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• Click Once Deployment Process and Issue Resolution

  - by Geordie

  Introduction We are adopting Click Once as a deployment standard for Thick .Net application clients.  The latest version of this tool has matured it to a point where it can be used in an enterprise environment.  This guide will identify how to use Click Once deployment and promote code trough the dev, test and production environments. Why Use Click Once over SCCM If we already use SCCM why add Click Once to the deployment options.  The advantages of Click Once are their ability to update the code in a single location and have the update flow automatically down to the user community.  There have been challenges in the past with getting configuration updates to download but these can now be achieved.  With SCCM you can do the same thing but it then needs to be packages and pushed out to users.  Each time a new user is added to an application, time needs to be spent by an administrator, to push out any required application packages.  With Click Once the user would go to a web link and the application and pre requisites will automatically get installed. New Deployment Steps Overview The deployment in an enterprise environment includes several steps as the solution moves through the development life cycle before being released into production.  To make mitigate risk during the release phase, it is important to ensure the solution is not deployed directly into production from the development tools.  Although this is the easiest path, it can introduce untested code into production and result in unexpected results. 1. Deploy the client application to a development web server using Visual Studio 2008 Click Once deployment tools.  Once potential production versions of the solution are being generated, ensure the production install URL is specified when deploying code from Visual Studio.  (For details see ‘Deploying Click Once Code from Visual Studio’) 2. xCopy the code to the test server.  Run the MageUI tool to update the URLs, signing and version numbers to match the test server. (For details see ‘Moving Click Once Code to a new Server without using Visual Studio’) 3. xCopy the code to the production server.  Run the MageUI tool to update the URLs, signing and version numbers to match the production server. The certificate used to sign the code should be provided by a certificate authority that will be trusted by the client machines.  Finally make sure the setup.exe contains the production install URL.  If not redeploy the solution from Visual Studio to the dev environment specifying the production install URL.  Then xcopy the install.exe file from dev to production.  (For details see ‘Moving Click Once Code to a new Server without using Visual Studio’) Detailed Deployment Steps Deploying Click Once Code From Visual Studio Open Visual Studio and create a new WinForms or WPF project.   In the solution explorer right click on the project and select ‘Publish’ in the context menu.   The ‘Publish Wizard’ will start.  Enter the development deployment path.  This could be a local directory or web site.  When first publishing the solution set this to a development web site and Visual basic will create a site with an install.htm page.  Click Next.  Select weather the application will be available both online and offline. Then click Finish. Once the initial deployment is completed, republish the solution this time mapping to the directory that holds the code that was just published.  This time the Publish Wizard contains and additional option.   The setup.exe file that is created has the install URL hardcoded in it.  It is this screen that allows you to specify the URL to use.  At some point a setup.exe file must be generated for production.  Enter the production URL and deploy the solution to the dev folder.  This file can then be saved for latter use in deployment to production.  During development this URL should be pointing to development site to avoid accidently installing the production application. Visual studio will publish the application to the desired location in the process it will create an anonymous ‘pfx’ certificate to sign the deployment configuration files.  A production certificate should be acquired in preparation for deployment to production.   Directory structure created by Visual Studio     Application files created by Visual Studio   Development web site (install.htm) created by Visual Studio Migrating Click Once Code to a new Server without using Visual Studio To migrate the Click Once application code to a new server, a tool called MageUI is needed to modify the .application and .manifest files.  The MageUI tool is usually located – ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin’ folder or can be downloaded from the web. When deploying to a new environment copy all files in the project folder to the new server.  In this case the ‘ClickOnceSample’ folder and contents.  The old application versions can be deleted, in this case ‘ClickOnceSample_1_0_0_0’ and ‘ClickOnceSample_1_0_0_1’.  Open IIS Manager and create a virtual directory that points to the project folder.  Also make the publish.htm the default web page.   Run the ManeUI tool and then open the .application file in the root project folder (in this case in the ‘ClickOnceSample’ folder). Click on the Deployment Options in the left hand list and update the URL to the new server URL and save the changes.   When MageUI tries to save the file it will prompt for the file to be signed.   This step cannot be bypassed if you want the Click Once deployment to work from a web site.  The easiest solution to this for test is to use the auto generated certificate that Visual Studio created for the project.  This certificate can be found with the project source code.   To save time go to File>Preferences and configure the ‘Use default signing certificate’ fields.   Future deployments will only require application files to be transferred to the new server.  The only difference is then updating the .application file the ‘Version’ must be updated to match the new version and the ‘Application Reference’ has to be update to point to the new .manifest file.     Updating the Configuration File of a Click Once Deployment Package without using Visual Studio When an update to the configuration file is required, modifying the ClickOnceSample.exe.config.deploy file will not result in current users getting the new configurations.  We do not want to go back to Visual Studio and generate a new version as this might introduce unexpected code changes.  A new version of the application can be created by copying the folder (in this case ClickOnceSample_1_0_0_2) and pasting it into the application Files directory.  Rename the directory ‘ClickOnceSample_1_0_0_3’.  In the new folder open the configuration file in notepad and make the configuration changes. Run MageUI and open the manifest file in the newly copied directory (ClickOnceSample_1_0_0_3).   Edit the manifest version to reflect the newly copied files (in this case 1.0.0.3).  Then save the file.  Open the .application file in the root folder.  Again update the version to 1.0.0.3.  Since the file has not changed the Deployment Options/Start Location URL should still be correct.  The application Reference needs to be updated to point to the new versions .manifest file.  Save the file. Next time a user runs the application the new version of the configuration file will be down loaded.  It is worth noting that there are 2 different types of configuration parameter; application and user.  With Click Once deployment the difference is significant.  When an application is downloaded the configuration file is also brought down to the client machine.  The developer may have written code to update the user parameters in the application.  As a result each time a new version of the application is down loaded the user parameters are at risk of being overwritten.  With Click Once deployment the system knows if the user parameters are still the default values.  If they are they will be overwritten with the new default values in the configuration file.  If they have been updated by the user, they will not be overwritten. Settings configuration view in Visual Studio Production Deployment When deploying the code to production it is prudent to disable the development and test deployment sites.  This will allow errors such as incorrect URL to be quickly identified in the initial testing after deployment.  If the sites are active there is no way to know if the application was downloaded from the production deployment and not redirected to test or dev.   Troubleshooting Clicking the install button on the install.htm page fails. Error: URLDownloadToCacheFile failed with HRESULT '-2146697210' Error: An error occurred trying to download <file>   This is due to the setup.exe file pointing to the wrong location. ‘The setup.exe file that is created has the install URL hardcoded in it.  It is this screen that allows you to specify the URL to use.  At some point a setup.exe file must be generated for production.  Enter the production URL and deploy the solution to the dev folder.  This file can then be saved for latter use in deployment to production.  During development this URL should be pointing to development site to avoid accidently installing the production application.’

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• Building Simple Workflows in Oozie

  - by dan.mcclary

  Introduction More often than not, data doesn't come packaged exactly as we'd like it for analysis. Transformation, match-merge operations, and a host of data munging tasks are usually needed before we can extract insights from our Big Data sources. Few people find data munging exciting, but it has to be done. Once we've suffered that boredom, we should take steps to automate the process. We want codify our work into repeatable units and create workflows which we can leverage over and over again without having to write new code. In this article, we'll look at how to use Oozie to create a workflow for the parallel machine learning task I described on Cloudera's site. Hive Actions: Prepping for Pig In my parallel machine learning article, I use data from the National Climatic Data Center to build weather models on a state-by-state basis. NCDC makes the data freely available as gzipped files of day-over-day observations stretching from the 1930s to today. In reading that post, one might get the impression that the data came in a handy, ready-to-model files with convenient delimiters. The truth of it is that I need to perform some parsing and projection on the dataset before it can be modeled. If I get more observations, I'll want to retrain and test those models, which will require more parsing and projection. This is a good opportunity to start building up a workflow with Oozie. I store the data from the NCDC in HDFS and create an external Hive table partitioned by year. This gives me flexibility of Hive's query language when I want it, but let's me put the dataset in a directory of my choosing in case I want to treat the same data with Pig or MapReduce code. CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE IF NOT EXISTS historic_weather(column 1, column2) PARTITIONED BY (yr string) STORED AS ... LOCATION '/user/oracle/weather/historic'; As new weather data comes in from NCDC, I'll need to add partitions to my table. That's an action I should put in the workflow. Similarly, the weather data requires parsing in order to be useful as a set of columns. Because of their long history, the weather data is broken up into fields of specific byte lengths: x bytes for the station ID, y bytes for the dew point, and so on. The delimiting is consistent from year to year, so writing SerDe or a parser for transformation is simple. Once that's done, I want to select columns on which to train, classify certain features, and place the training data in an HDFS directory for my Pig script to access. ALTER TABLE historic_weather ADD IF NOT EXISTS PARTITION (yr='2010') LOCATION '/user/oracle/weather/historic/yr=2011'; INSERT OVERWRITE DIRECTORY '/user/oracle/weather/cleaned_history' SELECT w.stn, w.wban, w.weather_year, w.weather_month, w.weather_day, w.temp, w.dewp, w.weather FROM ( FROM historic_weather SELECT TRANSFORM(...) USING '/path/to/hive/filters/ncdc_parser.py' as stn, wban, weather_year, weather_month, weather_day, temp, dewp, weather ) w; Since I'm going to prepare training directories with at least the same frequency that I add partitions, I should also add that to my workflow. Oozie is going to invoke these Hive actions using what's somewhat obviously referred to as a Hive action. Hive actions amount to Oozie running a script file containing our query language statements, so we can place them in a file called weather_train.hql. Starting Our Workflow Oozie offers two types of jobs: workflows and coordinator jobs. Workflows are straightforward: they define a set of actions to perform as a sequence or directed acyclic graph. Coordinator jobs can take all the same actions of Workflow jobs, but they can be automatically started either periodically or when new data arrives in a specified location. To keep things simple we'll make a workflow job; coordinator jobs simply require another XML file for scheduling. The bare minimum for workflow XML defines a name, a starting point, and an end point: <workflow-app name="WeatherMan" xmlns="uri:oozie:workflow:0.1"> <start to="ParseNCDCData"/> <end name="end"/> </workflow-app> To this we need to add an action, and within that we'll specify the hive parameters Also, keep in mind that actions require <ok> and <error> tags to direct the next action on success or failure. <action name="ParseNCDCData"> <hive xmlns="uri:oozie:hive-action:0.2"> <job-tracker>localhost:8021</job-tracker> <name-node>localhost:8020</name-node> <configuration> <property> <name>oozie.hive.defaults</name> <value>/user/oracle/weather_ooze/hive-default.xml</value> </property> </configuration> <script>ncdc_parse.hql</script> </hive> <ok to="WeatherMan"/> <error to="end"/> </action> There are a couple of things to note here: I have to give the FQDN (or IP) and port of my JobTracker and NameNode. I have to include a hive-default.xml file. I have to include a script file. The hive-default.xml and script file must be stored in HDFS That last point is particularly important. Oozie doesn't make assumptions about where a given workflow is being run. You might submit workflows against different clusters, or have different hive-defaults.xml on different clusters (e.g. MySQL or Postgres-backed metastores). A quick way to ensure that all the assets end up in the right place in HDFS is just to make a working directory locally, build your workflow.xml in it, and copy the assets you'll need to it as you add actions to workflow.xml. At this point, our local directory should contain: workflow.xml hive-defaults.xml (make sure this file contains your metastore connection data) ncdc_parse.hql Adding Pig to the Ooze Adding our Pig script as an action is slightly simpler from an XML standpoint. All we do is add an action to workflow.xml as follows: <action name="WeatherMan"> <pig> <job-tracker>localhost:8021</job-tracker> <name-node>localhost:8020</name-node> <script>weather_train.pig</script> </pig> <ok to="end"/> <error to="end"/> </action> Once we've done this, we'll copy weather_train.pig to our working directory. However, there's a bit of a "gotcha" here. My pig script registers the Weka Jar and a chunk of jython. If those aren't also in HDFS, our action will fail from the outset -- but where do we put them? The Jython script goes into the working directory at the same level as the pig script, because pig attempts to load Jython files in the directory from which the script executes. However, that's not where our Weka jar goes. While Oozie doesn't assume much, it does make an assumption about the Pig classpath. Anything under working_directory/lib gets automatically added to the Pig classpath and no longer requires a REGISTER statement in the script. Anything that uses a REGISTER statement cannot be in the working_directory/lib directory. Instead, it needs to be in a different HDFS directory and attached to the pig action with an <archive> tag. Yes, that's as confusing as you think it is. You can get the exact rules for adding Jars to the distributed cache from Oozie's Pig Cookbook. Making the Workflow Work We've got a workflow defined and have collected all the components we'll need to run. But we can't run anything yet, because we still have to define some properties about the job and submit it to Oozie. We need to start with the job properties, as this is essentially the "request" we'll submit to the Oozie server. In the same working directory, we'll make a file called job.properties as follows: nameNode=hdfs://localhost:8020 jobTracker=localhost:8021 queueName=default weatherRoot=weather_ooze mapreduce.jobtracker.kerberos.principal=foo dfs.namenode.kerberos.principal=foo oozie.libpath=${nameNode}/user/oozie/share/lib oozie.wf.application.path=${nameNode}/user/${user.name}/${weatherRoot} outputDir=weather-ooze While some of the pieces of the properties file are familiar (e.g., JobTracker address), others take a bit of explaining. The first is weatherRoot: this is essentially an environment variable for the script (as are jobTracker and queueName). We're simply using them to simplify the directives for the Oozie job. The oozie.libpath pieces is extremely important. This is a directory in HDFS which holds Oozie's shared libraries: a collection of Jars necessary for invoking Hive, Pig, and other actions. It's a good idea to make sure this has been installed and copied up to HDFS. The last two lines are straightforward: run the application defined by workflow.xml at the application path listed and write the output to the output directory. We're finally ready to submit our job! After all that work we only need to do a few more things: Validate our workflow.xml Copy our working directory to HDFS Submit our job to the Oozie server Run our workflow Let's do them in order. First validate the workflow: oozie validate workflow.xml Next, copy the working directory up to HDFS: hadoop fs -put working_dir /user/oracle/working_dir Now we submit the job to the Oozie server. We need to ensure that we've got the correct URL for the Oozie server, and we need to specify our job.properties file as an argument. oozie job -oozie http://url.to.oozie.server:port_number/ -config /path/to/working_dir/job.properties -submit We've submitted the job, but we don't see any activity on the JobTracker? All I got was this funny bit of output: 14-20120525161321-oozie-oracle This is because submitting a job to Oozie creates an entry for the job and places it in PREP status. What we got back, in essence, is a ticket for our workflow to ride the Oozie train. We're responsible for redeeming our ticket and running the job. oozie -oozie http://url.to.oozie.server:port_number/ -start 14-20120525161321-oozie-oracle Of course, if we really want to run the job from the outset, we can change the "-submit" argument above to "-run." This will prep and run the workflow immediately. Takeaway So, there you have it: the somewhat laborious process of building an Oozie workflow. It's a bit tedious the first time out, but it does present a pair of real benefits to those of us who spend a great deal of time data munging. First, when new data arrives that requires the same processing, we already have the workflow defined and ready to run. Second, as we build up a set of useful action definitions over time, creating new workflows becomes quicker and quicker.

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• HPET for x86 BSP (how to build it for WCE8)

  - by Werner Willemsens

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/WernerWillemsens/archive/2014/08/02/157895.aspx"I needed a timer". That is how we started a few blogs ago our series about APIC and ACPI. Well, here it is. HPET (High Precision Event Timer) was introduced by Intel in early 2000 to: Replace old style Intel 8253 (1981!) and 8254 timers Support more accurate timers that could be used for multimedia purposes. Hence Microsoft and Intel sometimes refers to HPET as Multimedia timers. An HPET chip consists of a 64-bit up-counter (main counter) counting at a frequency of at least 10 MHz, and a set of (at least three, up to 256) comparators. These comparators are 32- or 64-bit wide. The HPET is discoverable via ACPI. The HPET circuit in recent Intel platforms is integrated into the SouthBridge chip (e.g. 82801) All HPET timers should support one-shot interrupt programming, while optionally they can support periodic interrupts. In most Intel SouthBridges I worked with, there are three HPET timers. TIMER0 supports both one-shot and periodic mode, while TIMER1 and TIMER2 are one-shot only. Each HPET timer can generate interrupts, both in old-style PIC mode and in APIC mode. However in PIC mode, interrupts cannot freely be chosen. Typically IRQ11 is available and cannot be shared with any other interrupt! Which makes the HPET in PIC mode virtually unusable. In APIC mode however more IRQs are available and can be shared with other interrupt generating devices. (Check the datasheet of your SouthBridge) Because of this higher level of freedom, I created the APIC BSP (see previous posts). The HPET driver code that I present you here uses this APIC mode. Hpet.reg [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\BuiltIn\Hpet] "Dll"="Hpet.dll" "Prefix"="HPT" "Order"=dword:10 "IsrDll"="giisr.dll" "IsrHandler"="ISRHandler" "Priority256"=dword:50 Because HPET does not reside on the PCI bus, but can be found through ACPI as a memory mapped device, you don't need to specify the "Class", "SubClass", "ProgIF" and other PCI related registry keys that you typically find for PCI devices. If a driver needs to run its internal thread(s) at a certain priority level, by convention in Windows CE you add the "Priority256" registry key. Through this key you can easily play with the driver's thread priority for better response and timer accuracy. See later. Hpet.cpp (Hpet.dll) This cpp file contains the complete HPET driver code. The file is part of a folder that you typically integrate in your BSP (\src\drivers\Hpet). It is written as sample (example) code, you most likely want to change this code to your specific needs. There are two sets of #define's that I use to control how the driver works. _TRIGGER_EVENT or _TRIGGER_SEMAPHORE: _TRIGGER_EVENT will let your driver trigger a Windows CE Event when the timer expires, _TRIGGER_SEMAPHORE will trigger a Windows CE counting Semaphore. The latter guarantees that no events get lost in case your application cannot always process the triggers fast enough. _TIMER0 or _TIMER2: both timers will trigger an event or semaphore periodically. _TIMER0 will use a periodic HPET timer interrupt, while _TIMER2 will reprogram a one-shot HPET timer after each interrupt. The one-shot approach is interesting if the frequency you wish to generate is not an even multiple of the HPET main counter frequency. The sample code uses an algorithm to generate a more correct frequency over a longer period (by reducing rounding errors). _TIMER1 is not used in the sample source code. HPT_Init() will locate the HPET I/O memory space, setup the HPET counter (_TIMER0 or _TIMER2) and install the Interrupt Service Thread (IST). Upon timer expiration, the IST will run and on its turn will generate a Windows CE Event or Semaphore. In case of _TIMER2 a new one-shot comparator value is calculated and set for the timer. The IRQ of the HPET timers are programmed to IRQ22, but you can choose typically from 20-23. The TIMERn_INT_ROUT_CAP bits in the TIMn_CONF register will tell you what IRQs you can choose from. HPT_IOControl() can be used to set a new HPET counter frequency (actually you configure the counter timeout value in microseconds), start and stop the timer, and request the current HPET counter value. The latter is interesting because the Windows CE QueryPerformanceCounter() and QueryPerformanceFrequency() APIs implement the same functionality, albeit based on other counter implementations. HpetDrvIst() contains the IST code. DWORD WINAPI HpetDrvIst(LPVOID lpArg) { psHpetDeviceContext pHwContext = (psHpetDeviceContext)lpArg; DWORD mainCount = READDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, GenCapIDReg + 4); // Main Counter Tick period (fempto sec 10E-15) DWORD i = 0; while (1) { WaitForSingleObject(pHwContext->g_isrEvent, INFINITE); #if defined(_TRIGGER_SEMAPHORE) LONG p = 0; BOOL b = ReleaseSemaphore(pHwContext->g_triggerEvent, 1, &p); #elif defined(_TRIGGER_EVENT) BOOL b = SetEvent(pHwContext->g_triggerEvent); #else #pragma error("Unknown TRIGGER") #endif #if defined(_TIMER0) DWORD currentCount = READDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, MainCounterReg); DWORD comparator = READDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, Tim0_ComparatorReg + 0); SETBIT(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, GenIntStaReg, 0); // clear interrupt on HPET level InterruptDone(pHwContext->g_sysIntr); // clear interrupt on OS level _LOGMSG(ZONE_INTERRUPT, (L"%s: HpetDrvIst 0 %06d %08X %08X", pHwContext->g_id, i++, currentCount, comparator)); #elif defined(_TIMER2) DWORD currentCount = READDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, MainCounterReg); DWORD previousComparator = READDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, Tim2_ComparatorReg + 0); pHwContext->g_counter2.QuadPart += pHwContext->g_comparator.QuadPart; // increment virtual counter (higher accuracy) DWORD comparator = (DWORD)(pHwContext->g_counter2.QuadPart >> 8); // "round" to real value WRITEDWORD(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, Tim2_ComparatorReg + 0, comparator); SETBIT(pHwContext->g_hpet_va, GenIntStaReg, 2); // clear interrupt on HPET level InterruptDone(pHwContext->g_sysIntr); // clear interrupt on OS level _LOGMSG(ZONE_INTERRUPT, (L"%s: HpetDrvIst 2 %06d %08X %08X (%08X)", pHwContext->g_id, i++, currentCount, comparator, comparator - previousComparator)); #else #pragma error("Unknown TIMER") #endif } return 1; } The following figure shows how the HPET hardware interrupt via ISR -> IST is translated in a Windows CE Event or Semaphore by the HPET driver. The Event or Semaphore can be used to trigger a Windows CE application. HpetTest.cpp (HpetTest.exe)This cpp file contains sample source how to use the HPET driver from an application. The file is part of a separate (smart device) VS2013 solution. It contains code to measure the generated Event/Semaphore times by means of GetSystemTime() and QueryPerformanceCounter() and QueryPerformanceFrequency() APIs. HPET evaluation If you scan the internet about HPET, you'll find many remarks about buggy HPET implementations and bad performance. Unfortunately that is true. I tested the HPET driver on an Intel ICH7M SBC (release date 2008). When a HPET timer expires on the ICH7M, an interrupt indeed is generated, but right after you clear the interrupt, a few more unwanted interrupts (too soon!) occur as well. I tested and debugged it for a loooong time, but I couldn't get it to work. I concluded ICH7M's HPET is buggy Intel hardware. I tested the HPET driver successfully on a more recent NM10 SBC (release date 2013). With the NM10 chipset however, I am not fully convinced about the timer's frequency accuracy. In the long run - on average - all is fine, but occasionally I experienced upto 20 microseconds delays (which were immediately compensated on the next interrupt). Of course, this was all measured by software, but I still experienced the occasional delay when both the HPET driver IST thread as the application thread ran at CeSetThreadPriority(1). If it is not the hardware, only the kernel can cause this delay. But Windows CE is an RTOS and I have never experienced such long delays with previous versions of Windows CE. I tested and developed this on WCE8, I am not heavily experienced with it yet. Internet forum threads however mention inaccurate HPET timer implementations as well. At this moment I haven't figured out what is going on here. Useful references: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/technical-specifications/software-developers-hpet-spec-1-0a.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer http://wiki.osdev.org/HPET Windows CE BSP source file package for HPET in MyBsp Note that this source code is "As Is". It is still under development and I cannot (and never will) guarantee the correctness of the code. Use it as a guide for your own HPET integration.

