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• Download Microsoft’s Series of ‘Work Smart’ Guides for Windows 8

  - by Asian Angel

  The general release date for Windows 8 is almost here and Microsoft has released a terrific set of free ‘Work Smart’ guides to help you get started with the new operating system. Whether it is an overview of Windows 8 itself, shortcut keys, backups, and more these guides cover a nice range of topics. HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works HTG Explains: Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered and How You Can Prevent It HTG Explains: What Are the Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break Keys on My Keyboard?

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• Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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• Install Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Wubi Installer

  - by Matthew Guay

  Ubuntu is one of the most popular versions of Linux, and their Netbook Remix edition is especially attractive for netbook owners.  Here we’ll look at how you can easily try out Ubuntu on your netbook without a CD/DVD drive. Netbooks, along with the growing number of thin, full powered laptops, lack a CD/DVD drive.  Installing software isn’t much of a problem since most programs, whether free or for-pay, are available for download.  Operating systems, however, are usually installed from a disk.  You can easily install Windows 7 from a flash drive with our tutorial, but installing Ubuntu from a USB flash drive is more complicated.  However, using Wubi, a Windows installer for Ubuntu, you can easily install it directly on your netbook and even uninstall it with only a few clicks. Getting Started Download and run the Wubi installer for Ubuntu (link below).  In the installer, select the drive you where you wish to install Ubuntu, the size of the installation (this is the amount dedicated to Ubuntu; under 20Gb should be fine), language, username, and desired password.  Also, from the Desktop environment menu, select Ubuntu Netbook to install the netbook edition.  Click Install when your settings are correct. Wubi will automatically download the selected version of Ubuntu and install it on your computer. Windows Firewall may ask if you want to unblock Wubi; select your network and click Allow access. The download will take around an hour on broadband, depending on your internet connection speed.  Once the download is completed, it will automatically install to your computer.  If you’d prefer to have everything downloaded before you start the install, download the ISO of Ubuntu Netbook edition (link below) and save it in the same folder as Wubi. Then, when you run Wubi, select the netbook edition as before and click Install.  Wubi will verify that your download is valid, and will then proceed to install from the downloaded ISO.  This install will only take about 10 minutes. Once the install is finished you will be asked to reboot your computer.  Save anything else you’re working on, and then reboot to finish setting up Ubuntu on your netbook. When your computer reboots, select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  Wubi leaves the default OS as Windows 7, so if you don’t select anything it will boot into Windows 7 after a few seconds. Ubuntu will automatically finish the install when you boot into it the first time.  This took about 12 minutes in our test. When the setup is finished, your netbook will reboot one more time.  Remember again to select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  You’ll then see a second boot screen; press your Enter key to select the default.   Ubuntu only took less than a minute to boot in our test.  When you see the login screen, select your name and enter your password you setup in Wubi.  Now you’re ready to start exploring Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Using Ubuntu Netbook Remix Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers a simple, full-screen interface to take the best advantage of netbooks’ small screens.  Pre-installed applications are displayed in the application launcher, and are organized by category.  Click once to open an application. The first screen on the application launcher shows your favorite programs.  If you’d like to add another application to the favorites pane, click the plus sign beside its icon. Your files from Windows are still accessible from Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  From the home screen, select Files & Folders on the left menu, and then click the icon that says something like 100GB Filesystem under the Volumes section. Now you’ll be able to see all of your files from Windows.  Your user files such as documents, music, and pictures should be located in Documents and Settings in a folder with your user name. You can also easily install a variety of free applications via the Software Installer. Connecting to the internet is also easy, as Ubuntu Netbook Remix automatically recognized the WiFi adaptor on our test netbook, a Samsung N150.  To connect to a wireless network, click the wireless icon on the top right of the screen and select the network’s name from the list. And, if you’d like to customize your screen, right-click on the application launcher and select Change desktop background. Choose a background picture you’d like. Now you’ll see it through your application launcher.  Nice! Most applications are opened full-screen.  You can close them by clicking the x on the right of the program’s name. You can also switch to other applications from their icons on the top left.  Open the home screen by clicking the Ubuntu logo in the far left. Changing Boot Options By default, Wubi will leave Windows as the default operating system, and will give you 10 seconds at boot to choose to boot into Ubuntu.  To change this, boot into Windows and enter Advanced system settings in your start menu search. In this dialog, click Settings under Startup and Recovery. From this dialog, you can select the default operating system and the time to display list of operating systems.  You can enter a lower number to make the boot screen appear for less time. And if you’d rather make Ubuntu the default operating system, select it from the drop-down list.   Uninstalling Ubuntu Netbook Remix If you decide you don’t want to keep Ubuntu Netbook Remix on your computer, you can uninstall it just like you uninstall any normal application.  Boot your computer into Windows, open Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program, and enter ubuntu in the search box.  Select it, and click Uninstall. Click Uninstall at the prompt.  Ubuntu uninstalls very quickly, and removes the entry from the bootloader as well, so your computer is just like it was before you installed it.   Conclusion Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers an attractive Linux interface for netbooks.  We enjoyed trying it out, and found it much more user-friendly than most Linux distros.  And with the Wubi installer, you can install it risk-free and try it out on your netbook.  Or, if you’d like to try out another alternate netbook operating system, check out our article on Jolicloud, another new OS for netbooks. Links Download Wubi Installer for Windows Download Ubuntu Netbook Edition Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi InstallerInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftHow to install Spotify in Ubuntu 9.10 using WineInstalling PHP5 and Apache on UbuntuInstalling PHP4 and Apache on Ubuntu 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 16, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 16, 2010New ProjectsAAPL-MySQL (a MySql implementation of the Agile ADO.Net Persistence Layer): Using the code conventions and code of the Agile ADO.Net Persistence Layer to build a MySql implementationAddress Book: Address Book is simple and easy to use application for storing and editing contacts. It has many features like search and grouping. It's developed ...Airplanes: Airplanes GameAJAX Fax document viewer: The AJAX Fax document viewer is an ASP.net 4.0 project which uses a Seadragon control to display Tiff/Tif files inside the browser. Since it's base...AxeFrog Core: This project contains the foundational code used in several other projects.Bolão: O objetivo deste projeto é estimular a troca de informações e experiências sobre arquitetura e desenvolvimento de software na prática, através do d...Caramel Engine: This is designed to be a logic engine for developing a wide variety of games. To include card logic, dice logic, territories, players, and even man...DotNetNuke® Skin BrandWorks: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by M Perakakis & M Siganou (e-bilab). A very minimal look sk...DotNetNuke® Skin Reasonable: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Ralph Williams of Architech Solutions. A clean, classy, professi...DotNetNuke® Skin Seasons: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Atul Handa and Kevin McCusker of Mercer. This skin is a generic ...File Eraser: File Eraser make it esasier for IT Administrator or Advanced Users to administer files and eliminate long addresses, even UNC. It's developed in VB...GreenEyes: My project for IT personalHulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Hulu Desktop and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.Imenik: Imenik makes it easier for users to organise their contacts!KharaPOS: KharaPOS is an Exemplar application for Silverlight 4, WCF RIA Services and .NET Framework 4.Mantas Cryptography: Pequena biblioteca de criptografia com suporte aos algorítmos DES, RC2, Rexor e TripleDES. Gera hashes HMAC-MD5, HMAC-RIPEMD160, HMAC-SHA (SHA1, S...MapWindow3D: A C# DirectX library that extends the MapWindow 6.0 geospatial software library by adding an external map. The map supports rotation and tilting i...Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework: Extensible Web Analytics Framework for Microsoft Silverlight Applications.Moq Examples: Unit tests demonstrating Moq features.Ncqrs: Framework that helps you to create Command-Query Responsibility Segregation based applications easily.NoLedge - Notetaking and knowledge database: NoLedge is an easy knowledge gathering and notetaking freeware with a simple interface. You can link a note with different titles and can retrieve ...Numina Application Framework: The framework is a set of tools that help facilitate authentication, authorization, and access control. It is much more than a SSO. It is a central...OData SDK for PHP: OData SDK for PHP is a library to facilitate the connection with OData Services.patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: p&p site for Windows Azure related guidance.projecteuler.net: Exploring projecteuler.net using F#ResumeTracker: Small and easy to use tool that helps to track your job applications. To report bugs or for suggestions please email kirunchik@gmail.com.Selection Maker: Have you ever create a collection of music files? Imagine you just want to pick best of them by your choice. you should go to several folder,play...ShureValidation: Multilingual model validation library. Supports fluent validations, attribute validations and own custom validations.Simple Phonebook: Simple phonebook allows you to store contacts. It also allows you to export the contacts to .txt or .csv. This application is written in C#, but it...SoftUpd: A usefull library which provides an Update feature to any .Net software.sTASKedit: This program can modify and export Perfect World tasks.data files...Tigie: Tigie is a simple CMS system for basic website. It's simple, easy to customize. you'll have a very basic cms to start with and expand for it. All c...toapp: ap hwUltiLogger: UltiLogger is a fast, lightweight logging library programmed in C#. It is meant as a fast, easy, and efficient way for developers to access a relia...Unnme: UnnmeVisual Studio 2008 NUnit snippets: A simple set of useful NUnit snippets, for Visual studio 2008.webdama: italian checkers game c#XBrowser - Headless Browser for .Net: XBrowser is a "headless" web browser written for .Net applications using C#. It is designed to allow automated, remote controlled and test-based br...XML Integrator: XML integration, collaborative toolNew ReleasesAddress Book: Address Book: Address BookAddress Book: Address Book - Source: Address Book source code.AJAX Fax document viewer: AJAXTiff_Source 1.0: Source project for the AJAX Tiff viewer v1.0. Written in Visual Studio 2010 RC using ASP.net 4.0ASP.Net Routing Configuration: mal.Web.Routing v1.0.0.0: mal.Web.Routing v1.0.0.0ASP.NET Wiki Control: Release 1.0: Includes VS2010 Solution and Project files but targets the 3.5 framework so can still be used with VS2008 if new project files are created.BingPaper: Beta: BingPaper Beta Release This Beta release contains quite a few improvements: This Beta release contains a complate overhaul of the replacement tok...Bolão: teste: testeDotNetNuke® Skin Reasonable: Reasonable Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Ralph Williams of Architech Solutions. A clean, classy, professi...DotNetNuke® Skin Seasons: Seasons Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Atul Handa and Kevin McCusker of Mercer. This skin is a generic ...dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.2: In TFS Serverdylan.NET Apps: dylan.NET Apps v. 1.1: First version of dnu.dll together with v.9.2 of dylan.NETFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.1.0.0: Version 1.1.0.0 Census report now shows in bold those individuals you KNOW to be alive at the date of the census. Direct Ancestors on census repor...GLB Virtual Player Builder: 0.4.1: Minor change to reset non-major/minor attr to 8.Hulu Launcher: HuluLauncher Release 1.0.1.1: HuluLauncher Release 1.0.1.1 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7 ...Imenik: Imenik: Imenik is now available!jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.3: NOTE: While I work on new releases, I post alpha versions. Usually the alpha versions are here to address a particular need. I DO NOT recommend usi...KeelKit: KeelKit 1.0.3800: 更新内容如下: 优化了DBHelper的一些机制 修正一些BUG 支持Mysql PHP代理，使得能通过Web代理的方式远程访问数据库服务器 添加Model实例化方法，支持所有非自动计算字段的参数实例化、支持所有非空字段实例化 添加Model中的常量，使用这些常量可以获得表名称。 添加了自...Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Contrib: MefContrib 0.9.0.0: Updated to MEF Preview 9 Moved MefContrib.Extensions.Generics to MefContrib.Hosting.Generics Moved MefContrib.Extensions.Generics.Tests to MefC...MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder: MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder v0.1.1: Repaired a problem with collections... only index number under 10 were allowed... Please send me your comments and rate the project. Sorry.Mouse Gestures for .NET: Mouse Gestures 1.0: Improved version of the component + sample application. Version 1.0 is not backward compatible.MoviesForMyBlog: MoviesForMyBlog V1.0: This is version 1.0Nito.KitchenSink: Version 1: The first release of Nito.KitchenSink, which uses Nito.Linq 0.1. Please report any issues via the Issue Tracker.Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.1): This is the first official public release of Nito.Linq. This release only supports .NET 3.5 SP1 with the Microsoft Rx libraries. The documentation...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.2): Added ListSource.Generate overloads that take a delegate for counting the list elements.OData SDK for PHP: OData SDK for PHP: This is an updated version of the ADO.NET Data Services toolkit for PHP. It includes full support for OData Protocol V2.0 specification, better pro...Orchard Project: Orchard Latest Build (0.1.2010.0312): This is a technical preview release of Orchard. Our intent with this release is to demonstrate representative experiences for our audiences (end-us...patterns & practices – Enterprise Library: Enterprise Library 5.0 - Beta2: This is a preliminary release of the code and documentation that may potentially be incomplete, and may change prior to the final release of Enterp...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 2.0 - Beta2: This is a preliminary release of the code and documentation that may potentially be incomplete, and may change prior to the final release of Unity ...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Code drop - 1: This initial version is the before the cloud baseline application, so you won’t find anything related to Windows Azure here. Next iteration, we'l...Rawr: Rawr 2.3.12: - First, a note about Rawr3. Rawr3 has been in development for quite a while now, and we know that everyone's eager to get it. It's been held back ...ResumeTracker: Resume Tracker v1.0: First release.Selection Maker: Selection Maker 1.0: This is just the first release of this programSevenZipSharp: SevenZipSharp 0.61: Added: Windows Mobile support bool Check() method for Extractor to test archives integrity FileExtractionFinished now returns FileInfoEventArgs...Silverlight 3.0 Advanced ToolTipService: Advanced ToolTipService v2.0.1: This release is compiled against the Silverlight 3.0 runtime. A demonstration on how to set the ToolTip content to a property of the DataContext o...Silverlight Flow Layouts library: SL and WPF Flow Layouts library March 2010: This release indtroduces some bug fixes, performance improvements, Silverlight 4 RC and WPF 4.0 RC support. Flow Layouts Library is a control libra...Simple Phonebook: SimplePhonebook Visual Studio 2010 Solution: Ovo je cijeli projekt u kojem se nalaze svi source fileovi koje sam koristio u izradi ove aplikacije. Za pokretanje je potreban Visual Studio 2010....Simple Phonebook: SimplePhonebook.rar: U ovoj .rar datoteci nalaze se izvršni fileovi. _ In this .rar file you can find .exe file needed for executing the application.SLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit: SLARToolkit 1.0.1.0: Updated to Silverlight 4 Release Candidate. Introduces the new GenericMarkerDetector which uses the IXrgbReader interface. See the Marker Detecto...sPWadmin: pwAdmin v1.0: Fixed: Templates can now be saved server restart persistant (wait at least 60 seconds between saving and restarting)SQL Director for Dependencies & Indexes: SDD CTP 1.0: SQL Director for Dependencies allows you to view dependencies between tables, views, function, stored procedures and jobs. Newest Testing build, f...SqlCeViewer: SeasonStar Database Management 0.7.0.2: Update the user interface to help user understand clearly how to use .UltiLogger: Initial alpha release: Important! This is not a feature-complete release! It contains the logging priorities, and an interface for building logging systems from. THERE IS...Visual Studio 2008 NUnit snippets: Version 1.0: First stable release.Zeta Resource Editor: Source Code Release 2010-03-16: New source code. Binary setup is also available.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETLiveUpload to FacebookMost Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterOData SDK for PHPRawrN2 CMSpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryDirectQBlogEngine.NETMapWindow6SharePoint Team-MailerNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Database Trends & Applications column: Database Benchmarking from A to Z

