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  • Media meta file system for windows

    - by Chris Marisic
    I have a large assortment of media that is currently arranged using folders. As the library has grown I've started to notice that folders aren't the best at conveying meaning. Also as the number of folders serving as categories/tags has grown has lead to data duplication for not realizing it was already filed under a different tag. As I started to think about this I realized tag cloud visualization would be tremendously powerful and figured there has to be something like this out there.

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  • Easy way to deploy the recovery parition in Windows 7?

    - by Jesse K
    We're using ImageX to deploy Windows 7 Professional. We've gotten the Windows partition to work, but the recovery partition (100-200MB at the front of the drive in a standard install) isn't as simple. Here's a Technet guide I found: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744280%28WS.10%29.aspx That looks like it could work, but would take alot of time if we need to do that for every single machine we deploy. Is there a faster/automated way?

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  • How can I make a Windows 7 allow me to edit a data file?

    - by Ruvi
    Hi! I am running a Windows 7 operating system. I would like to edit a data file named "hosts" that is found in the following library: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts The OS does not allow changes, and I do not know how to acquire administrator's power to be able to make the change. In addition, which program can edit such a file (a built-in text editor or an external one)?

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  • How can I migrate all keyboard shortcuts from one mac to another?

    - by cwd
    I have a lot of custom keyboard shortcuts and will be migration Macs. I tested Migration Assistant and it did not seem to get these. I read somewhere that they are stored in the individual application's plist files in the ~/Library/Application Support folder but even after copying a few of these folders over the shortcuts do not seem to follow. How can I get all of the keyboard shortcuts migrated to a new mac?

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  • Convert apache rewrite rules to nginx

    - by Shiyu Sekam
    I want to migrate an Apache setup to Nginx, but I can't get the rewrite rules working in Nginx. I had a look on the official nginx documentation, but still some trouble converting it. http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/converting_rewrite_rules.html I've used http://winginx.com/en/htaccess to convert my rules, but this just works partly. The / part looks okay, the /library part as well, but the /public part doesn't work at all. Apache part: ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /srv/www/Web Order allow,deny Allow from all RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^$ public/ [L] RewriteRule (.*) public/$1 [L] Order Deny,Allow Deny from all RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^pid=([0-9]*)$ RewriteRule ^places(.*)$ index.php?url=places/view/%1 [PT,L] # Extract search query in /search?q={query}&l={location} RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^q=(.*)&l=(.*)$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=search/index/%1/%2 [PT,L] # Extract search query in /search?q={query} RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^q=(.*)$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=search/index/%1 [PT,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d # Rewrite all other URLs to index.php/URL RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [PT,L] Order deny,allow deny from all ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn AddHandler php5-fcgi .php Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -socket /var/run/php5-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined Nginx config: server { #listen 80; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied root /srv/www/Web; index index.html index.php; server_name localhost; location / { rewrite ^/$ /public/ break; rewrite ^(.*)$ /public/$1 break; } location /library { deny all; } location /public { if ($query_string ~ "^pid=([0-9]*)$"){ rewrite ^/places(.*)$ /index.php?url=places/view/%1 break; } if ($query_string ~ "^q=(.*)&l=(.*)$"){ rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=search/index/%1/%2 break; } if ($query_string ~ "^q=(.*)$"){ rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=search/index/%1 break; } if (!-e $request_filename){ rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=$1 break; } } location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock; fastcgi_index index.php; include fastcgi_params; } } I haven't written the original ruleset, so I've a hard time converting it. Would you mind giving me a hint how to do it easily or can you help me to convert it, please? I really want to switch over to php5-fpm and nginx :) Thanks

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  • using git for media libraries

    - by mpapis
    Rationale: I want to manage libraries of media files (music, images) using git, there is git-annex but it requires haskel platform - but they do not play together well (also it's quite to big dependency for me). Question: Is there any other plugin with this functionality, or possibly would it be possible to write such plugin (resources?). Similar questions: Self-hosted, cross-platform repository for large files Using Git to Manage An iTunes Library?

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  • how can I monitor my FTP server [closed]

    - by hanem
    I have installed the FTP server in my PC and I have connected with Filezella client,but when I try to monitor the FTP server fonctionality by taping the snmpwalk command ,I don't have any result concerning the disk space of the server or the memory size,have any one an idea how can I monitor the FTP server and thanks the OS is windows7 and the SNMP is configured,I want to use the commandes of the net-SNMP library,but when I tape: snmpwalk -v1 -c public address of the FTP server I got the same informations as my system

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  • How to add a startup/shutdown script to the GPO from the command line

    - by thomasjames
    I need to add startup and shutdown scripts from a CLI through a Powershell/Python/CMD script. Ideally, I would like to have the same functionality as gpedit.msc, but it is important that the tasks of adding and removing such scripts do not require user interaction and can be done entirely within the context of a script. Currently, the scripts here seem to be in the same category, but none of them explicitly address editing startup and shutdown scripts: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa814151(v=vs.85).aspx Let me know if anyone has any ideas and thanks in advance.

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  • Creating full, global clang+llvm environment

    - by Griwes
    What is the easiest way to setup full Clang, libc++ and LLVM as default global toolchain? All of my attempts to build it, in most of the configurations I could think of, resulted in working Clang, but it didn't use libc++ headers, but default GCC's libstd++'s ones, resulting in numerous faults in incompatible pieces of library code. I would like it working out of the box, without having to do magic in .bashrc or passing all those -stdlib=libc++ and -lc++ to compiler and linker.

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  • How do you install an iTunes Visualizer in Windows 7?

    - by sean2078
    How do you install any visualizer other than the default visualizer that ships with iTunes 10 in Windows 7. I've tried placing qtz files in my C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes Plug-ins folder and restarting iTunes, but of course no other visualizers can be selected. Common visualizers that I would like to install include those found here I'm of course aware that some of these are Mac OS only due to library dependencies - I would still like to know if it's possible to install any visualizer other than the default for iTunes in Windows 7

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  • C# uploading files to IIS server with FTP

    - by Blottt
    I'm trying to upload an website to an online server programmaticly via C# and using FTP. example C:\website\wwwroot to "ftp://ftp.host.com/website/wwwroot" When I do this, the wesbite says "You do not have permission to view this directory or page." And if I just replaced the webconfig via FileZilla manually , the site starts working. I'm using the edtftp library for .NET Any ideas of whats going on ?

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  • Outside of a web browser, does the Javascript programming language do anything? [closed]

    - by Stom
    I often hear people talking about Javascript in conjunction with web browser programming/web page programming and such, and/or form logic, etc. However, outside of a browser, can Javascript source be written and compiled to work outside of a browser, much like C/C++ can work in a terminal window/GUI window with a library? Can I write "Hello World" in Javascript in a console terminal on a modern OS GUI and such like C?

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  • What's a good way to move large amounts of files from one place to another, using the file path?

    - by user165253
    I'm going to move my Winamp library from its current location (in various folders inside My Documents) to My Music, but I can't just drag and drop them, as there's thousands of files within My Documents that I don't want moved. I can get the path of every single music file from Winamp, but I don't know any way to move them all. I'd like some way to maintain their current folder arrangement, and not just dump all the files in a single folder, unorganised.

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  • What about Windows 7 as a web server?

    - by Magnetic_dud
    We have to replace our server (2003-based), and we was thinking that it's time to switch to Windows 2008 r2. Then i saw this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753473.aspx We only need IIS, no ftp/email/AD required It looks like IIS in Win7 and Win2008r2 it's almost the same. How do you think about Windows 7 as a web server? There are some "hidden" limitations? We could even save a lot of money.

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  • I've lost everything [closed]

    - by Melissa
    Possible Duplicate: Recover data loss from accidental quick format My husband downloaded windows 7 to my computer (previously vista) and in the process, deleted everything I had on my computer. He did it without telling me, so nothing was backed up before the transfer. Now, all of my documents, and my entire itunes library are gone. Please tell me there's something I can do. I downloaded itunes again, but nothing is there. Help!

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  • Where are stickies ( Sticky Notes) stored on mac 10.9.3?