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Fun With Enum Methods

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again lets dive into the Little Wonders of .NET, those small things in the .NET languages and BCL classes that make development easier by increasing readability, maintainability, and/or performance. So probably every one of us has used an enumerated type at one time or another in a C# program.  The enumerated types we create are a great way to represent that a value can be one of a set of discrete values (or a combination of those values in the case of bit flags). But the power of enum types go far beyond simple assignment and comparison, there are many methods in the Enum class (that all enum types “inherit” from) that can give you even more power when dealing with them. IsDefined() – check if a given value exists in the enum Are you reading a value for an enum from a data source, but are unsure if it is actually a valid value or not?  Casting won’t tell you this, and Parse() isn’t guaranteed to balk either if you give it an int or a combination of flags.  So what can we do? Let’s assume we have a small enum like this for result codes we want to return back from our business logic layer: 1: public enum ResultCode 2: { 3: Success, 4: Warning, 5: Error 6: } In this enum, Success will be zero (unless given another value explicitly), Warning will be one, and Error will be two. So what happens if we have code like this where perhaps we’re getting the result code from another data source (could be database, could be web service, etc)? 1: public ResultCode PerformAction() 2: { 3: // set up and call some method that returns an int. 4: int result = ResultCodeFromDataSource(); 5:  6: // this will suceed even if result is < 0 or > 2. 7: return (ResultCode) result; 8: } So what happens if result is –1 or 4?  Well, the cast does not fail, so what we end up with would be an instance of a ResultCode that would have a value that’s outside of the bounds of the enum constants we defined. This means if you had a block of code like: 1: switch (result) 2: { 3: case ResultType.Success: 4: // do success stuff 5: break; 6:  7: case ResultType.Warning: 8: // do warning stuff 9: break; 10:  11: case ResultType.Error: 12: // do error stuff 13: break; 14: } That you would hit none of these blocks (which is a good argument for always having a default in a switch by the way). So what can you do?  Well, there is a handy static method called IsDefined() on the Enum class which will tell you if an enum value is defined.  1: public ResultCode PerformAction() 2: { 3: int result = ResultCodeFromDataSource(); 4:  5: if (!Enum.IsDefined(typeof(ResultCode), result)) 6: { 7: throw new InvalidOperationException("Enum out of range."); 8: } 9:  10: return (ResultCode) result; 11: } In fact, this is often recommended after you Parse() or cast a value to an enum as there are ways for values to get past these methods that may not be defined. If you don’t like the syntax of passing in the type of the enum, you could clean it up a bit by creating an extension method instead that would allow you to call IsDefined() off any isntance of the enum: 1: public static class EnumExtensions 2: { 3: // helper method that tells you if an enum value is defined for it's enumeration 4: public static bool IsDefined(this Enum value) 5: { 6: return Enum.IsDefined(value.GetType(), value); 7: } 8: }   HasFlag() – an easier way to see if a bit (or bits) are set Most of us who came from the land of C programming have had to deal extensively with bit flags many times in our lives.  As such, using bit flags may be almost second nature (for a quick refresher on bit flags in enum types see one of my old posts here). However, in higher-level languages like C#, the need to manipulate individual bit flags is somewhat diminished, and the code to check for bit flag enum values may be obvious to an advanced developer but cryptic to a novice developer. For example, let’s say you have an enum for a messaging platform that contains bit flags: 1: // usually, we pluralize flags enum type names 2: [Flags] 3: public enum MessagingOptions 4: { 5: None = 0, 6: Buffered = 0x01, 7: Persistent = 0x02, 8: Durable = 0x04, 9: Broadcast = 0x08 10: } We can combine these bit flags using the bitwise OR operator (the ‘|’ pipe character): 1: // combine bit flags using 2: var myMessenger = new Messenger(MessagingOptions.Buffered | MessagingOptions.Broadcast); Now, if we wanted to check the flags, we’d have to test then using the bit-wise AND operator (the ‘&’ character): 1: if ((options & MessagingOptions.Buffered) == MessagingOptions.Buffered) 2: { 3: // do code to set up buffering... 4: // ... 5: } While the ‘|’ for combining flags is easy enough to read for advanced developers, the ‘&’ test tends to be easy for novice developers to get wrong.  First of all you have to AND the flag combination with the value, and then typically you should test against the flag combination itself (and not just for a non-zero)!  This is because the flag combination you are testing with may combine multiple bits, in which case if only one bit is set, the result will be non-zero but not necessarily all desired bits! Thanks goodness in .NET 4.0 they gave us the HasFlag() method.  This method can be called from an enum instance to test to see if a flag is set, and best of all you can avoid writing the bit wise logic yourself.  Not to mention it will be more readable to a novice developer as well: 1: if (options.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 2: { 3: // do code to set up buffering... 4: // ... 5: } It is much more concise and unambiguous, thus increasing your maintainability and readability. It would be nice to have a corresponding SetFlag() method, but unfortunately generic types don’t allow you to specialize on Enum, which makes it a bit more difficult.  It can be done but you have to do some conversions to numeric and then back to the enum which makes it less of a payoff than having the HasFlag() method.  But if you want to create it for symmetry, it would look something like this: 1: public static T SetFlag<T>(this Enum value, T flags) 2: { 3: if (!value.GetType().IsEquivalentTo(typeof(T))) 4: { 5: throw new ArgumentException("Enum value and flags types don't match."); 6: } 7:  8: // yes this is ugly, but unfortunately we need to use an intermediate boxing cast 9: return (T)Enum.ToObject(typeof (T), Convert.ToUInt64(value) | Convert.ToUInt64(flags)); 10: } Note that since the enum types are value types, we need to assign the result to something (much like string.Trim()).  Also, you could chain several SetFlag() operations together or create one that takes a variable arg list if desired. Parse() and ToString() – transitioning from string to enum and back Sometimes, you may want to be able to parse an enum from a string or convert it to a string - Enum has methods built in to let you do this.  Now, many may already know this, but may not appreciate how much power are in these two methods. For example, if you want to parse a string as an enum, it’s easy and works just like you’d expect from the numeric types: 1: string optionsString = "Persistent"; 2:  3: // can use Enum.Parse, which throws if finds something it doesn't like... 4: var result = (MessagingOptions)Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result == MessagingOptions.Persistent) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 9: } Note that Enum.Parse() will throw if it finds a value it doesn’t like.  But the values it likes are fairly flexible!  You can pass in a single value, or a comma separated list of values for flags and it will parse them all and set all bits: 1: // for string values, can have one, or comma separated. 2: string optionsString = "Persistent, Buffered"; 3:  4: var result = (MessagingOptions)Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 9: } Or you can parse in a string containing a number that represents a single value or combination of values to set: 1: // 3 is the combination of Buffered (0x01) and Persistent (0x02) 2: var optionsString = "3"; 3:  4: var result = (MessagingOptions) Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked again!"); 9: } And, if you really aren’t sure if the parse will work, and don’t want to handle an exception, you can use TryParse() instead: 1: string optionsString = "Persistent, Buffered"; 2: MessagingOptions result; 3:  4: // try parse returns true if successful, and takes an out parm for the result 5: if (Enum.TryParse(optionsString, out result)) 6: { 7: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 8: { 9: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 10: } 11: } So we covered parsing a string to an enum, what about reversing that and converting an enum to a string?  The ToString() method is the obvious and most basic choice for most of us, but did you know you can pass a format string for enum types that dictate how they are written as a string?: 1: MessagingOptions value = MessagingOptions.Buffered | MessagingOptions.Persistent; 2:  3: // general format, which is the default, 4: Console.WriteLine("Default : " + value); 5: Console.WriteLine("G (default): " + value.ToString("G")); 6:  7: // Flags format, even if type does not have Flags attribute. 8: Console.WriteLine("F (flags) : " + value.ToString("F")); 9:  10: // integer format, value as number. 11: Console.WriteLine("D (num) : " + value.ToString("D")); 12:  13: // hex format, value as hex 14: Console.WriteLine("X (hex) : " + value.ToString("X")); Which displays: 1: Default : Buffered, Persistent 2: G (default): Buffered, Persistent 3: F (flags) : Buffered, Persistent 4: D (num) : 3 5: X (hex) : 00000003 Now, you may not really see a difference here between G and F because I used a [Flags] enum, the difference is that the “F” option treats the enum as if it were flags even if the [Flags] attribute is not present.  Let’s take a non-flags enum like the ResultCode used earlier: 1: // yes, we can do this even if it is not [Flags] enum. 2: ResultCode value = ResultCode.Warning | ResultCode.Error; And if we run that through the same formats again we get: 1: Default : 3 2: G (default): 3 3: F (flags) : Warning, Error 4: D (num) : 3 5: X (hex) : 00000003 Notice that since we had multiple values combined, but it was not a [Flags] marked enum, the G and default format gave us a number instead of a value name.  This is because the value was not a valid single-value constant of the enum.  However, using the F flags format string, it broke out the value into its component flags even though it wasn’t marked [Flags]. So, if you want to get an enum to display appropriately for whether or not it has the [Flags] attribute, use G which is the default.  If you always want it to attempt to break down the flags, use F.  For numeric output, obviously D or  X are the best choice depending on whether you want decimal or hex. Summary Hopefully, you learned a couple of new tricks with using the Enum class today!  I’ll add more little wonders as I think of them and thanks for all the invaluable input!   Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Little Wonders,Enum,BlackRabbitCoder

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 16, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 16, 2010New ProjectsAtomFeedBuilder: Simple and lightweight Atom feed builder. Developed in VB.Net.Cable and Wire harness tester: If you build lots of cable/wire harness' you know that testing them is a pain. I have wanted an automated cable tester for a while now but commerci...Carmenta Engine Power Pack: The target of Carmenta Engine Power Pack is to provide extensions, utilities and wrapper classes that allows developers to work more efficiently w...Customer Book: Customer Book, its like address book with facility for generating quotation for a business or a supplier to the clients.Dialector: Using this program, you can convert pure Turkish texts into different dialects; such as: Emmi, Kufurbaz, Kusdili, Laz, Peltek, Tiki, and many more....Downline Commision Generator: Analyze the compensations plan of the organizations in multi-level marketing or network marketing. Check with this tool the commision plan of the c...EmbeddedSpark 2010 Project M: Project M is a system for seamlessly interfacing a tabletop interface to portable devices placed upon it. Using image recognition and projectors, P...Event Log Creator by eVestment Alliance: Provides a simple utility to create a new source and log in the Windows event log. The utility checks if the current user is an administrator, and...ExchangeHog: Desktop/daemon application that aggregates emails from multiple pop3-accounts into single Microsoft Exchange 2010 account. For users receiving ema...Extra Time Calculator: Extra Time Calculator allows exam end times to be easily calculated for students receiving an extra time accommodation.Generic WCF Hosting Service: The Generic Host Service provides a simple, reusable, and reliable mechanism for hosting WCF services. Google Storage for .NET: Google Storage for .NET (GSN) is an open source library that provides .NET developers with easy access to the Google Storage API. The library allo...Helium: The Helium XNA game engine is a light portable game engine designed to work on many platforms and soon to be expanded on more. Currently the helium...IconizedButton Control Set: ASP.NET WebForms IconizedButton Custom Control Set. Replaces the dull Button/LinkButton/HyperLink controls with styling and left and right aligned...Jedi Council PM List: Allows for users to process Private Message Lists on the Jedi Council forums for TheForce.Net.JetPumpDesign: 本软件为蒸气喷射泵设计计算软件 作者：申阳 单位：西安交通大学过程装备与控制工程61班log4Nez: An high personalized implementation of a logging libraryMutantFramework: Provides a common set of building blocks for building enterprise applicationsNUnit Add-in for Growl Notifications: NUnit add-in which allows to send notifications to Growl when test run is started or finished, when a first test failure occurs and so on.Object Reports: Object Reports is a "proof of concept" application which provides users the ability to visualy build queries based on data stored in the relational...openTrionyx: openTrionyx is a set of tools to make easier web application development. Includes Data, Web and plain text documents tools. Developed in C#, compl...Partial Rendering control for MVC 2: This project shows a web custom control that allow to have partial rendering using async post-back (through JQuery) in a MVC 2 web application.PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: The PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension exposes PowerGUI as an editor in Visual Studio. PowerShell developers can now write scripts directly in Visual...PowerShell Script Provider: Write your own PowerShell provider using only script, no C# required. Module definition is provided by a Windows PowerShell 2.0 Module, which may b...Scholar: Scholar is a solution/framework for .Net developers to help with the creation of distributed data processing (think SETI@home style apps). It is in...scrabb: Scrabb help people play scrabble over net.SharePointNuke: A DotNetNuke module that connects to a SharePoint server using web services API and displays the content of a specified list. SolidWorksBackConverter: a Project to Convert a solidwork file to an older version Soma - Sql Oriented MApping framework: Sql Oriented MApping framework.SPCreate: SPCreate auto store procedure creator. It's developed in c#. SpCreate as output ADO.NET Class (C# or VB.Net) and SQL Server or MS Access Store pro...std::streambuf wrapper for COM IStream: This provides a subclass of std::streambuf that wraps a COM IStream, so you can use an IStream with any C++ code that uses iostreams or the STL alg...VACID solutions: Solutions of verification problems posed in paper "Verification of Ample Correctness of Invariants of Data-structures". Developed with various tool...Viewer: Our Goal is to create a C# project that will centeralize Image and Movie Viewing in a forms application, It will also have a Specialized Webbrowser...vsXPathTester: vsXPathTester is a utility for Developer. This help them load XML file and the run their XPath Query. The Resultant is shown in window. It save the...New Releases.Net Max Framework: Version 1.0.0: Version 1.0.0 - EstableAndrew's XNA Helpers: V1.2: Features upgraded features based off of the V1.1 code for both X86 and XBOX Additions/Changes Reworked the Texture2D and Rectangle extender namesp...BaseCalendar: BaseControls 1.2: BaseControls 1.2 contains the BaseCalendar ASP.NET control. Changes: 1.2 Exposed EffectiveVisibleDate and FirstVisibleDay methods 1.1 Rendering ...Customer Book: Customer Book Code: Bronze Release PostgreSQL database dump for Customer Book. Open PgAdmin III and restore the database dump into your server. Notice User Name for t...Data Connection Suite: Data Connections Suite v1.0.0.0: This is the first release of this incomplete component, but good enought to use in a production environment (it's what we do).DigitArchive: Build 8: Now the software works on .NET 3.5 and above. So if you have Windows 7 it installs without any pre-requisites. Changes: -Works on .NET 3.5 -Now t...Doom 64 Ex (SVN Builds): Doom 64 Ex r-738: Finally a new build after so many months. There are way to many updates to even begin to write about here just download and frag away. There is a s...DotNetNuke® Media: 03.03.00a: This release is Beta!! There is no guaranteed upgrade path to the 03.03.00 release version! Please use this to help us and test what we have. Repor...Downline Commision Generator: Downline Commision Generator: Downline Commision GeneratorElmah2 : An extensable error logger for ASP.net: 1.0 Beta 1: This is a beta release be sure to report any errors etc. Be sure to check out the documentation tab on information on how to install and configure...EPiServer Template Foundation: First compiled release: First compiled release for experimenting only! :) An introductory post will be published shortly on the blog.Helium: Initial Release: This is the initial release of the Helium Engine. Please check out the documentation link for information on how to use the engine. To see a ful...IconizedButton Control Set: IconizedButton Control Set: Taking a line from Google's play book - marking everything as Beta. Seriously, I'd like to hear some feedback before moving the Development Status...JetPumpDesign: JetPumpDesign 1.0: 当前的软件可以设计5级以内的蒸汽喷射泵。Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework: Version 1.4.4 Installer: Tools TargetingVisual Studio 2010 Expression Blend 4 (part of Expression Studio 4) Analytics Services Included Vendor Behavior Silverlight 3...NHibernate Sidekick Library: 0.7.0: Added a few methods for use with the NHibernate 2nd level cache (EvictAllObjectsFromCache and EvictPersistentClass). I also added the boolean optio...NHibernate Sidekick Library: 0.7.5: Fix for http://nhprof.com/Learn/Alerts/DoNotUseImplicitTransactionsNito.KitchenSink: Version 9: Dependencies Nito.Linq 0.6 Beta (released 2010-06-14) Rx 1.0.2563.0 (released 2010-06-09) Supported Platforms .NET 4.0 Client Profile, with Rx. ...NQueue: Version 1.0.0.0: Version 1.0.0.0NUnit Add-in for Growl Notifications: NUnit Add-in for Growl Notifications 1.0 build 0: The very first stable releasePartial Rendering control for MVC 2: Partial Rendering control for MVC 2: Here there is the source code and a MVC 2 web site as testPowerShell Script Provider: PSProvider 0.1: Requires PowerShell 2.0 RTM The functions in the attached ps1 script are the bare minimum for a working container-style provider (no subfolders.) ...Quick Performance Monitor: Version 1.4.3: Fixed issue where if an instance name contains backslash characters (\) the program would not load the performance counter properly. Also added sta...SharePointNuke: SharePointNuke 2.00.08: SharePointNuke 2.00.08 - Binary DotNetNuke 5.x module.Skype Voice Changer: 1.0 Updated Sample Code: This updated release is the accompanying code for the Skype Voice Changer article on Coding4Fun. Changes in this release: Added support for PreEmp...std::streambuf wrapper for COM IStream: Beta release (tested in a commercial project): This code has been tested in a custom Windows Search filter and property handler I wrote for a proprietary binary format. There may be some bugs, b...Sunlit World Scheme: Sunlit World Scheme - 20100615 - source and binary: This is the result of building the current source code in Debug mode. The source code is included. The binaries are in the SchemeCode folder along...Timo-Design / 40FINGERS DotNetNuke® Skinning Extensions: Style Helper Skin Object Beta: The 40FINGERS Style Helper Skin object allows you to add CSS and Javascript links and meta tags to the head of your page. It can also remove CSS l...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.1 RC: This is the final test version of Umbraco 4.1 before the final release. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT UMBRACO 4.1 RC IS A .NET 4.0 RELEASE AND WON'T WORK O...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30615.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWCF 4 Templates for Visual Studio 2010: UserNameForCertificate Template: Produces a WCF service application supporting username and password authentication, relying on message security to protect messages en route. Suppl...WCF 4 Templates for Visual Studio 2010: UserNameOverHttps Template: Produces a WCF service application supporting username and password authentication over HTTPS/SSL, relying on transport security to protect message...xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib 0.4.1 alpha (ReSharper 5.1.1709 only): xunitcontrib release 0.4.1 (ReSharper runner) This release targets the current nightly build of ReSharper 5.1's Early Access Programme (build 1709)...Most Popular ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeRIA Services EssentialsNeatUploadBxf (Basic XAML Framework).NET Transactional File ManagerSOLID by exampleSSIS Expression Editor & TesterWEI ShareChirpy - VS Add In For Handling Js, Css, and DotLess FilesASP.NET MVC Time PlannerMost Active ProjectsdotSpatialRhyduino - Arduino and Managed CodeCassandraemonpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeLightweight Fluent Workflowpatterns & practices: Enterprise Library ContribNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services

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• 8 Reasons Why Even Microsoft Agrees the Windows Desktop is a Nightmare

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Let’s be honest: The Windows desktop is a mess. Sure, it’s extremely powerful and has a huge software library, but it’s not a good experience for average people. It’s not even a good experience for geeks, although we tolerate it. Even Microsoft agrees about this. Microsoft’s Surface tablets with Windows RT don’t support any third-party desktop apps. They consider this a feature — users can’t install malware and other desktop junk, so the system will always be speedy and secure. Malware is Still Common Malware may not affect geeks, but it certainly continues to affect average people. Securing Windows, keeping it secure, and avoiding unsafe programs is a complex process. There are over 50 different file extensions that can contain harmful code to keep track of. It’s easy to have theoretical discussions about how malware could infect Mac computers, Android devices, and other systems. But Mac malware is extremely rare, and has  generally been caused by problem with the terrible Java plug-in. Macs are configured to only run executables from identified developers by default, whereas Windows will run everything. Android malware is talked about a lot, but Android malware is rare in the real world and is generally confined to users who disable security protections and install pirated apps. Google has also taken action, rolling out built-in antivirus-like app checking to all Android devices, even old ones running Android 2.3, via Play Services. Whatever the reason, Windows malware is still common while malware for other systems isn’t. We all know it — anyone who does tech support for average users has dealt with infected Windows computers. Even users who can avoid malware are stuck dealing with complex and nagging antivirus programs, especially since it’s now so difficult to trust Microsoft’s antivirus products. Manufacturer-Installed Bloatware is Terrible Sit down with a new Mac, Chromebook, iPad, Android tablet, Linux laptop, or even a Surface running Windows RT and you can enjoy using your new device. The system is a clean slate for you to start exploring and installing your new software. Sit down with a new Windows PC and the system is a mess. Rather than be delighted, you’re stuck reinstalling Windows and then installing the necessary drivers or you’re forced to start uninstalling useless bloatware programs one-by-one, trying to figure out which ones are actually useful. After uninstalling the useless programs, you may end up with a system tray full of icons for ten different hardware utilities anyway. The first experience of using a new Windows PC is frustration, not delight. Yes, bloatware is still a problem on Windows 8 PCs. Manufacturers can customize the Refresh image, preventing bloatware rom easily being removed. Finding a Desktop Program is Dangerous Want to install a Windows desktop program? Well, you’ll have to head to your web browser and start searching. It’s up to you, the user, to know which programs are safe and which are dangerous. Even if you find a website for a reputable program, the advertisements on that page will often try to trick you into downloading fake installers full of adware. While it’s great to have the ability to leave the app store and get software that the platform’s owner hasn’t approved — as on Android — this is no excuse for not providing a good, secure software installation experience for typical users installing typical programs. Even Reputable Desktop Programs Try to Install Junk Even if you do find an entirely reputable program, you’ll have to keep your eyes open while installing it. It will likely try to install adware, add browse toolbars, change your default search engine, or change your web browser’s home page. Even Microsoft’s own programs do this — when you install Skype for Windows desktop, it will attempt to modify your browser settings t ouse Bing, even if you’re specially chosen another search engine and home page. With Microsoft setting such an example, it’s no surprise so many other software developers have followed suit. Geeks know how to avoid this stuff, but there’s a reason program installers continue to do this. It works and tricks many users, who end up with junk installed and settings changed. The Update Process is Confusing On iOS, Android, and Windows RT, software updates come from a single place — the app store. On Linux, software updates come from the package manager. On Mac OS X, typical users’ software updates likely come from the Mac App Store. On the Windows desktop, software updates come from… well, every program has to create its own update mechanism. Users have to keep track of all these updaters and make sure their software is up-to-date. Most programs now have their act together and automatically update by default, but users who have old versions of Flash and Adobe Reader installed are vulnerable until they realize their software isn’t automatically updating. Even if every program updates properly, the sheer mess of updaters is clunky, slow, and confusing in comparison to a centralized update process. Browser Plugins Open Security Holes It’s no surprise that other modern platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, and Windows Phone don’t allow traditional browser plugins, or only allow Flash and build it into the system. Browser plugins provide a wealth of different ways for malicious web pages to exploit the browser and open the system to attack. Browser plugins are one of the most popular attack vectors because of how many users have out-of-date plugins and how many plugins, especially Java, seem to be designed without taking security seriously. Oracle’s Java plugin even tries to install the terrible Ask toolbar when installing security updates. That’s right — the security update process is also used to cram additional adware into users’ machines so unscrupulous companies like Oracle can make a quick buck. It’s no wonder that most Windows PCs have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed. Battery Life is Terrible Windows PCs have bad battery life compared to Macs, IOS devices, and Android tablets, all of which Windows now competes with. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 2 has bad battery life. Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which has very similar hardware to the Surface Pro 2, offers double its battery life when web browsing. Microsoft has been fond of blaming third-party hardware manufacturers for their poorly optimized drivers in the past, but there’s no longer any room to hide. The problem is clearly Windows. Why is this? No one really knows for sure. Perhaps Microsoft has kept on piling Windows component on top of Windows component and many older Windows components were never properly optimized. Windows Users Become Stuck on Old Windows Versions Apple’s new OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is completely free to all Mac users and supports Macs going back to 2007. Apple has also announced their intention that all new releases of Mac OS X will be free. In 2007, Microsoft had just shipped Windows Vista. Macs from the Windows Vista era are being upgraded to the latest version of the Mac operating system for free, while Windows PCs from the same era are probably still using Windows Vista. There’s no easy upgrade path for these people. They’re stuck using Windows Vista and maybe even the outdated Internet Explorer 9 if they haven’t installed a third-party web browser. Microsoft’s upgrade path is for these people to pay $120 for a full copy of Windows 8.1 and go through a complicated process that’s actaully a clean install. Even users of Windows 8 devices will probably have to pay money to upgrade to Windows 9, while updates for other operating systems are completely free. If you’re a PC geek, a PC gamer, or someone who just requires specialized software that only runs on Windows, you probably use the Windows desktop and don’t want to switch. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the Windows desktop is actually a good experience. Much of the burden falls on average users, who have to struggle with malware, bloatware, adware bundled in installers, complex software installation processes, and out-of-date software. In return, all they get is the ability to use a web browser and some basic Office apps that they could use on almost any other platform without all the hassle. Microsoft would agree with this, touting Windows RT and their new “Windows 8-style” app platform as the solution. Why else would Microsoft, a “devices and services” company, position the Surface — a device without traditional Windows desktop programs — as their mass-market device recommended for average people? This isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Windows RT. If you’re tech support for your family members and it comes time for them to upgrade, you may want to get them off the Windows desktop and tell them to get a Mac or something else that’s simple. Better yet, if they get a Mac, you can tell them to visit the Apple Store for help instead of calling you. That’s another thing Windows PCs don’t offer — good manufacturer support. Image Credit: Blanca Stella Mejia on Flickr, Collin Andserson on Flickr, Luca Conti on Flickr     

