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• How to search a PDF in Acrobat Reader AND jump to a certain page via parameter?

  - by agez

  Hi, we are using lucene within a web application to search in a great number of PDF documents. The workflow is like this: A user enters a search term A list of search results is presented to the user. Each search result represents one PDF document and shows the user on which page the search term was found. Each of these pages is represented as a hyperlink. If the user now clicks on such a hyperlink, he directly jumps to that page. But now the user has the problem that the search term isn't highlighted on the page. Therefore the user has to look on his own to find the search term on the page. What we wanted is a way to highlight the search term on the specific page in the PDF. The open parameters for Acrobat Reader allow for either searching a PDF document (with hit highlighting) OR jumping to a specific page. But the combination of both parameters - which we would need - doesn't work. Does anyone have an idea how jumping to a page and highlighting a search term in a pdf document could work? I had a look at the Acrobat SDK but don't see how we can use it (it's terribly documented). Cheers, Helmut

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• Why slim reader/writer exclusive lock outperformance the shared one?

  - by Jichao

  I have tested the performance of slim reader/writer lock under windows 7 using the codefrom Windows Via C/C++. The result surprised me that the exclusive lock out performance the shared one. Here are the code and the result. unsigned int __stdcall slim_reader_writer_exclusive(void *arg) { //SRWLOCK srwLock; //InitializeSRWLock(&srwLock); for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; ++i) { AcquireSRWLockExclusive(&srwLock); g_value = 0; ReleaseSRWLockExclusive(&srwLock); } _endthreadex(0); return 0; } unsigned int __stdcall slim_reader_writer_shared(void *arg) { int b; for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; ++i) { AcquireSRWLockShared(&srwLock); //b = g_value; g_value = 0; ReleaseSRWLockShared(&srwLock); } _endthreadex(0); return 0; } g_value is a global int volatile variable. Could you kindly explain why this could happen?

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• ASP.NET SqlDataReader throwing error: Invalid attempt to call Read when reader is closed.

  - by Bugget

  This one has me stumped. Here are the relative bits of code: public AgencyDetails(Guid AgencyId) { try { evgStoredProcedure Procedure = new evgStoredProcedure(); Hashtable commandParameters = new Hashtable(); commandParameters.Add("@AgencyId", AgencyId); SqlDataReader AppReader = Procedure.ExecuteReaderProcedure("evg_getAgencyDetails", commandParameters); commandParameters.Clear(); //The following line is where the error is thrown. Errormessage: Invalid attempt to call Read when reader is closed. while (AppReader.Read()) { AgencyName = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyName").ToString(); AgencyAddress = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyAddress").ToString(); AgencyCity = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyCity").ToString(); AgencyState = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyState").ToString(); AgencyZip = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyZip").ToString(); AgencyPhone = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyPhone").ToString(); AgencyFax = AppReader.GetOrdinal("AgencyFax").ToString(); } AppReader.Close(); AppReader.Dispose(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new Exception("AgencyDetails Constructor: " + ex.Message.ToString()); } } And the implementation of ExecuteReaderProcedure: public SqlDataReader ExecuteReaderProcedure(string ProcedureName, Hashtable Parameters) { SqlDataReader returnReader; using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString)) { try { SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(ProcedureName, conn); SqlParameter param = new SqlParameter(); cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure; foreach (DictionaryEntry keyValue in Parameters) { cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue(keyValue.Key.ToString(), keyValue.Value); } conn.Open(); returnReader = cmd.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection); } catch (SqlException e) { throw new Exception(e.Message.ToString()); } } return returnReader; } The connection string is working as other stored procedures in the same class run fine. The only problem seems to be when returning SqlDataReaders from this method! They throw the error message in the title. Any ideas are greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

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• Introducing the Earthquake Locator – A Bing Maps Silverlight Application, part 1

