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  • Persistent Issues on small business network using Cisco 871W and Catalyst Express 500

    - by Ben Campbell
    Being the most qualified (read: still not qualified) to solve our persistant network issues, I've turned to serverfault for guidance. I've done some searching, reading related documentation on cisco.com and tried a bit of troubleshooting. Here is the config: 100mb synchronous connection from a business internet provider (tested multiple times at 100meg at the source) Cisco 871W wireless point & router is where the WAN connection starts (this serves all our wireless). The only wired connection in the 871W is the Catalyst switch listed below. Cisco Catalyst Express 500 (24TT) is where all the wired connections terminate. About 20 Windows workstations and servers (AD/Webservers only). Some services in EC2 including mail and other web servers/apps. I've been TOLD cabling internally should be gigabit-ready. Here are the problems: generally slow download rates from the internet to the desktop/laptop frequent "page cannot be displayed" errors in browsers-sometimes 3 or 4 reloads are necessary... often times CSS wont load or other content requiring the browser to connect to a different server. slow speed within the LAN from workstation to workstation copying files. I would expect extremely fast data transfer workstation to workstation / server to workstation in this simple network. Several things I need to admit: I'm not primarily a network guy. Funding is relatively low, I need to be the guy that finds the solution. I understand most of the terminology and most of the technology. Implementation is where I fail due to lack of experience. Getting to the point: I'm wondering whether experienced network admins think that our small network should be sufficiently served with our current hardware if configured properly... or if we should purchase new equipment and start fresh? If starting fresh is the plan, whatever that new equipment may be is a likely different question entirely. If I haven't provided enough information, I will happily do some troubleshooting and update with the results. I have experience using wireshark and some other tools. Please let me know what you think would be most helpful and thanks in advance. EDIT: I forgot to add that the Cisco applicance will not finish loading the SDM Express console. It hangs every time at the "populating modules... DHCP". It eventually crashes and closes. I've rebooted the hardware and this still happens.

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  • OpenVPN, Great on Windows, VERY slow on Mac...

    - by Phsion
    Hello, I'm not really an IT Pro, but this seemed like the best place to ask this question... I have setup VPN networks in the past, for fun, and everything was great, but now I've set one up for my boss, and while my computers all work great, his Mac machines are almost too slow to work with. Its pretty much vanilla configs all around, anyone have any ideas? Its a TUN routing setup over UDP. Back Story: My boss travels a lot, and wants to be able to access all his files from the road, and is also pretty paranoid about security (even though knows almost nothing about computers). SO i figured a VPN would be the answer. I went with OpenVPN, but there are some other issues. The only ISP we can get in our area besides Dial-UP is a crappy Satellite provider, that doesn't offer public IPs unless your willing to pay, so while the computers and VPN setup are pretty vanilla, the routing and structure is strange to get around this limitation. Specs: Its OpenVPN2, and there are six machines using it (only three actually use it, the rest are my test machines), one Windows 7 laptop, two XP Desktops, one OS X 10.5 Desktop, one 10.6 Desktop, and one 10.6 Laptop. One XP Desktop sits at my house and acts as the server (6Mbs/2Mbs FIOS connection). One XP desktop sits at the office and hosts a webpage that will wake up the Main Mac Desktop from sleep, and also ping all the machines on the VPN and show their status. The main office mac (10.6) stays in sleep mode until it gets the Wake-On-Lan packet from the Office XP, and then it auto connects to the VPN and opens itself up. The reason for all this is the Satellite private IP crap means i cant directly access the office machines outside of the LAN, so everyone connects to my house first, then they talk to each other from there. The Wake On Lan weirdness is because my boss doesn't want to leave the main Mac on all the time, and making a quick and dirty webpage was the easiest way to send a Magic Packet from inside the LAN without confusing my boss. The VPN uses Client Config files to make static IPs for the client. The only thing i found in google was some changes to the VPN MTU settings (down to 1400) but no real help. Oh, and i forgot...all the windows machines just have OpenVPN start as a service. The Mac laptop uses tunnelblick (an OpenVPN GUI) and the Mac Desktops use OpenVPN in normal command line mode. Server Config: tun-mtu 1500 fragment 1450 mssfix 1450 management localhost #### port #### proto udp dev tun ca ####### cert ####### key ###### dh ###### server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt client-config-dir ccd route 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.252 client-to-client keepalive 10 120 comp-lzo persist-key persist-tun status openvpn-status log Client Configs (all are simple variations on this) tun-mtu 1500 fragment 1450 mssfix 1450 client dev tun proto udp remote ######## #### resolv-retry infinite nobind persist-key presist-tun ca ##### cert ##### key ##### ns-cert-type server comp-lzo verb 3

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  • How Do I Restrict Repository Access via WebSVN?

    - by kaybenleroll
    I have multiple subversion repositories which are served up through Apache 2.2 and WebDAV. They are all located in a central place, and I used this debian-administration.org article as the basis (I dropped the use of the database authentication for a simple htpasswd file though). Since then, I have also started using WebSVN. My issue is that not all users on the system should be able to access the different repositories, and the default setup of WebSVN is to allow anyone who can authenticate. According to the WebSVN documentation, the best way around this is to use subversion's path access system, so I looked to create this, using the AuthzSVNAccessFile directive. When I do this though, I keep getting "403 Forbidden" messages. My files look like the following: I have default policy settings in a file: <Location /svn/> DAV svn SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn/repository Order deny,allow Deny from all </Location> Each repository gets a policy file like below: <Location /svn/sysadmin/> Include /var/lib/svn/conf/default_auth.conf AuthName "Repository for sysadmin" require user joebloggs jimsmith mickmurphy </Location> The default_auth.conf file contains this: SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn/repository AuthType basic AuthUserFile /var/lib/svn/conf/.dav_svn.passwd AuthzSVNAccessFile /var/lib/svn/conf/svnaccess.conf I am not fully sure why I need the second SVNParentPath in default_auth.conf, but I just added that today as I was getting error messages as a result of adding the AuthzSVNAccessFile directive. With a totally permissive access file [/] joebloggs = rw the system worked fine (and was essentially unchanged), but as I soon as I start trying to add any kind of restrictions such as [sysadmin:/] joebloggs = rw instead, I get the 'Permission denied' errors again. The log file entries are: [Thu May 28 10:40:17 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'joebloggs' GET websvn:/ [Thu May 28 10:40:20 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'joebloggs' GET svn:/sysadmin What do I need to do to get this to work? Have configured apache wrong, or is my understanding of the svnaccess.conf file incorrect? If I am going about this the wrong way, I have no particular attachment to my overall approach, so feel free to offer alternatives as well. UPDATE (20090528-1600): I attempted to implement this answer, but I still cannot get it to work properly. I know most of the configuration is correct, as I have added [/] joebloggs = rw at the start and 'joebloggs' then has all the correct access. When I try to go repository-specific though, doing something like [/] joebloggs = rw [sysadmin:/] mickmurphy = rw then I got a permission denied error for mickmurphy (joebloggs still works), with an error similar to what I already had previously [Thu May 28 10:40:20 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'mickmurphy' GET svn:/sysadmin Also, I forgot to explain previously that all my repositories are underneath /var/lib/svn/repository UPDATE (20090529-1245): Still no luck getting this to work, but all the signs seem to be pointing to the issue being with path-access control in subversion not working properly. My assumption is that I have not conf

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  • Upgrading TFS 2005 to TFS 2010 fails at "Executing servicing step Upgrade Version Control Identities"

    - by nadeemmar
    Hi all, I have been trying to upgrade our TFS 2005 to TFS 2010 but with no luck so far. I went through the TFS Installation guide and many upgrade guides but with no luck in overcoming the issue I am facing which seems to be unique and different to other described issues. In our company, we have a domain forest with several domains. Lets say domain A, B, and C. TFS is in domain A and has users from all these three domains. All domains have trust reltionships between them. However, domain C was deleted several months ago. In the upgrade process, whenever I reach the collection upgrade step, the following error is raised: [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z][Informational] Step Data: ExtensionType = Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Server.PlugIns.WorkspaceSecurityNamespaceExtension [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z] Servicing step Create VersionControl Security Namespaces passed. (ServicingOperation: UpgradePreTfs2010Databases; Step group: Upgrade.TfsVersionControl) [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z] Executing servicing step Upgrade Version Control Identities. (ServicingOperation: UpgradePreTfs2010Databases; Step group: Upgrade.TfsVersionControl) [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z][Informational] Step Performer: VersionControl [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z][Informational] Step Type: UpgradeIdentity [Info @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:47Z][Informational] Step Data Text: [Error @09:57:50.997] [2010-12-29 09:55:51Z][Error] Sync error for identity: System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity, S-1-5-21-1004336348-527237240-682003330-2818 - The trust relationship between the primary domain and the trusted domain failed I looked for the SID and it seems to be for a user in the deleted domain C. With a bit of googling, I figured out that TFSConfig Identities command can be used to remap users from one domain to the other. I went ahead and created local users that matches the users we have from domain C and ran the TFSConfig Identities /Change command and it executed successfully. However, I still get the same error. I am stuck and can't figure out how to move forward :( I need your expertise, has anyone faced this issue before? Do I need to change these identities on TFS 2005 before I commence the upgrade? I forgot to mention, I am following the upgrade with a move approach. I created a virtual machine for testing the upgrade. Installed SQL server 2008, restored the TFS databases and installed TFS 2010 and ran the upgrade wizard. Regards, Nadeem

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  • Optimal setup for ASUS P6X58D Premium BIOS (no OC)?

