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• how to use media library in our application?

  Hiii, I want to use any media file from user media library in my iphone application. Just like we pick an image from photo library. Are there any API's for this?

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• Custom ASP.NET Routing to an HttpHandler

  - by Rick Strahl

  As of version 4.0 ASP.NET natively supports routing via the now built-in System.Web.Routing namespace. Routing features are automatically integrated into the HtttpRuntime via a few custom interfaces. New Web Forms Routing Support In ASP.NET 4.0 there are a host of improvements including routing support baked into Web Forms via a RouteData property available on the Page class and RouteCollection.MapPageRoute() route handler that makes it easy to route to Web forms. To map ASP.NET Page routes is as simple as setting up the routes with MapPageRoute:protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); } void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.MapPageRoute("StockQuote", "StockQuote/{symbol}", "StockQuote.aspx"); routes.MapPageRoute("StockQuotes", "StockQuotes/{symbolList}", "StockQuotes.aspx"); } and then accessing the route data in the page you can then use the new Page class RouteData property to retrieve the dynamic route data information:public partial class StockQuote1 : System.Web.UI.Page { protected StockQuote Quote = null; protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string symbol = RouteData.Values["symbol"] as string; StockServer server = new StockServer(); Quote = server.GetStockQuote(symbol); // display stock data in Page View } } Simple, quick and doesn’t require much explanation. If you’re using WebForms most of your routing needs should be served just fine by this simple mechanism. Kudos to the ASP.NET team for putting this in the box and making it easy! How Routing Works To handle Routing in ASP.NET involves these steps: Registering Routes Creating a custom RouteHandler to retrieve an HttpHandler Attaching RouteData to your HttpHandler Picking up Route Information in your Request code Registering routes makes ASP.NET aware of the Routes you want to handle via the static RouteTable.Routes collection. You basically add routes to this collection to let ASP.NET know which URL patterns it should watch for. You typically hook up routes off a RegisterRoutes method that fires in Application_Start as I did in the example above to ensure routes are added only once when the application first starts up. When you create a route, you pass in a RouteHandler instance which ASP.NET caches and reuses as routes are matched. Once registered ASP.NET monitors the routes and if a match is found just prior to the HttpHandler instantiation, ASP.NET uses the RouteHandler registered for the route and calls GetHandler() on it to retrieve an HttpHandler instance. The RouteHandler.GetHandler() method is responsible for creating an instance of an HttpHandler that is to handle the request and – if necessary – to assign any additional custom data to the handler. At minimum you probably want to pass the RouteData to the handler so the handler can identify the request based on the route data available. To do this you typically add  a RouteData property to your handler and then assign the property from the RouteHandlers request context. This is essentially how Page.RouteData comes into being and this approach should work well for any custom handler implementation that requires RouteData. It’s a shame that ASP.NET doesn’t have a top level intrinsic object that’s accessible off the HttpContext object to provide route data more generically, but since RouteData is directly tied to HttpHandlers and not all handlers support it it might cause some confusion of when it’s actually available. Bottom line is that if you want to hold on to RouteData you have to assign it to a custom property of the handler or else pass it to the handler via Context.Items[] object that can be retrieved on an as needed basis. It’s important to understand that routing is hooked up via RouteHandlers that are responsible for loading HttpHandler instances. RouteHandlers are invoked for every request that matches a route and through this RouteHandler instance the Handler gains access to the current RouteData. Because of this logic it’s important to understand that Routing is really tied to HttpHandlers and not available prior to handler instantiation, which is pretty late in the HttpRuntime’s request pipeline. IOW, Routing works with Handlers but not with earlier in the pipeline within Modules. Specifically ASP.NET calls RouteHandler.GetHandler() from the PostResolveRequestCache HttpRuntime pipeline event. Here’s the call stack at the beginning of the GetHandler() call: which fires just before handler resolution. Non-Page Routing – You need to build custom RouteHandlers If you need to route to a custom Http Handler or other non-Page (and non-MVC) endpoint in the HttpRuntime, there is no generic mapping support available. You need to create a custom RouteHandler that can manage creating an instance of an HttpHandler that is fired in response to a routed request. Depending on what you are doing this process can be simple or fairly involved as your code is responsible based on the route data provided which handler to instantiate, and more importantly how to pass the route data on to the Handler. Luckily creating a RouteHandler is easy by implementing the IRouteHandler interface which has only a single GetHttpHandler(RequestContext context) method. In this method you can pick up the requestContext.RouteData, instantiate the HttpHandler of choice, and assign the RouteData to it. Then pass back the handler and you’re done.Here’s a simple example of GetHttpHandler() method that dynamically creates a handler based on a passed in Handler type./// <summary> /// Retrieves an Http Handler based on the type specified in the constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="requestContext"></param> /// <returns></returns> IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; // If we're dealing with a Callback Handler // pass the RouteData for this route to the Handler if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } Note that this code checks for a specific type of handler and if it matches assigns the RouteData to this handler. This is optional but quite a common scenario if you want to work with RouteData. If the handler you need to instantiate isn’t under your control but you still need to pass RouteData to Handler code, an alternative is to pass the RouteData via the HttpContext.Items collection:IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; requestContext.HttpContext.Items["RouteData"] = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } The code in the handler implementation can then pick up the RouteData from the context collection as needed:RouteData routeData = HttpContext.Current.Items["RouteData"] as RouteData This isn’t as clean as having an explicit RouteData property, but it does have the advantage that the route data is visible anywhere in the Handler’s code chain. It’s definitely preferable to create a custom property on your handler, but the Context work-around works in a pinch when you don’t’ own the handler code and have dynamic code executing as part of the handler execution. An Example of a Custom RouteHandler: Attribute Based Route Implementation In this post I’m going to discuss a custom routine implementation I built for my CallbackHandler class in the West Wind Web & Ajax Toolkit. CallbackHandler can be very easily used for creating AJAX, REST and POX requests following RPC style method mapping. You can pass parameters via URL query string, POST data or raw data structures, and you can retrieve results as JSON, XML or raw string/binary data. It’s a quick and easy way to build service interfaces with no fuss. As a quick review here’s how CallbackHandler works: You create an Http Handler that derives from CallbackHandler You implement methods that have a [CallbackMethod] Attribute and that’s it. Here’s an example of an CallbackHandler implementation in an ashx.cs based handler:// RestService.ashx.cs public class RestService : CallbackHandler { [CallbackMethod] public StockQuote GetStockQuote(string symbol) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); return server.GetStockQuote(symbol); } [CallbackMethod] public StockQuote[] GetStockQuotes(string symbolList) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); string[] symbols = symbolList.Split(new char[2] { ',',';' },StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); return server.GetStockQuotes(symbols); } } CallbackHandler makes it super easy to create a method on the server, pass data to it via POST, QueryString or raw JSON/XML data, and then retrieve the results easily back in various formats. This works wonderful and I’ve used these tools in many projects for myself and with clients. But one thing missing has been the ability to create clean URLs. Typical URLs looked like this: http://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebToolkit/samples/Rest/StockService.ashx?Method=GetStockQuote&symbol=msfthttp://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebToolkit/samples/Rest/StockService.ashx?Method=GetStockQuotes&symbolList=msft,intc,gld,slw,mwe&format=xml which works and is clear enough, but also clearly very ugly. It would be much nicer if URLs could look like this: http://www.west-wind.com//WestwindWebtoolkit/Samples/StockQuote/msfthttp://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebtoolkit/Samples/StockQuotes/msft,intc,gld,slw?format=xml (the Virtual Root in this sample is WestWindWebToolkit/Samples and StockQuote/{symbol} is the route)(If you use FireFox try using the JSONView plug-in make it easier to view JSON content) So, taking a clue from the WCF REST tools that use RouteUrls I set out to create a way to specify RouteUrls for each of the endpoints. The change made basically allows changing the above to: [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="RestService/StockQuote/{symbol}")] public StockQuote GetStockQuote(string symbol) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); return server.GetStockQuote(symbol); } [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl = "RestService/StockQuotes/{symbolList}")] public StockQuote[] GetStockQuotes(string symbolList) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); string[] symbols = symbolList.Split(new char[2] { ',',';' },StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); return server.GetStockQuotes(symbols); } where a RouteUrl is specified as part of the Callback attribute. And with the changes made with RouteUrls I can now get URLs like the second set shown earlier. So how does that work? Let’s find out… How to Create Custom Routes As mentioned earlier Routing is made up of several steps: Creating a custom RouteHandler to create HttpHandler instances Mapping the actual Routes to the RouteHandler Retrieving the RouteData and actually doing something useful with it in the HttpHandler In the CallbackHandler routing example above this works out to something like this: Create a custom RouteHandler that includes a property to track the method to call Set up the routes using Reflection against the class Looking for any RouteUrls in the CallbackMethod attribute Add a RouteData property to the CallbackHandler so we can access the RouteData in the code of the handler Creating a Custom Route Handler To make the above work I created a custom RouteHandler class that includes the actual IRouteHandler implementation as well as a generic and static method to automatically register all routes marked with the [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="…")] attribute. Here’s the code:/// <summary> /// Route handler that can create instances of CallbackHandler derived /// callback classes. The route handler tracks the method name and /// creates an instance of the service in a predictable manner /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TCallbackHandler">CallbackHandler type</typeparam> public class CallbackHandlerRouteHandler : IRouteHandler { /// <summary> /// Method name that is to be called on this route. /// Set by the automatically generated RegisterRoutes /// invokation. /// </summary> public string MethodName { get; set; } /// <summary> /// The type of the handler we're going to instantiate. /// Needed so we can semi-generically instantiate the /// handler and call the method on it. /// </summary> public Type CallbackHandlerType { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Constructor to pass in the two required components we /// need to create an instance of our handler. /// </summary> /// <param name="methodName"></param> /// <param name="callbackHandlerType"></param> public CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(string methodName, Type callbackHandlerType) { MethodName = methodName; CallbackHandlerType = callbackHandlerType; } /// <summary> /// Retrieves an Http Handler based on the type specified in the constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="requestContext"></param> /// <returns></returns> IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; // If we're dealing with a Callback Handler // pass the RouteData for this route to the Handler if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } /// <summary> /// Generic method to register all routes from a CallbackHandler /// that have RouteUrls defined on the [CallbackMethod] attribute /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TCallbackHandler">CallbackHandler Type</typeparam> /// <param name="routes"></param> public static void RegisterRoutes<TCallbackHandler>(RouteCollection routes) { // find all methods var methods = typeof(TCallbackHandler).GetMethods(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public); foreach (var method in methods) { var attrs = method.