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• Surface and the Uphill Battle to Win Over iPad Users (Namely: Me)

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I went away this past weekend and decided to bring along the Windows 8 tablet from the Build conference last year – y’know, to give Windows 8 a try in a typical scenario. I also brought our iPad 2 along since I figured my wife would want to use that. I’d love to tell you how I found using my Windows 8 tablet but I can’t – I used the iPad exclusively the entire weekend. It was during this that I realized what Microsoft needs to do to win me over as an iPad user. As you’ll see, I’m left wondering what it is that Surface is meant to compete with: iPad and other tablets, or thin laptops like the MacBook Air or Ultrabooks. Device Size I really like the size of the iPad compared with the Build tablet. It’s not as long and the thinness/weight of the device makes it feel more like you’re holding a magazine than a computer. I’m pleased that Microsoft will be matching the thinness of the iPad with Surface, but I’m suspect as to what that actually means. The iPad’s edges slant inwards where the Surface has a thicker boxish look (similar to the iPhone 4S). So while they may have the same depth at the deepest part of both devices, I bet the iPad will come off feeling thinner. However, its not lost on me the number of external port options the Surface’s design provides over the iPad (Usb, etc.). With that said, I haven’t missed having a USB slot on my iPad. I’m not a fan of lengthening the Surface screen size to almost a full inch over the iPad, mainly because… Vertical Orientation Experience Did you notice at the announce event, in the images of the devices that have been released, and in any marketing for it, that the surface is always displayed in horizontal orientation. This is a huge beef I have with my Build tablet and why I prefer the iPad. Yes the iPad can do the wide-screenish mode, but the iPad is oriented to be vertical by nature. Don’t agree? Look at the button and camera placement – both on the shorter sides of the device. Compare that with the Surface, where the orientation for the button and camera is on the longer sides. To be fair, Blackberry and the horde of Android tablets out there haven’t gotten this either – since most monitors are widescreen nowadays tablets should be too right? Wrong. Widescreen is great for certain things, but tasks such as reading is not one of them – hence why monitor companies like Dell provide stands that allow you to flip your widescreen monitor to a vertical orientation. That Microsoft has chosen a horizontal orientation by default for Windows 8 is disappointing – hopefully hardware manufacturers will be given the option of a default vertical orientation. Fast Startup Time I like that I can turn off/turn on the iPad very quickly. Even from a true “off” mode and not just sleeping, the iPad boots up very quickly. Windows RT needs to have that same quick response. If I start finding that I’m waiting for the device to boot up for more than 30 seconds that could be a show stopper. No Heat I really hate that the Build tablet has fans that kick in to cool the procs, but its basically a slate computer and I get its part of that prototype build. For Surface, it needs to be the same type of experience as the iPad – no heat! I know Surface doesn’t have fans and uses some cool new vent system or something like that, but even then – I want to sit and read a book on my Surface without having to feel any heat coming from the device, which is the experience I have with the iPad now. What About Apps?! I am definitely not the target client when it comes to app stores. On my iPad I use: Safari Kindle Reader Twitter App Settlers of Catan TSN’s App And that’s it. So really, while its nice that some version of Office might be available, I’m not planning on utilizing a Surface for creating a PowerPoint or working on a Word document – that’s what my laptop is for. I want my tablet to be for information snacking or as an e-reader and occasionally an entertainment device. Surface vs iPad or Surface vs Air? The more that I read up on Surface, the more I wonder if it won’t be a touch-enabled MacBook Air competitor more than an iPad one. Also, I really question if Microsoft gets tablets – when one of your main selling features is a built-in physical keyboard it speaks more to a traditional laptop experience than a tablet one that’s entirely reliant on touch. Still, I really love the Windows Phone interface – way more than iOS – so I’m still very optimistic that the Metro experience on the tablet will be fantastic. I just worry that Microsoft has interpreted a tablet as a computer with a removable keyboard and a touch screen, and that’s not what tablet computing is about at all.

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• My Right-to-Left Foot (T-SQL Tuesday #13)

  - by smisner

  As a business intelligence consultant, I often encounter the situation described in this month's T-SQL Tuesday, hosted by Steve Jones ( Blog | Twitter) – “What the Business Says Is Not What the  Business Wants.” Steve posed the question, “What issues have you had in interacting with the business to get your job done?” My profession requires me to have one foot firmly planted in the technology world and the other foot planted in the business world. I learned long ago that the business never says exactly what the business wants because the business doesn't have the words to describe what the business wants accurately enough for IT. Not only do technological-savvy barriers exist, but there are also linguistic barriers between the two worlds. So how do I cope? The adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" is particularly helpful when I'm called in to help design a new business intelligence solution. Many of my students in BI classes have heard me explain ("rant") about left-to-right versus right-to-left design. To understand what I mean about these two design options, let's start with a picture: When we design a business intelligence solution that includes some sort of traditional data warehouse or data mart design, we typically place the data sources on the left, the new solution in the middle, and the users on the right. When I've been called in to help course-correct a failing BI project, I often find that IT has taken a left-to-right approach. They look at the data sources, decide how to model the BI solution as a _______ (fill in the blank with data warehouse, data mart, cube, etc.), and then build the new data structures and supporting infrastructure. (Sometimes, they actually do this without ever having talked to the business first.) Then, when they show what they've built to the business, the business says that is not what we want. Uh-oh. I prefer to take a right-to-left approach. Preferably at the beginning of a project. But even if the project starts left-to-right, I'll do my best to swing it around so that we’re back to a right-to-left approach. (When circumstances are beyond my control, I carry on, but it’s a painful project for everyone – not because of me, but because the approach just doesn’t get to what the business wants in the most effective way.) By using a right to left approach, I try to understand what it is the business is trying to accomplish. I do this by having them explain reports to me, and explaining the decision-making process that relates to these reports. Sometimes I have them explain to me their business processes, or better yet show me their business processes in action because I need pictures, too. I (unofficially) call this part of the project "getting inside the business's head." This is starting at the right side of the diagram above. My next step is to start moving leftward. I do this by preparing some type of prototype. Depending on the nature of the project, this might mean that I simply mock up some data in a relational database and build a prototype report in Reporting Services. If I'm lucky, I might be able to use real data in a relational database. I'll either use a subset of the data in the prototype report by creating a prototype database to hold the sample data, or select data directly from the source. It all depends on how much data there is, how complex the queries are, and how fast I need to get the prototype completed. If the solution will include Analysis Services, then I'll build a prototype cube. Analysis Services makes it incredibly easy to prototype. You can sit down with the business, show them the prototype, and have a meaningful conversation about what the BI solution should look like. I know I've done a good job on the prototype when I get knocked out of my chair so that the business user can explore the solution further independently. (That's really happened to me!) We can talk about dimensions, hierarchies, levels, members, measures, and so on with something tangible to look at and without using those terms. It's not helpful to use sample data like Adventure Works or to use BI terms that they don't really understand. But when I show them their data using the BI technology and talk to them in their language, then they truly have a picture worth a thousand words. From that, we can fine tune the prototype to move it closer to what they want. They have a better idea of what they're getting, and I have a better idea of what to build. So right to left design is not truly moving from the right to the left. But it starts from the right and moves towards the middle, and once I know what the middle needs to look like, I can then build from the left to meet in the middle. And that’s how I get past what the business says to what the business wants.