  - by KKline

  Have you heard of the monthly print and web magazine Database Trends & Applications (DBTA)? Did you know I'm the regular columnist covering SQL Server ? For the past six months, I've been writing a series of articles about database benchmarking culminating in the latest article discussing my three favorite database benchmarking tools: the free, open-source HammerDB, the native SQL Server Distributed Replay Utility, and the commercial Benchmark Factory from Dell / Quest Software. Wondering what...(read more)

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• We are hiring (take a minute to read this, is not another BS talk ;) )

  - by gsusx

  I really wanted to wait until our new website was out to blog about this but I hope you can put up with the ugly website for a few more days J. Tellago keeps growing and, after a quick break at the beginning of the year, we are back in hiring mode J. We are currently expanding our teams in the United States and Argentina and have various positions open in the following categories. .NET developers: If you are an exceptional .NET programmer with a passion for creating great software solutions working...(read more)

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• AWStats: Visits from IP address vs Crawlers

  - by user3651934

  I use AWStats in cPanel to see stats of my website. Under Hosts section I see one IP address that has visited 150 pages. I am not sure if one person would have visited 150 pages using a browser. But if these 150 pages have been visited using a software application, then should not it be listed under Robots/Spider section. So how do I determine if I should block a certain IP address that has visited several hundred pages of my website? Thanks

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• .NET Reflector Pro Coming…

  The very best software is almost always originally the creation of a single person. Readers of our 'Geek of the Week' will know of a few of them.  Even behemoths such as MS Word or Excel started out with one programmer.  There comes a time with any software that it starts to grow up, and has to move from this form of close parenting to being developed by a team.  This has happened several times within Red-Gate: SQL Refactor, SQL Compare, and SQL Dependency Tracker, not to mention SQL Backup, were all originally the work of a lone coder, who subsequently handed over the development to a structured team of programmers, test engineers and usability designers. Because we loved .NET Reflector when Lutz Roeder wrote and nurtured it, and, like many other .NET developers, used it as a development tool ourselves, .NET Reflector's progress from being the apple of Lutz's eye to being a Red-Gate team-based development  seemed natural.  Lutz, after all, eventually felt he couldn't afford the time to develop it to the extent it deserved. Why, then, did we want to take on .NET Reflector?  Different people may give you different answers, but for us in the .NET team, it just seemed a natural progression. We're always very surprised when anyone suggests that we want to change the nature of the tool since it seems right just as it is. .NET Reflector will stay very much the tool we all use and appreciate, although the new version will support .NET 4, and will have many improvements in the accuracy of its decompiling. Whilst we've made a lot of improvements to Reflector, the radical addition, which we hope you'll want to try out as well, is '.NET Reflector Pro'. This is an extension to .NET Reflector that allows the debugging of decompiled code using the Visual Studio debugger. It is an add-in, but we'll be charging for it, mainly because we prefer to live indoors with a warm meal, rather than outside in tents, particularly when the winter's been as cold as this one has. We're hoping (we're even pretty confident!) that you'll share our excitement about .NET Reflector Pro. .NET Reflector Pro integrates .NET Reflector into Visual Studio, allowing you to seamlessly debug into third-party code and assemblies, even if you don't have the source code for them. You can now treat decompiled assemblies much like your own code: you can step through them and use all the debugging techniques that you would use on your own code. Try the beta now. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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