    - by rumtscho
    Normally, I'd trust the mainboard manufacturer to choose the best options as defaults. But I had trouble with the board, because even with Quick Boot enabled, it booted twice as slowly as a Pentium 4 Celeron. Then I changed lots of options at once (most of them weren't explained in the manual, just mentioned with a single sentence) and the boot time is only marginally worse than the Pentium 4 (54 sec against 46 sec from button to pw entering screen). Now I don't know if I have turned something off which should have stayed on. I guess I even won't be able to boot from a CD now, because even though it is present in the boot sequence, I took off a timeout I think it needs to check whether there is a disk in the drive. The second reason is that I don't have an internal HDD, only a SSD. I forgot my sources blush but I am under the impression that today's BIOS and OS options are geared toward booting from a HDD, which is often less than optimal when one boots from a SSD, especially when there are functions which cause avoidable writing cycles, as a SSD wears out after too many writing cycles. Most of the things I've read concern the OS, but there are some BIOS-relevant options too. I am especially confused about the disk mode. The board supports AHCI, IDE-simulation and RAID, but of the different articles I've read, there is a proponent for each and no clear arguments for any. So can one tell me which options are important in general and which are important for a SSD-only system? I don't want to overclock the CPU, so you don't have to say anything about this (yes I know the board is meant for OC:)). I am thinking of overclocking the RAM, since they sold me 1600er heatsinked modules which are running at 1066 now, but I'm not sure yet about that. The rest of the system: i7-930, Intel X25-m G2, 6 GB RAM, GTS 250, some no-name Blue-ray ROM. 2 external HDDs over USB 2.0. Lots of other USB-connected hardware (12 devices I think), no SATA 3 drives (will disabling the controller have an impact on performance?), no LAN, only WiFi. Lucid Lynx 64 bit, no dual boot, no virtual installations. The main uses of the system are: managing and playing/showing all the media stored on the external disks, lots of image manipulation, some video editing, a bit of (non-demanding) gaming, rarely development. Lots of Internet surfing too, but this shouldn't have much impact on performance.

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  • Flickering issue in external monitor when used with Acer Aspire One D260 netbook (Intel GMA 3150)

    - by seyenne
    I recently purchased a Acer netbook, Aspire One D260. It runs flawlessly. Yesterday I bought a Samsung 23" TFT with a native resolution of 1920x1080. According to the information found in the internet and my local computer dealer, the Intel chipset can handle the native resolution of the monitor. However, this is only partly the case. I use the VGA cable to connect, the monitor instantly switches to the native resolution and now the problem: Occasionally, especially the first 2 hours after booting up, I have a flickering all over the screen, sometimes the entire screen is shaking and spinning around like crazy. I figured out that lowering the resolution avoids the flicker but this helps only for some time. I can rule out that it's the monitor's problem since I found no issues with another notebook. Right now, I have no problems with the netbook, for about 30 minutes I didn't experience any issues... But I don't know for how long, it occurs without warning :-) I'm worried that if I would bring the netbook back to the dealer and explain my problem, after testing it on an external screen in the local shop, everything works just fine... And I won't get helped with the problem because I can't prove it. (I'm currently in Thailand and over here, customer service is nothing like back home in Germany) What can I do? Is this a driver related issue? (I installed the latest GPU driver) Is it because of the VGA cable? (But why does it work sometimes without any problems and with no issues on the other notebook) I monitored the GPU/CPU temperature, nothing changes really over time.. Can it simply be a faulty GPU and is a replacement justifiable? I'm really stressed now because for the time I'm writing, the flickering didn't occur... but for sure, soon or later it will happen again.. I forgot to mention, the problem also happens if the netbook runs on battery, unplugged. So the only hardware that is plugged is the TFT screen. ...........and here it comes again, flickering has just begun. NEED HELP! Thank you all for reading through this and giving any suggestions if possible. Cheers

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  • CPU overheating after cleaning it

    - by Roberts
    I wanted to clean my computer CPU heatsink and fan itself, because the temperature is not what I wanted. About (50C ~ 70C). I have Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 @1.8 GHz (LGA775). The heatsink wasn't so scary filled with dust but I wanted to clean it anyway. I didn't know how to get heatsink with fan from the socket. So after 25 minutes I've figured it out. But I didn't know how to get it back on so I spent a lot time getting out the motherboard from the case. The fan and heatsink... The case and all components are clear of dust. (I'm tired now). Then I put all back just the way it was, well did few things on cable management. But the problem was that I didn't know how to connect front audio connectors. I had Windows XP hibernated. So I started the PC and everything was normal, except CMOS memory was clear. I configured the BIOS just the way it was and while I was doing that I saw about 58C CPU temperature and fan at 1789 RPM. Restarted the computer with new settings applied. But Windows halted with Blue Screen (I forgot what error it was but something with KERNEL). Restarted the PC and deleted hibernation session and everything was back normal. But couldn't record any sound from front panel microphone. The problem was that I messed ground wire with mic. Again after fixing it I turned computer on. No problems. The fan currently is noisy and temperature was 78C. The temperature before was 55C - 60C at idle. Now it's about 60C. If I do something then temperature raises to 79C. While speaking in skype the temperature was 82C. Could this problem occur because of the thermal grease (it's old and never replaced)? Edit The problem wasn't in thermal paste (because I didn't touch it). The problem was that I installed heatsink wrong. Now instead of regular 60C CPU temperature the CPU is at 48C (cool).

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  • Event ID 9331 MSExchangeSA & Event ID 9335 MSExchangeSA

    - by George
    I get this two Exchange 2010 Global Address book related event IDs: Event ID 9331 MSExchangeSA OABGen encountered error 80004005 (internal ID 50101f1) accessing the public folder database while generating the offline address list for address list '/'. -\Default Offline Address List and Event ID 9335 MSExchangeSA OABGen encountered error 80004005 while cleaning the offline address list public folders under /o=xxxxx xxxx/cn=addrlists/cn=oabs/cn=Default Offline Address List. Please make sure the public folder database is mounted and replicas exist of the offline address list folders. No offline address lists have been generated. Please check the event log for more information. -\Default Offline Address List It is Exchange 2010 SP2 sitting on Windows 2008 enterprise edition. Essentially the issue is that the global address book is not being updated on Outlook clients. We are using Outlook 2007 and 2010. So far I have tried running the following command: Update-FileDistributionService -Identity ExchangeServer -Type "OAB" And I tried this solution as well: 1) Make sure the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant is running. It will be set to start automatically by default, but it doesn't. This is a known issue. Start this service manually. When running, you will not get an error when trying to update the GAL. 2) "Apply" any changes made to any address lists before the GAL will update Outlook properly. In Organization Configuration - Mailbox in EMC, view the properties of the Default Global Address Book in the Offline Address Book tab. In the properties window, select the Address Lists tab. This shows which address lists makes up the GAL. 3) Close the properties window and select the Address Lists tab in the Organization Configuration - Mailbox. Right-click each address list used by the Def GAL and click "Apply" (make sure the "Immediately" radio button is checked). 4) Last, go back to the Offline Address Book tab, right-click the GAL and select "Update". After a few send/receives in the Outlook clients, their Glogal Address List should update to show the latest changes. Neither one of those solutions helped. So I am not really sure what to do here. Also, I am aware of changing registry on each local computers, but it would be close to impossible as we have 8 offices in 3 different countries. Any suggestions? EDIT 7.XII.2012 @ 10.35 I forgot to mention that we did rebuild the address book and that didn't help.

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  • Looking for a NTP Server Software for Windows

    - by Simon
    I'm looking for a, preferably free, NTP Server for Windows Server 2003/2008. We have already tried the built in Windows Time Server, but our tests did show that it is not very accurate, we see time differences up to 500ms. The max time difference we can allow for our application is ~100ms. Now we have already used the Meinberg NTPd for Windows. It works great except we have one big issue with it: If there is a network connection problem between the client and server, the ntp server is in a panic state It won't give the client a new time until we restart the ntp service. This is a big issue which has caused us some trouble. It was working fine for months until there was a network problem we didn't notice, we only noticed it after a week when the time difference was already 30 sec. on the clients. So please suggest some alternative NTP Server for windows. I did Google but I get a lot of unrelated search results. Edit: So far the ntpd windows version was very accurate and I'd like to stick with it. The only problem is the "panic state" after a network disconnect. Maybe some knows here what the cause of this is and how to fix it. Also, I forgot to mention that we have a server/client setup like this: Server1 -- Server2 -- Server3 -- Client1 -- Client2 -- Client3 So Server2 gets its time from Server1, Server3 gets its time from Server2, and the Clients get their time from Server3. Also, there are clients connected directly to Server2. It is important that all Servers and Clients have the exact same time (within ~100ms) Now there was a network problem with Server3 and its clients. The servers run the ntpd port for Windows, which acts as NTP server and client. The clients have Dimension4 as NTP client. After the network problem, the error message in D4 was something like this (out the top of my head, don't have the exact error message): Server response: The server is in a panic state (could not sync clock) I read through the ntpd docs, and the only mention of "panic" is when the time difference is 10000 seconds which will cause to exit the ntpd server but this was not the case. Also there is a "-g" command line switch to disable the panic exit, but it is already set by default. Any ideas what could cause the panic state and how to get rid of it next time?