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• Becoming A Great Developer

  - by Lee Brandt

  Image via Wikipedia I’ve been doing the whole programming thing for awhile and reading and watching some of the best in the business. I have come to notice that the really great developers do a few things that (I think) makes them great. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am one of these few. I still struggle with doing some of the things that makes one great at development. Coincidently, many of these things also make you a better person period. Believe That Guidance Is Better Than Answers This is one I have no problem with. I prefer guidance any time I am learning from another developer. Answers may get you going, but guidance will leave you stranded. At some point, you will come across a problem that can only be solved by thinking for yourself and this is where that guidance will really come in handy. You can use that guidance and extrapolate whatever technology to salve that problem (if it’s the right tool for solving that problem). The problem is, lots of developers simply want someone to tell them, “Do this, then this, then set that, and write this.” Favor thinking and learn the guidance of doing X and don’t ask someone to show you how to do X, if that makes sense. Read, Read and Read If you don’t like reading, you’re probably NOT going to make it into the Great Developer group. Great developers read books, they read magazines and they read code. Open source playgrounds like SourceForge, CodePlex and GitHub, have made it extremely easy to download code from developers you admire and see how they do stuff. Chances are, if you read their blog too, they’ll even explain WHY they did what they did (see “Guidance” above). MSDN and Code Magazine have not only code samples, but explanations of how to use certain technologies and sometimes even when NOT to use that same technology. Books are also out on just about every topic. I still favor the less technology centric books. For instance, I generally don’t buy books like, “Getting Started with Jiminy Jappets”. I look for titles like, “How To Write More Effective Code” (again, see guidance). The Addison-Wesley Signature Series is a great example of these types of books. They teach technology-agnostic concepts. Head First Design Patterns is another great guidance book. It teaches the "Gang Of Four" Design Patterns in a very easy-to-understand, picture-heavy way (I LIKE pictures). Hang Your Balls Out There Even though the advice came from a 3rd-shift Kinko’s attendant, doesn’t mean it’s not sound advice. Write some code and put it out for others to read, criticize and castigate you for. Understand that there are some real jerks out there who are absolute geniuses. Don’t be afraid to get some great advice wrapped in some really nasty language. Try to take what’s good about it and leave what’s not. I have a tough time with this myself. I don’t really have any code out there that is available for review (other than my demo code). It takes some guts to do, but in the end, there is no substitute for getting a community of developers to critique your code and give you ways to improve. Get Involved Speaking of community, the local and online user groups and discussion forums are a great place to hear about technologies and techniques you might never come across otherwise. Mostly because you might not know to look. But, once you sit down with a bunch of other developers and start discussing what you’re interested in, you may open up a whole new perspective on it. Don’t just go to the UG meetings and watch the presentations either, get out there and talk, socialize. I realize geeks weren’t meant to necessarily be social creatures, but if you’re amongst other geeks, it’s much easier. I’ve learned more in the last 3-4 years that I have been involved in the community that I did in my previous 8 years of coding without it. Socializing works, even if socialism doesn’t. Continuous Improvement Lean proponents might call this “Kaizen”, but I call it progress. We all know, especially in the technology realm, if you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind. It may seem like drinking from a fire hose, but step back and pick out the technologies that speak to you. The ones that may you’re little heart go pitter-patter. Concentrate on those. If you’re still overloaded, pick the best of the best. Just know that if you’re not looking at the code you wrote last week or at least last year with some embarrassment, you’re probably stagnating. That’s about all I can say about that, cause I am all out of clichés to throw at it. :0) Write Code Great painters paint, great writers write, and great developers write code. The most sure-fire way to improve your coding ability is to continue writing code. Don’t just write code that your work throws on you, pick that technology you love or are curious to know more about and walk through some blog demo examples. Take the language you use everyday and try to get it to do something crazy. Who knows, you might create the next Google search algorithm! All in all, being a great developer is about finding yourself in all this code. If it is just a job to you, you will probably never be one of the “Great Developers”, but you’re probably okay with that. If, on the other hand, you do aspire to greatness, get out there and GET it. No one’s going hand it to you.

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• How to Play PC Games on Your TV

  - by Chris Hoffman

  No need to wait for Valve’s Steam Machines — connect your Windows gaming PC to your TV and use powerful PC graphics in the living room today. It’s easy — you don’t need any unusual hardware or special software. This is ideal if you’re already a PC gamer who wants to play your games on a larger screen. It’s also convenient if you want to play multiplayer PC games with controllers in your living rom. HDMI Cables and Controllers You’ll need an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your television. This requires a TV with HDMI-in, a PC with HDMI-out, and an HDMI cable. Modern TVs and PCs have had HDMI built in for years, so you should already be good to go. If you don’t have a spare HDMI cable lying around, you may have to buy one or repurpose one of your existing HDMI cables. Just don’t buy the expensive HDMI cables — even a cheap HDMI cable will work just as well as a more expensive one. Plug one end of the HDMI cable into the HDMI-out port on your PC and one end into the HDMI-In port on your TV. Switch your TV’s input to the appropriate HDMI port and you’ll see your PC’s desktop appear on your TV.  Your TV becomes just another external monitor. If you have your TV and PC far away from each other in different rooms, this won’t work. If you have a reasonably powerful laptop, you can just plug that into your TV — or you can unplug your desktop PC and hook it up next to your TV. Now you’ll just need an input device. You probably don’t want to sit directly in front of your TV with a wired keyboard and mouse! A wireless keyboard and wireless mouse can be convenient and may be ideal for some games. However, you’ll probably want a game controller like console players use. Better yet, get multiple game controllers so you can play local-multiplayer PC games with other people. The Xbox 360 controller is the ideal controller for PC gaming. Windows supports these controllers natively, and many PC games are designed specifically for these controllers. Note that Xbox One controllers aren’t yet supported on Windows because Microsoft hasn’t released drivers for them. Yes, you could use a third-party controller or go through the process of pairing a PlayStation controller with your PC using unofficial tools, but it’s better to get an Xbox 360 controller. Just plug one or more Xbox controllers into your PC’s USB ports and they’ll work without any setup required. While many PC games to support controllers, bear in mind that some games require a keyboard and mouse. A TV-Optimized Interface Use Steam’s Big Picture interface to more easily browse and launch games. This interface was designed for using on a television with controllers and even has an integrated web browser you can use with your controller. It will be used on the Valve’s Steam Machine consoles as the default TV interface. You can use a mouse with it too, of course. There’s also nothing stopping you from just using your Windows desktop with a mouse and keyboard — aside from how inconvenient it will be. To launch Big Picture Mode, open Steam and click the Big Picture button at the top-right corner of your screen. You can also press the glowing Xbox logo button in the middle of an Xbox 360 Controller to launch the Big Picture interface if Steam is open. Another Option: In-Home Streaming If you want to leave your PC in one room of your home and play PC games on a TV in a different room, you can consider using local streaming to stream games over your home network from your gaming PC to your television. Bear in mind that the game won’t be as smooth and responsive as it would if you were sitting in front of your PC. You’ll also need a modern router with fast wireless network speeds to keep up with the game streaming. Steam’s built-in In-Home Streaming feature is now available to everyone. You could plug a laptop with less-powerful graphics hardware into your TV and use it to stream games from your powerful desktop gaming rig. You could also use an older desktop PC you have lying around. To stream a game, log into Steam on your gaming PC and log into Steam with the same account on another computer on your home network. You’ll be able to view the library of installed games on your other PC and start streaming them. NVIDIA also has their own GameStream solution that allows you to stream games from a PC with powerful NVIDIA graphics hardware. However, you’ll need an NVIDIA Shield handheld gaming console to do this. At the moment, NVIDIA’s game streaming solution can only stream to the NVIDIA Shield. However, the NVIDIA Shield device can be connected to your TV so you can play that streaming game on your TV. Valve’s Steam Machines are supposed to bring PC gaming to the living room and they’ll do it using HDMI cables, a custom Steam controller, the Big Picture interface, and in-home streaming for compatibility with Windows games. You can do all of this yourself today — you’ll just need an Xbox 360 controller instead of the not-yet-released Steam controller. Image Credit: Marco Arment on Flickr, William Hook on Flickr, Lewis Dowling on Flickr

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• Say What? Podcasting As Part of Your Content Marketing

