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• what is the wrong in this code(openAl in vc++)

  - by maiajam

  hi how are you all? i need your help i have this code #include <conio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <al.h> #include <alc.h> #include <alut.h> #pragma comment(lib, "openal32.lib") #pragma comment(lib, "alut.lib") /* * These are OpenAL "names" (or "objects"). They store and id of a buffer * or a source object. Generally you would expect to see the implementation * use values that scale up from '1', but don't count on it. The spec does * not make this mandatory (as it is OpenGL). The id's can easily be memory * pointers as well. It will depend on the implementation. */ // Buffers to hold sound data. ALuint Buffer; // Sources are points of emitting sound. ALuint Source; /* * These are 3D cartesian vector coordinates. A structure or class would be * a more flexible of handling these, but for the sake of simplicity we will * just leave it as is. */ // Position of the source sound. ALfloat SourcePos[] = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 }; // Velocity of the source sound. ALfloat SourceVel[] = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 }; // Position of the Listener. ALfloat ListenerPos[] = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 }; // Velocity of the Listener. ALfloat ListenerVel[] = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 }; // Orientation of the Listener. (first 3 elements are "at", second 3 are "up") // Also note that these should be units of '1'. ALfloat ListenerOri[] = { 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 }; /* * ALboolean LoadALData() * * This function will load our sample data from the disk using the Alut * utility and send the data into OpenAL as a buffer. A source is then * also created to play that buffer. */ ALboolean LoadALData() { // Variables to load into. ALenum format; ALsizei size; ALvoid* data; ALsizei freq; ALboolean loop; // Load wav data into a buffer. alGenBuffers(1, &Buffer); if(alGetError() != AL_NO_ERROR) return AL_FALSE; alutLoadWAVFile((ALbyte *)"C:\Users\Toshiba\Desktop\Graduation Project\OpenAL\open AL test\wavdata\FancyPants.wav", &format, &data, &size, &freq, &loop); alBufferData(Buffer, format, data, size, freq); alutUnloadWAV(format, data, size, freq); // Bind the buffer with the source. alGenSources(1, &Source); if(alGetError() != AL_NO_ERROR) return AL_FALSE; alSourcei (Source, AL_BUFFER, Buffer ); alSourcef (Source, AL_PITCH, 1.0 ); alSourcef (Source, AL_GAIN, 1.0 ); alSourcefv(Source, AL_POSITION, SourcePos); alSourcefv(Source, AL_VELOCITY, SourceVel); alSourcei (Source, AL_LOOPING, loop ); // Do another error check and return. if(alGetError() == AL_NO_ERROR) return AL_TRUE; return AL_FALSE; } /* * void SetListenerValues() * * We already defined certain values for the Listener, but we need * to tell OpenAL to use that data. This function does just that. */ void SetListenerValues() { alListenerfv(AL_POSITION, ListenerPos); alListenerfv(AL_VELOCITY, ListenerVel); alListenerfv(AL_ORIENTATION, ListenerOri); } /* * void KillALData() * * We have allocated memory for our buffers and sources which needs * to be returned to the system. This function frees that memory. */ void KillALData() { alDeleteBuffers(1, &Buffer); alDeleteSources(1, &Source); alutExit(); } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { printf("MindCode's OpenAL Lesson 1: Single Static Source\n\n"); printf("Controls:\n"); printf("p) Play\n"); printf("s) Stop\n"); printf("h) Hold (pause)\n"); printf("q) Quit\n\n"); // Initialize OpenAL and clear the error bit. alutInit(NULL, 0); alGetError(); // Load the wav data. if(LoadALData() == AL_FALSE) { printf("Error loading data."); return 0; } SetListenerValues(); // Setup an exit procedure. atexit(KillALData); // Loop. ALubyte c = ' '; while(c != 'q') { c = getche(); switch(c) { // Pressing 'p' will begin playing the sample. case 'p': alSourcePlay(Source); break; // Pressing 's' will stop the sample from playing. case 's': alSourceStop(Source); break; // Pressing 'h' will pause the sample. case 'h': alSourcePause(Source); break; }; } return 0; } and it is run willbut i cant here any thing also i am new in programong and wont to program a virtual reality sound in my graduation project and start to learn opeal and vc++ but i dont how to start and from where i must begin and i want to ask if i need to learn about API win ?? and if i need how i can learn that thank you alote and i am sorry coz of my english

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• C programming: hashtable insertion/search

  - by Ricardo Campos

  Hello i have a problem with my hash table its implemented like this: #define HT_SIZE 10 typedef struct _list_t_ { char key[20]; char string[20]; char prevValue[20]; struct _list_t_ *next; } list_t; typedef struct _hash_table_t_ { int size; /* the size of the table */ list_t ***table; /* first */ sem_t lock; } hash_table_t; I have a Linked list with 3 pointers because i want a hash table with several partitions (shards), here is my initialization of my Hash table: hash_table_t *create_hash_table(int NUM_SERVER_THREADS, int num_shards){ hash_table_t *new_table; int j,i; if (HT_SIZE<1) return NULL; /* invalid size for table */ /* Attempt to allocate memory for the hashtable structure */ new_table = (hash_table_t*)malloc(sizeof(hash_table_t)*HT_SIZE); /* Attempt to allocate memory for the table itself */ new_table->table = (list_t ***)calloc(1,sizeof(list_t **)); /* Initialize the elements of the table */ for(j=0; j<num_shards; j++){ new_table->table[j] = (list_t **)calloc(1,sizeof(list_t *)); for(i=0; i<HT_SIZE; i++){ new_table->table[j][i] = (list_t *)calloc(1,sizeof(list_t )); } } /* Set the table's size */ new_table->size = HT_SIZE; sem_init(&new_table->lock, 0, 1); return new_table; } Here is my search function to search in the hash table list_t *lookup_string(hash_table_t *hashtable, char *key, int shardId){ list_t *list ; int hashval = hash(key); /* Go to the correct list based on the hash value and see if key is * in the list. If it is, return return a pointer to the list element. * If it isn't, the item isn't in the table, so return NULL. */ sem_wait(&hashtable->lock); for(list = hashtable->table[shardId][hashval]; list != NULL; list =list->next) { if (strcmp(key, list->key) == 0){ sem_post(&hashtable->lock); return list; } } sem_post(&hashtable->lock); return NULL; } And my insert function: char *add_string(hash_table_t *hashtable, char *str,char *key, int shardId){ list_t *new_list; list_t *current_list; unsigned int hashval = hash(key); /*printf("|%d|%d|%s|\n",hashval,shardId,key);*/ /* Lock for concurrency */ sem_wait(&hashtable->lock); /* Attempt to allocate memory for list */ new_list = (list_t*)malloc(sizeof(list_t)); /* Does item already exist? */ sem_post(&hashtable->lock); current_list = lookup_string(hashtable, key,shardId); sem_wait(&hashtable->lock); /* item already exists, don't insert it again. */ if (current_list != NULL){ strcpy(new_list->prevValue,current_list->string); strcpy(new_list->string,str); strcpy(new_list->key,key); new_list->next = hashtable->table[shardId][hashval]; hashtable->table[shardId][hashval] = new_list; sem_post(&hashtable->lock); return new_list->prevValue; } /* Insert into list */ strcpy(new_list->string,str); strcpy(new_list->key,key); new_list->next = hashtable->table[shardId][hashval]; hashtable->table[shardId][hashval] = new_list; /* Unlock */ sem_post(&hashtable->lock); return new_list->prevValue; } My main class runs some of tests by executing the insertion / reading / delete from the elements of the hash table the problem is when i have more than 4 partitions/shards the tests stop at the first reading element saying it returned the wrong value NULL on the search function, when its less than 4 it runs perfectly well and passes all the tests. You can see my main.c in here if you want to give a look: http://hostcode.sourceforge.net/view/1105 My complete Hash table code: http://hostcode.sourceforge.net/view/1103 And other functions where hash table code is executed: .c file http://hostcode.sourceforge.net/view/1104 .h file http://hostcode.sourceforge.net/view/1106 Thank for you time, i appreciate any help you can give to me this is a college important project that I'm trying to solve and I'm stuck here for 2 days.

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• Hosting the Razor Engine for Templating in Non-Web Applications