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(CallbackMethodAttribute), false); if (attrs.Length < 1) continue; CallbackMethodAttribute attr = attrs[0] as CallbackMethodAttribute; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(attr.RouteUrl)) continue; // Add the route routes.Add(method.Name, new Route(attr.RouteUrl, new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(method.Name, typeof(TCallbackHandler)))); } } } The RouteHandler implements IRouteHandler, and its responsibility via the GetHandler method is to create an HttpHandler based on the route data. When ASP.NET calls GetHandler it passes a requestContext parameter which includes a requestContext.RouteData property. This parameter holds the current request’s route data as well as an instance of the current RouteHandler. If you look at GetHttpHandler() you can see that the code creates an instance of the handler we are interested in and then sets the RouteData property on the handler. This is how you can pass the current request’s RouteData to the handler. The RouteData object also has a  RouteData.RouteHandler property that is also available to the Handler later, which is useful in order to get additional information about the current route. In our case here the RouteHandler includes a MethodName property that identifies the method to execute in the handler since that value no longer comes from the URL so we need to figure out the method name some other way. The method name is mapped explicitly when the RouteHandler is created and here the static method that auto-registers all CallbackMethods with RouteUrls sets the method name when it creates the routes while reflecting over the methods (more on this in a minute). The important point here is that you can attach additional properties to the RouteHandler and you can then later access the RouteHandler and its properties later in the Handler to pick up these custom values. This is a crucial feature in that the RouteHandler serves in passing additional context to the handler so it knows what actions to perform. The automatic route registration is handled by the static RegisterRoutes<TCallbackHandler> method. This method is generic and totally reusable for any CallbackHandler type handler. To register a CallbackHandler and any RouteUrls it has defined you simple use code like this in Application_Start (or other application startup code):protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Register Routes for RestService CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes<RestService>(RouteTable.Routes); } If you have multiple CallbackHandler style services you can make multiple calls to RegisterRoutes for each of the service types. RegisterRoutes internally uses reflection to run through all the methods of the Handler, looking for CallbackMethod attributes and whether a RouteUrl is specified. If it is a new instance of a CallbackHandlerRouteHandler is created and the name of the method and the type are set. routes.Add(method.Name,           new Route(attr.RouteUrl, new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(method.Name, typeof(TCallbackHandler) )) ); While the routing with CallbackHandlerRouteHandler is set up automatically for all methods that use the RouteUrl attribute, you can also use code to hook up those routes manually and skip using the attribute. The code for this is straightforward and just requires that you manually map each individual route to each method you want a routed: protected void Application_Start(objectsender, EventArgs e){    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);}void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.Add("StockQuote Route",new Route("StockQuote/{symbol}",                     new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler("GetStockQuote",typeof(RestService) ) ) );     routes.Add("StockQuotes Route",new Route("StockQuotes/{symbolList}",                     new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler("GetStockQuotes",typeof(RestService) ) ) );}I think it’s clearly easier to have CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes() do this automatically for you based on RouteUrl attributes, but some people have a real aversion to attaching logic via attributes. Just realize that the option to manually create your routes is available as well. Using the RouteData in the Handler A RouteHandler’s responsibility is to create an HttpHandler and as mentioned earlier, natively IHttpHandler doesn’t have any support for RouteData. In order to utilize RouteData in your handler code you have to pass the RouteData to the handler. In my CallbackHandlerRouteHandler when it creates the HttpHandler instance it creates the instance and then assigns the custom RouteData property on the handler:IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; Again this only works if you actually add a RouteData property to your handler explicitly as I did in my CallbackHandler implementation:/// <summary> /// Optionally store RouteData on this handler /// so we can access it internally /// </summary> public RouteData RouteData {get; set; } and the RouteHandler needs to set it when it creates the handler instance. Once you have the route data in your handler you can access Route Keys and Values and also the RouteHandler. Since my RouteHandler has a custom property for the MethodName to retrieve it from within the handler I can do something like this now to retrieve the MethodName (this example is actually not in the handler but target is an instance pass to the processor): // check for Route Data method name if (target is CallbackHandler) { var routeData = ((CallbackHandler)target).RouteData; if (routeData != null) methodToCall = ((CallbackHandlerRouteHandler)routeData.RouteHandler).MethodName; } When I need to access the dynamic values in the route ( symbol in StockQuote/{symbol}) I can retrieve it easily with the Values collection (RouteData.Values["symbol"]). In my CallbackHandler processing logic I’m basically looking for matching parameter names to Route parameters: // look for parameters in the routeif(routeData != null){    string parmString = routeData.Values[parameter.Name] as string;    adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType);} And with that we’ve come full circle. We’ve created a custom RouteHandler() that passes the RouteData to the handler it creates. We’ve registered our routes to use the RouteHandler, and we’ve utilized the route data in our handler. For completeness sake here’s the routine that executes a method call based on the parameters passed in and one of the options is to retrieve the inbound parameters off RouteData (as well as from POST data or QueryString parameters):internal object ExecuteMethod(string method, object target, string[] parameters, CallbackMethodParameterType paramType, ref CallbackMethodAttribute callbackMethodAttribute) { HttpRequest Request = HttpContext.Current.Request; object Result = null; // Stores parsed parameters (from string JSON or QUeryString Values) object[] adjustedParms = null; Type PageType = target.GetType(); MethodInfo MI = PageType.GetMethod(method, BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic); if (MI == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("Invalid Server Method."); object[] methods = MI.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(CallbackMethodAttribute), false); if (methods.Length < 1) throw new InvalidOperationException("Server method is not accessible due to missing CallbackMethod attribute"); if (callbackMethodAttribute != null) callbackMethodAttribute = methods[0] as CallbackMethodAttribute; ParameterInfo[] parms = MI.GetParameters(); JSONSerializer serializer = new JSONSerializer(); RouteData routeData = null; if (target is CallbackHandler) routeData = ((CallbackHandler)target).RouteData; int parmCounter = 0; adjustedParms = new object[parms.Length]; foreach (ParameterInfo parameter in parms) { // Retrieve parameters out of QueryString or POST buffer if (parameters == null) { // look for parameters in the route if (routeData != null) { string parmString = routeData.Values[parameter.Name] as string; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType); } // GET parameter are parsed as plain string values - no JSON encoding else if (HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "GET") { // Look up the parameter by name string parmString = Request.QueryString[parameter.Name]; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType); } // POST parameters are treated as methodParameters that are JSON encoded else if (paramType == CallbackMethodParameterType.Json) //string newVariable = methodParameters.GetValue(parmCounter) as string; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = serializer.Deserialize(Request.Params["parm" + (parmCounter + 1).ToString()], parameter.ParameterType); else adjustedParms[parmCounter] = SerializationUtils.DeSerializeObject( Request.Params["parm" + (parmCounter + 1).ToString()], parameter.ParameterType); } else if (paramType == CallbackMethodParameterType.Json) adjustedParms[parmCounter] = serializer.Deserialize(parameters[parmCounter], parameter.ParameterType); else adjustedParms[parmCounter] = SerializationUtils.DeSerializeObject(parameters[parmCounter], parameter.ParameterType); parmCounter++; } Result = MI.Invoke(target, adjustedParms); return Result; } The code basically uses Reflection to loop through all the parameters available on the method and tries to assign the parameters from RouteData, QueryString or POST variables. The parameters are converted into their appropriate types and then used to eventually make a Reflection based method call. What’s sweet is that the RouteData retrieval is just another option for dealing with the inbound data in this scenario and it adds exactly two lines of code plus the code to retrieve the MethodName I showed previously – a seriously low impact addition that adds a lot of extra value to this endpoint callback processing implementation. Debugging your Routes If you create a lot of routes it’s easy to run into Route conflicts where multiple routes have the same path and overlap with each other. This can be difficult to debug especially if you are using automatically generated routes like the routes created by CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes. Luckily there’s a tool that can help you out with this nicely. Phill Haack created a RouteDebugging tool you can download and add to your project. The easiest way to do this is to grab and add this to your project is to use NuGet (Add Library Package from your Project’s Reference Nodes):   which adds a RouteDebug assembly to your project. Once installed you can easily debug your routes with this simple line of code which needs to be installed at application startup:protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes<StockService>(RouteTable.Routes); // Debug your routes RouteDebug.RouteDebugger.RewriteRoutesForTesting(RouteTable.Routes); } Any routed URL then displays something like this: The screen shows you your current route data and all the routes that are mapped along with a flag that displays which route was actually matched. This is useful – if you have any overlap of routes you will be able to see which routes are triggered – the first one in the sequence wins. This tool has saved my ass on a few occasions – and with NuGet now it’s easy to add it to your project in a few seconds and then remove it when you’re done. Routing Around Custom routing seems slightly complicated on first blush due to its disconnected components of RouteHandler, route registration and mapping of custom handlers. But once you understand the relationship between a RouteHandler, the RouteData and how to pass it to a handler, utilizing of Routing becomes a lot easier as you can easily pass context from the registration to the RouteHandler and through to the HttpHandler. The most important thing to understand when building custom routing solutions is to figure out how to map URLs in such a way that the handler can figure out all the pieces it needs to process the request. This can be via URL routing parameters and as I did in my example by passing additional context information as part of the RouteHandler instance that provides the proper execution context. In my case this ‘context’ was the method name, but it could be an actual static value like an enum identifying an operation or category in an application. Basically user supplied data comes in through the url and static application internal data can be passed via RouteHandler property values. Routing can make your application URLs easier to read by non-techie types regardless of whether you’re building Service type or REST applications, or full on Web interfaces. Routing in ASP.NET 4.0 makes it possible to create just about any extensionless URLs you can dream up and custom RouteHanmdler References Sample ProjectIncludes the sample CallbackHandler service discussed here along with compiled versionsof the Westwind.Web and Westwind.Utilities assemblies.  (requires .NET 4.0/VS 2010) West Wind Web Toolkit includes full implementation of CallbackHandler and the Routing Handler West Wind Web Toolkit Source CodeContains the full source code to the Westwind.Web and Westwind.Utilities assemblies usedin these samples. Includes the source described in the post.(Latest build in the Subversion Repository) CallbackHandler Source(Relevant code to this article tree in Westwind.Web assembly) JSONView FireFoxPluginA simple FireFox Plugin to easily view JSON data natively in FireFox.For IE you can use a registry hack to display JSON as raw text.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  AJAX  HTTP  

