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• Cloud Computing Architecture Patterns: Don’t Focus on the Client

  - by BuckWoody

  Normally I try to put topics in the positive in other words "Do this" not "Don't do that". Sometimes its clearer to focus on what *not* to do. Popular development processes often start with screen mockups, or user input descriptions. In a scale-out pattern like Cloud Computing on Windows Azure, that's the wrong place to start. Start with the Data    Instead, I recommend that you start with the data that a process requires. That data might be temporary or persisted, but starting with the data and its requirements helps to define not only the storage engine you need but also drives everything from security to the integrity of the application. For instance, assume the requirements show that the user must enter their phone number, and that this datum is used in a contact management system further down the application chain. For that datum, you can determine what data type you need (U.S. only or International?) the security requirements, whether it needs ACID compliance, how it will be searched, indexed and so on. From one small data point you can extrapolate out your options for storing and processing the data. Here's the interesting part, which begins to break the patterns that we've used for decades: all of the data doesn't have the same requirements. The phone number might be best suited for a list, or an element, or a string, with either BASE or ACID requirements, based on how it is used. That means we don't have to dump everything into XML, an RDBMS, a NoSQL engine, or a flat file exclusively. In fact, one record might use all of those depending on the use-case requirements. Next Is Data Management  With the data defined, we can move on to how to store the data. Again, the requirements now dictate whether we need a full relational calculus or set-based operations, or we can choose another method based on the requirements for the data. And breaking another pattern its OK to store in more than once, in more than one location. We do this all the time for reporting systems and Business Intelligence systems, so this is a pattern we need to think about even for OLTP data. Move to Data Transport How does the data get around? We can use a connection-based method, sending the data along a transport to the storage engine, but in some cases we may want to use a cache, a queue, the Service Bus, or Complex Event Processing. Finally, Data Processing Most RDBMS engines, NoSQL, and certainly Big Data engines not only store data, but can process and manipulate it as well. Its doubtful that you'll calculate that phone number right? Well, if you're the phone company, you most certainly will. And so we see that even once we've chosen the data type, storage and engine, the same element can have different computing requirements based on how it is used. Sure, We Need A Front-End At Some Point Not all data is entered by human hands in fact most data isn't. We don't really need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) we need some way for a GUI to get data into and out of the systems listed earlier.   But when we do need to allow users to enter or examine data, that should be left to the GUI that best fits the device the user has. Ever tried to use an application designed for a web browser on a phone? Or one designed for a tablet on a phone? Its usually quite painful. The siren song of "We'll just write one interface for all devices" is strong, and has beguiled many an unsuspecting architect. But they just don't work out.   Instead, focus on the data, its transport and processing. Create API calls or a message system that allows for resilient transport to the device or interface, and let it do what it does best. References Microsoft Architecture Journal:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx Patterns and Practices:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx Windows Azure iOS, Android, Windows 8 Mobile Devices SDK: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/ Windows Azure Facebook SDK: http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/

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• ASP.Net MVC - how to post values to the server that are not in an input element

  - by David Carter

  Problem As was mentioned in a previous blog I am building a web page that allows the user to select dates in a calendar and then shows the dates in an unordered list. The problem now is that those dates need to be sent to the server on page submit so that they can be saved to the database. If I was storing the dates in an input element, say a textbox, that wouldn't be an issue but because they are in an html element whose contents are not posted to the server an alternative strategy needs to be developed. Solution The approach that I took to solve this problem is as follows: 1. Place a hidden input field on the form <input id="hiddenDates" name="hiddenDates" type="hidden" value="" /> ASP.Net MVC has an Html helper with a method called Hidden() that will do this for you @Html.Hidden("hiddenDates"). 2. Copy the values from the html element to the hidden input field before submitting the form The following javascript is added to the page:        $(function () {          $('#formCreate').submit(function () {               PopulateHiddenDates();          });        });            function PopulateHiddenDates() {          var dateValues = '';          $($('#dateList').children('li')).each(function(index) {             dateValues += $(this).attr("id") + ",";          });          $('#hiddenDates').val(dateValues);        } I'm using jQuery to bind to the form submit event so that my method to populate the hidden field gets called before the form is submitted. The dateList element is an unordered list and by using the jQuery each function I can itterate through all the <li> items that it contains, get each items id attribute (to which I have assigned the value of the date in millisecs) and write them to the hidden field as a comma delimited string. 3. Process the dates on the server        [HttpPost]         public ActionResult Create(string hiddenDates, string utcOffset)         {            List<DateTime> dates = GetDates(hiddenDates, utcOffset);         }         private List<DateTime> GetDates(string hiddenDates, int utcOffset)         {             List<DateTime> dates = new List<DateTime>();             var values = hiddenDates.Split(",".ToCharArray(),StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);             foreach (var item in values)             {                 DateTime newDate = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1).AddMilliseconds(double.Parse(item)).AddMinutes(utcOffset*-1);                 dates.Add(newDate);                }             return dates;         } By declaring a parameter with the same name as the hidden field ASP.Net will take care of finding the corresponding entry in the form collection posted back to the server and binding it to the hiddenDates parameter! Excellent! I now have my dates the user selected and I can save them to the database. I have also used the same technique to pass back a utcOffset so that I know what timezone the user is in and I can show the dates correctly to users in other timezones if necessary (this isn't strictly necessary at the moment but I plan to introduce times later), Saving multiple dates from an unordered list - DONE!

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• Persisting settings without using Options dialog in Visual Studio