    - by user332203
    i deleted an important note on stickies. And i retrieved an old version of it in time machine under preferences / widgets. but the setup appears to have changed in my upgrade to mavericks and I can't open the note. I'm trying to open a "post-mavericks" version in my time machine and I can't find where it is. i saw a post that said look under Library/Preferences/Container, i have no such folder or binary document. Please help.

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  • What is the Windows analog of the Linux watch command?

    - by PeterJCLaw
    I'm looking for a Windows program/script/command line function that works like Linux's watch program. watch periodically calls another program/whatever and shows the result, which is great for refreshing an output file or similar every second: watch cat my-output.txt or, more powerfully: watch grep "fail" my-output.txt I've looked for it in cygwin's library, but it doesn't seem to be present.

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  • mac, netbeans 6.8, c++, sdl, opengl: compilation problems

    - by ufk
    Hiya. I'm trying to properly compile a c++ opengl+sdl application using netbeans 6.8 under Snow Leopard 64-bit. I have libSDL 1.2.14 installed using macports. The script that I try to compile is the following: #ifdef WIN32 #define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN #include <windows.h> #endif #if defined(__APPLE__) && defined(__MACH__) #include <OpenGL/gl.h> // Header File For The OpenGL32 Library #include <OpenGL/glu.h> // Header File For The GLu32 Library #else #include <GL/gl.h> // Header File For The OpenGL32 Library #include <GL/glu.h> // Header File For The GLu32 Library #endif #include "sdl/SDL.h" #include <stdio.h> #include <unistd.h> #include "SDL/SDL_main.h" SDL_Surface *screen=NULL; GLfloat rtri; // Angle For The Triangle ( NEW ) GLfloat rquad; // Angle For The Quad ( NEW ) void InitGL(int Width, int Height) // We call this right after our OpenGL window is created. { glViewport(0, 0, Width, Height); glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); // This Will Clear The Background Color To Black glClearDepth(1.0); // Enables Clearing Of The Depth Buffer glDepthFunc(GL_LESS); // The Type Of Depth Test To Do glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); // Enables Depth Testing glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH); // Enables Smooth Color Shading glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The Projection Matrix gluPerspective(45.0f,(GLfloat)Width/(GLfloat)Height,0.1f,100.0f); // Calculate The Aspect Ratio Of The Window glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); } /* The main drawing function. */ int DrawGLScene() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); // Clear The Screen And The Depth Buffer glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The View glTranslatef(-1.5f,0.0f,-6.0f); // Move Left 1.5 Units And Into The Screen 6.0 glRotatef(rtri,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Rotate The Triangle On The Y axis ( NEW ) // draw a triangle glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES); // Begin Drawing Triangles glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Red glVertex3f( 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Top Of Triangle (Front) glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Green glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Left Of Triangle (Front) glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Blue glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Right Of Triangle (Front) glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Red glVertex3f( 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Top Of Triangle (Right) glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Blue glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Left Of Triangle (Right) glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Green glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f); // Right Of Triangle (Right) glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Red glVertex3f( 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Top Of Triangle (Back) glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Green glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f); // Left Of Triangle (Back) glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Blue glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f); // Right Of Triangle (Back) glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Red glVertex3f( 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Top Of Triangle (Left) glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Blue glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Left Of Triangle (Left) glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Green glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Right Of Triangle (Left) glEnd(); glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The Current Modelview Matrix glTranslatef(1.5f,0.0f,-7.0f); // Move Right 1.5 Units And Into The Screen 6.0 glRotatef(rquad,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Rotate The Quad On The X axis ( NEW ) glBegin(GL_QUADS); // Start Drawing Quads glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Set The Color To Green glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Top) glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Top) glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Top) glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Top) glColor3f(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f); // Set The Color To Orange glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Bottom) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Bottom) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Bottom) glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Bottom) glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // Set The Color To Red glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Front) glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Front) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Front) glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Front) glColor3f(1.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // Set The Color To Yellow glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Back) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Back) glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Back) glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Back) glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Set The Color To Blue glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Left) glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Left) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Left) glVertex3f(-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Left) glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // Set The Color To Violet glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f); // Top Right Of The Quad (Right) glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Left Of The Quad (Right) glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Left Of The Quad (Right) glVertex3f( 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f); // Bottom Right Of The Quad (Right) glEnd(); // Done Drawing A Quad rtri+=0.02f; // Increase The Rotation Variable For The Triangle ( NEW ) rquad-=0.015f; // Decrease The Rotation Variable For The Quad ( NEW ) // swap buffers to display, since we're double buffered. SDL_GL_SwapBuffers(); return true; } int main(int argc,char* argv[]) { int done; /*variable to hold the file name of the image to be loaded *In real world error handling code would precede this */ /* Initialize SDL for video output */ if ( SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0 ) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to initialize SDL: %s\n", SDL_GetError()); exit(1); } atexit(SDL_Quit); /* Create a 640x480 OpenGL screen */ if ( SDL_SetVideoMode(640, 480, 0, SDL_OPENGL) == NULL ) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to create OpenGL screen: %s\n", SDL_GetError()); SDL_Quit(); exit(2); } SDL_WM_SetCaption("another example",NULL); InitGL(640,480); done=0; while (! done) { DrawGLScene(); SDL_Event event; while ( SDL_PollEvent(&event) ) { if ( event.type == SDL_QUIT ) { done = 1; } if ( event.type == SDL_KEYDOWN ) { if ( event.key.keysym.sym == SDLK_ESCAPE ) { done = 1; } } } } } Under netbeans project properties I configured the following: C++ Compiler: added /usr/X11/include and /opt/local/include to the include directories. Linker: I added the following libraries: /usr/X11/lib/libGL.dylib /usr/X11/lib/libGLU.dylib /opt/local/lib/libSDL.dylib /opt/local/lib/libSDLmain.a Now... before I included SDL_main.h and libSDLMain.a to the project I got an error unknown reference to _main then I read here: http://www.libsdl.org/faq.php?action=listentries&category=7#55 that I need to include SDL_Main.h and to link libSDLMain.so to my project. after doing so, the project still won't compile. this is the Netbeans output: /usr/bin/make -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk SUBPROJECTS= .clean-conf rm -f -r build/Debug rm -f dist/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/opengl2 CLEAN SUCCESSFUL (total time: 79ms) /usr/bin/make -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk SUBPROJECTS= .build-conf /usr/bin/make -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk dist/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/opengl2 mkdir -p build/Debug/GNU-MacOSX rm -f build/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/main.o.d g++ -c -g -I/usr/X11/include -I/opt/local/include -MMD -MP -MF build/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/main.o.d -o build/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/main.o main.cpp mkdir -p dist/Debug/GNU-MacOSX g++ -o dist/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/opengl2 build/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/main.o /opt/local/lib/libIL.dylib /opt/local/lib/libILU.dylib /opt/local/lib/libILUT.dylib /usr/X11/lib/libGL.dylib /usr/X11/lib/libGLU.dylib /opt/local/lib/libSDL.dylib /opt/local/lib/libSDLmain.a Undefined symbols: "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSMenu", referenced from: __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "__objc_empty_cache", referenced from: _OBJC_METACLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _OBJC_CLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFBundleGetMainBundle", referenced from: -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFURLGetFileSystemRepresentation", referenced from: -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_NSApp", referenced from: _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSProcessInfo", referenced from: __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFURLCreateCopyDeletingLastPathComponent", referenced from: -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_NSAllocateMemoryPages", referenced from: -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "___CFConstantStringClassReference", referenced from: cfstring=CFBundleName in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring= in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=About in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Hide in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=h in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Hide Others in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Show All in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Quit in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=q in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Window in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=m in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) cfstring=Minimize in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSAutoreleasePool", referenced from: __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CPSEnableForegroundOperation", referenced from: _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CPSGetCurrentProcess", referenced from: _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFBundleCopyBundleURL", referenced from: -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_NSDeallocateMemoryPages", referenced from: -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSApplication", referenced from: l_OBJC_$_CATEGORY_NSApplication_$_SDLApplication in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CPSSetFrontProcess", referenced from: _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSString", referenced from: l_OBJC_$_CATEGORY_NSString_$_ReplaceSubString in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSObject", referenced from: _OBJC_CLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFBundleGetInfoDictionary", referenced from: _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_CFRelease", referenced from: -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[SDLMain setupWorkingDirectory:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "__objc_empty_vtable", referenced from: _OBJC_METACLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _OBJC_CLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSMenuItem", referenced from: __objc_classrefs__DATA@0 in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_objc_msgSend", referenced from: -[SDLMain application:openFile:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[SDLMain applicationDidFinishLaunching:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) -[NSString(ReplaceSubString) stringByReplacingRange:with:] in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _main in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_OBJC_METACLASS_$_NSObject", referenced from: _OBJC_METACLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) _OBJC_METACLASS_$_SDLMain in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) "_objc_msgSend_fixup", referenced from: l_objc_msgSend_fixup_objectForKey_ in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) l_objc_msgSend_fixup_length in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) l_objc_msgSend_fixup_alloc in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) l_objc_msgSend_fixup_release in libSDLmain.a(SDLMain.o) ld: symbol(s) not found collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[2]: *** [dist/Debug/GNU-MacOSX/opengl2] Error 1 make[1]: *** [.build-conf] Error 2 make: *** [.build-impl] Error 2 BUILD FAILED (exit value 2, total time: 263ms) any ideas? thanks a lot!