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• Backup a hosted Sharepoint

  - by David Mackintosh

  One of my customers has outsourced their Sharepoint and Exchange services to a hosted services provider. I believe it is a Sharepoint 2007 service. It is a shared hosting solution, so we do not have any kind of access to the server itself; we only have user-level and sharepoint-administrator-level access to the Sharepoint application. They have come to the point where they would like to have a copy of everything that is on the Sharepoint server. I have downloaded the Office Sharepoint Designer 2007, and it features three (!) ways to backup a Sharepoint server, none (!) of which work for me: File-Export-Personal Web Package: When selecting everything, it calculates a negative size. Barfs with No "content-type" in CGI environment error. File-Export-Sharepoint Template: barfs with a A World Wide Web browser, such as Windows Internet Explorer, is required to use this feature error. Site-Administration-Backup Web Site: wants to create the backup .cmp file on the sharepoint server itself. I don't have access to any servers on the same network so I can't redirect it to any form of the suggested \\server\place. Barfs with a The Web application at $URL could not be found. [...] error. Possibly moot because Google tells me that bad things happen using OSD to back up sites larger than 24MB (which this site is most definitely). So I called the helpdesk of the outsource provider, and got told that they recommend using OSD, but no they don't actually provide any application support for OSD (not that I blame them for that), but they could do a stsadm.exe backup and provide us with that, and OSD should be able to read the resulting cmp file. Then for authorization reasons they had my customer call them directly (since I can't authorize such an operation), and they told him that he didn't want a stsadm.exe backup, he wanted to get into an 'explorer view' and deal with things that way (they were vague). Google hasn't been much help in figuring out what an 'explorer view' is, let alone how I bring one up. The end goal of this operation is to have a backup of the site as it exists (hopefully today, but shortly anyways) in such a format that we don't need another sharepoint server to restore it to. Ie we'd like to be able to pick individual content directly out of this backup. We are not excessively concerned with things like formatting. We just want the documents. This is a fairly complex site with multiple subsites and multiple folders per subsite, so sitting there and manually downloading each file isn't really going to happen if there is a better easier way. So, my questions: Is the stsadm.exe backup what I want? If not, what do I want? If I manage to convince them that I do want the stsadm.exe backup, can I pick files out of the resulting backup file with OSD? If OSD isn't going to let me extract individual files, is there a tool I can use that can?

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• Log transport and aggregation at scale

  - by markdrayton

  How're you analysing log files from UNIX/Linux machines? We run several hundred servers which all generate their own log files, either directly or through syslog. I'm looking for a decent solution to aggregate these and pick out important events. This problem breaks down into 3 components: 1) Message transport The classic way is to use syslog to log messages to a remote host. This works fine for applications that log into syslog but less useful for apps that write to a local file. Solutions for this might include having the application log into a FIFO connected to a program to send the message using syslog, or by writing something that will grep the local files and send the output to the central syslog host. However, if we go to the trouble of writing tools to get messages into syslog would we be better replacing the whole lot with something like Facebook's Scribe which offers more flexibility and reliability than syslog? 2) Message aggregation Log entries seem to fall into one of two types: per-host and per-service. Per-host messages are those which occur on one machine; think disk failures or suspicious logins. Per-service messages occur on most or all of the hosts running a service. For instance, we want to know when Apache finds an SSI error but we don't want the same error from 100 machines. In all cases we only want to see one of each type of message: we don't want 10 messages saying the same disk has failed, and we don't want a message each time a broken SSI is hit. One approach to solving this is to aggregate multiple messages of the same type into one on each host, send the messages to a central server and then aggregate messages of the same kind into one overall event. SER can do this but it's awkward to use. Even after a couple of days of fiddling I had only rudimentary aggregations working and had to constantly look up the logic SER uses to correlate events. It's powerful but tricky stuff: I need something which my colleagues can pick up and use in the shortest possible time. SER rules don't meet that requirement. 3) Generating alerts How do we tell our admins when something interesting happens? Mail the group inbox? Inject into Nagios? So, how're you solving this problem? I don't expect an answer on a plate; I can work out the details myself but some high-level discussion on what is surely a common problem would be great. At the moment we're using a mishmash of cron jobs, syslog and who knows what else to find events. This isn't extensible, maintainable or flexible and as such we miss a lot of stuff we shouldn't. Updated: we're already using Nagios for monitoring which is great for detected down hosts/testing services/etc but less useful for scraping log files. I know there are log plugins for Nagios but I'm interested in something more scalable and hierarchical than per-host alerts.

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• Top 10 Reasons SQL Developer is Perfect for Oracle Beginners