  - by Mike Stiles

  What do you usually do in your car on the way to work?  Sing along to radio? Stream Pandora or iHeartRadio? Talk on the phone? Sit in total silence? Whatever it is you do, you could be using that time to make yourself an expert in any range of topics…using podcasts. We invite you to follow or subscribe to the daily Oracle Social Spotlight podcast, a quick roundup of the day’s top stories around social marketing and the social networks. After podcasts arrived in 2004, growth was steady but slow. The concept was strong: anyone with a passion for any subject could make a show for anyone who cared to listen. Enter the smartphone, iTunes, new podcasting platforms, and social, and podcasting became easier than ever and made more sense for both podcasters and listeners. Stats show 1 in 5 smartphone owners are podcast consumers and 29% of Americans have listened to a podcast. The potential audience is also larger than ever. “Baked in” podcast apps on over 200 million devices expose users to volumes of audio content with just a tap. 97 million Americans are driving to work every day by themselves. And 38% of Americans listen to audio on a digital device each week, a number that’s projected to double by 2015. Does that mean your brand should be podcasting? That’s part of a larger discussion about your overall content strategy, provided you have one. But if you do and podcasting is a component of it, here are some things to keep in mind: Don’t podcast just to do it. Podcast because you thought of a show customers and prospects will like that they can’t get anywhere else. Sound quality matters. Good microphones are not expensive. Bad sound is annoying, makes your brand feel cheap, and will turn today’s sophisticated ears off. The host matters. Many think they belong on the radio. Few actually do. Your brand’s host should be comfortable & likeable. A top advantage of a podcast is people can bond with a real person. It’s a trust opportunity, so don’t take it lightly. The content matters. “All killer, no filler” means don’t allow babbling just to fill enough time for an episode. Value the listeners’ time, because that time is hard to get. Put time, effort and creativity into it. Sure you’re a business, but you’re competing with content from professional media and showbiz producers. If you can include music, sound effects, and things that amuse the ears, do it. If you start, be consistent. The #1 flaw in podcasting is when listeners can’t count on another episode or don’t know when it’s coming. Don’t skip doing shows just because you can. Get committed. Get your cover art right. Podcasting is about audio, but people shop for podcasts by glancing through graphics. Yours has to be professional, cool, and informative to get listeners interested. Cross-promote your podcast on all your channels. The competition for listeners is fierce, so if you have existing audiences you can leverage to launch your show, use them. Optimize it for mobile. Assume that’s where most listening will take place. If you’re using one of the podcast platform apps, you should be in good shape. Frankly, the percentage of brands that are podcasting is quite low, and that’s okay. Once you move beyond blogging and start connecting with real voices, poor execution can do damage. But more (32%) marketers want to learn how to use podcasting, and more (23%) were increasing their podcasting throughout this year. Bottom line, you want to share your brand’s message and stories wherever your audience might be and in whatever way they prefer to take in content. Many prefer to do that while driving or working out, using the eyes and hands-free medium of audio. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

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• Vendors: Partners or Salespeople?

  - by BuckWoody

  I got a great e-mail from a friend that asked about how he could foster a better relationship with his vendors. So many times when you work with a vendor it’s more of a used-car sales experience than a partnership – but you can actually make your vendor more of a partner, as long as you both set some ground-rules at the start. Sit down with your vendor, and have a heart-to-heart talk with them, explain that they won’t win every time, but that you’re willing to work with them in an honest way on both sides. Here’s the advice I sent him verbatim. I hope this post generates lots of comments from both customers and vendors. I don’t expect that you’ve had a great experience with your Microsoft reps, but I happen to work with some of the best sales teams in the business, and our clients tell us that all the time. “The key to this relationship is to keep the audience really small. Ideally there should be one person from your side that is responsible for the relationship, and one from the vendor’s side. Each responsible person should have the authority to make decisions, and to bring in other folks as needed for a given topic, project or decision.   For Microsoft, this is called an “Account Manager” – they aren’t technical, they aren’t sales. They “own” a relationship with a company. They learn what the company does, who does it, and how. They are responsible to understand what the challenges in your company are. While they don’t know the bits and bytes of everything we sell, they know what each thing does, and who to talk to about it. I get a call from an Account Manager every week that has pre-digested an issue at an organization and says to me: “I need you to set up an architectural meeting with their technical staff to get a better read on how we can help with problem X.” I do that and then report back to the Account Manager what we learned.  All through this process there’s the atmosphere of a “team”, not a “sales opportunity” per se. I’ve even recommended that the firm use a rival product, and I’ve never gotten push-back on that decision from my Account Managers.   But that brings up an interesting point. Someone pays an Account Manager and pays me. They expect something in return. At some point, you have to buy something. Not every time, not every situation – sometimes it’s just helping you with what you already bought from us. But the point is that you can’t expect lots of love and never spend any money. That’s the way business works.   Finally, don’t view the vendor as someone with their hand in your pocket – somebody that’s just trying to sell you something and doesn’t care if they ever see you again – unless they deserve it. There are plenty of “love them and leave them” companies out there, and you may have even had this experience with us, but that isn’t the case in the firms I work with. In fact, my customers get a questionnaire that asks them that exact question. “How many times have you seen your account team? Did you like your interaction with them? Can they do better?” My raises, performance reviews and general standing in my group are based on the answers the company gives.  Ask your vendor if they measure their sales and support teams this way – if not, seek another vendor to partner with.   Partnering with someone is a big deal. It involves time and effort on your part, and on the vendor’s part. If either of you isn’t pulling your weight, it just won’t work. You have every right to expect them to treat you as a partner, and they have the same right for your side.” Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Use your own domain email and tired of SPAM? SPAMfighter FTW

  - by Dave Campbell

  I wouldn't post this if I hadn't tried it... and I paid for it myself, so don't anybody be thinking I'm reviewing something someone sent me! Long ago and far away I got very tired of local ISPs and 2nd phone lines and took the plunge and got hooked up to cable... yeah I know the 2nd phone line concept may be hard for everyone to understand, but that's how it was in 'the old days'. To avoid having to change email addresses all the time, I decided to buy a domain name, get minimal hosting, and use that for all email into the house. That way if I changed providers, all the email addresses wouldn't have to change. Of course, about a dozen domains later, I have LOTS of pop email addresses and even an exchange address to my client's server... times have changed. What also has changed is the fact that we get SPAM... 'back in the day' when I was a beta tester for the first ISP in Phoenix, someone tried sending an ad to all of us, and what he got in return for his trouble was a bunch of core dumps that locked up his email... if you don't know what a core dump is, ask your grandfather. But in today's world, we're all much more civilized than that, and as with many things, the criminals seem to have much more rights than we do, so we get inundated with email offering all sorts of wild schemes that you'd have to be brain-dead to accept, but yet... if people weren't accepting them, they'd stop sending them. I keep hoping that survival of the smartest would weed out the mental midgets that respond and then the jumk email stop, but that hasn't happened yet anymore than finding high-quality hearing aids at the checkout line of Safeway because of all the dimwits playing music too loud inside their car... but that's another whole topic and I digress. So what's the solution for all the spam? And I mean *all*... on that old personal email address, I am now getting over 150 spam messages a day! Yes I know that's why God invented the delete key, but I took it on as a challenge, and it's a matter of principle... why should I switch email addresses, or convert from [email protected] to something else, or have all my email filtered through some service just because some A-Hole somewhere has a site up trying to phish Ma & Pa Kettle (ask your grandfather about that too) out of their retirement money? Well... I got an email from my cousin the other day while I was writing yet another email rule, and there was a banner on the bottom of his email that said he was protected by SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter huh.... so I took a look at their site, and found yet one more of the supposed tools to help us. But... I read that they're a Microsoft Gold Partner... and that doesn't come lightly... so I took a gamble and here's what I found: I installed it, and had to do a couple things: 1) SPAMfighter stuffed the SPAMfighter folder into my client's exchange address... I deleted it, made a new SPAMfighter folder where I wanted it to go, then in the SPAMfighter Clients settings for Outlook, I told it to put all spam there. 2) It didn't seem to be doing anything. There's a ribbon button that you can select "Block", and I did that, wondering if I was 'training' it, but it wasn't picking up duplicates 3) I sent email to support, and wrote a post on the forum (not to self: reply to that post). By the time the folks from the home office responded, it was the next day, and first up, SPAMfighter knocked down everything that came through when Outlook opend... two thumbs up! I disabled my 'garbage collection' rule from Outlook, and told Outlook not to use the junk folder thinking it was interfering. 4) Day 2 seemed to go about like Day 1... but I hung in there. 5) Day 3 is now a whole new day... I had left Outlook open and hadn't looked at the PC since sometime late yesterday afternoon, and when I looked this morning, *every bit* of spam was in the SPAMfighter folder!! I'm a new paying customer After watching SPAMfighter work this morning, I've purchased a 1-year license, and I now can sit and watch as emails come in and disappear from my inbox into the SPAMfighter folder. No more continual tweaking of the rules. I've got SPAMfighter set to 'Very Hard' filtering... personally I'd rather pull the few real emails out of the SPAMfighter folder than pull spam out of the real folders. Yes this is simply another way of using the delete key, but you know what? ... it feels good :) Here's a screenshot of the stats after just about 48 hours of being onboard: Note that all the ones blocked by me were during Day 1 and 2... I've blocked none today, and everything is blocked. Stay in the 'Light!