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  • Failed to load Cairo

    - by Ruben
    We're running a Ubuntu Server VM with OpenCPU (that's an API for R). Unfortunately we're unable to get the Cairo R package to play, the error message (from within R) is as follows: unable to load shared object '/usr/lib/R/library/grDevices/libs//cairo.so': /usr/local/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0: undefined symbol: g_rec_mutex_lock 2: In png() : failed to load cairo DLL We've tried purging and reinstalling cairo and libcairo and we both tried building the Cairo R package from source as well as using a precompiled version from Michael Rutter's ppas (all seems to work without errors). Unfortunately none of us are real Ubuntu natives and thus we probably did some pretty amateur debugging. Any push in the right direction would be very appreciated. For example, we couldn't figure out how to reinstall whatever libgmodule refers to.

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  • Using JSON.NET for dynamic JSON parsing

    - by Rick Strahl
    With the release of ASP.NET Web API as part of .NET 4.5 and MVC 4.0, JSON.NET has effectively pushed out the .NET native serializers to become the default serializer for Web API. JSON.NET is vastly more flexible than the built in DataContractJsonSerializer or the older JavaScript serializer. The DataContractSerializer in particular has been very problematic in the past because it can't deal with untyped objects for serialization - like values of type object, or anonymous types which are quite common these days. The JavaScript Serializer that came before it actually does support non-typed objects for serialization but it can't do anything with untyped data coming in from JavaScript and it's overall model of extensibility was pretty limited (JavaScript Serializer is what MVC uses for JSON responses). JSON.NET provides a robust JSON serializer that has both high level and low level components, supports binary JSON, JSON contracts, Xml to JSON conversion, LINQ to JSON and many, many more features than either of the built in serializers. ASP.NET Web API now uses JSON.NET as its default serializer and is now pulled in as a NuGet dependency into Web API projects, which is great. Dynamic JSON Parsing One of the features that I think is getting ever more important is the ability to serialize and deserialize arbitrary JSON content dynamically - that is without mapping the JSON captured directly into a .NET type as DataContractSerializer or the JavaScript Serializers do. Sometimes it isn't possible to map types due to the differences in languages (think collections, dictionaries etc), and other times you simply don't have the structures in place or don't want to create them to actually import the data. If this topic sounds familiar - you're right! I wrote about dynamic JSON parsing a few months back before JSON.NET was added to Web API and when Web API and the System.Net HttpClient libraries included the System.Json classes like JsonObject and JsonArray. With the inclusion of JSON.NET in Web API these classes are now obsolete and didn't ship with Web API or the client libraries. I re-linked my original post to this one. In this post I'll discus JToken, JObject and JArray which are the dynamic JSON objects that make it very easy to create and retrieve JSON content on the fly without underlying types. Why Dynamic JSON? So, why Dynamic JSON parsing rather than strongly typed parsing? Since applications are interacting more and more with third party services it becomes ever more important to have easy access to those services with easy JSON parsing. Sometimes it just makes lot of sense to pull just a small amount of data out of large JSON document received from a service, because the third party service isn't directly related to your application's logic most of the time - and it makes little sense to map the entire service structure in your application. For example, recently I worked with the Google Maps Places API to return information about businesses close to me (or rather the app's) location. The Google API returns a ton of information that my application had no interest in - all I needed was few values out of the data. Dynamic JSON parsing makes it possible to map this data, without having to map the entire API to a C# data structure. Instead I could pull out the three or four values I needed from the API and directly store it on my business entities that needed to receive the data - no need to map the entire Maps API structure. Getting JSON.NET The easiest way to use JSON.NET is to grab it via NuGet and add it as a reference to your project. You can add it to your project with: PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json From the Package Manager Console or by using Manage NuGet Packages in your project References. As mentioned if you're using ASP.NET Web API or MVC 4 JSON.NET will be automatically added to your project. Alternately you can also go to the CodePlex site and download the latest version including source code: http://json.codeplex.com/ Creating JSON on the fly with JObject and JArray Let's start with creating some JSON on the fly. It's super easy to create a dynamic object structure with any of the JToken derived JSON.NET objects. The most common JToken derived classes you are likely to use are JObject and JArray. JToken implements IDynamicMetaProvider and so uses the dynamic  keyword extensively to make it intuitive to create object structures and turn them into JSON via dynamic object syntax. Here's an example of creating a music album structure with child songs using JObject for the base object and songs and JArray for the actual collection of songs:[TestMethod] public void JObjectOutputTest() { // strong typed instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here using class interface jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // or cast to dynamic to dynamically add/read properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; album.Artist = "AC/DC"; album.YearReleased = 1976; album.Songs = new JArray() as dynamic; dynamic song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; song.SongLength = "4:11"; album.Songs.Add(song); song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Love at First Feel"; song.SongLength = "3:10"; album.Songs.Add(song); Console.WriteLine(album.ToString()); } This produces a complete JSON structure: { "Entered": "2012-08-18T13:26:37.7137482-10:00", "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Artist": "AC/DC", "YearReleased": 1976, "Songs": [ { "SongName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "SongLength": "4:11" }, { "SongName": "Love at First Feel", "SongLength": "3:10" } ] } Notice that JSON.NET does a nice job formatting the JSON, so it's easy to read and paste into blog posts :-). JSON.NET includes a bunch of configuration options that control how JSON is generated. Typically the defaults are just fine, but you can override with the JsonSettings object for most operations. The important thing about this code is that there's no explicit type used for holding the values to serialize to JSON. Rather the JSON.NET objects are the containers that receive the data as I build up my JSON structure dynamically, simply by adding properties. This means this code can be entirely driven at runtime without compile time restraints of structure for the JSON output. Here I use JObject to create a album 'object' and immediately cast it to dynamic. JObject() is kind of similar in behavior to ExpandoObject in that it allows you to add properties by simply assigning to them. Internally, JObject values are stored in pseudo collections of key value pairs that are exposed as properties through the IDynamicMetaObject interface exposed in JSON.NET's JToken base class. For objects the syntax is very clean - you add simple typed values as properties. For objects and arrays you have to explicitly create new JObject or JArray, cast them to dynamic and then add properties and items to them. Always remember though these values are dynamic - which means no Intellisense and no compiler type checking. It's up to you to ensure that the names and values you create are accessed consistently and without typos in your code. Note that you can also access the JObject instance directly (not as dynamic) and get access to the underlying JObject type. This means you can assign properties by string, which can be useful for fully data driven JSON generation from other structures. Below you can see both styles of access next to each other:// strong type instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // expando style instance you can just 'use' properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; JContainer (the base class for JObject and JArray) is a collection so you can also iterate over the properties at runtime easily:foreach (var item in jsonObject) { Console.WriteLine(item.Key + " " + item.Value.ToString()); } The functionality of the JSON objects are very similar to .NET's ExpandObject and if you used it before, you're already familiar with how the dynamic interfaces to the JSON objects works. Importing JSON with JObject.Parse() and JArray.Parse() The JValue structure supports importing JSON via the Parse() and Load() methods which can read JSON data from a string or various streams respectively. Essentially JValue includes the core JSON parsing to turn a JSON string into a collection of JsonValue objects that can be then referenced using familiar dynamic object syntax. Here's a simple example:public void JValueParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"{""Name"":""Rick"",""Company"":""West Wind"", ""Entered"":""2012-03-16T00:03:33.245-10:00""}"; dynamic json = JValue.Parse(jsonString); // values require casting string name = json.Name; string company = json.Company; DateTime entered = json.Entered; Assert.AreEqual(name, "Rick"); Assert.AreEqual(company, "West Wind"); } The JSON string represents an object with three properties which is parsed into a JObject class and cast to dynamic. Once cast to dynamic I can then go ahead and access the object using familiar object syntax. Note that the actual values - json.Name, json.Company, json.Entered - are actually of type JToken and I have to cast them to their appropriate types first before I can do type comparisons as in the Asserts at the end of the test method. This is required because of the way that dynamic types work which can't determine the type based on the method signature of the Assert.AreEqual(object,object) method. I have to either assign the dynamic value to a variable as I did above, or explicitly cast ( (string) json.Name) in the actual method call. The JSON structure can be much more complex than this simple example. Here's another example of an array of albums serialized to JSON and then parsed through with JsonValue():[TestMethod] public void JsonArrayParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"[ { ""Id"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""AlbumName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""Artist"": ""AC/DC"", ""YearReleased"": 1976, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2810521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61kTaH-uZBL._AA115_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/…ASIN=B00008BXJ4"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""SongLength"": ""4:11"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Love at First Feel"", ""SongLength"": ""3:10"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Big Balls"", ""SongLength"": ""2:38"" } ] }, { ""Id"": ""7b919432"", ""AlbumName"": ""End of the Silence"", ""Artist"": ""Henry Rollins Band"", ""YearReleased"": 1992, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2800521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FO3rb1tuL._SL160_AA160_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/End-Silence-Rollins-Band/dp/B0000040OX/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1302232195&sr=8-5"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Low Self Opinion"", ""SongLength"": ""5:24"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Grip"", ""SongLength"": ""4:51"" } ] } ]"; JArray jsonVal = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; dynamic albums = jsonVal; foreach (dynamic album in albums) { Console.WriteLine(album.AlbumName + " (" + album.YearReleased.ToString() + ")"); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { Console.WriteLine("\t" + song.SongName); } } Console.WriteLine(albums[0].AlbumName); Console.WriteLine(albums[0].Songs[1].SongName); } JObject and JArray in ASP.NET Web API Of course these types also work in ASP.NET Web API controller methods. If you want you can accept parameters using these object or return them back to the server. The following contrived example receives dynamic JSON input, and then creates a new dynamic JSON object and returns it based on data from the first:[HttpPost] public JObject PostAlbumJObject(JObject jAlbum) { // dynamic input from inbound JSON dynamic album = jAlbum; // create a new JSON object to write out dynamic newAlbum = new JObject(); // Create properties on the new instance // with values from the first newAlbum.AlbumName = album.AlbumName + " New"; newAlbum.NewProperty = "something new"; newAlbum.Songs = new JArray(); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { song.SongName = song.SongName + " New"; newAlbum.Songs.Add(song); } return newAlbum; } The raw POST request to the server looks something like this: POST http://localhost/aspnetwebapi/samples/PostAlbumJObject HTTP/1.1User-Agent: FiddlerContent-type: application/jsonHost: localhostContent-Length: 88 {AlbumName: "Dirty Deeds",Songs:[ { SongName: "Problem Child"},{ SongName: "Squealer"}]} and the output that comes back looks like this: {  "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds New",  "NewProperty": "something new",  "Songs": [    {      "SongName": "Problem Child New"    },    {      "SongName": "Squealer New"    }  ]} The original values are echoed back with something extra appended to demonstrate that we're working with a new object. When you receive or return a JObject, JValue, JToken or JArray instance in a Web API method, Web API ignores normal content negotiation and assumes your content is going to be received and returned as JSON, so effectively the parameter and result type explicitly determines the input and output format which is nice. Dynamic to Strong Type Mapping You can also map JObject and JArray instances to a strongly typed object, so you can mix dynamic and static typing in the same piece of code. Using the 2 Album jsonString shown earlier, the code below takes an array of albums and picks out only a single album and casts that album to a static Album instance.[TestMethod] public void JsonParseToStrongTypeTest() { JArray albums = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; // pick out one album JObject jalbum = albums[0] as JObject; // Copy to a static Album instance Album album = jalbum.ToObject<Album>(); Assert.IsNotNull(album); Assert.AreEqual(album.AlbumName,jalbum.Value<string>("AlbumName")); Assert.IsTrue(album.Songs.Count > 0); } This is pretty damn useful for the scenario I mentioned earlier - you can read a large chunk of JSON and dynamically walk the property hierarchy down to the item you want to access, and then either access the specific item dynamically (as shown earlier) or map a part of the JSON to a strongly typed object. That's very powerful if you think about it - it leaves you in total control to decide what's dynamic and what's static. Strongly typed JSON Parsing With all this talk of dynamic let's not forget that JSON.NET of course also does strongly typed serialization which is drop dead easy. Here's a simple example on how to serialize and deserialize an object with JSON.NET:[TestMethod] public void StronglyTypedSerializationTest() { // Demonstrate deserialization from a raw string var album = new Album() { AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", Artist = "AC/DC", Entered = DateTime.Now, YearReleased = 1976, Songs = new List<Song>() { new Song() { SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", SongLength = "4:11" }, new Song() { SongName = "Love at First Feel", SongLength = "3:10" } } }; // serialize to string string json2 = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(album,Formatting.Indented); Console.WriteLine(json2); // make sure we can serialize back var album2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Album>(json2); Assert.IsNotNull(album2); Assert.IsTrue(album2.AlbumName == "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"); Assert.IsTrue(album2.Songs.Count == 2); } JsonConvert is a high level static class that wraps lower level functionality, but you can also use the JsonSerializer class, which allows you to serialize/parse to and from streams. It's a little more work, but gives you a bit more control. The functionality available is easy to discover with Intellisense, and that's good because there's not a lot in the way of documentation that's actually useful. Summary JSON.NET is a pretty complete JSON implementation with lots of different choices for JSON parsing from dynamic parsing to static serialization, to complex querying of JSON objects using LINQ. It's good to see this open source library getting integrated into .NET, and pushing out the old and tired stock .NET parsers so that we finally have a bit more flexibility - and extensibility - in our JSON parsing. Good to go! Resources Sample Test Project http://json.codeplex.com/© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  Web Api  AJAX   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Where is my app.config for SSIS?