  - by Rick Strahl

  Microsoft’s new Razor HTML Rendering Engine that is currently shipping with ASP.NET MVC previews can be used outside of ASP.NET. Razor is an alternative view engine that can be used instead of the ASP.NET Page engine that currently works with ASP.NET WebForms and MVC. It provides a simpler and more readable markup syntax and is much more light weight in terms of functionality than the full blown WebForms Page engine, focusing only on features that are more along the lines of a pure view engine (or classic ASP!) with focus on expression and code rendering rather than a complex control/object model. Like the Page engine though, the parser understands .NET code syntax which can be embedded into templates, and behind the scenes the engine compiles markup and script code into an executing piece of .NET code in an assembly. Although it ships as part of the ASP.NET MVC and WebMatrix the Razor Engine itself is not directly dependent on ASP.NET or IIS or HTTP in any way. And although there are some markup and rendering features that are optimized for HTML based output generation, Razor is essentially a free standing template engine. And what’s really nice is that unlike the ASP.NET Runtime, Razor is fairly easy to host inside of your own non-Web applications to provide templating functionality. Templating in non-Web Applications? Yes please! So why might you host a template engine in your non-Web application? Template rendering is useful in many places and I have a number of applications that make heavy use of it. One of my applications – West Wind Html Help Builder - exclusively uses template based rendering to merge user supplied help text content into customizable and executable HTML markup templates that provide HTML output for CHM style HTML Help. This is an older product and it’s not actually using .NET at the moment – and this is one reason I’m looking at Razor for script hosting at the moment. For a few .NET applications though I’ve actually used the ASP.NET Runtime hosting to provide templating and mail merge style functionality and while that works reasonably well it’s a very heavy handed approach. It’s very resource intensive and has potential issues with versioning in various different versions of .NET. The generic implementation I created in the article above requires a lot of fix up to mimic an HTTP request in a non-HTTP environment and there are a lot of little things that have to happen to ensure that the ASP.NET runtime works properly most of it having nothing to do with the templating aspect but just satisfying ASP.NET’s requirements. The Razor Engine on the other hand is fairly light weight and completely decoupled from the ASP.NET runtime and the HTTP processing. Rather it’s a pure template engine whose sole purpose is to render text templates. Hosting this engine in your own applications can be accomplished with a reasonable amount of code (actually just a few lines with the tools I’m about to describe) and without having to fake HTTP requests. It’s also much lighter on resource usage and you can easily attach custom properties to your base template implementation to easily pass context from the parent application into templates all of which was rather complicated with ASP.NET runtime hosting. Installing the Razor Template Engine You can get Razor as part of the MVC 3 (RC and later) or Web Matrix. Both are available as downloadable components from the Web Platform Installer Version 3.0 (!important – V2 doesn’t show these components). If you already have that version of the WPI installed just fire it up. You can get the latest version of the Web Platform Installer from here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx Once the platform Installer 3.0 is installed install either MVC 3 or ASP.NET Web Pages. Once installed you’ll find a System.Web.Razor assembly in C:\Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Pages\v1.0\Assemblies\System.Web.Razor.dll which you can add as a reference to your project. Creating a Wrapper The basic Razor Hosting API is pretty simple and you can host Razor with a (large-ish) handful of lines of code. I’ll show the basics of it later in this article. However, if you want to customize the rendering and handle assembly and namespace includes for the markup as well as deal with text and file inputs as well as forcing Razor to run in a separate AppDomain so you can unload the code-generated assemblies and deal with assembly caching for re-used templates little more work is required to create something that is more easily reusable. For this reason I created a Razor Hosting wrapper project that combines a bunch of this functionality into an easy to use hosting class, a hosting factory that can load the engine in a separate AppDomain and a couple of hosting containers that provided folder based and string based caching for templates for an easily embeddable and reusable engine with easy to use syntax. If you just want the code and play with the samples and source go grab the latest code from the Subversion Repository at: http://www.west-wind.com:8080/svn/articles/trunk/RazorHosting/ or a snapshot from: http://www.west-wind.com/files/tools/RazorHosting.zip Getting Started Before I get into how hosting with Razor works, let’s take a look at how you can get up and running quickly with the wrapper classes provided. It only takes a few lines of code. The easiest way to use these Razor Hosting Wrappers is to use one of the two HostContainers provided. One is for hosting Razor scripts in a directory and rendering them as relative paths from these script files on disk. The other HostContainer serves razor scripts from string templates… Let’s start with a very simple template that displays some simple expressions, some code blocks and demonstrates rendering some data from contextual data that you pass to the template in the form of a ‘context’. Here’s a simple Razor template: @using System.Reflection Hello @Context.FirstName! Your entry was entered on: @Context.Entered @{ // Code block: Update the host Windows Form passed in through the context Context.WinForm.Text = "Hello World from Razor at " + DateTime.Now.ToString(); } AppDomain Id: @AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName Assembly: @Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().FullName Code based output: @{ // Write output with Response object from code string output = string.Empty; for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { output += i.ToString() + " "; } Response.Write(output); } Pretty easy to see what’s going on here. The only unusual thing in this code is the Context object which is an arbitrary object I’m passing from the host to the template by way of the template base class. I’m also displaying the current AppDomain and the executing Assembly name so you can see how compiling and running a template actually loads up new assemblies. Also note that as part of my context I’m passing a reference to the current Windows Form down to the template and changing the title from within the script. It’s a silly example, but it demonstrates two-way communication between host and template and back which can be very powerful. The easiest way to quickly render this template is to use the RazorEngine<TTemplateBase> class. The generic parameter specifies a template base class type that is used by Razor internally to generate the class it generates from a template. The default implementation provided in my RazorHosting wrapper is RazorTemplateBase. Here’s a simple one that renders from a string and outputs a string: var engine = new RazorEngine<RazorTemplateBase>(); // we can pass any object as context - here create a custom context var context = new CustomContext() { WinForm = this, FirstName = "Rick", Entered = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10) }; string output = engine.RenderTemplate(this.txtSource.Text new string[] { "System.Windows.Forms.dll" }, context); if (output == null) this.txtResult.Text = "*** ERROR:\r\n" + engine.ErrorMessage; else this.txtResult.Text = output; Simple enough. This code renders a template from a string input and returns a result back as a string. It  creates a custom context and passes that to the template which can then access the Context’s properties. Note that anything passed as ‘context’ must be serializable (or MarshalByRefObject) – otherwise you get an exception when passing the reference over AppDomain boundaries (discussed later). Passing a context is optional, but is a key feature in being able to share data between the host application and the template. Note that we use the Context object to access FirstName, Entered and even the host Windows Form object which is used in the template to change the Window caption from within the script! In the code above all the work happens in the RenderTemplate method which provide a variety of overloads to read and write to and from strings, files and TextReaders/Writers. Here’s another example that renders from a file input using a TextReader: using (reader = new StreamReader("templates\\simple.csHtml", true)) { result = host.RenderTemplate(reader, new string[] { "System.Windows.Forms.dll" }, this.CustomContext); } RenderTemplate() is fairly high level and it handles loading of the runtime, compiling into an assembly and rendering of the template. If you want more control you can use the lower level methods to control each step of the way which is important for the HostContainers I’ll discuss later. Basically for those scenarios you want to separate out loading of the engine, compiling into an assembly and then rendering the template from the assembly. Why? So we can keep assemblies cached. In the code above a new assembly is created for each template rendered which is inefficient and uses up resources. Depending on the size of your templates and how often you fire them you can chew through memory very quickly. This slighter lower level approach is only a couple of extra steps: // we can pass any object as context - here create a custom context var context = new CustomContext() { WinForm = this, FirstName = "Rick", Entered = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10) }; var engine = new RazorEngine<RazorTemplateBase>(); string assId = null; using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(this.txtSource.Text)) { assId = engine.ParseAndCompileTemplate(new string[] { "System.Windows.Forms.dll" }, reader); } string output = engine.RenderTemplateFromAssembly(assId, context); if (output == null) this.txtResult.Text = "*** ERROR:\r\n" + engine.ErrorMessage; else this.txtResult.Text = output; The difference here is that you can capture the assembly – or rather an Id to it – and potentially hold on to it to render again later assuming the template hasn’t changed. The HostContainers take advantage of this feature to cache the assemblies based on certain criteria like a filename and file time step or a string hash that if not change indicate that an assembly can be reused. Note that ParseAndCompileTemplate returns an assembly Id rather than the assembly itself. This is done so that that the assembly always stays in the host’s AppDomain and is not passed across AppDomain boundaries which would cause load failures. We’ll talk more about this in a minute but for now just realize that assemblies references are stored in a list and are accessible by this ID to allow locating and re-executing of the assembly based on that id. Reuse of the assembly avoids recompilation overhead and creation of yet another assembly that loads into the current AppDomain. You can play around with several different versions of the above code in the main sample form:   Using Hosting Containers for more Control and Caching The above examples simply render templates into assemblies each and every time they are executed. While this works and is even reasonably fast, it’s not terribly efficient. If you render templates more than once it would be nice if you could cache the generated assemblies for example to avoid re-compiling and creating of a new assembly each time. Additionally it would be nice to load template assemblies into a separate AppDomain optionally to be able to be able to unload assembli es and also to protect your host application from scripting attacks with malicious template code. Hosting containers provide also provide a wrapper around the RazorEngine<T> instance, a factory (which allows creation in separate AppDomains) and an easy way to start and stop the container ‘runtime’. The Razor Hosting samples provide two hosting containers: RazorFolderHostContainer and StringHostContainer. The folder host provides a simple runtime environment for a folder structure similar in the way that the ASP.NET runtime handles a virtual directory as it’s ‘application' root. Templates are loaded from disk in relative paths and the resulting assemblies are cached unless the template on disk is changed. The string host also caches templates based on string hashes – if the same string is passed a second time a cached version of the assembly is used. Here’s how HostContainers work. I’ll use the FolderHostContainer because it’s likely the most common way you’d use templates – from disk based templates that can be easily edited and maintained on disk. The first step is to create an instance of it and keep it around somewhere (in the example it’s attached as a property to the Form): RazorFolderHostContainer Host = new RazorFolderHostContainer(); public RazorFolderHostForm() { InitializeComponent(); // The base path for templates - templates are rendered with relative paths // based on this path. Host.TemplatePath = Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, TemplateBaseFolder); // Add any assemblies you want reference in your templates Host.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Windows.Forms.dll"); // Start up the host container Host.Start(); } Next anytime you want to render a template you can use simple code like this: private void RenderTemplate(string fileName) { // Pass the template path via the Context var relativePath = Utilities.GetRelativePath(fileName, Host.TemplatePath); if (!Host.RenderTemplate(relativePath, this.Context, Host.RenderingOutputFile)) { MessageBox.Show("Error: " + Host.ErrorMessage); return; } this.webBrowser1.Navigate("file://" + Host.RenderingOutputFile); } You can also render the output to a string instead of to a file: string result = Host.RenderTemplateToString(relativePath,context); Finally if you want to release the engine and shut down the hosting AppDomain you can simply do: Host.Stop(); Stopping the AppDomain and restarting it (ie. calling Stop(); followed by Start()) is also a nice way to release all resources in the AppDomain. The FolderBased domain also supports partial Rendering based on root path based relative paths with the same caching characteristics as the main templates. From within a template you can call out to a partial like this: @RenderPartial(@"partials\PartialRendering.cshtml", Context) where partials\PartialRendering.cshtml is a relative to the template root folder. The folder host example lets you load up templates from disk and display the result in a Web Browser control which demonstrates using Razor HTML output from templates that contain HTML syntax which happens to me my target scenario for Html Help Builder.   The Razor Engine Wrapper Project The project I created to wrap Razor hosting has a fair bit of code and a number of classes associated with it. Most of the components are internally used and as you can see using the final RazorEngine<T> and HostContainer classes is pretty easy. The classes are extensible and I suspect developers will want to build more customized host containers for their applications. Host containers are the key to wrapping up all functionality – Engine, BaseTemplate, AppDomain Hosting, Caching etc in a logical piece that is ready to be plugged into an application. When looking at the code there are a couple of core features provided: Core Razor Engine Hosting This is the core Razor hosting which provides the basics of loading a template, compiling it into an assembly and executing it. This is fairly straightforward, but without a host container that can cache assemblies based on some criteria templates are recompiled and re-created each time which is inefficient (although pretty fast). The base engine wrapper implementation also supports hosting the Razor runtime in a separate AppDomain for security and the ability to unload it on demand. Host Containers The engine hosting itself doesn’t provide any sort of ‘runtime’ service like picking up files from disk, caching assemblies and so forth. So my implementation provides two HostContainers: RazorFolderHostContainer and RazorStringHostContainer. The FolderHost works off a base directory and loads templates based on relative paths (sort of like the ASP.NET runtime does off a virtual). The HostContainers also deal with caching of template assemblies – for the folder host the file date is tracked and checked for updates and unless the template is changed a cached assembly is reused. The StringHostContainer similiarily checks string hashes to figure out whether a particular string template was previously compiled and executed. The HostContainers also act as a simple startup environment and a single reference to easily store and reuse in an application. TemplateBase Classes The template base classes are the base classes that from which the Razor engine generates .NET code. A template is parsed into a class with an Execute() method and the class is based on this template type you can specify. RazorEngine<TBaseTemplate> can receive this type and the HostContainers default to specific templates in their base implementations. Template classes are customizable to allow you to create templates that provide application specific features and interaction from the template to your host application. How does the RazorEngine wrapper work? You can browse the source code in the links above or in the repository or download the source, but I’ll highlight some key features here. Here’s part of the RazorEngine implementation that can be used to host the runtime and that demonstrates the key code required to host the Razor runtime. The RazorEngine class is implemented as a generic class to reflect the Template base class type: public class RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> : MarshalByRefObject where TBaseTemplateType : RazorTemplateBase The generic type is used to internally provide easier access to the template type and assignments on it as part of the template processing. The class also inherits MarshalByRefObject to allow execution over AppDomain boundaries – something that all the classes discussed here need to do since there is much interaction between the host and the template. The first two key methods deal with creating a template assembly: /// <summary> /// Creates an instance of the RazorHost with various options applied. /// Applies basic namespace imports and the name of the class to generate /// </summary> /// <param name="generatedNamespace"></param> /// <param name="generatedClass"></param> /// <returns></returns> protected RazorTemplateEngine CreateHost(string generatedNamespace, string generatedClass) { Type baseClassType = typeof(TBaseTemplateType); RazorEngineHost host = new RazorEngineHost(new CSharpRazorCodeLanguage()); host.DefaultBaseClass = baseClassType.FullName; host.DefaultClassName = generatedClass; host.DefaultNamespace = generatedNamespace; host.NamespaceImports.Add("System"); host.NamespaceImports.Add("System.Text"); host.NamespaceImports.Add("System.Collections.Generic"); host.NamespaceImports.Add("System.Linq"); host.NamespaceImports.Add("System.IO"); return new RazorTemplateEngine(host); } /// <summary> /// Parses and compiles a markup template into an assembly and returns /// an assembly name. The name is an ID that can be passed to /// ExecuteTemplateByAssembly which picks up a cached instance of the /// loaded assembly. /// /// </summary> /// <param name="namespaceOfGeneratedClass">The namespace of the class to generate from the template</param> /// <param name="generatedClassName">The name of the class to generate from the template</param> /// <param name="ReferencedAssemblies">Any referenced assemblies by dll name only. Assemblies must be in execution path of host or in GAC.</param> /// <param name="templateSourceReader">Textreader that loads the template</param> /// <remarks> /// The actual assembly isn't returned here to allow for cross-AppDomain /// operation. If the assembly was returned it would fail for cross-AppDomain /// calls. /// </remarks> /// <returns>An assembly Id. The Assembly is cached in memory and can be used with RenderFromAssembly.</returns> public string ParseAndCompileTemplate( string namespaceOfGeneratedClass, string generatedClassName, string[] ReferencedAssemblies, TextReader templateSourceReader) { RazorTemplateEngine engine = CreateHost(namespaceOfGeneratedClass, generatedClassName); // Generate the template class as CodeDom GeneratorResults razorResults = engine.GenerateCode(templateSourceReader); // Create code from the codeDom and compile CSharpCodeProvider codeProvider = new CSharpCodeProvider(); CodeGeneratorOptions options = new CodeGeneratorOptions(); // Capture Code Generated as a string for error info // and debugging LastGeneratedCode = null; using (StringWriter writer = new StringWriter()) { codeProvider.GenerateCodeFromCompileUnit(razorResults.GeneratedCode, writer, options); LastGeneratedCode = writer.ToString(); } CompilerParameters compilerParameters = new CompilerParameters(ReferencedAssemblies); // Standard Assembly References compilerParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.dll"); compilerParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Core.dll"); compilerParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("Microsoft.CSharp.dll"); // dynamic support! // Also add the current assembly so RazorTemplateBase is available compilerParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase.Substring(8)); compilerParameters.GenerateInMemory = Configuration.CompileToMemory; if (!Configuration.CompileToMemory) compilerParameters.OutputAssembly = Path.Combine(Configuration.TempAssemblyPath, "_" + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("n") + ".dll"); CompilerResults compilerResults = codeProvider.CompileAssemblyFromDom(compilerParameters, razorResults.GeneratedCode); if (compilerResults.Errors.Count > 0) { var compileErrors = new StringBuilder(); foreach (System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerError compileError in compilerResults.Errors) compileErrors.Append(String.Format(Resources.LineX0TColX1TErrorX2RN, compileError.Line, compileError.Column, compileError.ErrorText)); this.SetError(compileErrors.ToString() + "\r\n" + LastGeneratedCode); return null; } AssemblyCache.Add(compilerResults.CompiledAssembly.FullName, compilerResults.CompiledAssembly); return compilerResults.CompiledAssembly.FullName; } Think of the internal CreateHost() method as setting up the assembly generated from each template. Each template compiles into a separate assembly. It sets up namespaces, and assembly references, the base class used and the name and namespace for the generated class. ParseAndCompileTemplate() then calls the CreateHost() method to receive the template engine generator which effectively generates a CodeDom from the template – the template is turned into .NET code. The code generated from our earlier example looks something like this: //------------------------------------------------------------------------------ // <auto-generated> // This code was generated by a tool. // Runtime Version:4.0.30319.1 // // Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if // the code is regenerated. // </auto-generated> //------------------------------------------------------------------------------ namespace RazorTest { using System; using System.Text; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.IO; using System.Reflection; public class RazorTemplate : RazorHosting.RazorTemplateBase { #line hidden public RazorTemplate() { } public override void Execute() { WriteLiteral("Hello "); Write(Context.FirstName); WriteLiteral("! Your entry was entered on: "); Write(Context.Entered); WriteLiteral("\r\n\r\n"); // Code block: Update the host Windows Form passed in through the context Context.WinForm.Text = "Hello World from Razor at " + DateTime.Now.ToString(); WriteLiteral("\r\nAppDomain Id:\r\n "); Write(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName); WriteLiteral("\r\n \r\nAssembly:\r\n "); Write(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().FullName); WriteLiteral("\r\n\r\nCode based output: \r\n"); // Write output with Response object from code string output = string.Empty; for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { output += i.ToString() + " "; } } } } Basically the template’s body is turned into code in an Execute method that is called. Internally the template’s Write method is fired to actually generate the output. Note that the class inherits from RazorTemplateBase which is the generic parameter I used to specify the base class when creating an instance in my RazorEngine host: var engine = new RazorEngine<RazorTemplateBase>(); This template class must be provided and it must implement an Execute() and Write() method. Beyond that you can create any class you chose and attach your own properties. My RazorTemplateBase class implementation is very simple: public class RazorTemplateBase : MarshalByRefObject, IDisposable { /// <summary> /// You can pass in a generic context object /// to use in your template code /// </summary> public dynamic Context { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Class that generates output. Currently ultra simple /// with only Response.Write() implementation. /// </summary> public RazorResponse Response { get; set; } public object HostContainer {get; set; } public