  - by Bobby Diaz

  Update: Live demo and source code now available!  The recent wave of earthquakes (no pun intended) being reported in the news got me wondering about the frequency and severity of earthquakes around the world. Since I’ve been doing a lot of Silverlight development lately, I decided to scratch my curiosity with a nice little Bing Maps application that will show the location and relative strength of recent seismic activity. Here is a list of technologies this application will utilize, so be sure to have everything downloaded and installed if you plan on following along. Silverlight 3 WCF RIA Services Bing Maps Silverlight Control * Managed Extensibility Framework (optional) MVVM Light Toolkit (optional) log4net (optional) * If you are new to Bing Maps or have not signed up for a Developer Account, you will need to visit www.bingmapsportal.com to request a Bing Maps key for your application. Getting Started We start out by creating a new Silverlight Application called EarthquakeLocator and specify that we want to automatically create the Web Application Project with RIA Services enabled. I cleaned up the web app by removing the Default.aspx and EarthquakeLocatorTestPage.html. Then I renamed the EarthquakeLocatorTestPage.aspx to Default.aspx and set it as my start page. I also set the development server to use a specific port, as shown below. RIA Services Next, I created a Services folder in the EarthquakeLocator.Web project and added a new Domain Service Class called EarthquakeService.cs. This is the RIA Services Domain Service that will provide earthquake data for our client application. I am not using LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework, so I will use the <empty domain service class> option. We will be pulling data from an external Atom feed, but this example could just as easily pull data from a database or another web service. This is an important distinction to point out because each scenario I just mentioned could potentially use a different Domain Service base class (i.e. LinqToSqlDomainService<TDataContext>). Now we can start adding Query methods to our EarthquakeService that pull data from the USGS web site. Here is the complete code for our service class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.ServiceModel.Syndication; using System.Web.DomainServices; using System.Web.Ria; using System.Xml; using log4net; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services {     /// <summary>     /// Provides earthquake data to client applications.     /// </summary>     [EnableClientAccess()]     public class EarthquakeService : DomainService     {         private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(EarthquakeService));           // USGS Data Feeds: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/         private const string FeedForPreviousDay =             "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/1day-M2.5.xml";         private const string FeedForPreviousWeek =             "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M2.5.xml";           /// <summary>         /// Gets the earthquake data for the previous week.         /// </summary>         /// <returns>A queryable collection of <see cref="Earthquake"/> objects.</returns>         public IQueryable<Earthquake> GetEarthquakes()         {             var feed = GetFeed(FeedForPreviousWeek);             var list = new List<Earthquake>();               if ( feed != null )             {                 foreach ( var entry in feed.Items )                 {                     var quake = CreateEarthquake(entry);                     if ( quake != null )                     {                         list.Add(quake);                     }                 }             }               return list.AsQueryable();         }           /// <summary>         /// Creates an <see cref="Earthquake"/> object for each entry in the Atom feed.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="entry">The Atom entry.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         private Earthquake CreateEarthquake(SyndicationItem entry)         {             Earthquake quake = null;             string title = entry.Title.Text;             string summary = entry.Summary.Text;             string point = GetElementValue<String>(entry, "point");             string depth = GetElementValue<String>(entry, "elev");             string utcTime = null;             string localTime = null;             string depthDesc = null;             double? magnitude = null;             double? latitude = null;             double? longitude = null;             double? depthKm = null;               if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(title) && title.StartsWith("M") )             {                 title = title.Substring(2, title.IndexOf(',')-3).Trim();                 magnitude = TryParse(title);             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(point) )             {                 var values = point.Split(' ');                 if ( values.Length == 2 )                 {                     latitude = TryParse(values[0]);                     longitude = TryParse(values[1]);                 }             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(depth) )             {                 depthKm = TryParse(depth);                 if ( depthKm != null )                 {                     depthKm = Math.Round((-1 * depthKm.Value) / 100, 2);                 }             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(summary) )             {                 summary = summary.Replace("</p>", "");                 var values = summary.Split(                     new string[] { "<p>" },                     StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);                   if ( values.Length == 3 )                 {                     var times = values[1].Split(                         new string[] { "<br>" },                         StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);                       if ( times.Length > 0 )                     {                         utcTime = times[0];                     }                     if ( times.Length > 1 )                     {                         localTime = times[1];                     }                       depthDesc = values[2];                     depthDesc = "Depth: " + depthDesc.Substring(depthDesc.IndexOf(":") + 2);                 }             }               if ( latitude != null && longitude != null )             {                 quake = new Earthquake()                 {                     Id = entry.Id,                     Title = entry.Title.Text,                     Summary = entry.Summary.Text,                     Date = entry.LastUpdatedTime.DateTime,                     Url = entry.Links.Select(l => Path.Combine(l.BaseUri.OriginalString,                         l.Uri.OriginalString)).FirstOrDefault(),                     Age = entry.Categories.Where(c => c.Label == "Age")                         .Select(c => c.Name).FirstOrDefault(),                     Magnitude = magnitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     Latitude = latitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     Longitude = longitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     DepthInKm = depthKm.GetValueOrDefault(),                     DepthDesc = depthDesc,                     UtcTime = utcTime,                     LocalTime = localTime                 };             }               return quake;         }           private T GetElementValue<T>(SyndicationItem entry, String name)         {             var el = entry.ElementExtensions.Where(e => e.OuterName == name).FirstOrDefault();             T value = default(T);               if ( el != null )             {                 value = el.GetObject<T>();             }               return value;         }           private double? TryParse(String value)         {             double d;             if ( Double.TryParse(value, out d) )             {                 return d;             }             return null;         }           /// <summary>         /// Gets the feed at the specified URL.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="url">The URL.</param>         /// <returns>A <see cref="SyndicationFeed"/> object.</returns>         public static SyndicationFeed GetFeed(String url)         {             SyndicationFeed feed = null;               try             {                 log.Debug("Loading RSS feed: " + url);                   using ( var reader = XmlReader.Create(url) )                 {                     feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);                 }             }             catch ( Exception ex )             {                 log.Error("Error occurred while loading RSS feed: " + url, ex);             }               return feed;         }     } }   The only method that will be generated in the client side proxy class, EarthquakeContext, will be the GetEarthquakes() method. The reason being that it is the only public instance method and it returns an IQueryable<Earthquake> collection that can be consumed by the client application. GetEarthquakes() calls the static GetFeed(String) method, which utilizes the built in SyndicationFeed API to load the external data feed. You will need to add a reference to the System.ServiceModel.Web library in order to take advantage of the RSS/Atom reader. The API will also allow you to create your own feeds to serve up in your applications. Model I have also created a Model folder and added a new class, Earthquake.cs. The Earthquake object will hold the various properties returned from the Atom feed. Here is a sample of the code for that class. Notice the [Key] attribute on the Id property, which is required by RIA Services to uniquely identify the entity. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Runtime.Serialization; using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model {     /// <summary>     /// Represents an earthquake occurrence and related information.     /// </summary>     [DataContract]     public class Earthquake     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the id.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The id.</value>         [Key]         [DataMember]         public string Id { get; set; }           /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the title.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The title.</value>         [DataMember]         public string Title { get; set; }           /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the summary.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The summary.</value>         [DataMember]         public string Summary { get; set; }           // additional properties omitted     } }   View Model The recent trend to use the MVVM pattern for WPF and Silverlight provides a great way to separate the data and behavior logic out of the user interface layer of your client applications. I have chosen to use the MVVM Light Toolkit for the Earthquake Locator, but there are other options out there if you prefer another library. That said, I went ahead and created a ViewModel folder in the Silverlight project and added a EarthquakeViewModel class that derives from ViewModelBase. Here is the code: using System; using System.Collections.ObjectModel; using System.ComponentModel.Composition; using System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting; using Microsoft.Maps.MapControl; using GalaSoft.MvvmLight; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.ViewModel {     /// <summary>     /// Provides data for views displaying earthquake information.     /// </summary>     public class EarthquakeViewModel : ViewModelBase     {         [Import]         public EarthquakeContext Context;           /// <summary>         /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="EarthquakeViewModel"/> class.         /// </summary>         public EarthquakeViewModel()         {             var catalog = new AssemblyCatalog(GetType().Assembly);             var container = new CompositionContainer(catalog);             container.ComposeParts(this);             Initialize();         }           /// <summary>         /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="EarthquakeViewModel"/> class.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="context">The context.</param>         public EarthquakeViewModel(EarthquakeContext context)         {             Context = context;             Initialize();         }           private void Initialize()         {             MapCenter = new Location(20, -170);             ZoomLevel = 2;         }           #region Private Methods           private void OnAutoLoadDataChanged()         {             LoadEarthquakes();         }           private void LoadEarthquakes()         {             var query = Context.GetEarthquakesQuery();             Context.Earthquakes.Clear();               Context.Load(query, (op) =>             {                 if ( !op.HasError )                 {                     foreach ( var item in op.Entities )                     {                         Earthquakes.Add(item);                     }                 }             }, null);         }           #endregion Private Methods           #region Properties           private bool autoLoadData;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether to auto load data.         /// </summary>         /// <value><c>true</c> if auto loading data; otherwise, <c>false</c>.</value>         public bool AutoLoadData         {             get { return autoLoadData; }             set             {                 if ( autoLoadData != value )                 {                     autoLoadData = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("AutoLoadData");                     OnAutoLoadDataChanged();                 }             }         }           private ObservableCollection<Earthquake> earthquakes;         /// <summary>         /// Gets the collection of earthquakes to display.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The collection of earthquakes.</value>         public ObservableCollection<Earthquake> Earthquakes         {             get             {                 if ( earthquakes == null )                 {                     earthquakes = new ObservableCollection<Earthquake>();                 }                   return earthquakes;             }         }           private Location mapCenter;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the map center.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The map center.</value>         public Location MapCenter         {             get { return mapCenter; }             set             {                 if ( mapCenter != value )                 {                     mapCenter = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("MapCenter");                 }             }         }           private double zoomLevel;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the zoom level.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The zoom level.</value>         public double ZoomLevel         {             get { return zoomLevel; }             set             {                 if ( zoomLevel != value )                 {                     zoomLevel = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("ZoomLevel");                 }             }         }           #endregion Properties     } }   The EarthquakeViewModel class contains all of the properties that will be bound to by the various controls in our views. Be sure to read through the LoadEarthquakes() method, which handles calling the GetEarthquakes() method in our EarthquakeService via the EarthquakeContext proxy, and also transfers the loaded entities into the view model’s Earthquakes collection. Another thing to notice is what’s going on in the default constructor. I chose to use the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) for my composition needs, but you can use any dependency injection library or none at all. To allow the EarthquakeContext class to be discoverable by MEF, I added the following partial class so that I could supply the appropriate [Export] attribute: using System; using System.ComponentModel.Composition;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services {     /// <summary>     /// The client side proxy for the EarthquakeService class.     /// </summary>     [Export]     public partial class EarthquakeContext     {     } }   One last piece I wanted to point out before moving on to the user interface, I added a client side partial class for the Earthquake entity that contains helper properties that we will bind to later: using System;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model {     /// <summary>     /// Represents an earthquake occurrence and related information.     /// </summary>     public partial class Earthquake     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets the location based on the current Latitude/Longitude.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The location.</value>         public string Location         {             get { return String.Format("{0},{1}", Latitude, Longitude); }         }           /// <summary>         /// Gets the size based on the Magnitude.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The size.</value>         public double Size         {             get { return (Magnitude * 3); }         }     } }   View Now the fun part! Usually, I would create a Views folder to place all of my View controls in, but I took the easy way out and added the following XAML code to the default MainPage.xaml file. Be sure to add the bing prefix associating the Microsoft.Maps.MapControl namespace after adding the assembly reference to your project. The MVVM Light Toolkit project templates come with a ViewModelLocator class that you can use via a static resource, but I am instantiating the EarthquakeViewModel directly in my user control. I am setting the AutoLoadData property to true as a way to trigger the LoadEarthquakes() method call. The MapItemsControl found within the <bing:Map> control binds its ItemsSource property to the Earthquakes collection of the view model, and since it is an ObservableCollection<T>, we get the automatic two way data binding via the INotifyCollectionChanged interface. <UserControl x:Class="EarthquakeLocator.MainPage"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"     xmlns:bing="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Maps.MapControl;assembly=Microsoft.Maps.MapControl"     xmlns:vm="clr-namespace:EarthquakeLocator.ViewModel"     mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480" >     <UserControl.Resources>         <DataTemplate x:Key="EarthquakeTemplate">             <Ellipse Fill="Red" Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="1"                      Width="{Binding Size}" Height="{Binding Size}"                      bing:MapLayer.Position="{Binding Location}"                      bing:MapLayer.PositionOrigin="Center">                 <ToolTipService.ToolTip>                     <StackPanel>                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding UtcTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding LocalTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding DepthDesc}" />                     </StackPanel>                 </ToolTipService.ToolTip>             </Ellipse>         </DataTemplate>     </UserControl.Resources>       <UserControl.DataContext>         <vm:EarthquakeViewModel AutoLoadData="True" />     </UserControl.DataContext>       <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">           <bing:Map x:Name="map" CredentialsProvider="--Your-Bing-Maps-Key--"                   Center="{Binding MapCenter, Mode=TwoWay}"                   ZoomLevel="{Binding ZoomLevel, Mode=TwoWay}">             <bing:MapItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Earthquakes}"                                   ItemTemplate="{StaticResource EarthquakeTemplate}" />         </bing:Map>       </Grid> </UserControl>   The EarthquakeTemplate defines the Ellipse that will represent each earthquake, the Width and Height that are determined by the Magnitude, the Position on the map, and also the tooltip that will appear when we mouse over each data point. Running the application will give us the following result (shown with a tooltip example): That concludes this portion of our show but I plan on implementing additional functionality in later blog posts. Be sure to come back soon to see the next installments in this series. Enjoy!   Additional Resources USGS Earthquake Data Feeds Brad Abrams shows how RIA Services and MVVM can work together