  - by Utkarsh Shigihalli

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2013/11/02/persisting-settings-without-using-options-dialog-in-visual-studio.aspxIn one of my previous blog post we have seen persisting settings using Visual Studio's options dialog. Visual Studio options has many advantages in automatically persisting user options for you. However, during our latest Team Rooms extension development, we decided to provide our users; ability to use our preferences directly from Team Explorer. The main reason was that we had only one simple option for user and we thought it is cumbersome for user to go to Tools –> Options dialog to change this. Another reason was, we wanted to highlight this setting to user as soon as he is using our extension.   So if you are in such a scenario where you do not want to use VS options window, but still would like to persist the settings, this post will guide you through. Visual Studio SDK provides two ways to persist settings in your extensions. One is using DialogPage as shown in my previous post. Another way is to use by implementing IProfileManager interface which I will explain in this post. Please note that the class implementing IProfileManager should be independent class. This is because, VS instantiates this class during Tools –> Import and Export Settings. IProfileManager provides 2 different sets of methods (total 4 methods) to persist the settings. They are LoadSettingsFromXml and SaveSettingsToXml – Implement these methods to persist settings to disk from VS settings storage. The VS will persist your settings along with other options to disk. LoadSettingsFromStorage and SaveSettingsToStorage – Implement these methods to persist settings to local storage, usually it be registry. VS calls LoadSettingsFromStorage method when it is initializing the package too. We are going to use the 2nd set of methods for this example. First, we are creating a separate class file called UserOptions.cs. Please note that, we also need to implement IComponent, which can be done by inheriting Component along with IProfileManager. [ComVisible(true)] [Guid("XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX")] public class UserOptions : Component, IProfileManager { private const string SUBKEY_NAME = "TForVS2013"; private const string TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING = "TrayNotifications"; ... } Define the property so that it can be used to set and get from other classes. public bool TrayNotifications { get; set; } Implement the members of IProfileManager. public void LoadSettingsFromStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. TrayNotifications = Convert.ToBoolean(reg.GetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, true)); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { TrayNotifications = true; ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void LoadSettingsFromXml(IVsSettingsReader reader) { reader.ReadSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, out _isTrayNotificationsEnabled); TrayNotifications = (_isTrayNotificationsEnabled == 1); } public void ResetSettings() { } public void SaveSettingsToStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME, true)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } else { reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.CreateSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME); reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void SaveSettingsToXml(IVsSettingsWriter writer) { writer.WriteSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications ? 1 : 0); } Let me elaborate on the method implementation. The Package class provides UserRegistryRoot (which is HKCU\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 for VS2013) property which can be used to create and read the registry keys. So basically, in the methods above, I am checking if the registry key exists already and if not, I simply create it. Also, in case there is an exception I return the default values. If the key already exists, I update the value. Also, note that you need to make sure that you close the key while exiting from the method. Very simple right? Accessing and settings is simple too. We just need to use the exposed property. UserOptions.TrayNotifications = true; UserOptions.SaveSettingsToStorage(); Reading settings is as simple as reading a property. UserOptions.LoadSettingsFromStorage(); var trayNotifications = UserOptions.TrayNotifications; Lastly, the most important step. We need to tell Visual Studio shell that our package exposes options using the UserOptions class. For this we need to decorate our package class with ProvideProfile attribute as below. [ProvideProfile(typeof(UserOptions), "TForVS2013", "TeamRooms", 110, 110, false, DescriptionResourceID = 401)] public sealed class TeamRooms : Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package { ... } That's it. If everything is alright, once you run the package you will also see your options appearing in "Import Export settings" window, which allows you to export your options.

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• The Loneliest Road in America and the OTN Garage

  - by rickramsey

  Source I never told anyone how the image of the OTN Garage on Facebook came to be. I took the Facebook picture on Route 50 in Nevada, USA, in October of 2010. I was riding from Colorado to Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, so it was probably October. Route 50 is known as "The Loneliest Road in America." There are roads across Nevada that have even LESS traffic, but Route 50 still one. desolate. road. Although I have seen stranger things while riding along Nevada's Extraterrestrial Highway, I still run across notable oddities every time I ride Route 50. Like the old man with a bandolero of water bottles jogging along the side of the highway in the middle of the day, 50 miles from the closest town. First ultra-marathoner I'd seen in action. He waved at me. Or the dozen Corvettes with California license plates driving toward me, all doing the speed limit in the middle of nowhere because they were being tailed by half a dozen Nevada state troopers. #fail. I don't remember which town I was in, but I noticed the building when I stopped at the gas station. While standing there pouring fuel into the Harley, the store caught my eye. So I pulled the bike in front and walked inside. The owner is a little old lady, about 100 years old. Most of the goods she had on the shelves looked like they had been placed there during WWII. She was itty bitty and could barely see over the counter, but she was so happy when I bought a bar of Hershey's chocolate that she gave me a five cent discount. I took a few pictures and, when I got back, Kemer Thomson, who sometimes blogs here, photoshopped the OTN Garage and Oil Change signs onto it. The bike is a 2009 Road King Classic with a Bob Dron fairing and a Corbin heated seat. The seat came in handy when I rode home over Tioga Pass. The Road King is a very comfy touring bike with a great Harley rumble. I'm kinda sorry I sold it. When I stopped for fuel about 75 miles down the road at the next town, I peeled back the chocolate bar. I had turned into powder. Probably 50 years ago. - Rick Website Newsletter Facebook Twitter

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• Monogame/SharpDX - Shader parameters missing

  - by Layoric

  I am currently working on a simple game that I am building in Windows 8 using MonoGame (develop3d). I am using some shader code from a tutorial (made by Charles Humphrey) and having an issue populating a 'texture' parameter as it appears to be missing. Edit I have also tried 'Texture2D' and using it with a register(t0), still no luck I'm not well versed writing shaders, so this might be caused by a more obvious problem. I have debugged through MonoGame's Content processor to see how this shader is being parsed, all the non 'texture' parameters are there and look to be loading correctly. Edit This seems to go back to D3D compiler. Shader code below: #include "PPVertexShader.fxh" float2 lightScreenPosition; float4x4 matVP; float2 halfPixel; float SunSize; texture flare; sampler2D Scene: register(s0){ AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; }; sampler Flare = sampler_state { Texture = (flare); AddressU = CLAMP; AddressV = CLAMP; }; float4 LightSourceMaskPS(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0 ) : COLOR0 { texCoord -= halfPixel; // Get the scene float4 col = 0; // Find the suns position in the world and map it to the screen space. float2 coord; float size = SunSize / 1; float2 center = lightScreenPosition; coord = .5 - (texCoord - center) / size * .5; col += (pow(tex2D(Flare,coord),2) * 1) * 2; return col * tex2D(Scene,texCoord); } technique LightSourceMask { pass p0 { VertexShader = compile vs_4_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_4_0 LightSourceMaskPS(); } } I've removed default values as they are currently not support in MonoGame and also changed ps and vs to v4 instead of 2. Could this be causing the issue? As I debug through 'DXConstantBufferData' constructor (from within the MonoGameContentProcessing project) I find that the 'flare' parameter does not exist. All others seem to be getting created fine. Any help would be appreciated. Update 1 I have discovered that SharpDX D3D compiler is what seems to be ignoring this parameter (perhaps by design?). The ConstantBufferDescription.VariableCount seems to be not counting the texture variable. Update 2 SharpDX function 'GetConstantBuffer(int index)' returns the parameters (minus textures) which is making is impossible to set values to these variables within the shader. Any one know if this is normal for DX11 / Shader Model 4.0? Or am I missing something else?

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• How to pad number with leading zero with C#

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  Recently I was working with a project where I was in need to format a number in such a way which can apply leading zero for particular format.  So after doing such R and D I have found a great way to apply this leading zero format. I was having need that I need to pad number in 5 digit format. So following is a table in which format I need my leading zero format. 1-> 00001 20->00020 300->00300 4000->04000 50000->5000 So in the above example you can see that 1 will become 00001 and 20 will become 00200 format so on. So to display an integer value in decimal format I have applied interger.Tostring(String) method where I have passed “Dn” as the value of the format parameter, where n represents the minimum length of the string. So if we pass 5 it will have padding up to 5 digits. So let’s create a simple console application and see how its works. Following is a code for that. using System; namespace LeadingZero { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { int a = 1; int b = 20; int c = 300; int d = 4000; int e = 50000; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}",a,a.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", b, b.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", c, c.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", d, d.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", e, e.ToString("D5"))); Console.ReadKey(); } } } As you can see in the above code I have use string.Format function to display value of integer and after using integer value’s  ToString method. Now Let’s run the console application and following is the output as expected. Here you can see the integer number are converted into the exact output that we requires. That’s it you can see it’s very easy. We have written code in nice clean way and without writing any extra code or loop. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more.. Till than happy programming.