  - by Trevor Bekolay

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

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• Talks Submitted for Ann Arbor Day of .NET 2010

  - by PSteele

  Just submitted my session abstracts for Ann Arbor's Day of .NET 2010.   Getting up to speed with .NET 3.5 -- Just in time for 4.0! Yes, C# 4.0 is just around the corner.  But if you haven't had the chance to use C# 3.5 extensively, this session will start from the ground up with the new features of 3.5.  We'll assume everyone is coming from C# 2.0.  This session will show you the details of extension methods, partial methods and more.  We'll also show you how LINQ -- Language Integrated Query -- can help decrease your development time and increase your code's readability.  If time permits, we'll look at some .NET 4.0 features, but the goal is to get you up to speed on .NET 3.5.   Go Ahead and Mock Me! When testing specific parts of your application, there can be a lot of external dependencies required to make your tests work.  Writing fake or mock objects that act as stand-ins for the real dependencies can waste a lot of time.  This is where mocking frameworks come in.  In this session, Patrick Steele will introduce you to Rhino Mocks, a popular mocking framework for .NET.  You'll see how a mocking framework can make writing unit tests easier and leads to less brittle unit tests.   Inversion of Control: Who's got control and why is it being inverted? No doubt you've heard of "Inversion of Control".  If not, maybe you've heard the term "Dependency Injection"?  The two usually go hand-in-hand.  Inversion of Control (IoC) along with Dependency Injection (DI) helps simplify the connections and lifetime of all of the dependent objects in the software you write.  In this session, Patrick Steele will introduce you to the concepts of IoC and DI and will show you how to use a popular IoC container (Castle Windsor) to help simplify the way you build software and how your objects interact with each other. If you're interested in speaking, hurry up and get your submissions in!  The deadline is Monday, April 5th! Technorati Tags: .NET,Ann Arbor,Day of .NET

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• Make your CHM Help Files show HTML5 and CSS3 content

  - by Rick Strahl

  The HTML Help 1.0 specification aka CHM files, is pretty old. In fact, it's practically ancient as it was introduced in 1997 when Internet Explorer 4 was introduced. Html Help 1.0 is basically a completely HTML based Help system that uses a Help Viewer that internally uses Internet Explorer to render the HTML Help content. Because of its use of the Internet Explorer shell for rendering there were many security issues in the past, which resulted in locking down of the Web Browser control in Windows and also the Help Engine which caused some unfortunate side effects. Even so, CHM continues to be a popular help format because it is very easy to produce content for it, using plain HTML and because it works with many Windows application platforms out of the box. While there have been various attempts to replace CHM help files CHM files still seem to be a popular choice for many applications to display their help systems. The biggest alternative these days is no system based help at all, but links to online documentation. For Windows apps though it's still very common to see CHM help files and there are still a ton of CHM help out there and lots of tools (including our own West Wind Html Help Builder) that produce output for CHM files as well as Web output. Image is Everything and you ain't got it! One problem with the CHM engine is that it's stuck with an ancient Internet Explorer version for rendering. For example if you have help content that uses HTML5 or CSS3 content you might have an HTML Help topic like the following shown here in a full Web Browser instance of Internet Explorer: The page clearly uses some CSS3 features like rounded corners and box shadows that are rendered using plain CSS 3 features. Note that I used Internet Explorer on purpose here to demonstrate that IE9 on Windows 7 can properly render this content using some of the new features of CSS, but the same is true for all other recent versions of the major browsers (FireFox 3.1+, Safari 4.5+, WebKit 9+ etc.). Unfortunately if you take this nice and simple CSS3 content and run it through the HTML Help compiler to produce a CHM file the resulting output on the same machine looks a bit less flashy: All the CSS3 styling is gone and although the page display and functionality still works, but all the extra styling features are gone. This even though I am running this on a Windows 7 machine that has IE9 that should be able to render these CSS features. Bummer. Web Browser Control - perpetually stuck in IE 7 Mode The problem is the Web Browser/Shell Components in Windows. This component is and has been part of Windows for as long as Internet Explorer has been around, but the Web Browser control hasn't kept up with the latest versions of IE. In a nutshell the control is stuck in IE7 rendering mode for engine compatibility reasons by default. However, there is at least one way to fix this explicitly using Registry keys on a per application basis. The key point from that blog article is that you can override the IE rendering engine for a particular executable by setting one (or more) registry flags that tell the Windows Shell which version of the Internet Explorer rendering engine to load. An application that wishes to use a more recent version of Internet Explorer can then register itself during installation for the specific IE version desired and from then on the application will use that version of the Web Browser component. If the application is older than the specified version it falls back to the default version (IE 7 rendering). Forcing CHM files to display with IE9 (or later) Rendering Knowing that we can force the IE usage for a given process it's also possible to affect the CHM rendering by setting same keys on the executable that's hosting the CHM file. What that executable file is depends on the type of application as there are a number of ways that can launch the help engine. hh.exeThe standalone Windows CHM Help Viewer that launches when you launch a CHM from Windows Explorer. You can manually add hh.exe to the registry keys. YourApplication.exeIf you're using .NET or any tool that internally uses the hhControl ActiveX control to launch help content your application is your host. You should add your application's exe to the registry during application startup. foxhhelp9.exeIf you're building a FoxPro application that uses the built-in help features, foxhhelp9.exe is used to actually host the help controls. Make sure to add this executable to the registry. What to set You can configure the Internet Explorer version used for an application in the registry by specifying the executable file name and a value that specifies the IE version desired. There are two different sets of keys for 32 bit and 64 bit applications. 32 bit only or 64 bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION Value Key: hh.exe 32 bit on 64 bit machine: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION Value Key: hh.exe Note that it's best to always set both values ideally when you install your application so it works regardless of which platform you run on. The value specified is a DWORD value and the interesting values are decimal 9000 for IE9 rendering mode depending on !DOCTYPE settings or 9999 for IE 9 standards mode always. You can use the same logic for 8000 and 8888 for IE8 and the final value of 7000 for IE7 (one has to wonder what they're going todo for version 10 to perpetuate that pattern). I think 9000 is the value you'd most likely want to use. 9000 means that IE9 will be used for rendering but unless the right doctypes are used (XHTML and HTML5 specifically) IE will still fall back into quirks mode as needed. This should allow existing pages to continue to use the fallback engine while new pages that have the proper HTML doctype set can take advantage of the newest features. Here's an example of how I set the registry keys in my Tarma Installmate registry configuration: Note that I set all three values both under the Software and Wow6432Node keys so that this works regardless of where these EXEs are launched from. Even though all apps are 32 bit apps, the 64 bit (the default one shown selected) key is often used. So, now once I've set the registry key for hh.exe I can now launch my CHM help file from Explorer and see the following CSS3 IE9 rendered display: Summary It sucks that we have to go through all these hoops to get what should be natural behavior for an application to support the latest features available on a system. But it shouldn't be a surprise - the Windows Help team (if there even is such a thing) has not been known for forward looking technologies. It's a pretty big hassle that we have to resort to setting registry keys in order to get the Web Browser control and the internal CHM engine to render itself properly but at least it's possible to make it work after all. Using this technique it's possible to ship an application with a help file and allow your CHM help to display with richer CSS markup and correct rendering using the stricter and more consistent XHTML or HTML5 doctypes. If you provide both Web help and in-application help (and why not if you're building from a single source) you now can side step the issue of your customers asking: Why does my help file look so much shittier than the online help… No more!© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in HTML5  Help  Html Help Builder  Internet Explorer  Windows   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Microsoft Opens Up Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 Series - Microsoft News