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• Subterranean IL: The ThreadLocal type

  - by Simon Cooper

  I came across ThreadLocal<T> while I was researching ConcurrentBag. To look at it, it doesn't really make much sense. What's all those extra Cn classes doing in there? Why is there a GenericHolder<T,U,V,W> class? What's going on? However, digging deeper, it's a rather ingenious solution to a tricky problem. Thread statics Declaring that a variable is thread static, that is, values assigned and read from the field is specific to the thread doing the reading, is quite easy in .NET: [ThreadStatic] private static string s_ThreadStaticField; ThreadStaticAttribute is not a pseudo-custom attribute; it is compiled as a normal attribute, but the CLR has in-built magic, activated by that attribute, to redirect accesses to the field based on the executing thread's identity. TheadStaticAttribute provides a simple solution when you want to use a single field as thread-static. What if you want to create an arbitary number of thread static variables at runtime? Thread-static fields can only be declared, and are fixed, at compile time. Prior to .NET 4, you only had one solution - thread local data slots. This is a lesser-known function of Thread that has existed since .NET 1.1: LocalDataStoreSlot threadSlot = Thread.AllocateNamedDataSlot("slot1"); string value = "foo"; Thread.SetData(threadSlot, value); string gettedValue = (string)Thread.GetData(threadSlot); Each instance of LocalStoreDataSlot mediates access to a single slot, and each slot acts like a separate thread-static field. As you can see, using thread data slots is quite cumbersome. You need to keep track of LocalDataStoreSlot objects, it's not obvious how instances of LocalDataStoreSlot correspond to individual thread-static variables, and it's not type safe. It's also relatively slow and complicated; the internal implementation consists of a whole series of classes hanging off a single thread-static field in Thread itself, using various arrays, lists, and locks for synchronization. ThreadLocal<T> is far simpler and easier to use. ThreadLocal ThreadLocal provides an abstraction around thread-static fields that allows it to be used just like any other class; it can be used as a replacement for a thread-static field, it can be used in a List<ThreadLocal<T>>, you can create as many as you need at runtime. So what does it do? It can't just have an instance-specific thread-static field, because thread-static fields have to be declared as static, and so shared between all instances of the declaring type. There's something else going on here. The values stored in instances of ThreadLocal<T> are stored in instantiations of the GenericHolder<T,U,V,W> class, which contains a single ThreadStatic field (s_value) to store the actual value. This class is then instantiated with various combinations of the Cn types for generic arguments. In .NET, each separate instantiation of a generic type has its own static state. For example, GenericHolder<int,C0,C1,C2> has a completely separate s_value field to GenericHolder<int,C1,C14,C1>. This feature is (ab)used by ThreadLocal to emulate instance thread-static fields. Every time an instance of ThreadLocal is constructed, it is assigned a unique number from the static s_currentTypeId field using Interlocked.Increment, in the FindNextTypeIndex method. The hexadecimal representation of that number then defines the specific Cn types that instantiates the GenericHolder class. That instantiation is therefore 'owned' by that instance of ThreadLocal. This gives each instance of ThreadLocal its own ThreadStatic field through a specific unique instantiation of the GenericHolder class. Although GenericHolder has four type variables, the first one is always instantiated to the type stored in the ThreadLocal<T>. This gives three free type variables, each of which can be instantiated to one of 16 types (C0 to C15). This puts an upper limit of 4096 (163) on the number of ThreadLocal<T> instances that can be created for each value of T. That is, there can be a maximum of 4096 instances of ThreadLocal<string>, and separately a maximum of 4096 instances of ThreadLocal<object>, etc. However, there is an upper limit of 16384 enforced on the total number of ThreadLocal instances in the AppDomain. This is to stop too much memory being used by thousands of instantiations of GenericHolder<T,U,V,W>, as once a type is loaded into an AppDomain it cannot be unloaded, and will continue to sit there taking up memory until the AppDomain is unloaded. The total number of ThreadLocal instances created is tracked by the ThreadLocalGlobalCounter class. So what happens when either limit is reached? Firstly, to try and stop this limit being reached, it recycles GenericHolder type indexes of ThreadLocal instances that get disposed using the s_availableIndices concurrent stack. This allows GenericHolder instantiations of disposed ThreadLocal instances to be re-used. But if there aren't any available instantiations, then ThreadLocal falls back on a standard thread local slot using TLSHolder. This makes it very important to dispose of your ThreadLocal instances if you'll be using lots of them, so the type instantiations can be recycled. The previous way of creating arbitary thread-static variables, thread data slots, was slow, clunky, and hard to use. In comparison, ThreadLocal can be used just like any other type, and each instance appears from the outside to be a non-static thread-static variable. It does this by using the CLR type system to assign each instance of ThreadLocal its own instantiated type containing a thread-static field, and so delegating a lot of the bookkeeping that thread data slots had to do to the CLR type system itself! That's a very clever use of the CLR type system.

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• EM CLI, diving in and beyond!

  - by Maureen Byrne

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Doing more in less time… Isn’t that what we all strive to do? With this in mind, I put together two screen watches on Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c command line interface, or EM CLI as it is also known. There is a wealth of information on any topic that you choose to read about, from manual pages to coding documents…might I even say blog posts? In our busy lives it is so nice to just sit back with a short video, watch and learn enough to dive in. Doing more in less time, is the essence of EM CLI. It enables you to script fundamental and complex administrative tasks in an elegant way, thanks to the Jython scripting language. Repetitive tasks can be scripted and reused again and again. Sure, a Graphical User Interface provides a more intuitive step by step approach to tasks, and it provides a way of quickly becoming familiar with a product and its many features, and it is definitely the way to go when viewing performance data and historical trending…but for repetitive and complex tasks, scripting is the way to go! Lets us take the everyday task of creating an administrator. Using EM CLI in interactive mode the command could look like this.. emcli>create_user(name='jan.doe', type='EXTERNAL_USER') This command creates an administrator called jan.doe which is an externally authenticated user, possibly LDAP or SSO, defined by the EXTERNAL_USER tag. The create_user procedure takes many arguments; see the documentation for more information. Now, where EM CLI really shines and shows power is in creating multiple users. Regardless of the number, tens or thousands, the effort is the same. With the use of a standard programming construct, a loop, you can place your create_user() procedure within it. Using a loop allows you to iterate through a previously created list, creating new users until the list is complete. Using EM CLI in Script mode, your Jython loop would look something like this… for user in list_of_users:       create_user(name=user, expire=’true’, password=’welcome123’) This Jython code snippet iterates through a previously defined list of names, list_of_users, and iterates through the list, taking each name, user in this case, and creates an administrator sets the password to welcome123, but forces the user to reset it when they first login. This is only one of over four hundred procedures created to expose Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c functionality in a powerful and programmatic way. It is a few months since we released EM CLI with scripting option. We are seeing many users adapt to this fun and powerful way of using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. What are the first steps? Watch these screen watches, and dive in. The first screen watch steps you through where and how to download and install and how to run your first few commands. The Second screen watch steps you through a few scripts. Next time, I am going to show you the basic building blocks to writing a Jython script to perform Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c administrative tasks. Join this growing group of EM CLI users…. Dive in! Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Business Case for investing time developing Stubs and BizUnit Tests