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• itunes not showing latest episodes in podcast

  - by andersonbd1

  iTunes is stuck showing old episodes that are no longer in this feed (2010-12-16 to 2010-12-22). http://www.catholic.com/audio/podcast/podcaster.php The actual feed looks fine. I've tried unsubscribing, deleting, adding the feed via Advanced-subscribe to podcast, through the store (which also shows the latest episodes), etc. But for some reason it seems itunes has a cached version of the feed which it refuses to update. Any ideas?

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• C# powershell output reader iterator getting modified when pipeline closed and disposed.

  - by scope-creep

  Hello, I'm calling a powershell script from C#. The script is pretty small and is "gps;$host.SetShouldExit(9)", which list process, and then send back an exit code to be captured by the PSHost object. The problem I have is when the pipeline has been stopped and disposed, the output reader PSHost collection still seems to be written to, and is filling up. So when I try and copy it to my own output object, it craps out with a OutOfMemoryException when I try to iterate over it. Sometimes it will except with a Collection was modified message. Here is the code. private void ProcessAndExecuteBlock(ScriptBlock Block) { Collection<PSObject> PSCollection = new Collection<PSObject>(); Collection<Object> PSErrorCollection = new Collection<Object>(); Boolean Error = false; int ExitCode=0; //Send for exection. ExecuteScript(Block.Script); // Process the waithandles. while (PExecutor.PLine.PipelineStateInfo.State == PipelineState.Running) { // Wait for either error or data waithandle. switch (WaitHandle.WaitAny(PExecutor.Hand)) { // Data case 0: Collection<PSObject> data = PExecutor.PLine.Output.NonBlockingRead(); if (data.Count > 0) { for (int cnt = 0; cnt <= (data.Count-1); cnt++) { PSCollection.Add(data[cnt]); } } // Check to see if the pipeline has been closed. if (PExecutor.PLine.Output.EndOfPipeline) { // Bring back the exit code. ExitCode = RHost.ExitCode; } break; case 1: Collection<object> Errordata = PExecutor.PLine.Error.NonBlockingRead(); if (Errordata.Count > 0) { Error = true; for (int count = 0; count <= (Errordata.Count - 1); count++) { PSErrorCollection.Add(Errordata[count]); } } break; } } PExecutor.Stop(); // Create the Execution Return block ExecutionResults ER = new ExecutionResults(Block.RuleGuid,Block.SubRuleGuid, Block.MessageIdentfier); ER.ExitCode = ExitCode; // Add in the data results. lock (ReadSync) { if (PSCollection.Count > 0) { ER.DataAdd(PSCollection); } } // Add in the error data if any. if (Error) { if (PSErrorCollection.Count > 0) { ER.ErrorAdd(PSErrorCollection); } else { ER.InError = true; } } // We have finished, so enque the block back. EnQueueOutput(ER); } and this is the PipelineExecutor class which setups the pipeline for execution. public class PipelineExecutor { private Pipeline pipeline; private WaitHandle[] Handles; public Pipeline PLine { get { return pipeline; } } public WaitHandle[] Hand { get { return Handles; } } public PipelineExecutor(Runspace runSpace, string command) { pipeline = runSpace.CreatePipeline(command); Handles = new WaitHandle[2]; Handles[0] = pipeline.Output.WaitHandle; Handles[1] = pipeline.Error.WaitHandle; } public void Start() { if (pipeline.PipelineStateInfo.State == PipelineState.NotStarted) { pipeline.Input.Close(); pipeline.InvokeAsync(); } } public void Stop() { pipeline.StopAsync(); } } An this is the DataAdd method, where the exception arises. public void DataAdd(Collection<PSObject> Data) { foreach (PSObject Ps in Data) { Data.Add(Ps); } } I put a for loop around the Data.Add, and the Collection filled up with 600k+ so feels like the gps command is still running, but why. Any ideas. Thanks in advance.