object Engine { get; set; } public RazorTemplateBase() { Response = new RazorResponse(); } public virtual void Write(object value) { Response.Write(value); } public virtual void WriteLiteral(object value) { Response.Write(value); } /// <summary> /// Razor Parser implements this method /// </summary> public virtual void Execute() {} public virtual void Dispose() { if (Response != null) { Response.Dispose(); Response = null; } } } Razor fills in the Execute method when it generates its subclass and uses the Write() method to output content. As you can see I use a RazorResponse() class here to generate output. This isn’t necessary really, as you could use a StringBuilder or StringWriter() directly, but I prefer using Response object so I can extend the Response behavior as needed. The RazorResponse class is also very simple and merely acts as a wrapper around a TextWriter: public class RazorResponse : IDisposable { /// <summary> /// Internal text writer - default to StringWriter() /// </summary> public TextWriter Writer = new StringWriter(); public virtual void Write(object value) { Writer.Write(value); } public virtual void WriteLine(object value) { Write(value); Write("\r\n"); } public virtual void WriteFormat(string format, params object[] args) { Write(string.Format(format, args)); } public override string ToString() { return Writer.ToString(); } public virtual void Dispose() { Writer.Close(); } public virtual void SetTextWriter(TextWriter writer) { // Close original writer if (Writer != null) Writer.Close(); Writer = writer; } } The Rendering Methods of RazorEngine At this point I’ve talked about the assembly generation logic and the template implementation itself. What’s left is that once you’ve generated the assembly is to execute it. The code to do this is handled in the various RenderXXX methods of the RazorEngine class. Let’s look at the lowest level one of these which is RenderTemplateFromAssembly() and a couple of internal support methods that handle instantiating and invoking of the generated template method: public string RenderTemplateFromAssembly( string assemblyId, string generatedNamespace, string generatedClass, object context, TextWriter outputWriter) { this.SetError(); Assembly generatedAssembly = AssemblyCache[assemblyId]; if (generatedAssembly == null) { this.SetError(Resources.PreviouslyCompiledAssemblyNotFound); return null; } string className = generatedNamespace + "." + generatedClass; Type type; try { type = generatedAssembly.GetType(className); } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(Resources.UnableToCreateType + className + ": " + ex.Message); return null; } // Start with empty non-error response (if we use a writer) string result = string.Empty; using(TBaseTemplateType instance = InstantiateTemplateClass(type)) { if (instance == null) return null; if (outputWriter != null) instance.Response.SetTextWriter(outputWriter); if (!InvokeTemplateInstance(instance, context)) return null; // Capture string output if implemented and return // otherwise null is returned if (outputWriter == null) result = instance.Response.ToString(); } return result; } protected virtual TBaseTemplateType InstantiateTemplateClass(Type type) { TBaseTemplateType instance = Activator.CreateInstance(type) as TBaseTemplateType; if (instance == null) { SetError(Resources.CouldnTActivateTypeInstance + type.FullName); return null; } instance.Engine = this; // If a HostContainer was set pass that to the template too instance.HostContainer = this.HostContainer; return instance; } /// <summary> /// Internally executes an instance of the template, /// captures errors on execution and returns true or false /// </summary> /// <param name="instance">An instance of the generated template</param> /// <returns>true or false - check ErrorMessage for errors</returns> protected virtual bool InvokeTemplateInstance(TBaseTemplateType instance, object context) { try { instance.Context = context; instance.Execute(); } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(Resources.TemplateExecutionError + ex.Message); return false; } finally { // Must make sure Response is closed instance.Response.Dispose(); } return true; } The RenderTemplateFromAssembly method basically requires the namespace and class to instantate and creates an instance of the class using InstantiateTemplateClass(). It then invokes the method with InvokeTemplateInstance(). These two methods are broken out because they are re-used by various other rendering methods and also to allow subclassing and providing additional configuration tasks to set properties and pass values to templates at execution time. In the default mode instantiation sets the Engine and HostContainer (discussed later) so the template can call back into the template engine, and the context is set when the template method is invoked. The various RenderXXX methods use similar code although they create the assemblies first. If you’re after potentially cashing assemblies the method is the one to call and that’s exactly what the two HostContainer classes do. More on that in a minute, but before we get into HostContainers let’s talk about AppDomain hosting and the like. Running Templates in their own AppDomain With the RazorEngine class above, when a template is parsed into an assembly and executed the assembly is created (in memory or on disk – you can configure that) and cached in the current AppDomain. In .NET once an assembly has been loaded it can never be unloaded so if you’re loading lots of templates and at some time you want to release them there’s no way to do so. If however you load the assemblies in a separate AppDomain that new AppDomain can be unloaded and the assemblies loaded in it with it. In order to host the templates in a separate AppDomain the easiest thing to do is to run the entire RazorEngine in a separate AppDomain. Then all interaction occurs in the other AppDomain and no further changes have to be made. To facilitate this there is a RazorEngineFactory which has methods that can instantiate the RazorHost in a separate AppDomain as well as in the local AppDomain. The host creates the remote instance and then hangs on to it to keep it alive as well as providing methods to shut down the AppDomain and reload the engine. Sounds complicated but cross-AppDomain invocation is actually fairly easy to implement. Here’s some of the relevant code from the RazorEngineFactory class. Like the RazorEngine this class is generic and requires a template base type in the generic class name: public class RazorEngineFactory<TBaseTemplateType> where TBaseTemplateType : RazorTemplateBase Here are the key methods of interest: /// <summary> /// Creates an instance of the RazorHost in a new AppDomain. This /// version creates a static singleton that that is cached and you /// can call UnloadRazorHostInAppDomain to unload it. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> CreateRazorHostInAppDomain() { if (Current == null) Current = new RazorEngineFactory<TBaseTemplateType>(); return Current.GetRazorHostInAppDomain(); } public static void UnloadRazorHostInAppDomain() { if (Current != null) Current.UnloadHost(); Current = null; } /// <summary> /// Instance method that creates a RazorHost in a new AppDomain. /// This method requires that you keep the Factory around in /// order to keep the AppDomain alive and be able to unload it. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> GetRazorHostInAppDomain() { LocalAppDomain = CreateAppDomain(null); if (LocalAppDomain == null) return null; /// Create the instance inside of the new AppDomain /// Note: remote domain uses local EXE's AppBasePath!!! RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> host = null; try { Assembly ass = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); string AssemblyPath = ass.Location; host = (RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType>) LocalAppDomain.CreateInstanceFrom(AssemblyPath, typeof(RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType>).FullName).Unwrap(); } catch (Exception ex) { ErrorMessage = ex.Message; return null; } return host; } /// <summary> /// Internally creates a new AppDomain in which Razor templates can /// be run. /// </summary> /// <param name="appDomainName"></param> /// <returns></returns> private AppDomain CreateAppDomain(string appDomainName) { if (appDomainName == null) appDomainName = "RazorHost_" + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("n"); AppDomainSetup setup = new AppDomainSetup(); // *** Point at current directory setup.ApplicationBase = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; AppDomain localDomain = AppDomain.CreateDomain(appDomainName, null, setup); return localDomain; } /// <summary> /// Allow unloading of the created AppDomain to release resources /// All internal resources in the AppDomain are released including /// in memory compiled Razor assemblies. /// </summary> public void UnloadHost() { if (this.LocalAppDomain != null) { AppDomain.Unload(this.LocalAppDomain); this.LocalAppDomain = null; } } The static CreateRazorHostInAppDomain() is the key method that startup code usually calls. It uses a Current singleton instance to an instance of itself that is created cross AppDomain and is kept alive because it’s static. GetRazorHostInAppDomain actually creates a cross-AppDomain instance which first creates a new AppDomain and then loads the RazorEngine into it. The remote Proxy instance is returned as a result to the method and can be used the same as a local instance. The code to run with a remote AppDomain is simple: private RazorEngine<RazorTemplateBase> CreateHost() { if (this.Host != null) return this.Host; // Use Static Methods - no error message if host doesn't load this.Host = RazorEngineFactory<RazorTemplateBase>.CreateRazorHostInAppDomain(); if (this.Host == null) { MessageBox.Show("Unable to load Razor Template Host", "Razor Hosting", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation); } return this.Host; } This code relies on a local reference of the Host which is kept around for the duration of the app (in this case a form reference). To use this you’d simply do: this.Host = CreateHost(); if (host == null) return; string result = host.RenderTemplate( this.txtSource.Text, new string[] { "System.Windows.Forms.dll", "Westwind.Utilities.dll" }, this.CustomContext); if (result == null) { MessageBox.Show(host.ErrorMessage, "Template Execution Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation); return; } this.txtResult.Text = result; Now all templates run in a remote AppDomain and can be unloaded with simple code like this: RazorEngineFactory<RazorTemplateBase>.UnloadRazorHostInAppDomain(); this.Host = null; One Step further – Providing a caching ‘Runtime’ Once we can load templates in a remote AppDomain we can add some additional functionality like assembly caching based on application specific features. One of my typical scenarios is to render templates out of a scripts folder. So all templates live in a folder and they change infrequently. So a Folder based host that can compile these templates once and then only recompile them if something changes would be ideal. Enter host containers which are basically wrappers around the RazorEngine<t> and RazorEngineFactory<t>. They provide additional logic for things like file caching based on changes on disk or string hashes for string based template inputs. The folder host also provides for partial rendering logic through a custom template base implementation. There’s a base implementation in RazorBaseHostContainer, which provides the basics for hosting a RazorEngine, which includes the ability to start and stop the engine, cache assemblies and add references: public abstract class RazorBaseHostContainer<TBaseTemplateType> : MarshalByRefObject where TBaseTemplateType : RazorTemplateBase, new() { public RazorBaseHostContainer() { UseAppDomain = true; GeneratedNamespace = "__RazorHost"; } /// <summary> /// Determines whether the Container hosts Razor /// in a separate AppDomain. Seperate AppDomain /// hosting allows unloading and releasing of /// resources. /// </summary> public bool UseAppDomain { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Base folder location where the AppDomain /// is hosted. By default uses the same folder /// as the host application. /// /// Determines where binary dependencies are /// found for assembly references. /// </summary> public string BaseBinaryFolder { get; set; } /// <summary> /// List of referenced assemblies as string values. /// Must be in GAC or in the current folder of the host app/ /// base BinaryFolder /// </summary> public List<string> ReferencedAssemblies = new List<string>(); /// <summary> /// Name of the generated namespace for template classes /// </summary> public string GeneratedNamespace {get; set; } /// <summary> /// Any error messages /// </summary> public string ErrorMessage { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Cached instance of the Host. Required to keep the /// reference to the host alive for multiple uses. /// </summary> public RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> Engine; /// <summary> /// Cached instance of the Host Factory - so we can unload /// the host and its associated AppDomain. /// </summary> protected RazorEngineFactory<TBaseTemplateType> EngineFactory; /// <summary> /// Keep track of each compiled assembly /// and when it was compiled. /// /// Use a hash of the string to identify string /// changes. /// </summary> protected Dictionary<int, CompiledAssemblyItem> LoadedAssemblies = new Dictionary<int, CompiledAssemblyItem>(); /// <summary> /// Call to start the Host running. Follow by a calls to RenderTemplate to /// render individual templates. Call Stop when done. /// </summary> /// <returns>true or false - check ErrorMessage on false </returns> public virtual bool Start() { if (Engine == null) { if (UseAppDomain) Engine = RazorEngineFactory<TBaseTemplateType>.CreateRazorHostInAppDomain(); else Engine = RazorEngineFactory<TBaseTemplateType>.CreateRazorHost(); Engine.Configuration.CompileToMemory = true; Engine.HostContainer = this; if (Engine == null) { this.ErrorMessage = EngineFactory.ErrorMessage; return false; } } return true; } /// <summary> /// Stops the Host and releases the host AppDomain and cached /// assemblies. /// </summary> /// <returns>true or false</returns> public bool Stop() { this.LoadedAssemblies.Clear(); RazorEngineFactory<RazorTemplateBase>.UnloadRazorHostInAppDomain(); this.Engine = null; return true; } … } This base class provides most of the mechanics to host the runtime, but no application specific implementation for rendering. There are rendering functions but they just call the engine directly and provide no caching – there’s no context to decide how to cache and reuse templates. The key methods are Start and Stop and their main purpose is to start a new AppDomain (optionally) and shut it down when requested. The RazorFolderHostContainer – Folder Based Runtime Hosting Let’s look at the more application specific RazorFolderHostContainer implementation which is defined like this: public class RazorFolderHostContainer : RazorBaseHostContainer<RazorTemplateFolderHost> Note that a customized RazorTemplateFolderHost class template is used for this implementation that supports partial rendering in form of a RenderPartial() method that’s available to templates. The folder host’s features are: Render templates based on a Template Base Path (a ‘virtual’ if you will) Cache compiled assemblies based on the relative path and file time stamp File changes on templates cause templates to be recompiled into new assemblies Support for partial rendering using base folder relative pathing As shown in the startup examples earlier host containers require some startup code with a HostContainer tied to a persistent property (like a Form property): // The base path for templates - templates are rendered with relative paths // based on this path. HostContainer.TemplatePath = Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, TemplateBaseFolder); // Default output rendering disk location HostContainer.RenderingOutputFile = Path.Combine(HostContainer.TemplatePath, "__Preview.htm"); // Add any assemblies you want reference in your templates HostContainer.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Windows.Forms.dll"); // Start up the host container HostContainer.Start(); Once that’s done, you can render templates with the host container: // Pass the template path for full filename seleted with OpenFile Dialog // relativepath is: subdir\file.cshtml or file.cshtml or ..\file.cshtml var relativePath = Utilities.GetRelativePath(fileName, HostContainer.TemplatePath); if (!HostContainer.RenderTemplate(relativePath, Context, HostContainer.RenderingOutputFile)) { MessageBox.Show("Error: " + HostContainer.ErrorMessage); return; } webBrowser1.Navigate("file://" + HostContainer.RenderingOutputFile); The most critical task of the RazorFolderHostContainer implementation is to retrieve a template from disk, compile and cache it and then deal with deciding whether subsequent requests need to re-compile the template or simply use a cached version. Internally the GetAssemblyFromFileAndCache() handles this task: /// <summary> /// Internally checks if a cached assembly exists and if it does uses it /// else creates and compiles one. Returns an assembly Id to be /// used with the LoadedAssembly list. /// </summary> /// <param name="relativePath"></param> /// <param name="context"></param> /// <returns></returns> protected virtual CompiledAssemblyItem GetAssemblyFromFileAndCache(string relativePath) { string fileName = Path.Combine(TemplatePath, relativePath).ToLower(); int fileNameHash = fileName.GetHashCode(); if (!File.Exists(fileName)) { this.SetError(Resources.TemplateFileDoesnTExist + fileName); return null; } CompiledAssemblyItem item = null; this.LoadedAssemblies.TryGetValue(fileNameHash, out item); string assemblyId = null; // Check for cached instance if (item != null) { var fileTime = File.GetLastWriteTimeUtc(fileName); if (fileTime <= item.CompileTimeUtc) assemblyId = item.AssemblyId; } else item = new CompiledAssemblyItem(); // No cached instance - create assembly and cache if (assemblyId == null) { string safeClassName = GetSafeClassName(fileName); StreamReader reader = null; try { reader = new StreamReader(fileName, true); } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(Resources.ErrorReadingTemplateFile + fileName); return null; } assemblyId = Engine.ParseAndCompileTemplate(this.ReferencedAssemblies.ToArray(), reader); // need to ensure reader is closed if (reader != null) reader.Close(); if (assemblyId == null) { this.SetError(Engine.ErrorMessage); return null; } item.AssemblyId = assemblyId; item.CompileTimeUtc = DateTime.UtcNow; item.FileName = fileName; item.SafeClassName = safeClassName; this.LoadedAssemblies[fileNameHash] = item; } return item; } This code uses a LoadedAssembly dictionary which is comprised of a structure that holds a reference to a compiled assembly, a full filename and file timestamp and an assembly id. LoadedAssemblies (defined on the base class shown earlier) is essentially a cache for compiled assemblies and they are identified by a hash id. In the case of files the hash is a GetHashCode() from the full filename of the template. The template is checked for in the cache and if not found the file stamp is checked. If that’s newer than the cache’s compilation date the template is recompiled otherwise the version in the cache is used. All the core work defers to a RazorEngine<T> instance to ParseAndCompileTemplate(). The three rendering specific methods then are rather simple implementations with just a few lines of code dealing with parameter and return value parsing: /// <summary> /// Renders a template to a TextWriter. Useful to write output into a stream or /// the Response object. Used for partial rendering. /// </summary> /// <param name="relativePath">Relative path to the file in the folder structure</param> /// <param name="context">Optional context object or null</param> /// <param name="writer">The textwriter to write output into</param> /// <returns></returns> public bool RenderTemplate(string relativePath, object context, TextWriter writer) { // Set configuration data that is to be passed to the template (any object) Engine.TemplatePerRequestConfigurationData = new RazorFolderHostTemplateConfiguration() { TemplatePath = Path.Combine(this.TemplatePath, relativePath), TemplateRelativePath = relativePath, }; CompiledAssemblyItem item = GetAssemblyFromFileAndCache(relativePath); if (item == null) { writer.Close(); return false; } try { // String result will be empty as output will be rendered into the // Response object's stream output. However a null result denotes // an error string result = Engine.RenderTemplateFromAssembly(item.AssemblyId, context, writer); if (result == null) { this.SetError(Engine.ErrorMessage); return false; } } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(ex.Message); return false; } finally { writer.Close(); } return true; } /// <summary> /// Render a template from a source file on disk to a specified outputfile. /// </summary> /// <param name="relativePath">Relative path off the template root folder. Format: path/filename.cshtml</param> /// <param name="context">Any object that will be available in the template as a dynamic of this.Context</param> /// <param name="outputFile">Optional - output file where output is written to. If not specified the /// RenderingOutputFile property is used instead /// </param> /// <returns>true if rendering succeeds, false on failure - check ErrorMessage</returns> public bool RenderTemplate(string relativePath, object context, string outputFile) { if (outputFile == null) outputFile = RenderingOutputFile; try { using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(outputFile, false, Engine.Configuration.OutputEncoding, Engine.Configuration.StreamBufferSize)) { return RenderTemplate(relativePath, context, writer); } } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(ex.Message); return false; } return true; } /// <summary> /// Renders a template to string. Useful for RenderTemplate /// </summary> /// <param name="relativePath"></param> /// <param name="context"></param> /// <returns></returns> public string RenderTemplateToString(string relativePath, object context) { string result = string.Empty; try { using (StringWriter writer = new StringWriter()) { // String result will be empty as output will be rendered into the // Response object's stream output. However a null result denotes // an error if (!RenderTemplate(relativePath, context, writer)) { this.SetError(Engine.ErrorMessage); return null; } result = writer.ToString(); } } catch (Exception ex) { this.SetError(ex.Message); return null; } return result; } The idea is that you can create custom host container implementations that do exactly what you want fairly easily. Take a look at both the RazorFolderHostContainer and RazorStringHostContainer classes for the basic concepts you can use to create custom implementations. Notice also that you can set the engine’s PerRequestConfigurationData() from the host container: // Set configuration data that is to be passed to the template (any object) Engine.TemplatePerRequestConfigurationData = new RazorFolderHostTemplateConfiguration() { TemplatePath = Path.Combine(this.TemplatePath, relativePath), TemplateRelativePath = relativePath, }; which when set to a non-null value is passed to the Template’s InitializeTemplate() method. This method receives an object parameter which you can cast as needed: public override void InitializeTemplate(object configurationData) { // Pick up configuration data and stuff into Request object RazorFolderHostTemplateConfiguration config = configurationData as RazorFolderHostTemplateConfiguration; this.Request.TemplatePath = config.TemplatePath; this.Request.TemplateRelativePath = config.TemplateRelativePath; } With this data you can then configure any custom properties or objects on your main template class. It’s an easy way to pass data from the HostContainer all the way down into the template. The type you use is of type object so you have to cast it yourself, and it must be serializable since it will likely run in a separate AppDomain. This might seem like an ugly way to pass data around – normally I’d use an event delegate to call back from the engine to the host, but since this is running over AppDomain boundaries events get really tricky and passing a template instance back up into the host over AppDomain boundaries doesn’t work due to serialization issues. So it’s easier to pass the data from the host down into the template using this rather clumsy approach of set and forward. It’s ugly, but it’s something that can be hidden in the host container implementation as I’ve done here. It’s also not something you have to do in every implementation so this is kind of an edge case, but I know I’ll need to pass a bunch of data in some of my applications and this will be the easiest way to do so. Summing Up Hosting the Razor runtime is something I got jazzed up about quite a bit because I have an immediate need for this type of templating/merging/scripting capability in an application I’m working on. I’ve also been using templating in many apps and it’s always been a pain to deal with. The Razor engine makes this whole experience a lot cleaner and more light weight and with these wrappers I can now plug .NET based templating into my code literally with a few lines of code. That’s something to cheer about… I hope some of you will find this useful as well… Resources The examples and code require that you download the Razor runtimes. Projects are for Visual Studio 2010 running on .NET 4.0 Platform Installer 3.0 (install WebMatrix or MVC 3 for Razor Runtimes) Latest Code in Subversion Repository Download Snapshot of the Code Documentation (CHM Help File) © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  .NET  