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• Remote Debug Windows Azure Cloud Service

  - by Shaun

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/11/02/remote-debug-windows-azure-cloud-service.aspxOn the 22nd of October Microsoft Announced the new Windows Azure SDK 2.2. It introduced a lot of cool features but one of it shocked most, which is the remote debug support for Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. WACS).   Live Debug is Nightmare for Cloud Application When we are developing against public cloud, debug might be the most difficult task, especially after the application had been deployed. In order to minimize the debug effort, Microsoft provided local emulator for cloud service and storage once the Windows Azure platform was announced. By using local emulator developers could be able run their application on local machine with almost the same behavior as running on Windows Azure, and that could be debug easily and quickly. But when we deployed our application to Azure, we have to use log, diagnostic monitor to debug, which is very low efficient. Visual Studio 2012 introduced a new feature named "anonymous remote debug" which allows any workstation under any user could be able to attach the remote process. This is less secure comparing the authenticated remote debug but much easier and simpler to use. Now in Windows Azure SDK 2.2, we could be able to attach our application from our local machine to Windows Azure, and it's very easy.   How to Use Remote Debugger First, let's create a new Windows Azure Cloud Project in Visual Studio and selected ASP.NET Web Role. Then create an ASP.NET WebForm application. Then right click on the cloud project and select "publish". In the publish dialog we need to make sure the application will be built in debug mode, since .NET assembly cannot be debugged in release mode. I enabled Remote Desktop as I will log into the virtual machine later in this post. It's NOT necessary for remote debug. And selected "advanced settings" tab, make sure we checked "Enable Remote Debugger for all roles". In WACS, a cloud service could be able to have one or more roles and each role could be able to have one or more instances. The remote debugger will be enabled for all roles and all instances if we checked. Currently there's no way for us to specify which role(s) and which instance(s) to enable. Finally click "publish" button. In the windows azure activity window in Visual Studio we can find some information about remote debugger. To attache remote process would be easy. Open the "server explorer" window in Visual Studio and expand "cloud services" node, find the cloud service, role and instance we had just published and wanted to debug, right click on the instance and select "attach debugger". Then after a while (it's based on how fast our Internet connect to Windows Azure Data Center) the Visual Studio will be switched to debug mode. Let's add a breakpoint in the default web page's form load function and refresh the page in browser to see what's happen. We can see that the our application was stopped at the breakpoint. The call stack, watch features are all available to use. Now let's hit F5 to continue the step, then back to the browser we will find the page was rendered successfully.   What Under the Hood Remote debugger is a WACS plugin. When we checked the "enable remote debugger" in the publish dialog, Visual Studio will add two cloud configuration settings in the CSCFG file. Since they were appended when deployment, we cannot find in our project's CSCFG file. But if we opened the publish package we could find as below. At the same time, Visual Studio will generate a certificate and included into the package for remote debugger. If we went to the azure management portal we will find there will a certificate under our application which was created, uploaded by remote debugger plugin. Since I enabled Remote Desktop there will be two certificates in the screenshot below. The other one is for remote debugger. When our application was deployed, windows azure system will open related ports for remote debugger. As below you can see there are two new ports opened on my application. Finally, in our WACS virtual machine, windows azure system will copy the remote debug component based on which version of Visual Studio we are using and start. Our application then can be debugged remotely through the visual studio remote debugger. Below is the task manager on the virtual machine of my WACS application.   Summary In this post I demonstrated one of the feature introduced in Windows Azure SDK 2.2, which is Remote Debugger. It allows us to attach our application from local machine to windows azure virtual machine once it had been deployed. Remote debugger is powerful and easy to use, but it brings more security risk. And since it's only available for debug build this means the performance will be worse than release build. Hence we should only use this feature for staging test and bug fix (publish our beta version to azure staging slot), rather than for production.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Why is a fully transparent pixel still rendered?

  - by Mr Bell

  I am trying to make a pixel shader that achieves an effect similar to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1uZvurrhig&feature=related My basic idea is render the scene to a temp render target then Render the previously rendered image with a slight fade on to another temp render target Draw the current scene on top of that Draw the results on to a render target that persists between draws Draw the results on to the screen But I am having problems with the fading portion. If I have my pixel shader return a color with its A component set to 0, shouldn't that basically amount to drawing nothing? (Assuming that sprite batch blend mode is set to AlphaBlend) To test this I have my pixel shader return a transparent red color. Instead of nothing being drawn, it draws a partially transparent red box. I hope that my question makes sense, but if it doesnt please ask me to clarify Here is the drawing code public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.SamplerStates[1] = SamplerState.PointWrap; drawImageOnClearedRenderTarget(presentationTarget, tempRenderTarget, fadeEffect); drawImageOnRenderTarget(sceneRenderTarget, tempRenderTarget); drawImageOnClearedRenderTarget(tempRenderTarget, presentationTarget); GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); drawImage(backgroundTexture); drawImage(presentationTarget); base.Draw(gameTime); } private void drawImage(Texture2D image, Effect effect = null) { spriteBatch.Begin(0, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null, effect); spriteBatch.Draw(image, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); } private void drawImageOnRenderTarget(Texture2D image, RenderTarget2D target, Effect effect = null) { GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(target); drawImage(image, effect); } private void drawImageOnClearedRenderTarget(Texture2D image, RenderTarget2D target, Effect effect = null) { GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(target); GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Transparent); drawImage(image, effect); } Here is the fade pixel shader sampler TextureSampler : register(s0); float4 PixelShaderFunction(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR0 { float4 c = 0; c = tex2D(TextureSampler, texCoord); //c.a = clamp(c.a - 0.05, 0, 1); c.r = 1; c.g = 0; c.b = 0; c.a = 0; return c; } technique Fade { pass Pass1 { PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } }

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• What do you do when a client requires Rich Text Editing on their website?

  - by George Stocker

  As we all know by now, XSS attacks are dangerous and really easy to pull off. Various frameworks make it easy to encode HTML, like ASP.NET MVC does: <%= Html.Encode("string"); %> But what happens when your client requires that they be able to upload their content directly from a Microsoft Word document? Here's the scenario: People can copy and paste content from Microsoft word into a WYSIWYG editor (in this case tinyMCE), and then that information is posted to a web page. The website is public, but only members of that organization will have access to post information to a webpage. What is the best way to handle this requirement? Currently there is no checking done on what the client posts (since only 'trusted' users can post), but I'm not particularly happy with that and would like to lock it down further in case an account is hacked. The platform in question is ASP.NET MVC. The only conceptual method that I'm aware of that meets these requirements is to whitelist HTML tags and let those pass through. Is there another way? If not, is the best way to let them store it in the Database in any form, but only display it properly encoded and stripped of bad tags? NB: The questions differ in that he only assumes there's one way. I'm also asking the following questions: 1. Is there a better way that doesn't rely on HTML Whitelists? 2. Is there a better way that relies on a different view engine? 3. Is there a WYSIWYG editor that includes the ability to whitelist on the fly? 4. Should I even worry about this since it will only be for 'private posting' (Much in the same way that a private blog allows HTML From the author, but since only he can post, it's not an issue)? Edit #2: If suggesting a WYSIWYG editor, it must be free (as in speech, or as in beer). Update: All of the suggestions thus far revolve around a specific Rich Text Editor to use: Only provide an editor as a suggestion if it allows for sanitization of HTML tags; and it fulfills the requirement of accepting pasted documents from a WYSIWYG Editor like Microsoft Word. There are three methods that I know of: 1. Not allow HTML. 2. Allow HTML, but sanitize it 3. Find a Rich Text Editor that sanitizes and allows HTML. The previous questions remain (1-4 above). Related Question Preventing Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

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• What's the difference between View Criteria and Where clause?