    Sometimes when working with SSIS you need to add or change settings in the .NET application configuration file, which can be a bit confusing when you are building a SSIS package not an application. First of all lets review a couple of examples where you may need to do this. You are using referencing an assembly in a Script Task that uses Enterprise Library (aka EntLib), so you need to add the relevant configuration sections and settings, perhaps for the logging application block. You are using using Enterprise Library in a custom task or component, and again you need to add the relevant configuration sections and settings. You are using a web service with Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 and hosting the proxy in SSIS, in an assembly used by your package, and need to add the configuration sections and settings. You need to change behaviours of the .NET framework which can be influenced by a configuration file, such as the System.Net.Mail default SMTP settings. Perhaps you wish to configure System.Net and the httpWebRequest header for parsing unsafe header (useUnsafeHeaderParsing), which will change the way the HTTP Connection manager behaves. You are consuming a WCF service and wish to specify the endpoint in configuration. There are no doubt plenty more examples but each of these requires us to identify the correct configuration file and and make the relevant changes. There are actually several configuration files, each used by a different execution host depending on how you are working with the SSIS package. The folders we need to look in will actually vary depending on the version of SQL Server as well as the processor architecture, but most are all what we can call the Binn folder. The SQL Server 2005 Binn folder is at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\, compared to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\ for SQL Server 2008. If you are on a 64-bit machine then you will see C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\ for the 32-bit executables and C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\ for 64-bit, so be sure to check all relevant locations. Of course SQL Server 2008 may have a C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\ on a 64-bit machine too. To recap, the version of SQL Server determines if you look in the 90 or 100 sub-folder under SQL Server in Program Files (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\nn\) . If you are running a 64-bit operating system then you will have two instances program files, C:\Program Files (x86)\ for 32-bit and  C:\Program Files\ for 64-bit. You may wish to check both depending on what you are doing, but this is covered more under each section below. There are a total of five specific configuration files that you may need to change, each one is detailed below: DTExec.exe.config DTExec.exe is the standalone command line tool used for executing SSIS packages, and therefore it is an execution host with an app.config file. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DTExec.exe.config The file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders. DtsDebugHost.exe.config DtsDebugHost.exe is the execution host used by Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) / Visual Studio when executing a package from the designer in debug mode, which is the default behaviour. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DtsDebugHost.exe.config The file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders. This may surprise some people as Visual Studio is only 32-bit, but thankfully the debugger supports both. This can be set in the project properties, see the Run64BitRuntime property (true or false) in the Debugging pane of the Project Properties. dtshost.exe.config dtshost.exe is the execution host used by what I think of as the built-in features of SQL Server such as SQL Server Agent e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\dtshost.exe.config This file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders devenv.exe.config Something slightly different is devenv.exe which is Visual Studio. This configuration file may also need changing if you need a feature at design-time such as in a Task Editor or Connection Manager editor. Visual Studio 2005 for SQL Server 2005  - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config Visual Studio 2008 for SQL Server 2008  - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config Visual Studio is only available for 32-bit so on a 64-bit machine you will have to look in C:\Program Files (x86)\ only. DTExecUI.exe.config The DTExec UI tool can also have a configuration file and these cab be found under the Tools folders for SQL Sever as shown below. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\DTExecUI.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\DTExecUI.exe A configuration file may not exist, but if you can find the matching executable you know you are in the right place so can go ahead and add a new file yourself. In summary we have covered the assembly configuration files for all of the standard methods of building and running a SSIS package, but obviously if you are working programmatically you will need to make the relevant modifications to your program’s app.config as well.

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  • Introducing the Earthquake Locator – A Bing Maps Silverlight Application, part 1