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• value types in the vm

  - by john.rose

  value types in the vm p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p5 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier} p.p6 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier; min-height: 17.0px} p.p7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p8 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p9 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p10 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; color: #000000} li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} li.li7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} span.s1 {font: 14.0px Courier} span.s2 {color: #000000} span.s3 {font: 14.0px Courier; color: #000000} ol.ol1 {list-style-type: decimal} Or, enduring values for a changing world. Introduction A value type is a data type which, generally speaking, is designed for being passed by value in and out of methods, and stored by value in data structures. The only value types which the Java language directly supports are the eight primitive types. Java indirectly and approximately supports value types, if they are implemented in terms of classes. For example, both Integer and String may be viewed as value types, especially if their usage is restricted to avoid operations appropriate to Object. In this note, we propose a definition of value types in terms of a design pattern for Java classes, accompanied by a set of usage restrictions. We also sketch the relation of such value types to tuple types (which are a JVM-level notion), and point out JVM optimizations that can apply to value types. This note is a thought experiment to extend the JVM’s performance model in support of value types. The demonstration has two phases.  Initially the extension can simply use design patterns, within the current bytecode architecture, and in today’s Java language. But if the performance model is to be realized in practice, it will probably require new JVM bytecode features, changes to the Java language, or both.  We will look at a few possibilities for these new features. An Axiom of Value In the context of the JVM, a value type is a data type equipped with construction, assignment, and equality operations, and a set of typed components, such that, whenever two variables of the value type produce equal corresponding values for their components, the values of the two variables cannot be distinguished by any JVM operation. Here are some corollaries: A value type is immutable, since otherwise a copy could be constructed and the original could be modified in one of its components, allowing the copies to be distinguished. Changing the component of a value type requires construction of a new value. The equals and hashCode operations are strictly component-wise. If a value type is represented by a JVM reference, that reference cannot be successfully synchronized on, and cannot be usefully compared for reference equality. A value type can be viewed in terms of what it doesn’t do. We can say that a value type omits all value-unsafe operations, which could violate the constraints on value types.  These operations, which are ordinarily allowed for Java object types, are pointer equality comparison (the acmp instruction), synchronization (the monitor instructions), all the wait and notify methods of class Object, and non-trivial finalize methods. The clone method is also value-unsafe, although for value types it could be treated as the identity function. Finally, and most importantly, any side effect on an object (however visible) also counts as an value-unsafe operation. A value type may have methods, but such methods must not change the components of the value. It is reasonable and useful to define methods like toString, equals, and hashCode on value types, and also methods which are specifically valuable to users of the value type. Representations of Value Value types have two natural representations in the JVM, unboxed and boxed. An unboxed value consists of the components, as simple variables. For example, the complex number x=(1+2i), in rectangular coordinate form, may be represented in unboxed form by the following pair of variables: /*Complex x = Complex.valueOf(1.0, 2.0):*/ double x_re = 1.0, x_im = 2.0; These variables might be locals, parameters, or fields. Their association as components of a single value is not defined to the JVM. Here is a sample computation which computes the norm of the difference between two complex numbers: double distance(/*Complex x:*/ double x_re, double x_im,         /*Complex y:*/ double y_re, double y_im) {     /*Complex z = x.minus(y):*/     double z_re = x_re - y_re, z_im = x_im - y_im;     /*return z.abs():*/     return Math.sqrt(z_re*z_re + z_im*z_im); } A boxed representation groups component values under a single object reference. The reference is to a ‘wrapper class’ that carries the component values in its fields. (A primitive type can naturally be equated with a trivial value type with just one component of that type. In that view, the wrapper class Integer can serve as a boxed representation of value type int.) The unboxed representation of complex numbers is practical for many uses, but it fails to cover several major use cases: return values, array elements, and generic APIs. The two components of a complex number cannot be directly returned from a Java function, since Java does not support multiple return values. The same story applies to array elements: Java has no ’array of structs’ feature. (Double-length arrays are a possible workaround for complex numbers, but not for value types with heterogeneous components.) By generic APIs I mean both those which use generic types, like Arrays.asList and those which have special case support for primitive types, like String.valueOf and PrintStream.println. Those APIs do not support unboxed values, and offer some problems to boxed values. Any ’real’ JVM type should have a story for returns, arrays, and API interoperability. The basic problem here is that value types fall between primitive types and object types. Value types are clearly more complex than primitive types, and object types are slightly too complicated. Objects are a little bit dangerous to use as value carriers, since object references can be compared for pointer equality, and can be synchronized on. Also, as many Java programmers have observed, there is often a performance cost to using wrapper objects, even on modern JVMs. Even so, wrapper classes are a good starting point for talking about value types. If there were a set of structural rules and restrictions which would prevent value-unsafe operations on value types, wrapper classes would provide a good notation for defining value types. This note attempts to define such rules and restrictions. Let’s Start Coding Now it is time to look at some real code. Here is a definition, written in Java, of a complex number value type. @ValueSafe public final class Complex implements java.io.Serializable {     // immutable component structure:     public final double re, im;     private Complex(double re, double im) {         this.re = re; this.im = im;     }     // interoperability methods:     public String toString() { return "Complex("+re+","+im+")"; }     public List<Double> asList() { return Arrays.asList(re, im); }     public boolean equals(Complex c) {         return re == c.re && im == c.im;     }     public boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x instanceof Complex && equals((Complex) x);     }     public int hashCode() {         return 31*Double.valueOf(re).hashCode()                 + Double.valueOf(im).hashCode();     }     // factory methods:     public static Complex valueOf(double re, double im) {         return new Complex(re, im);     }     public Complex changeRe(double re2) { return valueOf(re2, im); }     public Complex changeIm(double im2) { return valueOf(re, im2); }     public static Complex cast(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x == null ? ZERO : (Complex) x;     }     // utility methods and constants:     public Complex plus(Complex c)  { return new Complex(re+c.re, im+c.im); }     public Complex minus(Complex c) { return new Complex(re-c.re, im-c.im); }     public double abs() { return Math.sqrt(re*re + im*im); }     public static final Complex PI = valueOf(Math.PI, 0.0);     public static final Complex ZERO = valueOf(0.0, 0.0); } This is not a minimal definition, because it includes some utility methods and other optional parts.  The essential elements are as follows: The class is marked as a value type with an annotation. The class is final, because it does not make sense to create subclasses of value types. The fields of the class are all non-private and final.  (I.e., the type is immutable and structurally transparent.) From the supertype Object, all public non-final methods are overridden. The constructor is private. Beyond these bare essentials, we can observe the following features in this example, which are likely to be typical of all value types: One or more factory methods are responsible for value creation, including a component-wise valueOf method. There are utility methods for complex arithmetic and instance creation, such as plus and changeIm. There are static utility constants, such as PI. The type is serializable, using the default mechanisms. There are methods for converting to and from dynamically typed references, such as asList and cast. The Rules In order to use value types properly, the programmer must avoid value-unsafe operations.  A helpful Java compiler should issue errors (or at least warnings) for code which provably applies value-unsafe operations, and should issue warnings for code which might be correct but does not provably avoid value-unsafe operations.  No such compilers exist today, but to simplify our account here, we will pretend that they do exist. A value-safe type is any class, interface, or type parameter marked with the @ValueSafe annotation, or any subtype of a value-safe type.  If a value-safe class is marked final, it is in fact a value type.  All other value-safe classes must be abstract.  The non-static fields of a value class must be non-public and final, and all its constructors must be private. Under the above rules, a standard interface could be helpful to define value types like Complex.  Here is an example: @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable {     // All methods listed here must get redefined.     // Definitions must be value-safe, which means     // they may depend on component values only.     List<? extends Object> asList();     int hashCode();     boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object c);     String toString(); } //@ValueSafe inherited from supertype: public final class Complex implements ValueType { … The main advantage of such a conventional interface is that (unlike an annotation) it is reified in the runtime type system.  It could appear as an element type or parameter bound, for facilities which are designed to work on value types only.  More broadly, it might assist the JVM to perform dynamic enforcement of the rules for value types. Besides types, the annotation @ValueSafe can mark fields, parameters, local variables, and methods.  (This is redundant when the type is also value-safe, but may be useful when the type is Object or another supertype of a value type.)  Working forward from these annotations, an expression E is defined as value-safe if it satisfies one or more of the following: The type of E is a value-safe type. E names a field, parameter, or local variable whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is a call to a method whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is an assignment to a value-safe variable, field reference, or array reference. E is a cast to a value-safe type from a value-safe expression. E is a conditional expression E0 ? E1 : E2, and both E1 and E2 are value-safe. Assignments to value-safe expressions and initializations of value-safe names must take their values from value-safe expressions. A value-safe expression may not be the subject of a value-unsafe operation.  In particular, it cannot be synchronized on, nor can it be compared with the “==” operator, not even with a null or with another value-safe type. In a program where all of these rules are followed, no value-type value will be subject to a value-unsafe operation.  Thus, the prime axiom of value types will be satisfied, that no two value type will be distinguishable as long as their component values are equal. More Code To illustrate these rules, here are some usage examples for Complex: Complex pi = Complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex zero = pi.changeRe(0);  //zero = pi; zero.re = 0; ValueType vtype = pi; @SuppressWarnings("value-unsafe")   Object obj = pi; @ValueSafe Object obj2 = pi; obj2 = new Object();  // ok List<Complex> clist = new ArrayList<Complex>(); clist.add(pi);  // (ok assuming List.add param is @ValueSafe) List<ValueType> vlist = new ArrayList<ValueType>(); vlist.add(pi);  // (ok) List<Object> olist = new ArrayList<Object>(); olist.add(pi);  // warning: "value-unsafe" boolean z = pi.equals(zero); boolean z1 = (pi == zero);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z2 = (pi == null);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z3 = (pi == obj2);  // error: reference comparison on value type synchronized (pi) { }  // error: synch of value, unpredictable result synchronized (obj2) { }  // unpredictable result Complex qq = pi; qq = null;  // possible NPE; warning: “null-unsafe" qq = (Complex) obj;  // warning: “null-unsafe" qq = Complex.cast(obj);  // OK @SuppressWarnings("null-unsafe")   Complex empty = null;  // possible NPE qq = empty;  // possible NPE (null pollution) The Payoffs It follows from this that either the JVM or the java compiler can replace boxed value-type values with unboxed ones, without affecting normal computations.  Fields and variables of value types can be split into their unboxed components.  Non-static methods on value types can be transformed into static methods which take the components as value parameters. Some common questions arise around this point in any discussion of value types. Why burden the programmer with all these extra rules?  Why not detect programs automagically and perform unboxing transparently?  The answer is that it is easy to break the rules accidently unless they are agreed to by the programmer and enforced.  Automatic unboxing optimizations are tantalizing but (so far) unreachable ideal.  In the current state of the art, it is possible exhibit benchmarks in which automatic unboxing provides the desired effects, but it is not possible to provide a JVM with a performance model that assures the programmer when unboxing will occur.  This is why I’m writing this note, to enlist help from, and provide assurances to, the programmer.  Basically, I’m shooting for a good set of user-supplied “pragmas” to frame the desired optimization. Again, the important thing is that the unboxing must be done reliably, or else programmers will have no reason to work with the extra complexity of the value-safety rules.  There must be a reasonably stable performance model, wherein using a value type has approximately the same performance characteristics as writing the unboxed components as separate Java variables. There are some rough corners to the present scheme.  Since Java fields and array elements are initialized to null, value-type computations which incorporate uninitialized variables can produce null pointer exceptions.  One workaround for this is to require such variables to be null-tested, and the result replaced with a suitable all-zero value of the value type.  That is what the “cast” method does above. Generically typed APIs like List<T> will continue to manipulate boxed values always, at least until we figure out how to do reification of generic type instances.  Use of such APIs will elicit warnings until their type parameters (and/or relevant members) are annotated or typed as value-safe.  Retrofitting List<T> is likely to expose flaws in the present scheme, which we will need to engineer around.  Here are a couple of first approaches: public interface java.util.List<@ValueSafe T> extends Collection<T> { … public interface java.util.List<T extends Object|ValueType> extends Collection<T> { … (The second approach would require disjunctive types, in which value-safety is “contagious” from the constituent types.) With more transformations, the return value types of methods can also be unboxed.  This may require significant bytecode-level transformations, and would work best in the presence of a bytecode representation for multiple value groups, which I have proposed elsewhere under the title “Tuples in the VM”. But for starters, the JVM can apply this transformation under the covers, to internally compiled methods.  This would give a way to express multiple return values and structured return values, which is a significant pain-point for Java programmers, especially those who work with low-level structure types favored by modern vector and graphics processors.  The lack of multiple return values has a strong distorting effect on many Java APIs. Even if the JVM fails to unbox a value, there is still potential benefit to the value type.  Clustered computing systems something have copy operations (serialization or something similar) which apply implicitly to command operands.  When copying JVM objects, it is extremely helpful to know when an object’s identity is important or not.  If an object reference is a copied operand, the system may have to create a proxy handle which points back to the original object, so that side effects are visible.  Proxies must be managed carefully, and this can be expensive.  On the other hand, value types are exactly those types which a JVM can “copy and forget” with no downside. Array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces.  (As data sizes and rates increase, bulk data becomes more important than scalar data, so arrays are definitely accompanying us into the future of computing.)  Value types are very helpful for adding structure to bulk data, so a successful value type mechanism will make it easier for us to express richer forms of bulk data. Unboxing arrays (i.e., arrays containing unboxed values) will provide better cache and memory density, and more direct data movement within clustered or heterogeneous computing systems.  They require the deepest transformations, relative to today’s JVM.  There is an impedance mismatch between value-type arrays and Java’s covariant array typing, so compromises will need to be struck with existing Java semantics.  It is probably worth the effort, since arrays of unboxed value types are inherently more memory-efficient than standard Java arrays, which rely on dependent pointer chains. It may be sufficient to extend the “value-safe” concept to array declarations, and allow low-level transformations to change value-safe array declarations from the standard boxed form into an unboxed tuple-based form.  Such value-safe arrays would not be convertible to Object[] arrays.  Certain connection points, such as Arrays.copyOf and System.arraycopy might need additional input/output combinations, to allow smooth conversion between arrays with boxed and unboxed elements. Alternatively, the correct solution may have to wait until we have enough reification of generic types, and enough operator overloading, to enable an overhaul of Java arrays. Implicit Method Definitions The example of class Complex above may be unattractively complex.  I believe most or all of the elements of the example class are required by the logic of value types. If this is true, a programmer who writes a value type will have to write lots of error-prone boilerplate code.  On the other hand, I think nearly all of the code (except for the domain-specific parts like plus and minus) can be implicitly generated. Java has a rule for implicitly defining a class’s constructor, if no it defines no constructors explicitly.  Likewise, there are rules for providing default access modifiers for interface members.  Because of the highly regular structure of value types, it might be reasonable to perform similar implicit transformations on value types.  Here’s an example of a “highly implicit” definition of a complex number type: public class Complex implements ValueType {  // implicitly final     public double re, im;  // implicitly public final     //implicit methods are defined elementwise from te fields:     //  toString, asList, equals(2), hashCode, valueOf, cast     //optionally, explicit methods (plus, abs, etc.) would go here } In other words, with the right defaults, a simple value type definition can be a one-liner.  The observant reader will have noticed the similarities (and suitable differences) between the explicit methods above and the corresponding methods for List<T>. Another way to abbreviate such a class would be to make an annotation the primary trigger of the functionality, and to add the interface(s) implicitly: public @ValueType class Complex { … // implicitly final, implements ValueType (But to me it seems better to communicate the “magic” via an interface, even if it is rooted in an annotation.) Implicitly Defined Value Types So far we have been working with nominal value types, which is to say that the sequence of typed components is associated with a name and additional methods that convey the intention of the programmer.  A simple ordered pair of floating point numbers can be variously interpreted as (to name a few possibilities) a rectangular or polar complex number or Cartesian point.  The name and the methods convey the intended meaning. But what if we need a truly simple ordered pair of floating point numbers, without any further conceptual baggage?  Perhaps we are writing a method (like “divideAndRemainder”) which naturally returns a pair of numbers instead of a single number.  Wrapping the pair of numbers in a nominal type (like “QuotientAndRemainder”) makes as little sense as wrapping a single return value in a nominal type (like “Quotient”).  What we need here are structural value types commonly known as tuples. For the present discussion, let us assign a conventional, JVM-friendly name to tuples, roughly as follows: public class java.lang.tuple.$DD extends java.lang.tuple.Tuple {      double $1, $2; } Here the component names are fixed and all the required methods are defined implicitly.  The supertype is an abstract class which has suitable shared declarations.  The name itself mentions a JVM-style method parameter descriptor, which may be “cracked” to determine the number and types of the component fields. The odd thing about such a tuple type (and structural types in general) is it must be instantiated lazily, in response to linkage requests from one or more classes that need it.  The JVM and/or its class loaders must be prepared to spin a tuple type on demand, given a simple name reference, $xyz, where the xyz is cracked into a series of component types.  (Specifics of naming and name mangling need some tasteful engineering.) Tuples also seem to demand, even more than nominal types, some support from the language.  (This is probably because notations for non-nominal types work best as combinations of punctuation and type names, rather than named constructors like Function3 or Tuple2.)  At a minimum, languages with tuples usually (I think) have some sort of simple bracket notation for creating tuples, and a corresponding pattern-matching syntax (or “destructuring bind”) for taking tuples apart, at least when they are parameter lists.  Designing such a syntax is no simple thing, because it ought to play well with nominal value types, and also with pre-existing Java features, such as method parameter lists, implicit conversions, generic types, and reflection.  That is a task for another day. Other Use Cases Besides complex numbers and simple tuples there are many use cases for value types.  Many tuple-like types have natural value-type representations. These include rational numbers, point locations and pixel colors, and various kinds of dates and addresses. Other types have a variable-length ‘tail’ of internal values. The most common example of this is String, which is (mathematically) a sequence of UTF-16 character values. Similarly, bit vectors, multiple-precision numbers, and polynomials are composed of sequences of values. Such types include, in their representation, a reference to a variable-sized data structure (often an array) which (somehow) represents the sequence of values. The value type may also include ’header’ information. Variable-sized values often have a length distribution which favors short lengths. In that case, the design of the value type can make the first few values in the sequence be direct ’header’ fields of the value type. In the common case where the header is enough to represent the whole value, the tail can be a shared null value, or even just a null reference. Note that the tail need not be an immutable object, as long as the header type encapsulates it well enough. This is the case with String, where the tail is a mutable (but never mutated) character array. Field types and their order must be a globally visible part of the API.  The structure of the value type must be transparent enough to have a globally consistent unboxed representation, so that all callers and callees agree about the type and order of components  that appear as parameters, return types, and array elements.  This is a trade-off between efficiency and encapsulation, which is forced on us when we remove an indirection enjoyed by boxed representations.  A JVM-only transformation would not care about such visibility, but a bytecode transformation would need to take care that (say) the components of complex numbers would not get swapped after a redefinition of Complex and a partial recompile.  Perhaps constant pool references to value types need to declare the field order as assumed by each API user. This brings up the delicate status of private fields in a value type.  It must always be possible to load, store, and copy value types as coordinated groups, and the JVM performs those movements by moving individual scalar values between locals and stack.  If a component field is not public, what is to prevent hostile code from plucking it out of the tuple using a rogue aload or astore instruction?  Nothing but the verifier, so we may need to give it more smarts, so that it treats value types as inseparable groups of stack slots or locals (something like long or double). My initial thought was to make the fields always public, which would make the security problem moot.  But public is not always the right answer; consider the case of String, where the underlying mutable character array must be encapsulated to prevent security holes.  I believe we can win back both sides of the tradeoff, by training the verifier never to split up the components in an unboxed value.  Just as the verifier encapsulates the two halves of a 64-bit primitive, it can encapsulate the the header and body of an unboxed String, so that no code other than that of class String itself can take apart the values. Similar to String, we could build an efficient multi-precision decimal type along these lines: public final class DecimalValue extends ValueType {     protected final long header;     protected private final BigInteger digits;     public DecimalValue valueOf(int value, int scale) {         assert(scale >= 0);         return new DecimalValue(((long)value << 32) + scale, null);     }     public DecimalValue valueOf(long value, int scale) {         if (value == (int) value)             return valueOf((int)value, scale);         return new DecimalValue(-scale, new BigInteger(value));     } } Values of this type would be passed between methods as two machine words. Small values (those with a significand which fits into 32 bits) would be represented without any heap data at all, unless the DecimalValue itself were boxed. (Note the tension between encapsulation and unboxing in this case.  It would be better if the header and digits fields were private, but depending on where the unboxing information must “leak”, it is probably safer to make a public revelation of the internal structure.) Note that, although an array of Complex can be faked with a double-length array of double, there is no easy way to fake an array of unboxed DecimalValues.  (Either an array of boxed values or a transposed pair of homogeneous arrays would be reasonable fallbacks, in a current JVM.)  Getting the full benefit of unboxing and arrays will require some new JVM magic. Although the JVM emphasizes portability, system dependent code will benefit from using machine-level types larger than 64 bits.  For example, the back end of a linear algebra package might benefit from value types like Float4 which map to stock vector types.  This is probably only worthwhile if the unboxing arrays can be packed with such values. More Daydreams A more finely-divided design for dynamic enforcement of value safety could feature separate marker interfaces for each invariant.  An empty marker interface Unsynchronizable could cause suitable exceptions for monitor instructions on objects in marked classes.  More radically, a Interchangeable marker interface could cause JVM primitives that are sensitive to object identity to raise exceptions; the strangest result would be that the acmp instruction would have to be specified as raising an exception. @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable,         Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable { … public class Complex implements ValueType {     // inherits Serializable, Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable, @ValueSafe     … It seems possible that Integer and the other wrapper types could be retro-fitted as value-safe types.  This is a major change, since wrapper objects would be unsynchronizable and their references interchangeable.  It is likely that code which violates value-safety for wrapper types exists but is uncommon.  It is less plausible to retro-fit String, since the prominent operation String.intern is often used with value-unsafe code. We should also reconsider the distinction between boxed and unboxed values in code.  The design presented above obscures that distinction.  As another thought experiment, we could imagine making a first class distinction in the type system between boxed and unboxed representations.  Since only primitive types are named with a lower-case initial letter, we could define that the capitalized version of a value type name always refers to the boxed representation, while the initial lower-case variant always refers to boxed.  For example: complex pi = complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex boxPi = pi;  // convert to boxed myList.add(boxPi); complex z = myList.get(0);  // unbox Such a convention could perhaps absorb the current difference between int and Integer, double and Double. It might also allow the programmer to express a helpful distinction among array types. As said above, array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces, but are limited in the JVM.  Extending arrays beyond the present limitations is worth thinking about; for example, the Maxine JVM implementation has a hybrid object/array type.  Something like this which can also accommodate value type components seems worthwhile.  On the other hand, does it make sense for value types to contain short arrays?  And why should random-access arrays be the end of our design process, when bulk data is often sequentially accessed, and it might make sense to have heterogeneous streams of data as the natural “jumbo” data structure.  These considerations must wait for another day and another note. More Work It seems to me that a good sequence for introducing such value types would be as follows: Add the value-safety restrictions to an experimental version of javac. Code some sample applications with value types, including Complex and DecimalValue. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. A staggered roll-out like this would decouple language changes from bytecode changes, which is always a convenient thing. A similar investigation should be applied (concurrently) to array types.  In this case, it seems to me that the starting point is in the JVM: Add an experimental unboxing array data structure to a production JVM, perhaps along the lines of Maxine hybrids.  No bytecode or language support is required at first; everything can be done with encapsulated unsafe operations and/or method handles. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. That’s enough musing me for now.  Back to work!

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• Why is Java EE 6 better than Spring ?