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  • Is it safe to enable forced ASLR via EMET on Windows?

    - by D.W.
    I'd like to enable forced ASLR for all DLLs on Windows. Is this safe? Background: ASLR is an important security mechanism that helps defend against code injection attacks. DLLs can opt into ASLR, and most do, but some DLLs have not opted into ASLR. If a program loads even a single non-ASLRized DLL, then the program doesn't get the benefit/protection of ASLR. This is a problem, because there are a non-trivial number of DLLs that haven't opted into ASLR. For instance, it was recently revealed that Dropbox injects a DLL into a bunch of processes, and the Dropbox DLL doesn't have ASLR turned on, which negates any ASLR protection they otherwise would have had. Unfortunately, there are many other widely used DLLs that haven't opted into ASLR. This is bad for system security. Microsoft provides several ways to turn on ASLR for all DLLs, even ones that haven't opted into ASLR: On Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, you can enable "Force ASLR" in the registry. On all Windows versions, you can use Microsoft's EMET tool and enable EMET's "Mandatory ASLR" option. These methods are possible because all DLLs are compiled as position-independent code and they can be relocated to a random location even if they haven't opted into ASLR. These options will ensure that ASLR is turned on, even if the developers of the DLL forgot to opt into ASLR. Thus, forcing on ASLR systemwide may help system security. In principle, turning on forced ASLR could potentially break a poorly-written DLL, so there is some risk of breakage. I'm interested in finding out just significant this risk is. I have the suspicion that this kind of breakage might be extremely rare. Here's what I've been able to find: Microsoft has done compatibility testing with several dozen widely used applications. The only one they found where Mandatory ASLR causes problems is Windows Media Player. All the other applications continue working fine. (See pp.39-41 of this document.) I've seen some anecdotal reports that enabling "Mandatory ASLR"/"Force ASLR" is fine and unlikely to cause problems. CERT reports that AMD and ATI video drivers used to crash if you enabled forced ASLR, but their latest drivers have now fixed this problem. They don't show any other drivers with this problem. A forum post from Microsoft shows no other applications with compatibility problems if ASLR is forced on, as of 2011. A user reports that borderlands.exe, a video game by Gearbox Software, crashes if you turn on mandatory ASLR. What else should I know? Is it relatively safe to turn on Force ASLR / Mandatory ASLR systemwide to harden the secuity of my system, or will I be in for a world of pain and broken applications? How significant is the risk of compatibility problems and broken applications?

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  • How Do I Restrict Repository Access via WebSVN?

    - by kaybenleroll
    I have multiple subversion repositories which are served up through Apache 2.2 and WebDAV. They are all located in a central place, and I used this debian-administration.org article as the basis (I dropped the use of the database authentication for a simple htpasswd file though). Since then, I have also started using WebSVN. My issue is that not all users on the system should be able to access the different repositories, and the default setup of WebSVN is to allow anyone who can authenticate. According to the WebSVN documentation, the best way around this is to use subversion's path access system, so I looked to create this, using the AuthzSVNAccessFile directive. When I do this though, I keep getting "403 Forbidden" messages. My files look like the following: I have default policy settings in a file: <Location /svn/> DAV svn SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn/repository Order deny,allow Deny from all </Location> Each repository gets a policy file like below: <Location /svn/sysadmin/> Include /var/lib/svn/conf/default_auth.conf AuthName "Repository for sysadmin" require user joebloggs jimsmith mickmurphy </Location> The default_auth.conf file contains this: SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn/repository AuthType basic AuthUserFile /var/lib/svn/conf/.dav_svn.passwd AuthzSVNAccessFile /var/lib/svn/conf/svnaccess.conf I am not fully sure why I need the second SVNParentPath in default_auth.conf, but I just added that today as I was getting error messages as a result of adding the AuthzSVNAccessFile directive. With a totally permissive access file [/] joebloggs = rw the system worked fine (and was essentially unchanged), but as I soon as I start trying to add any kind of restrictions such as [sysadmin:/] joebloggs = rw instead, I get the 'Permission denied' errors again. The log file entries are: [Thu May 28 10:40:17 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'joebloggs' GET websvn:/ [Thu May 28 10:40:20 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'joebloggs' GET svn:/sysadmin What do I need to do to get this to work? Have configured apache wrong, or is my understanding of the svnaccess.conf file incorrect? If I am going about this the wrong way, I have no particular attachment to my overall approach, so feel free to offer alternatives as well. UPDATE (20090528-1600): I attempted to implement this answer, but I still cannot get it to work properly. I know most of the configuration is correct, as I have added [/] joebloggs = rw at the start and 'joebloggs' then has all the correct access. When I try to go repository-specific though, doing something like [/] joebloggs = rw [sysadmin:/] mickmurphy = rw then I got a permission denied error for mickmurphy (joebloggs still works), with an error similar to what I already had previously [Thu May 28 10:40:20 2009] [error] [client 89.100.219.180] Access denied: 'mickmurphy' GET svn:/sysadmin Also, I forgot to explain previously that all my repositories are underneath /var/lib/svn/repository UPDATE (20090529-1245): Still no luck getting this to work, but all the signs seem to be pointing to the issue being with path-access control in subversion not working properly. My assumption is that I have not conf

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  • Very slow printing from print server

    - by evolvd
    Print server is a VM on Xen The VM is Windows 2003 32bit. During the issue the VM is not being taxed in anyway, cpu, memory, hd read/write, and network speed is all good. The problem that I see is the transfer of the print file from the print server to the printer. The 80Mb file is transferred from the client to the print server in about 2 minutes but then it takes about 2 hours for that file to be sent to the printer. I can't figure out why this would just start to happen. The printer is rebooted every evening and is just used for one large print job in the morning. The server has been rebooted with no effect I changed the spool option to send the entire spool to the server before printing starts and it had no effect. This printer problem did happen to come about after some changes to the Xen environment. The Xen servers changed from using HBA NIC cards to software iscsi and a new switch was put in. I don't think this is related to the problem since all the speeds on the VMs are better now. The changed happened on Saturday and the first print to this printer happened on Monday morning. I'm just putting that out there but like I said I don't think it is related but I don't want to rule it out. At this point I don't have many other options besides the physical layer. I can switch out network cable that goes to the printer and I might be able to print the same job to another printer. I wont be able to test those things out till this afternoon though. Any other ideas or test I could do to try to find the reason for the slow speed? I forgot to say that this is only happening when printing to this one printer. ===Update=== I found out that there are a few printers that currently have this issue, not just the one. There are over 30 printers on the server though so I know it's not happening to all of them. I printed a large pdf doc from the server and it was able to print at the normal speed. If the machine sends the large print request it gets to the server fine but then slow to get from the server to the printer. If sent directly from the printer it gets to the printer at the normal speed. The question now is why is there a speed difference when it comes from the machine and why would it start now?

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  • nginx + Jetty - thousands of connections stuck in LAST_ACK

    - by virulence
    I have a FreeBSD machine with jails -- two in particular, one that runs nginx and another that runs a Java program that accepts requests via Jetty (embedded mode) Jetty receives upwards of 500 requests/sec constantly and there has been an issue lately where I will constantly have over 60,000 connections in the LAST_ACK state between nginx and jetty. Distribution of all connections (includes some other services, particularly php-fpm) root@host:/root # netstat -an > conns.txt root@host:/root # cat conns.txt | awk '{print $6}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n 18 LISTEN 112 CLOSING 485 ESTABLISHED 650 FIN_WAIT_2 1425 FIN_WAIT_1 3301 TIME_WAIT 64215 LAST_ACK Distribution of nginx - jetty connections root@host:/root # cat conns.txt | grep '10.10.1.57' | awk '{print $6}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n 1 3 CLOSE_WAIT 3 LISTEN 18 FIN_WAIT_2 125 ESTABLISHED 64193 LAST_ACK I'd prefer every request to fully close the connection. Clients requests are about 10 minutes apart from each other so connections must be closed. Some of the connections, tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46809 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46805 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46797 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46794 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46790 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46789 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK tcp4 0 0 10.10.1.50.46771 10.10.1.57.9050 LAST_ACK etc.. On Jetty's end I've set maxIdleTime to 2000 -- before this all connections were in ESTABLISHED but they are now LAST_ACK On Jetty's end I've set Connection: close (i.e response.setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONNECTION, HttpHeaderValues.CLOSE);) Jetty never reports a lot of open connections -- always very few. PF/IPFW is not currently being used nginx - reset_timedout_connection is on I cannot figure out how to get nginx or jetty to forcibly close the connection, is this simply something that needs to be fixed in Jetty so that it fully closes the socket after the request finishes? Thanks a lot in advance EDIT: forgot my nginx config for the proxy setup- proxy_pass http://10.10.1.57:9050; proxy_set_header HTTP_X_GEOIP $http_x_geoip; proxy_set_header GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE $geoip_country_code; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header Connection ""; proxy_http_version 1.1; EDIT2: Forcing Jetty to close the connection via request.getConnection().getEndPoint().close() does nothing -- it's obvious the connection IS being closed (as it's in LAST_ACK) but why isn't it getting past this? Is Nginx keeping the connection open to the backend for some reason?

