overall context of use in conjunction with what's in this book would be the way to go here. It also made me think of how interesting it would be to compare eyetracking findings between website and enterprise applications usage.

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• Building a Mafia&hellip;TechFest Style

  - by David Hoerster

  It’s been a few months since I last blogged (not that I blog much to begin with), but things have been busy.  We all have a lot going on in our lives, but I’ve had one item that has taken up a surprising amount of time – Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  After the event, I went through some minutes of the first meetings for TechFest, and I started to think about how it all came together.  I think what inspired me the most about TechFest was how people from various technical communities were able to come together and build and promote a common event.  As a result, I wanted to blog about this to show that people from different communities can work together to build something that benefits all communities.  (Hopefully I've got all my facts straight.)  TechFest started as an idea Eric Kepes and myself had when we were planning our next Pittsburgh Code Camp, probably in the summer of 2011.  Our Spring 2011 Code Camp was a little different because we had a great infusion of some folks from the Pittsburgh Agile group (especially with a few speakers from LeanDog).  The line-up was great, but we felt our audience wasn’t as broad as it should have been.  We thought it would be great to somehow attract other user groups around town and have a big, polyglot conference. We started contacting leaders from Pittsburgh’s various user groups.  Eric and I split up the ones that we knew about, and we just started making contacts.  Most of the people we started contacting never heard of us, nor we them.  But we all had one thing in common – we ran user groups who’s primary goal is educating our members to make them better at what they do. Amazingly, and I say this because I wasn’t sure what to expect, we started getting some interest from the various leaders.  One leader, Greg Akins, is, in my opinion, Pittsburgh’s poster boy for the polyglot programmer.  He’s helped us in the past with .NET Code Camps, is a Java developer (and leader in Pittsburgh’s Java User Group), works with Ruby and I’m sure a handful of other languages.  He helped make some e-introductions to other user group leaders, and the whole thing just started to snowball. Once we realized we had enough interest with the user group leaders, we decided to not have a Fall Code Camp and instead focus on this new entity. Flash-forward to October of 2011.  I set up a meeting, with the help of Jeremy Jarrell (Pittsburgh Agile leader) to hold a meeting with the leaders of many of Pittsburgh technical user groups.  We had representatives from 12 technical user groups (Python, JavaScript, Clojure, Ruby, PittAgile, jQuery, PHP, Perl, SQL, .NET, Java and PowerShell) – 14 people.  We likened it to a scene from a Godfather movie where the heads of all the families come together to make some deal.  As a result, the name “TechFest Mafia” was born and kind of stuck. Over the next 7 months or so, we had our starts and stops.  There were moments where I thought this event would not happen either because we wouldn’t have the right mix of topics (was I off there!), or enough people register (OK, I was wrong there, too!) or find an appropriate venue (hmm…wrong there, too) or find enough sponsors to help support the event (wow…not doing so well).  Overall, everything fell into place with a lot of hard work from Eric, Jen, Greg, Jeremy, Sean, Nicholas, Gina and probably a few others that I’m forgetting.  We also had a bit of luck, too.  But in the end, the passion that we had to put together an event that was really about making ourselves better at what we do really paid off. I’ve never been more excited about a project coming together than I have been with Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  From the moment the first person arrived at the event to the final minutes of my closing remarks (where I almost lost my voice – I ended up being diagnosed with bronchitis the next day!), it was an awesome event.  I’m glad to have been part of bringing something like this to Pittsburgh…and I’m looking forward to Pittsburgh TechFest 2013.  See you there!

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• New Release Overview Part 2