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 25, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 25, 2010New Projects281slides: 281slides is a project to demonstrate how one could go about implementing something similar to http://280slides.com in Silverlight3.Alex.XP's ARMA2 Chinese Language Pack Tools: Alex.XP's ARMA2 Chinese Language ToolsAuto Version Web Assets: The AVWA project is an HTTP Module written in C# that is designed to allow for versioning of various web assets such as .CSS and .JS files. This a...CAECE Twitter Clon: Proyecto para hacer un clon de twitter alumnos CAECE 2010DNSExchanger: Provides users to switch their PC's DNSs with pre-defined DNS with one click. Fluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): Fluent MVVM Configuration for WPF. A powerful yet simple interface for configuring view models for WPF. Eliminates INotifyPropertyChanged duplic...Genetic Algorithm N-Queens Solver: Genetic Algorithm N-Queens Solver with Multithreaded GUI.Hangmanondotnet: Just a starterHelium Frog Animator: Here is the Source code for the Helium Frog Animator. It is released under the GNU General Public Licence. The software enables stop motion animati...LISCH Collision Resolution, AVL Trees: LISCH Collision Resolution, AVL Trees Last Insertion Standart Colesced HashingNetPE: NetPE is a Portable Executable(PE) editor with full Metadata support. It is developed in pure C#.Proyecto Nilo: nada por ahoraSQL Schema Source Control: Track database schema changes automatically C# application that you can run against your SQL Databases (supports SQL 2008 right now, but you cou...uTorrent-Net-Client: A network client for uTorrent over the uTorrent-WebAPI. The Client use the API implementation from "uTorrent Web Client API Wrapper Library" (http:...Visual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: Enhanced Memory Leak Detection for Visual C++Visual Studio 2010 AutoScroller Extension: This is an extension to provide auto-scrolling to the Visual Studio 2010 environment. Simply middle click and drag the mouse in the direction yo...Vje: Vje projectVs2010-TipSite - Enter Island: This project is a visual studio 2010 project created in Silverligt. The project used to give using tips about visual studio 2010 by movies clips an...WKURM: Research Methods project @ western kentucky universityYupsky: yupsky webNew Releases.NET DiscUtils: Version 0.8: This is the 0.8 release of DiscUtils. New in this release are: An NFS client, supporting access to virtual disks held on an NFS server. A PowerS...Bluetooth Radar: Version 2.2: Add Settings window Get installed services on the deveice Check if Object Exchange is installed and changed properties. Add Windows Bluetooth...CSharp Intellisense: V1.7: major improvements: - Select best suggestion - on going changes filters (the filters will changed according to the current typing) - remember last ...DNSExchanger: DNSExchanger Beta v0.1: First release of the project, DNSExchanger. It requires, 32-bit Operating System (XP, Vista, 7) and need to be runned with administration credent...DotNetNuke® Form and List (formerly User Defined Table): 05.01.03: Form and List 05.01.03What's New: This release, Form and List 05.01.03, will be a stabilization release. It requires at least DotNetNuke 5.1.3 for...Enki Char 2 BIN: Enki Char 2 Bin: This program converts Characters to Binary and vice versaFluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): FluentViewModel Alpha1: This is a debug build of the FluentViewModel library. This has been provided to get feed back on the API and to look for bugs. 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• Set-Cookie Headers getting stripped in ASP.NET HttpHandlers

  - by Rick Strahl

  Yikes, I ran into a real bummer of an edge case yesterday in one of my older low level handler implementations (for West Wind Web Connection in this case). Basically this handler is a connector for a backend Web framework that creates self contained HTTP output. An ASP.NET Handler captures the full output, and then shoves the result down the ASP.NET Response object pipeline writing out the content into the Response.OutputStream and seperately sending the HttpHeaders in the Response.Headers collection. The headers turned out to be the problem and specifically Http Cookies, which for some reason ended up getting stripped out in some scenarios. My handler works like this: Basically the HTTP response from the backend app would return a full set of HTTP headers plus the content. The ASP.NET handler would read the headers one at a time and then dump them out via Response.AppendHeader(). But I found that in some situations Set-Cookie headers sent along were simply stripped inside of the Http Handler. After a bunch of back and forth with some folks from Microsoft (thanks Damien and Levi!) I managed to pin this down to a very narrow edge scenario. It's easiest to demonstrate the problem with a simple example HttpHandler implementation. The following simulates the very much simplified output generation process that fails in my handler. Specifically I have a couple of headers including a Set-Cookie header and some output that gets written into the Response object.using System.Web; namespace wwThreads { public class Handler : IHttpHandler { /* NOTE: * * Run as a web.config set handler (see entry below) * * Best way is to look at the HTTP Headers in Fiddler * or Chrome/FireBug/IE tools and look for the * WWHTREADSID cookie in the outgoing Response headers * ( If the cookie is not there you see the problem! ) */ public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { HttpRequest request = context.Request; HttpResponse response = context.Response; // If ClearHeaders is used Set-Cookie header gets removed! // if commented header is sent... response.ClearHeaders(); response.ClearContent(); // Demonstrate that other headers make it response.AppendHeader("RequestId", "asdasdasd"); // This cookie gets removed when ClearHeaders above is called // When ClearHEaders is omitted above the cookie renders response.AppendHeader("Set-Cookie", "WWTHREADSID=ThisIsThEValue; path=/"); // *** This always works, even when explicit // Set-Cookie above fails and ClearHeaders is called //response.Cookies.Add(new HttpCookie("WWTHREADSID", "ThisIsTheValue")); response.Write(@"Output was created.<hr/> Check output with Fiddler or HTTP Proxy to see whether cookie was sent."); } public bool IsReusable { get { return false; } } } } In order to see the problem behavior this code has to be inside of an HttpHandler, and specifically in a handler defined in web.config with: <add name=".ck_handler" path="handler.ck" verb="*" type="wwThreads.Handler" preCondition="integratedMode" /> Note: Oddly enough this problem manifests only when configured through web.config, not in an ASHX handler, nor if you paste that same code into an ASPX page or MVC controller. What's the problem exactly? The code above simulates the more complex code in my live handler that picks up the HTTP response from the backend application and then peels out the headers and sends them one at a time via Response.AppendHeader. One of the headers in my app can be one or more Set-Cookie. I found that the Set-Cookie headers were not making it into the Response headers output. Here's the Chrome Http Inspector trace: Notice, no Set-Cookie header in the Response headers! Now, running the very same request after removing the call to Response.ClearHeaders() command, the cookie header shows up just fine: As you might expect it took a while to track this down. At first I thought my backend was not sending the headers but after closer checks I found that indeed the headers were set in the backend HTTP response, and they were indeed getting set via Response.AppendHeader() in the handler code. Yet, no cookie in the output. In the simulated example the problem is this line:response.AppendHeader("Set-Cookie", "WWTHREADSID=ThisIsThEValue; path=/"); which in my live code is more dynamic ( ie. AppendHeader(token[0],token[1[]) )as it parses through the headers. Bizzaro Land: Response.ClearHeaders() causes Cookie to get stripped Now, here is where it really gets bizarre: The problem occurs only if: Response.ClearHeaders() was called before headers are added It only occurs in Http Handlers declared in web.config Clearly this is an edge of an edge case but of course - knowing my relationship with Mr. Murphy - I ended up running smack into this problem. So in the code above if you remove the call to ClearHeaders(), the cookie gets set!  Add it back in and the cookie is not there. If I run the above code in an ASHX handler it works. If I paste the same code (with a Response.End()) into an ASPX page, or MVC controller it all works. Only in the HttpHandler configured through Web.config does it fail! Cue the Twilight Zone Music. Workarounds As is often the case the fix for this once you know the problem is not too difficult. The difficulty lies in tracking inconsistencies like this down. Luckily there are a few simple workarounds for the Cookie issue. Don't use AppendHeader for Cookies The easiest and obvious solution to this problem is simply not use Response.AppendHeader() to set Cookies. Duh! Under normal circumstances in application level code there's rarely a reason to write out a cookie like this:response.AppendHeader("Set-Cookie", "WWTHREADSID=ThisIsThEValue; path=/"); but rather create the cookie using the Response.Cookies collection:response.Cookies.Add(new HttpCookie("WWTHREADSID", "ThisIsTheValue")); Unfortunately, in my case where I dynamically read headers from the original output and then dynamically  write header key value pairs back  programmatically into the Response.Headers collection, I actually don't look at each header specifically so in my case the cookie is just another header. My first thought was to simply trap for the Set-Cookie header and then parse out the cookie and create a Cookie object instead. But given that cookies can have a lot of different options this is not exactly trivial, plus I don't really want to fuck around with cookie values which can be notoriously brittle. Don't use Response.ClearHeaders() The real mystery in all this is why calling Response.ClearHeaders() prevents a cookie value later written with Response.AppendHeader() to fail. I fired up Reflector and took a quick look at System.Web and HttpResponse.ClearHeaders. There's all sorts of resetting going on but nothing that seems to indicate that headers should be removed later on in the request. The code in ClearHeaders() does access the HttpWorkerRequest, which is the low level interface directly into IIS, and so I suspect it's actually IIS that's stripping the headers and not ASP.NET, but it's hard to know. Somebody from Microsoft and the IIS team would have to comment on that. In my application it's probably safe to simply skip ClearHeaders() in my handler. The ClearHeaders/ClearContent was mainly for safety but after reviewing my code there really should never be a reason that headers would be set prior to this method firing. However, if for whatever reason headers do need to be cleared, it's easy enough to manually clear the headers out:private void RemoveHeaders(HttpResponse response) { List<string> headers = new List<string>(); foreach (string header in response.Headers) { headers.Add(header); } foreach (string header in headers) { response.Headers.Remove(header); } response.Cookies.Clear(); } Now I can replace the call the Response.ClearHeaders() and I don't get the funky side-effects from Response.ClearHeaders(). Summary I realize this is a total edge case as this occurs only in HttpHandlers that are manually configured. It looks like you'll never run into this in any of the higher level ASP.NET frameworks or even in ASHX handlers - only web.config defined handlers - which is really, really odd. After all those frameworks use the same underlying ASP.NET architecture. Hopefully somebody from Microsoft has an idea what crazy dependency was triggered here to make this fail. IAC, there are workarounds to this should you run into it, although I bet when you do run into it, it'll likely take a bit of time to find the problem or even this post in a search because it's not easily to correlate the problem to the solution. It's quite possible that more than cookies are affected by this behavior. Searching for a solution I read a few other accounts where headers like Referer were mysteriously disappearing, and it's possible that something similar is happening in those cases. Again, extreme edge case, but I'm writing this up here as documentation for myself and possibly some others that might have run into this. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET   IIS7   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 I Work: A Cloud Developer's Workstation

  - by BuckWoody

  I've written here a little about how I work during the day, including things like using a stand-up desk (still doing that, by the way). Inspired by a Twitter conversation yesterday, I thought I might explain how I set up my computing environment. First, a couple of important points. I work in Cloud Computing, specifically (but not limited to) Windows Azure. Windows Azure has features to run a Virtual Machine (IaaS), run code without having to control a Virtual Machine (PaaS) and use databases, video streaming, Hadoop and more (a kind of SaaS for tech pros). As such, my designs run the gamut of on-premises, VM's in the Cloud, and software that I write for a platform. I focus on data primarily, meaning that I design a lot of systems that use an RDBMS (like SQL Server or Windows Azure Databases) or a NoSQL approach (MongoDB on Azure or large-scale Key-Value Pairs in Table storage) and even Hadoop and R, and also Cloud Numerics in F#. All that being said, those things inform my choices below. Hardware I have a Lenovo X220 tablet/laptop which I really like a great deal - it's a light, tough, extremely fast system. When I travel, that's the system I take. It has 8GB of RAM, and an SSD drive. I sometimes use that to develop or work at a client's site, on the road, or in the living room when I'm not in my home office. My main system is a GateWay DX430017 - I've maxed it out on RAM, and I have two 1TB drives in it. It's not only my workstation for work; I leave it on all the time and it streams our videos, music and books. I have about 3400 e-books, and I've just started using Calibre to stream the library. I run Windows 8 on it so I can set up Hyper-V images, since Windows Azure allows me to move regular Hyper-V disks back and forth to the Cloud. That's where all my "servers" are, when I have to use an IaaS approach. The reason I use a desktop-style system rather than a laptop only approach is that a good part of my job is setting up architectures to solve really big, complex problems. That means I have to simulate entire networks on-premises, along with the Hybrid Cloud approach I use a lot. I need a lot of disk space and memory for that, and I use two huge monitors on my stand-up desk. I could probably use 10 monitors if I had the room for them. Also, since it's our home system as well, I leave it on all the time and it doesn't travel.   Software For the software for my systems, it's important to keep in mind that I not only write code, but I design databases, teach, present, and create Linux and other environments. Windows 8 - While the jury is out for me on the new interface, the context-sensitive search, integrated everything, and speed is just hands-down the right choice. I've evaluated a server OS, Linux, even an Apple, but I just am not as efficient on those as I am with Windows 8. Visual Studio Ultimate - I develop primarily in .NET (C# and F# mostly) and I use the Team Foundation Server in the cloud, and I'm asked to do everything from UI to Services, so I need everything. Windows Azure SDK, Windows Azure Training Kit - I need the first to set up my Azure PaaS coding, and the second has all the info I need for PaaS, IaaS and SaaS. This is primarily how I get paid. :) SQL Server Developer Edition - While I might install Oracle, MySQL and Postgres on my VM's, the "outside" environment is SQL Server for an RDBMS. I install the Developer Edition because it has the same features as Enterprise Edition, and comes with all the client tools and documentation. Microsoft Office -  Even if I didn't work here, this is what I would use. I've just grown too accustomed to doing business this way to change, so my advice is always "use what works", and this does. The parts I use are: OneNote (and a Math Add-in) - I do almost everything - and I mean everything in OneNote. I can code, do high-end math, present, design, collaborate and more. All my notebooks are on my Skydrive. I can use them from any system, anywhere. If you take the time to learn this program, you'll be hooked. Excel with PowerPivot - Don't make that face. Excel is the world's database, and every Data Scientist I know - even the ones where I teach at the University of Washington - know it, use it, and love it.  Outlook - Primary communications, CRM and contact tool. I have all of my social media hooked up to it, so when I get an e-mail from you, I see everything, see all the history we've had on e-mail, find you on a map and more. Lync - I was fine with LiveMeeting, although it has it's moments. For me, the Lync client is tres-awesome. I use this throughout my day, present on it, stay in contact with colleagues and the folks on the dev team (who wish I didn't have it) and more.  PowerPoint - Once again, don't make that face. Whenever I see someone complaining about PowerPoint, I have 100% of the time found they don't know how to use it. If you suck at presenting or creating content, don't blame PowerPoint. Works great on my machine. :) Zoomit - Magnifier - On Windows 7 (and 8 as well) there's a built-in magnifier, but I install Zoomit out of habit. It enlarges the screen. If you don't use one of these tools (or their equivalent on some other OS) then you're presenting/teaching wrong, and you should stop presenting/teaching until you get them and learn how to show people what you can see on your tiny, tiny monitor. :) Cygwin - Unix for Windows. OK, that's not true, but it's mostly that. I grew up on mainframes and Unix (IBM and HP, thank you) and I can't imagine life without  sed, awk, grep, vim, and bash. I also tend to take a lot of the "Science" and "Development" and "Database" packages in it as well. PuTTY - Speaking of Unix, when I need to connect to my Linux VM's in Windows Azure, I want to do it securely. This is the tool for that. Notepad++ - Somewhere between torturing myself in vim and luxuriating in OneNote is Notepad++. Everyone has a favorite text editor; this one is mine. Too many features to name, and it's free. Browsers - I install Chrome, Firefox and of course IE. I know it's in vogue to rant on IE, but I tend to think for myself a great deal, and I've had few (none) problems with it. The others I have for the haterz that make sites that won't run in IE. Visio - I've used a lot of design packages, but none have the extreme meta-data edit capabilities of Visio. I don't use this all the time - it can be rather heavy, but what it does it does really well. I also present this way when I'm not using PowerPoint. Yup, I just bring up Visio and diagram away as I'm chatting with clients. Depending on what we're covering, this can be the right tool for that. Tweetdeck - The AIR one, not that new disaster they came out with. I live on social media, since you, dear readers, are my cube-mates. When I get tired of you all, I close Tweetdeck. When I need help or someone needs help from me, or if I want to see a picture of a cat while I'm coding, I bring it up. It's up most all day and night. Windows Media Player - I listen to Trance or Classical when I code, and I find music managers overbearing and extra. I just use what comes in the box, and it works great for me. R - F# and Cloud Numerics now allows me to load in R libraries (yay!) and I use this for statistical work on big data loads. Microsoft Math - One of the most amazing, free, rich, amazing, awesome, amazing calculators out there. I get the 64-bit version for quick math conversions, plots and formula-checks. Python - I know, right? Who knew that the scientific community loved Python so much. But they do. I use 2.7; not as much runs with 3+. I also use IronPython in Visual Studio, or I edit in Notepad++ Camstudio recorder - Windows PSR - In much of my training, and all of my teaching at the UW, I need to show a process on a screen. Camstudio records screen and voice, and it's free. If I need to make static training, I use the Windows PSR tool that's built right in. It's ostensibly for problem duplication, but I use it to record for training.   OK - your turn. Post a link to your blog entry below, and tell me how you set your system up.  