    - by Bobby Diaz
    Update: Live demo and source code now available!  The recent wave of earthquakes (no pun intended) being reported in the news got me wondering about the frequency and severity of earthquakes around the world. Since I’ve been doing a lot of Silverlight development lately, I decided to scratch my curiosity with a nice little Bing Maps application that will show the location and relative strength of recent seismic activity. Here is a list of technologies this application will utilize, so be sure to have everything downloaded and installed if you plan on following along. Silverlight 3 WCF RIA Services Bing Maps Silverlight Control * Managed Extensibility Framework (optional) MVVM Light Toolkit (optional) log4net (optional) * If you are new to Bing Maps or have not signed up for a Developer Account, you will need to visit www.bingmapsportal.com to request a Bing Maps key for your application. Getting Started We start out by creating a new Silverlight Application called EarthquakeLocator and specify that we want to automatically create the Web Application Project with RIA Services enabled. I cleaned up the web app by removing the Default.aspx and EarthquakeLocatorTestPage.html. Then I renamed the EarthquakeLocatorTestPage.aspx to Default.aspx and set it as my start page. I also set the development server to use a specific port, as shown below. RIA Services Next, I created a Services folder in the EarthquakeLocator.Web project and added a new Domain Service Class called EarthquakeService.cs. This is the RIA Services Domain Service that will provide earthquake data for our client application. I am not using LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework, so I will use the <empty domain service class> option. We will be pulling data from an external Atom feed, but this example could just as easily pull data from a database or another web service. This is an important distinction to point out because each scenario I just mentioned could potentially use a different Domain Service base class (i.e. LinqToSqlDomainService<TDataContext>). Now we can start adding Query methods to our EarthquakeService that pull data from the USGS web site. Here is the complete code for our service class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.ServiceModel.Syndication; using System.Web.DomainServices; using System.Web.Ria; using System.Xml; using log4net; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services {     /// <summary>     /// Provides earthquake data to client applications.     /// </summary>     [EnableClientAccess()]     public class EarthquakeService : DomainService     {         private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(EarthquakeService));           // USGS Data Feeds: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/         private const string FeedForPreviousDay =             "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/1day-M2.5.xml";         private const string FeedForPreviousWeek =             "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M2.5.xml";           /// <summary>         /// Gets the earthquake data for the previous week.         /// </summary>         /// <returns>A queryable collection of <see cref="Earthquake"/> objects.</returns>         public IQueryable<Earthquake> GetEarthquakes()         {             var feed = GetFeed(FeedForPreviousWeek);             var list = new List<Earthquake>();               if ( feed != null )             {                 foreach ( var entry in feed.Items )                 {                     var quake = CreateEarthquake(entry);                     if ( quake != null )                     {                         list.Add(quake);                     }                 }             }               return list.AsQueryable();         }           /// <summary>         /// Creates an <see cref="Earthquake"/> object for each entry in the Atom feed.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="entry">The Atom entry.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         private Earthquake CreateEarthquake(SyndicationItem entry)         {             Earthquake quake = null;             string title = entry.Title.Text;             string summary = entry.Summary.Text;             string point = GetElementValue<String>(entry, "point");             string depth = GetElementValue<String>(entry, "elev");             string utcTime = null;             string localTime = null;             string depthDesc = null;             double? magnitude = null;             double? latitude = null;             double? longitude = null;             double? depthKm = null;               if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(title) && title.StartsWith("M") )             {                 title = title.Substring(2, title.IndexOf(',')-3).Trim();                 magnitude = TryParse(title);             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(point) )             {                 var values = point.Split(' ');                 if ( values.Length == 2 )                 {                     latitude = TryParse(values[0]);                     longitude = TryParse(values[1]);                 }             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(depth) )             {                 depthKm = TryParse(depth);                 if ( depthKm != null )                 {                     depthKm = Math.Round((-1 * depthKm.Value) / 100, 2);                 }             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(summary) )             {                 summary = summary.Replace("</p>", "");                 var values = summary.Split(                     new string[] { "<p>" },                     StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);                   if ( values.Length == 3 )                 {                     var times = values[1].Split(                         new string[] { "<br>" },                         StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);                       if ( times.Length > 0 )                     {                         utcTime = times[0];                     }                     if ( times.Length > 1 )                     {                         localTime = times[1];                     }                       depthDesc = values[2];                     depthDesc = "Depth: " + depthDesc.Substring(depthDesc.IndexOf(":") + 2);                 }             }               if ( latitude != null && longitude != null )             {                 quake = new Earthquake()                 {                     Id = entry.Id,                     Title = entry.Title.Text,                     Summary = entry.Summary.Text,                     Date = entry.LastUpdatedTime.DateTime,                     Url = entry.Links.Select(l => Path.Combine(l.BaseUri.OriginalString,                         l.Uri.OriginalString)).FirstOrDefault(),                     Age = entry.Categories.Where(c => c.Label == "Age")                         .Select(c => c.Name).FirstOrDefault(),                     Magnitude = magnitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     Latitude = latitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     Longitude = longitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     DepthInKm = depthKm.GetValueOrDefault(),                     DepthDesc = depthDesc,                     UtcTime = utcTime,                     LocalTime = localTime                 };             }               return quake;         }           private T GetElementValue<T>(SyndicationItem entry, String name)         {             var el = entry.ElementExtensions.Where(e => e.OuterName == name).FirstOrDefault();             T value = default(T);               if ( el != null )             {                 value = el.GetObject<T>();             }               return value;         }           private double? TryParse(String value)         {             double d;             if ( Double.TryParse(value, out d) )             {                 return d;             }             return null;         }           /// <summary>         /// Gets the feed at the specified URL.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="url">The URL.</param>         /// <returns>A <see cref="SyndicationFeed"/> object.</returns>         public static SyndicationFeed GetFeed(String url)         {             SyndicationFeed feed = null;               try             {                 log.Debug("Loading RSS feed: " + url);                   using ( var reader = XmlReader.Create(url) )                 {                     feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);                 }             }             catch ( Exception ex )             {                 log.Error("Error occurred while loading RSS feed: " + url, ex);             }               return feed;         }     } }   The only method that will be generated in the client side proxy class, EarthquakeContext, will be the GetEarthquakes() method. The reason being that it is the only public instance method and it returns an IQueryable<Earthquake> collection that can be consumed by the client application. GetEarthquakes() calls the static GetFeed(String) method, which utilizes the built in SyndicationFeed API to load the external data feed. You will need to add a reference to the System.ServiceModel.Web library in order to take advantage of the RSS/Atom reader. The API will also allow you to create your own feeds to serve up in your applications. Model I have also created a Model folder and added a new class, Earthquake.cs. The Earthquake object will hold the various properties returned from the Atom feed. Here is a sample of the code for that class. Notice the [Key] attribute on the Id property, which is required by RIA Services to uniquely identify the entity. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Runtime.Serialization; using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model {     /// <summary>     /// Represents an earthquake occurrence and related information.     /// </summary>     [DataContract]     public class Earthquake     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the id.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The id.</value>         [Key]         [DataMember]         public string Id { get; set; }           /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the title.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The title.