  In the latest Microsoft news, software giant announces Silverlight for multimedia Web development is now open source. Could the move spur a bevy of work for Silverlight developers and new apps for Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 Series?

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• "Parallel Programming Talk" show

  Over at the Intel Software Network Aaron Tersteeg runs a "Parallel Programming Talk" audio show on which I was invited as a guest (for the 55th episode) to talk about Microsoft's parallelism offerings in Visual Studio 2010. The call started at 7:45AM, so if my voice sounds croaky to you, now you know why ;)Check out the 20-minute chat (and related hyperlinks) on Aaron's blog. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, January 11, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, January 11, 2011Popular ReleasesArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap 1.1 beta2: This is the beta2 release for the ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap version 1.1. Changes from version 1.0: Multi-part geometries are now supported. Homogeneous relations (consisting of only lines or only polygons) are converted into the appropriate multi-part geometry. Mixed relations and super relations are maintained and tracked in a stand-alone relation table. The underlying editing logic has changed. As opposed to tracking the editing changes upon "Save edit" or "Stop edit" the changes a...VSSpeedster - Parallel Builds for VS: VSSpeedster 1.2 (beta): - Improved Parallel Builds - Cancel running Parallel Build using Ctrl+BreakASP.NET Comet Ajax Library (Reverse Ajax - Server Push): Multiple server ASP.NET Reverse Ajax: This sample project demonstrates how is easy to scale your web applications via PokeInHawkeye - The .Net Runtime Object Editor: Hawkeye 1.2.5: In the case you are running an x86 Windows and you installed Release 1.2.4, you should consider upgrading to this release (1.2.5) as it appears Hawkeye is broken on x86 OS. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it appears Hawkeye 1.2.4 (and probably previous versions) doesn't run on x86 Windows (See issue http://hawkeye.codeplex.com/workitem/7791). This maintenance release fixes this broken behavior. This release comes in two flavors: Hawkeye.125.N2 is the standard .NET 2 build, was compile...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (January 2011): Another release build for daily use; it contains many new features, enhanced compatibility with latest PHP opensource applications and several issue fixes. To improve the performance of your application using MySQL, please use Managed MySQL Extension for Phalanger. Changes made within this release include following: New features available only in Phalanger. Full support of Multi-Script-Assemblies was implemented; you can build your application into several DLLs now. Deploy them separately t...EnhSim: EnhSim 2.3.0: 2.3.0This release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Changed how flame shoc...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.3: A message will be displayed when there's an update available Shows a list of recent mastery files in the Editor Tab (requested by quite a few people) Updater: Update information is now scrollable Added a buton to launch AutoLoL after updating is finished Updated the UI to match that of AutoLoL Fix: Detects and resolves 'Read Only' state on Version.xmlExtended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.3.0: What's in the 1.3.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner ChildWindow ColorPicker - Updated (Breaking Changes) DateTimeUpDown - New Control Magnifier - New Control MaskedTextBox - New Control MessageBox NumericUpDown RichTextBox RichTextBoxFormatBar - Updated .NET 3.5 binaries and SourcePlease note: The Extended WPF Toolkit 3.5 is dependent on .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit. You must install .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit in order to use any features in the To...sNPCedit: sNPCedit v0.9d: added elementclient coordinate catcher to catch coordinates select a target (ingame) i.e. your char, npc or monster than click the button and coordinates+direction will be transfered to the selected row in the table corrected labels from Rot to Direction (because it is a vector)Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.7 beta Released: Hi, Today Visifire is released along with one new feature * Inlines property has been implemented in Title. Now onwards you can customize the text content in Title. Please check out the Visifire documentation for more information. This release contains fix for the following bugs: * Styles for chart elements were not working as expected. * Bar chart was not drawn properly if AxisMinimum property was set to a value above zero base line. * In DateTime axis, AxisLables were no...Ionics Isapi Rewrite Filter: 2.1 latest stable: V2.1 is stable, and is in maintenance mode. This is v2.1.1.25. It is a bug-fix release. There are no new features. 28629 29172 28722 27626 28074 29164 27659 27900 many documentation updates and fixes proper x64 build environment. This release includes x64 binaries in zip form, but no x64 MSI file. You'll have to manually install x64 servers, following the instructions in the documentation.StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.14980.000: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes: - StyleCop's new ObjectBasedEnvironment object does not resolve the StyleCop installation path, thus it does not return the correct path ...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.1: New release with bug fixes and updates for performance.UltimateJB: Ultimate JB 2.03 PL3 KAKAROTO + HERMES + Spoof 3.5: Voici une version attendu avec impatience pour beaucoup : - La version PL3 KAKAROTO intégre ses dernières modification et intégre maintenant le firmware 2.43 !!! Conclusion : - UltimateJB203PSXXXDEFAULTKAKAROTO=> Pas de spoof mais disponible pour les PS3 suivantes : 3.41_kiosk 3.41 3.40 3.30 3.21 3.15 3.10 3.01 2.76 2.70 2.60 2.53 2.43 - UltimateJB203PS341_HERMES => Pas de spoof mais version hermes 4b - UltimateJB203PS341HERMESSPOOF35X => hermes 4b + spoof des firmwares 3.50 et 3.55 au li....NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library for C# and VB.NET: Release 2011.03: Added lot's of new extensions and new projects for MVC and Entity Framework. object.FindTypeByRecursion Int32.InRange String.RemoveAllSpecialCharacters String.IsEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IsNotEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IfEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.ToUpperFirstLetter String.GetBytes String.ToTitleCase String.ToPlural DateTime.GetDaysInYear DateTime.GetPeriodOfDay IEnumberable.RemoveAll IEnumberable.Distinct ICollection.RemoveAll IList.Join IList.Match