  - by frank.nimphius

  Normal 0 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} A View Criteria is a filter that you apply programmatically or by definition to a View Object instance. It augments the WHERE clause in a View Object query. Named View Criteria are defined in the Query panel of the View Object and are used ·         In combination with the af:query component to build search forms. To do this, you drag and drop the View Criteria from the Named View Criteria node of the View Object in the Data Controls Panel. In the context menu, you then select the Query component - optionally with a result table ·         To restrict a View Object instance in the Application Module model. For this, select a View object instance in the right hand list of the ADF Business Component Data Model panel. Use the Edit button to add a View Criteria to the View Object instance. This ensures that the View Object instance also runs with a query filter applied. View Criteria use bind variables for query conditions that you want to pass in dynamically at runtime. Beside of the ability to apply View Criteria declaratively, you can apply them programmatically in Java. A WHERE clause, if added to a View Object query by design restricts all instances of this View Object, which usually is not what developers want. Because of the benefits - and the configuration options not explained above but in the product documentation referenced below - the recommendation is to use View Criteria. The product documentation explains View Criteria in chapter 5 of the Developer Guide: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E15523_01/web.1111/b31974/bcquerying.htm#BCGIFHHF

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• Advice Needed: Developers blocked by waiting on code to merge from another branch using GitFlow

  - by fogwolf

  Our team just made the switch from FogBugz & Kiln/Mercurial to Jira & Stash/Git. We are using the Git Flow model for branching, adding subtask branches off of feature branches (relating to Jira subtasks of Jira features). We are using Stash to assign a reviewer when we create a pull request to merge back into the parent branch (usually develop but for subtasks back into the feature branch). The problem we're finding is that even with the best planning and breakdown of feature cases, when multiple developers are working together on the same feature, say on the front-end and back-end, if they are working on interdependent code that is in separate branches one developer ends up blocking the other. We've tried pulling between each others' branches as we develop. We've also tried creating local integration branches each developer can pull from multiple branches to test the integration as they develop. Finally, and this seems to work possibly the best for us so far, though with a bit more overhead, we have tried creating an integration branch off of the feature branch right off the bat. When a subtask branch (off of the feature branch) is ready for a pull request and code review, we also manually merge those change sets into this feature integration branch. Then all interested developers are able to pull from that integration branch into other dependent subtask branches. This prevents anyone from waiting for any branch they are dependent upon to pass code review. I know this isn't necessarily a Git issue - it has to do with working on interdependent code in multiple branches, mixed with our own work process and culture. If we didn't have the strict code-review policy for develop (true integration branch) then developer 1 could merge to develop for developer 2 to pull from. Another complication is that we are also required to do some preliminary testing as part of the code review process before handing the feature off to QA.This means that even if front-end developer 1 is pulling directly from back-end developer 2's branch as they go, if back-end developer 2 finishes and his/her pull request is sitting in code review for a week, then front-end developer 2 technically can't create his pull request/code review because his/her code reviewer can't test because back-end developer 2's code hasn't been merged into develop yet. Bottom line is we're finding ourselves in a much more serial rather than parallel approach in these instance, depending on which route we go, and would like to find a process to use to avoid this. Last thing I'll mention is we realize by sharing code across branches that haven't been code reviewed and finalized yet we are in essence using the beta code of others. To a certain extent I don't think we can avoid that and are willing to accept that to a degree. Anyway, any ideas, input, etc... greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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• Running Apache and Tomcat together on different subdomains?

  - by Ritesh M Nayak

  Posted this on ServerFault but didn't get a response. Hoping I will have better luck on the Ubuntu site. I have been trying to get this working the whole of today. I have a server which resolves to the domain example.com . This is running Apache2 and Tomcat 6. The requirement is to direct requests to example.com to apache2 and app.example.com to Tomcat. I know I have to do a VirtualHost proxy pass for this to work. Here are the settings on my server. /etc/hosts file looks something like this 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain example.com app.example.com I have two virtual host files for the different domains in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/example.com looks like this <VirtualHost *:80> # Admin email, Server Name (domain name) and any aliases ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName example.com ServerAlias www.example.com DocumentRoot /var/www <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> </VirtualHost> /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/app.example.com file looks like this <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName app.example.com ServerAlias www.app.example.com ProxyPreserveHost On ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/ ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/ SetEnv force-proxy-request-1.0 1 SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1 </VirtualHost> mod_proxy and mod_rewrite are both enabled on the apache instance. I have a CNAME entry for both example.com and app.example.com. When accessing app.example.com, I get an 403 forbidden, saying I have no access to / on the server. What am I doing wrong?

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• Music Notation Editor - Refactoring view creation logic elsewhere

  - by Cyril Silverman

  Let me preface by saying that knowing some elementary music theory and music notation may be helpful in grasping the problem at hand. I'm currently building a Music Notation and Tablature Editor (in Javascript). But I've come to a point where the core parts of the program are more or less there. All functionality I plan to add at this point will really build off the foundation that I've created. As a result, I want to refactor to really solidify my code. I'm using an API called VexFlow to render notation. Basically I pass the parts of the editor's state to VexFlow to build the graphical representation of the score. Here is a rough and stripped down UML diagram showing you the outline of my program: In essence, a Part has many Measures which has many Notes which has many NoteItems (yes, this is semantically weird, as a chord is represented as a Note with multiple NoteItems, individual pitches or fret positions). All of the relationships are bi-directional. There are a few problems with my design because my Measure class contains the majority of the entire application view logic. The class holds the data about all VexFlow objects (the graphical representation of the score). It contains the graphical Staff object and the graphical notes. (Shouldn't these be placed somewhere else in the program?) While VexFlowFactory deals with actual creation (and some processing) of most of the VexFlow objects, Measure still "directs" the creation of all the objects and what order they are supposed to be created in for both the VexFlowStaff and VexFlowNotes. I'm not looking for a specific answer as you'd need a much deeper understanding of my code. Just a general direction to go in. Here's a thought I had, create an MeasureView/NoteView/PartView classes that contains the basic VexFlow objects for each class in addition to any extraneous logic for it's creation? but where would these views be contained? Do I create a ScoreView that is a parallel graphical representation of everything? So that ScoreView.render() would cascade down PartView and call render for each PartView and casade down into each MeasureView, etc. Again, I just have no idea what direction to go in. The more I think about it, the more ways to go seem to pop into my head. I tried to be as concise and simplistic as possible while still getting my problem across. Please feel free to ask me any questions if anything is unclear. It's quite a struggle trying to dumb down a complicated problem to its core parts.