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Learning new technologies can be daunting. If you’ve never used a Mac before, you’ll probably be a bit baffled at first. But, you’re probably at least coming from a desktop computing background (Windows), so you common frame of reference. But what if you’re just now learning to use a relational database? Yes, you’ve played with Access a bit, but now your employer or college instructor has charged you with becoming proficient with Oracle database. Here’s 10 reasons why I think Oracle SQL Developer is the perfect vehicle to help get you started. 1. It’s free No need to break into one of these… No start-up costs, no need to wrangle budget dollars from your company. Students don’t have any money after books and lab fees anyway. And most employees don’t like having to ask for ‘special’ software anyway. So avoid all of that and make sure the free stuff doesn’t suit your needs first. Upgrades are available on a regular base, also at no cost, and support is freely available via our public forums. 2. It will run pretty much anywhere Windows – check. OSX (Apple) – check. Unix – check. Linux – check. No need to start up a windows VM to run your Windows-only software in your lab machine. 3. Anyone can install it There’s no installer, no registry to be updated, no admin privs to be obtained. If you can download and extract files to your machine or USB storage device, you can run it. You can be up and running with SQL Developer in under 5 minutes. Here’s a video tutorial to see how to get started. 4. It’s ubiquitous I admit it, I learned a new word yesterday and I wanted an excuse to use it. SQL Developer’s everywhere. It’s had over 2,500,000 downloads in the past year, and is the one of the most downloaded items from OTN. This means if you need help, there’s someone sitting nearby you that can assist, and since they’re in the same tool as you, they’ll be speaking the same language. 5. Simple User Interface Up-up-down-down-Left-right-left-right-A-B-A-B-START will get you 30 lives, but you already knew that, right? You connect, you see your objects, you click on your objects. Or, you can use the worksheet to write your queries and programs in. There’s only one toolbar, and just a few buttons. If you’re like me, video games became less fun when each button had 6 action items mapped to it. I just want the good ole ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘SELECT’, and ‘START’ controls. If you’re new to Oracle, you shouldn’t have the double-workload of learning a new complicated tool as well. 6. It’s not a ‘black box’ Click through your objects, but also get the SQL that drives the GUI As you use the wizards to accomplish tasks for you, you can view the SQL statement being generated on your behalf. Just because you have a GUI, doesn’t mean you’re ceding your responsibility to learn the underlying code that makes the database work. 7. It’s four tools in one It’s not just a query tool. Maybe you need to design a data model first? Or maybe you need to migrate your Sybase ASE database to Oracle for a new project? Or maybe you need to create some reports? SQL Developer does all of that. So once you get comfortable with one part of the tool, the others will be much easier to pick up as your needs change. 8. Great learning resources available Videos, blogs, hands-on learning labs – you name it, we got it. Why wait for someone to train you, when you can train yourself at your own pace? 9. You can use it to teach yourself SQL Instead of being faced with the white-screen-of-panic, you can visually build your queries by dragging and dropping tables and views into the Query Builder. Yes, ‘just like Access’ – only better. And as you build your query, toggle to the Worksheet panel and see the SQL statement. Again, SQL Developer is not a black box. If you prefer to learn by trial and error, the worksheet will attempt to suggest the next bit of your SQL statement with it’s completion insight feature. And if you have syntax errors, those will be highlighted – just like your misspelled words in your favorite word processor. 10. It scales to match your experience level You won’t be a n00b forever. In 6-8 months, when you’re ready to tackle something a bit more complicated, like XML DB or Oracle Spatial, the tool is already there waiting on you. No need to go out and find the ‘advanced’ tool. 11. Wait, you said this was a ‘Top 10′ list? Yes. Yes, I did. I’m using this ‘trick’ to get you to continue reading because I’m going to say something you might not want to hear. Are you ready? Tools won’t replace experience, failure, hard work, and training. Just because you have the keys to the car, doesn’t mean you’re ready to head out on the race track. While SQL Developer reduces the barriers to entry, it does not completely remove them. Many experienced folks simply do not like tools. Rather, they don’t like the people that pick up tools without the know-how to properly use them. If you don’t understand what ‘TRUNCATE’ means, don’t try it out. Try picking up a book first. Of course, it’s very nice to have your own sandbox to play in, so you don’t upset the other children. That’s why I really like our Dev Days Database Virtual Box image. It’s your own database to learn and experiment with.

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• SSIS Lookup component tuning tips

  - by jamiet

  Yesterday evening I attended a London meeting of the UK SQL Server User Group at Microsoft’s offices in London Victoria. As usual it was both a fun and informative evening and in particular there seemed to be a few questions arising about tuning the SSIS Lookup component; I rattled off some comments and figured it would be prudent to drop some of them into a dedicated blog post, hence the one you are reading right now. Scene setting A popular pattern in SSIS is to use a Lookup component to determine whether a record in the pipeline already exists in the intended destination table or not and I cover this pattern in my 2006 blog post Checking if a row exists and if it does, has it changed? (note to self: must rewrite that blog post for SSIS2008). Fundamentally the SSIS lookup component (when using FullCache option) sucks some data out of a database and holds it in memory so that it can be compared to data in the pipeline. One of the big benefits of using SSIS dataflows is that they process data one buffer at a time; that means that not all of the data from your source exists in the dataflow at the same time and is why a SSIS dataflow can process data volumes that far exceed the available memory. However, that only applies to data in the pipeline; for reasons that are hopefully obvious ALL of the data in the lookup set must exist in the memory cache for the duration of the dataflow’s execution which means that any memory used by the lookup cache will not be available to be used as a pipeline buffer. Moreover, there’s an obvious correlation between the amount of data in the lookup cache and the time it takes to charge that cache; the more data you have then the longer it will take to charge and the longer you have to wait until the dataflow actually starts to do anything. For these reasons your goal is simple: ensure that the lookup cache contains as little data as possible. General tips Here is a simple tick list you can follow in order to tune your lookups: Use a SQL statement to charge your cache, don’t just pick a table from the dropdown list made available to you. (Read why in SELECT *... or select from a dropdown in an OLE DB Source component?) Only pick the columns that you need, ignore everything else Make the database columns that your cache is populated from as narrow as possible. If a column is defined as VARCHAR(20) then SSIS will allocate 20 bytes for every value in that column – that is a big waste if the actual values are significantly less than 20 characters in length. Do you need DT_WSTR typed columns or will DT_STR suffice? DT_WSTR uses twice the amount of space to hold values that can be stored using a DT_STR so if you can use DT_STR, consider doing so. Same principle goes for the numerical datatypes DT_I2/DT_I4/DT_I8. Only populate the cache with data that you KNOW you will need. In other words, think about your WHERE clause! Thinking outside the box It is tempting to build a large monolithic dataflow that does many things, one of which is a Lookup. Often though you can make better use of your available resources by, well, mixing things up a little and here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing: There is no rule that says everything has to happen in a single dataflow. If you have some particularly resource intensive lookups then consider putting that lookup into a dataflow all of its own and using raw files to pass the pipeline data in and out of that dataflow. Know your data. If you think, for example, that the majority of your incoming rows will match with only a small subset of your lookup data then consider chaining multiple lookup components together; the first would use a FullCache containing that data subset and the remaining data that doesn’t find a match could be passed to a second lookup that perhaps uses a NoCache lookup thus negating the need to pull all of that least-used lookup data into memory. Do you need to process all of your incoming data all at once? If you can process different partitions of your data separately then you can partition your lookup cache as well. For example, if you are using a lookup to convert a location into a [LocationId] then why not process your data one region at a time? This will mean your lookup cache only has to contain data for the location that you are currently processing and with the ability of the Lookup in SSIS2008 and beyond to charge the cache using a dynamically built SQL statement you’ll be able to achieve it using the same dataflow and simply loop over it using a ForEach loop. Taking the previous data partitioning idea further … a dataflow can contain more than one data path so why not split your data using a conditional split component and, again, charge your lookup caches with only the data that they need for that partition. Lookups have two uses: to (1) find a matching row from the lookup set and (2) put attributes from that matching row into the pipeline. Ask yourself, do you need to do these two things at the same time? After all once you have the key column(s) from your lookup set then you can use that key to get the rest of attributes further downstream, perhaps even in another dataflow. Are you using the same lookup data set multiple times? If so, consider the file caching option in SSIS 2008 and beyond. Above all, experiment and be creative with different combinations. You may be surprised at what works. Final  thoughts If you want to know more about how the Lookup component differs in SSIS2008 from SSIS2005 then I have a dedicated blog post about that at Lookup component gets a makeover. I am on a mini-crusade at the moment to get a BULK MERGE feature into the database engine, the thinking being that if the database engine can quickly merge massive amounts of data in a similar manner to how it can insert massive amounts using BULK INSERT then that’s a lot of work that wouldn’t have to be done in the SSIS pipeline. If you think that is a good idea then go and vote for BULK MERGE on Connect. If you have any other tips to share then please stick them in the comments. Hope this helps! @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Refreshing Your PC Won’t Help: Why Bloatware is Still a Problem on Windows 8