  - by arungupta

  Java EE 6 was released over 2 years ago and now there are 14 compliant application servers. In all my talks around the world, a question that is frequently asked is Why should I use Java EE 6 instead of Spring ? There are already several blogs covering that topic: Java EE wins over Spring by Bill Burke Why will I use Java EE instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java projects in 2012 ? by Kai Waehner (more discussion on TSS) Spring to Java EE migration (Part 1 and 2, 3 and 4 coming as well) by David Heffelfinger Spring to Java EE - A Migration Experience by Lincoln Baxter Migrating Spring to Java EE 6 by Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker at NLJUG Moving from Spring to Java EE 6 - The Age of Frameworks is Over at TSS Java EE vs Spring Shootout by Rohit Kelapure and Reza Rehman at JavaOne 2011 Java EE 6 and the Ewoks by Murat Yener Definite excuse to avoid Spring forever - Bert Ertman and Arun Gupta I will try to share my perspective in this blog. First of all, I'd like to start with a note: Thank you Spring framework for filling the interim gap and providing functionality that is now included in the mainstream Java EE 6 application servers. The Java EE platform has evolved over the years learning from frameworks like Spring and provides all the functionality to build an enterprise application. Thank you very much Spring framework! While Spring was revolutionary in its time and is still very popular and quite main stream in the same way Struts was circa 2003, it really is last generation's framework - some people are even calling it legacy. However my theory is "code is king". So my approach is to build/take a simple Hello World CRUD application in Java EE 6 and Spring and compare the deployable artifacts. I started looking at the official tutorial Developing a Spring Framework MVC Application Step-by-Step but it is using the older version 2.5. I wasn't able to find any updated version in the current 3.1 release. Next, I downloaded Spring Tool Suite and thought that would provide some template samples to get started. A least a quick search did not show any handy tutorials - either video or text-based. So I searched and found a link to their SVN repository at src.springframework.org/svn/spring-samples/. I tried the "mvc-basic" sample and the generated WAR file was 4.43 MB. While it was named a "basic" sample it seemed to come with 19 different libraries bundled but it was what I could find: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-jsptags-1.0.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar And it is not even using any database! The app deployed fine on GlassFish 3.1.2 but the "@Controller Example" link did not work as it was missing the context root. With a bit of tweaking I could deploy the application and assume that the account got created because no error was displayed in the browser or server log. Next I generated the WAR for "mvc-ajax" and the 5.1 MB WAR had 20 JARs (1 removed, 2 added): ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar 2 more JARs for just doing Ajax. Anyway, deploying this application gave the following error: Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.<init>(Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/ClassIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/AnnotationIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/introspect/VisibilityChecker;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/jsontype/SubtypeResolver;)V    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.<init>(ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.java:20)    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.postProcessAfterInitialization(JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.java:40)    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:407) Seems like some incorrect repos in the "pom.xml". Next one is "mvc-showcase" and the 6.49 MB WAR now has 28 JARs as shown below: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/aspectjrt-1.6.10.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-fileupload-1.2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-io-2.0.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/el-api-2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/javax.inject-1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jdom-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-api-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-impl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/rome-1.0.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar The app at least deployed and showed results this time. But still no database! Next I tried building "jpetstore" and got the error: [ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:Could not resolve dependencies for project org.springframework.samples:org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:war:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT: Failed to collect dependencies for [commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload:jar:1.2.1 (compile), org.apache.struts:com.springsource.org.apache.struts:jar:1.2.9 (compile), javax.xml.rpc:com.springsource.javax.xml.rpc:jar:1.1.0 (compile), org.apache.commons:com.springsource.org.apache.commons.dbcp:jar:1.2.2.osgi (compile), commons-io:commons-io:jar:1.3.2 (compile), hsqldb:hsqldb:jar:1.8.0.7 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-core:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-jsp:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.tuckey:urlrewritefilter:jar:3.1.0 (compile), org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-orm:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-context-support:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework.webflow:spring-js:jar:2.0.7.RELEASE (compile), org.apache.ibatis:com.springsource.com.ibatis:jar:2.3.4.726 (runtime), com.caucho:com.springsource.com.caucho:jar:3.2.1 (compile), org.apache.axis:com.springsource.org.apache.axis:jar:1.4.0 (compile), javax.wsdl:com.springsource.javax.wsdl:jar:1.6.1 (compile), javax.servlet:jstl:jar:1.2 (runtime), org.aspectj:aspectjweaver:jar:1.6.5 (compile), javax.servlet:servlet-api:jar:2.5 (provided), javax.servlet.jsp:jsp-api:jar:2.1 (provided), junit:junit:jar:4.6 (test)]: Failed to read artifact descriptor for org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT: Could not transfer artifact org.springframework:spring-webmvc:pom:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT from/to JBoss repository (http://repository.jboss.com/maven2): Access denied to: http://repository.jboss.com/maven2/org/springframework/spring-webmvc/3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT/spring-webmvc-3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.pom It appears the sample is broken - maybe I was pulling from the wrong repository - would be great if someone were to point me at a good target to use here. With a 50% hit on samples in this repository, I started searching through numerous blogs, most of which have either outdated information (using XML-heavy Spring 2.5), some piece of configuration (which is a typical "feature" of Spring) is missing, or too much complexity in the sample. I finally found this blog that worked like a charm. This blog creates a trivial Spring MVC 3 application using Hibernate and MySQL. This application performs CRUD operations on a single table in a database using typical Spring technologies.  I downloaded the sample code from the blog, deployed it on GlassFish 3.1.2 and could CRUD the "person" entity. The source code for this application can be downloaded here. More details on the application statistics below. And then I built a similar CRUD application in Java EE 6 using NetBeans wizards in a couple of minutes. The source code for the application can be downloaded here and the WAR here. The Spring Source Tool Suite may also offer similar wizard-driven capabilities but this blog focus primarily on comparing the runtimes. The lack of STS tutorials was slightly disappointing as well. NetBeans however has tons of text-based and video tutorials and tons of material even by the community. One more bit on the download size of tools bundle ... NetBeans 7.1.1 "All" is 211 MB (which includes GlassFish and Tomcat) Spring Tool Suite  2.9.0 is 347 MB (~ 65% bigger) This blog is not about the tooling comparison so back to the Java EE 6 version of the application .... In order to run the Java EE version on GlassFish, copy the MySQL Connector/J to glassfish3/glassfish/domains/domain1/lib/ext directory and create a JDBC connection pool and JDBC resource as: ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-connection-pool --datasourceclassname \\ com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlDataSource --restype \\ javax.sql.DataSource --property \\ portNumber=3306:user=mysql:password=mysql:databaseName=mydatabase \\ myConnectionPool ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-resource --connectionpoolid myConnectionPool jdbc/myDataSource I generated WARs for the two projects and the table below highlights some differences between them: Java EE 6 Spring WAR File Size 0.021030 MB 10.87 MB (~516x) Number of files 20 53 (> 2.5x) Bundled libraries 0 36 Total size of libraries 0 12.1 MB XML files 3 5 LoC in XML files 50 (11 + 15 + 24) 129 (27 + 46 + 16 + 11 + 19) (~ 2.5x) Total .properties files 1 Bundle.properties 2 spring.properties, log4j.properties Cold Deploy 5,339 ms 11,724 ms Second Deploy 481 ms 6,261 ms Third Deploy 528 ms 5,484 ms Fourth Deploy 484 ms 5,576 ms Runtime memory ~73 MB ~101 MB Some points worth highlighting from the table ... 516x WAR file, 10x deployment time - With 12.1 MB of libraries (for a very basic application) bundled in your application, the WAR file size and the deployment time will naturally go higher. The WAR file for Spring-based application is 516x bigger and the deployment time is double during the first deployment and ~ 10x during subsequent deployments. The Java EE 6 application is fully portable and will run on any Java EE 6 compliant application server. 36 libraries in the WAR - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today. Each of those servers provide all the functionality like transactions, dependency injection, security, persistence, etc typically required of an enterprise or web application. There is no need to bundle 36 libraries worth 12.1 MB for a trivial CRUD application. These 14 compliant application servers provide all the functionality baked in. Now you can also deploy these libraries in the container but then you don't get the "portability" offered by Spring in that case. Does your typical Spring deployment actually do that ? 3x LoC in XML - The number of XML files is about 1.6x and the LoC is ~ 2.5x. So much XML seems circa 2003 when the Java language had no annotations. The XML files can be further reduced, e.g. faces-config.xml can be replaced without providing i18n, but I just want to compare stock applications. Memory usage - Both the applications were deployed on default GlassFish 3.1.2 installation and any additional memory consumed as part of deployment/access was attributed to the application. This is by no means scientific but at least provides an initial ballpark. This area definitely needs more investigation. Another table that compares typical Java EE 6 compliant application servers and the custom-stack created for a Spring application ... Java EE 6 Spring Web Container ? 53 MB (tcServer 2.6.3 Developer Edition) Security ? 12 MB (Spring Security 3.1.0) Persistence ? 6.3 MB (Hibernate 4.1.0, required) Dependency Injection ? 5.3 MB (Framework) Web Services ? 796 KB (Spring WS 2.0.4) Messaging ? 3.4 MB (RabbitMQ Server 2.7.1) 936 KB (Java client 936) OSGi ? 1.3 MB (Spring OSGi 1.2.1) GlassFish and WebLogic (starting at 33 MB) 83.3 MB There are differentiating factors on both the stacks. But most of the functionality like security, persistence, and dependency injection is baked in a Java EE 6 compliant application server but needs to be individually managed and patched for a Spring application. This very quickly leads to a "stack explosion". The Java EE 6 servers are tested extensively on a variety of platforms in different combinations whereas a Spring application developer is responsible for testing with different JDKs, Operating Systems, Versions, Patches, etc. Oracle has both the leading OSS lightweight server with GlassFish and the leading enterprise Java server with WebLogic Server, both Java EE 6 and both with lightweight deployment options. The Web Container offered as part of a Java EE 6 application server not only deploys your enterprise Java applications but also provide operational management, diagnostics, and mission-critical capabilities required by your applications. The Java EE 6 platform also introduced the Web Profile which is a subset of the specifications from the entire platform. It is targeted at developers of modern web applications offering a reasonably complete stack, composed of standard APIs, and is capable out-of-the-box of addressing the needs of a large class of Web applications. As your applications grow, the stack can grow to the full Java EE 6 platform. The GlassFish Server Web Profile starting at 33MB (smaller than just the non-standard tcServer) provides most of the functionality typically required by a web application. WebLogic provides battle-tested functionality for a high throughput, low latency, and enterprise grade web application. No individual managing or patching, all tested and commercially supported for you! Note that VMWare does have a server, tcServer, but it is non-standard and not even certified to the level of the standard Web Profile most customers expect these days. Customers who choose this risk proprietary lock-in since VMWare does not seem to want to formally certify with either Java EE 6 Enterprise Platform or with Java EE 6 Web Profile but of course it would be great if they were to join the community and help their customers reduce the risk of deploying on VMWare software. Some more points to help you decide choose between Java EE 6 and Spring ... Freedom to choose container - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today, with a variety of open source and commercial offerings. A Java EE 6 application can be deployed on any of those containers. So if you deployed your application on GlassFish today and would like to scale up with your demands then you can deploy the same application to WebLogic. And because of the portability of a Java EE 6 application, you can even take it a different vendor altogether. Spring requires a runtime which could be any of these app servers as well. But why use Spring when all the required functionality is already baked into the application server itself ? Spring also has a different definition of portability where they claim to bundle all the libraries in the WAR file and move to any application server. But we saw earlier how bloated that archive could be. The equivalent features in Spring runtime offerings (mainly tcServer) are not all open source, not as mature, and often require manual assembly.  Vendor choice - The Java EE 6 platform is created using the Java Community Process where all the big players like Oracle, IBM, RedHat, and Apache are conritbuting to make the platform successful. Each application server provides the basic Java EE 6 platform compliance and has its own competitive offerings. This allows you to choose an application server for deploying your Java EE 6 applications. If you are not happy with the support or feature of one vendor then you can move your application to a different vendor because of the portability promise offered by the platform. Spring is a set of products from a single company, one price book, one support organization, one sustaining organization, one sales organization, etc. If any of those cause a customer headache, where do you go ? Java EE, backed by multiple vendors, is a safer bet for those that are risk averse. Production support - With Spring, typically you need to get support from two vendors - VMWare and the container provider. With Java EE 6, all of this is typically provided by one vendor. For example, Oracle offers commercial support from systems, operating systems, JDK, application server, and applications on top of them. VMWare certainly offers complete production support but do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket ? Do you really use tcServer ? ;-) Maintainability - With Spring, you are likely building your own distribution with multiple JAR files, integrating, patching, versioning, etc of all those components. Spring's claim is that multiple JAR files allow you to go à la carte and pick the latest versions of different components. But who is responsible for testing whether all these versions work together ? Yep, you got it, its YOU! If something does not work, who patches and maintains the JARs ? Of course, you! Commercial support for such a configuration ? On your own! The Java EE application servers manage all of this for you and provide a well-tested and commercially supported bundle. While it is always good to realize that there is something new and improved that updates and replaces older frameworks like Spring, the good news is not only does a Java EE 6 container offer what is described here, most also will let you deploy and run your Spring applications on them while you go through an upgrade to a more modern architecture. End result, you get the best of both worlds - keeping your legacy investment but moving to a more agile, lightweight world of Java EE 6. A message to the Spring lovers ... The complexity in J2EE 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 led to the genesis of Spring but that was in 2004. This is 2012 and the name has changed to "Java EE 6" :-) There are tons of improvements in the Java EE platform to make it easy-to-use and powerful. Some examples: Adding @Stateless on a POJO makes it an EJB EJBs can be packaged in a WAR with no special packaging or deployment descriptors "web.xml" and "faces-config.xml" are optional in most of the common cases Typesafe dependency injection is now part of the Java EE platform Add @Path on a POJO allows you to publish it as a RESTful resource EJBs can be used as backing beans for Facelets-driven JSF pages providing full MVC Java EE 6 WARs are known to be kilobytes in size and deployed in milliseconds Tons of other simplifications in the platform and application servers So if you moved away from J2EE to Spring many years ago and have not looked at Java EE 6 (which has been out since Dec 2009) then you should definitely try it out. Just be at least aware of what other alternatives are available instead of restricting yourself to one stack. Here are some workshops and screencasts worth trying: screencast #37 shows how to build an end-to-end application using NetBeans screencast #36 builds the same application using Eclipse javaee-lab-feb2012.pdf is a 3-4 hours self-paced hands-on workshop that guides you to build a comprehensive Java EE 6 application using NetBeans Each city generally has a "spring cleanup" program every year. It allows you to clean up the mess from your house. For your software projects, you don't need to wait for an annual event, just get started and reduce the technical debt now! Move away from your legacy Spring-based applications to a lighter and more modern approach of building enterprise Java applications using Java EE 6. Watch this beautiful presentation that explains how to migrate from Spring -> Java EE 6: List of files in the Java EE 6 project: ./index.xhtml./META-INF./person./person/Create.xhtml./person/Edit.xhtml./person/List.xhtml./person/View.xhtml./resources./resources/css./resources/css/jsfcrud.css./template.xhtml./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/Bundle.properties./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF/persistence.xml./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/AbstractFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person_.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$1.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$PersonControllerConverter.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/JsfUtil.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/PaginationHelper.class./WEB-INF/faces-config.xml./WEB-INF/web.xml List of files in the Spring 3.x project: ./META-INF ./META-INF/MANIFEST.MF./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller/MainController.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain/Person.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service/PersonService.class ./WEB-INF/hibernate-context.xml ./WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml ./WEB-INF/jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/deletedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/personspage.jsp ./WEB-INF/lib ./WEB-INF/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/c3p0-0.9.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/cglib-nodep-2.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-collections-3.2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-digester-2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/dom4j-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/ejb3-persistence-1.0.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-annotations-3.4.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-commons-annotations-3.1.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-core-3.3.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/javassist-3.7.ga.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jta-1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/junit-4.8.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/persistence-api-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-jdbc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-orm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-tx-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/standard-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/xml-apis-1.0.b2.jar ./WEB-INF/spring-servlet.xml ./WEB-INF/spring.properties ./WEB-INF/web.xml So, are you excited about Java EE 6 ? Want to get started now ? Here are some resources: Java EE 6 SDK (including runtime, samples, tutorials etc) GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.1.2 (Community) Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1.2 (Commercial) Java EE 6 using WebLogic 12c and NetBeans (Video) Java EE 6 with NetBeans and GlassFish (Video) Java EE with Eclipse and GlassFish (Video)

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• juju illegal base64 data at input byte 9

  - by ayr-ton

  After bootstrap a environment via manual provisioning, juju give me the following output for juju status: ERROR Unable to connect to environment "manual". Please check your credentials or use 'juju bootstrap' to create a new environment. Error details: illegal base64 data at input byte 9 And doing bootstrap again shows me: WARNING ignoring environments.yaml: using bootstrap config in file "/home/ayrton/.juju/environments/manual.jenv" ERROR illegal base64 data at input byte 9 The first bootstrap shows me no error, but the status crash as above and the second one output is just the base64 error. My juju version is 1.19.4-trusty-amd64, running in trusty 64. The bootstrap environment is a VPS with 1GB of memory, 20GB of hd and precise 64bits. Please, let me know if I can provide any further information.

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• Scan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Getting a virus is bad. Getting a virus that causes your computer to crash when you reboot is even worse. We’ll show you how to clean viruses from your computer even if you can’t boot into Windows by using a virus scanner in a Ubuntu Live CD. There are a number of virus scanners available for Ubuntu, but we’ve found that avast! is the best choice, with great detection rates and usability. Unfortunately, avast! does not have a proper 64-bit version, and forcing the install does not work properly. If you want to use avast! to scan for viruses, then ensure that you have a 32-bit Ubuntu Live CD. If you currently have a 64-bit Ubuntu Live CD on a bootable flash drive, it does not take long to wipe your flash drive and go through our guide again and select normal (32-bit) Ubuntu 9.10 instead of the x64 edition. For the purposes of fixing your Windows installation, the 64-bit Live CD will not provide any benefits. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open up Firefox by clicking on its icon in the top panel. Navigate to http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition. Click on the Download tab, and then click on the link to download the DEB package. Save it to the default location. While avast! is downloading, click on the link to the registration form on the download page. Fill in the registration form if you do not already have a trial license for avast!. By the time you’ve filled out the registration form, avast! will hopefully be finished downloading. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. In the terminal window, type in the following commands, pressing enter after each line. cd Downloadssudo dpkg –i avast* This will install avast! on the live Ubuntu environment. To ensure that you can use the latest virus database, while still in the terminal window, type in the following command: sudo sysctl –w kernel.shmmax=128000000 Now we’re ready to open avast!. Click on Applications on the top-left corner of the screen, expand the Accessories folder, and click on the new avast! Antivirus item. You will first be greeted with a window that asks for your license key. Hopefully you’ve received it in your email by now; open the email that avast! sends you, copy the license key, and paste it in the Registration window. avast! Antivirus will open. You’ll notice that the virus database is outdated. Click on the Update database button and avast! will start downloading the latest virus database. To scan your Windows hard drive, you will need to “mount” it. While the virus database is downloading, click on Places on the top-left of your screen, and click on your Windows hard drive, if you can tell which one it is by its size. If you can’t tell which is the correct hard drive, then click on Computer and check out each hard drive until you find the right one. When you find it, make a note of the drive’s label, which appears in the menu bar of the file browser. Also note that your hard drive will now appear on your desktop. By now, your virus database should be updated. At the time this article was written, the most recent version was 100404-0. In the main avast! window, click on the radio button next to Selected folders and then click on the “+” button to the right of the list box. It will open up a dialog box to browse to a location. To find your Windows hard drive, click on the “>” next to the computer icon. In the expanded list, find the folder labelled “media” and click on the “>” next to it to expand it. In this list, you should be able to find the label that corresponds to your Windows hard drive. If you want to scan a certain folder, then you can go further into this hierarchy and select that folder. However, we will scan the entire hard drive, so we’ll just press OK. Click on Start scan and avast! will start scanning your hard drive. If a virus is found, you’ll be prompted to select an action. If you know that the file is a virus, then you can Delete it, but there is the possibility of false positives, so you can also choose Move to chest to quarantine it. When avast! is done scanning, it will summarize what it found on your hard drive. You can take different actions on those files at this time by right-clicking on them and selecting the appropriate action. When you’re done, click Close. Your Windows PC is now free of viruses, in the eyes of avast!. Reboot your computer and with any luck it will now boot up! Alternatives to avast! If avast! and a liberal amount of Googling doesn’t fix your problem, it’s possible that a different virus scanner will fix your obscure issue. Here are a list of other virus scanners available for Ubuntu that are either free or offer free trials. See their support forums for help on installing these virus scanners. Avira AntiVir Personal for Linux / Solaris Panda Antivirus for Linux Installation and usage guide from Ubuntu F-PROT Antivirus for Linux ClamAV installation and usage guide from Ubuntu NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Bitdefender Antivirus for Unices Conclusion Running avast! from a Ubuntu Live CD can clean the vast majority of viruses from your Windows PC. This is another reason to always have a Ubuntu Live CD ready just in case something happens to your Windows installation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Secure Computing: Windows Live OneCareHow To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus MalwareUse the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebAsk the Readers: Share Your Tips for Defeating Viruses and Malware TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC

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• LWJGL - Eclipse error [on hold]