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  • Wirelss card not being detected in backtrack 5

    - by Jesse Nelson
    I just installed backtrack 5 and I am unable to detect my wireless card. iwconfig doesn't list my interface. I can see that the hardware is present in lspci -vnn (see below) but I can't get the interface detected. I have tried to reinstall the compat-wireless package but I get errors during the build (see below) I have done a ton of researching and I keep hitting a brick wall, mostly because the wiki for backtrack is down and I can't find any good resources. Does anyone know how to fix the issue? Also, does anyone no how I can scan the hardware to determine what NIC is assigning my interface? If I can figure out the interface name I think I can set it up manually by putting up the link and using wireless-tools to manually configure the connection, this is what I had to do in arch on my mac. As stated the wiki for backtrack is down and I can't find any help on the issue. I tried to do the full kernel upgrade suggested in my software update but after the update was complete and I logged back in I had a new log in manager and the only thing I was able to log into was window managers. However, after this update my wireless was working fine. Please help I am new to Linux and the wiki is down, I have nowhere else to turn. Forgot to mention I am using the KDE version, not Gnome. Thanks in advance for any help or support. Attempt at make: root@bt:/usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2# make /usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2/config.mk:254: "WARNING: CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT will be deactivated or not working because kernel was compiled with CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT=n. Tools using wext interface like iwconfig will not work. To activate it build your kernel e.g. with CONFIG_LIBIPW=m." make -C /lib/modules/2.6.38/build M=/usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2 modules make: *** /lib/modules/2.6.38/build: No such file or directory. Stop. make: *** [modules] Error 2 lspci output: root@bt:/usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2# lspci -vnn -i net lspci: I/O error at net, line 0 root@bt:/usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2# lspci -vnn 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. Device [168c:0032] (rev ff) (prog-if ff) !!! Unknown header type 7f ( This is the problem but I can't find the solution) Kernel modules: ath9k iwconfig output: root@bt:/usr/src/compat-wireless-3.3-rc1-2# iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions.

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  • Windows 8 disk errors

    - by wrongusername
    So yesterday, I forcibly restarted my Windows 8 PC. VMWare Workstation was having some trouble with the guest Linux Mint OS. It wasn't responding for some time, so I tried suspending it September 28th or perhaps even before. It wouldn't suspend -- I forgot what the window looked like, but all options in the power menu were disabled (i.e. "Shutdown," "Power Off," and options like that were all disabled). I eventually killed the VMWare application through Task Manager, though I was too lazy to hunt down the running virtual machine itself, and decided to kill it by just shutting down my PC entirely. The PC wouldn't shut down for quite some time after the monitor went blank, so I did a cold reset by holding the power button. I then powered it on again and Windows briefly gave me some message like "Search for KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR." Windows then started diagnosing some problems and gave me the message, "Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete." That was yesterday night, and I went to sleep without waiting for it to finish. This morning, it said that the repair failed, and that the log was at C:\windows\system32\LogFiles\srt\srtTrail.txt (as I remember it -- I don't have the exact path I wrote down right now). It gave me some other options to troubleshoot, such as resetting Windows (files and settings still intact, but programs not installed through the app store will be erased). That didn't work (no error message given, I was just told it didn't work). I tried rebooting in safe mode, the same diagnosis process begins, except that this time it doesn't bother with the automatic repairs again. So I tried using the command prompt to try to see if my files are at least still there. I was on the X drive, and I couldn't cd to the C drive. I couldn't find my folder under Users (of course?), and couldn't find the srt folder under LogFiles either. I am not sure what to try next. I have backed up everything, but to the cloud, so if absolutely necessary I can start off with a fresh copy of Windows and restore all my data, though it would be a hassle. Any thoughts on what might be wrong or what I can try? My computer was purchased just this June, so the hard drive should still be pretty new.

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  • netbook intel GMA 3150 external monitor 1920x1080 flicker problem

    - by seyenne
    Dear all, i recently purchased a acer netbook (apsire one d260). It runs flawlessly. Yesterday I bought a samsung 23" TFT with a native resolution of 1920x1080. According to the information found in the internet and my local computer dealer, the intel chipset can handle the native resolution of the monitor. However, this is only partly the case. I use the VGA cabel to connect, the monitor instantly switches to the native resolution and now the problem: Occasionaly, especially the first 2 hours after booting up, I have a flickering all over the screen, sometimes the entire screen is shaking and spinning around like crazy. I figured out, that lowering the resolution avoids the flicker but this helps only for some time. I can rule out that it's the monitor's problem since I found no issues with another notebook. Right now, I have no problems with the netbook, for about 30 minutes I didn't experience any issues... But I don't know for how long, it occurs without warning :-) I'm worried that if I would bring the netbook back to the dealer and explain my problem, after testing it on an external screen in the local shop, everything works just fine... And I won't get helped with the problem because I can't prove it. (I'm currently in Thailand and over here, customer service is nothing like back home in Germany) What can I do? Is this a driver related issue? (I installed the latest GPU driver) Is it because of the VGA cable? (But why does it work sometimes without any problems and with no issues on the other notebook) I monitored the GPU/CPU temperature, nothing changes really over time..Can it simply be a faulty GPU and is a replacement justifiable? I'm really stressed now because for the time I'm writing, the flickering didn't occur...but for sure, soon or later it will happen again.. I Forgot to mention, the problem also happens if the netbook runs on battery, unplugged. So the only hardware that is plugged is the TFT screen. ...........and here it comes again, flickering has just begun. NEED HELP! Thank you all for reading through this and giving any suggestions if possible. Cheers

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  • Request Limit Length Limits for IIS&rsquo;s requestFiltering Module

    - by Rick Strahl
    Today I updated my CodePaste.net site to MVC 3 and pushed an update to the site. The update of MVC went pretty smooth as well as most of the update process to the live site. Short of missing a web.config change in the /views folder that caused blank pages on the server, the process was relatively painless. However, one issue that kicked my ass for about an hour – and not foe the first time – was a problem with my OpenId authentication using DotNetOpenAuth. I tested the site operation fairly extensively locally and everything worked no problem, but on the server the OpenId returns resulted in a 404 response from IIS for a nice friendly OpenId return URL like this: http://codepaste.net/Account/OpenIdLogon?dnoa.userSuppliedIdentifier=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&dnoa.return_to_sig_handle=%7B634239223364590000%7D%7BjbHzkg%3D%3D%7D&dnoa.return_to_sig=7%2BcGhp7UUkcV2B8W29ibIDnZuoGoqzyS%2F%2FbF%2FhhYscgWzjg%2BB%2Fj10ZpNdBkUCu86dkTL6f4OK2zY5qHhCnJ2Dw%3D%3D&openid.assoc_handle=%7BHMAC-SHA256%7D%7B4cca49b2%7D%7BMVGByQ%3D%3D%7D&openid.claimed_id=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&openid.identity=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&openid.mode=id_res&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.ns.sreg=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fextensions%2Fsreg%2F1.1&openid.op_endpoint=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.myopenid.com%2Fserver&openid.response_nonce=2010-10-29T04%3A12%3A53Zn5F4r5&openid.return_to=http%3A%2F%2Fcodepaste.net%2FAccount%2FOpenIdLogon%3Fdnoa.userSuppliedIdentifier%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Frstrahl.myopenid.com%252F%26dnoa.return_to_sig_handle%3D%257B634239223364590000%257D%257BjbHzkg%253D%253D%257D%26dnoa.return_to_sig%3D7%252BcGhp7UUkcV2B8W29ibIDnZuoGoqzyS%252F%252FbF%252FhhYscgWzjg%252BB%252Fj10ZpNdBkUCu86dkTL6f4OK2zY5qHhCnJ2Dw%253D%253D&openid.sig=h1GCSBTDAn1on98sLA6cti%2Bj1M6RffNerdVEI80mnYE%3D&openid.signed=assoc_handle%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Cmode%2Cns%2Cns.sreg%2Cop_endpoint%2Cresponse_nonce%2Creturn_to%2Csigned%2Csreg.email%2Csreg.fullname&openid.sreg.email=rstrahl%40host.com&openid.sreg.fullname=Rick+Strahl A 404 of course isn’t terribly helpful – normally a 404 is a resource not found error, but the resource is definitely there. So how the heck do you figure out what’s wrong? If you’re just interested in the solution, here’s the short version: IIS by default allows only for a 1024 byte query string, which is obviously exceeded by the above. The setting is controlled by the RequestFiltering module in IIS 6 and later which can be configured in ApplicationHost.config (in \%windir\system32\inetsvr\config). To set the value configure the requestLimits key like so: <configuration> <security> <requestFiltering> <requestLimits maxQueryString="2048"> </requestLimits> </requestFiltering> </security> </configuration> This fixed me right up and made the requests work. How do you find out about problems like this? Ah yes the troubles of an administrator? Read on and I’ll take you through a quick review of how I tracked this down. Finding the Problem The issue with the error returned is that IIS returns a 404 Resource not found error and doesn’t provide much information about it. If you’re lucky enough to be able to run your site from the localhost IIS is actually very helpful and gives you the right information immediately in a nicely detailed error page. The bottom of the page actually describes exactly what needs to be fixed. One problem with this easy way to find an error: You HAVE TO run localhost. On my server which has about 10 domains running localhost doesn’t point at the particular site I had problems with so I didn’t get the luxury of this nice error page. Using Failed Request Tracing to retrieve Error Info The first place I go with IIS errors is to turn on Failed Request Tracing in IIS to get more error information. If you have access to the server to make a configuration change you can enable Failed Request Tracing like this: Find the Failed Request Tracing Rules in the IIS Service Manager.   Select the option and then Edit Site Tracing to enable tracing. Then add a rule for * (all content) and specify status codes from 100-999 to capture all errors. if you know exactly what error you’re looking for it might help to specify it exactly to keep the number of errors down. Then run your request and let it fail. IIS will throw error log files into a folder like this C:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles\W3SVC5 where the last 5 is the instance ID of the site. These files are XML but they include an XSL stylesheet that provides some decent formatting. In this case it pointed me straight at the offending module:   Ok, it’s the RequestFilteringModule. Request Filtering is built into IIS 6-7 and configured in ApplicationHost.config. This module defines a few basic rules about what paths and extensions are allowed in requests and among other things how long a query string is allowed to be. Most of these settings are pretty sensible but the query string value can easily become a problem especially if you’re dealing with OpenId since these return URLs are quite extensive. Debugging failed requests is never fun, but IIS 6 and forward at least provides us the tools that can help us point in the right direction. The error message the FRT report isn’t as nice as the IIS error message but it at least points at the offending module which gave me the clue I needed to look at request restrictions in ApplicationHost.config. This would still be a stretch if you’re not intimately familiar, but I think with some Google searches it would be easy to track this down with a few tries… Hope this was useful to some of you. Useful to me to put this out as a reminder – I’ve run into this issue before myself and totally forgot. Next time I got it, right?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  Security  