</value>         [DataMember]         public string Title { get; set; }           /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the summary.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The summary.</value>         [DataMember]         public string Summary { get; set; }           // additional properties omitted     } }   View Model The recent trend to use the MVVM pattern for WPF and Silverlight provides a great way to separate the data and behavior logic out of the user interface layer of your client applications. I have chosen to use the MVVM Light Toolkit for the Earthquake Locator, but there are other options out there if you prefer another library. That said, I went ahead and created a ViewModel folder in the Silverlight project and added a EarthquakeViewModel class that derives from ViewModelBase. Here is the code: using System; using System.Collections.ObjectModel; using System.ComponentModel.Composition; using System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting; using Microsoft.Maps.MapControl; using GalaSoft.MvvmLight; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model; using EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.ViewModel {     /// <summary>     /// Provides data for views displaying earthquake information.     /// </summary>     public class EarthquakeViewModel : ViewModelBase     {         [Import]         public EarthquakeContext Context;           /// <summary>         /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="EarthquakeViewModel"/> class.         /// </summary>         public EarthquakeViewModel()         {             var catalog = new AssemblyCatalog(GetType().Assembly);             var container = new CompositionContainer(catalog);             container.ComposeParts(this);             Initialize();         }           /// <summary>         /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="EarthquakeViewModel"/> class.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="context">The context.</param>         public EarthquakeViewModel(EarthquakeContext context)         {             Context = context;             Initialize();         }           private void Initialize()         {             MapCenter = new Location(20, -170);             ZoomLevel = 2;         }           #region Private Methods           private void OnAutoLoadDataChanged()         {             LoadEarthquakes();         }           private void LoadEarthquakes()         {             var query = Context.GetEarthquakesQuery();             Context.Earthquakes.Clear();               Context.Load(query, (op) =>             {                 if ( !op.HasError )                 {                     foreach ( var item in op.Entities )                     {                         Earthquakes.Add(item);                     }                 }             }, null);         }           #endregion Private Methods           #region Properties           private bool autoLoadData;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether to auto load data.         /// </summary>         /// <value><c>true</c> if auto loading data; otherwise, <c>false</c>.</value>         public bool AutoLoadData         {             get { return autoLoadData; }             set             {                 if ( autoLoadData != value )                 {                     autoLoadData = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("AutoLoadData");                     OnAutoLoadDataChanged();                 }             }         }           private ObservableCollection<Earthquake> earthquakes;         /// <summary>         /// Gets the collection of earthquakes to display.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The collection of earthquakes.</value>         public ObservableCollection<Earthquake> Earthquakes         {             get             {                 if ( earthquakes == null )                 {                     earthquakes = new ObservableCollection<Earthquake>();                 }                   return earthquakes;             }         }           private Location mapCenter;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the map center.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The map center.</value>         public Location MapCenter         {             get { return mapCenter; }             set             {                 if ( mapCenter != value )                 {                     mapCenter = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("MapCenter");                 }             }         }           private double zoomLevel;         /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the zoom level.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The zoom level.</value>         public double ZoomLevel         {             get { return zoomLevel; }             set             {                 if ( zoomLevel != value )                 {                     zoomLevel = value;                     RaisePropertyChanged("ZoomLevel");                 }             }         }           #endregion Properties     } }   The EarthquakeViewModel class contains all of the properties that will be bound to by the various controls in our views. Be sure to read through the LoadEarthquakes() method, which handles calling the GetEarthquakes() method in our EarthquakeService via the EarthquakeContext proxy, and also transfers the loaded entities into the view model’s Earthquakes collection. Another thing to notice is what’s going on in the default constructor. I chose to use the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) for my composition needs, but you can use any dependency injection library or none at all. To allow the EarthquakeContext class to be discoverable by MEF, I added the following partial class so that I could supply the appropriate [Export] attribute: using System; using System.ComponentModel.Composition;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Services {     /// <summary>     /// The client side proxy for the EarthquakeService class.     /// </summary>     [Export]     public partial class EarthquakeContext     {     } }   One last piece I wanted to point out before moving on to the user interface, I added a client side partial class for the Earthquake entity that contains helper properties that we will bind to later: using System;   namespace EarthquakeLocator.Web.Model {     /// <summary>     /// Represents an earthquake occurrence and related information.     /// </summary>     public partial class Earthquake     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets the location based on the current Latitude/Longitude.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The location.</value>         public string Location         {             get { return String.Format("{0},{1}", Latitude, Longitude); }         }           /// <summary>         /// Gets the size based on the Magnitude.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The size.</value>         public double Size         {             get { return (Magnitude * 3); }         }     } }   View Now the fun part! Usually, I would create a Views folder to place all of my View controls in, but I took the easy way out and added the following XAML code to the default MainPage.xaml file. Be sure to add the bing prefix associating the Microsoft.Maps.MapControl namespace after adding the assembly reference to your project. The MVVM Light Toolkit project templates come with a ViewModelLocator class that you can use via a static resource, but I am instantiating the EarthquakeViewModel directly in my user control. I am setting the AutoLoadData property to true as a way to trigger the LoadEarthquakes() method call. The MapItemsControl found within the <bing:Map> control binds its ItemsSource property to the Earthquakes collection of the view model, and since it is an ObservableCollection<T>, we get the automatic two way data binding via the INotifyCollectionChanged interface. <UserControl x:Class="EarthquakeLocator.MainPage"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"     xmlns:bing="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Maps.MapControl;assembly=Microsoft.Maps.MapControl"     xmlns:vm="clr-namespace:EarthquakeLocator.ViewModel"     mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480" >     <UserControl.Resources>         <DataTemplate x:Key="EarthquakeTemplate">             <Ellipse Fill="Red" Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="1"                      Width="{Binding Size}" Height="{Binding Size}"                      bing:MapLayer.Position="{Binding Location}"                      bing:MapLayer.PositionOrigin="Center">                 <ToolTipService.ToolTip>                     <StackPanel>                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding UtcTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding LocalTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding DepthDesc}" />                     </StackPanel>                 </ToolTipService.ToolTip>             </Ellipse>         </DataTemplate>     </UserControl.Resources>       <UserControl.DataContext>         <vm:EarthquakeViewModel AutoLoadData="True" />     </UserControl.DataContext>       <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">           <bing:Map x:Name="map" CredentialsProvider="--Your-Bing-Maps-Key--"                   Center="{Binding MapCenter, Mode=TwoWay}"                   ZoomLevel="{Binding ZoomLevel, Mode=TwoWay}">             <bing:MapItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Earthquakes}"                                   ItemTemplate="{StaticResource EarthquakeTemplate}" />         </bing:Map>       </Grid> </UserControl>   The EarthquakeTemplate defines the Ellipse that will represent each earthquake, the Width and Height that are determined by the Magnitude, the Position on the map, and also the tooltip that will appear when we mouse over each data point. Running the application will give us the following result (shown with a tooltip example): That concludes this portion of our show but I plan on implementing additional functionality in later blog posts. Be sure to come back soon to see the next installments in this series. Enjoy!   Additional Resources USGS Earthquake Data Feeds Brad Abrams shows how RIA Services and MVVM can work together

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  • Where does ASP.NET Web API Fit?