  - by Zarkopafilis

  When I try to run my lwjgl project, an error pops . Here is the log file: # A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment: # EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x6d8fcc0a, pid=5612, tid=900 # JRE version: 6.0_16-b01 Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (14.2-b01 mixed mode windows-x86 ) Problematic frame: V [jvm.dll+0xfcc0a] # If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit: http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport/crash.jsp # --------------- T H R E A D --------------- Current thread (0x016b9000): JavaThread "main" [_thread_in_vm, id=900, stack(0x00160000,0x001b0000)] siginfo: ExceptionCode=0xc0000005, reading address 0x00000000 Registers: EAX=0x00000000, EBX=0x00000000, ECX=0x00000006, EDX=0x00000000 ESP=0x001af4d4, EBP=0x001af524, ESI=0x016b9000, EDI=0x016b9110 EIP=0x6d8fcc0a, EFLAGS=0x00010246 Top of Stack: (sp=0x001af4d4) 0x001af4d4: 6da44bd8 016b9110 00000000 001af668 0x001af4e4: ffffffff 22200000 001af620 76ec39c2 0x001af4f4: 001af524 6d801086 0000000b 001afd34 0x001af504: 016b9000 016dd990 016b9000 00000000 0x001af514: 001af5f4 6d9ee000 6d9ef2f0 ffffffff 0x001af524: 001af58c 10008c85 016b9110 00000000 0x001af534: 00000000 000a0554 00000000 00000024 0x001af544: 00000000 00000000 001af6ac 00000000 Instructions: (pc=0x6d8fcc0a) 0x6d8fcbfa: e8 e8 d0 1d 08 00 8b 45 10 c7 45 d8 0b 00 00 00 0x6d8fcc0a: 8b 00 8b 48 08 0f b7 51 26 8b 40 0c 8b 4c 90 20 Stack: [0x00160000,0x001b0000], sp=0x001af4d4, free space=317k Native frames: (J=compiled Java code, j=interpreted, Vv=VM code, C=native code) V [jvm.dll+0xfcc0a] C [lwjgl.dll+0x8c85] C [USER32.dll+0x18876] C [USER32.dll+0x170f4] C [USER32.dll+0x1119e] C [ntdll.dll+0x460ce] C [USER32.dll+0x10e29] C [USER32.dll+0x10e84] C [lwjgl.dll+0x1cf0] j org.lwjgl.opengl.WindowsDisplay.createWindow(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/DrawableLWJGL;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/DisplayMode;Ljava/awt/Canvas;II)V+102 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.createWindow()V+71 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/PixelFormat;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/Drawable;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/ContextAttribs;)V+72 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/PixelFormat;)V+12 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create()V+7 j zarkopafilis.koding.io.javafx.Main.main([Ljava/lang/String;)V+16 v ~StubRoutines::call_stub V [jvm.dll+0xecf9c] V [jvm.dll+0x1741e1] V [jvm.dll+0xed01d] V [jvm.dll+0xf5be5] V [jvm.dll+0xfd83d] C [javaw.exe+0x2155] C [javaw.exe+0x833e] C [kernel32.dll+0x51154] C [ntdll.dll+0x5b2b9] C [ntdll.dll+0x5b28c] Java frames: (J=compiled Java code, j=interpreted, Vv=VM code) j org.lwjgl.opengl.WindowsDisplay.nCreateWindow(IIIIZZJ)J+0 j org.lwjgl.opengl.WindowsDisplay.createWindow(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/DrawableLWJGL;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/DisplayMode;Ljava/awt/Canvas;II)V+102 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.createWindow()V+71 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/PixelFormat;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/Drawable;Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/ContextAttribs;)V+72 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Lorg/lwjgl/opengl/PixelFormat;)V+12 j org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create()V+7 j zarkopafilis.koding.io.javafx.Main.main([Ljava/lang/String;)V+16 v ~StubRoutines::call_stub --------------- P R O C E S S --------------- Java Threads: ( = current thread ) 0x0179a400 JavaThread "Low Memory Detector" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=4460, stack(0x0b900000,0x0b950000)] 0x01795400 JavaThread "CompilerThread0" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=5264, stack(0x0b8b0000,0x0b900000)] 0x01790c00 JavaThread "Attach Listener" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=6080, stack(0x0b860000,0x0b8b0000)] 0x01786400 JavaThread "Signal Dispatcher" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=1204, stack(0x0b810000,0x0b860000)] 0x01759c00 JavaThread "Finalizer" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=5772, stack(0x0b7c0000,0x0b810000)] 0x01755000 JavaThread "Reference Handler" daemon [_thread_blocked, id=4696, stack(0x01640000,0x01690000)] =0x016b9000 JavaThread "main" [_thread_in_vm, id=900, stack(0x00160000,0x001b0000)] Other Threads: 0x01751c00 VMThread [stack: 0x015f0000,0x01640000] [id=4052] 0x0179c800 WatcherThread [stack: 0x0b950000,0x0b9a0000] [id=3340] VM state:not at safepoint (normal execution) VM Mutex/Monitor currently owned by a thread: None Heap def new generation total 960K, used 816K [0x037c0000, 0x038c0000, 0x03ca0000) eden space 896K, 91% used [0x037c0000, 0x0388c2c0, 0x038a0000) from space 64K, 0% used [0x038a0000, 0x038a0000, 0x038b0000) to space 64K, 0% used [0x038b0000, 0x038b0000, 0x038c0000) tenured generation total 4096K, used 0K [0x03ca0000, 0x040a0000, 0x077c0000) the space 4096K, 0% used [0x03ca0000, 0x03ca0000, 0x03ca0200, 0x040a0000) compacting perm gen total 12288K, used 2143K [0x077c0000, 0x083c0000, 0x0b7c0000) the space 12288K, 17% used [0x077c0000, 0x079d7e38, 0x079d8000, 0x083c0000) No shared spaces configured. Dynamic libraries: 0x00400000 - 0x00424000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe 0x77550000 - 0x7768e000 C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll 0x75a80000 - 0x75b54000 C:\Windows\system32\kernel32.dll 0x758d0000 - 0x7591b000 C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll 0x759e0000 - 0x75a80000 C:\Windows\system32\ADVAPI32.dll 0x76070000 - 0x7611c000 C:\Windows\system32\msvcrt.dll 0x77250000 - 0x77269000 C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\sechost.dll 0x771a0000 - 0x77241000 C:\Windows\system32\RPCRT4.dll 0x76eb0000 - 0x76f79000 C:\Windows\system32\USER32.dll 0x76e60000 - 0x76eae000 C:\Windows\system32\GDI32.dll 0x77770000 - 0x7777a000 C:\Windows\system32\LPK.dll 0x75fd0000 - 0x7606e000 C:\Windows\system32\USP10.dll 0x770b0000 - 0x770cf000 C:\Windows\system32\IMM32.DLL 0x770d0000 - 0x7719c000 C:\Windows\system32\MSCTF.dll 0x7c340000 - 0x7c396000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\msvcr71.dll 0x6d800000 - 0x6da8b000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\client\jvm.dll 0x73a00000 - 0x73a32000 C:\Windows\system32\WINMM.dll 0x75610000 - 0x7565b000 C:\Windows\system32\apphelp.dll 0x6d7b0000 - 0x6d7bc000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\verify.dll 0x6d330000 - 0x6d34f000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java.dll 0x6d290000 - 0x6d298000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\hpi.dll 0x776e0000 - 0x776e5000 C:\Windows\system32\PSAPI.DLL 0x6d7f0000 - 0x6d7ff000 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\zip.dll 0x10000000 - 0x1004c000 C:\Users\theo\Desktop\workspace\JavaFX1\lib\natives\windows\lwjgl.dll 0x5d170000 - 0x5d238000 C:\Windows\system32\OPENGL32.dll 0x6e7b0000 - 0x6e7d2000 C:\Windows\system32\GLU32.dll 0x70620000 - 0x70707000 C:\Windows\system32\DDRAW.dll 0x70610000 - 0x70616000 C:\Windows\system32\DCIMAN32.dll 0x75b60000 - 0x75cfd000 C:\Windows\system32\SETUPAPI.dll 0x759b0000 - 0x759d7000 C:\Windows\system32\CFGMGR32.dll 0x76d70000 - 0x76dff000 C:\Windows\system32\OLEAUT32.dll 0x75db0000 - 0x75f0c000 C:\Windows\system32\ole32.dll 0x758b0000 - 0x758c2000 C:\Windows\system32\DEVOBJ.dll 0x74060000 - 0x74073000 C:\Windows\system32\dwmapi.dll 0x74b60000 - 0x74b69000 C:\Windows\system32\VERSION.dll 0x745f0000 - 0x7478e000 C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7600.16661_none_420fe3fa2b8113bd\COMCTL32.dll 0x75d50000 - 0x75da7000 C:\Windows\system32\SHLWAPI.dll 0x74370000 - 0x743b0000 C:\Windows\system32\uxtheme.dll 0x22200000 - 0x22206000 C:\Program Files\ESET\ESET Smart Security\eplgHooks.dll VM Arguments: jvm_args: -Djava.library.path=C:\Users\theo\Desktop\workspace\JavaFX1\lib\natives\windows -Dfile.encoding=Cp1253 java_command: zarkopafilis.koding.io.javafx.Main Launcher Type: SUN_STANDARD Environment Variables: PATH=C:/Program Files/Java/jre6/bin/client;C:/Program Files/Java/jre6/bin;C:/Program Files/Java/jre6/lib/i386;C:\Perl\site\bin;C:\Perl\bin;C:\Ruby200\bin;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Users\theo\Desktop\eclipse; USERNAME=theo OS=Windows_NT PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=x86 Family 6 Model 37 Stepping 5, GenuineIntel --------------- S Y S T E M --------------- OS: Windows 7 Build 7600 CPU:total 4 (8 cores per cpu, 2 threads per core) family 6 model 37 stepping 5, cmov, cx8, fxsr, mmx, sse, sse2, sse3, ssse3, sse4.1, sse4.2, ht Memory: 4k page, physical 2097151k(1257972k free), swap 4194303k(4194303k free) vm_info: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (14.2-b01) for windows-x86 JRE (1.6.0_16-b01), built on Jul 31 2009 11:26:58 by "java_re" with MS VC++ 7.1 time: Wed Oct 23 22:00:12 2013 elapsed time: 0 seconds Code: Display.setDisplayMode(new DisplayMode(800,600)); Display.create();//Error here I am using JDK 6

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache: Only on Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris

  - by sergio.leunissen

  Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache is a feature that was first introduced with Oracle Database 11g Release 2. Only available on Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris, this feature increases the size of the database buffer cache without having to add RAM to the system. In effect, it acts as a second level cache on flash memory and will especially benefit read-intensive database applications. The Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache white paper concludes: Available at no additional cost, Database Smart Flash Cache on Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux has the potential to offer considerable benefit to users of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 with disk-bound read-mostly or read-only workloads, through the simple addition of flash storage such as the Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array or the Sun Flash Accelerator F20 PCIe Card. Read the white paper.

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• SQLAuthority News – Storage and SQL Server Capacity Planning and configuration – SharePoint Server 2

  - by pinaldave

  Just a day ago, I was asked how do you plan SQL Server Storage Capacity. Here is the excellent article published by Microsoft regarding SQL Server capacity planning for SharePoint 2010. This article touches all the vital areas of this subject. Here are the bullet points for the same. Gather storage and SQL Server space and I/O requirements Choose SQL Server version and edition Design storage architecture based on capacity and IO requirements Determine memory requirements Understand network topology requirements Configure SQL Server Validate storage performance and reliability Read the original article published by Microsoft here: Storage and SQL Server Capacity Planning and configuration – SharePoint Server 2010. The question to all the SharePoint developers and administrator that if they use the whitepapers and articles to decide the capacity or they just start with application and as they progress they plan the storage? Please let me know your opinion. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Data Storage, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SharePoint

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• Another "Windows 7 entry missing from Grub2" Question

  - by 4x10

  Like many before me had the following problem that after installing Ubuntu (with windows 7 already installed), the grub boot loader wouldnt show windows 7 as a boot option, though i can boot fine if I use the "Choose Boot Device" options on the x220. The difference is that I try using UEFI only so many answers didn't really fit my problem, though i tried several stuffs: after running boot repair it destroyed the ubuntu boot loader custom entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom for windows which doesnt show up many update-grub and reboots trying windows repair recovery thing while being there i also did bootrec.exe /FixBoot and update-grub and reboot again and finaly because it was so much fun, i installed linux all over again, while formatting and deleting everything linux related before that. Now that i think of it, Ubuntu also didn't notice Windows being there during the Setup and it still doesnt according to the Boot Info from Boot Repair. Boot Info Script 0.61-git-patched [23 April 2012] ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: vfat Boot sector type: Windows 7: FAT32 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: /efi/Boot/bootx64.efi /efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Mounting failed: mount: unknown filesystem type '' sda3: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /Windows/System32/winload.exe sda4: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu precise (development branch) Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab sda5: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Boot files: sda6: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 1 625,142,447 625,142,447 ee GPT GUID Partition Table detected. Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System /dev/sda1 2,048 206,847 204,800 EFI System partition /dev/sda2 206,848 468,991 262,144 Microsoft Reserved Partition (Windows) /dev/sda3 468,992 170,338,303 169,869,312 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda4 170,338,304 330,338,304 160,000,001 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda5 330,338,305 617,141,039 286,802,735 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda6 617,141,040 625,141,040 8,000,001 Swap partition (Linux) "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda1 885C-ED1B vfat /dev/sda3 EE06CC0506CBCCB1 ntfs /dev/sda4 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ext4 /dev/sda5 d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3 ext4 /dev/sda6 7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37 swap ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat (rw) /dev/sda4 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) /dev/sda5 /home ext4 (rw) =========================== sda4/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { insmod efi_gop insmod efi_uga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus } insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then set gfxmode=auto load_video insmod gfxterm insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale set lang=en_US insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=-1 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="$1" if [ "$1" = "keep" ]; then set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7 else set vt_handoff= fi } if [ ${recordfail} != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode if [ "$linux_gfx_mode" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-20-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic root=UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-20-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 echo 'Loading Linux 3.2.0-20-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic root=UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================== sda4/etc/fstab: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda4 during installation UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation UUID=885C-ED1B /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1 # /home was on /dev/sda5 during installation UUID=d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3 /home ext4 defaults 0 2 # swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37 none swap sw 0 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================== sda4: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==================== GiB - GB File Fragment(s) 129.422874451 = 138.966753280 boot/grub/grub.cfg 1 83.059570312 = 89.184534528 boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic 2 101.393131256 = 108.870045696 boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic 1 83.059570312 = 89.184534528 initrd.img 2 101.393131256 = 108.870045696 vmlinuz 1 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : =================== log of boot-repair 2012-04-25__23h40 =================== boot-repair version : 3.18-0ppa3~precise boot-sav version : 3.18-0ppa4~precise glade2script version : 0.3.2.1-0ppa7~precise internet: connected python-software-properties version : 0.82.7 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 591 not upgraded. dpkg-preconfigure: unable to re-open stdin: No such file or directory boot-repair is executed in installed-session (Ubuntu precise (development branch) , precise , Ubuntu , x86_64) WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== OSPROBER: /dev/sda4:The OS now in use - Ubuntu precise (development branch) CurrentSession:linux =================== BLKID: /dev/sda3: UUID="EE06CC0506CBCCB1" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda1: UUID="885C-ED1B" TYPE="vfat" /dev/sda4: UUID="604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda5: UUID="d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda6: UUID="7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37" TYPE="swap" 1 disks with OS, 1 OS : 1 Linux, 0 MacOS, 0 Windows, 0 unknown type OS. WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util sfdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== /etc/default/grub : # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" EFI_OF_PART[1] (, ) =================== dmesg | grep EFI : [ 0.000000] EFI v2.00 by Lenovo [ 0.000000] Kernel-defined memdesc doesn't match the one from EFI! [ 0.000000] EFI: mem00: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000001000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem01: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000001000-0x000000000004e000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem02: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000004e000-0x0000000000058000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem03: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000058000-0x0000000000059000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem04: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000059000-0x000000000005e000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem05: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000005e000-0x000000000005f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem06: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000005f000-0x00000000000a0000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem07: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000100000-0x00000000005b9000) (4MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem08: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000005b9000-0x0000000020000000) (506MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem09: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000020000000-0x0000000020200000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem10: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000020200000-0x00000000364e4000) (354MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem11: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000364e4000-0x000000003726a000) (13MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem12: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000003726a000-0x0000000040000000) (141MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem13: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000040000000-0x0000000040200000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem14: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000040200000-0x000000009df35000) (1501MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem15: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000009df35000-0x00000000d39a0000) (858MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem16: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d39a0000-0x00000000d39c0000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem17: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d39c0000-0x00000000d5df5000) (36MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem18: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d5df5000-0x00000000d6990000) (11MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem19: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6990000-0x00000000d6b82000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem20: type=1, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6b82000-0x00000000d6b9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem21: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6b9f000-0x00000000d77b0000) (12MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem22: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d77b0000-0x00000000d780a000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem23: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d780a000-0x00000000d7826000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem24: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7826000-0x00000000d7868000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem25: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7868000-0x00000000d7869000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem26: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7869000-0x00000000d786a000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem27: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786a000-0x00000000d786b000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem28: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786b000-0x00000000d786c000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem29: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786c000-0x00000000d786d000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem30: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786d000-0x00000000d825f000) (9MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem31: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d825f000-0x00000000d8261000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem32: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8261000-0x00000000d82f7000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem33: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d82f7000-0x00000000d82f8000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem34: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d82f8000-0x00000000d8705000) (4MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem35: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8705000-0x00000000d8706000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem36: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8706000-0x00000000d8761000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem37: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8761000-0x00000000d8768000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem38: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8768000-0x00000000d9b9f000) (20MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem39: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9b9f000-0x00000000d9e4c000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem40: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9e4c000-0x00000000d9e52000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem41: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9e52000-0x00000000da59f000) (7MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem42: type=5, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da59f000-0x00000000da6c3000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem43: type=5, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da6c3000-0x00000000da79f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem44: type=6, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da79f000-0x00000000da8b1000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem45: type=6, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da8b1000-0x00000000da99f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem46: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000da99f000-0x00000000daa22000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem47: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa22000-0x00000000daa9b000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem48: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9b000-0x00000000daa9c000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem49: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9c000-0x00000000daa9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem50: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9f000-0x00000000daadd000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem51: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daadd000-0x00000000dab9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem52: type=9, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dab9f000-0x00000000dabdc000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem53: type=9, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dabdc000-0x00000000dabff000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem54: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dabff000-0x00000000dac00000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem55: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000100000000-0x000000021e600000) (4582MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem56: type=11, attr=0x8000000000000001, range=[0x00000000f80f8000-0x00000000f80f9000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem57: type=11, attr=0x8000000000000001, range=[0x00000000fed1c000-0x00000000fed20000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabde000 0003E (v01 LENOVO TP-8D 00001280 PTL 00000002) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabdd000 00042 (v01 PTL COMBUF 00000001 PTL 00000001) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabdc000 00292 (v01 LENOVO TP-8D 00001280 PTL 00000002) [ 0.795807] fb0: EFI VGA frame buffer device [ 1.057243] EFI Variables Facility v0.08 2004-May-17 [ 9.122104] fb: conflicting fb hw usage inteldrmfb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver ReadEFI: /dev/sda , N 128 , 0 , , PRStart 1024 , PRSize 128 WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== PARTITIONS & DISKS: sda4 : sda, not-sepboot, grubenv-ok grub2, grub-efi, update-grub, 64, with-boot, is-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, fstab-has-bad-efi, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, apt-get, grub-install, . sda3 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, haswinload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /mnt/boot-sav/sda3. sda1 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, is-correct-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /boot/efi. sda5 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /home. sda : GPT-BIS, GPT, no-BIOS_boot, has-correctEFI, 2048 sectors * 512 bytes =================== PARTED: Model: ATA HITACHI HTS72323 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 320GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot 2 106MB 240MB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres 3 240MB 87.2GB 87.0GB ntfs Basic data partition 4 87.2GB 169GB 81.9GB ext4 5 169GB 316GB 147GB ext4 6 316GB 320GB 4096MB linux-swap(v1) =================== MOUNT: /dev/sda4 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw) /dev/sda5 on /home type ext4 (rw) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/vierlex/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=vierlex) /dev/sda3 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /sys/block/sda: alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /dev: agpgart autofs block bsg btrfs-control bus char console core cpu cpu_dma_latency disk dri ecryptfs fb0 fd full fuse hpet input kmsg log mapper mcelog mei mem net network_latency network_throughput null oldmem port ppp psaux ptmx pts random rfkill rtc rtc0 sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sg0 shm snapshot snd stderr stdin stdout tpm0 uinput urandom usbmon0 usbmon1 usbmon2 v4l vga_arbiter video0 watchdog zero /dev/mapper: control /boot/efi: EFI /boot/efi/EFI: Boot Microsoft ubuntu /boot/efi/efi: Boot Microsoft ubuntu /boot/efi/efi/Boot: bootx64.efi /boot/efi/efi/ubuntu: grubx64.efi WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== DF: Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda4 ext4 77G 4.1G 69G 6% / udev devtmpfs 3.9G 12K 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 1.6G 864K 1.6G 1% /run none tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none tmpfs 3.9G 152K 3.9G 1% /run/shm /dev/sda1 vfat 96M 18M 79M 19% /boot/efi /dev/sda5 ext4 137G 2.2G 128G 2% /home /dev/sda3 fuseblk 81G 30G 52G 37% /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 =================== FDISK: Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf34fe538 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 625142447 312571223+ ee GPT =================== Before mainwindow FSCK no PASTEBIN yes WUBI no WINBOOT yes recommendedrepair, purge, QTY_OF_PART_FOR_REINSTAL 1 no-kernel-purge UNHIDEBOOT_ACTION yes (10s), noflag () PART_TO_REINSTALL_GRUB sda4, FORCE_GRUB no (sda) REMOVABLEDISK no USE_SEPARATEBOOTPART no (sda3) grub2 () UNCOMMENT_GFXMODE no ATA ADD_KERNEL_OPTION no (acpi=off) MBR_TO_RESTORE ( ) EFI detected. Please check the options. =================== Actions FSCK no PASTEBIN yes WUBI no WINBOOT no bootinfo, nombraction, QTY_OF_PART_FOR_REINSTAL 1 no-kernel-purge UNHIDEBOOT_ACTION no (10s), noflag () PART_TO_REINSTALL_GRUB sda4, FORCE_GRUB no (sda) REMOVABLEDISK no USE_SEPARATEBOOTPART no (sda3) grub2 () UNCOMMENT_GFXMODE no ATA ADD_KERNEL_OPTION no (acpi=off) MBR_TO_RESTORE ( ) No change has been performed on your computer. See you soon! internet: connected Thanks for your time and attention. EDIT: additional Info Request =No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. But maybe this is how it is supposed to work? yea this is ok. boot stuff seems to be on a seperate partition, in my case sda1. I'm very new to this UEFI thing too. missing files like bootmgr i don't really have a clue :D but yea, maybe thats how it suppose to be? Instead and whats not shown in the log for some reason: There is additional microsoft bootfiles on sda1 under /efi/microsoft/ [much stuff] I remember also doing some kind of hack to make a UEFI windows 7 usb stick. http://jake.io/b/2011/installing-windows-7-with-uefi-boot-on-an-x220-from-usb/ In short: creating and placing bootx64.efi on the stick so it can be booted in UEFI mode. boot order i decide that in my BIOS. i read somwhere that the thinkpad x220 (essential part of the serial number: 4921 http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/x220_x220i_x220tablet_x220itablet_ug_en.pdf) doesnt really have UEFI interface or something, still, these 2 options are listed with all the other usual devices you can give a boot priority to. Right now it looks like this: Boot Priority Order 1. ubuntu 2. Windows Boot Manager 3. USB FDD 4. USB HDD 5. ATA HDD0 HITACHI [random string]