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  • Using the “Settings.settings” functionalities in VB.NET can be tricky…

    - by Vincent Grondin
    Sometime you’re searching for something forever and when you find it, you realize it was right under your nose.  Maybe you were distracted by other things around… or maybe that thing right under your nose was so well hidden that it deserves a blog post…   That happened to me a few days ago while using the “Settings.settings” functionalities in my VB.NET application…  I thought it was a cool feature and I decided to use it…  So there I am adding new settings with “USER” scope and StringCollection as the data type, testing my application and everything works perfectly fine...  That was before I decided to modify the “Value” of one of my settings…  After changing the value of one of my settings, I start my application again and, to my surprise, my new values aren’t showing!  Hmmm… That’s odd…  My setting was a pretty long list of strings so I was rather angry at myself for not saving my work after I was done…  So I open up the Settings.setting in the designer and click the ellipsis symbol to enter my string collection again, but to my great pleasure (and disbelief) my strings are there!!!  Alright, you rock VB.NET!  You’ve just save me a bunch of typing time and I’m thinking it’s just a simple Visual Studio glitch…  I hit “Save” then “Save All” (just in case) and finally I rebuild everything and fire up my app once again.  Huh?  Where are my darn strings????????  Ok there’s a bug there…  I open up the app.config and my new strings are there!!!  Alright, let’s recap…  My new strings are in the app.config, they show correctly in the Settings.settings designer UI but they aren’t showing at runtime…  Hmmmm?  Let’s try something else…  Let’s start the application but outside Visual Studio this time… I fire up the exe and BAM!  My strings where there!  I “alt-tab” and hit “F5” and BOOM, no strings!  So it’s a bug in the Visual Studio environment… or could it be a FEATURE?  I must admit that I’m a little confused over what’s a bug and what’s a feature in Visual Studio… lol!   Finally I found out there’s a “cache” for your Visual Studio located here:  C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\<your app name and a very weird temp ID>\<your app version>\user.config When using the “Settings.settings” with a setting of scope “user”, this file is out of sync with your app.config until you manually decide to update it… The button is right there… under your nose… at the top left corner of your screen in the settings designer…  See the big “Synchronize” button there?  Yep…  Now that’s user friendly isn’t it?  Oh, and wait until you see what it does when you click it…  It prompts you and basically says:  “Would you like your settings to start working inside Visual Studio now that you found out that I exist?” and of course the right answer is yes… or rather “OK”…  Unfortunately, you have to do this every time you edit a value… On the other hand, adding and removing settings seem to work flawlessly without having to click this magical button… go figure!  Oh and I almost forgot… this great “feature” is only available for VB.NET…  A project in C# using Settings.settings will work perfectly EVEN when editing values… Here’s a screenshot that shows this important button: Button Using other data types appears to work perfectly well…   Maybe it’s simply related to the StringCollection data type?  If you are a VB.NET programmer, you should pay attention to this when you plan on using the settings functionalities and your scope is “user” and your data type is StringCollection… Happy coding all!

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  • Data Mining Resources

    - by Dejan Sarka
    There are many different types of analyses, each one with its own pros and cons. Relational reports have a predefined structure, and end users cannot change it. They are simple to use for end users. Reports can use real-time data and snapshots of data to show the state of a report at specific points in time. One of the drawbacks is that report authoring is limited to IT pros and advanced users. Any kind of dynamic restructuring is very limited. If real-time data is used for a report, the report has a negative impact on the performance of the source system. Processing of the reports might be slow because the data comes from relational database management systems, which are not optimized for reporting only. If you create a semantic model of your data, your end users can create ad-hoc report structures. However, the development is more complex because a developer is needed to create these semantic models. For OLAP, you typically use specialized database management systems. You get lightning speed of analyses. End users can use rich and thin clients to interactively change the structure of the report. Typically, they do it graphically. However, the development of an OLAP system is many times quite complex. It involves the preparation and maintenance of an enterprise data warehouse and OLAP cubes. In order to exploit the possibility of real-time restructuring of reports, the users must be both active and educated. The data is usually stale, as it is loaded into data warehouses and OLAP cubes with a scheduled process. With data mining, a structure is not selected in advance; it searches for the structure. As a result, data mining can give you the most valuable results because you can discover patterns you did not expect. A data mining model structure is limited only by the attributes that you use to train the model. One of the drawbacks is that a lot of knowledge is needed for a successful data mining project. End users have to understand the results. Subject matter experts and IT professionals need to understand business problem thoroughly. The development might be sometimes even more complex than the development of OLAP cubes. Each type of analysis has its own place in an enterprise system. SQL Server has tools for all kinds of analyses. However, data mining is the most advanced way of analyzing the data; this is the “I” in BI. In order to get the most out of it, you need to learn quite a lot. In this blog post, I am gathering together resources for learning, including forthcoming events. Books Multiple authors: SQL Server MVP Deep Dives – I wrote an introductory data mining chapter there. Erik Veerman, Teo Lachev and Dejan Sarka: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-448): Microsoft SQL Server 2008 - Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance – you can find a good overview of a complete BI solution, including data mining, in this book. Jamie MacLennan, ZhaoHui Tang, and Bogdan Crivat: Data Mining with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – can’t miss this book if you want to mine your data with SQL Server tools. Michael Berry, Gordon Linoff: Mastering Data Mining: The Art and Science of Customer Relationship Management – data mining from both, business and technical perspective. Dorian Pyle: Data Preparation for Data Mining – an in-depth book about data preparation. Thomas and Ronald Wonnacott: Introductory Statistics – if you thought that you could get away without statistics, then you are not serious about data mining. Jiawei Han and Micheline Kamber: Data Mining Concepts and Techniques – in-depth explanation of the most popular data mining algorithms. Michael Berry and Gordon Linoff: Data Mining Techniques – another book that explains data mining algorithms, more fro a business perspective. Paolo Guidici: Applied Data Mining – very mathematical book, only if you enjoy statistics and mathematics in general. Forthcoming presentations I am presenting two data mining related sessions during the PASS Summit in Charlotte, NC: Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 - Fraud Detection: Notes from the Field – I am showing how to use data mining for a specific business problem. The presentation is based on real-life projects. Friday, October 18th: Excel 2013 Advanced Analytics – I am focusing on Excel Data Mining Add-ins, and how to use them together with Power Pivot and other add-ins. This is the most you can get out of Excel. Sinergija 2013, Belgrade, Serbia Tuesday, October 22nd: Excel 2013 Analytics to the Max – another presentation focusing on the most advanced analytics you can get in Excel. SQL Rally Amsterdam, Netherlands Thursday, November 7th: Advanced Analytics in Excel 2013 – and again I am presenting about data mining in Excel. Why three different titles for the same presentation? I don’t know, I guess I forgot the name I proposed every time right after I sent the proposal. Courses Data Mining with SQL Server 2012 – I wrote a 3-day course for SolidQ. If you are interested in this course, which I could also deliver in a shorter seminar way, you can contact your closes SolidQ subsidiary, or, of course, me directly on addresses [email protected] or [email protected]. This course could also complement the existing courseware portfolio of training providers, which are welcome to contact me as well. OK, now you know: no more excuses, start learning data mining, get the most out of your data

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  • SQL Saturday 43 in Redmond