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Bloatware is still a big problem on new Windows 8 and 8.1 PCs. Some websites will tell you that you can easily get rid of manufacturer-installed bloatware with Windows 8′s Reset feature, but they’re generally wrong. This junk software often turns the process of powering on your new PC from what could be a delightful experience into a tedious slog, forcing you to spend hours cleaning up your new PC before you can enjoy it. Why Refreshing Your PC (Probably) Won’t Help Manufacturers install software along with Windows on their new PCs. In addition to hardware drivers that allow the PC’s hardware to work properly, they install more questionable things like trial antivirus software and other nagware. Much of this software runs at boot, cluttering the system tray and slowing down boot times, often dramatically. Software companies pay computer manufacturers to include this stuff. It’s installed to make the PC manufacturer money at the cost of making the Windows computer worse for actual users. Windows 8 includes “Refresh Your PC” and “Reset Your PC” features that allow Windows users to quickly get their computers back to a fresh state. It’s essentially a quick, streamlined way of reinstalling Windows.  If you install Windows 8 or 8.1 yourself, the Refresh operation will give your PC a clean Windows system without any additional third-party software. However, Microsoft allows computer manufacturers to customize their Refresh images. In other words, most computer manufacturers will build their drivers, bloatware, and other system customizations into the Refresh image. When you Refresh your computer, you’ll just get back to the factory-provided system complete with bloatware. It’s possible that some computer manufacturers aren’t building bloatware into their refresh images in this way. It’s also possible that, when Windows 8 came out, some computer manufacturer didn’t realize they could do this and that refreshing a new PC would strip the bloatware. However, on most Windows 8 and 8.1 PCs, you’ll probably see bloatware come back when you refresh your PC. It’s easy to understand how PC manufacturers do this. You can create your own Refresh images on Windows 8 and 8.1 with just a simple command, replacing Microsoft’s image with a customized one. Manufacturers can install their own refresh images in the same way. Microsoft doesn’t lock down the Refresh feature. Desktop Bloatware is Still Around, Even on Tablets! Not only is typical Windows desktop bloatware not gone, it has tagged along with Windows as it moves to new form factors. Every Windows tablet currently on the market — aside from Microsoft’s own Surface and Surface 2 tablets — runs on a standard Intel x86 chip. This means that every Windows 8 and 8.1 tablet you see in stores has a full desktop with the capability to run desktop software. Even if that tablet doesn’t come with a keyboard, it’s likely that the manufacturer has preinstalled bloatware on the tablet’s desktop. Yes, that means that your Windows tablet will be slower to boot and have less memory because junk and nagging software will be on its desktop and in its system tray. Microsoft considers tablets to be PCs, and PC manufacturers love installing their bloatware. If you pick up a Windows tablet, don’t be surprised if you have to deal with desktop bloatware on it. Microsoft Surfaces and Signature PCs Microsoft is now selling their own Surface PCs that they built themselves — they’re now a “devices and services” company after all, not a software company. One of the nice things about Microsoft’s Surface PCs is that they’re free of the typical bloatware. Microsoft won’t take money from Norton to include nagging software that worsens the experience. If you pick up a Surface device that provides Windows 8.1 and 8 as Microsoft intended it — or install a fresh Windows 8.1 or 8 system — you won’t see any bloatware. Microsoft is also continuing their Signature program. New PCs purchased from Microsoft’s official stores are considered “Signature PCs” and don’t have the typical bloatware. For example, the same laptop could be full of bloatware in a traditional computer store and clean, without the nasty bloatware when purchased from a Microsoft Store. Microsoft will also continue to charge you $99 if you want them to remove your computer’s bloatware for you — that’s the more questionable part of the Signature program. Windows 8 App Bloatware is an Improvement There’s a new type of bloatware on new Windows 8 systems, which is thankfully less harmful. This is bloatware in the form of included “Windows 8-style”, “Store-style”, or “Modern” apps in the new, tiled interface. For example, Amazon may pay a computer manufacturer to include the Amazon Kindle app from the Windows Store. (The manufacturer may also just receive a cut of book sales for including it. We’re not sure how the revenue sharing works — but it’s clear PC manufacturers are getting money from Amazon.) The manufacturer will then install the Amazon Kindle app from the Windows Store by default. This included software is technically some amount of clutter, but it doesn’t cause the problems older types of bloatware does. It won’t automatically load and delay your computer’s startup process, clutter your system tray, or take up memory while you’re using your computer. For this reason, a shift to including new-style apps as bloatware is a definite improvement over older styles of bloatware. Unfortunately, this type of bloatware has not replaced traditional desktop bloatware, and new Windows PCs will generally have both. Windows RT is Immune to Typical Bloatware, But… Microsoft’s Windows RT can’t run Microsoft desktop software, so it’s immune to traditional bloatware. Just as you can’t install your own desktop programs on it, the Windows RT device’s manufacturer can’t install their own desktop bloatware. While Windows RT could be an antidote to bloatware, this advantage comes at the cost of being able to install any type of desktop software at all. Windows RT has also seemingly failed — while a variety of manufacturers came out with their own Windows RT devices when Windows 8 was first released, they’ve all since been withdrawn from the market. Manufacturers who created Windows RT devices have criticized it in the media and stated they have no plans to produce any future Windows RT devices. The only Windows RT devices still on the market are Microsoft’s Surface (originally named Surface RT) and Surface 2. Nokia is also coming out with their own Windows RT tablet, but they’re in the process of being purchased by Microsoft. In other words, Windows RT just isn’t a factor when it comes to bloatware — you wouldn’t get a Windows RT device unless you purchased a Surface, but those wouldn’t come with bloatware anyway. Removing Bloatware or Reinstalling Windows 8.1 While bloatware is still a problem on new Windows systems and the Refresh option probably won’t help you, you can still eliminate bloatware in the traditional way. Bloatware can be uninstalled from the Windows Control Panel or with a dedicated removal tool like PC Decrapifier, which tries to automatically uninstall the junk for you. You can also do what Windows geeks have always tended to do with new computers — reinstall Windows 8 or 8.1 from scratch with installation media from Microsoft. You’ll get a clean Windows system and you can install only the hardware drivers and other software you need. Unfortunately, bloatware is still a big problem for Windows PCs. Windows 8 tries to do some things to address bloatware, but it ultimately comes up short. Most Windows PCs sold in most stores to most people will still have the typical bloatware slowing down the boot process, wasting memory, and adding clutter. Image Credit: LG on Flickr, Intel Free Press on Flickr, Wilson Hui on Flickr, Intel Free Press on Flickr, Vernon Chan on Flickr     

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• Using the HTML5 &lt;input type=&quot;file&quot; multiple=&quot;multiple&quot;&gt; Tag in ASP.NET

  - by Rick Strahl

  Per HTML5 spec the <input type="file" /> tag allows for multiple files to be picked from a single File upload button. This is actually a very subtle change that's very useful as it makes it much easier to send multiple files to the server without using complex uploader controls. Please understand though, that even though you can send multiple files using the <input type="file" /> tag, the process of how those files are sent hasn't really changed - there's still no progress information or other hooks that allow you to automatically make for a nicer upload experience without additional libraries or code. For that you will still need some sort of library (I'll post an example in my next blog post using plUpload). All the new features allow for is to make it easier to select multiple images from disk in one operation. Where you might have required many file upload controls before to upload several files, one File control can potentially do the job. How it works To create a file input box that allows with multiple file support you can simply do:<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"> <label>Upload Images:</label> <input type="file" multiple="multiple" name="File1" id="File1" accept="image/*" /> <hr /> <input type="submit" id="btnUpload" value="Upload Images" /> </form> Now when the file open dialog pops up - depending on the browser and whether the browser supports it - you can pick multiple files. Here I'm using Firefox using the thumbnail preview I can easily pick images to upload on a form: Note that I can select multiple images in the dialog all of which get stored in the file textbox. The UI for this can be different in some browsers. For example Chrome displays 3 files selected as text next to the Browse… button when I choose three rather than showing any files in the textbox. Most other browsers display the standard file input box and display the multiple filenames as a comma delimited list in the textbox. Note that you can also specify the accept attribute in the <input> tag, which specifies a mime-type to specify what type of content to allow.Here I'm only allowing images (image/*) and the browser complies by just showing me image files to display. Likewise I could use text/* for all text formats registered on the machine or text/xml to only show XML files (which would include xml,xst,xsd etc.). Capturing Files on the Server with ASP.NET When you upload files to an ASP.NET server there are a couple of things to be aware of. When multiple files are uploaded from a single file control, they are assigned the same name. In other words if I select 3 files to upload on the File1 control shown above I get three file form variables named File1. This means I can't easily retrieve files by their name:HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files["File1"]; because there will be multiple files for a given name. The above only selects the first file. Instead you can only reliably retrieve files by their index. Below is an example I use in app to capture a number of images uploaded and store them into a database using a business object and EF 4.2.for (int i = 0; i < Request.Files.Count; i++) { HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files[i]; if (file.ContentLength == 0) continue; if (file.ContentLength > App.Configuration.MaxImageUploadSize) { ErrorDisplay.ShowError("File " + file.FileName + " is too large. Max upload size is: " + App.Configuration.MaxImageUploadSize); return View("UploadClassic",model); } var image = new ClassifiedsBusiness.Image(); var ms = new MemoryStream(16498); file.InputStream.CopyTo(ms); image.Entered = DateTime.Now; image.EntryId = model.Entry.Id; image.ContentType = "image/jpeg"; image.ImageData = ms.ToArray(); ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); // resize image if necessary and turn into jpeg Bitmap bmp = Imaging.ResizeImage(ms.ToArray(), App.Configuration.MaxImageWidth, App.Configuration.MaxImageHeight); ms.Close(); ms = new MemoryStream(); bmp.Save(ms,ImageFormat.Jpeg); image.ImageData = ms.ToArray(); bmp.Dispose(); ms.Close(); model.Entry.Images.Add(image); } This works great and also allows you to capture input from multiple input controls if you are dealing with browsers that don't support multiple file selections in the file upload control. The important thing here is that I iterate over the files by index, rather than using a foreach loop over the Request.Files collection. The files collection returns key name strings, rather than the actual files (who thought that was good idea at Microsoft?), and so that isn't going to work since you end up getting multiple keys with the same name. Instead a plain for loop has to be used to loop over all files. Another Option in ASP.NET MVC If you're using ASP.NET MVC you can use the code above as well, but you have yet another option to capture multiple uploaded files by using a parameter for your post action method.public ActionResult Save(HttpPostedFileBase[] file1) { foreach (var file in file1) { if (file.ContentLength < 0) continue; // do something with the file }} Note that in order for this to work you have to specify each posted file variable individually in the parameter list. This works great if you have a single file upload to deal with. You can also pass this in addition to your main model to separate out a ViewModel and a set of uploaded files:public ActionResult Edit(EntryViewModel model,HttpPostedFileBase[] uploadedFile) You can also make the uploaded files part of the ViewModel itself - just make sure you use the appropriate naming for the variable name in the HTML document (since there's Html.FileFor() extension). Browser Support You knew this was coming, right? The feature is really nice, but unfortunately not supported universally yet. Once again Internet Explorer is the problem: No shipping version of Internet Explorer supports multiple file uploads. IE10 supposedly will, but even IE9 does not. All other major browsers - Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera - support multi-file uploads in their latest versions. So how can you handle this? If you need to provide multiple file uploads you can simply add multiple file selection boxes and let people either select multiple files with a single upload file box or use multiples. Alternately you can do some browser detection and if IE is used simply show the extra file upload boxes. It's not ideal, but either one of these approaches makes life easier for folks that use a decent browser and leaves you with a functional interface for those that don't. Here's a UI I recently built as an alternate uploader with multiple file upload buttons: I say this is my 'alternate' uploader - for my primary uploader I continue to use an add-in solution. Specifically I use plUpload and I'll discuss how that's implemented in my next post. Although I think that plUpload (and many of the other packaged JavaScript upload solutions) are a better choice especially for large uploads, for simple one file uploads input boxes work well enough. The advantage of this solution is that it's very easy to handle on the server side. Any of the JavaScript controls require special handling for uploads which I'll also discuss in my next post.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in HTML5  ASP.NET  MVC   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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• Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.”  (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.     