    - by Rick Strahl
    With the pending release of ASP.NET MVC 4 and the new ASP.NET Web API, there has been a lot of discussion of where the new Web API technology fits in the ASP.NET Web stack. There are a lot of choices to build HTTP based applications available now on the stack - we've come a long way from when WebForms and Http Handlers/Modules where the only real options. Today we have WebForms, MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET AJAX, WCF REST and now Web API as well as the core ASP.NET runtime to choose to build HTTP content with. Web API definitely squarely addresses the 'API' aspect - building consumable services - rather than HTML content, but even to that end there are a lot of choices you have today. So where does Web API fit, and when doesn't it? But before we get into that discussion, let's talk about what a Web API is and why we should care. What's a Web API? HTTP 'APIs' (Microsoft's new terminology for a service I guess)  are becoming increasingly more important with the rise of the many devices in use today. Most mobile devices like phones and tablets run Apps that are using data retrieved from the Web over HTTP. Desktop applications are also moving in this direction with more and more online content and synching moving into even traditional desktop applications. The pending Windows 8 release promises an app like platform for both the desktop and other devices, that also emphasizes consuming data from the Cloud. Likewise many Web browser hosted applications these days are relying on rich client functionality to create and manipulate the browser user interface, using AJAX rather than server generated HTML data to load up the user interface with data. These mobile or rich Web applications use their HTTP connection to return data rather than HTML markup in the form of JSON or XML typically. But an API can also serve other kinds of data, like images or other binary files, or even text data and HTML (although that's less common). A Web API is what feeds rich applications with data. ASP.NET Web API aims to service this particular segment of Web development by providing easy semantics to route and handle incoming requests and an easy to use platform to serve HTTP data in just about any content format you choose to create and serve from the server. But .NET already has various HTTP Platforms The .NET stack already includes a number of technologies that provide the ability to create HTTP service back ends, and it has done so since the very beginnings of the .NET platform. From raw HTTP Handlers and Modules in the core ASP.NET runtime, to high level platforms like ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, ASP.NET AJAX and the WCF REST engine (which technically is not ASP.NET, but can integrate with it), you've always been able to handle just about any kind of HTTP request and response with ASP.NET. The beauty of the raw ASP.NET platform is that it provides you everything you need to build just about any type of HTTP application you can dream up from low level APIs/custom engines to high level HTML generation engine. ASP.NET as a core platform clearly has stood the test of time 10+ years later and all other frameworks like Web API are built on top of this ASP.NET core. However, although it's possible to create Web APIs / Services using any of the existing out of box .NET technologies, none of them have been a really nice fit for building arbitrary HTTP based APIs. Sure, you can use an HttpHandler to create just about anything, but you have to build a lot of plumbing to build something more complex like a comprehensive API that serves a variety of requests, handles multiple output formats and can easily pass data up to the server in a variety of ways. Likewise you can use ASP.NET MVC to handle routing and creating content in various formats fairly easily, but it doesn't provide a great way to automatically negotiate content types and serve various content formats directly (it's possible to do with some plumbing code of your own but not built in). Prior to Web API, Microsoft's main push for HTTP services has been WCF REST, which was always an awkward technology that had a severe personality conflict, not being clear on whether it wanted to be part of WCF or purely a separate technology. In the end it didn't do either WCF compatibility or WCF agnostic pure HTTP operation very well, which made for a very developer-unfriendly environment. Personally I didn't like any of the implementations at the time, so much so that I ended up building my own HTTP service engine (as part of the West Wind Web Toolkit), as have a few other third party tools that provided much better integration and ease of use. With the release of Web API for the first time I feel that I can finally use the tools in the box and not have to worry about creating and maintaining my own toolkit as Web API addresses just about all the features I implemented on my own and much more. ASP.NET Web API provides a better HTTP Experience ASP.NET Web API differentiates itself from the previous Microsoft in-box HTTP service solutions in that it was built from the ground up around the HTTP protocol and its messaging semantics. Unlike WCF REST or ASP.NET AJAX with ASMX, it’s a brand new platform rather than bolted on technology that is supposed to work in the context of an existing framework. The strength of the new ASP.NET Web API is that it combines the best features of the platforms that came before it, to provide a comprehensive and very usable HTTP platform. Because it's based on ASP.NET and borrows a lot of concepts from ASP.NET MVC, Web API should be immediately familiar and comfortable to most ASP.NET developers. Here are some of the features that Web API provides that I like: Strong Support for URL Routing to produce clean URLs using familiar MVC style routing semantics Content Negotiation based on Accept headers for request and response serialization Support for a host of supported output formats including JSON, XML, ATOM Strong default support for REST semantics but they are optional Easily extensible Formatter support to add new input/output types Deep support for more advanced HTTP features via HttpResponseMessage and HttpRequestMessage classes and strongly typed Enums to describe many HTTP operations Convention based design that drives you into doing the right thing for HTTP Services Very extensible, based on MVC like extensibility model of Formatters and Filters Self-hostable in non-Web applications  Testable using testing concepts similar to MVC Web API is meant to handle any kind of HTTP input and produce output and status codes using the full spectrum of HTTP functionality available in a straight forward and flexible manner. Looking at the list above you can see that a lot of functionality is very similar to ASP.NET MVC, so many ASP.NET developers should feel quite comfortable with the concepts of Web API. The Routing and core infrastructure of Web API are very similar to how MVC works providing many of the benefits of MVC, but with focus on HTTP access and manipulation in Controller methods rather than HTML generation in MVC. There’s much improved support for content negotiation based on HTTP Accept headers with the framework capable of detecting automatically what content the client is sending and requesting and serving the appropriate data format in return. This seems like such a little and obvious thing, but it's really important. Today's service backends often are used by multiple clients/applications and being able to choose the right data format for what fits best for the client is very important. While previous solutions were able to accomplish this using a variety of mixed features of WCF and ASP.NET, Web API combines all this functionality into a single robust server side HTTP framework that intrinsically understands the HTTP semantics and subtly drives you in the right direction for most operations. And when you need to customize or do something that is not built in, there are lots of hooks and overrides for most behaviors, and even many low level hook points that allow you to plug in custom functionality with relatively little effort. No Brainers for Web API There are a few scenarios that are a slam dunk for Web API. If your primary focus of an application or even a part of an application is some sort of API then Web API makes great sense. HTTP ServicesIf you're building a comprehensive HTTP API that is to be consumed over the Web, Web API is a perfect fit. You can isolate the logic in Web API and build your application as a service breaking out the logic into controllers as needed. Because the primary interface is the service there's no confusion of what should go where (MVC or API). Perfect fit. Primary AJAX BackendsIf you're building rich client Web applications that are relying heavily on AJAX callbacks to serve its data, Web API is also a slam dunk. Again because much if not most of the business logic will probably end up in your Web API service logic, there's no confusion over where logic should go and there's no duplication. In Single Page Applications (SPA), typically there's very little HTML based logic served other than bringing up a shell UI and then filling the data from the server with AJAX which means the business logic required for data retrieval and data acceptance and validation too lives in the Web API. Perfect fit. Generic HTTP EndpointsAnother good fit are generic HTTP endpoints that to serve data or handle 'utility' type functionality in typical Web applications. If you need to implement an image server, or an upload handler in the past I'd implement that as an HTTP handler. With Web API you now have a well defined place where you can implement these types of generic 'services' in a location that can easily add endpoints (via Controller methods) or separated out as more full featured APIs. Granted this could be done with MVC as well, but Web API seems a clearer and more well defined place to store generic application services. This is one thing I used to do a lot of in my own libraries and Web API addresses this nicely. Great fit. Mixed HTML and AJAX Applications: Not a clear Choice  For all the commonality that Web API and MVC share they are fundamentally different platforms that are independent of each other. A lot of people have asked when does it make sense to use MVC vs. Web API when you're dealing with typical Web application that creates HTML and also uses AJAX functionality for rich functionality. While it's easy to say that all 'service'/AJAX logic should go into a Web API and all HTML related generation into MVC, that can often result in a lot of code duplication. Also MVC supports JSON and XML result data fairly easily as well so there's some confusion where that 'trigger point' is of when you should switch to Web API vs. just implementing functionality as part of MVC controllers. Ultimately there's a tradeoff between isolation of functionality and duplication. A good rule of thumb I think works is that if a large chunk of the application's functionality serves data Web API is a good choice, but if you have a couple of small AJAX requests to serve data to a grid or autocomplete box it'd be overkill to separate out that logic into a separate Web API controller. Web API does add overhead to your application (it's yet another framework that sits on top of core ASP.NET) so it should be worth it .Keep in mind that MVC can generate HTML and JSON/XML and just about any other content easily and that functionality is not going away, so just because you Web API is there it doesn't mean you have to use it. Web API is not a full replacement for MVC obviously either since there's not the same level of support to feed HTML from Web API controllers (although you can host a RazorEngine easily enough if you really want to go that route) so if you're HTML is part of your API or application in general MVC is still a better choice either alone or in combination with Web API. I suspect (and hope) that in the future Web API's functionality will merge even closer with MVC so that you might even be able to mix functionality of both into single Controllers so that you don't have to make any trade offs, but at the moment that's not the case. Some Issues To think about Web API is similar to MVC but not the Same Although Web API looks a lot like MVC it's not the same and some common functionality of MVC behaves differently in Web API. For example, the way single POST variables are handled is different than MVC and doesn't lend itself particularly well to some AJAX scenarios with POST data. Code Duplication I already touched on this in the Mixed HTML and Web API section, but if you build an MVC application that also exposes a Web API it's quite likely that you end up duplicating a bunch of code and - potentially - infrastructure. You may have to create authentication logic both for an HTML application and for the Web API which might need something different altogether. More often than not though the same logic is used, and there's no easy way to share. If you implement an MVC ActionFilter and you want that same functionality in your Web API you'll end up creating the filter twice. AJAX Data or AJAX HTML On a recent post's comments, David made some really good points regarding the commonality of MVC and Web API's and its place. One comment that caught my eye was a little more generic, regarding data services vs. HTML services. David says: I see a lot of merit in the combination of Knockout.js, client side templates and view models, calling Web API for a responsive UI, but sometimes late at night that still leaves me wondering why I would no longer be using some of the nice tooling and features that have evolved in MVC ;-) You know what - I can totally relate to that. On the last Web based mobile app I worked on, we decided to serve HTML partials to the client via AJAX for many (but not all!) things, rather than sending down raw data to inject into the DOM on the client via templating or direct manipulation. While there are definitely more bytes on the wire, with this, the overhead ended up being actually fairly small if you keep the 'data' requests small and atomic. Performance was often made up by the lack of client side rendering of HTML. Server rendered HTML for AJAX templating gives so much better infrastructure support without having to screw around with 20 mismatched client libraries. Especially with MVC and partials it's pretty easy to break out your HTML logic into very small, atomic chunks, so it's actually easy to create small rendering islands that can be used via composition on the server, or via AJAX calls to small, tight partials that return HTML to the client. Although this is often frowned upon as to 'heavy', it worked really well in terms of developer effort as well as providing surprisingly good performance on devices. There's still plenty of jQuery and AJAX logic happening on the client but it's more manageable in small doses rather than trying to do the entire UI composition with JavaScript and/or 'not-quite-there-yet' template engines that are very difficult to debug. This is not an issue directly related to Web API of course, but something to think about especially for AJAX or SPA style applications. Summary Web API is a great new addition to the ASP.NET platform and it addresses a serious need for consolidation of a lot of half-baked HTTP service API technologies that came before it. Web API feels 'right', and hits the right combination of usability and flexibility at least for me and it's a good fit for true API scenarios. However, just because a new platform is available it doesn't meant that other tools or tech that came before it should be discarded or even upgraded to the new platform. There's nothing wrong with continuing to use MVC controller methods to handle API tasks if that's what your app is running now - there's very little to be gained by upgrading to Web API just because. But going forward Web API clearly is the way to go, when building HTTP data interfaces and it's good to see that Microsoft got this one right - it was sorely needed! Resources ASP.NET Web API AspConf Ask the Experts Session (first 5 minutes) © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • How to Use Windows’ Advanced Search Features: Everything You Need to Know