    - by AjarnMark
    I attended my first SQLSaturday a couple of days ago, SQLSaturday #43 in Redmond (at Microsoft).  I got there really early, primarily because I forgot how fast I can get there from my home when nobody else is on the road.  On a weekday in rush hour traffic, that would have taken two hours to get there.  I gave myself 90 minutes, and actually got there in about 45.  Crazy! I made the mistake of going to the main Microsoft campus, but that’s not where the event was being held.  Instead it was in a big Microsoft conference center on the other side of the highway.  Fortunately, I had the address with me and quickly realized my mistake.  When I got back on track, I noticed that there were bright yellow signs out on the street corner that looked like they said they were for SOL Saturday, which actually was appropriate since it was the sunniest day around here in a long time. Since I was there so early, the registration was just getting setup, so I found Greg Larsen who was coordinating things and offered to help.  He put me to work with a group of people organizing the pre-printed raffle tickets and stuffing swag bags. I had never been to a SQLSaturday before this one, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect even though I have read about a few on some blogs.  It makes sense that each one will be a little bit different since they are almost completely volunteer driven, and the whole concept is still in its early stages.  I have been to the PASS Summit for the last several years, and was hoping for a smaller version of that.  Now, it’s not really fair to compare one free day of training run entirely by volunteers with a multi-day, $1,000+ event put on under the direction of a professional event management company.  But there are some parallels. At this SQLSaturday, there was no opening general session, just coffee and pastries in the common area / expo hallway and straight into the first group of sessions.  I don’t know if that was because there was no single room large enough to hold everyone, or for other reasons.  This worked out okay, but the organization guy in me would have preferred to have even a 15 minute welcome message from the organizers with a little overview of the day.  Even something as simple as, “Thanks to persons X, Y, and Z for helping put this together…Sessions will start in 20 minutes and are all in rooms down this hallway…the bathrooms are on the other side of the conference center…lunch today is pizza and we would like to thank sponsor Q for providing it.”  It doesn’t need to be much, certainly not a full-blown Keynote like at the PASS Summit, but something to use as a rallying point to pull everyone together and get the day off to an official start would be nice.  Again, there may have been logistical reasons why that was not feasible here.  I’m just putting out my thoughts for other SQLSaturday coordinators to consider. The event overall was great.  I believe that there were over 300 in attendance, and everything seemed to run smoothly.  At least from an attendee’s point of view where there was plenty of muffins in the morning and pizza in the afternoon, with plenty of pop to drink.  And hey, if you’ve got the food and drink covered, a lot of other stuff could go wrong and people will be very forgiving.  But as I said, everything appeared to run pretty smoothly, at least until Buck Woody showed up in his Oracle shirt.  Other than that, the volunteers did a great job! I was a little surprised by how few people in my own backyard that I know.  It makes sense if you really think about it, given how many companies must be using SQL Server around here.  I guess I just got spoiled coming into the PASS Summit with a few contacts that I already knew would be there.  Perhaps I have been spending too much time with too few people at the Summits and I need to step out and meet more folks.  Of course, it also is different since the Summit is the big national event and a number of the folks I know are spread out across the country, so the Summit is the only time we’re all in the same place at the same time.  I did make a few new contacts at SQLSaturday, and bumped into a couple of people that I knew (and a couple others that I only knew from Twitter, and didn’t even realize that they were here in the area). Other than the sheer entertainment value of Buck Woody’s session, the one that was probably the greatest value for me was a quick introduction to PowerShell.  I have not done anything with it yet, but I think it will be a good tool to use to implement my plans for automated database recovery testing.  I saw just enough at the session to take away some of the intimidation factor, and I am getting ready to jump in and see what I can put together in the next few weeks.  And that right there made the investment worthwhile.  So I encourage you, if you have the opportunity to go to a SQLSaturday event near you, go for it!

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  • Sea Monkey Sales & Marketing, and what does that have to do with ERP?

    - by user709270
    Tier One Defined By Lyle Ekdahl, Oracle JD Edwards Group Vice President and General Manager  I recently became aware of the latest Sea Monkey Sales & Marketing tactic. Wait now, what is Sea Monkey Sales & Marketing and what does that have to do with ERP? Well if you grew up in USA during the 50’s, 60’s and maybe a bit in the early 70’s there was a unifying media of culture known as the comic book. I was a big Iron Man fan. I always liked the troubled hero aspect of Tony Start and hey he was a technologist. This is going somewhere, just hold on. Of course comic books like most media contained advertisements. Ninety pound weakling transformed by Charles Atlas in just 15 minutes per day. Baby Ruth, Juicy Fruit Gum and all assortments of Hostess goodies were on display. The best ad was for the “Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys – The real live fun-pets you grow yourself!” These ads set the standard for exaggeration and half-truth; “…they love attention…so eager to please, they can even be trained…” The cartoon picture on the ad is of a family of royal looking sea creatures – daddy, mommy, son and little sis – sea monkey? There was a disclaimer at the bottom in fine print, “Caricatures shown not intended to depict Artemia.” Ok what ten years old knows what the heck artemia is? Well you grow up fast once you’ve been separated from your buck twenty five plus postage just to discover that it is brine shrimp. Really dumb brine shrimp that don’t take commands or do tricks. Unfortunately the technology industry is full of sea monkey sales and marketing. Yes believe it or not in some cases there is subterfuge and obfuscation used to secure contracts. Hey I get it; the picture on the box might not be the actual size. Make up what you want about your product, but here is what I don’t like, could you leave out the obvious falsity when it comes to my product, especially the negative stuff. So here is the latest one – “Oracle’s JD Edwards is NOT tier one”. Really? Definition please! Well a whole host of googleable and reputable sources confirm that a tier one vendor is large, well known, and enjoys national and international recognition. Let me see large, so thousands of customers? Oh and part of the world’s largest business software and hardware corporation? Check and check JD Edwards has that and that. Well known, enjoying national and international recognition? Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is available in 21 languages and is directly localized in 33 countries that support some of the world’s largest multinationals and many midsized domestic market companies. Something on the order of half the JD Edwards customer base is outside North America. My passport is on its third insert after 2 years and not from vacations. So if you don’t mind I am going to mark national and international recognition in the got it column. So what else is there? Well let me offer a few criteria. Longevity – The JD Edwards products benefit from 35+ years of intellectual property development; through booms, busts, mergers and acquisitions, we are still here Vision & innovation – JD Edwards is the first full suite ERP to run on the iPad as just one example Proven track record of execution – Since becoming part of Oracle, JD Edwards has released to the market over 20 deliverables including major release, point releases, new apps modules, tool releases, integrations…. Solid, focused functionality with a flexible, interoperable, extensible underlying architecture – JD Edwards offers solid core ERP with specialty modules for verticals all delivered on a well defined independent tools layer that helps enable you to scale your business without an ERP reimplementation A continuation plan – Oracle’s JD Edwards offers our customers a 6 year roadmap as well as interoperability with Oracle’s next generation of applications Oh I almost forgot that the expert sources agree on one additional thing, tier one may be a preferred vendor that offers product and services to you with appealing value. You should check out the TCO studies of JD Edwards. I think you will see what the thousands of customers that rely on these products to run their businesses enjoy – that is the tier one solution with the lowest TCO. Oh and if you get an offer to buy an ERP for no license charge, remember the picture on the box might not be the actual size. 

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  • Simple Scripting for your Exalogic Storage