IList.Cast Array.IsNullOrEmpty Array.W...EFMVC - ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: EFMVC 0.5- ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: Demo web app ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code FirstVidCoder: 0.8.0: Added x64 version. Made the audio output preview more detailed and accurate. If the chosen encoder or mixdown is incompatible with the source, the fallback that will be used is displayed. Added "Auto" to the audio mixdown choices. Reworked non-anamorphic size calculation to work better with non-standard pixel aspect ratios and cropping. Reworked Custom anamorphic to be more intuitive and allow display width to be set automatically (Thanks, Statick). Allowing higher bitrates for 6-ch....NET Voice Recorder: Auto-Tune Release: This is the source code and binaries to accompany the article on the Coding 4 Fun website. It is the Auto Tuner release of the .NET Voice Recorder application.BloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.2.0: - Simulation Log is now automatically disabled and hidden when running 10 or more iterations - Hit and Expertise are now entered by Rating, and include option for a Racial Expertise bonus - Added option for boss to use a periodic magic ability (Dragon Breath) - Added option for boss to periodically Enrage, gaining a Damage/Attack Speed buffASP.NET MVC CMS ( Using CommonLibrary.NET ): CommonLibrary.NET CMS 0.9.5 Alpha: CommonLibrary CMSA simple yet powerful CMS system in ASP.NET MVC 2 using C# 4.0. ActiveRecord based components for Blogs, Widgets, Pages, Parts, Events, Feedback, BlogRolls, Links Includes several widgets ( tag cloud, archives, recent, user cloud, links twitter, blog roll and more ) Built using the http://commonlibrarynet.codeplex.com framework. ( Uses TDD, DDD, Models/Entities, Code Generation ) Can run w/ In-Memory Repositories or Sql Server Database See Documentation tab for Ins...New Projects.NET Event Spy: Full information available here: http://martincarolan.blogspot.com/2011/01/secret-project.html Simple development/debugging tool that hooks into and monitors events raised on any .NET object3DTweet: 3Dtweet is an effort to make tweets appear in a aesthetic manner to the users of windows phone.Its developed using VS2010 expresss.Agile .NET with SCRUM and XP: Source code for the book Apress Professional Agile .NET Development with SCRUM and XPBeskid Niski Agroturystyka: Travel Poland, turystyka w beskidzie niskim. Agroturystyka w miejscowosci Losie nad zalewem KlimkowkaCoding better: A better coding labs for .net new feature.FBApp: A simple facebook app I was busy with over the holidays as an experiment to try out the facebook api. Is currently not complete but I wanted to get some criticism on it for my 1st web app. It is developed using WPF and C#. Freemium Helper for WebMatrix: The Freemium Helper for WebMatrix provides an easy way to apply the Freemium model into your WebMatrix site. Using different user groups (or roles), it allows you to easily enable or disable features on your pages depending on the stock-keeping unit the user has paid for.Haversine Distance Calculation: A very small project that implements the Haversine formula, which calculates the great circle distance between two points on the earth's surface. The points are latitude / longitude coordinates in DD. The formula is implemented client side with javascript and server side with C#.Hexa.Core: Hexa.Core is our implementation of the Domain Driven Design Architecture. Also providing a set of helper classes for ASP.Net and WCF development.Minecraft NBT reader: A simple Minecraft NBT reader.MobSoft: MobSoft is silverlight based news related application designed to test the new functionalitities in Silverlight 4netduino Helpers: The 'netduino Helpers' is a C# driver set for common hardware components and features convenient wrappers around complex .Net Micro Framework features such as: Analog joysticks, Real-time clock, 8*8 LED matrix, Shift register, runtime assembly & resource loader, bitmaps, etc.NewsGator Social Connectors for Sharepoint 2010: This project contains social connectors for the NewsGator SharePoint platform and supports sending messages to Twitter and LinkedIn just by putting tags in the text #li for sending to linkedin #tw for sending to twitterNon Profit Contact Relationship Management: A non profit contact relationship management software intended to help those in the non profit arena manage donors, sponsors, and prospects.OpenAGE: OpenAGE, short for Open Advance Game Engine, is aimed at developing a new Advanced Game engine strictly for the PC and Xbox360 gaming System using XNA 4.0, and Visual Studio 2010OpenAutoPoster: OpenAutoPoster automates some of the boring everyday tasks of aggregating, linking and posting that haunts content creators.Phefer WoodTurning Sketcher: Draw out your own turnings before you hit the wood. Import images and trace around them, print them out with the length and width measuresments.Simple Script Interpreter- A simple GPLEX/GPPG (Lex/Yacc) Primer: Simple Script is a simple implementation of an interpreter language built with GPlex and Gppg (Lex/Yacc). It's developed in C#.SP2010Tutorials: Code for learning SharePoint 2010The Social Developer: This is a social developer tool for programmers to create and share projects using the .Net framework and other technologies and integrate it into a socialistic approach of sharing the work load and the resources needed to develop high level applications. Traffic-sign Classification: Traffic sign shape classification and localization.unnamedyet: Experimental! para Investigadores de Sistemas. Objetivo! desarrollar una praxis tal que con un conjunto finito y discreto de términos para describir sea posible auto-demostrar y ejecutar cualquier proposición dada.VSSpeedster - Parallel Builds for VS: Improve the performance of your Visual Studio: - Parallel Builds integrated in visual studioWebservice Xslt Transformer WebPart for SharePoint 2010: The Dynamic Webservice Xslt Transformer WebPart makes it much easier for SharePoint Developers and Administrators to call the webservice and transform the results directly to HTML by providing their own custom xslt. The properties can be set on the webpart by using the UI.WilWaNet.HASH: An ASP.NET MVC web site designed for tracking nutrition for the purposes of losing weight. Tracks calories, fat calories, fat grams and saturated fat along with daily weight and exercise. Includes daily Basic Metabolic Rate calculation and graphing functions.WP7 Try it 01: The first try in wp7WPF TryIt 01: Quan ly Nhan khau WPF ApplicationWX Alerter CAP/XML: NWS Alerter using CAP 1.1 alerting protocol. The goal of this project is to consume weather alerts from the NWS site. The user will select the city or SAME code/zone to watch. As alerts trigger notices will display and info will fill the Alert Tab.