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• Tools of the Trade

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  I got pretty excited a couple of days ago when my new laptop arrived. “The new phone books are here!  The new phone books are here!  I’m a somebody!” - Steve Martin in The Jerk It is a Dell Precision M4500 with an Intel i7 Core 2.8 GHZ running 64-bit Windows 7 with a 15.6” widescreen, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD.  For some of you high fliers, this may be nothing to write home about, but compared to the 32–bit Windows XP laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a regular hard disk that I’m coming from, it’s a really nice step forward.  I won’t even bore you with the details of the desktop PC I was first given when I started here 5 1/2 years ago.  Let’s just say that things have improved.  One really nice thing is that while we are definitely running a lean and mean department in terms of staffing, my boss believes in supporting that lean staff with good tools in order to stay lean instead of having to spend even more money on additional employees.  Of course, that only goes so far, and at some point you have to add more people in order to get more work done, which is why we are bringing on-board a new employee and a new contract developer next week.  But that’s a different story for a different time. But the main topic for this post is to highlight the variety of tools that I use in my job and that you might find useful, too.  This is easy to do right now because the process of building up my new laptop from scratch has forced me to assemble a list of software that had to be installed and configured.  Keep in mind as you look through this list that I play many roles in our company.  My official title is Software Engineering Manager, but in addition to managing the team, I am also an active ASP.NET and SQL developer, the Database Administrator, and 50% of the SAN Administrator team.  So, without further ado, here are the tools and some comments about why I use them: Tool Purpose Virtual Clone Drive Easily mount an ISO image as a DVD Drive.  This is particularly handy when you are downloading disk images from Microsoft for your tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition We are migrating all of our active systems to SQL 2008 R2.  Developer Edition has all the features of Enterprise Edition, but intended for development use. SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (BIDS ONLY) The migration to SSRS 2008 R2 is just getting started, and in the meantime, maintenance work still has to be done on the reports on our SQL 2005 server.  For some reason, you can’t use BIDS from 2008 to write reports for a 2005 server.  There is some different format and when you open 2005 reports in 2008 BIDS, it forces you to upgrade, and they can no longer be uploaded to a 2005 server.  Hopefully Microsoft will fix this soon in some manner similar to Visual Studio now allows you to pick which version of the .NET Framework you are coding against. Visual Studio 2010 Premium All of our application development is in ASP.NET, and we might as well use the tool designed for it. I’ve used a version of Visual Studio going all the way back to VB 6.0 and Visual Interdev. Vault Professional Client Several years ago we replaced Visual Source Safe with SourceGear Vault (then Fortress, and now Vault Pro), and I love it.  It is very reliable with low overhead - perfect for a small to medium size development team.  And being a small ISV, their support is exceptional. Red-Gate Developer Bundle with the SQL Source Control update for Vault I first used, and fell in love with, SQL Prompt shortly before Red-Gate bought it, and then Red-Gate’s first release made me love it even more.  SQL Refactor (which has since been rolled into the latest version of SQL Prompt) has saved me many hours and migraine’s trying to understand somebody else’s code when their indenting was nonexistant, or worse, irrational.  SQL Compare has been awesome for troubleshooting potential schema issues between different instances of system databases.  SQL Data Compare helped us identify the cause behind a bug which appeared in PROD but could not be reproduced in a nearly (but not quite exactly) identical copy in UAT.  And the newest tool we are embracing: SQL Source Control.  I blogged about it here (and here, and here) last December.  This is really going to help us keep each developer’s copy of the database in sync with one another. Fiddler Helps you watch the whole traffic stream on web visits.  Haven’t used it a lot, but it did help me track down some odd 404 errors we were finding in our own application logs.  Has some other JavaScript troubleshooting capabilities, but some of its usefulness has been supplanted by the Developer Tools option in IE8. Funduc Search & Replace Find any string anywhere in a mound of source code really, really fast.  Does RegEx searches, if you understand that foreign language.  Has really helped with some refactoring work to pinpoint, for example, everywhere a particular stored procedure is referenced, whether in .NET code or other SQL procedures (which we have in script files).  Provides in-context preview of the search results.  Fantastic tool, and a bargain price. SciTE SciTE is a Scintilla based Text Editor and it is a fantastic, light-weight tool for quickly reviewing (or writing) program code, SQL scripts, and extract files.  It has language-specific syntax highlighting.  I used it to write several batch and CMD programs a year ago, and to examine data extract files for exchanging information with other systems.  Extremely handy are the options to View End of Line and View Whitespace.  Ever receive a file that is supposed to use CRLF as an end-of-line marker, but really only has CRs?  SciTE will quickly make that visible. Infragistics Controls We do a lot of ASP.NET development, and frequently use the WebGrid, WebTab, and date picker controls.  We will likely be implementing the Hierarchical Data Grid soon.  Infragistics has control suites for WebForms, WinForms, Silverlight, and coming soon MVC/JQuery. WinZip - WITH Command-Line add-in The classic compression program with a great command-line interface that allows me to build those CMD (and soon PowerShell) programs for automated compression jobs.  Our versioned Build packages are zip files. XML Notepad Haven’t used this a lot myself, but one of my team really likes it for examining large XML files. LINQPad Again, haven’t used this one a lot, but it was recommended to me for learning and practicing my LINQ skills which will come in handy as we implement Entity Framework. SQL Sentry Plan Explorer SQL Server Show Plan on steroids.  Great for helping you focus on the parts of a large query that are of most importance.  Also great for just compressing the graphical plan into more readable layout. Araxis Merge A great DIFF and Merge tool.  SourceGear provides a great tool called DiffMerge that we use all the time, but occasionally, I like the cross-edit capabilities of Araxis Merge.  For a while, we also produced DIFF reports in HTML that showed all the changes that occurred between two releases.  This was most important when we were putting out very small, but very important hot fixes on a very politically hot system.  The reports produced by Araxis Merge gave the Director of IS assurance that we were not accidentally introducing ripples throughout the system with our releases. Idera SQL Admin Toolset A great collection of tools including a password checker to help analyze your SQL Server for weak user passwords, a Backup Status tool to quickly scan a large list of servers and databases to identify any that are overdue for backups.  Particularly helpful for highlighting new databases that have been deployed without getting included in your backup processing.  I also like Space Analyzer to keep an eye on disk space consumed by database files. Idera SQL Job Manager This free tool provides a nice calendar view of SQL Server Job Schedules, but to a degree, you also get what you pay for.  We will be purchasing SQL Sentry Event Manager later this year as an even better job schedule reviewer/manager.  But in the meantime, this at least gives me a good view on potential resource conflicts across multiple instances of SQL Server. DBFViewer 2000 I inherited a couple of FoxPro databases that I have to keep an eye on occasionally and have not yet been able to migrate them to SQL Server. Balsamiq Mockups We are still in evaluation-mode on this tool, but I really like it as a quick UI mockup tool that does not require Visual Studio, so someone other than a programmer can do UI design.  The interface looks hand-drawn which definitely has some psychological benefits when communicating to users, too. FeedDemon I have to stay on top of my WAY TOO MANY blog subscriptions somehow.  I may read blogs on a couple of different computers, and FeedDemon’s integration with Google Reader allows me to keep them all in sync.  I don’t particularly like the Google Reader interface, or the fact that it always wanted to mark articles as read just because I scrolled past them.  FeedDemon solves this problem for me, and provides a multi-tabbed interface which is good because fairly frequently one blog will link to something else I want to read, and I can end up with a half-dozen open tabs all from one article. Synergy+ In my office, I run four monitors across two computers all with one mouse and keyboard.  Synergy is the magic software that makes this work. TweetDeck I’m not the most active Tweeter in the world, but when I want to check-in with the Twitterverse, this really helps.  I have found the #sqlhelp and #PoshHelp hash tags particularly useful, and I also have columns setup to make it easy to monitor #sqlpass, #PASSProfDev, and short term events like #sqlsat68.   Whew!  That’s a lot.  No wonder it took me a couple of days to get everything setup the way I wanted it.  Oh, that and actually getting some work accomplished at the same time.  Anyway, I know that is a huge dump of info, and most people never make it here to the end, so for those who did, let me say, CONGRATULATIONS, you made it! I hope you’ll find a new tool or two to make your work life a little easier.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 12, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 12, 2010Popular ReleasesWii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.9 Beta: - Aqua or brushed metal style for Mac OS X - Shows selection count beside ID - Game list selection mode via settings - Compare Files <-> WBFS game lists - Verify game images/DVD/WBFS - WIT command line for log (via settings) - Cancel possibility for loading games process - Progress infos while loading games - Localization for dates - UTF-8 support - Shortcuts added - View game infos in browser - Transfer infos for log - All transfer routines rewritten - Extract image from image/WBFS - Support....NETTER Code Starter Pack: v1.0.beta: '.NETTER Code Starter Pack ' contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies and frameworks based on Microsoft .NET Framework. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database (for database driven scenarios). The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic...WPF Multiple Document Interface (MDI): Beta Release v1.1: WPF.MDI is a library to imitate the traditional Windows Forms Multiple Document Interface (MDI) features in WPF. This is Beta release, means there's still work to do. Please provide feedback, so next release will be better. Features: Position dependency property MdiLayout dependency property Menu dependency property Ctrl + F4, Ctrl + Tab shortcuts should work Behavior: don’t allow negative values for MdiChild position minimized windows: remember position, tile multiple windows, ...EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.1 ALPHA: 2.2.1 ALPHAThis release adds in the changes for 4.03a. at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Updated th...NuGet (formerly NuPack): NuGet 1.0 Release Candidate: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. This new build targets the newer feed (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669) and package format. See http://nupack.codeplex.com/documentation?title=Nuspe...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire Silverlight, WPF Charts v3.6.5 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.5 with the following new feature: * New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. You can visit Visifire documentation to know more. http://www.visifire.com/visifirechartsdocumentation.php Also this release includes few bug fixes: * Chart threw exception while adding new Axis in Chart using Vi...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.5 Production: DonationsDonate via PayPal via PayPal. If you want to, we can also add your name / company on our Donation Acknowledgements page. PEAR channelWe now also have a full PEAR channel! Here's how to use it: New installation: pear channel-discover pear.pearplex.net pear install pearplex/PHPExcel Or if you've already installed PHPExcel before: pear upgrade pearplex/PHPExcel The official page can be found at http://pearplex.net. Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page.DNN Simple Article: DNNSimpleArticle Module V00.00.03: The initial release of the DNNSimpleArticle module (labelled V00.00.03) There are C# and VB versions of this module for this initial release. No promises that going forward there will be packages for both languages provided for future releases. This module provides the following functionality Create and display articles Display a paged list of articles Articles get created as DNN ContentItems Categorization provided through DNN Taxonomy SEO functionality for article display providi...UOB & ME: UOB_ME 2.5: latest versionAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.4.3: AutoLoL now supports importing the build pages from Mobafire.com as well! Just insert the url to the build and voila. (For example: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/unforgivens-guide-how-to-build-a-successful-mordekaiser-24061) Stable release of AutoChat (It is still recommended to use with caution and to read the documentation) It is now possible to associate *.lolm files with AutoLoL to quickly open them The selected spells are now displayed in the masteries tab for qu...SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.2: - Added auto insertion of RLE (RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING) Unicode character for the RTL languages. - Fixed delete rows issue.PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7: This is a final stable release of PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7. This is a minor incremental release that contains all the functionality available in 53121 plus additional features listed below: Improved detection logic for existing PHP installations. Now PHP Manager detects the location to php.ini file in accordance to the PHP specifications Configuring date.timezone. PHP Manager can automatically set the date.timezone directive which is required to be set starting from PHP 5.3 Ability to ...Algorithmia: Algorithmia 1.1: Algorithmia v1.1, released on December 8th, 2010.SuperSocket, an extensible socket application framework: SuperSocket 1.0 SP1: Fixed bugs: fixed a potential bug that the running state hadn't been updated after socket server stopped fixed a synchronization issue when clearing timeout session fixed a bug in ArraySegmentList fixed a bug on getting configuration value .NET Version: 3.5 sp1My Web Pages Starter Kit: 1.3.1 Production Release (Security HOTFIX): Due to a critical security issue, it's strongly advised to update the My Web Pages Starter Kit to this version. Possible attackers could misuse the image upload to transmit any type of file to the website. If you already have a running version of My Web Pages Starter Kit 1.3.0, you can just replace the ftb.imagegallery.aspx file in the root directory with the one attached to this release.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.4: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager new stuff: popup WhiteSpaceFilterAttribute tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6nopCommerce. ASP.NET open source shopping cart: nopCommerce 1.90: To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).SharePoint Packager: SharePoint Packager release: Full source code and precompiled / ILmerged exeTweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 4: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numerous fixes reported by preview users Preview 3 ChangesNumerous fixes and improvements to core engine Twitter API coverage: a...myCollections: Version 1.2: New in version 1.2: Big performance improvement. New Design (Added Outlook style View, New detail view, New Groub By...) Added Sort by Media Added Manage Movie Studio Zoom preference is now saved. Media name are now editable. Added Portuguese version You can now Hide details panel Add support for FLAC tags You can now imports books from BibTex Xml file BugFixingNew ProjectsABR Manager: Fast and small Adobe brushes preset files manager developed in native c++.Aplicativo lembretes: Com esse aplicativo você poderá agentar atividades de forma que quando o dia e a hora do compromisso marcado chegar, o aplicativo ira lembra-lo com um sinal sonoro e visual e até poderá desligar seu pc. O programa ficará em execução de forma discreta no canto direito superiorBrogue: Grevious Sword of Carnage: * 24 damage * makes annoying sound on hitsC# LZF Real-Time Compression Algorithm: Improved C# LZF Compressor, a very small and extremely efficient real-time data compression library. The compression algorithm is extremely fast. Well suited for real-time data intensive applications (e.g.: packet streaming, embedded devices...).GIFT: gift appHeroBeastCodeProject: create a HeroBeastCodeProjects project,opensource my codeiFinance: The wpf/sl solution for personal finance manager.MailOnSocketChange: Send an alert via email, if a certain socket/TCP-connection-changes state on the PC running the MailOnSocketChange applicationMath Teacher for kids: This application will help your kids learn and practice Math. midnc: Proyecto en silverlight para el control interno de registro de actividades y eventosMusicWho: MusicWho compose music. It use biological neuron firing signals to generate music. so, what will the brain sound like? we'll see.Nabaztag Enterprise Services: The goal of the Nabaztag Enterprise Services is to come up with a free .NET implementation of the Nabaztag server. Additionally we think of building a whole platform around the core services using the newsest an coolest .NET technologies.pkEditor: pkEditor is a Poketscript or Pokescript script generator and editor.Second Block: Second Block is an block-based 3D multiplayer game.Share my speed: Coding4Fun Window Phone 7 "Share my speed" applicationSharePoint Image Resizer: Image Resizer allows to create custom policies to control image size of pictures in WSS 3.0/SharePoint 2007.ShoutStreamSource: ShoutStreamSource provides you an implementation of the MediaStreamSource of the ShoutCast protocol for the Windows Phone 7. It makes it possible to play a ShoutCast stream using a MediaElement on the phone.SSIS Reporting Pack: A suite of SQL Server Reporting Services reports that operate over the SSIS catalog in SQL Server code-named DenaliSunshine2011: testTrabalhando com Functoid Table Looping: Usado em conjunto com o Functoid “Table Extractor”, serve para criar estruturas de any registros podendo conter valores de campos, valores constantes, e valores que resultam de outros functoids. VKontakte API SDK: SDK for work with most popular russian social site VKontakte.ruwho's who: iYasmin: Yasmin - A WPF based Anime Database.YiDeSOFT: YiDe is EzDesk~!?????????? ?????: ?????????? ????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ????????? ??????? ?????????????????? ? ????????? ???????

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – September 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/wlscommunity Oracle Exalogic? VIDEO: Oracle Public Cloud Built on Exalogic!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGzjDloUw_s&feature=plcp … oracleopenworld #NetBeans Community Day at #JavaOne http://ow.ly/dunFL Oracle Cloud Zone Building an enterprise Cloud? Have Oracle show you the RIGHT way to plan, deploy and monitor enterprise clouds.... http://fb.me/286978S4S OTNArchBeat? Oracle Exalogic X2-2 walk-through with Brad Cameron | @jvzoggel http://pub.vitrue.com/yE7d Oracle Technet? Stash your cash. September OTN Member Offers - discounts on books, more | OTN Blog http://pub.vitrue.com/yTr9 C2B2 Consulting? C2B2 is Speaking at @UKOUG App Server Middleware SIG Meeting 'Real Life #WebLogic Performance Tuning' http://www.c2b2.co.uk/ukoug_application_server_middleware_sig_meeting … @wlscommunity JAXenter.com? From yesterday, @smeyen offers his views on the next generation #Java - do you agree? http://jaxenter.com/next-gen-java-we-don-t-need-another-revolutionary-44334.html … Markus Eisele? Awesome: professor from ITU uploads her programming lectures to #YouTube. Programming classes without having to pay! http://bit.ly/UtkJIW Adam Bien? Real World Java EE 6 Patterns--Rethinking Best Practices Reloaded: A completely rewritten, second, iteration of ... http://bit.ly/Qc3xTH Markus Eisele [blog] #PrimeFaces Push with #Atmosphere on #GlassFish 3.1.2.2 http://goo.gl/fb/jPDzA Lucas Jellema? Forms community event at Oracle Open World - Tuesday, 2nd Oct with the BIG names in Forms - see: http://oracleformsinfo.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/ask-the-product-manager-join-us-at-the-oracle-forms-community-event-at-openworld-2012/ … WebLogic Community WebLogic & Coherence & Cloud presentations for customer meetings http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kw Adam Bien? New Book: Rethinking Best Practices with Java EE 6 is out: http://realworldpatterns.com (fully rewritten, re-edited and reformatted) WebLogic Community? Want to become and WebLogic 12c expert? free WebLogic 12c partner bootcamps &ndash;new locations: Madrid Spain http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kK WebLogic Community? Promote Your WebLogic events at http://oracle.com http://wp.me/p1LMIb-ku OracleBlogs Gartner review Oracle ADF http://ow.ly/1mgkCV Simon Haslam Next #ukoug App Server & MW SIG on 10 Oct: http://www.ukoug.org/events/ukoug-application-server-and-middleware-sig-meeting8/ … Hopefully plenty of good admin stuff! Michel Schildmeijer My book "WebLogic 12c; First look" has been reviewed again..see http://www.amazon.com/review/R28L6E3CC9RPMK/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1849687188&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag= … … Markus Eisele? #Weblogic 11g Interactive Quick Reference Map: http://bit.ly/Ugsq52 #wls #oracle #reference /via @TonyvanEsch Marc? Playing with #syslog server and #weblogic. Is there a simple how-to to configure all the logging from #WLS to #syslog-ng WebLogic Community Java update http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kI WebLogic Community top tweets WebLogic Partner Community &ndash; August 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kA Andrejus Baranovskis? Oracle University Training: ADF/WebCenter 11g Development in Depth | Andrejus Baranovskis http://fb.me/253ZTS2zp OracleSupport_WLS? How neat is a free tool that allows you to inspect and debug traffic from virtually any application? http://pub.vitrue.com/vXdP WebLogic Community WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter August 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kn OTNArchBeat Integrating Coherence & Java EE 6 Applications using ActiveCache | Ricardo Ferreira http://pub.vitrue.com/rwGg Adam Bien? Thanks for attending the #javaee #techtalk "Enterprise Java 2.0" I pushed the project and slides to: http://kenai.com/projects/javaee-patterns/sources/hg/show/hacks/techtalk2012?rev=429 … JDeveloper & ADF? How to service-enable Oracle ADF Business Components http://ht.ly/1mcfsZ OracleSupport_WLS? Do you know that #WebLogic 12.1.1.0 is certified for production with JDK 7? @ http://pub.vitrue.com/35Kn Andreas Koop? My latest upload : WebLogic Administration und Deployment mit WLST on @slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/multikoop/weblogic-administration-und-deployment-mit-wlst … OTNArchBeat? Demo for OPN: Oracle Coherence Management with EM Cloud Control 12c http://pub.vitrue.com/reoo Markus Eisele? [blog] Java Champions at #JavaOne 2012 http://goo.gl/fb/Ibb6N #javachampion OracleBlogs Buy This Book!: Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Handbook http://ow.ly/1malM1 WebLogic Community? Coherence Management with EM Cloud Control 12c &ndash;demo for partners http://wp.me/p1LMIb-iE Arun Gupta? Learn how Java can help Internet of Things at Java Embedded at JavaOne: http://bit.ly/POBizh WebLogic Community? Follow WebLogicCommunity on facebook http://www.facebook.com/WebLogicCommunity … #WebLogicCommunity WebLogic Community? Building Java EE in the Cloud–Webcast August 30th 2012 https://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/building-java-ee-in-the-cloudwebcast-august-30th-2012/ … #WebLogicCommunity #Java #oracle #opn WebLogic Community? Call for WebLogic Community newsletter content. Please send @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity OracleSupport_WLS? The #weblogic wasp: lots of tips, Q&A and examples http://pub.vitrue.com/v0bw Frank Nimphius? Free ADF Best Practices Webinar by Andrejus Baranovskis for ODTUG (18, 2012 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT) http://bit.ly/OiSWbi ADF Code Corner Webcast- Friday September 14, 8:30 AM - 9.00 AM (CET) - ADF as a basis of Fusion Apps (in English) - with Chris Muir: http://bit.ly/OiQVMb Oracle WebLogic? New blog post: Developing Custom User Principal Object http://pub.vitrue.com/ltam JAX London? Just 4days left to get in on the early bird special, don't miss out!! http://jaxlondon.com/ #JAXLondon #Java WebLogic Community Building Java EE in the Cloud&ndash;Webcast August 30th 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-kE Andrejus Baranovskis? New Record Master-Detail Validation and ADF BC Groovy Use Case http://fb.me/1D2NEIl8g JAX London? Don't miss out!!! Only 6 days left to make use of our early bird offer #JAXLondon #JAVA http://jaxlondon.com/ Michel Schildmeijer Qualogy launches Proof of Concept Center for Oracle Fusion Applications http://www.qualogy.com/qualogy-launches-proof-of-concept-center-for-oracle-fusion-applications/ … via @Qualogy_news OracleSupport_WLS ?Need to troubleshoot redeployment failure in #Weblogic? Check this http://pub.vitrue.com/auhz OracleEnterpriseMgr? Blog : Managing Oracle #Exalogic Elastic #Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center http://ow.ly/dd40e #em12c ODTUG? Want free advanced technical ADF training?Join @andrejusb for an @odtug webinar! check out his blog for more info http://bit.ly/SvKJDq chriscmuir Oracle Open World 2012 and ADF EMG http://zite.to/QyusZE OTNArchBeat? Boost your infrastructure with Coherence into the Cloud | Nino Guarnacci http://pub.vitrue.com/v3aJ WebLogic Community? Presentations & Training material OFM Summer Camps & Impressions & Feedback http://wp.me/p1LMIb-ks Arun Gupta? Java EE 6 pocket guide by O'Reilly available for pre-order from Amazon: http://amzn.to/O6YyoP and B&N: http://bit.ly/NjWLk1 OTNArchBeat Joining the Existing Cluster in Coherence | A. Fuat Sungur http://pub.vitrue.com/6uLh Andrejus Baranovskis Sample Application for Switching Application Module Data Sources http://fb.me/1PSURUzch OTNArchBeat Oracle WebLogic DevCast: Building Java EE in the Cloud - August 30 - 10am PT/ 1pm ET http://pub.vitrue.com/xXg0 OTNArchBeat? GlassFish Community Event at #javaone - Sept 30 -11am – 1pm -Moscone South. Register Now! http://pub.vitrue.com/p2f5 OracleSupport_WLS? Connecting To HTTPS Site Using Simple Java Program When Using Proxy http://pub.vitrue.com/stVv Michel Schildmeijer? Before you go to #OOW take the sneak preview of WebLogic 12c with you: http://www.qualogy.com/ga-nog-niet-naar-oow-en-neem-mee-weblogic-12c/ … via @Qualogy_news Simon Haslam? Even more great ADF content at #oow2012 this year including a packed ADF EMG day on Sunday: https://blogs.oracle.com/onesizedoesntfitall/entry/the_year_after_the_year … OracleBlogs ExaLogic trainings for partners http://ow.ly/1m6a5D Robin? First presentation on DOAG conference (thanks to @Steffen2042) "Weblogic Server for Dummies". Now I´m pretty excited :) http://www.doag.org/de/events/konferenzen/doag-2012.html … Markus Eisele There is a #facebook page for the upcoming #Java Mission Control (JRockit Mission Control for #Hotspot)! ttp://on.fb.me/Q31oyA Adam Bien? The almost free #javaee workshop in Rapperswil has only 60 registrations so far: http://www.adam-bien.com/roller/abien/entry/enterprise_java_2_0_swiss … What's the problem? :-) WebLogic Community ExaLogic trainings for partners http://wp.me/p1LMIb-iC OracleBlogs How to install Oracle Weblogic Server using Generic Package installer? http://ow.ly/1m5ms7 OracleSupport_WLS #Weblogic Server new blog post - Developing Custom User Principal Object http://pub.vitrue.com/ltam OracleBlogs? Architects and Architecture at JavaOne 2012 http://ow.ly/1m4oS5 WebLogic Community Are you WebLogic or Application Grid Specialized? Do you get Recognized? Get your plaque https://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/plaques-weblogic-application-grid-specialization/ … #WebLogicCommunity #opn WebLogic Community? Plaques WebLogic & Application Grid Specialization http://wp.me/p1LMIb-iA JDeveloper & ADF? First Steps With Oracle Application Testing Suite: Recording a Test With OpenScript http://dlvr.it/222npy WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Oracle Solaris 11 ZFS Lab for Openworld 2012