    - by Trond Strømme
    As part of my job in Oracle ACS (Advanced Customer Services) I'm handling lots of different systems and customers. Among the recent systems I worked with have been Oracle's Exalogic engineered systems. One of the things I'd never had much exposure to as a system developer/architect/middleware guy/Java dude has been storage; outside of consuming it for my photography needs.. Well, I'm always ready for a new challenge... I'd downloaded the 7000 series storage simulator when it was released in the good old Sun days, found it fun and instructive to play around with, but as I never touched storage in any way (besides consuming it..) I forgot about it. A couple of years ago when I started working with Exalogic engineered systems it again came into light as an invaluable learning and testing tool for the embedded storage in an Exalogic;  Oracle's Sun ZFS Storage 7320 Appliance.  aaaanyway... I've been "booted" into a part-time role as the interim storage/system admin/middleware/Java guy for a client and found I needed to create the occasional report or summary or whatever.. of what's using the storage in the 7320 (as default configured for an Exalogic, 40T of disk in a mirrored configuration, yielding 18T of actual space.) Reading the nice documentation and some articles on the Oracle Technology Network I saw great possibilities with the embedded ECMAScript3/JavaScript engine in the 7000 series.  In my personal opinion anyone who's dealing with Exalogic administration, or exposed to any of the 7000 series of storage appliances and servers that Oracle offers should have a VirtualBox instance of it kicking around. For development and testing it's a fantastic tool. (It can save you from explaining (most) of the embarrassing FAILS you can do if you test something in a production system to your management...) So download, and install.  A small sidestep, if after firing up the 7000 series simulator in VirtualBox you've forgotten what it's IP address is, the following will sort you out if you log in directly via the running VirtualBox VM. So in my case I can ssh to 192.168.56.101 or point a browser to https://192.168.56.101:215 to log into the storage appliance. One simple way of executing a script on the 7320 is to ssh to the device and redirecting a file with the script in it to ssh. ssh [email protected] < myscript.js One question I got from my client and the people who will take over the systems was: "how can we see the quotas and allocations for all projects/shares in one easy go so we don't have to go navigating around in the BUI for all the hundreds of shares the 7320 is hosting just to check if anything is running dry?" Easy! JavaScript time, VirtualBox and emacs! //NOTE! this script is available 'as is' It has ben run on a couple of 7320's, (running 2010.08.17.3.0,1-1.25 & // 2011.04.24.1.0,1-1.8) a 7420 and the VB image, but I personally //offer no guarantee whatsoever that it won't make your server topple, catch fire or in any way go pear shaped.. //run at your own risk or learn from my code and or mistakes.. script run('cd /'); run('shares'); //get all projects: proj = list(); function spaceToGig(bytes){ return bytes/1073741824; //convert bytes to GB } function fullInPercent(quota, space_data){ tmp = (space_data/quota)*100; return tmp; } //print header, slightly good looking printf(" %s/%-15s %8s(GB) %7s(GB) %5s(GB) %7s(GB) %3s\n","Project", "Share","Quota","Ref", "Snap", "Total","%full"); printf("-------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n") //for each project, get all shares. check for quota and calculate percentage and human readable figures.. for (i=0;i<proj.length;i++){ run('select ' + proj[i]); //get all shares for a project var pshares = list(); //for each share get quota properties for (j=0;j<pshares.length;j++){ run('select ' + pshares[j]); quota = get('quota'); //properties associated with a share or inherited from a project spaceData = get('space_data'); spaceSnap = get('space_snapshots'); spaceTotal = get('space_total'); if(quota>0){ //has quota printf(" %s/%-15s \t%4.2fGB\t%.2fGB\t%.2fGB\t%.2fGB\t%5.2f%%\n",proj[i], pshares[j],spaceToGig(quota),spaceToGig(spaceData),spaceToGig(spaceSnap),spaceToGig(spaceTotal),fullInPercent(quota,spaceTotal)); }else{ //no quota printf(" %s/%-15s \t%8s\t%.2fGB\t%.2fGB\t%.2fGB\t%s\n",proj[i],pshares[j], "N/A", spaceToGig(spaceData),spaceToGig(spaceSnap),spaceToGig(spaceTotal),"N/A"); } run('cd ..'); } run('done'); } The resulting output should look something like this: Project/Share Quota(GB) Ref(GB) Snap(GB) Total(GB) %full ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACSExalogicSystem/domains N/A 0.04GB 0.00GB 0.04GB N/A ACSExalogicSystem/logs N/A 0.01GB 0.00GB 0.01GB N/A ACSExalogicSystem/nodemgrs N/A 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00GB N/A ACSExalogicSystem/stores N/A 0.04GB 0.00GB 0.04GB N/A ***_dev/FMW_***_1 133GB 4.24GB 0.01GB 4.25GB 3.19% ***_dev/FMW_***_2 N/A 4.25GB 0.01GB 4.26GB N/A ***_dev/applications 10GB 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00% ***_dev/domains 50GB 10.75GB 3.55GB 14.30GB 28.61% ***_dev/logs 20GB 0.32GB 0.01GB 0.33GB 1.66% ***_dev/softwaredepot 20GB 4.15GB 0.00GB 4.15GB 20.73% ***_dev/stores 20GB 0.01GB 0.00GB 0.01GB 0.05% ###_dev/FMW_###_1 400GB 17.63GB 0.12GB 17.75GB 4.44% ###_dev/applications N/A 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00GB N/A ###_dev/domains 120GB 14.21GB 5.53GB 19.74GB 16.45% ###_dev/logs 15GB 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00GB 0.00% ###_dev/softwaredepot 250GB 73.55GB 0.02GB 73.57GB 29.43% …snip My apologies if the output is a bit mis-aligned here and there, I only bothered making it look good, not perfect :/ I also removed some of the project names (*,#)

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  • Override an IOCTL Handler in PQOAL

    - by Kate Moss' Big Fan
    When porting or creating a BSP to a new platform, we often need to make change to OEMIoControl or HAL IOCTL handler for more specific. Since Microsoft introduced PQOAL in CE 5.0 and more and more BSP today leverages PQOAL to simplify the OAL, we no longer define the OEMIoControl directly. It is somehow analogous to migrate from pure Windows SDK to MFC; people starts to define those MFC handlers and forgot the WinMain and the big message loop. If you ever take a look at the interface between OAL and Kernel, PUBLIC\COMMON\OAK\INC\oemglobal.h, the pfnOEMIoctl is still there just as the entry point of Windows Program is WinMain since day one. (For those may argue about pfnOEMIoctl is not OEMIoControl, I will encourage you to dig into PRIVATE\WINCEOS\COREOS\NK\OEMMAIN\oemglobal.c which initialized pfnOEMIoctl to OEMIoControl. The interface is just to split OAL and Kernel which no longer linked to one executable file in CE 6, all of the function signature is still identical) So let's trace into PQOAL to realize how it implements OEMIoControl and how can we override an IOCTL handler we interest. First thing to know is the entry point (just as finding the WinMain in MFC), OEMIoControl is defined in PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\COMMON\IOCTL\ioctl.c. Basically, it does nothing special but scan a pre-defined IOCTL table, g_oalIoCtlTable, and then execute the handler. (The highlight part) Other than that is just for error handling and the use of critical section to serialize the function. BOOL OEMIoControl(     DWORD code, VOID *pInBuffer, DWORD inSize, VOID *pOutBuffer, DWORD outSize,     DWORD *pOutSize ) {     BOOL rc = FALSE;     UINT32 i; ...     // Search the IOCTL table for the requested code.     for (i = 0; g_oalIoCtlTable[i].pfnHandler != NULL; i++) {         if (g_oalIoCtlTable[i].code == code) break;     }     // Indicate unsupported code     if (g_oalIoCtlTable[i].pfnHandler == NULL) {         NKSetLastError(ERROR_NOT_SUPPORTED);         OALMSG(OAL_IOCTL, (             L"OEMIoControl: Unsupported Code 0x%x - device 0x%04x func %d\r\n",             code, code >> 16, (code >> 2)&0x0FFF         ));         goto cleanUp;     }            // Take critical section if required (after postinit & no flag)     if (         g_ioctlState.postInit &&         (g_oalIoCtlTable[i].flags & OAL_IOCTL_FLAG_NOCS) == 0     ) {         // Take critical section                    EnterCriticalSection(&g_ioctlState.cs);     }     // Execute the handler     rc = g_oalIoCtlTable[i].pfnHandler(         code, pInBuffer, inSize, pOutBuffer, outSize, pOutSize     );     // Release critical section if it was taken above     if (         g_ioctlState.postInit &&         (g_oalIoCtlTable[i].flags & OAL_IOCTL_FLAG_NOCS) == 0     ) {         // Release critical section                    LeaveCriticalSection(&g_ioctlState.cs);     } cleanUp:     OALMSG(OAL_IOCTL&&OAL_FUNC, (L"-OEMIoControl(rc = %d)\r\n", rc ));     return rc; }   Where is the g_oalIoCtlTable? It is defined in your BSP. Let's use DeviceEmulator BSP as an example. The PLATFORM\DEVICEEMULATOR\SRC\OAL\OALLIB\ioctl.c defines the table as const OAL_IOCTL_HANDLER g_oalIoCtlTable[] = { #include "ioctl_tab.h" }; And that leads to PLATFORM\DEVICEEMULATOR\SRC\INC\ioctl_tab.h which defined some of IOCTL handler but others are defined in oal_ioctl_tab.h which is under PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\INC\. Finally, we got the full table body! (Just like tracing MFC, always jumping back and forth). The format of table is very straight forward, IOCTL code, Flags and Handler Function // IOCTL CODE,                          Flags   Handler Function //------------------------------------------------------------------------------ { IOCTL_HAL_INITREGISTRY,                   0,  OALIoCtlHalInitRegistry     }, { IOCTL_HAL_INIT_RTC,                       0,  OALIoCtlHalInitRTC          }, { IOCTL_HAL_REBOOT,                         0,  OALIoCtlHalReboot           }, The PQOAL scans through the table until it find a matched IOCTL code, then invokes the handler function. Since it scans the table from the top which means if we define TWO handler with same IOCTL code, the first one is always invoked with no exception. Now back to the PLATFORM\DEVICEEMULATOR\SRC\INC\ioctl_tab.h, with the following table { IOCTL_HAL_INITREGISTRY,                   0,  OALIoCtlDeviceEmulatorHalInitRegistry     }, ... #include <oal_ioctl_tab.h> Note the IOCTL_HAL_INITREGISTRY handler are defined in both BSP's local ioctl_tab.h and the common oal_ioctl_tab.h, but due to BSP's local handler comes before "#include <oal_ioctl_tab.h>" so we know the OALIoCtlDeviceEmulatorHalInitRegistry always get called. In this example, the DeviceEmulator BSP overrides the IOCTL_HAL_INITREGISTRY handler from OALIoCtlHalInitRegistry to OALIoCtlDeviceEmulatorHalInitRegistry by manipulating the g_oalIoCtlTable table. (In some point of view, it is similar to message map in MFC) Please be aware, when you override an IOCTL handler in PQOAL, you may want to clone the original implementation to your BSP and change to meet your need. It is recommended and save you the redundant works but remember to rename the handler function (Just like the DeviceEmulator it changes the name of OALIoCtlHalInitRegistry to OALIoCtlDeviceEmulatorHalInitRegistry). If you don't change the name, linker may not be happy (due to name conflict) and the more important is by using different handler name, you could always redirect the handler back to original one. (It is like the concept of OOP that calling a function in base class; still not so clear? I am goinf to show you soon!) The OALIoCtlDeviceEmulatorHalInitRegistry setups DeviceEmulator specific registry settings and in the end, if everything goes well, it calls the OALIoCtlHalInitRegistry (PLATFORM\COMMON\SRC\COMMON\IOCTL\reginit.c) to do the rest.     if(fOk) {         fOk = OALIoCtlHalInitRegistry(code, pInpBuffer, inpSize, pOutBuffer,             outSize, pOutSize);     } Now you got the picture, whenever you want to override an IOCTL hadnler that is implemented in PQOAL just Clone the handler function to your BSP as a template. Simple name change for the handler function, and a name change in the IOCTL table header file that maps the IOCTL with the function Implement your IOCTL handler and whenever you need to redirect it back just calling the original handler function. It is the standard way of implementing a custom IOCTL and most Microsoft developers prefer. The mapping of IOCTL routine to IOCTL code is platform specific - you control the header file that does that mapping.