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• 17 new features in Visual Studio 2010

  - by vik20000in

  Visual studio 2010 has been released to RTM a few days back. This release of Visual studio 2010 comes with a big number of improvements on many fronts. In this post I will try and point out some of the major improvements in Visual Studio 2010. 1)      Visual studio IDE Improvement. Visual studio IDE has been rewritten in WPF. The look and feel of the studio has been improved for improved readability. Start page has been redesigned and template so that anyone can change the start page as they wish. 2)      Multiple Monitor - Support for Multiple Monitor was already there in Visual studio. But in this edition it has been improved as much that we can now place the document, design and code window outside the IDE in another monitor. 3)      ZOOM in Code Editor – Making the editors in WPF has made significant improvement for them. The best one that I like is the ZOOM feature. We can now zoom in the code editor with the help of the ctrl + Mouse scroll. The zoom feature does not work on the Design surface or windows with icon like solution view and toolbox. 4)      Box Selection - Another Important improvement in the Visual studio 2010 is the box selection. We can select a rectangular by holding down the Alt Key and selecting with mouse.  Now in the rectangular selection we can insert text, Paste same code in different line etc. This is helpful if you want to convert a number of variables from public to private etc… 5)      New Improved Search – One of the best productivity improvements in Visual studio 2010 is its new search as you type support. This has been done in the Navigate To window which can be brought up by pressing (Ctrl + ,). The navigate To windows also take help of the Camel casing and will be able to search with the help of camel casing when character is entered in upper case. For example we can search AOH for AddOrederHeader. 6)      Call Hierarchy – This feature is only available to the Visual C# and Visual C++ editor. The call hierarchy windows displays the calls made to and from (yes both to and from) a selected method property or a constructor. The call hierarchy also shows the implementation of interface and the overrides of virtual or abstract methods. This window is very helpful in understanding the code flow, and evaluating the effect of making changes. The best part is it is available at design time and not at runtime only like a debugger. 7)      Highlighting references – One of the very cool stuff in Visual Studio 2010 is the fact if you select a variable then all the use of that variable will be highlighted alongside. This should work for all the result of symbols returned by Find all reference. This also works for Name of class, objects variable, properties and methods. We can also use the Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow or Up Arror to move through them. 8)      Generate from usage - The Generate from usage feature lets you use classes and members before you define them. You can generate a stub for any undefined class, constructor, method, property, field, or enum that you want to use but have not yet defined. You can generate new types and members without leaving your current location in code, This minimizes interruption to your workflow.9)      IntelliSense Suggestion Mode - IntelliSense now provides two alternatives for IntelliSense statement completion, completion mode and suggestion mode. Use suggestion mode for situations where classes and members are used before they are defined. In suggestion mode, when you type in the editor and then commit the entry, the text you typed is inserted into the code. When you commit an entry in completion mode, the editor shows the entry that is highlighted on the members list. When an IntelliSense window is open, you can press CTRL+ALT+SPACEBAR to toggle between completion mode and suggestion mode. 10)   Application Lifecycle Management – A client application for management of application lifecycle like version control, work item tracking, build automation, team portal etc is available for free (this is not available for express edition.). 11)   Start Page – The start page has been redesigned with WPF for new functionality and look. Tabbed areas are provided for content from different source including MSDN. Once you open some project the start page closes automatically. The list of recent project also lets you remove project from the list. And above all the start page is customizable enough to be changed as per individual requirement. 12)   Extension Manager – Visual Studio 2010 has provided good ways to be extended. We can also use MEF to extend most of the features of Visual Studio. The new extension manager now can go the visual studio gallery and install the extension without even opening any explorer. 13)   Code snippets – Visual studio 2010 for HTML, Jscript and Asp.net also. 14)   Improved Intelligence for JavaScript has been improved vastly (around 2-5 times). Intelligence now also shows the XML documentation comment on the go. 15)   Web Deployment – Web Deployment has been vastly improved. We can package and publish the web application in one click. Three major supported deployment scenarios are Web packages, one click deployment and Web configuration Transformation. 16)   SharePoint - Visual Studio 2010 also brings vastly improved development experience for SharePoint. We can create, edit, debug, package, deploy and activate SharePoint project from within Visual Studio. Deployment of Site is as easy as hitting F5. 17)   Azure – Visual Studio 2010 also comes with handy improvement for developing on windows Azure environment. Vikram

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• Toorcon14

  - by danx

  Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

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• Ubuntu 12.04 installation aborts without giving any errors on Sony Vaio

  - by Guilherme Simoni

  I'm not able to install the release ubuntu-12.04-desktop-i386 on the laptop below: Sony Vaio VGN-FE21H CPU: Intel Core Duo T2300 1.66GHz Memory: 2GB DDR2 533MHz HDD: 100GB Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 7400 256MB I'm using the ISO "ubuntu-12.04-desktop-i386.iso" burned into a DVD. I know the ISO is OK because I used it to successfully install on Virtualbox. Live DVD boots and runs OK, but I cannot install from it or directly from the boot menu. The installation goes through all the steps until the final part where is asked the Name, Name of PC and password. The problem is in the next step where it should start copying files and present some screens and features of Ubuntu. In this part the installation just close without any error message. If I am running the installation inside the live DVD it closes and returns to the home screen of the Live. If I am running straight from the boot it closes the graphic interface and restarts the PC. Does anybody know or faced the same problem?

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• Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study

  - by charlie.berger

  There is a complete and detailed Telco Churn case study "How to" Blog Series just posted by Ari Mozes, ODM Dev. Manager.  In it, Ari provides detailed guidance in how to leverage various strengths of Oracle Data Mining including the ability to: mine Star Schemas and join tables and views together to obtain a complete 360 degree view of a customer combine transactional data e.g. call record detail (CDR) data, etc. define complex data transformation, model build and model deploy analytical methodologies inside the Database  His blog is posted in a multi-part series.  Below are some opening excerpts for the first 3 blog entries.  This is an excellent resource for any novice to skilled data miner who wants to gain competitive advantage by mining their data inside the Oracle Database.  Many thanks Ari! Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (1 of 3) One of the strengths of Oracle Data Mining is the ability to mine star schemas with minimal effort.  Star schemas are commonly used in relational databases, and they often contain rich data with interesting patterns.  While dimension tables may contain interesting demographics, fact tables will often contain user behavior, such as phone usage or purchase patterns.  Both of these aspects - demographics and usage patterns - can provide insight into behavior.Churn is a critical problem in the telecommunications industry, and companies go to great lengths to reduce the churn of their customer base.  One case study1 describes a telecommunications scenario involving understanding, and identification of, churn, where the underlying data is present in a star schema.  That case study is a good example for demonstrating just how natural it is for Oracle Data Mining to analyze a star schema, so it will be used as the basis for this series of posts...... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (2 of 3) This post will follow the transformation steps as described in the case study, but will use Oracle SQL as the means for preparing data.  Please see the previous post for background material, including links to the case study and to scripts that can be used to replicate the stages in these posts.1) Handling missing values for call data recordsThe CDR_T table records the number of phone minutes used by a customer per month and per call type (tariff).  For example, the table may contain one record corresponding to the number of peak (call type) minutes in January for a specific customer, and another record associated with international calls in March for the same customer.  This table is likely to be fairly dense (most type-month combinations for a given customer will be present) due to the coarse level of aggregation, but there may be some missing values.  Missing entries may occur for a number of reasons: the customer made no calls of a particular type in a particular month, the customer switched providers during the timeframe, or perhaps there is a data entry problem.  In the first situation, the correct interpretation of a missing entry would be to assume that the number of minutes for the type-month combination is zero.  In the other situations, it is not appropriate to assume zero, but rather derive some representative value to replace the missing entries.  The referenced case study takes the latter approach.  The data is segmented by customer and call type, and within a given customer-call type combination, an average number of minutes is computed and used as a replacement value.In SQL, we need to generate additional rows for the missing entries and populate those rows with appropriate values.  To generate the missing rows, Oracle's partition outer join feature is a perfect fit.  select cust_id, cdre.tariff, cdre.month, minsfrom cdr_t cdr partition by (cust_id) right outer join     (select distinct tariff, month from cdr_t) cdre     on (cdr.month = cdre.month and cdr.tariff = cdre.tariff);   ....... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (3 of 3) Now that the "difficult" work is complete - preparing the data - we can move to building a predictive model to help identify and understand churn.The case study suggests that separate models be built for different customer segments (high, medium, low, and very low value customer groups).  To reduce the data to a single segment, a filter can be applied: create or replace view churn_data_high asselect * from churn_prep where value_band = 'HIGH'; It is simple to take a quick look at the predictive aspects of the data on a univariate basis.  While this does not capture the more complex multi-variate effects as would occur with the full-blown data mining algorithms, it can give a quick feel as to the predictive aspects of the data as well as validate the data preparation steps.  Oracle Data Mining includes a predictive analytics package which enables quick analysis. begin  dbms_predictive_analytics.explain(   'churn_data_high','churn_m6','expl_churn_tab'); end; /select * from expl_churn_tab where rank <= 5 order by rank; ATTRIBUTE_NAME       ATTRIBUTE_SUBNAME EXPLANATORY_VALUE RANK-------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------LOS_BAND                                      .069167052          1MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-5                   .034881648          2REV_PER_MON          REV-5                    .034527798          3DROPPED_CALLS                                 .028110322          4MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-4                   .024698149          5From the above results, it is clear that some predictors do contain information to help identify churn (explanatory value > 0).  The strongest uni-variate predictor of churn appears to be the customer's (binned) length of service.  The second strongest churn indicator appears to be the number of peak minutes used in the most recent month.  The subname column contains the interior piece of the DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS column described in the previous post.  By using the object relational approach, many related predictors are included within a single top-level column. .....   NOTE:  These are just EXCERPTS.  Click here to start reading the Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study from the beginning.    

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• No Wireless Connection on a Broadcom BCM43227

  - by Nicolas

  I´ve installed Ubuntu 11.10 on my Acer Aspire Laptop and can´t get any Wireless connection. Where is my problem? My wireless card is an Acer Nplify(TM) 802.11b/g/n. Thanks in Advance @mikewhatever: nic@ubuntu:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net Kernel driver in use: tg3 -- 02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57785 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:16b5] (rev 10) Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0504] Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci 02:00.1 SD Host controller [0805]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57765 Memory Card Reader [14e4:16bc] (rev 10) Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0504] 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43227 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4358] Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device [105b:e040]

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• Unable to boot Windows 7 after installing Ubuntu