  - by charlie.mott

  I was recently in a position where I had to justify why effort should be spent developing Stubbed Integration Tests for BizTalk solutions. These tests are usually developed using the BizUnit framework. I assumed that most seasoned BizTalk developers would consider this best practice. Even though Microsoft suggest use of BizUnit on MSDN, I've not found a single site listing the justifications for investing time writing stubs and BizUnit tests. Stubs Stubs should be developed to isolate your development team from external dependencies. This is described by Michael Stephenson here. Failing to do this can result in the following problems: In contract-first scenarios, the external system interface will have been defined.  But the interface may not have been setup or even developed yet for the BizTalk developers to work with. By the time you open the target location to see the data BizTalk has sent, it may have been swept away. If you are relying on the UI of the target system to see the data BizTalk has sent, what do you do if it fails to arrive? It may take time for the data to be processed or it may be scheduled to be processed later. Learning how to use the source\target systems and investigations into where things go wrong in these systems will slow down the BizTalk development effort. By the time the data is visible in a UI it may have undergone further transformations. In larger development teams working together, do you all use the same source and target instances. How do you know which data was created by whose tests? How do you know which event log error message are whose?  Another developer may have “cleaned up” your data. It is harder to write BizUnit tests that clean up the data\logs after each test run. What if your B2B partners' source or target system cannot support the sort of testing you want to do. They may not even have a development or test instance that you can work with. Their single test instance may be used by the SIT\UAT teams. There may be licencing costs of setting up an instances of the external system. The stubs I like to use are generic stubs that can accept\return any message type.  Usually I need to create one per protocol. They should be driven by BizUnit steps to: validates the data received; and select a response messages (or error response). Once built, they can be re-used for many integration tests and from project to project. I’m not saying that developers should never test against a real instance.  Every so often, you still need to connect to real developer or test instances of the source and target endpoints\services. The interface developers may ask you to send them some data to see if everything still works.  Or you might want some messages sent to BizTalk to get confidence that everything still works beyond BizTalk. Tests Automated “Stubbed Integration Tests” are usually built using the BizUnit framework. These facilitate testing of the entire integration process from source stub to target stub. It will ensure that all of the BizTalk components are configured together correctly to meet all the requirements. More fine grained unit testing of individual BizTalk components is still encouraged.  But BizUnit provides much the easiest way to test some components types (e.g. Orchestrations). Using BizUnit with the Behaviour Driven Development approach described by Mike Stephenson delivers the following benefits: source: http://biztalkbddsample.codeplex.com – Video 1. Requirements can be easily defined using Given/When/Then Requirements are close to the code so easier to manage as features and scenarios Requirements are defined in domain language The feature files can be used as part of the documentation The documentation is accurate to the build of code and can be published with a release The scenarios are effective to document the scenarios and are not over excessive The scenarios are maintained with the code There’s an abstraction between the intention and implementation of tests making them easier to understand The requirements drive the testing These same tests can also be used to drive load testing as described here. If you don't do this ... If you don't follow the above “Stubbed Integration Tests” approach, the developer will need to manually trigger the tests. This has the following risks: Developers are unlikely to check all the scenarios each time and all the expected conditions each time. After the developer leaves, these manual test steps may be lost. What test scenarios are there?  What test messages did they use for each scenario? There is no mechanism to prove adequate test coverage. A test team may attempt to automate integration test scenarios in a test environment through the triggering of tests from a source system UI. If this is a replacement for BizUnit tests, then this carries the following risks: It moves the tests downstream, so problems will be found later in the process. Testers may not check all the expected conditions within the BizTalk infrastructure such as: event logs, suspended messages, etc. These automated tests may also get in the way of manual tests run on these environments.

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• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

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• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

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• Using Definition of Done to Drive Agile Maturity

  - by Dylan Smith

  I’ve been an Agile Coach at a lot of different clients over the years, and I want to share an approach I use to help them adopt and mature over time. It’s important to realize that “Agile” is not a black/white yes/no thing. Teams can be varying degrees of agile. I think of this as their agile maturity level. When I coach teams I want them to start out being a little agile, and get more agile as they mature. The approach I teach them is to use the definition of done as a technique to continuously improve their agile maturity over time. We’re probably all familiar with the concept of “Done Done” that represents what *actually* being done a feature means. Not just when a developer says he’s done right after he writes that last line of code that makes the feature kind-of work. Done Done means the coding is done, it’s been tested, installers and deployment packages have been created, user manuals have been updated, architecture docs have been updated, etc. To enable teams to internalize the concept of “Done Done”, they usually get together and come up with their Definition of Done (DoD) that defines all the activities that need to be completed before a feature is considered Done Done. The Done Done technique typically is applied only to features (aka User Stories). What I do is extend this to apply to several concepts such as User Stories, Sprints, Releases (and sometimes Check-Ins). During project kick-off I’ll usually sit down with the team and go through an exercise of creating DoD’s for each of these concepts (Stories/Sprints/Releases). We’ll usually start by just brainstorming a bunch of activities that could end up in these various DoD’s. Here’s some examples: Code Reviews StyleCop FxCop User Manuals Updated Architecture Docs Updated Tested by QA Tested by UAT Installers Created Support Knowledge Base Updated Deployment Instructions (for Ops) written Automated Unit Tests Run Automated Integration Tests Run Then we start by arranging these activities into the place they occur today (e.g. Do you do UAT testing only once per release? every sprint? every feature?). If the team was previously Waterfall most of these activities probably end up in the Release DoD. An extremely mature agile team would probably have most of these activities in the DoD for the User Stories (because an extremely mature agile team will probably do continuous deployment and release every story). So what we need to do as a team, is work to move these activities from their current home (Release DoD) down into the Sprint DoD and eventually into the User Story DoD (and maybe into the lower-level Check-In DoD if we decide to use that). We don’t have to move them all down to User Story immediately, but as a team we figure out what we think we’re capable of moving down to the Sprint cycle, and Story cycle immediately, and that becomes our starting DoD’s. Over time the team makes an effort to continue moving activities down from Release->Sprint->Story as they become more agile and more mature. I try to encourage them to envision a world in which they deploy to production as each User Story is completed. They would need to be updating User Manuals, creating installers, doing UAT testing (typical Release cycle activities) on every single User Story. They may never actually reach that point, but they should envision that, and strive to keep driving the activities down closer to the User Story cycle s they mature. This is a great technique to give a team an easy-to-follow roadmap to mature their agile practices over time. Sure there’s other aspects to maturity outside of this, but it’s a great technique, that’s easy to visualize, to drive agility into the team. Just keep moving those activities (aka “gates”) down the board from Release->Sprint->Story. I’ll try to give an example of what a recent client of mine had for their DoD’s (this is from memory, so probably not 100% accurate): Release Create/Update deployment Instructions For Ops Instructional Videos Updated Run manual regression test suite UAT Testing In this case that meant deploying to an environment shared across the enterprise that mirrored production and asking other business groups to test their own apps to ensure we didn’t break anything outside our system Sprint Deploy to UAT Environment But not necessarily actually request UAT testing occur User Guides updated Sprint Features Video Created In this case we decided to create a video each sprint showing off the progress (video version of Sprint Demo) User Story Manual Test scripts developed and run Tested by BA Deployed in shared QA environment Using automated deployment process Peer Code Review Code Check-In Compiled (warning-free) Passes StyleCop Passes FxCop Create installer packages Run Automated Tests Run Automated Integration Tests PS – One of my clients had a great question when we went through this activity. They said that if a Sprint is by definition done when the end-date rolls around (time-boxed), isn’t a DoD on a sprint meaningless – it’s done on the end-date regardless of whether those other activities are complete or not? My answer is that while that statement is true – the sprint is done regardless when the end date rolls around – if the DoD activities haven’t been completed I would consider the Sprint a failure (similar to not completing what was committed/planned – failure may be too strong a word but you get the idea). In the Retrospective that will become an agenda item to discuss and understand why we weren’t able to complete the activities we agreed would need to be completed each Sprint.