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• "this device cannot start error code 10" ?

  - by Neo

  I am trying to install GPS driver for gmm-u1lp.I think which is just a virtual com port driver. It just contains following INF file: [Version] Signature="$Windows NT$" Class=Ports ClassGuid={4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} Provider=%MTK% ;LayoutFile=layout.inf DriverVer=06/12/2007,1.0.0.1 [Manufacturer] %MTK%=MTK [MTK] %MTK3329%=Reader,USB\Vid_0e8d&Pid_3329 [Reader_Install.NTx86] ;Windows2000 [DestinationDirs] DefaultDestDir=12 Reader.NT.Copy=12 [Reader.NT] Include=mdmcpq.inf CopyFiles=FakeModemCopyFileSection AddReg=Reader.NT.AddReg [Reader.NT.AddReg] HKR,,DevLoader,,*ntkern HKR,,NTMPDriver,,usbser.sys HKR,,EnumPropPages32,,"MsPorts.dll,SerialPortPropPageProvider" [Reader.NT.Services] AddService = usbser, 0x00000002, Service_Inst [Service_Inst] DisplayName = %Serial.SvcDesc% ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER StartType = 3 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL ServiceBinary = %12%\usbser.sys LoadOrderGroup = Base [Strings] MTK = "Media Tek Inc." MTK3329 = "GPS USB Serial Interface Driver" Serial.SvcDesc = "GPS USB Serial Interface Driver" After installing this Inf,device details shows:"device cannot start error code 10". What is the exact problem? Do I need to test this after connecting the Device?

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• How to tell if a datareader is open on a connection and close it

  - by Earlz

  Hi, I'm setting up a little thing for connection pooling and on of the more common bugs that we have occur(its always an easy fix, but we just can't remember reader.Close()!) it is when we have a connection that is used by a lot of classes/methods and one method opens a data reader and forgets to close it. This isn't really bad cause a lot of times all you have to do is go into the debugger and go up one level and see the function before it was and check if it had an unclosed data reader. Now, here is the bigger problem. In this connection pool, if a datareader is open, then it's not known until a thread gets a connection and tries to use it and the thing that originally opened the data reader may no longer even be alive. So quite simply, how can you detect if a data reader is open on a connection and is there a way to close the reader without closing the connection?

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• c# reading integer fields from database, returning empty string when reading integer type field

  - by arnoldino

  what is wrong with this code? field="id"; table="MInvMonth"; condition="machine_id=37"; public static String getConditionedField(String field, String table, String condition) try { if (cmd == null) getConnection(); cmd.CommandText = "Select " + field + " from " + table + " where " + condition; SQLiteDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader(); if (reader.HasRows==true) { reader.Read(); string s = reader[0].ToString(); // return first element reader.Close(); return s; } reader.Close(); return null; } catch (Exception e) { MessageBox.Show("Caught exception: " + e.Message+"|"+cmd.CommandText); return null; } I checked the sql statement, it turns the right value. why can't I read it? the returnvalue is "".

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• Question on SyndicationItem - ASP.NET

  - by bobsmith123

  I am trying to understand how to use SyndicationItem to display feed which is RSS 2.0 or Atom compliant. What property of SyndicationItem gives me the entire description of the post. It appears that there is a Summary property but per MSDN, it gives only the Summary. Also I have noticed that in my RSS feed reader, some RSS feeds show only a few lines of description and I have to click and go to the website for the full post. But in some feeds, I can see the full post within the Feed Reader. Can someone explain how all this comes together? PS: My web page lets user enter a RSS feed address and I need to validate if the feed exists. If it does, I need to grab the last x items and show the feed's title and full description

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• How to initialize F# list when size is unknown, using while..do loop

  - by James Black

  I have a function that will parse the results of a DataReader, and I don't know how many items are returned, so I want to use a while..do loop to iterate over the reader, and the outcome should be a list of a certain type. (fun(reader) -> [ while reader.Read() do new CityType(Id=(reader.GetInt32 0), Name=(reader.GetString 1), StateName=(reader.GetString 2)) ]) This is what I tried, but the warning I get is: This expression should have type 'unit', but has type 'CityType'. Use 'ignore' to discard the result of the expression, or 'let' to bind the result to a name. So what is the best way to iterate over a DataReader and create a list?

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• How to read from an XmlReader without moving it forwards

  - by andy

  hey guys, I've got this scenario: while (reader.Read()) { if (reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && reader.Name == itemElementName) { XElement item = null; try { item = XElement.ReadFrom(reader) as XElement; } catch (XmlException ex) { //log line number and stuff from XmlException class } } } In the above loop I'm transforming a certain node (itemElementName) into an XElement. Some nodes will be good XML and will go into an XElement, however, some will not. In the CATCH, I'd like to now only catch the standard XmlException stuff... I'd also like to catch an extract of the current Xml and a string. However, if I do any kind of READ operation on the node before I pass it to the XElement, it moves the reader forward. How can get a "snapshot" of the contents of the OuterXml of the reader without interfering with it's position?

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• c# reading integer fields from database

  - by arnoldino

  what is wrong with this code? try { if (cmd == null) getConnection(); cmd.CommandText = "Select id from HMonthInventary where machine_id=37"; SQLiteDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader(); if (reader.HasRows==true) { reader.Read(); string s = reader[0].ToString(); // return first element reader.Close(); return s; } reader.Close(); return null; } catch (Exception e) { MessageBox.Show("Caught exception: " + e.Message+"|"+cmd.CommandText); return null; } I checked the sql statement, it turns the right value. why can't I read it? the returnvalue is "".

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• Using the same CArchive object for archive and un-archive

  - by bdhar

  Following is a sample code: CFile serFile; serFile.Open(_T("Person.ser"), CFile::modeCreate | CFile::modeWrite); CArchive writer(&serFile, CArchive::store); me.Serialize(writer); writer.Close(); serFile.Close(); serFile.Open(_T("Person.ser"), CFile::modeRead); CArchive reader(&serFile, CArchive::load); CPerson clone; clone.Serialize(reader); reader.Close(); serFile.Close(); Here, I have a writer which archives the object me. Then, I use another CArchive object reader to un-archive it. Is it possible to re-construct or set any property of writer to make it, the reader instead of declaring another CArchive object reader? Thanks.