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• OpenGL - have object follow mouse

  - by kevin james

  I want to have an object follow around my mouse on the screen in OpenGL. (I am also using GLEW, GLFW, and GLM). The best idea I've come up with is: Get the coordinates within the window with glfwGetCursorPos. The window was created with window = glfwCreateWindow( 1024, 768, "Test", NULL, NULL); and the code to get coordinates is double xpos, ypos; glfwGetCursorPos(window, &xpos, &ypos); Next, I use GLM unproject, to get the coordinates in "object space" glm::vec4 viewport = glm::vec4(0.0f, 0.0f, 1024.0f, 768.0f); glm::vec3 pos = glm::vec3(xpos, ypos, 0.0f); glm::vec3 un = glm::unProject(pos, View*Model, Projection, viewport); There are two potential problems I can already see. The viewport is fine, as the initial x,y, coordinates of the lower left are indeed 0,0, and it's indeed a 1024*768 window. However, the position vector I create doesn't seem right. The Z coordinate should probably not be zero. However, glfwGetCursorPos returns 2D coordinates, and I don't know how to go from there to the 3D window coordinates, especially since I am not sure what the 3rd dimension of the window coordinates even means (since computer screens are 2D). Then, I am not sure if I am using unproject correctly. Assume the View, Model, Projection matrices are all OK. If I passed in the correct position vector in Window coordinates, does the unproject call give me the coordinates in Object coordinates? I think it does, but the documentation is not clear. Finally, to each vertex of the object I want to follow the mouse around, I just increment the x coordinate by un[0], the y coordinate by -un[1], and the z coordinate by un[2]. However, since my position vector that is being unprojected is likely wrong, this is not giving good results; the object does move as my mouse moves, but it is offset quite a bit (i.e. moving the mouse a lot doesn't move the object that much, and the z coordinate is very large). I actually found that the z coordinate un[2] is always the same value no matter where my mouse is, probably because the position vector I pass into unproject always has a value of 0.0 for z. Edit: The (incorrectly) unprojected x-values range from about -0.552 to 0.552, and the y-values from about -0.411 to 0.411.

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• Am I experienced enough to learn and develop immediately using Ruby on Rails?

  - by acheong87

  General Question I understand that discussions revolving around questions of this form run the risk of becoming too specific to help others. So, perhaps a better, general question would be: What kind of experience, if any, translates easily to Ruby on Rails; and if none, then what's the learning curve like, in comparison to other popular languages? Background I have the opportunity to build a website using whatever technologies I wish to use. It's a fairly simple website, for listing products, taking payments, managing customer data, providing a back-end portal for employees to manage data, possibly hooking in flight information (the products are travel related), possibly integrating a blog and all the social-networking goodies. Specific Problem I have to let the client know by tonight whether I'm interested in taking up this project, before he talks to other potential developers, but I'm on the fence. I already work a full-time C++ development job, so the money doesn't do it for me. It's the opportunity to (be paid to) learn some new technologies and to have a real, running product in the end. I've heard and read great things about Ruby, and am really intrigued. I zipped through some introductory Ruby tutorials, no sweat. However I found the Rails tutorials a little overwhelming, especially not being able to try it out anywhere. And researching Rails hosts like Heroku and EngineYard makes me think that maybe I don't know what I'm getting myself into. The ship's leaving port! I wish I had more time to learn, better yet play with the language, but I have to decide soon! Should I venture or pass? Additional Details My experiences are in C/C++/Tcl/Perl/PHP/jQuery, and basic knowledge of Java/C#. I didn't study C.S. formally so I wasn't exposed to design principles, programming paradigms, etc., which is my greatest concern. Will my lack of understanding in this realm make RoR frustrating to learn? Will it be so incompatible with a C++ "way" of thinking that I'll wish I never started? Am I putting my client at risk by attempting this? If it helps, I'm quick to learn new things (self-taught so far) and care a great deal about correctness, using things for their intended purposes, and so on. I've read numerous recommendations of Agile Development with Rails and would love to read it (though perhaps, while developing in parallel, for shortness of time). Worse comes to worst, I'd give up and do the standard LAMP gig, of course, not charging the client for wasted time. But I'm hoping to avoid the project altogether if it's gonna come down to that! Thanks in advance for any tips, insights, votes of confidence, votes of discouragement (for the better), and such.

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• ObjectStorageHelper<T> now available for Windows 8 RTM

  - by jamiet

  In October 2011 I wrote a blog post entitled ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 where I introduced a little utility class called ObjectStorageHelper<T> that I had been working on while noodling around on the Developer Preview of Windows 8. ObjectStorageHelper<T> makes it easy for anyone building apps for Windows 8 to save data to files. How easy? As easy as this: var myPoco = new Poco() { IntProp = 1, StringProp = "one" }; var objectStorageHelper = new ObjectStorageHelper<Poco>(StorageType.Local); await objectStorageHelper.SaveAsync(myPoco); Compare that to the plumbing code that you would have to write otherwise: var Obj = new Poco() { IntProp = 1, StringProp = "one" }; StorageFile file = null; StorageFolder folder = GetFolder(storageType); file = await folder.CreateFileAsync(FileName(Obj), CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting); IRandomAccessStream writeStream = await file.OpenAsync(FileAccessMode.ReadWrite); using (Stream outStream = Task.Run(() => writeStream.AsStreamForWrite()).Result) {     serializer.Serialize(outStream, Obj);     await outStream.FlushAsync(); } and you can see how ObjectStorageHelper<T> can help save a Windows 8 developer quite a few headaches. ObjectStorageHelper<T> simply requires you to pass it an object to be saved, tell it where to save it (Roaming, Local or Temporary), and you’re done. Retrieving an object from storage is equally as simple: var objectStorageHelper = new ObjectStorageHelper<Poco>(StorageType.Local); var myPoco = await objectStorageHelper.LoadAsync(); Please check the homepage for the project at http://winrtstoragehelper.codeplex.com/ for (much) more info. A number of people have used and tested ObjectStorageHelper<T> since those early days and one of those folks in particular, David Burela, was good enough to report a couple of bugs: Saving Asynchronously Save fails when class is in another project As a result of David’s bug reports and some more extensive testing on my side I have overhauled the initial code that I wrote last October and am confident that it is now much more robust and ready for primetime (check the commit history if you’re interested). The source code (which, again, you can find on Codeplex at http://winrtstoragehelper.codeplex.com/) includes a suite of unit tests to test all of the basic use cases (if you can think of any more please let me know). If you use this in any of your Windows 8 projects then please let me know. I love getting feedback and I’d also love to know if this is actually being used anywhere. @Jamiet

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• Question on design of current pagination implementations