  - by Devendra

  I have Windows 7 on my machine and then installed Ubuntu 12.04 using a live CD. I can see both Windows 7 and Ubuntu in the grub menu, but when I select Windows 7 it shows a black screen for about 2 seconds and the returns to the Grub menu. But if I select Ubuntu it's working fine. This is the contents of the boot-repair log: Boot Info Script 0.61.full + Boot-Repair extra info [Boot-Info November 20th 2012] ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Grub2 (v2.00) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks in partition 1 for (,msdos6)/boot/grub. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99-2.00) Boot sector info: Grub2 (v2.00) is installed in the boot sector of sda1 and looks at sector 388911128 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks in partition 1 for (,msdos6)/boot/grub. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: sda3: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: sda4: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: Extended Partition Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sda5: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sda5 starts at sector 2048. Operating System: Boot files: sda6: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu 12.10 Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img sda7: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 * 206,848 146,802,687 146,595,840 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda2 147,007,488 293,623,807 146,616,320 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda3 293,623,808 332,820,613 39,196,806 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda4 332,822,526 1,465,145,343 1,132,322,818 f W95 Extended (LBA) /dev/sda5 461,342,720 1,465,145,343 1,003,802,624 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda6 332,822,528 453,171,199 120,348,672 83 Linux /dev/sda7 453,173,248 461,338,623 8,165,376 82 Linux swap / Solaris "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda1 F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 ntfs /dev/sda2 DC2273012272DFC6 ntfs /dev/sda3 1E76E43376E40D79 ntfs New Volume /dev/sda5 5ED60ACDD60AA57D ntfs /dev/sda6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ext4 /dev/sda7 52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483 swap ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda6 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) =========================== sda6/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then menuentry_id_option="--id" else menuentry_id_option="" fi export menuentry_id_option if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then insmod all_video else insmod efi_gop insmod efi_uga insmod ieee1275_fb insmod vbe insmod vga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus fi } if [ x$feature_default_font_path = xy ] ; then font=unicode else insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2" fi if loadfont $font ; then set gfxmode=auto load_video insmod gfxterm set locale_dir=$prefix/locale set lang=en_IN insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=10 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="${1}" if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7 else set vt_handoff= fi } if [ "${recordfail}" != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode if [ "${linux_gfx_mode}" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic } submenu 'Advanced options for Ubuntu' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-17-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-17-generic-advanced-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-17-generic-recovery-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic } } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-F6AE2C13AE2BCB47' { insmod part_msdos insmod ntfs set root='hd0,msdos1' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1 F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 fi chainloader +1 } ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### END /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================== sda6/etc/fstab: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> # / was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation UUID=52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483 none swap sw 0 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================== sda6: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==================== GiB - GB File Fragment(s) 162.831275940 = 174.838751232 boot/grub/grub.cfg 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic 1 206.871749878 = 222.126850048 boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 initrd.img 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 initrd.img.old 1 206.871749878 = 222.126850048 vmlinuz 1 =============================== StdErr Messages: =============================== cat: write error: Broken pipe cat: write error: Broken pipe ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : =================== log of boot-repair 2012-12-11__00h59 =================== boot-repair version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal boot-sav version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal glade2script version : 3.2.2~ppa45~quantal boot-sav-extra version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal boot-repair is executed in installed-session (Ubuntu 12.10, quantal, Ubuntu, x86_64) CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 =================== os-prober: /dev/sda6:The OS now in use - Ubuntu 12.10 CurrentSession:linux /dev/sda1:Windows 7 (loader):Windows:chain =================== blkid: /dev/sda1: UUID="F6AE2C13AE2BCB47" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda2: UUID="DC2273012272DFC6" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda3: LABEL="New Volume" UUID="1E76E43376E40D79" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda5: UUID="5ED60ACDD60AA57D" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda6: UUID="9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda7: UUID="52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483" TYPE="swap" 1 disks with OS, 2 OS : 1 Linux, 0 MacOS, 1 Windows, 0 unknown type OS. Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. =================== /etc/default/grub : # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" =================== /etc/grub.d/ : drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 17 20:29 grub.d total 72 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7541 Oct 14 23:06 00_header -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5488 Oct 4 15:00 05_debian_theme -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10891 Oct 14 23:06 10_linux -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10258 Oct 14 23:06 20_linux_xen -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1688 Oct 11 19:40 20_memtest86+ -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10976 Oct 14 23:06 30_os-prober -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1426 Oct 14 23:06 30_uefi-firmware -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 214 Oct 14 23:06 40_custom -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 216 Oct 14 23:06 41_custom -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 483 Oct 14 23:06 README =================== UEFI/Legacy mode: This installed-session is not in EFI-mode. EFI in dmesg. Please report this message to [email protected] [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe7000 0003E (v01 DELL QA09 00000002 PTL 00000002) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe6000 00042 (v01 PTL COMBUF 00000001 PTL 00000001) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe3000 00256 (v01 DELL QA09 00000002 PTL 00000002) SecureBoot disabled. =================== PARTITIONS & DISKS: sda6 : sda, not-sepboot, grubenv-ok grub2, grub-pc , update-grub, 64, with-boot, is-os, not--efi--part, fstab-without-boot, fstab-without-efi, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, apt-get, grub-install, with--usr, fstab-without-usr, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, . sda1 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, is-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, haswinload, no-recov-nor-hid, bootmgr, is-winboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, not-far, /mnt/boot-sav/sda1. sda2 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda2. sda3 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda3. sda5 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda5. sda : not-GPT, BIOSboot-not-needed, has-no-EFIpart, not-usb, has-os, 2048 sectors * 512 bytes =================== parted -l: Model: ATA WDC WD7500BPKT-7 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 750GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 106MB 75.2GB 75.1GB primary ntfs boot 2 75.3GB 150GB 75.1GB primary ntfs 3 150GB 170GB 20.1GB primary ntfs 4 170GB 750GB 580GB extended lba 6 170GB 232GB 61.6GB logical ext4 7 232GB 236GB 4181MB logical linux-swap(v1) 5 236GB 750GB 514GB logical ntfs =================== parted -lm: BYT; /dev/sda:750GB:scsi:512:4096:msdos:ATA WDC WD7500BPKT-7; 1:106MB:75.2GB:75.1GB:ntfs::boot; 2:75.3GB:150GB:75.1GB:ntfs::; 3:150GB:170GB:20.1GB:ntfs::; 4:170GB:750GB:580GB:::lba; 6:170GB:232GB:61.6GB:ext4::; 7:232GB:236GB:4181MB:linux-swap(v1)::; 5:236GB:750GB:514GB:ntfs::; =================== mount: /dev/sda6 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755) gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/dev/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=dev) /dev/sda1 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda2 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda3 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda5 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda5 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) =================== ls: /sys/block/sda (filtered): alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sda7 size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /sys/block/sr0 (filtered): alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /dev (filtered): alarm ashmem autofs binder block bsg btrfs-control bus cdrom cdrw char console core cpu cpu_dma_latency disk dri dvd dvdrw ecryptfs fb0 fb1 fd full fuse hpet input kmsg kvm log mapper mcelog mei mem net network_latency network_throughput null oldmem port ppp psaux ptmx pts random rfkill rtc rtc0 sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sda7 sg0 sg1 shm snapshot snd sr0 stderr stdin stdout uinput urandom v4l vga_arbiter vhost-net video0 zero ls /dev/mapper: control =================== df -Th: Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda6 ext4 57G 2.7G 51G 6% / udev devtmpfs 1.9G 12K 1.9G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 770M 892K 769M 1% /run none tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none tmpfs 1.9G 260K 1.9G 1% /run/shm none tmpfs 100M 44K 100M 1% /run/user /dev/sda1 fuseblk 70G 36G 35G 51% /mnt/boot-sav/sda1 /dev/sda2 fuseblk 70G 66G 4.8G 94% /mnt/boot-sav/sda2 /dev/sda3 fuseblk 19G 87M 19G 1% /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 /dev/sda5 fuseblk 479G 436G 44G 92% /mnt/boot-sav/sda5 =================== fdisk -l: Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x1dc69d0b Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 206848 146802687 73297920 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 147007488 293623807 73308160 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 293623808 332820613 19598403 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 332822526 1465145343 566161409 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary. /dev/sda5 461342720 1465145343 501901312 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda6 332822528 453171199 60174336 83 Linux /dev/sda7 453173248 461338623 4082688 82 Linux swap / Solaris Partition table entries are not in disk order =================== Recommended repair Recommended-Repair This setting will reinstall the grub2 of sda6 into the MBR of sda. Additional repair will be performed: unhide-bootmenu-10s grub-install (GRUB) 2.00-7ubuntu11,grub-install (GRUB) 2. Reinstall the GRUB of sda6 into the MBR of sda Installation finished. No error reported. grub-install /dev/sda: exit code of grub-install /dev/sda:0 update-grub Generating grub.cfg ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1 Unhide GRUB boot menu in sda6/boot/grub/grub.cfg Boot successfully repaired. You can now reboot your computer. The boot files of [The OS now in use - Ubuntu 12.10] are far from the start of the disk. Your BIOS may not detect them. You may want to retry after creating a /boot partition (EXT4, >200MB, start of the disk). This can be performed via tools such as gParted. Then select this partition via the [Separate /boot partition:] option of [Boot Repair]. (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootPartition)

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• Mark Hurd and Balaji Yelamanchili present Oracle’s Business Analytics Strategy

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Join Mark Hurd and Balaji Yelamanchili as they unveil the latest advances in Oracle’s strategy for placing analytics into the hands of every decision-makers—so that they can see more, think smarter, and act faster. Wednesday, April 4, 2012   at 1.0 pm UK BST / 2.0 pm CET Register HERE today for this online event Agenda Keynote: Oracle’s Business Analytics StrategyMark Hurd, President, Oracle, and Balaji Yelamanchili, Senior Vice President, Analytics and Performance Management, Oracle Plus Breakout Sessions: Achieving Predictable Performance with Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Managemen Explore All Relevant Data—Introducing Oracle Endeca Information Discovery Run Your Business Faster and Smarter with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications on Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine Analyzing and Deciding with Big Data

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• HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Some people think that task killers are important on Android. By closing apps running in the background, you’ll get improved performance and battery life – that’s the idea, anyway. In reality, task killers can reduce your performance and battery life. Task killers can force apps running in the background to quit, removing them from memory. Some task killers do this automatically. However, Android can intelligently manage processes on its own – it doesn’t need a task killer. How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• The Interaction between Three-Tier Client/Server Model and Three-Tier Application Architecture Model

  The three-tier client/server model is a network architectural approach currently used in modern networking. This approach divides a network in to three distinct components. Three-Tier Client/Server Model Components Client Component Server Component Database Component The Client Component of the network typically represents any device on the network. A basic example of this would be computer or another network/web enabled devices that are connected to a network. Network clients request resources on the network, and are usually equipped with a user interface for the presentation of the data returned from the Server Component. This process is done through the use of various software clients, and example of this can be seen through the use of a web browser client. The web browser request information from the Server Component located on the network and then renders the results for the user to process. The Server Components of the network return data based on specific client request back to the requesting client.  Server Components also inherit the attributes of a Client Component in that they are a device on the network and that they can also request information from other Server Components. However what differentiates a Client Component from a Server Component is that a Server Component response to requests from devices on the network. An example of a Server Component can be seen in a web server. A web server listens for new requests and then interprets the request, processes the web pages, and then returns the processed data back to the web browser client so that it may render the data for the user to interpret. The Database Component of the network returns unprocessed data from databases or other resources. This component also inherits attributes from the Server Component in that it is a device on a network, it can request information from other server components and database components, and it also listens for new requests so that it can return data when needed. The three-tier client/server model is very similar to the three-tier application architecture model, and in fact the layers can be mapped to one another. Three-Tier Application Architecture Model Presentation Layer/Logic Business Layer/Logic Data Layer/Logic The Presentation Layer including its underlying logic is very similar to the Client Component of the three-tiered model. The Presentation Layer focuses on interpreting the data returned by the Business Layer as well as presents the data back to the user.  Both the Presentation Layer and the Client Component focus primarily on the user and their experience. This allows for segments of the Business Layer to be distributable and interchangeable because the Presentation Layer is not directly integrated in with Business Layer. The Presentation Layer does not care where the data comes from as long as it is in the proper format. This allows for the Presentation Layer and Business Layer to be stored on one or more different servers so that it can provide a higher availability to clients requesting data. A good example of this is a web site that uses load balancing. When a web site decides to take on the task of load balancing they must obtain a network device that sits in front of a one or machines in order to distribute the request across multiple servers. When a user comes in through the load balanced device they are redirected to a specific server based on a few factors. Common Load Balancing Factors Current Server Availability Current Server Response Time Current Server Priority The Business Layer and corresponding logic are business rules applied to data prior to it being sent to the Presentation Layer. These rules are used to manipulate the data coming from the Data Access Layer, in addition to validating any data prior to being stored in the Data Access Layer. A good example of this would be when a user is trying to create multiple accounts under one email address. The Business Layer logic can prevent duplicate accounts by enforcing a unique email for every new account before the data is even stored in the Data Access Layer. The Server Component can be directly tied to this layer in that the server typically stores and process the Business Layer before it is returned to the end-user via the Presentation Layer. In addition the Server Component can also run automated process through the Business Layer on the data in the Data Access Layer so that additional business analysis can be derived from the data that has been already collected. The Data Layer and its logic are responsible for storing information so that it can be easily retrieved. Typical in most modern applications data is stored in a database management system however data can also be in the form of files stored on a file server. In addition a database can take on one of several forms. Common Database Formats XML File Pipe Delimited File Tab Delimited File Comma Delimited File (CSV) Plain Text File Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server MySql Oracle Sybase The Database component of the Networking model can be directly tied to the Data Layer because this is where the Data Layer obtains the data to return back the Business Layer. The Database Component basically allows for a place on the network to store data for future use. This enables applications to save data when they can and then quickly recall the saved data as needed so that the application does not have to worry about storing the data in memory. This prevents overhead that could be created when an application must retain all data in memory. As you can see the Three-Tier Client/Server Networking Model and the Three-Tiered Application Architecture Model rely very heavily on one another to function especially if different aspects of an application are distributed across an entire network. The use of various servers and database servers are wonderful when an application has a need to distribute work across the network. Network Components and Application Layers Interaction Database components will store all data needed for the Data Access Layer to manipulate and return to the Business Layer Server Component executes the Business Layer that manipulates data so that it can be returned to the Presentation Layer Client Component hosts the Presentation Layer that  interprets the data and present it to the user

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• Email a very large list of WordPress subscribers = fail (every single time)

  - by Greg-J

  I have tried using a number of plugins to email my 40,000 registered users on my WordPress-powered site, to no avail. I have tried Subscribe2 (seems to send some, but I have no idea how many) as well as a few Newsletter plugins. I either run out of memory trying to add 40K entries to the mail queue, or I error out trying to add 40K emails in the BCC of the email being sent. Is there anyone out there with a large subscriber-base that has found a successful solution? If so, please share.

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• SQL SERVER – Beginning of SQL Server Architecture – Terminology – Guest Post

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Architecture is a very deep subject. Covering it in a single post is an almost impossible task. However, this subject is very popular topic among beginners and advanced users.  I have requested my friend Anil Kumar who is expert in SQL Domain to help me write  a simple post about Beginning SQL Server Architecture. As stated earlier this subject is very deep subject and in this first article series he has covered basic terminologies. In future article he will explore the subject further down. Anil Kumar Yadav is Trainer, SQL Domain, Koenig Solutions. Koenig is a premier IT training firm that provides several IT certifications, such as Oracle 11g, Server+, RHCA, SQL Server Training, Prince2 Foundation etc. In this Article we will discuss about MS SQL Server architecture. The major components of SQL Server are: Relational Engine Storage Engine SQL OS Now we will discuss and understand each one of them. 1) Relational Engine: Also called as the query processor, Relational Engine includes the components of SQL Server that determine what your query exactly needs to do and the best way to do it. It manages the execution of queries as it requests data from the storage engine and processes the results returned. Different Tasks of Relational Engine: Query Processing Memory Management Thread and Task Management Buffer Management Distributed Query Processing 2) Storage Engine: Storage Engine is responsible for storage and retrieval of the data on to the storage system (Disk, SAN etc.). to understand more, let’s focus on the following diagram. When we talk about any database in SQL server, there are 2 types of files that are created at the disk level – Data file and Log file. Data file physically stores the data in data pages. Log files that are also known as write ahead logs, are used for storing transactions performed on the database. Let’s understand data file and log file in more details: Data File: Data File stores data in the form of Data Page (8KB) and these data pages are logically organized in extents. Extents: Extents are logical units in the database. They are a combination of 8 data pages i.e. 64 KB forms an extent. Extents can be of two types, Mixed and Uniform. Mixed extents hold different types of pages like index, System, Object data etc. On the other hand, Uniform extents are dedicated to only one type. Pages: As we should know what type of data pages can be stored in SQL Server, below mentioned are some of them: Data Page: It holds the data entered by the user but not the data which is of type text, ntext, nvarchar(max), varchar(max), varbinary(max), image and xml data. Index: It stores the index entries. Text/Image: It stores LOB ( Large Object data) like text, ntext, varchar(max), nvarchar(max),  varbinary(max), image and xml data. GAM & SGAM (Global Allocation Map & Shared Global Allocation Map): They are used for saving information related to the allocation of extents. PFS (Page Free Space): Information related to page allocation and unused space available on pages. IAM (Index Allocation Map): Information pertaining to extents that are used by a table or index per allocation unit. BCM (Bulk Changed Map): Keeps information about the extents changed in a Bulk Operation. DCM (Differential Change Map): This is the information of extents that have modified since the last BACKUP DATABASE statement as per allocation unit. Log File: It also known as write ahead log. It stores modification to the database (DML and DDL). Sufficient information is logged to be able to: Roll back transactions if requested Recover the database in case of failure Write Ahead Logging is used to create log entries Transaction logs are written in chronological order in a circular way Truncation policy for logs is based on the recovery model SQL OS: This lies between the host machine (Windows OS) and SQL Server. All the activities performed on database engine are taken care of by SQL OS. It is a highly configurable operating system with powerful API (application programming interface), enabling automatic locality and advanced parallelism. SQL OS provides various operating system services, such as memory management deals with buffer pool, log buffer and deadlock detection using the blocking and locking structure. Other services include exception handling, hosting for external components like Common Language Runtime, CLR etc. I guess this brief article gives you an idea about the various terminologies used related to SQL Server Architecture. In future articles we will explore them further. Guest Author  The author of the article is Anil Kumar Yadav is Trainer, SQL Domain, Koenig Solutions. Koenig is a premier IT training firm that provides several IT certifications, such as Oracle 11g, Server+, RHCA, SQL Server Training, Prince2 Foundation etc. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• Cloud Based Load Testing Using TF Service &amp; VS 2013

  - by Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP]

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/06/30/cloud-based-load-testing-using-tf-service-amp-vs-2013.aspx One of the new features announced as part of the Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Preview is ‘Cloud Based Load Testing’. In this blog post I’ll walk you through, What is Cloud Based Load Testing? How have I been using this feature? – Success story! Where can you find more resources on this feature? What is Cloud Based Load Testing? It goes without saying that performance testing your application not only gives you the confidence that the application will work under heavy levels of stress but also gives you the ability to test how scalable the architecture of your application is. It is important to know how much is too much for your application! Working with various clients in the industry I have realized that the biggest barriers in Load Testing & Performance Testing adoption are, High infrastructure and administration cost that comes with this phase of testing Time taken to procure & set up the test infrastructure Finding use for this infrastructure investment after completion of testing Is cloud the answer? 100% Visual Studio Compatible Scalable and Realistic Start testing in < 2 minutes Intuitive Pay only for what you need Use existing on premise tests on cloud There are a lot of vendors out there offering Cloud Based Load Testing, to name a few, Load Storm Soasta Blaze Meter Blitz And others… The question you may want to ask is, why should you go with Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test offering. If you are a Microsoft shop or already have investments in Microsoft technologies, you’ll see great benefit in the natural integration this offers with existing Microsoft products such as Visual Studio and Windows Azure. For example, your existing Web tests authored in Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 will run on the cloud without requiring any modifications what so ever. Microsoft’s cloud test rig also supports API based testing, for example, if you are building a WPF application which consumes WCF services, you can write unit tests to invoke the WCF service, these tests can be run on the cloud test rig and loaded with ‘N’ concurrent users for performance testing. If you have your assets already hosted in the Azure and possibly in the same data centre as the Cloud test rig, your Azure app will not incur a usage cost because of the generated traffic since the traffic is coming from the same data centre. The licensing or pricing information on Microsoft’s cloud based Load test service is yet to be announced, but I would expect this to be priced attractively to match the market competition.   The only additional configuration required for running load tests on Microsoft Cloud based Load Tests service is to select the Test run location as Run tests using Visual Studio Team Foundation Service, How have I been using Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test Service? I have been part of the Microsoft Cloud Based Load Test Service advisory council for the last 7 months. This gave the opportunity to see the product shape up from concept to working solution. I was also the first person outside of Microsoft to try this offering out. This gave me the opportunity to test real world application at various clients using the Microsoft Load Test Service and provide real world feedback to the Microsoft product team. One of the most recent systems I tested using the Load Test Service has been an insurance quote generation engine. This insurance quote generation engine is,   hosted in Windows Azure expected to get quote requests from across the globe expected to handle 5 Million quote requests in a day (not clear how this load will be distributed across the day) There was no way, I could simulate such kind of load from on premise without standing up additional hardware. But Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test service allowed me to test my key performance testing scenarios, i.e. Simulate expected Load, Endurance Testing, Threshold Testing and Testing for Latency. Simulating expected load: approach to devising a load pattern My approach to devising a load test pattern has been to run the test scenario with 1 user to figure out the response time. Then work out how many users are required to reach the target load. So, for example, to invoke 1 quote from the quote engine software takes 0.5 seconds. Now if you do the math,   1 quote request by 1 user = 0.5 seconds   quotes generated by 1 user in 24 hour = 1 * (((2 * 60) * 60) * 24) = 172,800   quotes generated by 30 users in 24 hours = 172,800 * 30 =  5,184,000 This was a very simple example, if your application requires more concurrent users to test scenario’s such as caching, etc then you can devise your own load pattern, some examples of load test patterns can be found here.  Endurance Testing To test for endurance, I loaded the quote generation engine with an expected fixed user load and ran the test for very long duration such as over 48 hours and observed the affect of the long running test on the Azure infrastructure. Currently Microsoft Load Test service does not support metrics from the machine under test. I used Azure diagnostics to begin with, but later started using Cerebrata Azure Diagnostics Manager to capture the metrics of the machine under test. Threshold Testing To figure out how much user load the application could cope with before falling on its belly, I opted to step load the quote generation engine by incrementing user load with different variations of incremental user load per minute till the application crashed out and forced an IIS reset. Testing for Latency Currently the Microsoft Load Test service does not support generating geographically distributed load, I however, deployed the insurance quote generation engine in different Azure data centres and ran the same set of performance tests to measure for latency. Because I could compare load test results from different runs by exporting the results to excel (this feature is provided out of the box right from Visual Studio 2010) I could see the different in response times. More resources on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test Service A few important links to get you started, Download Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Preview Getting started guide for load testing using Team Foundation Service Troubleshooting guide for FAQs and known issues Team Foundation Service forum for questions and support Detailed demo and presentation (link to Tech-Ed session recording) Detailed demo and presentation (link to Build session recording) There a few limits on the usage of Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service that you can read about here. If you have any feedback on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service, feel free to share it with the product team via the Visual Studio User Voice forum. I hope you found this useful. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

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