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• Importing a spreadsheet, but having trouble.

  - by Chris Phelps

  I have a form that allows a user to import a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is generally static when it comes to column headers, but now the users want to be able to include an optional column (called Notes). My code crashes when I try to read the column from the spreadsheet if it doesn't exist. Dim objCommand As New OleDbCommand() objCommand = ExcelConnection() 'function that opens spreadsheet and returns objCommand Dim reader As OleDbDataReader reader = objCommand.ExecuteReader() While reader.Read() Dim Employee As String = Convert.ToString(reader("User")) Dim SerialNUM As String = Convert.ToString(reader("serialno")) **Dim Notes As String = Convert.ToString(reader("notes"))** If the spreadsheet contains a Notes column, all goes well. If not, crash. How can I check to see if the Notes column exists in the spreadsheet to avoid the crash?

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• HTML5, CSS3 columns

  - by DrGizmondo

  Hay all im building a news aggregator with SimplePie, the SP elements are working fine but I would like to have the feeds that it pulls in displayed in columns across the page using HTML5 and CSS3. I have managed to implement it so that the columns are formed and display the feeds, but at the moment the stories are being ordered one on to of the other from left to right with the newest being displayed top left, the second newest bellow the first in column one and so on. What I would like is for the stories to be displayed from left to right across the column so that the newest is at the top of the first column, the second newest at the top of the second column, the third newest in the third column and so on. The code that Im using at the moment is as follows: <div id="page-wrap"> <?php if ($feed->error): ?> <p><?php echo $feed->error; ?></p> <?php endif; ?> <?php foreach ($feed->get_items() as $item): ?> <div class="chunk"> <h4 style="background:url(<?php $feed = $item->get_feed(); echo $feed->get_favicon(); ?>) no-repeat; text-indent: 25px; margin: 0 0 10px;"><a href="<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo $item->get_title(); ?></a></h4> <p class="footnote">Source: <a href="<?php $feed = $item->get_feed(); echo $feed->get_permalink(); ?>"><?php $feed = $item->get_feed(); echo $feed->get_title(); ?></a> | <?php echo $item->get_date('j M Y | g:i a T'); ?></p> </div> <?php endforeach; ?> And this CSS: #page-wrap { width: 100%; margin: 25px auto; height:400px; text-align: justify; -moz-column-count: 3; -moz-column-gap: 1.5em; -moz-column-rule: 1px solid #c4c8cc; -webkit-column-count: 3; -webkit-column-gap: 1.5em; -webkit-column-rule: 1px solid #c4c8cc; } If anyone could help me out with this that would be great.

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• Windows Phone 7 development: reading RSS feeds

  - by DigiMortal

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

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• Print SSRS Report / PDF automatically from SQL Server agent or Windows Service

  - by Jeremy Ramos

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/JeremyRamos/archive/2013/10/22/print-ssrs-report--pdf-from-sql-server-agent-or.aspxI have turned the Web upside-down to find a solution to this considering the least components and least maintenance as possible to achieve automated printing of an SSRS report. This is for the reason that we do not have a full software development team to maintain an app and we have to minimize the support overhead for the support team.Here is my setup:SQL Server 2008 R2 in Windows Server 2008 R2PDF format reports generated by SSRS Reports subscriptions to a Windows File ShareNetwork printerColoured reports with logo and brandingI have found and tested the following solutions to no avail:ProsConsCalling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\acroRd32.exe" /n /s /o /h /t "C:\temp\print.pdf" \\printserver\printername"Very simple optionAdobe Acrobat reader requires to launch the GUI to send a job to a printer. Hence, this option cannot be used when printing from a service.Calling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe as a process from a .NET console appA bit harder than above, but still a simple solutionSame as cons abovePowershell script(Start-Process -FilePath "C:\temp\print.pdf" -Verb Print)Very simple optionUses default PDF client in quiet mode to Print, but also requires an active session.    Foxit ReaderVery simple optionRequires GUI same as Adobe Acrobat Reader Using the Reporting Services Web service to run and stream the report to an image object and then passed to the printerQuite complexThis is what we're trying to avoid  After pulling my hair out for two days, testing and evaluating the above solutions, I ended up learning more about printers (more than ever in my entire life) and how printer drivers work with PostScripts. I then bumped on to a PostScript interpreter called GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/) and then the solution starts to get clearer and clearer.I managed to achieve a solution (maybe not be the simplest but efficient enough to achieve the least-maintenance-least-components goal) in 3-simple steps:Install GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/download/) - this is an open-source PostScript and PDF interpreter. Printing directly using GhostScript only produces grayscale prints using the laserjet generic driver unless you save as BMP image and then interpret the colours using the imageInstall GSView (http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/)- this is a GhostScript add-on to make it easier to directly print to a Windows printer. GSPrint automates the above  PDF -> BMP -> Printer Driver.Run the GSPrint command from SQL Server agent or Windows Service:"C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe" -color -landscape -all -printer "printername" "C:\temp\print.pdf"Command line options are here: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/gsprint.htmAnother lesson learned is, since you are calling the script from the Service Account, it will not necessarily have the Printer mapped in its Windows profile (if it even has one). The workaround to this is by adding a local printer as you normally would and then map this printer to the network printer. Note that you may need to install the Printer Driver locally in the server.So, that's it! There are many ways to achieve a solution. The key thing is how you provide the smartest solution!

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• eBooks on iPad vs. Kindle: More Debate than Smackdown