  - by Freshblood

  I have checked pagination implementations on asp.net mvc specifically and i really feel that there is something less efficient in implementations. First of all all implementations use pagination values like below. public ActionResult MostPopulars(int pageIndex,int pageSize) { } The thing that i feel wrong is pageIndex and pageSize totally should be member of Pagination class otherwise this way looks so much functional way. Also it simplify unnecesary paramater pass in tiers of application. Second thing is that they use below interface. public interface IPagedList<T> : IList<T> { int PageCount { get; } int TotalItemCount { get; } int PageIndex { get; } int PageNumber { get; } int PageSize { get; } bool HasPreviousPage { get; } bool HasNextPage { get; } bool IsFirstPage { get; } bool IsLastPage { get; } } If i want to routing my pagination to different action so i have to create new view model for encapsulate action name in it or even controller name. Another solution can be that sending this interfaced model to view then specify action and controller hard coded in pager method as parameter but i am losing totally re-usability of my view because it is strictly depends on just one action. Another thing is that they use below code in view Html.Pager(Model.PageSize, Model.PageNumber, Model.TotalItemCount) If the model is IPagedList why they don't provide an overload method like @Html.Pager(Model) or even better one is @Html.Pager(). You know that we know model type in this way. Before i was doing mistake because i was using Model.PageIndex instead of Model.PageNumber. Another big issue is they strongly rely on IQueryable interface. How they know that i use IQueryable in my data layer ? I would expected that they work simply with collections that is keep pagination implementation persistence ignorant. What is wrong about my improvement ideas over their pagination implementations ? What is their reason to not implement their paginations in this way ?

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• Fun With the Chrome JavaScript Console and the Pluralsight Website

  - by Steve Michelotti

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti/archive/2013/07/24/fun-with-the-chrome-javascript-console-and-the-pluralsight-website.aspxI’m currently working on my third course for Pluralsight. Everyone already knows that Scott Allen is a “dominating force” for Pluralsight but I was curious how many courses other authors have published as well. The Pluralsight Authors page - http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors – shows all 146 authors and you can click on any author’s page to see how many (and which) courses they have authored. The problem is: I don’t want to have to click into 146 pages to get a count for each author. With this in mind, I figured I could write a little JavaScript using the Chrome JavaScript console to do some “detective work.” My first step was to figure out how the HTML was structured on this page so I could do some screen-scraping. Right-click the first author - “Inspect Element”. I can see there is a primary <div> with a class of “main” which contains all the authors. Each author is in an <h3> with an <a> tag containing their name and link to their page:     This web page already has jQuery loaded so I can use $ directly from the console. This allows me to just use jQuery to inspect items on the current page. Notice this is a multi-line command. In order to use multiple lines in the console you have to press SHIFT-ENTER to go to the next line:     Now I can see I’m extracting data just fine. At this point I want to follow each URL. Then I want to screen-scrape this next page to see how many courses each author has done. Let’s take a look at the author detail page:       I can see we have a table (with a css class of “course”) that contains rows for each course authored. This means I can get the number of courses pretty easily like this:     Now I can put this all together. Back on the authors page, I want to follow each URL, extract the returned HTML, and grab the count. In the code below, I simply use the jQuery $.get() method to get the author detail page and the “data” variable that is in the callback contains the HTML. A nice feature of jQuery is that I can simply put this HTML string inside of $() and I can use jQuery selectors directly on it in conjunction with the find() method:     Now I’m getting somewhere. I have every Pluralsight author and how many courses each one has authored. But that’s not quite what I’m after – what I want to see are the authors that have the MOST courses in the library. What I’d like to do is to put all of the data in an array and then sort that array descending by number of courses. I can add an item to the array after each author detail page is returned but the catch here is that I can’t perform the sort operation until ALL of the author detail pages have executed. The jQuery $.get() method is naturally an async method so I essentially have 146 async calls and I don’t want to perform my sort action until ALL have completed (side note: don’t run this script too many times or the Pluralsight servers might think your an evil hacker attempting a DoS attack and deny you). My C# brain wants to use a WaitHandle WaitAll() method here but this is JavaScript. I was able to do this by using the jQuery Deferred() object. I create a new deferred object for each request and push it onto a deferred array. After each request is complete, I signal completion by calling the resolve() method. Finally, I use a $.when.apply() method to execute my descending sort operation once all requests are complete. Here is my complete console command: 1: var authorList = [], 2: defList = []; 3: $(".main h3 a").each(function() { 4: var def = $.Deferred(); 5: defList.push(def); 6: var authorName = $(this).text(); 7: var authorUrl = $(this).attr('href'); 8: $.get(authorUrl, function(data) { 9: var courseCount = $(data).find("table.course tbody tr").length; 10: authorList.push({ name: authorName, numberOfCourses: courseCount }); 11: def.resolve(); 12: }); 13: }); 14: $.when.apply($, defList).then(function() { 15: console.log("*Everything* is complete"); 16: var sortedList = authorList.sort(function(obj1, obj2) { 17: return obj2.numberOfCourses - obj1.numberOfCourses; 18: }); 19: for (var i = 0; i < sortedList.length; i++) { 20: console.log(authorList[i]); 21: } 22: });   And here are the results:     WOW! John Sonmez has 44 courses!! And Matt Milner has 29! I guess Scott Allen isn’t the only “dominating force”. I would have assumed Scott Allen was #1 but he comes in as #3 in total course count (of course Scott has 11 courses in the Top 50, and 14 in the Top 100 which is incredible!). Given that I’m in the middle of producing only my third course, I better get to work!

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• Running a Mongo Replica Set on Azure VM Roles