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• Database continuous integration step by step

  - by David Atkinson

  This post will describe how to set up basic database continuous integration using TeamCity to initiate the build process, SQL Source Control to put your database under source control, and the SQL Compare command line to keep a test database up to date. In my example I will be using Subversion as my source control repository. If you wish to follow my steps verbatim, please make sure you have TortoiseSVN, SQL Compare and SQL Source Control installed. Downloading and Installing TeamCity TeamCity (http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/index.html) is free for up to three agents, so it a great no-risk tool you can use to experiment with. 1. Download the latest version from the JetBrains website. For some reason the TeamCity executable didn't download properly for me, stalling frustratingly at 99%, so I tried again with the zip file download option (see screenshot below), which worked flawlessly. 2. Run the installer using the defaults. This results in a set-up with the server component and agent installed on the same machine, which is ideal for getting started with ease. 3. Check that the build agent is pointing to the server correctly. This has caught me out a few times before. This setting is in C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\conf\buildAgent.properties and for my installation is serverUrl=http\://localhost\:80 . If you need to change this value, if for example you've had to install the Server console to a different port number, the TeamCity Build Agent Service will need to be restarted for the change to take effect. 4. Open the TeamCity admin console on http://localhost , and specify your own designated username and password at first startup. Putting your database in source control using SQL Source Control 5. Assuming you've got SQL Source Control installed, select a development database in the SQL Server Management Studio Object Explorer and select Link Database to Source Control. 6. For the Link step you can either create your own empty folder in source control, or you can select Just Evaluating, which just creates a local subversion repository for you behind the scenes. 7. Once linked, note that your database turns green in the Object Explorer. Visit the Commit tab to do an initial commit of your database objects by typing in an appropriate comment and clicking Commit. 8. There is a hidden feature in SQL Source Control that opens up TortoiseSVN (provided it is installed) pointing to the linked repository. Keep Shift depressed and right click on the text to the right of 'Linked to', in the example below, it's the red Evaluation Repository text. Select Open TortoiseSVN Repo Browser. This screen should give you an idea of how SQL Source Control manages the object files behind the scenes. Back in the TeamCity admin console, we'll now create a new project to monitor the above repository location and to trigger a 'build' each time the repository changes. 9. In TeamCity Adminstration, select Create Project and give it a name, such as "My first database CI", and click Create. 10. Click on Create Build Configuration, and name it something like "Integration build". 11. Click VCS settings and then Create And Attach new VCS root. This is where you will tell TeamCity about the repository it should monitor. 12. In my case since I'm using the Just Evaluating option in SQL Source Control, I should select Subversion. 13. In the URL field paste your repository location. In my case this is file:///C:/Users/David.Atkinson/AppData/Local/Red Gate/SQL Source Control 3/EvaluationRepositories/WidgetDevelopment/WidgetDevelopment 14. Click on Test Connection to ensure that you can communicate with your source control system. Click Save. 15. Click Add Build Step, and Runner Type: Command Line. Should you be familiar with the other runner types, such as NAnt, MSBuild or Powershell, you can opt for these, but for the same of keeping it simple I will pick the simplest option. 16. If you have installed SQL Compare in the default location, set the Command Executable field to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Red Gate\SQL Compare 10\sqlcompare.exe 17. Flip back to SSMS briefly and add a new database to your server. This will be the database used for continuous integration testing. 18. Set the command parameters according to your server and the name of the database you have created. In my case I created database RedGateCI on server .\sql2008r2 /scripts1:. /server2:.\sql2008r2 /db2:RedGateCI /sync /verbose Note that if you pick a server instance that isn't on your local machine, you'll need the TCP/IP protocol enabled in SQL Server Configuration Manager otherwise the SQL Compare command line will not be able to connect. 19. Save and select Build Triggering / Add New Trigger / VCS Trigger. This is where you tell TeamCity when it should initiate a build. Click Save. 20. Now return to SQL Server Management Studio and make a schema change (eg add a new object) to your linked development database. A blue indicator will appear in the Object Explorer. Commit this change, typing in an appropriate check-in comment. All being good, within 60 seconds (a TeamCity default that can be changed) a build will be triggered. 21. Click on Projects in TeamCity to get back to the overview screen: The build log will show you the console output, which is useful for troubleshooting any issues: That's it! You now have continuous integration on your database. In future posts I'll cover how you can generate and test the database creation script, the database upgrade script, and run database unit tests as part of your continuous integration script. If you have any trouble getting this up and running please let me know, either by commenting on this post, or email me directly using the email address below. Technorati Tags: SQL Server

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• How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  You might think that it’s a complicated process to remove objects from photographs. But really Photoshop makes it quite simple, even when removing all traces of a person from digital photographs. Read on to see just how easy it is. Photoshop was originally created to be an image editing program, and it excels at it. With hardly any Photoshop experience, any beginner can begin removing objects or people from their photos. Have some friends that photobombed an otherwise great pic? Tell them to say their farewells, because here’s how to get rid of them with Photoshop! Tools for Removing Objects Removing an object is not really “magical” work. Your goal is basically to cover up the information you don’t want in an image with information you do want. In this sample image, we want to remove the cigar smoking man, and leave the geisha. Here’s a couple of the tools that can be useful to work with when attempting this kind of task. Clone Stamp and Pattern Stamp Tool: Samples parts of your image from your background, and allows you to paint into your image with your mouse or stylus. Eraser and Brush Tools: Paint flat colors and shapes, and erase cloned layers of image information. Basic, down and dirty photo editing tools. Pen, Quick Selection, Lasso, and Crop tools: Select, isolate, and remove parts of your image with these selection tools. All useful in their own way. Some, like the pen tool, are nightmarishly tough on beginners. Remove a Person with the Clone Stamp Tool (Video) The video above uses the Clone Stamp tool to sample and paint with the background texture. It’s a simple tool to use, although it can be confusing, possibly counter-intuitive. Here’s some pointers, in addition to the video above. Select shortcut key to choose the Clone tool stamp from the Tools Panel. Always create a copy of your background layer before doing heavy edits by right clicking on the background in your Layers Panel and selecting “Duplicate.” Hold with the Clone Tool selected, and click anywhere in your image to sample that area. When you’re sampling an area, your cursor is “Aligned” with your sample area. When you paint, your sample area moves. You can turn the “Aligned” setting off by clicking the in the Options Panel at the top of your screen if you want. Change your brush size and hardness as shown in the video by right-clicking in your image. Use your lasso to copy and paste pieces of your image in order to cover up any parts that seem appropriate. Photoshop Magic with the “Content-Aware Fill” One of the hallmark features of CS5 is the “Content-Aware Fill.” Content aware fill can be an excellent shortcut to removing objects and even people in Photoshop, but it is somewhat limited, and can get confused. Here’s a basic rundown on how it works. Select an object using your Lasso tool, shortcut key . The Lasso works fine as this selection can be rough. Navigate to Edit > Fill, and select “Content-Aware,” as illustrated above, from the pull-down menu. It’s surprisingly simple. After some processing, Photoshop has done the work of removing the object for you. It takes a few moments, and it is not perfect, so be prepared to touch it up with some Copy-Paste, or some Clone stamp action. Content Aware Fill Has Its Limits Keep in mind that the Content Aware Fill is meant to be used with other techniques in mind. It doesn’t always perform perfectly, but can give you a great starting point. Take this image for instance. It is actually plausible to hide this figure and make this image look like he was never there at all. With a selection made with the Lasso tool, navigate to Edit > Fill and select “Content Aware” again. The result is surprisingly good, but as you can see, worthy of some touch up. With a result like this one, you’ll have to get your hands dirty with copy-paste to create believable lines in the background. With many photographs, Content Aware Fill will simply get confused and give you results you won’t be happy with. Additional Touch Up for Bad Background Textures with the Pattern Stamp Tool For the perfectionist, cleaning up the lumpy looking textures that the Clone Stamp can leave is fairly simple using the Pattern Stamp Tool. Sample an piece of your image with your Marquee Tool, shortcut key . Navigate to Edit > Define Pattern to create a new Pattern from your selection. Click OK to continue. Click and hold down on the Clone Stamp tool in your Tools Panel until you can select the Pattern Stamp Tool. Pick your new pattern from the Options at the top of your screen, in the Options Panel. Then simply right click in your image in order to pick as soft a brush as possible to paint with. Paint into your image until your background is as smooth as you want it to be, making your painted out object more and more invisible. If you get lines from your repeated texture, experiment turning the on and off and paint over them. In addition to this, simple use of the Crop Tool, shortcut , can recompose an image, making it look as if it never had another object in it at all. Combine these techniques to find a method that works best for your images. Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to [email protected], and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: Geisha Kyoto Gion by Todd Laracuenta via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Moai Rano raraku by Aurbina, in Public Domain. Chris Young visits Wrigley by TonyTheTiger, via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate MyPaint is an Open-Source Graphics App for Digital Painters Can the Birds and Pigs Really Be Friends in the End? [Angry Birds Video] Add the 2D Version of the New Unity Interface to Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 MightyMintyBoost Is a 3-in-1 Gadget Charger Watson Ties Against Human Jeopardy Opponents