  - by andrewbrust

  When the iPad was presented at its San Francisco launch event on January 28th, Steve Jobs spent a significant amount of time explaining how well the device would serve as an eBook reader. He showed the iBooks reader application and iBookstore and laid down the gauntlet before Amazon and its beloved Kindle device. Almost immediately afterwards, criticism came rushing forth that the iPad could never beat the Kindle for book reading. The curious part of that criticism is that virtually no one offering it had actually used the iPad yet. A few weeks later, on April 3rd, the iPad was released for sale in the United States. I bought one on that day and in the few additional weeks that have elapsed, I’ve given quite a workout to most of its capabilities, including its eBook features. I’ve also spent some time with the Kindle, albeit a first-generation model, to see how it actually compares to the iPad. I had some expectations going in, but I came away with conclusions about each device that were more scenario-based than absolute. I present my findings to you here.   Vital Statistics Let’s start with an inventory of each device’s underlying technology. The iPad has a color, backlit LCD screen and an on-screen keyboard. It has a battery which, on a full charge, lasts anywhere from 6-10 hours. The Kindle offers a monochrome, reflective E Ink display, a physical keyboard and a battery that on my first gen loaner unit can go up to a week between charges (Amazon claims the battery on the Kindle 2 can last up to 2 weeks on a single charge). The Kindle connects to Amazon’s Kindle Store using a 3G modem (the technology and network vary depending on the model) that incurs no airtime service charges whatsoever. The iPad units that are on-sale today work over WiFi only. 3G-equipped models will be on sale shortly and will command a $130 premium over their WiFi-only counterparts. 3G service on the iPad, in the U.S. from AT&T, will be fee-based, with a 250MB plan at $14.99 per month and an unlimited plan at $29.99. No contract is required for 3G service. All these tech specs aside, I think a more useful observation is that the iPad is a multi-purpose Internet-connected entertainment device, while the Kindle is a dedicated reading device. The question is whether those differences in design and intended use create a clear-cut winner for reading electronic publications. Let’s take a look at each device, in isolation, now.   Kindle To me, what’s most innovative about the Kindle is its E Ink display. E Ink really looks like ink on a sheet of paper. It requires no backlight, it’s fully visible in direct sunlight and it causes almost none of the eyestrain that LCD-based computer display technology (like that used on the iPad) does. It’s really versatile in an all-around way. Forgive me if this sounds precious, but reading on it is really a joy. In fact, it’s a genuinely relaxing experience. Through the Kindle Store, Amazon allows users to download books (including audio books), magazines, newspapers and blog feeds. Books and magazines can be purchased either on a single-issue basis or as an annual subscription. Books, of course, are purchased singly. Oddly, blogs are not free, but instead carry a monthly subscription fee, typically $1.99. To me this is ludicrous, but I suppose the free 3G service is partially to blame. Books and magazine issues download quickly. Magazine and blog subscriptions cause new issues or posts to be pushed to your device on an automated basis. Available blogs include 9000-odd feeds that Amazon offers on the Kindle Store; unless I missed something, arbitrary RSS feeds are not supported (though there are third party workarounds to this limitation). The shopping experience is integrated well, has an huge selection, and offers certain graphical perks. For example, magazine and newspaper logos are displayed in menus, and book cover thumbnails appear as well. A simple search mechanism is provided and text entry through the physical keyboard is relatively painless. It’s very easy and straightforward to enter the store, find something you like and start reading it quickly. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s even faster. Given Kindle’s high portability, very reliable battery, instant-on capability and highly integrated content acquisition, it makes reading on whim, and in random spurts of downtime, very attractive. The Kindle’s home screen lists all of your publications, and easily lets you select one, then start reading it. Once opened, publications display in crisp, attractive text that is adjustable in size. “Turning” pages is achieved through buttons dedicated to the task. Notes can be recorded, bookmarks can be saved and pages can be saved as clippings. I am not an avid book reader, and yet I found the Kindle made it really fun, convenient and soothing to read. There’s something about the easy access to the material and the simplicity of the display that makes the Kindle seduce you into chilling out and reading page after page. On the other hand, the Kindle has an awkward navigation interface. While menus are displayed clearly on the screen, the method of selecting menu items is tricky: alongside the right-hand edge of the main display is a thin column that acts as a second display. It has a white background, and a scrollable silver cursor that is moved up or down through the use of the device’s scrollwheel. Picking a menu item on the main display involves scrolling the silver cursor to a position parallel to that menu item and pushing the scrollwheel in. This navigation technique creates a disconnect, literally. You don’t really click on a selection so much as you gesture toward it. I got used to this technique quickly, but I didn’t love it. It definitely created a kind of anxiety in me, making me feel the need to speed through menus and get to my destination document quickly. Once there, I could calm down and relax. Books are great on the Kindle. Magazines and newspapers much less so. I found the rendering of photographs, and even illustrations, to be unacceptably crude. For this reason, I expect that reading textbooks on the Kindle may leave students wanting. I found that the original flow and layout of any publication was sacrificed on the Kindle. In effect, browsing a magazine or newspaper was almost impossible. Reading the text of individual articles was enjoyable, but having to read this way made the whole experience much more “a la carte” than cohesive and thematic between articles. I imagine that for academic journals this is ideal, but for consumer publications it imposes a stripped-down, low-fidelity experience that evokes a sense of deprivation. In general, the Kindle is great for reading text. For just about anything else, especially activity that involves exploratory browsing, meandering and short-attention-span reading, it presents a real barrier to entry and adoption. Avid book readers will enjoy the Kindle (if they’re not already). It’s a great device for losing oneself in a book over long sittings. Multitaskers who are more interested in periodicals, be they online or off, will like it much less, as they will find compromise, and even sacrifice, to be palpable.   iPad The iPad is a very different device from the Kindle. While the Kindle is oriented to pages of text, the iPad orbits around applications and their interfaces. Be it the pinch and zoom experience in the browser, the rich media features that augment content on news and weather sites, or the ability to interact with social networking services like Twitter, the iPad is versatile. While it shares a slate-like form factor with the Kindle, it’s effectively an elegant personal computer. One of its many features is the iBook application and integration of the iBookstore. But it’s a multi-purpose device. That turns out to be good and bad, depending on what you’re reading. The iBookstore is great for browsing. It’s color, rich animation-laden user interface make it possible to shop for books, rather than merely search and acquire them. Unfortunately, its selection is rather sparse at the moment. If you’re looking for a New York Times bestseller, or other popular titles, you should be OK. If you want to read something more specialized, it’s much harder. Unlike the awkward navigation interface of the Kindle, the iPad offers a nearly flawless touch-screen interface that seduces the user into tinkering and kibitzing every bit as much as the Kindle lulls you into a deep, concentrated read. It’s a dynamic and interactive device, whereas the Kindle is static and passive. The iBook reader is slick and fun. Use the iPad in landscape mode and you can read the book in 2-up (left/right 2-page) display; use it in portrait mode and you can read one page at a time. Rather than clicking a hardware button to turn pages, you simply drag and wipe from right-to-left to flip the single or right-hand page. The page actually travels through an animated path as it would in a physical book. The intuitiveness of the interface is uncanny. The reader also accommodates saving of bookmarks, searching of the text, and the ability to highlight a word and look it up in a dictionary. Pages display brightly and clearly. They’re easy to read. But the backlight and the glare made me less comfortable than I was with the Kindle. The knowledge that completely different applications (including the Web and email and Twitter) were just a few taps away made me antsy and very tempted to task-switch. The knowledge that battery life is an issue created subtle discomfort. If the Kindle makes you feel like you’re in a library reading room, then the iPad makes you feel, at best, like you’re under fluorescent lights at a Barnes and Noble or Borders store. If you’re lucky, you’d be on a couch or at a reading table in the store, but you might also be standing up, in the aisles. Clearly, I didn’t find this conducive to focused and sustained reading. But that may have more to do with my own tendency to read periodicals far more than books, and my neurotic . And, truth be known, the book reading experience, when not explicitly compared to Kindle’s, was still pleasant. It is also important to point out that Kindle Store-sourced books can be read on the iPad through a Kindle reader application, from Amazon, specific to the device. This offered a less rich experience than the iBooks reader, but it was completely adequate. Despite the Kindle brand of the reader, however, it offered little in terms of simulating the reading experience on its namesake device. When it comes to periodicals, the iPad wins hands down. Magazines, even if merely scanned images of their print editions, read on the iPad in a way that felt similar to reading hard copy. The full color display, touch navigation and even the ability to render advertisements in their full glory makes the iPad a great way to read through any piece of work that is measured in pages, rather than chapters. There are many ways to get magazines and newspapers onto the iPad, including the Zinio reader, and publication-specific applications like the Wall Street Journal’s and Popular Science’s. The New York Times’ free Editors’ Choice application offers a Times Reader-like interface to a subset of the Gray Lady’s daily content. The completely Web-based but iPad-optimized Times Skimmer site (at www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer) works well too. Even conventional Web sites themselves can be read much like magazines, given the iPad’s ability to zoom in on the text and crop out advertisements on the margins. While the Kindle does have an experimental Web browser, it reminded me a lot of early mobile phone browsers, only in a larger size. For text-heavy sites with simple layout, it works fine. For just about anything else, it becomes more trouble than it’s worth. And given the way magazine articles make me think of things I want to look up online, I think that’s a real liability for the Kindle.   Summing Up What I came to realize is that the Kindle isn’t so much a computer or even an Internet device as it is a printer. While it doesn’t use physical paper, it still renders its content a page at a time, just like a laser printer does, and its output appears strikingly similar. You can read the rendered text, but you can’t interact with it in any way. That’s why the navigation requires a separate cursor display area. And because of the page-oriented rendering behavior, turning pages causes a flash on the display and requires a sometimes long pause before the next page is rendered. The good side of this is that once the page is generated, no battery power is required to display it. That makes for great battery life, optimal viewing under most lighting conditions (as long as there is some light) and low-eyestrain text-centric display of content. The Kindle is highly portable, has an excellent selection in its store and is refreshingly distraction-free. All of this is ideal for reading books. And iPad doesn’t offer any of it. What iPad does offer is versatility, variety, richness and luxury. It’s flush with accoutrements even if it’s low on focused, sustained text display. That makes it inferior to the Kindle for book reading. But that also makes it better than the Kindle for almost everything else. As such, and given that its book reading experience is still decent (even if not superior), I think the iPad will give Kindle a run for its money. True book lovers, and people on a budget, will want the Kindle. People with a robust amount of discretionary income may want both devices. Everyone else who is interested in a slate form factor e-reading device, especially if they also wish to have leisure-friendly Internet access, will likely choose the iPad exclusively. One thing is for sure: iPad has reduced Kindle’s market, and may have shifted its mass market potential to a mere niche play. If Amazon is smart, it will improve its iPad-based Kindle reader app significantly. It can then leverage the iPad channel as a significant market for the Kindle Store. After all, selling the eBooks themselves is what Amazon should care most about.