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/15/running-a-mongo-replica-set-on-azure-vm-roles.aspxSetting up a MongoDB Replica Set with a bunch of Azure VMs is straightforward stuff. Here’s a step-by-step which gets you from 0 to fully-redundant 3-node document database in about 30 minutes (most of which will be spent waiting for VMs to fire up). First, create yourself 3 VM roles, which is the minimum number of nodes you need for high availability. You can use any OS that Mongo supports. This guide uses Windows but the only difference will be the mechanism for starting the Mongo service when the VM starts (Windows Service, daemon etc.) While the VMs are provisioning, download and install Mongo locally, so you can set up the replica set with the Mongo shell. We’ll create our replica set from scratch, doing one machine at a time (if you have a single node you want to upgrade to a replica set, it’s the same from step 3 onwards): 1. Setup Mongo Log into the first node, download mongo and unzip it to C:. Rename the folder to remove the version – so you have c:\MongoDB\bin etc. – and create a new folder for the logs, c:\MongoDB\logs. 2. Setup your data disk When you initialize a node in a replica set, Mongo pre-allocates a whole chunk of storage to use for data replication. It will use up to 5% of your data disk, so if you use a Windows VM image with a defsault 120Gb disk and host your data on C:, then Mongo will allocate 6Gb for replication. And that takes a while. Instead you can create yourself a new partition by shrinking down the C: drive in Computer Management, by say 10Gb, and then creating a new logical disk for your data from that spare 10Gb, which will be allocated as E:. Create a new folder, e:\data. 3. Start Mongo When that’s done, start a command line, point to the mongo binaries folder, install Mongo as a Windows Service, running in replica set mode, and start the service: cd c:\mongodb\bin mongod -logpath c:\mongodb\logs\mongod.log -dbpath e:\data -replSet TheReplicaSet –install net start mongodb 4. Open the ports Mongo uses port 27017 by default, so you need to allow access in the machine and in Azure. In the VM, open Windows Firewall and create a new inbound rule to allow access via port 27017. Then in the Azure Management Console for the VM role, under the Configure tab add a new rule, again to allow port 27017. 5. Initialise the replica set Start up your local mongo shell, connecting to your Azure VM, and initiate the replica set: c:\mongodb\bin\mongo sc-xyz-db1.cloudapp.net rs.initiate() This is the bit where the new node (at this point the only node) allocates its replication files, so if your data disk is large, this can take a long time (if you’re using the default C: drive with 120Gb, it may take so long that rs.initiate() never responds. If you’re sat waiting more than 20 minutes, start another instance of the mongo shell pointing to the same machine to check on it). Run rs.conf() and you should see one node configured. 6. Fix the host name for the primary – *don’t miss this one* For the first node in the replica set, Mongo on Windows doesn’t populate the full machine name. Run rs.conf() and the name of the primary is sc-xyz-db1, which isn’t accessible to the outside world. The replica set configuration needs the full DNS name of every node, so you need to manually rename it in your shell, which you can do like this: cfg = rs.conf() cfg.members[0].host = ‘sc-xyz-db1.cloudapp.net:27017’ rs.reconfig(cfg) When that returns, rs.conf() will have your full DNS name for the primary, and the other nodes will be able to connect. At this point you have a working database, so you can start adding documents, but there’s no replication yet. 7. Add more nodes For the next two VMs, follow steps 1 through to 4, which will give you a working Mongo database on each node, which you can add to the replica set from the shell with rs.add(), using the full DNS name of the new node and the port you’re using: rs.add(‘sc-xyz-db2.cloudapp.net:27017’) Run rs.status() and you’ll see your new node in STARTUP2 state, which means its initializing and replicating from the PRIMARY. Repeat for your third node: rs.add(‘sc-xyz-db3.cloudapp.net:27017’) When all nodes are finished initializing, you will have a PRIMARY and two SECONDARY nodes showing in rs.status(). Now you have high availability, so you can happily stop db1, and one of the other nodes will become the PRIMARY with no loss of data or service. Note – the process for AWS EC2 is exactly the same, but with one important difference. On the Azure Windows Server 2012 base image, the MongoDB release for 64-bit 2008R2+ works fine, but on the base 2012 AMI that release keeps failing with a UAC permission error. The standard 64-bit release is fine, but it lacks some optimizations that are in the 2008R2+ version.

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• Multiple render targets and gamma correctness in Direct3D9

  - by Mario

  Let's say in a deferred renderer when building your G-Buffer you're going to render texture color, normals, depth and whatever else to your multiple render targets at once. Now if you want to have a gamma-correct rendering pipeline and you use regular sRGB textures as well as rendertargets, you'll need to apply some conversions along the way, because your filtering, sampling and calculations should happen in linear space, not sRGB space. Of course, you could store linear color in your textures and rendertargets, but this might very well introduce bad precision and banding issues. Reading from sRGB textures is easy: just set SRGBTexture = true; in your texture sampler in your HLSL effect code and the hardware does the conversion sRGB-linear for you. Writing to an sRGB rendertarget is theoretically easy, too: just set SRGBWriteEnable = true; in your effect pass in HLSL and your linear colors will be converted to sRGB space automatically. But how does this work with multiple rendertargets? I only want to do these corrections to the color textures and rendertarget, not to the normals, depth, specularity or whatever else I'll be rendering to my G-Buffer. Ok, so I just don't apply SRGBTexture = true; to my non-color textures, but when using SRGBWriteEnable = true; I'll do a gamma correction to all the values I write out to my rendertargets, no matter what I actually store there. I found some info on gamma over at Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb173460%28v=vs.85%29.aspx For hardware that supports Multiple Render Targets (Direct3D 9) or Multiple-element Textures (Direct3D 9), only the first render target or element is written. If I understand correctly, SRGBWriteEnable should only be applied to the first rendertarget, but according to my tests it doesn't and is used for all rendertargets instead. Now the only alternative seems to be to handle these corrections manually in my shader and only correct the actual color output, but I'm not totally sure, that this'll not have any negative impact on color correctness. E.g. if the GPU does any blending or filtering or multisampling after the Linear-sRGB conversion... Do I even need gamma correction in this case, if I'm just writing texture color without lighting to my rendertarget? As far as I know, I DO need it because of the texture filtering and mip sampling happening in sRGB space instead, if I don't correct for it. Anyway, it'd be interesting to hear other people's solutions or thoughts about this.

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• SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2. The Awesome Returns.

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  Two years ago 59 SQL Server MVP's came together and helped make one of the best book on SQL Server out there. Each chapter was written by an MVP about a part of SQL Server they loved working with. This resulted in superb quality content and excellent ratings from the readers. To top it off all earnings went to a good cause, the War Child International organization. That book was SQL Server MVP Deep Dives. This year 63 SQL Server MVPs, me included, decided it was time do repeat the success of the first book. Let me introduce you the: SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2 The topics in 60 chapters are grouped in 5 groups: Architecture, Database Administration, Database Development, Performance Tuning and Optimization, Business Intelligence. They represent over 1000 years of daily experience in various areas of SQL Server. I have contributed chapter 28 in Database Development group titled Getting asynchronous with Service Broker. In it I show you the Service Broker template you can use for secure communication between two or more SQL server instances for whatever purpose you may have. If you haven't heard of Service Broker it's a part of the database engine that enables you to do completely async operations in the database itself or between databases and instances. The official release of the book will be next week at PASS where there will be 2 slots where most of the authors will be there signing the books you bring. This is also a great opportunity to meet everyone and ask about any problems you may have. So definitely come say hi. Again we decided on a charity that will be supported by this book. It's called Operation Smile. They provide free surgeries to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities for children around the globe. You can also help them by donating. You can preorder it on at Manning Publications website or on Amazon. By having it you not only get to learn a lot, improve your skills and have fun but you also help a child have a normal life. If that's not a good cause then I don't know what it is.

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• Best practices for logging and tracing in .NET

  - by Levidad

  I've been reading a lot about tracing and logging, trying to find some golden rule for best practices in the matter, but there isn't any. People say that good programmers produce good tracing, but put it that way and it has to come from experience. I've also read similar questions in here and through the internet and they are not really the same thing I am asking or do not have a satisfying answer, maybe because the questions lack some detail. So, folks say that tracing should sort of replicate the experience of debugging the application in cases where you can't attach a debugger. It should provide enough context so that you can see which path is taken at each control point in the application. Going deeper, you can even distinguish between tracing and event logging, in that "event logging is different from tracing in that it captures major states rather than detailed flow of control". Now, say I want to do my tracing and logging using only the standard .NET classes, those in the System.Diagnostics namespace. I figured that the TraceSource class is better for the job than the static Trace class, because I want to differentiate among the trace levels and using the TraceSource class I can pass in a parameter informing the event type, while using the Trace class I must use Trace.WriteLineIf and then verify things like SourceSwitch.TraceInformation and SourceSwitch.TraceErrors, and it doesn't even have properties like TraceVerbose or TraceStart. With all that in mind, would you consider a good practice to do as follows: Trace a "Start" event when begining a method, which should represent a single logical operation or a pipeline, along with a string representation of the parameter values passed in to the method. Trace an "Information" event when inserting an item into the database. Trace an "Information" event when taking one path or another in an important if/else statement. Trace a "Critical" or "Error" in a catch block depending on weather this is a recoverable error. Trace a "Stop" event when finishing the execution of the method. And also, please clarify when best to trace Verbose and Warning event types. If you have examples of code with nice trace/logging and are willing to share, that would be excelent. Note: I've found some good information here, but still not what I am looking for: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff714589.aspx Thanks in advance!