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• What Counts for A DBA - Logic

  - by drsql

  "There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who will always wonder why there are only two items in my list and those who will figured it out the first time they saw this very old joke."  Those readers who will give up immediately and get frustrated with me for not explaining it to them are not likely going to be great technical professionals of any sort, much less a programmer or administrator who will be constantly dealing with the common failures that make up a DBA's day.  Many of these people will stare at this like a dog staring at a traffic signal and still have no more idea of how to decipher the riddle. Without explanation they will give up, call the joke "stupid" and, feeling quite superior, walk away indignantly to their job likely flipping patties of meat-by-product. As a data professional or any programmer who has strayed  to this very data-oriented blog, you would, if you are worth your weight in air, either have recognized immediately what was going on, or felt a bit ignorant.  Your friends are chuckling over the joke, but why is it funny? Unfortunately you left your smartphone at home on the dresser because you were up late last night programming and were running late to work (again), so you will either have to fake a laugh or figure it out.  Digging through the joke, you figure out that the word "two" is the most important part, since initially the joke mentioned 10. Hmm, why did they spell out two, but not ten? Maybe 10 could be interpreted a different way?  As a DBA, this sort of logic comes into play every day, and sometimes it doesn't involve nerdy riddles or Star Wars folklore.  When you turn on your computer and get the dreaded blue screen of death, you don't immediately cry to the help desk and sit on your thumbs and whine about not being able to work. Do that and your co-workers will question your nerd-hood; I know I certainly would. You figure out the problem, and when you have it narrowed down, you call the help desk and tell them what the problem is, usually having to explain that yes, you did in fact try to reboot before calling.  Of course, sometimes humility does come in to play when you reach the end of your abilities, but the ‘end of abilities’ is not something any of us recognize readily. It is handy to have the ability to use logic to solve uncommon problems: It becomes especially useful when you are trying to solve a data-related problem such as a query performance issue, and the way that you approach things will tell your coworkers a great deal about your abilities.  The novice is likely to immediately take the approach of  trying to add more indexes or blaming the hardware. As you become more and more experienced, it becomes increasingly obvious that performance issues are a very complex topic. A query may be slow for a myriad of reasons, from concurrency issues, a poor query plan because of a parameter value (like parameter sniffing,) poor coding standards, or just because it is a complex query that is going to be slow sometimes. Some queries that you will deal with may have twenty joins and hundreds of search criteria, and it can take a lot of thought to determine what is going on.  You can usually figure out the problem to almost any query by using basic knowledge of how joins and queries work, together with the help of such things as the query plan, profiler or monitoring tools.  It is not unlikely that it can take a full day’s work to understand some queries, breaking them down into smaller queries to find a very tiny problem. Not every time will you actually find the problem, and it is part of the process to occasionally admit that the problem is random, and everything works fine now.  Sometimes, it is necessary to realize that a problem is outside of your current knowledge, and admit temporary defeat: You can, at least, narrow down the source of the problem by looking logically at all of the possible solutions. By doing this, you can satisfy your curiosity and learn more about what the actual problem was. For example, in the joke, had you never been exposed to the concept of binary numbers, there is no way you could have known that binary - 10 = decimal - 2, but you could have logically come to the conclusion that 10 must not mean ten in the context of the joke, and at that point you are that much closer to getting the joke and at least won't feel so ignorant.

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• Dynamic Colorbox galleries using Ajax

  - by Gobitron

  Hi, I am new to jQuery / AJAX. I have a page that uses colorbox to display photo galleries. The page displays only one image from each gallery. When clicked, a colorbox opens up with all of the photos from that gallery. These inner photo references (for all photos from all galleries) are hidden on the page in an invisible div. The page is a PHP generated page. The galleries/photos are being populated via Picasa. All of the above works fine, but instead of loading all of the images from all galleries on page load (via PHP), I'd like to load only the requested gallery into the colorbox via AJAX. So far, I have a test page which can insert the proper links into a div on the page, but the Colorbox won't pick up on these links. This is where I need help. How can I get Colorbox to recognize the links generated by my AJAX call? The colorbox scripts sit in the header: <script type="text/javascript" src="libs/js/jquery.colorbox.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> //Writing out the ColorBox command for each album $(document).ready(function(){ <?php $setnum = 0; foreach ($albumIds as $albumId){ echo "\t\t\t$(\"a[rel='set" . $setnum . "']\").colorbox({maxWidth:\"640px\", maxHeight:\"480px\"});\n"; $setnum++; } ?> }); </script> Here is my get JSON code located in the body section of the page: $.getJSON("myserv.php",formContent, function(json){ var photos = json.data.items; var numpics = json.data.items.length; var pointer = 1; while (pointer < numpics){ var stuffineed = photos[pointer].media.image.url; $("#ajaxBox").append("<a href='" + stuffineed + "' rel='set" + pointer +"'>" + photos[pointer].media.image.url + "</a><br />"); pointer++; } }); //End json Again, I can get the AJAX to populate the div correctly, but the colorbox script isn't picking up these images. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• How can I reliably check client identity whilst making DCOM calls to a C# .Net 3.5 Server?

  - by pionium

  Hi, I have an old Win32 C++ DCOM Server that I am rewriting to use C# .Net 3.5. The client applications sit on remote XP machines and are also written in C++. These clients must remain unchanged, hence I must implement the interfaces on new .Net objects. This has been done, and is working successfully regarding the implementation of the interfaces, and all of the calls are correctly being made from the old clients to the new .Net objects. However, I'm having problems obtaining the identity of the calling user from the DCOM Client. In order to try to identify the user who instigated the DCOM call, I have the following code on the server... [DllImport("ole32.dll")] static extern int CoImpersonateClient(); [DllImport("ole32.dll")] static extern int CoRevertToSelf(); private string CallingUser { get { string sCallingUser = null; if (CoImpersonateClient() == 0) { WindowsPrincipal wp = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal as WindowsPrincipal; if (wp != null) { WindowsIdentity wi = wp.Identity as WindowsIdentity; if (wi != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(wi.Name)) sCallingUser = wi.Name; } if (CoRevertToSelf() != 0) ReportWin32Error("CoRevertToSelf"); } else ReportWin32Error("CoImpersonateClient"); return sCallingUser; } } private static void ReportWin32Error(string sFailingCall) { Win32Exception ex = new Win32Exception(); Logger.Write("Call to " + sFailingCall + " FAILED: " + ex.Message); } When I get the CallingUser property, the value returned the first few times is correct and the correct user name is identified, however, after 3 or 4 different users have successfully made calls (and it varies, so I can't be more specific), further users seem to be identified as users who had made earlier calls. What I have noticed is that the first few users have their DCOM calls handled on their own thread (ie all calls from a particular client are handled by a single unique thread), and then subsequent users are being handled by the same threads as the earlier users, and after the call to CoImpersonateClient(), the CurrentPrincipal matches that of the initial user of that thread. To Illustrate: User Tom makes DCOM calls which are handled by thread 1 (CurrentPrincipal correctly identifies Tom) User Dick makes DCOM calls which are handled by thread 2 (CurrentPrincipal correctly identifies Dick) User Harry makes DCOM calls which are handled by thread 3 (CurrentPrincipal correctly identifies Harry) User Bob makes DCOM calls which are handled by thread 3 (CurrentPrincipal incorrectly identifies him as Harry) As you can see in this illustration, calls from clients Harry and Bob are being handled on thread 3, and the server is identifying the calling client as Harry. Is there something that I am doing wrong? Are there any caveats or restrictions on using Impersonations in this way? Is there a better or different way that I can RELIABLY achieve what I am trying to do? All help would be greatly appreciated. Regards Andrew

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• PHP: Can pcntl_alarm() and socket_select() peacefully exist in the same thread?