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• Blogging tips for SQL Server professionals

  - by jamiet

  For some time now I have been intending to put some material together relating my blogging experiences since I began blogging in 2004 and that led to me submitting a session for SQLBits recently where I intended to do just that. That didn’t get enough votes to allow me to present however so instead I resolved to write a blog post about it and Simon Sabin’s recent post Blogging – how do you do it? has prompted me to get around to completing it. So, here I present a compendium of tips that I’ve picked up from authoring a fair few blog posts over the past 6 years. Feedburner Feedburner.com is a service that can consume your blog’s default RSS feed and provide another, replacement, feed that has exactly the same content. You can then supply that replacement feed on your blog site for other people to consume in their RSS readers. Why would you want to do this? Well, two reasons actually: It makes your blog portable. If you ever want to move your blog to a different URL you don’t have to tell your subscribers to move to a different feed. The feedburner feed is a pointer to your blog content rather than being a copy of it. Feedburner will collect stats telling you how many people are subscribed to your feed, which RSS readers they use, stuff like that. Here’s a sample screenshot for http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/: It also tells you what your most viewed posts are: Web stats like these are notoriously inaccurate but then again the method of measurement here is not important, what IS important is that it gives you a trustworthy ranking of your blog posts and (in my opinion) knowing which are your most popular posts is more important than knowing exactly how many views each post has had. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Feedburner provides and I recommend every new blogger to try it! Monitor subscribers using Google Reader If for some reason Feedburner is not to your taste or (more likely) you already have an established RSS feed that you do not want to change then Google provide another way in which you can monitor your readership in the shape of their online RSS reader, Google Reader. It provides, for every RSS feed, a collection of stats including the number of Google Reader users that have subscribed to that RSS feed. This is really valuable information and in fact I have been recording this statistic for mine and a number of other blogs for a few years now and as such I can produce the following chart that indicates how readership is trending for those blogs over time: [Good news for my fellow SQLBlog bloggers.] As Stephen Few readily points out, its not the numbers that are important but the trend. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) SEO (or “How do I get my blog to show up in Google”) is a massive area of expertise which I don’t want (and am unable) to cover in much detail here but there are some simple rules of thumb that will help: Tags – If your blog engine offers the ability to add tags to your blog post, use them. Invariably those tags go into the meta section of the page HTML and search engines lap that stuff up. For example, from my recent post Microsoft publish Visual Studio 2010 Database Project Guidance: Title – Search engines take notice of web page titles as well so make them specific and descriptive (e.g. “Configuring dtsConfig connection strings”) rather than esoteric and meaningless in a vain attempt to be humorous (e.g. “Last night a DJ saved my ETL batch”)! Title(2) – Make your title even more search engine friendly by mentioning high level subject areas, not dissimilar to Twitter hashtags. For example, if you look at all of my posts related to SSIS you will notice that nearly all contain the word “SSIS” in the title even if I had to shoehorn it in there by putting it in square brackets or similar. Another tip, if you ARE putting words into your titles in this artificial manner then put them at the end so that they’re not that prominent in search engine results; they’re there for the search engines to consume, not for human beings. Images – Always add titles and alternate text (ALT attribute) to images in your blog post. If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you can use Live Writer (which Simon recommended) makes this easy for you. Headings – If you want to highlight section headings use heading tags (e.g. <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc…) rather than just formatting the text appropriately – again, Live makes this easy. These tags give your blog posts structure that is understood by search engines and RSS readers alike. (I believe it makes them more amenable to CSS as well – though that’s not something I know too much about). If you check the HTML source for the blog post you’re reading right now you’ll be able to scan through and see where I have used heading tags. Microsoft provide a free tool called the SEO Toolkit that will analyse your blog site (for free) and tell you what things you should change to improve SEO. Go read more and download for free at Search Engine Optimization Toolkit. Did I mention that it was free? Miscellaneous Tips If you are including code in your blog post then ensure it is formatted correctly. Use SQL Server Central’s T-SQL prettifier for formatting T-SQL code. Use images and videos. Personally speaking there’s nothing I like less when reading a blog than paragraph after paragraph of text. Images make your blog more appealing which means people are more likely to read what you have written. Be original. Don’t plagiarise other people’s content and don’t simply rewrite the contents of Books Online. Every time you publish a blog post tweet a link to it. Include hashtags in your tweet that are more likely to grab people’s attention. That’s probably enough for now - I hope this blog post proves useful to someone out there. If you would appreciate a related session at a forthcoming SQLBits conference then please let me know. This will likely be my last blog post for 2010 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has commented on, linked to or read any of my blog posts in that time. 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting for SQL Server observers with the impending release of SQL Server code-named Denali and I promise I’ll have lots more content on that as the year progresses. Happy New Year. @Jamiet

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• Using a redirect of any form to remove a query string with Apache

  - by Bart B

  Because of the silly way iTunes works the only way to update the URL for a feed is by setting up a permanent redirect from the old feed to the new. This seems easy, but I've hit a snag. The old URL ended in /?feed=rss2, the new URL is just a file, so it ends in podcast.xml. When I redirected from the old URL to the new, iTunes picked up the new URL BUT, WITH the query string, so now the URL ends in podcast.xml?feed=rss2. This is allowing listers to download the show - which is good, but causing some other problems. Is there any possible way to set up a permanent redirect that will redired podcast.xml?feed=rss2 to just podcast.xml? Mod_Rewrite seems to just pass through query strings, so I'm at a loss! Bart.