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• Hyperlinked, externalized source code documentation

  - by Dave Jarvis

  Why do we still embed natural language descriptions of source code (i.e., the reason why a line of code was written) within the source code, rather than as a separate document? Given the expansive real-estate afforded to modern development environments (high-resolution monitors, dual-monitors, etc.), an IDE could provide semi-lock-step panels wherein source code is visually separated from -- but intrinsically linked to -- its corresponding comments. For example, developers could write source code comments in a hyper-linked markup language (linking to additional software requirements), which would simultaneously prevent documentation from cluttering the source code. What shortcomings would inhibit such a software development mechanism? A mock-up to help clarify the question: When the cursor is at a particular line in the source code (shown with a blue background, above), the documentation that corresponds to the line at the cursor is highlighted (i.e., distinguished from the other details). As noted in the question, the documentation would stay in lock-step with the source code as the cursor jumps through the source code. A hot-key could switch between "documentation mode" and "development mode". Potential advantages include: More source code and more documentation on the screen(s) at once Ability to edit documentation independently of source code (regardless of language?) Write documentation and source code in parallel without merge conflicts Real-time hyperlinked documentation with superior text formatting Quasi-real-time machine translation into different natural languages Every line of code can be clearly linked to a task, business requirement, etc. Documentation could automatically timestamp when each line of code was written (metrics) Dynamic inclusion of architecture diagrams, images to explain relations, etc. Single-source documentation (e.g., tag code snippets for user manual inclusion). Note: The documentation window can be collapsed Workflow for viewing or comparing source files would not be affected How the implementation happens is a detail; the documentation could be: kept at the end of the source file; split into two files by convention (filename.c, filename.c.doc); or fully database-driven By hyperlinked documentation, I mean linking to external sources (such as StackOverflow or Wikipedia) and internal documents (i.e., a wiki on a subdomain that could cross-reference business requirements documentation) and other source files (similar to JavaDocs). Related thread: What's with the aversion to documentation in the industry?

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

  - by Stefan Hinker

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

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• SQL Server 2005 SP4 is here!

  - by AaronBertrand

  Yes, the day has finally arrived, and a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. Typically when Microsoft promises a release in Qx or Hx, the software comes on the last or second last day of that quarter or half. This year, we get an early Christmas present: SQL Server 2005 SP4. To download SP4, go to this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b953e84f-9307-405e-bceb-47bd345baece If you are looking for the Express versions of SP4, you can get Express, Express with Tools, and...(read more)

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• Lost all privileges since upgrading to 13.10

  - by Chris Poole

  Since upgrading to 13.10, I no longer have the 'privileges' to do the following things: Mount USB/CDROM drives Run software centre or software updater Press the GUI shut down or restart buttons Unlock my account in the 'settings - user accounts' section (padlock is greyed out) Also, when logging on as a guest user I get error messages relating to Compiz crashing with SIGSEGV and it hangs on a blank wallpaper screen. However, I still am able to use sudo in the terminal. Output of 'groups' is jenchris adm dialout cdrom sudo audio video plugdev lpadmin admin pulse pulse-access sambashare sudo usermod -U username doesn't have any effect Output of sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a acpid stop/waiting acpid start/running, process 30454 * Starting AppArmor profiles Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.bin.firefox Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.sbin.rsyslogd [ OK ] * Reloading AppArmor profiles Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.bin.firefox Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.sbin.rsyslogd [ OK ] apport stop/waiting apport start/running gpg: key 437D05B5: "Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key <[email protected]>" not changed gpg: key FBB75451: "Ubuntu CD Image Automatic Signing Key <[email protected]>" not changed gpg: key C0B21F32: "Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key (2012) <[email protected]>" not changed gpg: key EFE21092: "Ubuntu CD Image Automatic Signing Key (2012) <[email protected]>" not changed gpg: Total number processed: 4 gpg: unchanged: 4 atd stop/waiting atd start/running, process 1388 avahi-daemon stop/waiting avahi-daemon start/running, process 1521 Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index... update-alternatives: using /usr/share/man/man7/bash-builtins.7.gz to provide /usr/share/man/man7/builtins.7.gz (builtins.7.gz) in auto mode update-binfmts: warning: current package is openjdk-7, but binary format already installed by openjdk-6 binfmt-support stop/waiting bluetooth stop/waiting bluetooth start/running, process 4255 update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 1: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: [general]: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 2: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: backend: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 3: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: plugin_list_autosort: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 5: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: [gnome_session]: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 6: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: backend: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 7: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: integration: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 8: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: plugin_list_autosort: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 9: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: profile: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 11: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: [general_ubuntu]: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 12: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: backend: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 13: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: integration: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 14: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: plugin_list_autosort: not found /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: 15: /var/lib/dpkg/info/compiz.config: profile: not found

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• Talking Shop With Richard Banks and Paul Batum

  - by Liam McLennan

  Last night Richard Banks recorded Paul Batum and I for his podcast. We talked about Alt.NET Seattle 2010 and my software craftsmanship tour. It was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it.