  - by user12626122

  Preface This is the content from the Oracle Openworld 2012 ZFS lab. It was well attended - the feedback was that it was a little short - thats probably because in writing it I bacame very time-concious after the ASM/ACFS on Solaris extravaganza I ran last year which was almost too long for mortal man to finish in the 1 hour session. Enjoy. Table of Contents Exercise Z.1: ZFS Pools Exercise Z.2: ZFS File Systems Exercise Z.3: ZFS Compression Exercise Z.4: ZFS Deduplication Exercise Z.5: ZFS Encryption Exercise Z.6: Solaris 11 Shadow Migration Introduction This set of exercises is designed to briefly demonstrate new features in Solaris 11 ZFS file system: Deduplication, Encryption and Shadow Migration. Also included is the creation of zpools and zfs file systems - the basic building blocks of the technology, and also Compression which is the compliment of Deduplication. The exercises are just introductions - you are referred to the ZFS Adminstration Manual for further information. From Solaris 11 onward the online manual pages consist of zpool(1M) and zfs(1M) with further feature-specific information in zfs_allow(1M), zfs_encrypt(1M) and zfs_share(1M). The lab is easily carried out in a VirtualBox running Solaris 11 with 6 virtual 3 Gb disks to play with. Exercise Z.1: ZFS Pools Task: You have several disks to use for your new file system. Create a new zpool and a file system within it. Lab: You will check the status of existing zpools, create your own pool and expand it. Your Solaris 11 installation already has a root ZFS pool. It contains the root file system. Check this: root@solaris:~# zpool list NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT rpool 15.9G 6.62G 9.25G 41% 1.00x ONLINE - root@solaris:~# zpool status pool: rpool state: ONLINE scan: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM rpool ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t0d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors Note the disk device the root pool is on - c3t0d0s0 Now you will create your own ZFS pool. First you will check what disks are available: root@solaris:~# echo | format Searching for disks...done AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS: 0. c3t0d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 2085 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@0,0 1. c3t2d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@2,0 2. c3t3d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@3,0 3. c3t4d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@4,0 4. c3t5d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@5,0 5. c3t6d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@6,0 6. c3t7d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@7,0 Specify disk (enter its number): Specify disk (enter its number): The root disk is numbered 0. The others are free for use. Try creating a simple pool and observe the error message: root@solaris:~# zpool create mypool c3t2d0 c3t3d0 'mypool' successfully created, but with no redundancy; failure of one device will cause loss of the pool So destroy that pool and create a mirrored pool instead: root@solaris:~# zpool destroy mypool root@solaris:~# zpool create mypool mirror c3t2d0 c3t3d0 root@solaris:~# zpool status mypool pool: mypool state: ONLINE scan: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM mypool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors Back to topExercise Z.2: ZFS File Systems Task: You have to create file systems for later exercises. You can see that when a pool is created, a file system of the same name is created: root@solaris:~# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 86.5K 2.94G 31K /mypool Create your filesystems and mountpoints as follows: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o mountpoint=/data1 mypool/mydata1 The -o option sets the mount point and automatically creates the necessary directory. root@solaris:~# zfs list mypool/mydata1 NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool/mydata1 31K 2.94G 31K /data1 Back to top Exercise Z.3: ZFS Compression Task:Try out different forms of compression available in ZFS Lab:Create 2nd filesystem with compression, fill both file systems with the same data, observe results You can see from the zfs(1) manual page that there are several types of compression available to you, set with the property=value syntax: compression=on | off | lzjb | gzip | gzip-N | zle Controls the compression algorithm used for this dataset. The lzjb compression algorithm is optimized for performance while providing decent data compression. Setting compression to on uses the lzjb compression algorithm. The gzip compression algorithm uses the same compression as the gzip(1) command. You can specify the gzip level by using the value gzip-N where N is an integer from 1 (fastest) to 9 (best compression ratio). Currently, gzip is equivalent to gzip-6 (which is also the default for gzip(1)). Create a second filesystem with compression turned on. Note how you set and get your values separately: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o mountpoint=/data2 mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:~# zfs set compression=gzip-9 mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:~# zfs get compression mypool/mydata1 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/mydata1 compression off default root@solaris:~# zfs get compression mypool/mydata2 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/mydata2 compression gzip-9 local Now you can copy the contents of /usr/lib into both your normal and compressing filesystem and observe the results. Don't forget the dot or period (".") in the find(1) command below: root@solaris:~# cd /usr/lib root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pdv /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pdv /data2 The copy into the compressing file system takes longer - as it has to perform the compression but the results show the effect: root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.35G 1.59G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.01G 1.59G 1.01G /data1 mypool/mydata2 341M 1.59G 341M /data2 Note that the available space in the pool is shared amongst the file systems. This behavior can be modified using quotas and reservations which are not covered in this lab but are covered extensively in the ZFS Administrators Guide. Back to top Exercise Z.4: ZFS Deduplication The deduplication property is used to remove redundant data from a ZFS file system. With the property enabled duplicate data blocks are removed synchronously. The result is that only unique data is stored and common componenents are shared. Task:See how to implement deduplication and its effects Lab: You will create a ZFS file system with deduplication turned on and see if it reduces the amount of physical storage needed when we again fill it with a copy of /usr/lib. root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs destroy mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs set dedup=on mypool/mydata1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# rm -rf /data1/* root@solaris:/usr/lib# mkdir /data1/2nd-copy root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.02M 2.94G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 43K 2.94G 43K /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pd /data1 2142768 blocks root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.02G 1.99G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.01G 1.99G 1.01G /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pd /data1/2nd-copy 2142768 blocks root@solaris:/usr/lib#zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.99G 1.96G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.98G 1.96G 1.98G /data1 You could go on creating copies for quite a while...but you get the idea. Note that deduplication and compression can be combined: the compression acts on metadata. Deduplication works across file systems in a pool and there is a zpool-wide property dedupratio: root@solaris:/usr/lib# zpool get dedupratio mypool NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool dedupratio 4.30x - Deduplication can also be checked using "zpool list": root@solaris:/usr/lib# zpool list NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT mypool 2.98G 1001M 2.01G 32% 4.30x ONLINE - rpool 15.9G 6.66G 9.21G 41% 1.00x ONLINE - Before moving on to the next topic, destroy that dataset and free up some space: root@solaris:~# zfs destroy mypool/mydata1 Back to top Exercise Z.5: ZFS Encryption Task: Encrypt sensitive data. Lab: Explore basic ZFS encryption. This lab only covers the basics of ZFS Encryption. In particular it does not cover various aspects of key management. Please see the ZFS Adminastrion Manual and the zfs_encrypt(1M) manual page for more detail on this functionality. Back to top root@solaris:~# zfs create -o encryption=on mypool/data2 Enter passphrase for 'mypool/data2': ******** Enter again: ******** root@solaris:~# Creation of a descendent dataset shows that encryption is inherited from the parent: root@solaris:~# zfs create mypool/data2/data3 root@solaris:~# zfs get -r encryption,keysource,keystatus,checksum mypool/data2 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/data2 encryption on local mypool/data2 keysource passphrase,prompt local mypool/data2 keystatus available - mypool/data2 checksum sha256-mac local mypool/data2/data3 encryption on inherited from mypool/data2 mypool/data2/data3 keysource passphrase,prompt inherited from mypool/data2 mypool/data2/data3 keystatus available - mypool/data2/data3 checksum sha256-mac inherited from mypool/data2 You will find the online manual page zfs_encrypt(1M) contains examples. In particular, if time permits during this lab session you may wish to explore the changing of a key using "zfs key -c mypool/data2". Exercise Z.6: Shadow Migration Shadow Migration allows you to migrate data from an old file system to a new file system while simultaneously allowing access and modification to the new file system during the process. You can use Shadow Migration to migrate a local or remote UFS or ZFS file system to a local file system. Task: You wish to migrate data from one file system (UFS, ZFS, VxFS) to ZFS while mainaining access to it. Lab: Create the infrastructure for shadow migration and transfer one file system into another. First create the file system you want to migrate root@solaris:~# zpool create oldstuff c3t4d0 root@solaris:~# zfs create oldstuff/forgotten Then populate it with some files: root@solaris:~# cd /var/adm root@solaris:/var/adm# find . -print | cpio -pdv /oldstuff/forgotten You need the shadow-migration package installed: root@solaris:~# pkg install shadow-migration Packages to install: 1 Create boot environment: No Create backup boot environment: No Services to change: 1 DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) Completed 1/1 14/14 0.2/0.2 PHASE ACTIONS Install Phase 39/39 PHASE ITEMS Package State Update Phase 1/1 Image State Update Phase 2/2 You then enable the shadowd service: root@solaris:~# svcadm enable shadowd root@solaris:~# svcs shadowd STATE STIME FMRI online 7:16:09 svc:/system/filesystem/shadowd:default Set the filesystem to be migrated to read-only root@solaris:~# zfs set readonly=on oldstuff/forgotten Create a new zfs file system with the shadow property set to the file system to be migrated: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o shadow=file:///oldstuff/forgotten mypool/remembered Use the shadowstat(1M) command to see the progress of the migration: root@solaris:~# shadowstat EST BYTES BYTES ELAPSED DATASET XFRD LEFT ERRORS TIME mypool/remembered 92.5M - - 00:00:59 mypool/remembered 99.1M 302M - 00:01:09 mypool/remembered 109M 260M - 00:01:19 mypool/remembered 133M 304M - 00:01:29 mypool/remembered 149M 339M - 00:01:39 mypool/remembered 156M 86.4M - 00:01:49 mypool/remembered 156M 8E 29 (completed) Note that if you had created /mypool/remembered as encrypted, this would be the preferred method of encrypting existing data. Similarly for compressing or deduplicating existing data. The procedure for migrating a file system over NFS is similar - see the ZFS Administration manual. That concludes this lab session.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, September 26, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, September 26, 2012Popular ReleasesThe Eggbert Chronicles: Eggbert Chronicles v1: Version 1 of Eggbert Chronicles. Includes: Basic Menu System Fully-Functional Options Menu (need to auto-adjust adv. settings when preset is changed) Basic First Level (It's pre-alpha, level design isn't a must, gameplay mechanics first) 2D Movement System in a 3D World (2.5D Basically) Planned: An actual playermodel Actual custom texturing Platformer Objects: Spikes Sawblades Basic Enemies (Most likely x-axis movement) Tar pits Acid pits More puzzles Custom sound effect...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.3.1 (patch): - Magic find value will now display properly and includes follower value. - ILevel of legendary items will now display properly.WinRtBehaviors: V1.0.2: Includes simple Blend SupportMVC Bootstrap: MVC Boostrap 0.5.1: A small demo site, based on the default ASP.NET MVC 3 project template, showing off some of the features of MVC Bootstrap. This release uses Entity Framework 5 for data access and Ninject 3 for dependency injection. If you download and use this project, please give some feedback, good or bad!Windows Powershell/Quest AD account audit and reporting: Powershell AD Reporting Framework: Alpha 0.0.1 ReleasePicturethrill: Version 2.9.25.0: Allowing to run Picturethrill Update task while computer is not connected to internet on computer wake up.VCC: Latest build, v2.3.00925.0: Automatic drop of latest buildSimple PM - Project Management Simplified !: Simple Pm v1 - Aplha (Re-released): INSTALLATION GUIDE 1. Run the web setup, which will install the web app to IIS. 2. Make sure you select your application pool to "ASP.NET v4.0" during the installation. 3. Create a database named "SimplePm" 4. Run the attached database script on this database. 5. Change the database username and password in connection strings defined as SimplePmEntities and ApplicationServices from the Web.config file 6. Thats its ! Simple Pm are ready to go ! For any installation assistance feel free to c...menu4web: menu4web 1.0 - free javascript menu for web sites: menu4web 1.0 has been tested with all major browsers: Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera and Safari. Minified m4w.js library is less than 9K. Includes 21 menu examples of different styles. Can be freely distributed under The MIT License (MIT).Rawr: Rawr 5.0.0: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr Addon (NOT UPDATED YET FOR MOP)We now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including ba...Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.26: The zh-CN issue has been solved. We also add a project management module.EntitiesToDTOs - Entity Framework DTO Generator: EntitiesToDTOs.v3.0.Beta.2: Support for new Entity Framework EDMX (format used by VS2012) ! Support for Enum Types! DTOs and Assemblers can be generated inside project folders! Optional automatic check for updates! Support for Visual Studio 2012 !!! Choose types you want to generate! Warning system in types to generate! Added ToEntityList() and ToDTOList() to Assemblers! Indicate class identifier for DTOs and Assemblers! Cleaner Assemblers code. Ad module to support the AddIn! Lots of fixes and imp...VidCoder: 1.4.1 Beta: Updated to HandBrake 4971. This should fix some issues with stuck PGS subtitles. Fixed build break which prevented pre-compiled XML serializers from showing up. Fixed problem where a preset would get errantly marked as modified when re-opening the encode settings window or importing a new preset.SharePoint WarmUp: Nauplius.SP.Initalization: Initial release.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.0: VS2012 support is alphaBlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.2: 2012.09.23 Ver5.7.2 (1)InetTest?? (2)HTTP?????????????????100???????????Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (Preview 6): IMPORTANT: List of breaking changes from preview 5 Added separate samples download with .vsix dependencies instead of source dependencies Support for FreeWheel SmartXML ad responses Support for Smooth Streaming SDK DownloaderPlugins Support for VMAP and TTML polling for live scenarios Support for custom smooth streaming byte stream and scheme handlers Support for new play time and position tracking plugin Added IsLiveChanged event Added AdaptivePlugin.MaxBitrate property Add...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.8: Version: 2.5.0.8 (Milestone 8): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete WAF: Mark the class DataModel as serializable. InfoMan: Minor improvements. InfoMan: Add unit tests for all modules. Othe...LogicCircuit: LogicCircuit 2.12.9.20: Logic Circuit - is educational software for designing and simulating logic circuits. Intuitive graphical user interface, allows you to create unrestricted circuit hierarchy with multi bit buses, debug circuits behavior with oscilloscope, and navigate running circuits hierarchy. Changes of this versionToolbars on text note dialog are more flexible now. You can select font face, size, color, and background of text you are typing. RAM now can be initialized to one of the following: random va...SiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.2020.421): New features: Disable a specific part of SiteMap to keep the data without displaying them in the CRM application. It simply comments XML part of the sitemap (thanks to rboyers for this feature request) Right click an item and click on "Disable" to disable it Items disabled are greyed and a suffix "- disabled" is added Right click an item and click on "Enable" to enable it Refresh list of web resources in the web resources pickerNew Projectsaftermath: Provides sse/avx implementation for matrix storage, access and basic operations, probability distributions and fast ziggurat random number generators.Agility: Agility is a management tool for the agile enterprise. It supports encourages ussage of agile methodology from portfolio and management to development.ASP.NET WebForm MVVM: MVVM for ASP.NET WebFormsAzugBeDemo: some text hereBookmark Browser: Web application that allows access to your Firefox Sync bookmarks on platforms that are not supported by Firefox (e.g. iOS).Cachalote-Todo-WPF-Skins: These are skin projects for Cachalote Todo WPF project.CodePlexDeployment01: Project set up to demonstrate codeplex deploymentColorChooser X2: comming soon...De Todo Un Poco: de todo un pcoDeals Patrol: Deals patrolEasy IP Changer: Wechseln von IP Adressen pro AdapterEasyStock: EasyStock is a small and easy to use Windows 8 app that gives you an overview of your favorite stocks with historical data for the last days, months and years. Find++: Find++ finds specific string in multiple files in a folderGoShunn: A DotNetNuke ModuleJquery DataTables Plugin c#, .NET, MS SQL Server and Webservices Example: A working example of JQuery DataTables in C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server side processing with ajax and webservices.Keywords Translator (MUI helper): MUI helper for translate words in others languages.Mupen: A Nentendo 64 Emulator. This emulator is based on the Mupen64plus code, and made to be used for learning purposes.NFC Card Demo: ??nfc?，???demo,???roboguice ioc??NJection.LambdaConverter: NJection.LambdaConverter is an assembly for converting delegates resolved from methods/constructors to expression trees. Copyright 2009-2012 Sagi FogelQuickPasteIt: QuickPasteIt is a pastebin tool for Windows and Visual Studio (2010 & 2012) which makes sharing code files and snippets as easy as one click.SharePoint Move Discussion Threads: SharePoint Move Discussion Threads solution is a tool that allows to move a thread across discussion boards within a site-collection.SQL LocalDB Wrapper: SQL LocalDB Wrapper is a .NET 3.5 assembly providing interop with the SQL LocalDB native API from managed code using .NET APIs.Study Time: Windows 8 metro style app. Create Quizzes and study card. Use the study cards either in the Windows 8 app or WP7 Companion App. Use Skydrive for storage.TenterTaobaoke: toatoaoke projaecttestddgit09252012: stestddhg0925201201: sTrigger: A DotNetNuke C# ModuleUML Creator: This is a programmering project made by 4 students from the Technical University of Denmark, and is a part of the course Windows Programming C# and .NET.W8 Ateneo Libri: No summaryWDSS-II MergedDataViewer: Quickly view merged variables map produced from w2merger Webshop for Orchard: This is Ecommerce Module to Orchard based on SkyWalker's excellent serial blogsWindows Powershell/Quest AD account audit and reporting: Powershell framework utilizing Quest Active Directory commandlet for the generation of user account, group membership and access audit reports.WinRT.Toolkit: I'm trying to Build a Charting Control Set for Windows 8 Modern UI I already Built a Pie Chart which is available now on http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mertoappsXades Library: Xades Library, currently with Xades-T capabilities and compatible with eHealth and MyCareNet.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 13, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 13, 2011Popular ReleasesCommunity TFS Build Extensions: Alpha 1.0.0.4: Please see the Source Control change sets for updates in this release This is a minor release to wrap up the BuildReport activity This release contains signed assemblies and a CHM file. Effort is now going into improving the documentation. Note the help on the Guid activity. We plan to provide Actions and a self contained Sequence sample whenever possible. This should address most peoples needs. You can expect frequent updates over the next month as we add more activities and improve the ...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.4.1: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation is the best way to detect and redirect mobile devices and their capabilities on ASP.NET and is being used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re highly confident in our software and we recommend all users update to this version. Changes to Version 1.0.4.1Changed the BlackberryHandler and BlackberryVersion6Handler to have equal CONFIDENCE values to ensure they both get a chance at detecting BlackBerry version 4&5 and version 6 devices. Prior to thi...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.06: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta6: ??AcDown?????????????，?????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta6 ?????(imanhua.com)????? ???? ?? ??"????","?????","?????","????"?????? "????"?????"????????"?? ??????????? ?????????????? ?????????????/???? ?? ????Windows 7???????????? ????????? ?? ????????????? ???????/??????????? ???????????? ?? ?? ?????(imanh...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.22: Added lots of optimizations related to expression optimization. Combining adjacent expression statements into a single statement means more if-, for-, and while-statements can get rid of the curly-braces. Then more if-statements can be converted to expressions, and more expressions can be combined with return- and for-statements. Moving functions to the top of their scopes, followed by var-statements, provides more opportunities for expression-combination. Added command-line option to remove ...Pulse: Pulse Beta 2: - Added new wallpapers provider http://wallbase.cc. Supports english search, multiple keywords* - Improved font rendering in Options window - Added "Set wallpaper as logon background" option* - Fixed crashes if there is no internet connection - Fixed: Rewalls downloads empty images sometimes - Added filters* Note 1: wallbase provider supports only english search. Rewalls provider supports only russian search but Pulse automatically translates your english keyword into russian using Google Tr...SizeOnDisk: 1.0.8.4: Fix: Contextual menu failures. Switch to ShellExecuteEx of Win32Api.Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.1 (June 2011) for .NET 4.0: Release of Phalanger 2.1 - the opensource PHP compiler for .NET framework 4.0. Installation package also includes basic version of Phalanger Tools for Visual Studio 2010. This allows you to easily create, build and debug Phalanger web or application inside this ultimate integrated development environment. You can even install the tools into the free Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated). To improve the performance of your application using MySQL, please use Managed MySQL Extension for Phala...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.7: Version: 2.0.0.7 (Milestone 7): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...SimplePlanner: v2.0b: For 2011-2012 Sem 1 ???2011-2012 ????Visual Studio 2010 Help Downloader: 1.0.0.3: Domain name support for proxy Cleanup old packages bug Writing to EventLog with UAC enabled bug Small fixes & RefactoringMedia Companion: MC 3.406b weekly: With this version change a movie rebuild is required when first run -else MC will lock up on exit. Extract the entire archive to a folder which has user access rights, eg desktop, documents etc. Refer to the documentation on this site for the Installation & Setup Guide Important! If you find MC not displaying movie data properly, please try a 'movie rebuild' to reload the data from the nfo's into MC's cache. Fixes Movies Readded movie preference to rename invalid or scene nfo's to info ext...Windows Azure VM Assistant: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5 (Debug) - Test Release VersionNetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.9: Changes: - fix examples (include issue 16026) - add new examples - 32Bit/64Bit Walkthrough is now available in technical Documentation. Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddi...Reusable Library: V1.1.3: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developerClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.54.0: New on this release: 1) Mayor performance improvements. 2) AdjustToContents now take into account the text rotation. 3) Fixed issues 6782, 6784, 6788HTML-IDEx: HTML-IDEx .15 ALPHA: This release fixes line counting a little bit and adds the masshighlight() sub, which highlights pasted and inserted code.AutoLoL: AutoLoL v2.0.3: - Improved summoner spells are now displayed - Fixed some of the startup errors people got - Double clicking an item selects it - Some usability changes that make using AutoLoL just a little easier - Bug fixes AutoLoL v2 is not an update, but an entirely new version! Please install to a different directory than AutoLoL v1Host Profiles: Host Profiles 1.0: Host Profiles 1.0 Release Quickly modify host file Automatically flush dnsVidCoder: 0.9.2: Updated to HandBrake 4024svn. This fixes problems with mpeg2 sources: corrupted previews, incorrect progress indicators and encodes that incorrectly report as failed. Fixed a problem that prevented target sizes above 2048 MB.New ProjectsAFS - Application Foundation System: application foundation system,including organization structure,rights management,user management,event subscription etc.AuctionWorks: AuctionWorks 1.0Commander: CMD VB6 GUI a CMD application written in Visual Studio 2010 ultimate (VB6). Simple GUI interface, more functions to be addedCotizador de Serigrafia: Cotizador para Industrias SerigráficasESPGame: ESPGame renders a wonderful picture label game environment. It's developed in Python with web framework django.ETRoboCon Race Tracking System: The race tracking system of Embedded Technology Robot Contest in Japan.HNI2: get me at x.InkML JavaScript Library: The InkML JavaScript library allows InkML digital ink to be refernced within web pages and rendered directly into HTML5 <canvas> tags. Ink Markup Language (InkML) is a W3C standard for encoding digital ink (www.w3.org/tr/inkml). Ionut's C++ Programs: Ionut's C++ Programs Are you wondering were you can find software that suports any windows platform and the source code mai be compiled also for a NON-WINDOWS platforms. The Programs are Developed in C++ Mano Machine Emulator: Mano Machine Emulator makes it easier for Computer Science students to learn how the machine works in low level layers. You'll no longer have to imagine how the computer works, instead you will see how it works. It's developed in C#. MSMQ Client Library: MSMQ client library is a client for MSMQ server. It provides easy usage of MSMQ server, and can be used in any type of NET framework projects. It is developed in C#, Framework 4.0MVC Photos: ASP.NET MVC???????????。 mvcConf @:Japan???????????????。MvcPractice: learn the asp.net mvc3 source.Of Shared Points - Blog Demos and Samples: Blog samples and demonstration source code for "Of Shared Points" SharePoint blogPresentation Abstraction Control for Silverlight - PAC4SL: PAC4SL is a delivery framework used for developing Silverlight applications that uses the Presentation Abstraction Control delivery pattern. This delivery pattern is centered on team development with Silverlight. The focus of the pattern is spreading out of application logic into focused delivery tiers. The framework was developed in C# on the 4.0 framework and Silverlight 4.0 The framework is designed to be used with C# and Silverlight 4.0 or higher. queryexecutor: A generic database browserSilVM: MVVM, Silverlight, Arquitetura, ArchitectureSimple Dot Net Grapher: Demo project for drawing graphs based on a equation E.g F(x) = 5x^2 + 10x - 1 Just a math grapher I made to test the DynamicDataDisplay library and dynamic string evaluationSPEvolution: Migration for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 data - Content Types, List, Columns, ListItems and many other - in Rails-style. Write small evolution's steps which help to deploy and synchronize data schema beetween production and development environment. SQLDeploy.Net: SQLDeploy.Net is a utility to deploy [run] a set of SQL Scripts on SQL Server. The utility can be integrated with any deployment manager like Marimba , Hudson etc to automate database deployment. The project is developed on .Net Framework 4.0 but it is equally backward compatible. For a list of known issues and enhancements which are being worked upon, refer to Issue Tracker.webget: webgetwhoami: ip address resolverWPFGenie: about WPF, .Net, framework