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• What is the correct way to deal with similar but independent features?

  - by Koviko

  Let's say we have a feature request come in and we begin work on it, which we'll call feature-1. It introduces some new logic to the application, which we'll call logic-A and logic-B. A programmer branches from the release branch and begins work on the feature. Soon after, we get another feature request, which we'll call feature-2. It will implement logic-A and logic-C into the application. The logic A being implemented by this feature is the same logic-A as was implemented in feature-1. Let's also say that given logic-B, logic-A might be implemented slightly differently than it would have been given logic-C, and also differently given both logic-B and logic-C (eg. with only one feature, the code would be less flexible than with both). How should this situation be handled? Concrete Example (to help with any confusion in my wording) feature-1 is a feed from programmers.stackexchange.com. feature-2 is a feed from gaming.stackexchange.com. logic-A is the implementation of a feed at all (assuming the application currently has no feeds), which links to the content as well and gives related information. logic-B is that the feed's source is from programmers.stackexchange.com. Adds to logic-A that the related programming language is displayed. logic-C is that the feed's source is from gaming.stackexchange.com. Adds to logic-A that the related game's name and box art is displayed.

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• Asynchronous Streaming in ASP.NET WebApi

  - by andresv

   Hi everyone, if you use the cool MVC4 WebApi you might encounter yourself in a common situation where you need to return a rather large amount of data (most probably from a database) and you want to accomplish two things: Use streaming so the client fetch the data as needed, and that directly correlates to more fetching in the server side (from our database, for example) without consuming large amounts of memory. Leverage the new MVC4 WebApi and .NET 4.5 async/await asynchronous execution model to free ASP.NET Threadpool threads (if possible).  So, #1 and #2 are not directly related to each other and we could implement our code fulfilling one or the other, or both. The main point about #1 is that we want our method to immediately return to the caller a stream, and that client side stream be represented by a server side stream that gets written (and its related database fetch) only when needed. In this case we would need some form of "state machine" that keeps running in the server and "knows" what is the next thing to fetch into the output stream when the client ask for more content. This technique is generally called a "continuation" and is nothing new in .NET, in fact using an IEnumerable<> interface and the "yield return" keyword does exactly that, so our first impulse might be to write our WebApi method more or less like this:           public IEnumerable<Metadata> Get([FromUri] int accountId)         {             // Execute the command and get a reader             using (var reader = GetMetadataListReader(accountId))             {                 // Read rows asynchronously, put data into buffer and write asynchronously                 while (reader.Read())                 {                     yield return MapRecord(reader);                 }             }         }   While the above method works, unfortunately it doesn't accomplish our objective of returning immediately to the caller, and that's because the MVC WebApi infrastructure doesn't yet recognize our intentions and when it finds an IEnumerable return value, enumerates it before returning to the client its values. To prove my point, I can code a test method that calls this method, for example:        [TestMethod]         public void StreamedDownload()         {             var baseUrl = @"http://localhost:57771/api/metadata/1";             var client = new HttpClient();             var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();             var stream = client.GetStreamAsync(baseUrl).Result;             sw.Stop();             Debug.WriteLine("Elapsed time Call: {0}ms", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); } So, I would expect the line "var stream = client.GetStreamAsync(baseUrl).Result" returns immediately without server-side fetching of all data in the database reader, and this didn't happened. To make the behavior more evident, you could insert a wait time (like Thread.Sleep(1000);) inside the "while" loop, and you will see that the client call (GetStreamAsync) is not going to return control after n seconds (being n == number of reader records being fetched).Ok, we know this doesn't work, and the question would be: is there a way to do it?Fortunately, YES!  and is not very difficult although a little more convoluted than our simple IEnumerable return value. Maybe in the future this scenario will be automatically detected and supported in MVC/WebApi.The solution to our needs is to use a very handy class named PushStreamContent and then our method signature needs to change to accommodate this, returning an HttpResponseMessage instead of our previously used IEnumerable<>. The final code will be something like this: public HttpResponseMessage Get([FromUri] int accountId)         {             HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateResponse();             // Create push content with a delegate that will get called when it is time to write out              // the response.             response.Content = new PushStreamContent(                 async (outputStream, httpContent, transportContext) =>                 {                     try                     {                         // Execute the command and get a reader                         using (var reader = GetMetadataListReader(accountId))                         {                             // Read rows asynchronously, put data into buffer and write asynchronously                             while (await reader.ReadAsync())                             {                                 var rec = MapRecord(reader);                                 var str = await JsonConvert.SerializeObjectAsync(rec);                                 var buffer = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(str);                                 // Write out data to output stream                                 await outputStream.WriteAsync(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);                             }                         }                     }                     catch(HttpException ex)                     {                         if (ex.ErrorCode == -2147023667) // The remote host closed the connection.                          {                             return;                         }                     }                     finally                     {                         // Close output stream as we are done                         outputStream.Close();                     }                 });             return response;         } As an extra bonus, all involved classes used already support async/await asynchronous execution model, so taking advantage of that was very easy. Please note that the PushStreamContent class receives in its constructor a lambda (specifically an Action) and we decorated our anonymous method with the async keyword (not a very well known technique but quite handy) so we can await over the I/O intensive calls we execute like reading from the database reader, serializing our entity and finally writing to the output stream.  Well, if we execute the test again we will immediately notice that the a line returns immediately and then the rest of the server code is executed only when the client reads through the obtained stream, therefore we get low memory usage and far greater scalability for our beloved application serving big chunks of data.Enjoy!Andrés.        

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• How to Convert News Feeds to Ebooks with Calibre

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Setting up your ebook reader to receive bundles of articles from web sites that interest you is a great way to add functionality and great content. Read on as we show you how to turn the RSS feeds from your favorite sites into ebooks. If you’re a fan of the easy-on-the-eyes digital reading experience provided by your ebook reader, it only seems natural to set up your ebook reader to receive feeds from your favorite news sources so you can enjoy even more content. In this tutorial we’ll be walking you through a simple way to shuttle hand picked content to your ebook reader. HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting How to Convert News Feeds to Ebooks with Calibre How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More

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• Track Technical Blog Entries For JDeveloper

  New RSS Feed

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