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  • C#/.NET Little Wonders: Static Char Methods

    - by James Michael Hare
    Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. Often times in our code we deal with the bigger classes and types in the BCL, and occasionally forgot that there are some nice methods on the primitive types as well.  Today we will discuss some of the handy static methods that exist on the char (the C# alias of System.Char) type. The Background I was examining a piece of code this week where I saw the following: 1: // need to get the 5th (offset 4) character in upper case 2: var type = symbol.Substring(4, 1).ToUpper(); 3:  4: // test to see if the type is P 5: if (type == "P") 6: { 7: // ... do something with P type... 8: } Is there really any error in this code?  No, but it still struck me wrong because it is allocating two very short-lived throw-away strings, just to store and manipulate a single char: The call to Substring() generates a new string of length 1 The call to ToUpper() generates a new upper-case version of the string from Step 1. In my mind this is similar to using ToUpper() to do a case-insensitive compare: it isn’t wrong, it’s just much heavier than it needs to be (for more info on case-insensitive compares, see #2 in 5 More Little Wonders). One of my favorite books is the C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices by Sutter and Alexandrescu.  True, it’s about C++ standards, but there’s also some great general programming advice in there, including two rules I love:         8. Don’t Optimize Prematurely         9. Don’t Pessimize Prematurely We all know what #8 means: don’t optimize when there is no immediate need, especially at the expense of readability and maintainability.  I firmly believe this and in the axiom: it’s easier to make correct code fast than to make fast code correct.  Optimizing code to the point that it becomes difficult to maintain often gains little and often gives you little bang for the buck. But what about #9?  Well, for that they state: “All other things being equal, notably code complexity and readability, certain efficient design patterns and coding idioms should just flow naturally from your fingertips and are no harder to write then the pessimized alternatives. This is not premature optimization; it is avoiding gratuitous pessimization.” Or, if I may paraphrase: “where it doesn’t increase the code complexity and readability, prefer the more efficient option”. The example code above was one of those times I feel where we are violating a tacit C# coding idiom: avoid creating unnecessary temporary strings.  The code creates temporary strings to hold one char, which is just unnecessary.  I think the original coder thought he had to do this because ToUpper() is an instance method on string but not on char.  What he didn’t know, however, is that ToUpper() does exist on char, it’s just a static method instead (though you could write an extension method to make it look instance-ish). This leads me (in a long-winded way) to my Little Wonders for the day… Static Methods of System.Char So let’s look at some of these handy, and often overlooked, static methods on the char type: IsDigit(), IsLetter(), IsLetterOrDigit(), IsPunctuation(), IsWhiteSpace() Methods to tell you whether a char (or position in a string) belongs to a category of characters. IsLower(), IsUpper() Methods that check if a char (or position in a string) is lower or upper case ToLower(), ToUpper() Methods that convert a single char to the lower or upper equivalent. For example, if you wanted to see if a string contained any lower case characters, you could do the following: 1: if (symbol.Any(c => char.IsLower(c))) 2: { 3: // ... 4: } Which, incidentally, we could use a method group to shorten the expression to: 1: if (symbol.Any(char.IsLower)) 2: { 3: // ... 4: } Or, if you wanted to verify that all of the characters in a string are digits: 1: if (symbol.All(char.IsDigit)) 2: { 3: // ... 4: } Also, for the IsXxx() methods, there are overloads that take either a char, or a string and an index, this means that these two calls are logically identical: 1: // check given a character 2: if (char.IsUpper(symbol[0])) { ... } 3:  4: // check given a string and index 5: if (char.IsUpper(symbol, 0)) { ... } Obviously, if you just have a char, then you’d just use the first form.  But if you have a string you can use either form equally well. As a side note, care should be taken when examining all the available static methods on the System.Char type, as some seem to be redundant but actually have very different purposes.  For example, there are IsDigit() and IsNumeric() methods, which sound the same on the surface, but give you different results. IsDigit() returns true if it is a base-10 digit character (‘0’, ‘1’, … ‘9’) where IsNumeric() returns true if it’s any numeric character including the characters for ½, ¼, etc. Summary To come full circle back to our opening example, I would have preferred the code be written like this: 1: // grab 5th char and take upper case version of it 2: var type = char.ToUpper(symbol[4]); 3:  4: if (type == 'P') 5: { 6: // ... do something with P type... 7: } Not only is it just as readable (if not more so), but it performs over 3x faster on my machine:    1,000,000 iterations of char method took: 30 ms, 0.000050 ms/item.    1,000,000 iterations of string method took: 101 ms, 0.000101 ms/item. It’s not only immediately faster because we don’t allocate temporary strings, but as an added bonus there less garbage to collect later as well.  To me this qualifies as a case where we are using a common C# performance idiom (don’t create unnecessary temporary strings) to make our code better. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,char,string

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  • The Sound of Two Toilets Flushing: Constructive Criticism for Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department

    - by Geertjan
    I recently had the experience of flying from London to Johannesburg and back with Virgin Atlantic. The good news was that it was the cheapest flight available and that the take off and landing were absolutely perfect. Hence I really have no reason to complain. Instead, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism which hopefully Richard Branson will find sometime while googling his name. Or maybe someone from the Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department will find it, whatever, just want to put this information out there. Arrangement of restroom facilities. Maybe next time you design an airplane, consider not putting your toilets at a right angle right next to your rows of seats. Being able to reach, without even needing to stretch your arm, from your seat to close, yet again, a toilet door that someone, someone obviously sitting very far from the toilets, carelessly forgot to close is not an indicator of quality interior design. Have you noticed how all other airplanes have their toilets in a cubicle separated from the rows of seats? On those airplanes, people sitting in the seats near the toilets are not constantly being woken up throughout the night whenever someone enters/exits the toilet, whenever the light in the toilet is suddenly switched on, and whenever one of the toilets flushes. Bonus points for Virgin Atlantic passengers in the seats adjoining the toilets is when multiple toilets are flushed simultaneously and multiple passengers enter/exit them at the same time, a bit like an unasked for low budget musical of suddenly illuminated grumpy people in crumpled clothes. What joy that brings at 3 AM is hard to describe. Seats with extra leg room. You know how other airplanes have the seats with the extra leg room? You know what those seats tend to have? Extra leg room. It's really interesting how Virgin Atlantic's seats with extra leg room actually have no extra leg room at all. It should have been a give away, the fact that these special seats are found in the same rows as the standard seats, rather than on the cusp of real glory which is where most airlines put their extra leg room seats, with the only actual difference being that they have a slightly different color. Had you called them "seats with a different color" (i.e., almost not quite green, rather than something vaguely hinting at blue), at least I'd have known what I was getting. Picture the joy at 3 AM, rudely awakened from nightmarish slumber, partly grateful to have been released from a grayish dream of faceless zombies resembling one or two of those in a recent toilet line, by multiple adjoining toilets flushing simultaneously, while you're sitting in a seat with extra leg room that has exactly as much leg room as the seats in neighboring rows. You then have a choice of things to be sincerely annoyed about. Food from the '80's. In the '80's, airplane food came in soggy containers and even breakfast, the most important meal of the day, was a sad heap of vaguely gray colors. The culinary highlight tended to be a squashed tomato, which must have been mashed to a pulp with a brick prior to being regurgitated by a small furry animal, and there was also always a piece of immensely horrid pumpkin, as well as a slice of spongy something you'd never seen before. Sausages and mash at 6 AM on an airplane was always a heavy lump of horribleness. Thankfully, all airlines throughout the world changed from this puke inducing strategy around 1987 sometime. Not Virgin Atlantic, of course. The fatty sausages and mash are still there, bringing you flashbacks to Duran Duran, which is what you were listening to (on your walkman) the last time you saw it in an airplane. Even the golden oldie "squashed tomato attached by slime to three wet peas" is on the menu. How wonderful to have all this in a cramped seat with a long row of early morning bleariness lined up for the toilets, right at your side, bumping into your elbow, groggily, one by one, one after another, more and more, fumble-open-door-silence-flush-fumble-open-door, and on and on, while you tentatively push your fork through a soggy pile of colorless mush, fighting the urge to throw up on the stinky socks of whatever nightmarish zombie is bumping into your elbow at the time. But, then again, the plane landed without a hitch, in fact, extremely smoothly, so I'm certainly not blaming the pilots.

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