    - by Chris Hoffman
    You should never have to hunt down a lost file on modern versions of Windows — just perform a quick search. You don’t even have to wait for a cartoon dog to find your files, like on Windows XP. The Windows search indexer is constantly running in the background to make quick local searches possible. This enables the kind of powerful search features you’d use on Google or Bing — but for your local files. Controlling the Indexer By default, the Windows search indexer watches everything under your user folder — that’s C:\Users\NAME. It reads all these files, creating an index of their names, contents, and other metadata. Whenever they change, it notices and updates its index. The index allows you to quickly find a file based on the data in the index. For example, if you want to find files that contain the word “beluga,” you can perform a search for “beluga” and you’ll get a very quick response as Windows looks up the word in its search index. If Windows didn’t use an index, you’d have to sit and wait as Windows opened every file on your hard drive, looked to see if the file contained the word “beluga,” and moved on. Most people shouldn’t have to modify this indexing behavior. However, if you store your important files in other folders — maybe you store your important data a separate partition or drive, such as at D:\Data — you may want to add these folders to your index. You can also choose which types of files you want to index, force Windows to rebuild the index entirely, pause the indexing process so it won’t use any system resources, or move the index to another location to save space on your system drive. To open the Indexing Options window, tap the Windows key on your keyboard, type “index”, and click the Indexing Options shortcut that appears. Use the Modify button to control the folders that Windows indexes or the Advanced button to control other options. To prevent Windows from indexing entirely, click the Modify button and uncheck all the included locations. You could also disable the search indexer entirely from the Programs and Features window. Searching for Files You can search for files right from your Start menu on Windows 7 or Start screen on Windows 8. Just tap the Windows key and perform a search. If you wanted to find files related to Windows, you could perform a search for “Windows.” Windows would show you files that are named Windows or contain the word Windows. From here, you can just click a file to open it. On Windows 7, files are mixed with other types of search results. On Windows 8 or 8.1, you can choose to search only for files. If you want to perform a search without leaving the desktop in Windows 8.1, press Windows Key + S to open a search sidebar. You can also initiate searches directly from Windows Explorer — that’s File Explorer on Windows 8. Just use the search box at the top-right of the window. Windows will search the location you’ve browsed to. For example, if you’re looking for a file related to Windows and know it’s somewhere in your Documents library, open the Documents library and search for Windows. Using Advanced Search Operators On Windows 7, you’ll notice that you can add “search filters” form the search box, allowing you to search by size, date modified, file type, authors, and other metadata. On Windows 8, these options are available from the Search Tools tab on the ribbon. These filters allow you to narrow your search results. If you’re a geek, you can use Windows’ Advanced Query Syntax to perform advanced searches from anywhere, including the Start menu or Start screen. Want to search for “windows,” but only bring up documents that don’t mention Microsoft? Search for “windows -microsoft”. Want to search for all pictures of penguins on your computer, whether they’re PNGs, JPEGs, or any other type of picture file? Search for “penguin kind:picture”. We’ve looked at Windows’ advanced search operators before, so check out our in-depth guide for more information. The Advanced Query Syntax gives you access to options that aren’t available in the graphical interface. Creating Saved Searches Windows allows you to take searches you’ve made and save them as a file. You can then quickly perform the search later by double-clicking the file. The file functions almost like a virtual folder that contains the files you specify. For example, let’s say you wanted to create a saved search that shows you all the new files created in your indexed folders within the last week. You could perform a search for “datecreated:this week”, then click the Save search button on the toolbar or ribbon. You’d have a new virtual folder you could quickly check to see your recent files. One of the best things about Windows search is that it’s available entirely from the keyboard. Just press the Windows key, start typing the name of the file or program you want to open, and press Enter to quickly open it. Windows 8 made this much more obnoxious with its non-unified search, but unified search is finally returning with Windows 8.1.     

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