  - by brian.harrison

  To continue our discussion of the next release of WCI, lets take a look at a few other new features that have been developed and tested. Password Management With customer implementations starting to go more external, we were finding that these customers wanted to use the native users within the portal because the customer did not want to provide an LDAP server that is externally facing. However, the portal does not provide anything close to the same level of password policy that a standard LDAP environment would provide. With that being the case, we made the decision to provide the same kind of password policies directly within WCI that a standard LDAP environment would have. Password Expiration - In how many days will a password expire which will force the user to change their password? Also, in how many days prior to expiration with the user be notified that their password is about the expire? Password Rotation - How many of your previous passwords will you not be able to use when changing your password? Password Policies - What are the requirements for the password that is being created by the user? Number of Characters Numbers Required Symbols Required Capitalization Required Easily Configurable - Configuration is handled through the Portal Settings utility within Administration. All options are available on the main page of the utility. In addition to the configuration options that were mention above, there has also been a complete rewrite of the Change Password screen to provide better information to the user when they are changing their password. The Change Password will now provide a red light/green light listing of all the policies the user must meet for the changed password to be successful. As the user is typing the password, the red lights will change to green lights as the policies as met. In addition, text will show next to the password text box stating what policy has not been met yet. NOTE: The password policy functionality is not held within the User Editor page within Administration. We did not want to remove the option for Administrators to change a user's password on the fly in the case of a password reset situation. Miscellaneous Features In addition to the Password Management feature, there are a few other features that are related to WCI that should be mentioned. Consolidated Installer - Instead of having up to 12 or 13 different installers, one for each of the main products and separate services, we are going to only provide two installers. One that will be used for Collaboration and its respective images. The second will contain WCI and all of the relevant services required for a WCI architecture as well as the IDK, .NET App Accelerator, SharePoint Console as well as all Content Web Services and Identity Services. Updated Documentation - Most of us are aware that the documentation hasn't been properly kept up to date with the last couple of releases. We are doing everything that we can to remedy this with the next release by consolidating and reviewing everything that is available. We are making sure to fill in the gaps that are already there, add in all documentation for the functionality as well as clearing anything that is no longer valid based on the newly released version. I hope that you enjoyed reading through this new release information. Next time we will start to talk about the new functionality that will be available within the next release of Collaboration. If there is anything in particular that you would like to get more detail about, then please don't hesitate to send me a comment.

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• Securing Flexfield Value Sets in EBS 12.2

  - by Sara Woodhull

  Release 12.2 includes a new feature: flexfield value set security. This new feature gives you additional options for ensuring that different administrators have non-overlapping responsibilities, which in turn provides checks and balances for sensitive activities.  Separation of Duties (SoD) is one of the key concepts of internal controls and is a requirement for many regulations including: Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) European Union Data Protection Directive. Its primary intent is to put barriers in place to prevent fraud or theft by an individual acting alone. Implementing Separation of Duties requires minimizing the possibility that users could modify data across application functions where the users should not normally have access. For flexfields and report parameters in Oracle E-Business Suite, values in value sets can affect functionality such as the rollup of accounting data, job grades used at a company, and so on. Controlling access to the creation or modification of value set values can be an important piece of implementing Separation of Duties in an organization. New Flexfield Value Set Security feature Flexfield value set security allows system administrators to restrict users from viewing, adding or updating values in specific value sets. Value set security enables role-based separation of duties for key flexfields, descriptive flexfields, and report parameters. For example, you can set up value set security such that certain users can view or insert values for any value set used by the Accounting Flexfield but no other value sets, while other users can view and update values for value sets used for any flexfields in Oracle HRMS. You can also segregate access by Operating Unit as well as by role or responsibility.Value set security uses a combination of data security and role-based access control in Oracle User Management. Flexfield value set security provides a level of security that is different from the previously-existing and similarly-named features in Oracle E-Business Suite: Function security controls whether a user has access to a specific page or form, as well as what operations the user can do in that screen. Flexfield value security controls what values a user can enter into a flexfield segment or report parameter (by responsibility) during routine data entry in many transaction screens across Oracle E-Business Suite. Flexfield value set security (this feature, new in Release 12.2) controls who can view, insert, or update values for a particular value set (by flexfield, report, or value set) in the Segment Values form (FNDFFMSV). The effect of flexfield value set security is that a user of the Segment Values form will only be able to view those value sets for which the user has been granted access. Further, the user will be able to insert or update/disable values in that value set if the user has been granted privileges to do so.  Flexfield value set security affects independent, dependent, and certain table-validated value sets for flexfields and report parameters. Initial State of the Feature upon Upgrade Because this is a new security feature, it is turned on by default.  When you initially install or upgrade to Release 12.2.2, no users are allowed to view, insert or update any value set values (users may even think that their values are missing or invalid because they cannot see the values).  You must explicitly set up access for specific users by enabling appropriate grants and roles for those users.We recommend using flexfield value set security as part of a comprehensive Separation of Duties strategy. However, if you choose not to implement flexfield value set security upon upgrading to or installing Release 12.2, you can enable backwards compatibility--users can access any value sets if they have access to the Values form--after you upgrade. The feature does not affect day-to-day transactions that use flexfields.  However, you must either set up specific grants and roles or enable backwards compatibility before users can create new values or update or disable existing values. For more information, see: Release 12.2 Flexfield Value Set Security Documentation Update for Patch 17305947:R12.FND.C (Document 1589204.1) R12.2 TOI: Implement and Use Application Object Library (AOL) - Flexfields Security and Separation of Duties for Value Sets (recorded training)

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• Using a parser to locate faulty code