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• How to sort a ListView control by a column in Visual C#

  - by bconlon

  Microsoft provide an article of the same name (previously published as Q319401) and it shows a nice class 'ListViewColumnSorter ' for sorting a standard ListView when the user clicks the column header. This is very useful for String values, however for Numeric or DateTime data it gives odd results. E.g. 100 would come before 99 in an ascending sort as the string compare sees 1 < 9. So my challenge was to allow other types to be sorted. This turned out to be fairly simple as I just needed to create an inner class in ListViewColumnSorter which extends the .Net CaseInsensitiveComparer class, and then use this as the ObjectCompare member's type. Note: Ideally we would be able to use IComparer as the member's type, but the Compare method is not virtual in CaseInsensitiveComparer , so we have to create an exact type: public class ListViewColumnSorter : IComparer {     private CaseInsensitiveComparer ObjectCompare;     private MyComparer ObjectCompare;     ... rest of Microsofts class implementation... } Here is my private inner comparer class, note the 'new int Compare' as Compare is not virtual, and also note we pass the values to the base compare as the correct type (e.g. Decimal, DateTime) so they compare correctly: private class MyComparer : CaseInsensitiveComparer {     public new int Compare(object x, object y)     {         try         {             string s1 = x.ToString();             string s2 = y.ToString();               // check for a numeric column             decimal n1, n2 = 0;             if (Decimal.TryParse(s1, out n1) && Decimal.TryParse(s2, out n2))                 return base.Compare(n1, n2);             else             {                 // check for a date column                 DateTime d1, d2;                 if (DateTime.TryParse(s1, out d1) && DateTime.TryParse(s2, out d2))                     return base.Compare(d1, d2);             }         }         catch (ArgumentException) { }           // just use base string compare         return base.Compare(x, y);     } } You could extend this for other types, even custom classes as long as they support ICompare. Microsoft also have another article How to: Sort a GridView Column When a Header Is Clicked that shows this for WPF, which looks conceptually very similar. I need to test it out to see if it handles non-string types. #

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• Oracle BPM: Adding an attachment during the Human Task Initialization

  - by kyap

  Recently I had the requirement from a customer to instantiate a Human Task, which can accept a payload containing a binary attribute (base64) representing an actual document. According to the same requirement, this attribute should be shown as a hyperlink in the Worklist UI to the assignee(s), from which the assignees can download the document on the local machine for review. Multiple options have been leverage, but most required heavy customization.  In order to leverage as much as possible Oracle BPM out-of-the box functionalities, I decided to add this document as a readonly attachment. We can easily achieve this operation within Worklist Application, but it is a bit more challenging when we want to attach the document during the Human Task initialization.  After some investigations (on BPM 11g PS4FP and PS5), here's the way to go: 1. Create an asynchronous BPM process, and use this xsd to create 2 Business Objects FullPayload and PartialPayload : 2. Create 2 process variables 'vFullPayload' and 'vPartialPayload' using this Business Objects created above 3. Implement the Start Event with the initial Data Association, with an input argument using 'FullPayload' Business Object type 4. Drag in an User Task into the process. Implement the User Task as usual by using 'vPartialPayload' type as the input type and assign the task to your favorite tester (mine is jcooper) 5. Here's the main course - Start the Data Association and map the payload into 'execData' as follow: FROM TO  vFullPayload.attachment.mimetype  execData.attachment[1].mimeType  vFullPayload.attachment.filename  execData.attachment[1].name  bpmn:getDataObject('vFullPayload')/ns:attachment/ns:content  execData.attachment[1].content  'BPM'  execData.attachment[1].attachmentScope false()  execData.attachment[1].doesBelongToParent 'weblogic'  execData.attachment[1].updateBy  xp20:current-dateTime()  execData.attachment[1].updateDate (Note: Check the <Humantask>WorkflowTask.xsd file in your project xsd folder to discover the different options for attachmentScope & storageType) 6. Your process is completed. Just build a standard ADF UI and deploy the process/UI onto your BPM Server for the testing. Here's an example, with a base64 encoded pdf file: application-pdf.txt 7. Finally, go to the BPM Worklist application to check the result ! Please note that Oracle BPM, by default, limits the attachment document size to 2Mb. If you are planning to have bigger attachments in your process, it is recommended to store your documents in a Content Management server (such as Oracle UCM) and pass the reference instead. It is possible to configure Oracle BPM to store attachment directly into Oracle UCM too, and I believe we can use the storageType, ucmMetadataItem attributes for this purpose.... I will confirm once I have access onto an Oracle UCM for the testing :)

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• Drawing multiple Textures as tilemap

  - by DocJones

  I am trying to draw a 2d game map and the objects on the map in a single pass. Here is my OpenGL initialization code // Turn off unnecessary operations glDisable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); glDisable(GL_LIGHTING); glDisable(GL_CULL_FACE); glDisable(GL_STENCIL_TEST); glDisable(GL_DITHER); glEnable(GL_BLEND); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); // activate pointer to vertex & texture array glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); My drawing code is being called by a NSTimer every 1/60 s. Here is the drawing code of my world object: - (void) draw:(NSRect)rect withTimedDelta:(double)d { GLint *t; glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, [_textureManager textureByName:@"blocks"]); glTexEnvi(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_REPLACE); for (int x=0; x<[_map getWidth] ; x++) { for (int y=0; y<[_map getHeight] ; y++) { GLint v[] = { 16*x ,16*y, 16*x+16,16*y, 16*x+16,16*y+16, 16*x ,16*y+16 }; t=[_textureManager getBlockWithNumber:[_map getBlockAtX:x andY:y]]; glVertexPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, v); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, t); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS, 0, 4); } } } (_textureManager is a Singelton only loading a texture once!) The object drawing codes is identical (except the nested loops) in terms of OpenGL calls: - (void) drawWithTimedDelta:(double)d { GLint *t; GLint v[] = { 16*xpos ,16*ypos, 16*xpos+16,16*ypos, 16*xpos+16,16*ypos+16, 16*xpos ,16*ypos+16 }; glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, [_textureManager textureByName:_textureName]); t=[_textureManager getBlockWithNumber:12]; glVertexPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, v); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, t); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS, 0, 4); } As soon as my central drawing routine calls the two drawing methods the second call overlays the first one. i would expect the call to world.draw to draw the map and "stamp" the objects upon it. Debugging shows me, that the first call is performed correctly (world is being drawn), but the following call to all objects ONLY draws the objects, the rest of the scene is getting black. I think i need to blend the drawn textures, but i cant seem to figure out how. Any help is appreciated. Thanks PS: Here is the github link to the project. It may not be in sync of my post here, but for some more in-depth analysis it may help.

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