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 11, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 11, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET MVC Extensions: ASP.NET MVC Extensions is developed on top of ASP.NET MVC extensibility point, which allows your IoC Container to rule everywhere.Best practices in .NET: NMA is a collection of knowledges that I learned from my co-worker and Internet. It's built on Domain Driven Design theories. I used Struture Map,...BioRider: Project participant of the 1st National Award for InteroperabilityBSoft: that's the project for bsoftClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML makes it easier for developers to create OpenXML files for Excel 2007. It provides a nice object oriented way to manipulate the files (si...Dragon Master: A tool for all D&D masters that need to create Dragon NPCsFacturator - Create invoices easy and fast: Windows forms application for creating invoices based on a Word template. Including a simple workflow for send, payed and finished invoices and a q...FreeEPG: An Australian EPG using the Freeview online guide. All Freeview regions are supported and data can be exported in either XMLTV or Microsoft Media ...GreedyRSS: Convert everything to RSS FeedHByte: In honor of the heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is an implementation of a type who has byte semantics, but who's value and location can not...JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation: JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation - NOT READY YETMjollnir - Supplemental Library for BCL: Mjollnir is Supplements Library for BCL. Mjollnir is Compatible with .NET Framework 4 (or maybe later).Money Spinner: MoneySpinnerMSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: A tool to create Open Extend Dictionary for Microsoft Pinyin IME 2010, it is develped in C#Sharepoint Data Store: This is a small library that lets SharePoint developers store and manage custom application information in SharePoint.SharePointSlim: We are going to use it in conjunction with the PowerSlim projectSSTA: A Tool to Compare SQL Database Schema Versionstbeasy: tbeasyNew Releases8085 Microprocessor simulator: 8085 Instruction Set Simulator with source code: 8085 Instruction set simulator with windows installer plus complete source code and examplesAutoArchive: Site Template...: Slightly off topic, but take a looK!BioRider: Uptiva Dreams IT Entry: ==================================== National Interoperability Award ==================================== TEAM: Uptiva Dreams IT PROJECT: BioRide...C# Developer Utility Library: ScrimpNet.Core Library May 2010: Initial upload of project library. Contains only source files. Recommend adding extracted files to your project as a project reference.Coot: Beta 1: To install the screen saver: Extract the contents of the zip file (all three files) to C:\Windows\System32 Go to screen saver properties, select ...Deploy Workflow Manager: Deploy Workflow Manager v1: Recommend you test on your development environment first before implementing into production. Criteria to run the workflow is assumed to be inclu...Expression Encoder 3 Visual Basic Samples: Encoder 3 VB Samples: Zip file contains the Encoder 3 samples written in Visual Basic.FreeEPG: Debug Release: Initial Release. Run the application from the command line for options. If you choose to run the client as a Windows Service, then you will need t...FSharpChess: Alpha Release 0.197: This is just the latest version of the binaries. Note that there are two excecutables: FSharpChess includes a UI partially written in C# FSharpCh...GreedyRSS: GreedyRSS V2: V2与V1相比： 改进了插件架构 用数据库取代XML配置文件 用Web Services暴露了部分功能Headspring Labs: ASP.NET MVC 2 tips and tricks (code): Contains example app that demonstrates techniques in the Tips & Tricks powerpointHeadspring Labs: ASP.NET MVC tips and tricks PPT: Powerpoint file for the ASP.NET MVC tips and tricks talk.HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls beta 1.0.0.0: HouseFly controls release 1.0.0.0 betaiTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3782: This production release of iTuner 1.2 allows you to synchronize one or more iTunes playlists to a USB MP3 player. It also provides the ability to ...JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation: v0.7: Protocol implemented. Most of the extra features implemented.MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi May 10, 2010: This version fixes a reproject bug where false_easting from .prj files was not being correctly converted into meters when the projection was in feet.Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: MouseZoom 1.7: Version 1.7 fixes a bug that can cause the keys to stick when leaving focus (e.g. opening a VS dialog box).Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: MouseZoom 1.8: Override mouse wheel scroll functionality to always scroll 25% no matter what zoom level you are on (by default, scrolling with the mouse wheel bec...MSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: 20100511build: First release. 1. Installation After you download it to your local disk, create a new folder and unzip it to the new folder, that's it. 2. run ...MSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: 20100511build2: First release. 1. Installation After you download it to your local disk, create a new folder and unzip it to the new folder, that's it. 2. run ...Multiwfn: multiwfn1.3.2: multiwfn1.3.2NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar: NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Release v1.4.132.1: Warning!There is a problem with the latest version of the program and rev 0 of STS-132 mission schedule. I am looking into the problem when the yea...NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar: NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Release v1.4.132.2: This release fixes a problem with rev 0 of the STS-132 mission schedule in recognizing the year of launch. NASA changed the year of launch to a fo...Object/Relational Mapper & Code Generator in Net 2.0 for Relational & XML Schema: 2.8: Switched compliation options to always run in 32-bit mode, to ensure it can connect to MSAccess & MSExcel on 64-bit machines. Updated parameterised...Open NFSe: OpenNFSe-Salvador v1.0.0: Atualização do OpenNFSe-Salvador para o novo schema utilizado pela prefeitura de Salvador.OpenSLIM: OpenSLIM-v373b0-20100509-0: Here is the list of new additions and improvements that this new major release incorporates: Systems Decommissioning Management. Improvements on...Pcap.Net: Pcap.Net 0.6.0 (44468): Pcap.Net - May 2010 Release Pcap.Net is a .NET wrapper for WinPcap written in C++/CLI and C#. It Features almost all WinPcap features and includes ...PowerShell Community Extensions: 2.0 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.0 Release NotesMay 10, 2010 The primary purpose of the Pscx 2.0 release is to convert from the previous approach...Scrum Sprint Monitor: v1.0.0.47921 (.NET 4-TFS 2010): What is new in this release? Minor version over 1.0.0.47911 introducing CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program). This is taking advantage of...Sharepoint Data Store: 1.0: First ReleaseSPVisualDev - SharePoint Developer Tool: Version 2.2.0: Visual Studio 2010 is now supported. Note that this is only intended to be used for MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0 development and not for SP 2010. Package SP...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.2.1 Production: Release 2.2 re-implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 9 modules with 133 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scri...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.1: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.2: Automatic drop of latest buildVolumeMaster: Volume Master 2.0 Beta: First release of VolumeMaster. So if you're running Windows Vista / 7 you can have a handy Volume OSD and control your volume with the following sh...WabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: SPASM2 32-Bit: A test release for SPASM2.Web Camera Shooter: 1.0.0.1: Video capturing: Touchless SDK -> AForge.Video. Main window shown in taskbar and not top most. Native images generated for all assemblies. Sm...Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMirror Testing SystemThe Information Literacy Education Learning Environment (ILE)RawrCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightwhiteBlogEngine.NETTweetSharpjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 15, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 15, 2012Popular ReleasesAmarok Framework Library: 1.12: refactored agent-specific implementation introduced new interface representing important concepts like IDispatcher, IPublisher Refer to the Release Notes for details.sb0t v.5: sb0t 5.02b beta 2: Bug fix for Windows XP users (tab resize) Bug fix where ib0t stopped working A lot of command tweaksCRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1116.8): [FIX] Fixed issue not displaying CRM system button images correctly (incorrect path in file VisualRibbonEditor.exe.config)MySqlBackup.NET - MySQL Backup Solution for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET: MySqlBackup.NET 1.5.6 beta: Fix Bug: If encryption is applied in Export Process, the generated encrypted SQL file is not able to import Stored Procedures, Functions, Triggers, Events and View. Fix Bug: In some unknown cases, the SHOW CREATE TABLE `tablename` query will return byte array. Improve 1: During Export, StreamWriter is opened and closed several times when writting to the dump file, which this is considered as not a good practice. Improve 2: SQL line in class Database method GetEvents: "SHOW EVENTS WHERE ...My Expenses Windows Store LOB App Demo: My Expenses Version 1: This is version 1 of the MyExpenses Windows 8 line of business demo app. The app is written in XAML and C#. It calls a WCF service that works with a SQL Server database. The app uses the Callisto toolkit. You can get it at https://github.com/timheuer/callisto. The Expenses.sql file contains the SQL to create the Expenses database. The ExpensesWCFService.zip file contains the WCF service, also written in C#. You should create a WCF service. Create an Entity Framework model and point it to...EasyTwitter: EasyTwitter basic operations: See the commit log to see the features!, check history files to see examples of how to use this libraryCommand Line Parser Library: 1.9.3.31 rc0: Main assembly CommandLine.dll signed. Removed old commented code. Added missing XML documentation comments. Two (very) minor code refactoring changes.BlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.4: 2012.12.13 Ver5.7.4 (1)Web???????、???????????????????????????????????????????VFPX: ssClasses A1.0: My initial release. See https://vfpx.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=ssClasses&referringTitle=Home for a brief description of what is inside this releaseHome Access Plus+: v8.6: v8.6.1213.1220 Added: Group look up to the visible property of the Booking System Fixed: Switched to using the outlook/exchange thumbnailPhoto instead of jpegPhoto Added: Add a blank paragraph below the tiles. This means that the browser displays a vertical scroller when resizing the window. Previously it was possible for the bottom edge of a tile not to be visible if the browser window was resized. Added: Booking System: Only Display Day+Month on the booking Home Page. This allows for the cs...Layered Architecture Solution Guidance (LASG): LASG 1.0.0.8 for Visual Studio 2012: PRE-REQUISITES Open GAX (Please install Oct 4, 2012 version) Microsoft® System CLR Types for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Shared Management Objects Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 (for the generated code) Windows Azure SDK (for layered cloud applications) Silverlight 5 SDK (for Silverlight applications) THE RELEASE This release only works on Visual Studio 2012. Known Issue If you choose the Database project, the solution unfolding time will be slow....Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 2.0: Prva prava produkcijska verzija - Zakon je tu, ova je verzija uskladena sa trenutno važecom Tehnickom specifikacijom (v1.2. od 04.12.2012.) i spremna je za produkcijsko korištenje. Verzije iza ove ce ovisiti o naknadnim izmjenama Zakona i/ili Tehnicke specifikacije, odnosno, o eventualnim greškama u radu/zahtjevima community-a za novim feature-ima. Novosti u v2.0 su: - That assembly does not allow partially trusted callers (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/699) - scheme IznosType...Simple Injector: Simple Injector v1.6.1: This patch release fixes a bug in the integration libraries that disallowed the application to start when .NET 4.5 was not installed on the machine (but only .NET 4.0). The following packages are affected: SimpleInjector.Integration.Web.dll SimpleInjector.Integration.Web.Mvc.dll SimpleInjector.Integration.Wcf.dll SimpleInjector.Extensions.LifetimeScoping.dllBootstrap Helpers: Version 1: First releasesheetengine - Isometric HTML5 JavaScript Display Engine: sheetengine v1.2.0: Main featuresOptimizations for intersectionsThe main purpose of this release was to further optimize rendering performance by skipping object intersections with other sheets. From now by default an object's sheets will only intersect its own sheets and never other static or dynamic sheets. This is the usual scenario since objects will never bump into other sheets when using collision detection. DocumentationMany of you have been asking for proper documentation, so here it goes. Check out the...DirectX Tool Kit: December 11, 2012: December 11, 2012 Ex versions of DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader Removed use of ATL's CComPtr in favor of WRL's ComPtr for all platforms to support VS Express editions Updated VS 2010 project for official 'property sheet' integration for Windows 8.0 SDK Minor fix to CommonStates for Feature Level 9.1 Tweaked AlphaTestEffect.cpp to work around ARM NEON compiler codegen bug Added dxguid.lib as a default library for Debug builds to resolve GUID link issuesArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OSM 2.1 Final for 10.1: We are proud to announce the release of ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap version 2.1. This download is compatible with ArcGIS 10.1, and includes setups for the Desktop Component, Desktop Component when 64 bit Background Geoprocessing is installed, and the Server Component. Important: if you already have ArcGIS Editor for OSM installed but want to install this new version, you will need to uninstall your previous version and then install this one. This release includes support for the ArcGIS 1...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8.2: This release just contains some fixes that have been done since the last release. Plus, this is strong named as well. I apologize for the lack of updates but my free time is less these days.Media Companion: MediaCompanion3.511b release: Two more bug fixes: - General Preferences were not getting restored - Fanart and poster image files were being locked, preventing changes to themVodigi Open Source Interactive Digital Signage: Vodigi Release 5.5: The following enhancements and fixes are included in Vodigi 5.5. Vodigi Administrator - Manage Music Files - Add Music Files to Image Slide Shows - Manage System Messages - Display System Messages to Users During Login - Ported to Visual Studio 2012 and MVC 4 - Added New Vodigi Administrator User Guide Vodigi Player - Improved Login/Schedule Startup Procedure - Startup Using Last Known Schedule when Disconnected on Startup - Improved Check for Schedule Changes - Now Every 15 Minutes - Pla...New Projects1Q86: testAdd Ratings to SharePoint Blog Site: This web part is an ‘administrative’ level tool used to update a Blog site to a) enable ratings on the post and b) add the User Ratings web part to the site. BadmintonBuddy: Source codeBetter Place Admin: Admin client for the BetterPlaceBooking ProjectBorkoSi: BorkoSi WebPage Source code.ChimpHD - 2D Evolved: High quality OpenCL accelerated 2D engine, capable of full complex yet easy to code 2D games. This is SpaceChimp2.0, wrote from the ground up, not just patchedCoderJoe: Repository for code samples used in my blog.CodeTemplate: ??????Data Persistent Object: ORM tool to access SQL Server, log record changes, Json and Linq supportedDevian: a simple web portal based on asp.net 2.0HD: hdHospital Tracking: hospital patient tracking ????? ???? ??????? ???? ?????Instant Get: An auction based c# applicationipangolin: DICOM stands for Digital Imaging and COmmunication in Medicine. The DICOM standard addresses the basic connectivity between different imaging devices.ISEFun: PowerShell module(s) to simplify work in it. It contains PowerShell scripts, compiled libs and some formating files. Several modules will come in one batch as optional features.Kerjasama: Aplikasi Database Kerjasama Bagian Kerjasama Kota SemarangMCEBuddy Viewer: Windows Media Center Plugin for MCEBuddy 2.x MusicForMyBlog: Link your recently played music in Itunes to your blog.My Expenses Windows Store LOB App Demo: This is a sample Windows 8 LOB app. Employees can use this app to create and submit expense reports. And managers can approve or reject those reports.Node Paint: An app based on the nodegarden application created by alphalabs.ccNPhysics: NPhysics - Physical Data Types for .NETomr.domready.js: Dom is ready? This project provides easy to detect ready event of dom.RegSecEdit: set registry security from command line, or batch file.Sitecore - Logger Module: This module provides an abstraction of the built-in Sitecore Logging features.SMART LMS: Welcome to SMART LMS, a learning management system with a difference, this software will allow teachers to create custom education activities such as quizzes.TaskManagerDD: DotNetNuke task manager tutorialThe Reactive Extensions for JavaScript: RxJS or Reactive Extensions for JavaScript is a library for transforming, composing, and querying streams of data.Timestamp: Tool for generating timestamps into clipboard for fast use.TweetGarden: Visualising connected users using their tweetsUpdateContentType: UpdateContentType atualiza os modelos de documentos utilizados por tipos de conteúdo do SharePoint a partir de documentos armazenados em uma biblioteca.User Rating Web Part for SharePoint 2010: User Rating Web Part - the fix for Ratings in SharePoint!webget: webgetwhatsnew.exe a command line utility to find new files: whatsnew.exe is a command line utility that lists the files created (new files) in a given number of days. whatsnew.exe 's syntax is very simple: whatsnew path numberofdays Also whatsnew supports other options like HTML or XML output, hyperlinked outputs and more.whoami: ip address resolverWPFReview: WPF code sample

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• Windows Azure Evolution - Web Sites (aka Antares) Part 1

  - by Shaun

  This is the 3rd post of my Windows Azure Evolution series, focus on the new features and enhancement which was alone with the Windows Azure Platform Upgrade June 2012, announced at the MEET Windows Azure event on 7th June. In the first post I introduced the new preview developer portal and how to works for the existing features such as cloud services, storages and SQL databases. In the second one I talked about the Windows Azure .NET SDK 1.7 on the latest Visual Studio 2012 RC on Windows 8. From this one I will begin to introduce some new features. Now let’s have a look on the first one of them, Windows Azure Web Sites.   Overview Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS), as known as Antares, was a new feature still in preview stage in this upgrade. It allows people to quickly and easily deploy websites to a highly scalable cloud environment, uses the languages and open source apps of the choice then deploy such as FTP, Git and TFS. It also can be integrated with Windows Azure services like SQL Database, Caching, CDN and Storage easily. After read its introduction we may have a question: since we can deploy a website from both cloud service web role and web site, what’s the different between them? So, let’s have a quick compare.   CLOUD SERVICE WEB SITE OS Windows Server Windows Server Virtualization Windows Azure Virtual Machine Windows Azure Virtual Machine Host IIS IIS Platform ASP.NET WebForm, ASP.NET MVC, WCF ASP.NET WebForm, ASP.NET MVC, PHP Language C#, VB.NET C#, VB.NET, PHP Database SQL Database SQL Database, MySQL Architecture Multi layered, background worker, message queuing, etc.. Simple website with backend database. VS Project Windows Azure Cloud Service ASP.NET Web Form, ASP.NET MVC, etc.. Out-of-box Gallery (none) Drupal, DotNetNuke, WordPress, etc.. Deployment Package upload, Visual Studio publish FTP, Git, TFS, WebMatrix Compute Mode Dedicate VM Shared Across VMs, Dedicate VM Scale Scale up, scale out Scale up, scale out As you can see, there are many difference between the cloud service and web site, but the main point is that, the cloud service focus on those complex architecture web application. For example, if you want to build a website with frontend layer, middle business layer and data access layer, with some background worker process connected through the message queue, then you should better use cloud service, since it provides full control of your code and application. But if you just want to build a personal blog or a  business portal, then you can use the web site. Since the web site have many galleries, you can create them even without any coding and configuration. David Pallmann have an awesome figure explains the benefits between the could service, web site and virtual machine.   Create a Personal Blog in Web Site from Gallery As I mentioned above, one of the big feature in WAWS is to build a website from an existing gallery, which means we don’t need to coding and configure. What we need to do is open the windows azure developer portal and click the NEW button, select WEB SITE and FROM GALLERY. In the popping up windows there are many websites we can choose to use. For example, for personal blog there are Orchard CMS, WordPress; for CMS there are DotNetNuke, Drupal 7, mojoPortal. Let’s select WordPress and click the next button. The next step is to configure the web site. We will need to specify the DNS name and select the subscription and region. Since the WordPress uses MySQL as its backend database, we also need to create a MySQL database as well. Windows Azure Web Sites utilize ClearDB to host the MySQL databases. You cannot create a MySQL database directly from SQL Databases section. Finally, since we selected to create a new MySQL database we need to specify the database name and region in the last step. Also we need to accept the ClearDB’s terms as well. Then windows azure platform will download the WordPress codes and deploy the MySQL database and website. Then it will be ready to use. Select the website and click the BROWSE button, the WordPress administration page will be shown. After configured the WordPress here is my personal web blog on the cloud. It took me no more than 10 minutes to establish without any coding.   Monitor, Configure, Scale and Linked Resources Let’s click into the website I had just created in the portal and have a look on what we can do. In the website details page where are five sections. - Dashboard The overall information about this website, such as the basic usage status, public URL, compute mode, FTP address, subscription and links that we can specify the deployment credentials, TFS and Git publish setting, etc.. - Monitor Some status information such as the CPU usage, memory usage etc., errors, etc.. We can add more metrics by clicking the ADD METRICS button and the bottom as well. - Configure Here we can set the configurations of our website such as the .NET and PHP runtime version, diagnostics settings, application settings and the IIS default documents. - Scale This is something interesting. In WAWS there are two compute mode or called web site mode. One is “shared”, which means our website will be shared with other web sites in a group of windows azure virtual machines. Each web site have its own process (w3wp.exe) with some sandbox technology to isolate from others. When we need to scaling-out our web site in shared mode, we actually increased the working process count. Hence in shared mode we cannot specify the virtual machine size since they are shared across all web sites. This is a little bit different than the scaling mode of the cloud service (hosted service web role and worker role). The other mode called “dedicate”, which means our web site will use the whole windows azure virtual machine. This is the same hosting behavior as cloud service web role. In web role it will be deployed on the virtual machines we specified and all of them are only used by us. In web sites dedicate mode, it’s the same. In this mode when we scaling-out our web site we will use more virtual machines, and each of them will only host our own website. And we can specify the virtual machine size in this mode. In the developer portal we can select which mode we are using from the scale section. In shared mode we can only specify the instance count, but in dedicate mode we can specify the instance size as well as the instance count. - Linked Resource The MySQL database created alone with the creation of our WordPress web site is a linked resource. We can add more linked resources in this section.   Pricing For the web site itself, since this feature is in preview period if you are using shared mode, then you will get free up to 10 web sites. But if you are using dedicate mode, the price would be the virtual machines you are using. For example, if you are using dedicate and configured two middle size virtual machines then you will pay $230.40 per month. If there is SQL Database linked to your web site then they will be charged separately based on the Pay-As-You-Go price. For example a 1GB web edition database costs $9.99 per month. And the bandwidth will be charged as well. For example 10GB outbound data transfer costs $1.20 per month. For more information about the pricing please have a look at the windows azure pricing page.   Summary Windows Azure Web Sites gives us easier and quicker way to create, develop and deploy website to window azure platform. Comparing with the cloud service web role, the WAWS have many out-of-box gallery we can use directly. So if you just want to build a blog, CMS or business portal you don’t need to learn ASP.NET, you don’t need to learn how to configure DotNetNuke, you don’t need to learn how to prepare PHP and MySQL. By using WAWS gallery you can establish a website within 10 minutes without any lines of code. But in some cases we do need to code by ourselves. We may need to tweak the layout of our pages, or we may have a traditional ASP.NET or PHP web application which needed to migrated to the cloud. Besides the gallery WAWS also provides many features to download, upload code. It also provides the feature to integrate with some version control services such as TFS and Git. And it also provides the deploy approaches through FTP and Web Deploy. In the next post I will demonstrate how to use WebMatrix to download and modify the website, and how to use TFS and Git to deploy automatically one our code changes committed.   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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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 03, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 03, 2012Popular ReleasesWiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 RC0: WiX v3.6 RC0 (3.6.2803.0) provides support for VS11 and a more stable Burn engine. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/4/3/WiX-v3.6-Release-Candidate-Zero-availableSageFrame: SageFrame 2.0: Sageframe is an open source ASP.NET web development framework developed using ASP.NET 3.5 with service pack 1 (sp1) technology. It is designed specifically to help developers build dynamic website by providing core functionality common to most web applications.Lightbox Gallery Module for DotNetNuke: 01.11.00: This version of the Lightbox Gallery Module adds the following features/bug fixes: Feature: Read image EXIF information Bug Fix: URL parsing bug for any folder provider Minimum System Requirements Please ensure that your environment meets or exceeds the following system requirements: DotNetNuke® Version 06.00.00 or higher SQL Server 2005 or later .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or laterClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.65.0: Aside from many bug fixes we now have Conditional Formatting The conditional formatting was sponsored by http://www.bewing.nl (big thanks)callisto: callisto 2.0.24: Implemented ares encryption protocol for supported clients. Also changed script loading method to read direct from source files.sb0t: sb0t 4.61: Added packet encryption protocol for supported clients.iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.5.4475: Fix to parse empty playlists in iTunes LibraryExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.1: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-04-02 v3.1.1 +????????，?????????????，????????????（...Document.Editor: 2012.2: Whats New for Document.Editor 2012.2: New Save Copy support New Page Setup support Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsVidCoder: 1.3.2: Added option for the minimum title length to scan. Added support to enable or disable LibDVDNav. Added option to prompt to delete source files after clearing successful completed items. Added option to disable remembering recent files and folders. Tweaked number box to only select all on a quick click.MJP's DirectX 11 Samples: Light Indexed Deferred Rendering: Implements light indexed deferred using per-tile light lists calculated in a compute shader, as well as a traditional deferred renderer that uses a compute shader for per-tile light culling and per-pixel shading.Pcap.Net: Pcap.Net 0.9.0 (66492): Pcap.Net - March 2012 Release Pcap.Net is a .NET wrapper for WinPcap written in C++/CLI and C#. It Features almost all WinPcap features and includes a packet interpretation framework. Version 0.9.0 (Change Set 66492)March 31, 2012 release of the Pcap.Net framework. Follow Pcap.Net on Google+Follow Pcap.Net on Google+ Files Pcap.Net.DevelopersPack.0.9.0.66492.zip - Includes all the tutorial example projects source files, the binaries in a 3rdParty directory and the documentation. It include...Extended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.6.0: Want an easier way to install the Extended WPF Toolkit?The Extended WPF Toolkit is available on Nuget. What's in the 1.6.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner Calculator CalculatorUpDown CheckListBox - Breaking Changes CheckComboBox - New Control ChildWindow CollectionEditor CollectionEditorDialog ColorCanvas ColorPicker DateTimePicker DateTimeUpDown DecimalUpDown DoubleUpDown DropDownButton IntegerUpDown Magnifier MaskedTextBox MessageBox MultiLineTex...Media Companion: MC 3.434b Release: General This release should be the last beta for 3.4xx. If there are no major problems, by the end of the week it will upgraded to 3.500 Stable! The latest mc_com.exe should be included too! TV Bug fix - crash when using XBMC scraper for TV episodes. Bug fix - episode count update when adding new episodes. Bug fix - crash when actors name was missing. Enhanced TV scrape progress text. Enhancements made to missing episodes display. Movies Bug fix - hide "Play Trailer" when multisaev...Better Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.831 Alpha: - A new release with: - many bugfixes - changed icon - added code for more failsafe registry usage on x64 systems - not needed regfix anymore - added ribbon shortcut keys - Other fixes Note: If you have problems opening system libraries, a suggestion was given to copy all of these libraries and then delete the originals. Thanks to Gaugamela for that! (see discussion here: 349015 ) Note2: I was upload again the setup due to missing file!MonoGame - Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 2.5: The MonoGame team are pleased to announce that MonoGame v2.5 has been released. This release contains important bug fixes, implements optimisations and adds key features. MonoGame now has the capability to use OpenGLES 2.0 on Android and iOS devices, meaning it now supports custom shaders across mobile and desktop platforms. Also included in this release are native orientation animations on iOS devices and better Orientation support for Android. There have also been a lot of bug fixes since t...Circuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Alpha 3: New in this release: Added components: Microcontroller Demultiplexer Flip & rotate components Open XML files from older versions of Circuit Diagram Text formatting for components New CDDX syntax Other fixesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.1 CMS (Beta): Beta build for testing - please report issues at issues.umbraco.org (Latest uploaded: 5.1.0.123) What's new in 5.1? The full list of changes is on our http://progress.umbraco.org task tracking page. It shows items complete for 5.1, and 5.1 includes items for 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 listed there too. Here's two headline acts: Members5.1 adds support for backoffice editing of Members. We support the pairing up of our content type system in Hive with regular ASP.NET Membership providers (we ship a def...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.2.11: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla Public Licence 2. 2. User interface control and associated data access layer classes have been added to aid developers integrating 51Degrees.mobi into wider projects such as content management systems or web hosting management solutions. Use the following in a web form or user control to access these new UI components. <%@ Register Assembly="FiftyOne.Foundation" Namespace="...ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5: A slew of bug-fixes with a few new features sprinkled in. This release also upgrades the SciLexer and SciLexer64 DLLs to version 3.0.4. The official stuff: Issue # Title 32402 32402 27137 27137 31548 31548 30179 30179 24932 24932 29701 29701 31238 31238 26875 26875 30052 30052 New Projects3DTweet: 3Dtweet is an effort to make tweets appear in a aesthetic manner to the users of windows phone.Its developed using VS2010 expresss.Alay Plugin for Windows Live Writer: a project for creating an alay languageAuthor-it Copy Folder Plug-in: The Copy Folder Plug-in is an Author-it plug-in that allows the user to create a duplicate of a folder and its contents, including subfolders and objects.Author-it Dependencies Plug-in: The Word Count Plug-in is an Author-it plug-in that allows the user to drill down into object relationships to find objects that selected Author-it objects depend on.Author-it Word Count Plug-in: The Word Count Plug-in is an Author-it plug-in that allows the user to get word counts for selected topics.Azure Configuration File Comparer: Compares two Azure configuration files and highlights the differencesBootstrap Footer Sticker: Bootstrap extensions for footer to stick at the bottomBulk Approval Webpart: This webpart can be added to any list, or document library that requires approval. When the button is clicked it will approve all items. It will also kick start any workflows attached to the list / library that are set to start when an item has been changed. CodeTimer: Code Execute TimeCRM 2011 - WinForm based User Settings Console: This is Windows Form based Utility to do bulk management of User Settings in CRM 2011Emergency System: An Imagine Cup projectFalafel Solution Rename Script: The Falafel Software Solution Rename PowerShell Script makes it easy to reuse an existing solution/project by performing a global rename. If you have a solution named ExampleSolution and want to reuse it as WidgetSolution, this script will rename everything for you.Gadgeteer Bluetooth Module: BETA Drivers for the .NET Gadgeteer Bluetooth modulesGreg's Channel 9 Utilities and Helpers: Utilities and helpers for Microsoft's Channel 9 (C9) site. These are utilities I've created to make my C9 work faster and easierHB's First Time: My first project hereHOMMFrame: Studying project about frames.ICNInformaticaCenter: * ICNInformaticaCenter *Insert a Favorite (Bookmark) plugin for Windows Live Writer: This Windows Live Writer plugin allows you to select a Favorite (Bookmark) and insert it into your blog entry.Kinect your Metro Style App: The main idea is to tell Metro Style App communicate with external environment via Kinect Sensor.Memo: Memo Intellegence SystemMGR.CommandLineParser: MGR.CommandLineParser is a multi-command line parser. It uses System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations to declare and validate the commands.MusicStoreMVC3: ?????MVC3??????????，????????（???????）??? 1.EF4.1 2.MVC3 3.MvcPager 4.Linq ?????? NN Crew Calculator: Calculator project to help learn C#Reporte Ciudadano: Aplicación para que los ciudadanos reporten los problemas al ayuntamiento.Sejrssedler: This is a school project made, by four student in Aarhus, Denmark. During the Datamatiker study(2nd year).smartcamera: smart cameraSpecEx: Speculative ExecutionStructure Copier: This small program is supposed to copy tree structure of directory.TFS2010 Service Provider: Web Service (asmx) is a provider of Team Foundation Server 2010 object model. Was developed to enable the implementation of client application for Android and etc. platforms, which receives data from the server via Web services.totalem: totalem - free file manager for WindowsWebSharperWithTypeProviders: WebSharper project with Visual Studio 2011 Beta, .Net 4.5 and F# 3.0 with TypeProviders