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• Network communications mechanisms for SQL Server

  - by Akshay Deep Lamba

  Problem I am trying to understand how SQL Server communicates on the network, because I'm having to tell my networking team what ports to open up on the firewall for an edge web server to communicate back to the SQL Server on the inside. What do I need to know? Solution In order to understand what needs to be opened where, let's first talk briefly about the two main protocols that are in common use today: TCP - Transmission Control Protocol UDP - User Datagram Protocol Both are part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. We'll start with TCP. TCP TCP is the main protocol by which clients communicate with SQL Server. Actually, it is more correct to say that clients and SQL Server use Tabular Data Stream (TDS), but TDS actually sits on top of TCP and when we're talking about Windows and firewalls and other networking devices, that's the protocol that rules and controls are built around. So we'll just speak in terms of TCP. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol. What that means is that the two systems negotiate the connection and both agree to it. Think of it like a phone call. While one person initiates the phone call, the other person has to agree to take it and both people can end the phone call at any time. TCP is the same way. Both systems have to agree to the communications, but either side can end it at any time. In addition, there is functionality built into TCP to ensure that all communications can be disassembled and reassembled as necessary so it can pass over various network devices and be put together again properly in the right order. It also has mechanisms to handle and retransmit lost communications. Because of this functionality, TCP is the protocol used by many different network applications. The way the applications all can share is through the use of ports. When a service, like SQL Server, comes up on a system, it must listen on a port. For a default SQL Server instance, the default port is 1433. Clients connect to the port via the TCP protocol, the connection is negotiated and agreed to, and then the two sides can transfer information as needed until either side decides to end the communication. In actuality, both sides will have a port to use for the communications, but since the client's port is typically determined semi-randomly, when we're talking about firewalls and the like, typically we're interested in the port the server or service is using. UDP UDP, unlike TCP, is not connection oriented. A "client" can send a UDP communications to anyone it wants. There's nothing in place to negotiate a communications connection, there's nothing in the protocol itself to coordinate order of communications or anything like that. If that's needed, it's got to be handled by the application or by a protocol built on top of UDP being used by the application. If you think of TCP as a phone call, think of UDP as a postcard. I can put a postcard in the mail to anyone I want, and so long as it is addressed properly and has a stamp on it, the postal service will pick it up. Now, what happens it afterwards is not guaranteed. There's no mechanism for retransmission of lost communications. It's great for short communications that doesn't necessarily need an acknowledgement. Because multiple network applications could be communicating via UDP, it uses ports, just like TCP. The SQL Browser or the SQL Server Listener Service uses UDP. Network Communications - Talking to SQL Server When an instance of SQL Server is set up, what TCP port it listens on depends. A default instance will be set up to listen on port 1433. A named instance will be set to a random port chosen during installation. In addition, a named instance will be configured to allow it to change that port dynamically. What this means is that when a named instance starts up, if it finds something already using the port it normally uses, it'll pick a new port. If you have a named instance, and you have connections coming across a firewall, you're going to want to use SQL Server Configuration Manager to set a static port. This will allow the networking and security folks to configure their devices for maximum protection. While you can change the network port for a default instance of SQL Server, most people don't. Network Communications - Finding a SQL Server When just the name is specified for a client to connect to SQL Server, for instance, MySQLServer, this is an attempt to connect to the default instance. In this case the client will automatically attempt to communicate to port 1433 on MySQLServer. If you've switched the port for the default instance, you'll need to tell the client the proper port, usually by specifying the following syntax in the connection string: <server>,<port>. For instance, if you moved SQL Server to listen on 14330, you'd use MySQLServer,14330 instead of just MySQLServer. However, because a named instance sets up its port dynamically by default, the client never knows at the outset what the port is it should talk to. That's what the SQL Browser or the SQL Server Listener Service (SQL Server 2000) is for. In this case, the client sends a communication via the UDP protocol to port 1434. It asks, "Where is the named instance?" So if I was running a named instance called SQL2008R2, it would be asking the SQL Browser, "Hey, how do I talk to MySQLServer\SQL2008R2?" The SQL Browser would then send back a communications from UDP port 1434 back to the client telling the client how to talk to the named instance. Of course, you can skip all of this of you set that named instance's port statically. Then you can use the <server>,<port> mechanism to connect and the client won't try to talk to the SQL Browser service. It'll simply try to make the connection. So, for instance, is the SQL2008R2 instance was listening on port 20080, specifying MySQLServer,20080 would attempt a connection to the named instance. Network Communications - Named Pipes Named pipes is an older network library communications mechanism and it's generally not used any longer. It shouldn't be used across a firewall. However, if for some reason you need to connect to SQL Server with it, this protocol also sits on top of TCP. Named Pipes is actually used by the operating system and it has its own mechanism within the protocol to determine where to route communications. As far as network communications is concerned, it listens on TCP port 445. This is true whether we're talking about a default or named instance of SQL Server. The Summary Table To put all this together, here is what you need to know: Type of Communication Protocol Used Default Port Finding a SQL Server or SQL Server Named Instance UDP 1434 Communicating with a default instance of SQL Server TCP 1433 Communicating with a named instance of SQL Server TCP * Determined dynamically at start up Communicating with SQL Server via Named Pipes TCP 445

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• HTG Explains: Should You Build Your Own PC?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  There was a time when every geek seemed to build their own PC. While the masses bought eMachines and Compaqs, geeks built their own more powerful and reliable desktop machines for cheaper. But does this still make sense? Building your own PC still offers as much flexibility in component choice as it ever did, but prebuilt computers are available at extremely competitive prices. Building your own PC will no longer save you money in most cases. The Rise of Laptops It’s impossible to look at the decline of geeks building their own PCs without considering the rise of laptops. There was a time when everyone seemed to use desktops — laptops were more expensive and significantly slower in day-to-day tasks. With the diminishing importance of computing power — nearly every modern computer has more than enough power to surf the web and use typical programs like Microsoft Office without any trouble — and the rise of laptop availability at nearly every price point, most people are buying laptops instead of desktops. And, if you’re buying a laptop, you can’t really build your own. You can’t just buy a laptop case and start plugging components into it — even if you could, you would end up with an extremely bulky device. Ultimately, to consider building your own desktop PC, you have to actually want a desktop PC. Most people are better served by laptops. Benefits to PC Building The two main reasons to build your own PC have been component choice and saving money. Building your own PC allows you to choose all the specific components you want rather than have them chosen for you. You get to choose everything, including the PC’s case and cooling system. Want a huge case with room for a fancy water-cooling system? You probably want to build your own PC. In the past, this often allowed you to save money — you could get better deals by buying the components yourself and combining them, avoiding the PC manufacturer markup. You’d often even end up with better components — you could pick up a more powerful CPU that was easier to overclock and choose more reliable components so you wouldn’t have to put up with an unstable eMachine that crashed every day. PCs you build yourself are also likely more upgradable — a prebuilt PC may have a sealed case and be constructed in such a way to discourage you from tampering with the insides, while swapping components in and out is generally easier with a computer you’ve built on your own. If you want to upgrade your CPU or replace your graphics card, it’s a definite benefit. Downsides to Building Your Own PC It’s important to remember there are downsides to building your own PC, too. For one thing, it’s just more work — sure, if you know what you’re doing, building your own PC isn’t that hard. Even for a geek, researching the best components, price-matching, waiting for them all to arrive, and building the PC just takes longer. Warranty is a more pernicious problem. If you buy a prebuilt PC and it starts malfunctioning, you can contact the computer’s manufacturer and have them deal with it. You don’t need to worry about what’s wrong. If you build your own PC and it starts malfunctioning, you have to diagnose the problem yourself. What’s malfunctioning, the motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, or power supply? Each component has a separate warranty through its manufacturer, so you’ll have to determine which component is malfunctioning before you can send it off for replacement. Should You Still Build Your Own PC? Let’s say you do want a desktop and are willing to consider building your own PC. First, bear in mind that PC manufacturers are buying in bulk and getting a better deal on each component. They also have to pay much less for a Windows license than the $120 or so it would cost you to to buy your own Windows license. This is all going to wipe out the cost savings you’ll see — with everything all told, you’ll probably spend more money building your own average desktop PC than you would picking one up from Amazon or the local electronics store. If you’re an average PC user that uses your desktop for the typical things, there’s no money to be saved from building your own PC. But maybe you’re looking for something higher end. Perhaps you want a high-end gaming PC with the fastest graphics card and CPU available. Perhaps you want to pick out each individual component and choose the exact components for your gaming rig. In this case, building your own PC may be a good option. As you start to look at more expensive, high-end PCs, you may start to see a price gap — but you may not. Let’s say you wanted to blow thousands of dollars on a gaming PC. If you’re looking at spending this kind of money, it would be worth comparing the cost of individual components versus a prebuilt gaming system. Still, the actual prices may surprise you. For example, if you wanted to upgrade Dell’s $2293 Alienware Aurora to include a second NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, you’d pay an additional $600 on Alienware’s website. The same graphics card costs $650 on Amazon or Newegg, so you’d be spending more money building the system yourself. Why? Dell’s Alienware gets bulk discounts you can’t get — and this is Alienware, which was once regarded as selling ridiculously overpriced gaming PCs to people who wouldn’t build their own. Building your own PC still allows you to get the most freedom when choosing and combining components, but this is only valuable to a small niche of gamers and professional users — most people, even average gamers, would be fine going with a prebuilt system. If you’re an average person or even an average gamer, you’ll likely find that it’s cheaper to purchase a prebuilt PC rather than assemble your own. Even at the very high end, components may be more expensive separately than they are in a prebuilt PC. Enthusiasts who want to choose all the individual components for their dream gaming PC and want maximum flexibility may want to build their own PCs. Even then, building your own PC these days is more about flexibility and component choice than it is about saving money. In summary, you probably shouldn’t build your own PC. If you’re an enthusiast, you may want to — but only a small minority of people would actually benefit from building their own systems. Feel free to compare prices, but you may be surprised which is cheaper. Image Credit: Richard Jones on Flickr, elPadawan on Flickr, Richard Jones on Flickr     