  - by ryan.riverside

  Lately I've been working a lot in PHP and have run into an abnormally large number of parsing errors. I realize these are my own fault and a result of sloppy initial coding on my part, but it's getting to the point that I'm spending more time resolving tags than developing. In the interest of not slamming my productivity, are there any tricks to locating the problem in the code? What I'd really be looking for would be a line to put in the code which would output the entire faulty tag in the parsing error, or something similar. Purely for reference sake, my current error is Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in /home/content/80/9480880/html/cache/tpl_prosilver_viewtopic_body.html.php on line 50 (which refers to this): </dd><dd><?php if ($_poll_option_val['POLL_OPTION_RESULT'] == 0) { echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_NO_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_NO_VOTES'] : ((isset($user->lang['NO_VOTES'])) ? $user->lang['NO_VOTES'] : '{ NO_VOTES }')); } else { echo $_poll_option_val['POLL_OPTION_PERCENT']; } ?></dd> </dl> <?php }} if ($this->_rootref['S_DISPLAY_RESULTS']) { ?> <dl> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_TOTAL_VOTES'] : ((isset($user->lang['TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $user->lang['TOTAL_VOTES'] : '{ TOTAL_VOTES }')); ?> : <?php echo (isset($this->_rootref['TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['TOTAL_VOTES'] : ''; ?></dd> </dl> <?php } if ($this->_rootref['S_CAN_VOTE']) { ?> <dl style="border-top: none;"> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><input type="submit" name="update" value="<?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_SUBMIT_VOTE'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_SUBMIT_VOTE'] : ((isset($user->lang['SUBMIT_VOTE'])) ? $user->lang['SUBMIT_VOTE'] : '{ SUBMIT_VOTE }')); ?>" class="button1" /></dd> </dl> <?php } if (! $this->_rootref['S_DISPLAY_RESULTS']) { ?> <dl style="border-top: none;"> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><a href="<?php echo (isset($this->_rootref['U_VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $this->_rootref['U_VIEW_RESULTS'] : ''; ?>"><?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_VIEW_RESULTS'] : ((isset($user->lang['VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $user->lang['VIEW_RESULTS'] : '{ VIEW_RESULTS }')); ?></a></dd> </dl> <?php } ?> </fieldset></div>

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• Desktop Applications Versus Web Applications

  Up until the advent of the internet programmers really only developed one type of application used by end-users.  This type of application was called a desktop application. As the name implies, these applications ran strictly from a desktop computer, and were limited by the resources available to the computer. Initially, this type of applications did not need resources outside of the scope of the computer in which they installed. The problem with this type of application is that if multiple end-users need to access the same desktop application, then the application must be installed on the end-user’s computer. In this age of software development security was not as big of a concern as it is today with other types of applications. This is primarily due to the fact that an end-user must have access to the computer where the software is installed in order for them to access the application. In addition, developers could also password protect the application just in case an authorized end-user was able to gain access to the computer. With the birth of the internet a second form of application emerged because developers were trying to solve inherent issues with the preexisting desktop application. One of the solutions to overcome some of the short comings of desktop applications is the web application. Web applications are hosted on a centralized server and clients only need to have network access and a web browser in order to access the application. Because a web application can be installed on a remote server it removes the need for individual installations of the same application on each end-user’s computer.  The main benefits to an application being hosted on a server is increased accessibility to the application due to the fact that nothing has to be installed on a desktop computer for an end-user to be able to access the application. In addition, web applications are much easier to maintain because any change to the application is applied on the server and is inherently applied to any end-user trying to use the application. This removes the time needed to install and maintain individual installations of a desktop application. However with the increased accessibility there are additional costs that are incurred compared to a desktop application because of the additional cost and maintenance of a server hosting the application. Typically, after a desktop application is purchased there are no additional reoccurring fees associated with the application.  When developing a web based application there are additional considerations that must be addressed compared to a desktop application. The added benefit of increased accessibility also now adds a new failure point when trying to gain access to an application. An end-user now must have network connectivity in order to access the application. This issue is not a concern for desktop applications because there resources are typically bound to the computer in which they run. Since the availability of an application is increased with the use of the client-server model in a web based application, additional security concerns now come in to play. As stated before a, desktop application is bound to the accessibility of the end-user to the computer that the application is installed. This is not the case with web based applications because they potentially could have access from anywhere with the proper internet/network connection. Additional security steps are required to insure the integrity of the application and its data. Examples of these steps include and are not limited to the following: Restricted/Password Areas This form of security is used when specific information can only be accessed by end-users based on a set of accessibility rules. IP Restrictions This form of security is used when only specific locations need to access an application. This form of security is applied from within the web server or a firewall. Network Restrictions (Firewalls) This form of security is used to contain access to an application within a specific sub set of a network. Data Encryption This form of security is used transform personally identifiable information in to something unreadable so that it can be stored for future use. Encrypted Protocols (HTTPS) This form of security is used to prevent others from reading messages being sent between applications over a network.

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