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• The Red Gate and .NET Reflector Debacle

  - by Rick Strahl

  About a month ago Red Gate – the company who owns the NET Reflector tool most .NET devs use at one point or another – decided to change their business model for Reflector and take the product from free to a fully paid for license model. As a bit of history: .NET Reflector was originally created by Lutz Roeder as a free community tool to inspect .NET assemblies. Using Reflector you can examine the types in an assembly, drill into type signatures and quickly disassemble code to see how a particular method works.  In case you’ve been living under a rock and you’ve never looked at Reflector, here’s what it looks like drilled into an assembly from disk with some disassembled source code showing: Note that you get tons of information about each element in the tree, and almost all related types and members are clickable both in the list and source view so it’s extremely easy to navigate and follow the code flow even in this static assembly only view. For many year’s Lutz kept the the tool up to date and added more features gradually improving an already amazing tool and making it better. Then about two and a half years ago Red Gate bought the tool from Lutz. A lot of ruckus and noise ensued in the community back then about what would happen with the tool and… for the most part very little did. Other than the incessant update notices with prominent Red Gate promo on them life with Reflector went on. The product didn’t die and and it didn’t go commercial or to a charge model. When .NET 4.0 came out it still continued to work mostly because the .NET feature set doesn’t drastically change how types behave.  Then a month back Red Gate started making noise about a new Version Version 7 which would be commercial. No more free version - and a shit storm broke out in the community. Now normally I’m not one to be critical of companies trying to make money from a product, much less for a product that’s as incredibly useful as Reflector. There isn’t day in .NET development that goes by for me where I don’t fire up Reflector. Whether it’s for examining the innards of the .NET Framework, checking out third party code, or verifying some of my own code and resources. Even more so recently I’ve been doing a lot of Interop work with a non-.NET application that needs to access .NET components and Reflector has been immensely valuable to me (and my clients) if figuring out exact type signatures required to calling .NET components in assemblies. In short Reflector is an invaluable tool to me. Ok, so what’s the problem? Why all the fuss? Certainly the $39 Red Gate is trying to charge isn’t going to kill any developer. If there’s any tool in .NET that’s worth $39 it’s Reflector, right? Right, but that’s not the problem here. The problem is how Red Gate went about moving the product to commercial which borders on the downright bizarre. It’s almost as if somebody in management wrote a slogan: “How can we piss off the .NET community in the most painful way we can?” And that it seems Red Gate has a utterly succeeded. People are rabid, and for once I think that this outrage isn’t exactly misplaced. Take a look at the message thread that Red Gate dedicated from a link off the download page. Not only is Version 7 going to be a paid commercial tool, but the older versions of Reflector won’t be available any longer. Not only that but older versions that are already in use also will continually try to update themselves to the new paid version – which when installed will then expire unless registered properly. There have also been reports of Version 6 installs shutting themselves down and failing to work if the update is refused (I haven’t seen that myself so not sure if that’s true). In other words Red Gate is trying to make damn sure they’re getting your money if you attempt to use Reflector. There’s a lot of temptation there. Think about the millions of .NET developers out there and all of them possibly upgrading – that’s a nice chunk of change that Red Gate’s sitting on. Even with all the community backlash these guys are probably making some bank right now just because people need to get life to move on. Red Gate also put up a Feedback link on the download page – which not surprisingly is chock full with hate mail condemning the move. Oddly there’s not a single response to any of those messages by the Red Gate folks except when it concerns license questions for the full version. It puzzles me what that link serves for other yet than another complete example of failure to understand how to handle customer relations. There’s no doubt that that all of this has caused some serious outrage in the community. The sad part though is that this could have been handled so much less arrogantly and without pissing off the entire community and causing so much ill-will. People are pissed off and I have no doubt that this negative publicity will show up in the sales numbers for their other products. I certainly hope so. Stupidity ought to be painful! Why do Companies do boneheaded stuff like this? Red Gate’s original decision to buy Reflector was hotly debated but at that the time most of what would happen was mostly speculation. But I thought it was a smart move for any company that is in need of spreading its marketing message and corporate image as a vendor in the .NET space. Where else do you get to flash your corporate logo to hordes of .NET developers on a regular basis?  Exploiting that marketing with some goodwill of providing a free tool breeds positive feedback that hopefully has a good effect on the company’s visibility and the products it sells. Instead Red Gate seems to have taken exactly the opposite tack of corporate bullying to try to make a quick buck – and in the process ruined any community goodwill that might have come from providing a service community for free while still getting valuable marketing. What’s so puzzling about this boneheaded escapade is that the company doesn’t need to resort to underhanded tactics like what they are trying with Reflector 7. The tools the company makes are very good. I personally use SQL Compare, Sql Data Compare and ANTS Profiler on a regular basis and all of these tools are essential in my toolbox. They certainly work much better than the tools that are in the box with Visual Studio. Chances are that if Reflector 7 added useful features I would have been more than happy to shell out my $39 to upgrade when the time is right. It’s Expensive to give away stuff for Free At the same time, this episode shows some of the big problems that come with ‘free’ tools. A lot of organizations are realizing that giving stuff away for free is actually quite expensive and the pay back is often very intangible if any at all. Those that rely on donations or other voluntary compensation find that they amount contributed is absolutely miniscule as to not matter at all. Yet at the same time I bet most of those clamouring the loudest on that Red Gate Reflector feedback page that Reflector won’t be free anymore probably have NEVER made a donation to any open source project or free tool ever. The expectation of Free these days is just too great – which is a shame I think. There’s a lot to be said for paid software and having somebody to hold to responsible to because you gave them some money. There’s an incentive –> payback –> responsibility model that seems to be missing from free software (not all of it, but a lot of it). While there certainly are plenty of bad apples in paid software as well, money tends to be a good motivator for people to continue working and improving products. Reasons for giving away stuff are many but often it’s a naïve desire to share things when things are simple. At first it might be no problem to volunteer time and effort but as products mature the fun goes out of it, and as the reality of product maintenance kicks in developers want to get something back for the time and effort they’re putting in doing non-glamorous work. It’s then when products die or languish and this is painful for all to watch. For Red Gate however, I think there was always a pretty good payback from the Reflector acquisition in terms of marketing: Visibility and possible positioning of their products although they seemed to have mostly ignored that option. On the other hand they started this off pretty badly even 2 and a half years back when they aquired Reflector from Lutz with the same arrogant attitude that is evident in the latest episode. You really gotta wonder what folks are thinking in management – the sad part is from advance emails that were circulating, they were fully aware of the shit storm they were inciting with this and I suspect they are banking on the sheer numbers of .NET developers to still make them a tidy chunk of change from upgrades… Alternatives are coming For me personally the single license isn’t a problem, but I actually have a tool that I sell (an interop Web Service proxy generation tool) to customers and one of the things I recommend to use with has been Reflector to view assembly information and to find which Interop classes to instantiate from the non-.NET environment. It’s been nice to use Reflector for this with its small footprint and zero-configuration installation. But now with V7 becoming a paid tool that option is not going to be available anymore. Luckily it looks like the .NET community is jumping to it and trying to fill the void. Amidst the Red Gate outrage a new library called ILSpy has sprung up and providing at least some of the core functionality of Reflector with an open source library. It looks promising going forward and I suspect there will be a lot more support and interest to support this project now that Reflector has gone over to the ‘dark side’…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011

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• How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Have a huge folder of images needing tweaks? A few hundred adjustments may seem like a big, time consuming job—but read one to see how Photoshop can do repetitive tasks automatically, even if you don’t know how to program! Photoshop Actions are a simple way to program simple routines in Photoshop, and are a great time saver, allowing you to re-perform tasks over and over, saving you minutes or hours, depending on the job you have to work on. See how any bunch of images and even some fairly complicated photo tweaking can be done automatically to even hundreds of images at once. When Can I use Photoshop Actions? Photoshop actions are a way of recording the tools, menus, and keys pressed while using the program. Each time you use a tool, adjust a color, or use the brush, it can be recorded and played back over any file Photoshop can open. While it isn’t perfect and can get very confused if not set up correctly, it can automate editing hundreds of images, saving you hours and hours if you have big jobs with complex edits. The image illustrated above is a template for a polaroid-style picture frame. If you had several hundred images, it would actually be a simple matter to use Photoshop Actions to create hundreds of new images inside the frame in almost no time at all. Let’s take a look at how a simple folder of images and some Image editing automation can turn lots of work into a simple and easy job. Creating a New Action Actions is a default part of the “Essentials” panel set Photoshop begins with as a default. If you can’t see the panel button under the “History” button, you can find Actions by going to Window > Actions or pressing Alt + F9. Click the in the Actions Panel, pictured in the previous illustration on the left. Choose to create a “New Set” in order to begin creating your own custom Actions. Name your action set whatever you want. Names are not relevant, you’ll simply want to make it obvious that you have created it. Click OK. Look back in the layers panel. You’ll see your new Set of actions has been added to the list. Click it to highlight it before going on. Click the again to create a “New Action” in your new set. If you care to name your action, go ahead. Name it after whatever it is you’re hoping to do—change the canvas size, tint all your pictures blue, send your image to the printer in high quality, or run multiple filters on images. The name is for your own usage, so do what suits you best. Note that you can simplify your process by creating shortcut keys for your actions. If you plan to do hundreds of edits with your actions, this might be a good idea. If you plan to record an action to use every time you use Photoshop, this might even be an invaluable step. When you create a new Action, Photoshop automatically begins recording everything you do. It does not record the time in between steps, but rather only the data from each step. So take your time when recording and make sure you create your actions the way you want them. The square button stops recording, and the circle button starts recording again. With these basics ready, we can take a look at a sample Action. Recording a Sample Action Photoshop will remember everything you input into it when it is recording, even specific photographs you open. So begin recording your action when your first photo is already open. Once your first image is open, click the record button. If you’re already recording, continue on. Using the File > Place command to insert the polaroid image can be easier for Actions to deal with. Photoshop can record with multiple open files, but it often gets confused when you try it. Keep your recordings as simple as possible to ensure your success. When the image is placed in, simply press enter to render it. Select your background layer in your layers panel. Your recording should be following along with no trouble. Double click this layer. Double clicking your background layer will create a new layer from it. Allow it to be renamed “Layer 0” and press OK. Move the “polaroid” layer to the bottom by selecting it and dragging it down below “Layer 0” in the layers panel. Right click “Layer 0” and select “Create Clipping Mask.” The JPG image is cropped to the layer below it. Coincidentally, all actions described here are being recorded perfectly, and are reproducible. Cursor actions, like the eraser, brush, or bucket fill don’t record well, because the computer uses your mouse movements and coordinates, which may need to change from photo to photo. Click the to set your Photograph layer to a “Screen” blending mode. This will make the image disappear when it runs over the white parts of the polaroid image. With your image layer (Layer 0) still selected, navigate to Edit > Transform > Scale. You can use the mouse to resize your Layer 0, but Actions work better with absolute numbers. Visit the Width and Height adjustments in the top options panel. Click the chain icon to link them together, and adjust them numerically. Depending on your needs, you may need to use more or less than 30%. Your image will resize to your specifications. Press enter to render, or click the check box in the top right of your application. + Click on your bottom layer, or “polaroid” in this case. This creates a selection of the bottom layer. Navigate to Image > Crop in order to crop down to your bottom layer selection Your image is now resized to your bottommost layer, and Photoshop is still recording to that effect. For additional effect, we can navigate to Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary to rotate our image by a small tilt. Choosing 3 degrees clockwise , we click OK to render our choice. Our image is rotated, and this step is recorded. Photoshop will even record when you save your files. With your recording still going, find File > Save As. You can easily tell Photoshop to save in a new folder, other than the one you have been working in, so that your files aren’t overwritten. Navigate to any folder you wish, but do not change the filename. If you change the filename, Photoshop will record that name, and save all your images under whatever you type. However, you can change your filetype without recording an absolute filename. Use the pulldown tab and select a different filetype—in this instance, PNG. Simply click “Save” to create a new PNG based on your actions. Photoshop will record the destination and the change in filetype. If you didn’t edit the name of your file, it will always use the variable filename of any image you open. (This is very important if you want to edit hundreds of images at once!) Click File > Close or the red “X” in the corner to close your filetype. Photoshop can record that as well. Since we have already saved our image as a JPG, click “NO” to not overwrite your original image. Photoshop will also record your choice of “NO” for subsequent images. In your Actions panel, click the stop button to complete your action. You can always click the record button to add more steps later, if you want. This is how your new action looks with its steps expanded. Curious how to put it into effect? Read on to see how simple it is to use that recording you just made. Editing Lots of Images with Your New Action Open a large number of images—as many as you care to work with. Your action should work immediately with every image on screen, although you may have to test and re-record, depending on how you did. Actions don’t require any programming knowledge, but often can get confused or work in a counter-intuitive way. Record your action until it is perfect. If it works once without errors, it’s likely to work again and again! Find the “Play” button in your Actions Panel. With your custom action selected, click “Play” and your routine will edit, save, and close each file for you. Keep bashing “Play” for each open file, and it will keep saving and creating new files until you run out of work you need to do. And in mere moments, a complicated stack of work is done. Photoshop actions can be very complicated, far beyond what is illustrated here, and can even be combined with scripts and other actions, creating automated creation of potentially very complex files, or applying filters to an entire portfolio of digital photos. Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to [email protected], and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: All images copyright Stephanie Pragnell and author Eric Z Goodnight, protected under Creative Commons. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Smart Taskbar Is a Thumb Friendly Android Task Launcher Comix is an Awesome Comics Archive Viewer for Linux Get the MakeUseOf eBook Guide to Speeding Up Windows for Free Need Tech Support? Call the Star Wars Help Desk! [Video Classic] Reclaim Vertical UI Space by Adding a Toolbar to the Left or Right Side of Firefox Androidify Turns You into an Android-style Avatar

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 29, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 29, 2012Popular ReleasesDotNetNuke Azure Accelerator: DotNetNuke Azure Accelerator 6.2: Windows Azure deployments of DotNetNuke Community using virtual hard drive (cloud-drive) image that is created dynamically on the cloud. Enables the creation of new DotNetNuke host instances from on-premise to the cloud using a wizard that guides you on this process, creating the SQL Azure database, uploading the solution engine and associated service configurations. New features in this releaseModified the web roles endpoints to allow traffic on port 443 Changed the package unzip operati...Thales Simulator Library: Version 0.9.6: The Thales Simulator Library is an implementation of a software emulation of the Thales (formerly Zaxus & Racal) Hardware Security Module cryptographic device. This release fixes a problem with the FK command and a bug in the implementation of PIN block 05 format deconstruction. A new 0.9.6.Binaries file has been posted. This includes executable programs without an installer, including the GUI and console simulators, the key manager and the PVV clashing demo. Please note that you will need ...myManga: myManga v1.0.0.2: Fixed the 'Lost+Brain' error on MangaReader. The main download has this update. The second download is for those who have already downloaded the old v1.0.0.2. DELETE OLD EXE and DLLs before you copy the new files over.To update from v1.0.0.1:Extract new myManga EXE and DLLs from Zip to folder of choosing. Copy MangaInfo and MangaArchives folder from old myManga folder to new folder from step 1. ORDelete: The new myManga.exe contains the CoreMangaClasses.dll and Manga.dll internally. Delet...????: ????2.0.1: 1、?????。WiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 RC: WiX v3.6 RC (3.6.2928.0) provides feature complete Burn with VS11 support. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/5/28/WiX-v3.6-Release-Candidate-availableJavascript .NET: Javascript .NET v0.7: SetParameter() reverts to its old behaviour of allowing JavaScript code to add new properties to wrapped C# objects. The behavior added briefly in 0.6 (throws an exception) can be had via the new SetParameterOptions.RejectUnknownProperties. TerminateExecution now uses its isolate to terminate the correct context automatically. Added support for converting all C# integral types, decimal and enums to JavaScript numbers. (Previously only the common types were handled properly.) Bug fixe...Indent Guides for Visual Studio: Indent Guides v12: Version History Changed in v12: background document analysis new options dialog with Quick Set selections for behavior new "glow" style for guides new menu icon in VS 11 preview control now uses editor theming highlighting can be customised on each line fixed issues with collapsed code blocks improved behaviour around left-aligned pragma/preprocessor commands (C#/C++) new settings for controlling guides in empty lines restructured settings storage (should be more reliable) ...callisto: callisto 2.0.29: Added DNS functionality to scripting. See documentation section for details of how to incorporate this into your scripts.ZXMAK2: Version 2.6.2.2: - implemented read port #7FFD glitch for ULA128 (fusetest) - fix unhandled exception inside open dialog - fix Z80 format serializer (support 55 bytes header & non compressed 128 blocks - thanks to Ralf) This release include SPRINTER emulation, but boot system disk image was removed.Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0 (May 2012): Fixes: unserialize() of negative float numbers fix pcre possesive quantifiers and character class containing ()[] array deserilization when the array contains a reference to ISerializable parsing lambda function fix round() reimplemented as it is in PHP to avoid .NET rounding errors filesize bypass for FileInfo.Length bug in Mono New features: Time zones reimplemented, uses Windows/Linux databaseSharePoint Euro 2012 - UEFA European Football Predictor: havivi.euro2012.wsp (1.1): New fetures:Admin enable / disable match Hide/Show Euro 2012 SharePoint lists (3 lists) Installing SharePoint Euro 2012 PredictorSharePoint Euro 2012 Predictor has been developed as a SharePoint Sandbox solution to support SharePoint Online (Office 365) Download the solution havivi.euro2012.wsp from the download page: Downloads Upload this solution to your Site Collection via the solutions area. Click on Activate to make the web parts in the solution available for use in the Site C...ScreenShot: InstallScreenShot: This is the current stable release.????SDK for .Net 4.0+(OAuth2.0+??V2?API): ??V2?SDK???: ????SDK for .Net 4.X???????PHP?SDK???OAuth??API???Client???。 ??????API?? ???????OAuth2.0???? ???：????????，DEMO??AppKey????????????????，?????AppKey，????AppKey???????????，?????“????>????>????>??????”.Net Code Samples: Code Samples: Code samples (SLNs).LINQ_Koans: LinqKoans v.02: Cleaned up a bitExpression Tree Visualizer for VS 2010: Expression Tree Visualizer Beta: This is a beta release, in this release some expression types are not handled and use a default visualization behavior. The first release will be published soon. Wait for it...Ulfi: Ulfi source: Build with Visual Studio 2010 Express C# or betterJayData - The cross-platform HTML5 data-management library for JavaScript: JayData 1.0 RC1 Refresh 2: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript developers to query and update data from different sources like webSQL, indexedDB, OData, Facebook or YQL. See it in action in this 6 minutes video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlJHgj1y0CU RC1 R2 Release highlights Knockout.js integrationUsing the Knockout.js module, your UI can be automatically refreshed when the data model changes, so you can develop the front-end of your data manager app even faster. Querying 1:N relations in W...Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: 00.00.08 for DNN6: BEFORE USE YOU need to install the MSBuild Community Tasks available from http://msbuildtasks.tigris.org For best results you should configure your development environment as described in this blog post Then read this latest blog post about customizing and using these custom templates. Installation is simple To use this template place the ZIP (not extracted) file in your My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#\Web OR for VB My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Te...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.53: fix issue #18106, where member operators on numeric literals caused the member part to be duplicated when not minifying numeric literals ADD NEW FEATURE: ability to create source map files! The first mapfile format to be supported is the Script# format. Use the new -map filename switch to create map files when building your sources.New ProjectsActive Log Reader: The active log reader provides the ability for a client to subscribe to specific changes in a set of files in a directory. For example, it allows you to actively monitor all .log files in your C:\Windows directory (and sub-directories) and callback whenever the word "ERROR" shows up (or any regular expression you can come up with). The accompanying test project outlines example usage.ADO.NET light wrapper: ADO.NET light wrapper is thin IEnumerable layer about ADO.NET for provide easy way to access data with strong typing support. Allen Neighborhood Center: Allen Neighborhood Center data interactionsCildads: The first attempt at centryCMT: Course Management Tool ProjectCode Builder: this is the Builder project.Connect: this is the Connect project.Craig's Framework: A basic framework that is used to speed up building MVC applications and make certain things simpler.CRM 2011 Fetch XML Execute Tool: This is a dev tool used to execute fetch xml to get the results from the connected CRM 2011 instanceDallasDB: A struct based database. DallasDB will have no full functionality until at least version 0.0.1, and won't be ready for professional use until version 1.0.0. EasyMvc: It provides a trainning sample to develop a web application base on MVC3 EF4.0 SQL Compact 4. Besides, a common business permission, logging, configration have been applied simply. Share with some implement idea about web, mvc, jquery,orm. Appreciate your advice.Entity: this is the Entity project.FogLampz: FogLampz is a .NET wrapper around around the FogBugz API.Geeba: Geeba Forum for Students in BGU UniversityHibernate: this is the Hibernate project.JSense - IntelliSense for JavaScript: JSense provides JavaScript IntelliSense meta-automation for Visual Studio 2010 projectsMichael: this is Michael's project.ModAdder: Minecraft Mod InstallerMVVM ORM: The purpose of MVVM ORM is to create models and their interactions as defined in some database for WPF applications Models are derived from tables, views and stored procedures. Interactions include insert/update/delete, with FK relationships taken into account. nihao: The summary is required.Report: this is the Report project.REST Start Kit for BizTalk: This project enables BizTalk Server to expose RESTFul services through the WCF-Custom adapter. The library supports both receive and send, both XML and JSON with all HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT and DELETE). The solution is based on two custom WCF behaviors, one to be used on Receive Locations and one on Send Ports. Hopeully you'll find them easy to use, but if you have any issues, please use the discussions forum.RovignetaWinPhone7: bla bla blaScreenShot: A simple utility that enhances the experience of taking screenshots and annotating them. And all of it happens with the screenshot key that you are most used to. PrintScreen. Give it a try. You will forget the traditional tedious screenshot mechanism.SDM Exam 2012: This is an exam project for 4th semester.Struts: this is the Struts project.TheStoreDepot: depot for the StoreTibiaBot: TibiaBot is an open source application dedicated to extend your gaming experience in MMORPG game called Tibia. Besides of very many built-in functions, TibiaBot has implemented IronRuby script engine, which allows You to creating new functionality to base program.TopicInterDisciplinary: Topic inter-disciplinary owner: sherry, chen1984yangWebAppMatrix: ??WebApp??，?????！

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Tuples and Tuple Factory Methods