  - by DWilliams

  I have a PHP CLI script mostly written that functions as a chat server for chat clients to connect to (don't ask me why I'm doing it in PHP, thats another story haha). My script utilizes the socket_select() function to hang execution until something happens on a socket, at which point it wakes up, processes the event, and waits until the next event. Now, there are some routine tasks that I need performed every 30 seconds or so (check of tempbanned users should be unbanned, save user databases, other assorted things). From what I can tell, PHP doesn't have very great multi-threading support at all. My first thought was to compare a timestamp every time the socket generates an event and gets the program flowing again, but this is very inconsistent since the server could very well sit idle for hours and not have any of my cleanup routines executed. I came across the PHP pcntl extensions, and it lets me use assign a time interval for SIGALRM to get sent and a function get executed every time it's sent. This seems like the ideal solution to my problem, however pcntl_alarm() and socket_select() clash with each other pretty bad. Every time SIGALRM is triggered, all sorts of crazy things happen to my socket control code. My program is fairly lengthy so I can't post it all here, but it shouldn't matter since I don't believe I'm doing anything wrong code-wise. My question is: Is there any way for a SIGALRM to be handled in the same thread as a waiting socket_select()? If so, how? If not, what are my alternatives here? Here's some output from my program. My alarm function simply outputs "Tick!" whenever it's called to make it easy to tell when stuff is happening. This is the output (including errors) after allowing it to tick 4 times (there were no actual attempts at connecting to the server despite what it says): [05-28-10 @ 20:01:05] Chat server started on 192.168.1.28 port 4050 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:05] Loaded 2 users from file PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112 PHP Warning: socket_select(): unable to select [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 116 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:15] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_accept(): unable to accept incoming connection [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 126 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:25] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_getpeername() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 129 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:25] Accepting socket connection from PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112 PHP Warning: socket_select(): unable to select [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 116 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:35] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_accept(): unable to accept incoming connection [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 126 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:45] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_getpeername() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 129 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:45] Accepting socket connection from PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 2 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112

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• How can I take the first 100 characters of html content ( without stripping the TAGS! )

  - by Atomiton

  There are lots of questions on how to strip html tags, but not many on functions/methods to close them. Here's the situation. I have a 500 character Message summary ( which includes html tags ), but I only want the first 100 characters. Problem is if I truncate the message, it could be in the middle of an html tag... which messes up stuff. Assuming the html is something like this: <div class="bd">"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. <br/> <br/>Some Dates: April 30 - May 2, 2010 <br/> <p>Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. <em>Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit</em> in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. <br/> </p> For more information about Lorem Ipsum doemdloe, visit: <br/> <a href="http://www.somesite.com" title="Some Conference">Some text link</a><br/> </div> How would I take the first ~100 characters or so? ( Although, ideally that would be the first approximately 100 characters of "CONTENT" ( in between the html tags ) I'm assuming the best way to do this would be a recursive algorithm that keeps track of the html tags and appends any tags that would be truncated, but that may not be the best approach. My first thoughts are using recursion to count nested tags, and when we reach 100 characters, look for the next "<" and then use recursion to write the closing html tags needed from there. The reason for doing this is to make a short summary of existing articles without requiring the user to go back and provide summaries for all the articles. I want to keep the html formatting, if possible. NOTE: Please ignore that the html isn't totally semantic. This is what I have to deal with from my WYSIWYG. EDIT: I added a potential solution ( that seems to work ) I figure others will run into this problem as well. I'm not sure it's the best... and it's probably not totally robust ( in fact, I know it isn't ), but I'd appreciate any feedback

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• user generated / user specific functions

  - by pedalpete

  I'm looking for the most elegant and secure method to do the following. I have a calendar, and groups of users. Users can add events to specific days on the calendar, and specify how long each event lasts for. I've had a few requests from users to add the ability for them to define that events of a specific length include a break, of a certain amount of time, or require that a specific amount of time be left between events. For example, if event is 2 hours, include a 20min break. for each event, require 30 minutes before start of next event. The same group that has asked for an event of 2 hours to include a 20 min break, could also require that an event 3 hours include a 30 minute break. In the end, what the users are trying to get is an elapsed time excluding breaks calculated for them. Currently I provide them a total elapsed time, but they are looking for a running time. However, each of these requests is different for each group. Where one group may want a 30 minute break during a 2 hour event, and another may want only 10 minutes for each 3 hour event. I was kinda thinking I could write the functions into a php file per group, and then include that file and do the calculations via php and then return a calculated total to the user, but something about that doesn't sit right with me. Another option is to output the groups functions to javascript, and have it run client-side, as I'm already returning the duration of the event, but where the user is part of more than one group with different rules, this seems like it could get rather messy. I currently store the start and end time in the database, but no 'durations', and I don't think I should be storing the calculated totals in the db, because if a group decides to change their calculations, I'd need to change it throughout the db. Is there a better way of doing this? I would just store the variables in mysql, but I don't see how I can then say to mysql to calculate based on those variables. I'm REALLY lost here. Any suggestions? I'm hoping somebody has done something similar and can provide some insight into the best direction. If it helps, my table contains eventid, user, group, startDate, startTime, endDate, endTime, type The json for the event which I return to the user is {"eventid":"'.$eventId.'", "user":"'.$userId.'","group":"'.$groupId.'","type":"'.$type.'","startDate":".$startDate.'","startTime":"'.$startTime.'","endDate":"'.$endDate.'","endTime":"'.$endTime.'","durationLength":"'.$duration.'", "durationHrs":"'.$durationHrs.'"} where for example, duration length is 2.5 and duration hours is 2:30.

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• How do gitignore exclusion rules actually work?

  - by meowsqueak

  I'm trying to solve a gitignore problem on a large directory structure, but to simplify my question I have reduced it to the following. I have the following directory structure of two files (foo, bar) in a brand new git repository (no commits so far): a/b/c/foo a/b/c/bar Obviously, a 'git status -u' shows: # Untracked files: ... # a/b/c/bar # a/b/c/foo What I want to do is create a .gitignore file that ignores everything inside a/b/c but does not ignore the file 'foo'. If I create a .gitignore thus: c/ Then a 'git status -u' shows both foo and bar as ignored: # Untracked files: ... # .gitignore Which is as I expect. Now if I add an exclusion rule for foo, thus: c/ !foo According to the gitignore manpage, I'd expect this to to work. But it doesn't - it still ignores foo: # Untracked files: ... # .gitignore This doesn't work either: c/ !a/b/c/foo Neither does this: c/* !foo Gives: # Untracked files: ... # .gitignore # a/b/c/bar # a/b/c/foo In that case, although foo is no longer ignored, bar is also not ignored. The order of the rules in .gitignore doesn't seem to matter either. This also doesn't do what I'd expect: a/b/c/ !a/b/c/foo That one ignores both foo and bar. One situation that does work is if I create the file a/b/c/.gitignore and put in there: * !foo But the problem with this is that eventually there will be other subdirectories under a/b/c and I don't want to have to put a separate .gitignore into every single one - I was hoping to create 'project-based' .gitignore files that can sit in the top directory of each project, and cover all the 'standard' subdirectory structure. This also seems to be equivalent: a/b/c/* !a/b/c/foo This might be the closest thing to "working" that I can achieve, but the full relative paths and explicit exceptions need to be stated, which is going to be a pain if I have a lot of files of name 'foo' in different levels of the subdirectory tree. Anyway, either I don't quite understand how exclusion rules work, or they don't work at all when directories (rather than wildcards) are ignored - by a rule ending in a / Can anyone please shed some light on this? Is there a way to make gitignore use something sensible like regular expressions instead of this clumsy shell-based syntax? I'm using and observe this with git-1.6.6.1 on Cygwin/bash3 and git-1.7.1 on Ubuntu/bash3.