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• linksys wrt54g router to a Cisco router?

  - by jasondavis

  This may be a strange question but I have no clue. I currently have a basic linksys wrt54g router fo9r my home network. I am considering getting a rack/cabinet and running a home server or 2 and hooking up my home network to it. If I were to do0 this I could pick up a cisco rack mounted router and switch off ebay to use. So If I were to do this, would I just plugin in the cables for the cisco router from my dsl modem or is there more to it to get these working?

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• How to copy path on a mac?

  - by AngryHacker

  Windows refugee here. On Windows you can easily copy the path and paste it elsewhere to get to the directory. Here is the situation on the Mac. I am in the Finder 20 folders down and I see the file I want. I go to my application and want to open it, so I pick Open Document from the File menu. However, it is exceedingly difficult and time-consuming to get to the place I want. Is there a way to copy the path in the finder and paste it in the File Open dialog of my application?

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• Windows 7 Backup Disk Full

  - by George

  What happens when a Windows 7 backup disk is full? I've been trying to find documentation on the issue without success. Does Windows 7 automatically delete the oldest backup files to free up space or does it force you manually pick and choose which files to delete? Time Machine automatically deletes the oldest copy of files, but as far as I can tell Windows 7 makes you manually choose. I keep getting a running out of disk space for backup notice on Windows 7 without any option to not warn me and just delete the oldest files automatically...

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• What’s the password for my FileVault 2 boot volume?

  - by cbowns

  Apple’s support document for FileVault 2 (a.k.a. “full disk encryption” or “FDE”) has lots of information about enabling FDE and what it means for booting the machine. However, it doesn’t cover one very important thing I’m trying to do: mount the drive in the Recovery HD environment to reinstall OS X on it. The Recovery HD environment asks me for the volume passphrase so it can mount my drive and try to install OS X onto it. If this were an external drive which I’d manually enabled FDE on with diskutil, or an external Time Machine volume, I’d know it because it makes you pick one (just like a regular login password), but FileVault 2 never asked me for a volume passphrase (I assume it selects one behind the scenes). I’ve tried my main user’s password, but that doesn’t work, and neither does the recovery key set for the volume. Keychain Access doesn’t have anything that I could find. How do I unlock this volume?

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• Is there a Unix/Linux platform equivalent to Telligent Community?

  - by Scott A. Lawrence

  Telligent Community combines blogs, wikis, forums, and file-sharing capabilities into a single product with single sign-on, using all Microsoft technologies. Is there an equivalent offering that runs on Unix/Linux? Or would I have to pick and choose individual product offerings and figure out another option for single sign-on across them? Are there plug-ins for something like WordPress or MovableType that might add the necessary functionality? A friend of mine is looking to add a "members-only" area to her company's website, and since they're hosted on Dreamhost (and can't afford StackExchange pricing yet), I'm trying to find other options for them.

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• Sendmail Issue - Local Mail / Inner Domain Mail

  - by ngl5000

  Environments: Ubuntu / Sendmail / Google Apps Emailing: I send and receive all of my emails through google apps besides emails that are sent directly from my website. My Web Domain: example.com (for the purpose of the question only) Problem: When my website sends an email, using sendmail, to any local address ([email protected]) I get an unknown user error. Emails sent to other domains seem to work just fine. Question: I believe this is because I don't have these users defined on my ubuntu server, this is besides the point I need to configure sendmail such that it doesn't pick out local emails sent to ([email protected]) and instead finds their name server which points to google apps and sends it there instead. This is my first try at serverfault, I normally use stackoverflow so let me know if I'm messing up! Thank you!

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• Layer 2 topology discovery

  - by pegah s

  I have been given a network (it is a LAN) comprised of switches and I need to discover the topology of that. (There may be Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs) in the network as well.) I have done a lot of search on layer 2 topology discovery and I have seen many articles talking about using SNMP MIBs or LLDP (I do not know which one is better or more practical, but all devices in my network support SNMP). But my problem is that I cannot find "the software to install and run" to actually see the topology map. I would really appreciate if someone could send me the website where I can download the code and use it. I have also found a lot of tools available online such as OpenNMS, Nagios, The Dude, LANsurveyor, SNMPwalk, and many more... But I cannot figure out which one is the best to pick. To summarize: what is the easiest simplest way to discover the layer 2 network topology?

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• Server IP Address['s]

  - by Abdul

  hi there i am running server 2003, and seem to have this problem where the server starts kicking out users after a while, especially when they log off, they cant log back in, or the printers on the metwork stop connecting and they cant print to it. when i check the server, i notice that the server has 2 IP addresses, even though it has a static IP, it seems to pick up another IP address as well, but when you go into teh IPV set up, its not there, but of you run the IP scan utility tool, it picks it up. to correct this, i either can log off the server, then log back in, and the IP disappears, or sometimes this doesnt work, and i need to restart the server, but thsi happens like every 2 days or so.....can anyone out there help?

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• Is there a Unix/Linux platform equivalent of Telligent Community (formerly Community Server)?

  - by Scott A. Lawrence

  Telligent Community combines blogs, wikis, forums, and file-sharing capabilities into a single product with single sign-on, using all Microsoft technologies. Is there an equivalent offering that runs on Unix/Linux? Or would I have to pick and choose individual product offerings and figure out another option for single sign-on across them? Are there plug-ins for something like WordPress or MovableType that might add the necessary functionality? A friend of mine is looking to add a "members-only" area to her company's website, and since they're hosted on Dreamhost (and can't afford StackExchange pricing yet), I'm trying to find other options for them.

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• Brother Printer not picking up A5 size paper

  - by Mirage

  I have Brother HL 5040D printer . I want to print some stuff on A5 size. I have done setting on MS word. There is small tray in Brother Printer manin tray where i can put any samll paper and then move the clamps so that it fits the paper. But when i give print command the printer tries to pick up paper but is unable to do so. Then it gave paper light means it can't load the paper. What should i do

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• Linux: Simulate Serial Connection from Arduino

  - by shanet

  I'm trying to simulate the serial connection from an Arduino into a Processing applet since I don't have an Arduino at the moment. Simply, I'm trying to just send bytes from Bash to a serial connection (on /dev/ttyS0) which the Processing applet will pick up like it would from an Arduino. I tried the answer to this question: How can I send data to the serial port from a Linux shell?, but it's simply not working and I don't know how to go about debugging something like this since I've never played with serial connections before. Any advice? Thanks much.

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• can't add sharepoint users from trusted domain

  - by user22215

  I have a very strange problem with our Sharepoint 2007 implementation. I went in today to grant access to a user and was greeted with "The user does not exist or is not unique." Let me start off by saying that this user is not on our domain we have a 2 way trust connecting to one of our subsidiaries. I can see the users in the people pick but can't add them into Sharepoint. This problem flared up after we had some trust issues last two days ago. So I must ask has anyone came across this error and if so what steps did you take to resolve it? This link further highlights my problem: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sharepointgeneral/thread/41265a91-191c-4952-9c8c-1e0129b9fd3a

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