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can really help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain.  This week, we look at the System.Tuple class and the handy factory methods for creating a Tuple by inferring the types. What is a Tuple? The System.Tuple is a class that tends to inspire a reaction in one of two ways: love or hate.  Simply put, a Tuple is a data structure that holds a specific number of items of a specific type in a specific order.  That is, a Tuple<int, string, int> is a tuple that contains exactly three items: an int, followed by a string, followed by an int.  The sequence is important not only to distinguish between two members of the tuple with the same type, but also for comparisons between tuples.  Some people tend to love tuples because they give you a quick way to combine multiple values into one result.  This can be handy for returning more than one value from a method (without using out or ref parameters), or for creating a compound key to a Dictionary, or any other purpose you can think of.  They can be especially handy when passing a series of items into a call that only takes one object parameter, such as passing an argument to a thread's startup routine.  In these cases, you do not need to define a class, simply create a tuple containing the types you wish to return, and you are ready to go? On the other hand, there are some people who see tuples as a crutch in object-oriented design.  They may view the tuple as a very watered down class with very little inherent semantic meaning.  As an example, what if you saw this in a piece of code: 1: var x = new Tuple<int, int>(2, 5); What are the contents of this tuple?  If the tuple isn't named appropriately, and if the contents of each member are not self evident from the type this can be a confusing question.  The people who tend to be against tuples would rather you explicitly code a class to contain the values, such as: 1: public sealed class RetrySettings 2: { 3: public int TimeoutSeconds { get; set; } 4: public int MaxRetries { get; set; } 5: } Here, the meaning of each int in the class is much more clear, but it's a bit more work to create the class and can clutter a solution with extra classes. So, what's the correct way to go?  That's a tough call.  You will have people who will argue quite well for one or the other.  For me, I consider the Tuple to be a tool to make it easy to collect values together easily.  There are times when I just need to combine items for a key or a result, in which case the tuple is short lived and so the meaning isn't easily lost and I feel this is a good compromise.  If the scope of the collection of items, though, is more application-wide I tend to favor creating a full class. Finally, it should be noted that tuples are immutable.  That means they are assigned a value at construction, and that value cannot be changed.  Now, of course if the tuple contains an item of a reference type, this means that the reference is immutable and not the item referred to. Tuples from 1 to N Tuples come in all sizes, you can have as few as one element in your tuple, or as many as you like.  However, since C# generics can't have an infinite generic type parameter list, any items after 7 have to be collapsed into another tuple, as we'll show shortly. So when you declare your tuple from sizes 1 (a 1-tuple or singleton) to 7 (a 7-tuple or septuple), simply include the appropriate number of type arguments: 1: // a singleton tuple of integer 2: Tuple<int> x; 3:  4: // or more 5: Tuple<int, double> y; 6:  7: // up to seven 8: Tuple<int, double, char, double, int, string, uint> z; Anything eight and above, and we have to nest tuples inside of tuples.  The last element of the 8-tuple is the generic type parameter Rest, this is special in that the Tuple checks to make sure at runtime that the type is a Tuple.  This means that a simple 8-tuple must nest a singleton tuple (one of the good uses for a singleton tuple, by the way) for the Rest property. 1: // an 8-tuple 2: Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, double, char, Tuple<string>> t8; 3:  4: // an 9-tuple 5: Tuple<int, int, int, int, double, int, char, Tuple<string, DateTime>> t9; 6:  7: // a 16-tuple 8: Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, Tuple<int,int>>> t14; Notice that on the 14-tuple we had to have a nested tuple in the nested tuple.  Since the tuple can only support up to seven items, and then a rest element, that means that if the nested tuple needs more than seven items you must nest in it as well.  Constructing tuples Constructing tuples is just as straightforward as declaring them.  That said, you have two distinct ways to do it.  The first is to construct the tuple explicitly yourself: 1: var t3 = new Tuple<int, string, double>(1, "Hello", 3.1415927); This creates a triple that has an int, string, and double and assigns the values 1, "Hello", and 3.1415927 respectively.  Make sure the order of the arguments supplied matches the order of the types!  Also notice that we can't half-assign a tuple or create a default tuple.  Tuples are immutable (you can't change the values once constructed), so thus you must provide all values at construction time. Another way to easily create tuples is to do it implicitly using the System.Tuple static class's Create() factory methods.  These methods (much like C++'s std::make_pair method) will infer the types from the method call so you don't have to type them in.  This can dramatically reduce the amount of typing required especially for complex tuples! 1: // this 4-tuple is typed Tuple<int, double, string, char> 2: var t4 = Tuple.Create(42, 3.1415927, "Love", 'X'); Notice how much easier it is to use the factory methods and infer the types?  This can cut down on typing quite a bit when constructing tuples.  The Create() factory method can construct from a 1-tuple (singleton) to an 8-tuple (octuple), which of course will be a octuple where the last item is a singleton as we described before in nested tuples. Accessing tuple members Accessing a tuple's members is simplicity itself… mostly.  The properties for accessing up to the first seven items are Item1, Item2, …, Item7.  If you have an octuple or beyond, the final property is Rest which will give you the nested tuple which you can then access in a similar matter.  Once again, keep in mind that these are read-only properties and cannot be changed. 1: // for septuples and below, use the Item properties 2: var t1 = Tuple.Create(42, 3.14); 3:  4: Console.WriteLine("First item is {0} and second is {1}", 5: t1.Item1, t1.Item2); 6:  7: // for octuples and above, use Rest to retrieve nested tuple 8: var t9 = new Tuple<int, int, int, int, int, int, int, 9: Tuple<int, int>>(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,Tuple.Create(8,9)); 10:  11: Console.WriteLine("The 8th item is {0}", t9.Rest.Item1); Tuples are IStructuralComparable and IStructuralEquatable Most of you know about IComparable and IEquatable, what you may not know is that there are two sister interfaces to these that were added in .NET 4.0 to help support tuples.  These IStructuralComparable and IStructuralEquatable make it easy to compare two tuples for equality and ordering.  This is invaluable for sorting, and makes it easy to use tuples as a compound-key to a dictionary (one of my favorite uses)! Why is this so important?  Remember when we said that some folks think tuples are too generic and you should define a custom class?  This is all well and good, but if you want to design a custom class that can automatically order itself based on its members and build a hash code for itself based on its members, it is no longer a trivial task!  Thankfully the tuple does this all for you through the explicit implementations of these interfaces. For equality, two tuples are equal if all elements are equal between the two tuples, that is if t1.Item1 == t2.Item1 and t1.Item2 == t2.Item2, and so on.  For ordering, it's a little more complex in that it compares the two tuples one at a time starting at Item1, and sees which one has a smaller Item1.  If one has a smaller Item1, it is the smaller tuple.  However if both Item1 are the same, it compares Item2 and so on. For example: 1: var t1 = Tuple.Create(1, 3.14, "Hi"); 2: var t2 = Tuple.Create(1, 3.14, "Hi"); 3: var t3 = Tuple.Create(2, 2.72, "Bye"); 4:  5: // true, t1 == t2 because all items are == 6: Console.WriteLine("t1 == t2 : " + t1.Equals(t2)); 7:  8: // false, t1 != t2 because at least one item different 9: Console.WriteLine("t2 == t2 : " + t2.Equals(t3)); The actual implementation of IComparable, IEquatable, IStructuralComparable, and IStructuralEquatable is explicit, so if you want to invoke the methods defined there you'll have to manually cast to the appropriate interface: 1: // true because t1.Item1 < t3.Item1, if had been same would check Item2 and so on 2: Console.WriteLine("t1 < t3 : " + (((IComparable)t1).CompareTo(t3) < 0)); So, as I mentioned, the fact that tuples are automatically equatable and comparable (provided the types you use define equality and comparability as needed) means that we can use tuples for compound keys in hashing and ordering containers like Dictionary and SortedList: 1: var tupleDict = new Dictionary<Tuple<int, double, string>, string>(); 2:  3: tupleDict.Add(t1, "First tuple"); 4: tupleDict.Add(t2, "Second tuple"); 5: tupleDict.Add(t3, "Third tuple"); Because IEquatable defines GetHashCode(), and Tuple's IStructuralEquatable implementation creates this hash code by combining the hash codes of the members, this makes using the tuple as a complex key quite easy!  For example, let's say you are creating account charts for a financial application, and you want to cache those charts in a Dictionary based on the account number and the number of days of chart data (for example, a 1 day chart, 1 week chart, etc): 1: // the account number (string) and number of days (int) are key to get cached chart 2: var chartCache = new Dictionary<Tuple<string, int>, IChart>(); Summary The System.Tuple, like any tool, is best used where it will achieve a greater benefit.  I wouldn't advise overusing them, on objects with a large scope or it can become difficult to maintain.  However, when used properly in a well defined scope they can make your code cleaner and easier to maintain by removing the need for extraneous POCOs and custom property hashing and ordering. They are especially useful in defining compound keys to IDictionary implementations and for returning multiple values from methods, or passing multiple values to a single object parameter. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Tuple,Little Wonders

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 05, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 05, 2010Popular ReleasesSubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.0: First public releaseMiniTwitter: 1.62: MiniTwitter 1.62 ???? ?? ??????????????????????????????????????? 140 ?????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????? ?? ??????????????????????????????????Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (December 2010): The release is targetted for stable daily use. With improved performance and enhanced compatibility with several latest PHP open source applications; it makes this release perfect replacement of your old PHP runtime. Changes made within this release include following and much more: Performance improvements based on real-world applications experience. We determined biggest bottlenecks and we found and removed overheads causing performance problems in many PHP applications. Reimplemented nat...Chronos WPF: Chronos v2.0 Beta 3: Release notes: Updated introduction document. Updated Visual Studio 2010 Extension (vsix) package. Added horizontal scrolling to the main window TaskBar. Added new styles for ListView, ListViewItem, GridViewColumnHeader, ... Added a new WindowViewModel class (allowing to fetch data). Added a new Navigate method (with several overloads) to the NavigationViewModel class (protected). Reimplemented Task usage for the WorkspaceViewModel.OnDelete method. Removed the reflection effect...MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.26.7024: Fixed updater; Fixed MegauploadDJ - jQuery WebControls for ASP.NET: DJ 1.2: What is new? Update to support jQuery 1.4.2 Update to support jQuery ui 1.8.6 Update to Visual Studio 2010 New WebControls with samples added Autocomplete WebControl Button WebControl ToggleButt WebControl The example web site is including in source code project.LateBindingApi.Excel: LateBindingApi.Excel Release 0.7g: Unterschiede zur Vorgängerversion: - Zusätzliche Interior Properties - Group / Ungroup Methoden für Range - Bugfix COM Reference Handling für Application Objekt in einigen Klassen Release+Samples V0.7g: - Enthält Laufzeit DLL und Beispielprojekte Beispielprojekte: COMAddinExample - Demonstriert ein versionslos angebundenes COMAddin Example01 - Background Colors und Borders für Cells Example02 - Font Attributes undAlignment für Cells Example03 - Numberformats Example04 - Shapes, WordArts, P...ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit: November 2010 - v2.1: ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit v2.1 Added Windows Phone 7 build. New controls added: InfoWindow ChildPage (Windows Phone 7 only) See what's new here full details for : http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/silverlight/help/#/What_s_new_in_2_1/016600000025000000/ Note: Requires Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0.ASP .NET MVC CMS (Content Management System): Atomic CMS 2.1.1: Atomic CMS 2.1.1 release notes Atomic CMS installation guide Winware: Winware 3.0 (.Net 4.0): Winware 3.0 is base on .Net 4.0 with C#. Please open it with Visual Studio 2010. This release contains a lab web application.UltimateJB: UltimateJB 2.02 PL3 KAKAROTO + CE-X-3.41 EvilSperm: Voici une version attendu avec impatience pour beaucoup : - La Version CEX341 pour pouvoir jouer avec des jeux demandant le firmware 3.50 ( certain ne fonctionne tous simplement pas ). - Pour l'instant le CEX341 n'est disponible qu'avec les PS3 en firmwares 3.41 !!! - La version PL3 KAKAROTO intégre ses dernières modification et intégre maintenant le firmware 3.30 !!! Conclusion : - UltimateJB CEX341 => Spoof le Firmware 3.41 en 3.50 ( facilite l'utilisation de certain jeux avec openManage...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.5 beta Released: Hi, Today we are releasing Visifire 3.6.5 beta with the following new feature: New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. Also this release includes few bug fixes: AxisXLabel label were getting clipped if angle was set for AxisLabels and ScrollingEnabled was not set in Chart. If LabelStyle property was set as 'Inside', size of the Pie was not proper. Yo...EnhSim: EnhSim 2.1.1: 2.1.1This release adds in the changes for 4.03a. To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Switched Searing Flames bac...AI: Initial 0.0.1: It’s simply just one code file; it simulates AI and machine in a simulated world. The AI has a little understanding of its body machine and parts, and able to use its feet to do actions just start and stop walking. The world is all of white with nothing but just the machine on a white planet. Colors, odors and position information make no sense. I’m previous C# programmer and I’m learning F# during this project, although I’m still not a good F# programmer, in this project I learning to prog...NKinect: NKinect Preview: Build features: Accelerometer reading Motor serial number property Realtime image update Realtime depth calculation Export to PLY (On demand) Control motor LED Control Kinect tiltMicrosoft - Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 App Sample (Microsoft Spain): V1.0 - N-Layer DDD Sample App .NET 4.0: Required Software (Microsoft Base Software needed for Development environment) Visual Studio 2010 RTM & .NET 4.0 RTM (Final Versions) Expression Blend 4 SQL Server 2008 R2 Express/Standard/Enterprise Unity Application Block 2.0 - Published May 5th 2010 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2D24F179-E0A6-49D7-89C4-5B67D939F91B&displaylang=en http://unity.codeplex.com/releases/view/31277 PEX & MOLES 0.94.51023.0, 29/Oct/2010 - Visual Studio 2010 Power Tools http://re...Sense/Net Enterprise Portal & ECMS: SenseNet 6.0.1 Community Edition: Sense/Net 6.0.1 Community Edition This half year we have been working quite fiercely to bring you the long-awaited release of Sense/Net 6.0. Download this Community Edition to see what we have been up to. These months we have worked on getting the WebCMS capabilities of Sense/Net 6.0 up to par. New features include: New, powerful page and portlet editing experience. HTML and CSS cleanup, new, powerful site skinning system. Upgraded, lightning-fast indexing and query via Lucene. Limita...Minecraft GPS: Minecraft GPS 1.1.1: New Features Compass! New style. Set opacity on main window to allow overlay of Minecraft. Open World in any folder. Fixes Fixed style so listbox won't grow the window size. Fixed open file dialog issue on non-vista kernel machines.DotSpatial: DotSpatial 11-28-2001: This release introduces some exciting improvements. Support for big raster, both in display and changing the scheme. Faster raster scheme creation for all rasters. Caching of the "sample" values so once obtained the raster symbolizer dialog loads faster. Reprojection supported for raster and image classes. Affine transform fully supported for images and rasters, so skewed images are now possible. Projection uses better checks when loading unprojected layers. GDAL raster support f...SuperWebSocket: SuperWebSocket(60438): It is the first release of SuperWebSocket. Because it is base on SuperSocket, most features of SuperSocket are supported in SuperWebSocket. The source code include a LiveChat demo.New ProjectsBambook???: ????Bambook???????。Beespot: Beespot is an easy to use, secure, robust and powerful Honeypot for the SSH Service written in Python. caitanzhangDemo: this is my demoColorPicker [SA:MP]: ColorPicker [SA:MP] is a simple tool that generates: - PAWN Hex Color Codes (useful for SAMP Scripts); - ARGB Color Codes; - HTML Color Codes; It's developed in C#.Conversions-n-Stuff: Conversions-n-Stuff (CNS) is a program focused on making it easier for anyone to convert from one measurement to another. There is no need to know the calculations and formulas! Just fill in the forms and click, and you have your answer! CNS leverages C#, WPF, and Silverlight.dotP2P: dotP2P would consist of servers running caches to keep track of domain and nameserver records. Cache servers can be created with any server that supports XML-RPC or SOAP. MySQL is used to store the the cache data. EmailMasterTemplate: This user master and child user control based email template engine.Ezekiel: Ezekiel is a Windows application that leverages a user's existing BusinessObjects reports to provide a custom read-only front end for a database. It's developed using Visual C# 2010 Express.F# Colorizer Editor: Standalone Colorizer Editor for Brian's Fsharp Deep Colorizer VS ExtensionGameCore: Core engine for game services for mobile and RIA clientsGestão de contas bancárias: Trabalho final de Matematica Aplicada da UATLAGPP: GPPkmean: Kmeans ClusteringPHP ORM: ??????orm???，??PHP????，??????????????！Steampunk Odyssey: Steampunk Odyssey is a side-scrolling action game based on the XNA platformSubtitleTools: SubtitleTools is a small utility that helps modifying existing subtitles or downloading new ones based on the digital signatures of your movie files from opensubtitles.org site.Windows Phone 7 Accelerometer: Accelerometer for Windows Phone 7???: ????????????????????????

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• Announcing: Great Improvements to Windows Azure Web Sites

  - by ScottGu

  I’m excited to announce some great improvements to the Windows Azure Web Sites capability we first introduced earlier this summer.  Today’s improvements include: a new low-cost shared mode scaling option, support for custom domains with shared and reserved mode web-sites using both CNAME and A-Records (the later enabling naked domains), continuous deployment support using both CodePlex and GitHub, and FastCGI extensibility.  All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately. New “Shared” Scaling Tier Windows Azure allows you to deploy and host up to 10 web-sites in a free, shared/multi-tenant hosting environment. You can start out developing and testing web sites at no cost using this free shared mode, and it supports the ability to run web sites that serve up to 165MB/day of content (5GB/month).  All of the capabilities we introduced in June with this free tier remain the same with today’s update. Starting with today’s release, you can now elastically scale up your web-site beyond this capability using a new low-cost “shared” option (which we are introducing today) as well as using a “reserved instance” option (which we’ve supported since June).  Scaling to either of these modes is easy.  Simply click on the “scale” tab of your web-site within the Windows Azure Portal, choose the scaling option you want to use with it, and then click the “save” button.  Changes take only seconds to apply and do not require any code to be changed, nor the app to be redeployed: Below are some more details on the new “shared” option, as well as the existing “reserved” option: Shared Mode With today’s release we are introducing a new low-cost “shared” scaling mode for Windows Azure Web Sites.  A web-site running in shared mode is deployed in a shared/multi-tenant hosting environment.  Unlike the free tier, though, a web-site in shared mode has no quotas/upper-limit around the amount of bandwidth it can serve.  The first 5 GB/month of bandwidth you serve with a shared web-site is free, and then you pay the standard “pay as you go” Windows Azure outbound bandwidth rate for outbound bandwidth above 5 GB. A web-site running in shared mode also now supports the ability to map multiple custom DNS domain names, using both CNAMEs and A-records, to it.  The new A-record support we are introducing with today’s release provides the ability for you to support “naked domains” with your web-sites (e.g. http://microsoft.com in addition to http://www.microsoft.com).  We will also in the future enable SNI based SSL as a built-in feature with shared mode web-sites (this functionality isn’t supported with today’s release – but will be coming later this year to both the shared and reserved tiers). You pay for a shared mode web-site using the standard “pay as you go” model that we support with other features of Windows Azure (meaning no up-front costs, and you pay only for the hours that the feature is enabled).  A web-site running in shared mode costs only 1.3 cents/hr during the preview (so on average $9.36/month). Reserved Instance Mode In addition to running sites in shared mode, we also support scaling them to run within a reserved instance mode.  When running in reserved instance mode your sites are guaranteed to run isolated within your own Small, Medium or Large VM (meaning no other customers run within it).  You can run any number of web-sites within a VM, and there are no quotas on CPU or memory limits. You can run your sites using either a single reserved instance VM, or scale up to have multiple instances of them (e.g. 2 medium sized VMs, etc).  Scaling up or down is easy – just select the “reserved” instance VM within the “scale” tab of the Windows Azure Portal, choose the VM size you want, the number of instances of it you want to run, and then click save.  Changes take effect in seconds: Unlike shared mode, there is no per-site cost when running in reserved mode.  Instead you pay only for the reserved instance VMs you use – and you can run any number of web-sites you want within them at no extra cost (e.g. you could run a single site within a reserved instance VM or 100 web-sites within it for the same cost).  Reserved instance VMs start at 8 cents/hr for a small reserved VM.  Elastic Scale-up/down Windows Azure Web Sites allows you to scale-up or down your capacity within seconds.  This allows you to deploy a site using the shared mode option to begin with, and then dynamically scale up to the reserved mode option only when you need to – without you having to change any code or redeploy your application. If your site traffic starts to drop off, you can scale back down the number of reserved instances you are using, or scale down to the shared mode tier – all within seconds and without having to change code, redeploy, or adjust DNS mappings.  You can also use the “Dashboard” view within the Windows Azure Portal to easily monitor your site’s load in real-time (it shows not only requests/sec and bandwidth but also stats like CPU and memory usage). Because of Windows Azure’s “pay as you go” pricing model, you only pay for the compute capacity you use in a given hour.  So if your site is running most of the month in shared mode (at 1.3 cents/hr), but there is a weekend when it gets really popular and you decide to scale it up into reserved mode to have it run in your own dedicated VM (at 8 cents/hr), you only have to pay the additional pennies/hr for the hours it is running in the reserved mode.  There is no upfront cost you need to pay to enable this, and once you scale back down to shared mode you return to the 1.3 cents/hr rate.  This makes it super flexible and cost effective. Improved Custom Domain Support Web sites running in either “shared” or “reserved” mode support the ability to associate custom host names to them (e.g. www.mysitename.com).  You can associate multiple custom domains to each Windows Azure Web Site.  With today’s release we are introducing support for A-Records (a big ask by many users). With the A-Record support, you can now associate ‘naked’ domains to your Windows Azure Web Sites – meaning instead of having to use www.mysitename.com you can instead just have mysitename.com (with no sub-name prefix).  Because you can map multiple domains to a single site, you can optionally enable both a www and naked domain for a site (and then use a URL rewrite rule/redirect to avoid SEO problems). We’ve also enhanced the UI for managing custom domains within the Windows Azure Portal as part of today’s release.  Clicking the “Manage Domains” button in the tray at the bottom of the portal now brings up custom UI that makes it easy to manage/configure them: As part of this update we’ve also made it significantly smoother/easier to validate ownership of custom domains, and made it easier to switch existing sites/domains to Windows Azure Web Sites with no downtime. Continuous Deployment Support with Git and CodePlex or GitHub One of the more popular features we released earlier this summer was support for publishing web sites directly to Windows Azure using source control systems like TFS and Git.  This provides a really powerful way to manage your application deployments using source control.  It is really easy to enable this from a website’s dashboard page: The TFS option we shipped earlier this summer provides a very rich continuous deployment solution that enables you to automate builds and run unit tests every time you check in your web-site, and then if they are successful automatically publish to Azure. With today’s release we are expanding our Git support to also enable continuous deployment scenarios and integrate with projects hosted on CodePlex and GitHub.  This support is enabled with all web-sites (including those using the “free” scaling mode). Starting today, when you choose the “Set up Git publishing” link on a website’s “Dashboard” page you’ll see two additional options show up when Git based publishing is enabled for the web-site: You can click on either the “Deploy from my CodePlex project” link or “Deploy from my GitHub project” link to walkthrough a simple workflow to configure a connection between your website and a source repository you host on CodePlex or GitHub.  Once this connection is established, CodePlex or GitHub will automatically notify Windows Azure every time a checkin occurs.  This will then cause Windows Azure to pull the source and compile/deploy the new version of your app automatically.  The below two videos walkthrough how easy this is to enable this workflow and deploy both an initial app and then make a change to it: Enabling Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and CodePlex (2 minutes) Enabling Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and GitHub (2 minutes) This approach enables a really clean continuous deployment workflow, and makes it much easier to support a team development environment using Git: Note: today’s release supports establishing connections with public GitHub/CodePlex repositories.  Support for private repositories will be enabled in a few weeks. Support for multiple branches Previously, we only supported deploying from the git ‘master’ branch.  Often, though, developers want to deploy from alternate branches (e.g. a staging or future branch). This is now a supported scenario – both with standalone git based projects, as well as ones linked to CodePlex or GitHub.  This enables a variety of useful scenarios.  For example, you can now have two web-sites - a “live” and “staging” version – both linked to the same repository on CodePlex or GitHub.  You can configure one of the web-sites to always pull whatever is in the master branch, and the other to pull what is in the staging branch.  This enables a really clean way to enable final testing of your site before it goes live. This 1 minute video demonstrates how to configure which branch to use with a web-site. Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming in the weeks ahead – including support for the recent Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 releases (we will enable new web and worker role images with Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 next month).  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as these new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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