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• Working with Hibernate Queries

  - by jschoen

  I am new to hibernate queries, and trying to get a grasp on how everything works. I am using Hibernate 3 with Netbeans 6.5. I have a basic project set up and have been playing around with how to do everything. I started with essentially a search query. Where the user can enter values into one or more fields. The table would be Person with the columns first_name, middle_name, last_name for the sake of the example. The first way I found was to have a method that took firstName, middleName, and lastName as parameters: Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession(); Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction(); String query = "from Person where (first_name = :firstName or :firstName is null) "+ "and (middle_name = :middleName or :middleName is null) " "and (last_name = :lastname or :lastName is null)"; Query q = session.createQuery(query); q.setString("firstName", firstName); q.setString("middleName", middleName); q.setString("lastName", lastName); List<Person> results = (List<Person>) q.list(); This did not sit well with me, since it seemed like I should not have to write that much, and well, that I was doing it wrong. So I kept digging and found another way: Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession(); Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction(); Criteria crit = session.createCriteria(Person.class); if (firstName != null) { crit.add(Expression.ge("firstName", firstName); } if (middleName != null) { crit.add(Expression.ge("middleName", middleName); } if (lastName != null) { crit.add(Expression.ge("lastName", lastName); } List<Person> results = (List<Person>) crit.list(); So what I am trying to figure out is which way is the preferred way for this type of query? Criteria or Query? Why? I am guessing that Criteria is the preferred way and you should only use Query when you need to write it by hand for performance type reasons. Am I close?

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• WCF Duplex Interaction with Web Server

  - by Mark Struzinski

  Here is my scenario, and it is causing us a considerable amount of grief at the moment: We have a vendor web service which provides base level telephony functionality. This service has a SOAP api, which we are leveraging to build up a custom UI that is integrated into our in house web apps. The api functions on 2 levels. You make standard client calls into the service to initiate actions, such as Login, Place Call, Hang Up, etc. On a different thread, the service sends events back to the client to alert the user of things that are occurring on the system (agent successfully logged in, call was disconnected, etc). I implemented a WCF service to sit between the web server and the vendor service. This WCF service operates in duplex mode, establishing a 2 way connection with the web server. The web server makes outbound calls to the WCF service, which routes them to the vendor's web service. Events are received back to the WCF service, which passes them onto the web server via a callback channel on the WCF client. As events are received on the web server, they are placed into a hash table with the user's name as the key, and a .NET queue as the value to hold the event. Each event is enqueued to the agent who owns it. On a 2 second interval, the web page polls the web server via an ajax request to get new events for the logged in user. It hits the hash table for the user key, dequeues any events that are present, and serializes them back up to the web page. From there, they are processed in order and appropriate messages are displayed to the user. This implementation performs well in a single user scenario. The second I put more than 1 user on the system, I start getting frequent timeouts with the following CommunicationException: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond We are running Windows Server 2008 R2 both servers. Both the web app and WCF service are running on .NET 3.5. The WCF service is running under the net.tcp protocol in duplex mode. The web app is ASP.NET MVC 2. Has anyone dealt with anything like this scenario? Is there a more efficient way (or a widely accepted pattern) to implement this?

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• Java: Reading a pdf file from URL into Byte array/ByteBuffer in an applet.

  - by Pol

  I'm trying to figure out why this particular snippet of code isn't working for me. I've got an applet which is supposed to read a .pdf and display it with a pdf-renderer library, but for some reason when I read in the .pdf files which sit on my server, they end up as being corrupt. I've tested it by writing the files back out again. I've tried viewing the applet in both IE and Firefox and the corrupt files occur. Funny thing is, when I trying viewing the applet in Safari (for Windows), the file is actually fine! I understand the JVM might be different, but I am still lost. I've compiled in Java 1.5. JVMs are 1.6. The snippet which reads the file is below. public static ByteBuffer getAsByteArray(URL url) throws IOException { ByteArrayOutputStream tmpOut = new ByteArrayOutputStream(); URLConnection connection = url.openConnection(); int contentLength = connection.getContentLength(); InputStream in = url.openStream(); byte[] buf = new byte[512]; int len; while (true) { len = in.read(buf); if (len == -1) { break; } tmpOut.write(buf, 0, len); } tmpOut.close(); ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.wrap(tmpOut.toByteArray(), 0, tmpOut.size()); //Lines below used to test if file is corrupt //FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("C:\\abc.pdf"); //fos.write(tmpOut.toByteArray()); return bb; } I must be missing something, and I've been banging my head trying to figure it out. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks. Edit: To further clarify my situation, the difference in the file before I read then with the snippet and after, is that the ones I output after reading are significantly smaller than they originally are. When opening them, they are not recognized as .pdf files. There are no exceptions being thrown that I ignore, and I have tried flushing to no avail. This snippet works in Safari, meaning the files are read in it's entirety, with no difference in size, and can be opened with any .pdf reader. In IE and Firefox, the files always end up being corrupted, consistently the same smaller size. I monitored the len variable (when reading a 59kb file), hoping to see how many bytes get read in at each loop. In IE and Firefox, at 18kb, the in.read(buf) returns a -1 as if the file has ended. Safari does not do this. I'll keep at it, and I appreciate all the suggestions so far.

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• When does IE7 recompute styles? Doesn't work reliably when a class is added to the body.

  - by Kid A

  I have an interesting problem here. I'm using a class on the element as a switch to drive a fair amount of layout behavior on my site. If the class is applied, certain things happen, and if the class isn't applied, they don't happen. The relevant CSS is roughly like this: .rightSide { display:none; } .showCommentsRight .rightSide { display:block; width:50%; } .showCommentsRight .leftSide { display:block; width:50%; } And the HTML: <body class="showCommentsRight"> <div class="container"></div> <div class="leftSide"></div> <div class="rightSide"></div> </div> <div class="container"></div> <div class="leftSide"></div> <div class="rightSide"></div> </div> <div class="container"></div> <div class="leftSide"></div> <div class="rightSide"></div> </div> </body> I've simplified things but this is essentially the method. The whole page changes layout (hiding the right side in three different areas) when the flag is set on the body. This works in Firefox and IE8. It does not work in IE8 in compatibility mode. What is fascinating is that if you sit there and refresh the page, the results can vary. It will pick a different section's right side to show. Sometimes it will show only the top section's right side, sometimes it will show the middle. I have tried a validator (to look for malformed html), double css formatting, and making sure my IE7 hack sheet wasn't having an effect. So my question is: * Is there a way that this behavior can be made reliable? * When does IE7 decide to re-do styling? Thanks everyone.

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• ServiceController.Stop() doesn't appear to be stopping anything

  - by peacedog

  My dev box is a Windows 7 (x64) machine. I've got some code (C#, .net 2.0) that in certain circumstances, checks to see if a service is running and then stops it. ServiceController matchedService = //My Service! //If statements and such matchedService.Stop(); matchedService.WaitForStatus(ServiceControllerStatus.Stopped); Now, I can verify MyService is in fact installed and running. I can tell you I am running Visual Studio 2008 as an administrator while debugging. I can also verify that after a couple of If statements, I wind up at the .Stop() and .WaitForStatus() portion of the programming. I do know that if step over the .Stop() call, the service itself just keeps running (looking at it in Services, though it occurs to me perhaps I should grab a better tool for this. I'm sure there's some sysinternals tool that might give me more information). As I step over the .WaitForStatus() call, I basically wind up waiting for the stopped status. . . forever. Well, I let it sit there for over 15 minutes yesterday (twice) and nothing happens. We never make it to the next line of code. It feels exactly like Bowie's Space Oddity (you know the part I am talking about). There's a lotta things about MyService you don't know anything about. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't. . . let me state this plainly. No services depend on MyService and MyService depends on no other services. Addendum MyOtherService and SonOfMyService both seem to behave correctly at this point in the code. All of these services share the same characteristics (they're our own services we hatched in a secret lab and have no dependencies). Is it possible there is something wrong with the MyService install or something? I do know that if I stop debugging at this point, MyService is still listed as running in Services (even after hitting refresh). If I try to restart it then (or run my application again and get to this point), I get a message about it not being able to accept control messages. After that, the service shows up as stopped and I can start it normally. Why isn't the service being stopped? Is this a quirk of win 7? A failing on my part to understand the ServiceController, or Win Services in general?

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