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• FSFE Fellowship interview with David Reyes Samblas Martinez

  <b>FSFE:</b> "David Reyes Samblas Martinez is the founder of Spanish Copyleft Hardware store Tuxbrain, and attended the famous Open University of Catalunya. He's also the subject of this month's Fellowship interview, in which he answers questions on hardware manufacturing, e-learning and Free Software politics."

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• JavaOne in Brazil

  - by janice.heiss(at)oracle.com

  JavaOne in Brazil, currently taking place in Sao Paolo, is one event I'd love to attend. I once heard "father of Java" James Gosling talk about Java developers throughout the world. He observed that there were good developers everywhere. It was not the case, he said, that that the really good developers are in one place and the not-so-good developers are in another. He encountered excellent developers everywhere. Then he paused and said that the craziest developers were definitely the Brazilians. As anyone who knows James would realize, this was meant as high praise. He said the Brazilians would work through the night on projects and were very enthusiastic and spontaneous - features that Brazilian culture is known for. Brazilian developers are responsible for creating one of the most impressive uses of Java ever - the applications that run the Brazilian health services. Starting from scratch they created a system that enables an expert doctor in Rio to look at an X-Ray of a patient near the Amazon and offer advice. One of the main architects of this was Java Champion Fabinane Nardon the distinguished Brazilian Java architect and open-source evangelist. As she writes in her blog:"In 2003, I was invited to assemble a team and architect a Public Healthcare Information System for the city of São Paulo, the largest in Latin America, with 14 million inhabitants. The resulting software had 2.5 million of lines of code and it was created, from specification to production, in only 10 months. At the time, the software was considered the largest J2EE application in the world and was featured in several articles, as this one. As a result, we won the Duke's Choice Award in 2005 during JavaOne, the largest development conference in the world. At the time, Sun Microsystems make a short documentary about our work." "In 2007, a lightning struck twice and I was again invited to assemble a new team and architect an even larger information system for healthcare. And thus I became CTO and one of the founders of Zilics Healthcare Information Systems. "In 2010, I started to research and work on Cloud Computing technology and became leader of the LSI-TEC Cloud Computing group. LSI-TEC is a research laboratory in the University of Sao Paulo, one of the best in Brazil. Thus, I became one of the ghost writers behind the popular Cloud Computing Twitter @the_cloud."You can see and hear Nardon in a 4 minute documentary on Java and the Brazilian health care system produced by Sun Microsystems. And you can listen to a September 2010 podcast with Nardon and her fellow Brazilian Java Champion Bruno Souza (known in Brazil as "Java Man") here at 11:10 minutes into the podcast.Next year, I'll hope to be reporting in Brazil at JavaOne!

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• Twitter for Android: A closer look at Android’s evolving UI patterns

  [This post is by Chris Nesladek, Interaction Designer, Richard Fulcher, Interaction Designer, and Virgil Dobjanschi, Software Engineer — Tim Bray] Along with our regular updates of the Android platform, we like...

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• Search Engines Online Business Tools For Website Marketing - 3 Free Tools to Optimise Your Website

  Search engines online business tools for website marketing are available by the thousands, if not millions. Lots of software companies have designed a whole range of different applications to help you optimise your website and marketing campaigns. When I first started with online marketing, I looked on the internet for some online tools, preferably for free. My budget was basically next to nothing but I knew that I wasn't the only one, so there had to be a solution, right? And yes, there is.

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• Amazon Web Services: A Developer Primer

  With Amazon Web Services (AWS), developers get both scalable services that they can use to architect their applications and the flexibility to run any software on Amazon's compute cloud.

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• Stackify Aims to Put More ‘Dev’ in ‘DevOps’

  - by Matt Watson

  Originally published on VisualStudioMagazine.com on 8/22/2012 by Keith Ward.The Kansas City-based startup wants to make it easier for developers to examine the network stack and find problems in code.The first part of “DevOps” is “Dev”. But according to Matt Watson, Devs aren’t connected enough with Ops, and it’s time that changed.He founded the startup company Stackify earlier this year to do something about it. Stackify gives developers unprecedented access to the IT side of the equation, Watson says, without putting additional burden on the system and network administrators who ultimately ensure the health of the environment.“We need a product designed for developers, with the goal of getting them more involved in operations and app support. Now, there’s next to nothing designed for developers,” Watson says. Stackify allows developers to search the network stack to troubleshoot problems in their software that might otherwise take days of coordination between development and IT teams to solve.Stackify allows developers to search log files, configuration files, databases and other infrastructure to locate errors. A key to this is that the developers are normally granted read-only access, soothing admin fears that developers will upload bad code to their servers.Implementation starts with data collection on the servers. Among the information gleaned is application discovery, server monitoring, file access, and other data collection, according to Stackify’s Web site. Watson confirmed that Stackify works seamlessly with virtualized environments as well.Although the data collection software must be installed on Windows servers, it can monitor both Windows and Linux servers. Once collection’s finished, developers have the kind of information they need, without causing heartburn for the IT staff.Stackify is a 100 percent cloud-based service. The company uses Windows Azure for hosting, a decision Watson’s happy with. With Azure, he says, “It’s nice to have all the dev tools like cache and table storage.” Although there have been a few glitches here and there with the service, it’s run very smoothly for the most part, he adds.Stackify is currently in a closed beta, with a public release scheduled for October. Watson says that pricing is expected to be $25 per month, per server, with volume discounts available. He adds that the target audience is companies with at least five developers.Watson founded Stackify after selling his last company, VinSolutions, to AutoTrader.com for “close to $150 million”, according to press accounts. Watson has since  founded the Watson Technology Group, which focuses on angel investing.About the Author: Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine.

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