Search Results

Search found 10297 results on 412 pages for 'real'.

Page 396/412 | < Previous Page | 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403  | Next Page >

• SQL SERVER – Guest Posts – Feodor Georgiev – The Context of Our Database Environment – Going Beyond the Internal SQL Server Waits – Wait Type – Day 21 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  This guest post is submitted by Feodor. Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. In this article Feodor explains the server-client-server process, and concentrated on the mutual waits between client and SQL Server. This is essential in grasping the concept of waits in a ‘global’ application plan. Recently I was asked to write a blog post about the wait statistics in SQL Server and since I had been thinking about writing it for quite some time now, here it is. It is a wide-spread idea that the wait statistics in SQL Server will tell you everything about your performance. Well, almost. Or should I say – barely. The reason for this is that SQL Server is always a part of a bigger system – there are always other players in the game: whether it is a client application, web service, any other kind of data import/export process and so on. In short, the SQL Server surroundings look like this: This means that SQL Server, aside from its internal waits, also depends on external waits and settings. As we can see in the picture above, SQL Server needs to have an interface in order to communicate with the surrounding clients over the network. For this communication, SQL Server uses protocol interfaces. I will not go into detail about which protocols are best, but you can read this article. Also, review the information about the TDS (Tabular data stream). As we all know, our system is only as fast as its slowest component. This means that when we look at our environment as a whole, the SQL Server might be a victim of external pressure, no matter how well we have tuned our database server performance. Let’s dive into an example: let’s say that we have a web server, hosting a web application which is using data from our SQL Server, hosted on another server. The network card of the web server for some reason is malfunctioning (think of a hardware failure, driver failure, or just improper setup) and does not send/receive data faster than 10Mbs. On the other end, our SQL Server will not be able to send/receive data at a faster rate either. This means that the application users will notify the support team and will say: “My data is coming very slow.” Now, let’s move on to a bit more exciting example: imagine that there is a similar setup as the example above – one web server and one database server, and the application is not using any stored procedure calls, but instead for every user request the application is sending 80kb query over the network to the SQL Server. (I really thought this does not happen in real life until I saw it one day.) So, what happens in this case? To make things worse, let’s say that the 80kb query text is submitted from the application to the SQL Server at least 100 times per minute, and as often as 300 times per minute in peak times. Here is what happens: in order for this query to reach the SQL Server, it will have to be broken into a of number network packets (according to the packet size settings) – and will travel over the network. On the other side, our SQL Server network card will receive the packets, will pass them to our network layer, the packets will get assembled, and eventually SQL Server will start processing the query – parsing, allegorizing, generating the query execution plan and so on. So far, we have already had a serious network overhead by waiting for the packets to reach our Database Engine. There will certainly be some processing overhead – until the database engine deals with the 80kb query and its 20 subqueries. The waits you see in the DMVs are actually collected from the point the query reaches the SQL Server and the packets are assembled. Let’s say that our query is processed and it finally returns 15000 rows. These rows have a certain size as well, depending on the data types returned. This means that the data will have converted to packages (depending on the network size package settings) and will have to reach the application server. There will also be waits, however, this time you will be able to see a wait type in the DMVs called ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. What this wait type indicates is that the client is not consuming the data fast enough and the network buffers are filling up. Recently Pinal Dave posted a blog on Client Statistics. What Client Statistics does is captures the physical flow characteristics of the query between the client(Management Studio, in this case) and the server and back to the client. As you see in the image, there are three categories: Query Profile Statistics, Network Statistics and Time Statistics. Number of server roundtrips–a roundtrip consists of a request sent to the server and a reply from the server to the client. For example, if your query has three select statements, and they are separated by ‘GO’ command, then there will be three different roundtrips. TDS Packets sent from the client – TDS (tabular data stream) is the language which SQL Server speaks, and in order for applications to communicate with SQL Server, they need to pack the requests in TDS packets. TDS Packets sent from the client is the number of packets sent from the client; in case the request is large, then it may need more buffers, and eventually might even need more server roundtrips. TDS packets received from server –is the TDS packets sent by the server to the client during the query execution. Bytes sent from client – is the volume of the data set to our SQL Server, measured in bytes; i.e. how big of a query we have sent to the SQL Server. This is why it is best to use stored procedures, since the reusable code (which already exists as an object in the SQL Server) will only be called as a name of procedure + parameters, and this will minimize the network pressure. Bytes received from server – is the amount of data the SQL Server has sent to the client, measured in bytes. Depending on the number of rows and the datatypes involved, this number will vary. But still, think about the network load when you request data from SQL Server. Client processing time – is the amount of time spent in milliseconds between the first received response packet and the last received response packet by the client. Wait time on server replies – is the time in milliseconds between the last request packet which left the client and the first response packet which came back from the server to the client. Total execution time – is the sum of client processing time and wait time on server replies (the SQL Server internal processing time) Here is an illustration of the Client-server communication model which should help you understand the mutual waits in a client-server environment. Keep in mind that a query with a large ‘wait time on server replies’ means the server took a long time to produce the very first row. This is usual on queries that have operators that need the entire sub-query to evaluate before they proceed (for example, sort and top operators). However, a query with a very short ‘wait time on server replies’ means that the query was able to return the first row fast. However a long ‘client processing time’ does not necessarily imply the client spent a lot of time processing and the server was blocked waiting on the client. It can simply mean that the server continued to return rows from the result and this is how long it took until the very last row was returned. The bottom line is that developers and DBAs should work together and think carefully of the resource utilization in the client-server environment. From experience I can say that so far I have seen only cases when the application developers and the Database developers are on their own and do not ask questions about the other party’s world. I would recommend using the Client Statistics tool during new development to track the performance of the queries, and also to find a synchronous way of utilizing resources between the client – server – client. Here is another example: think about similar setup as above, but add another server to the game. Let’s say that we keep our media on a separate server, and together with the data from our SQL Server we need to display some images on the webpage requested by our user. No matter how simple or complicated the logic to get the images is, if the images are 500kb each our users will get the page slowly and they will still think that there is something wrong with our data. Anyway, I don’t mean to get carried away too far from SQL Server. Instead, what I would like to say is that DBAs should also be aware of ‘the big picture’. I wrote a blog post a while back on this topic, and if you are interested, you can read it here about the big picture. And finally, here are some guidelines for monitoring the network performance and improving it: Run a trace and outline all queries that return more than 1000 rows (in Profiler you can actually filter and sort the captured trace by number of returned rows). This is not a set number; it is more of a guideline. The general thought is that no application user can consume that many rows at once. Ask yourself and your fellow-developers: ‘why?’. Monitor your network counters in Perfmon: Network Interface:Output queue length, Redirector:Network errors/sec, TCPv4: Segments retransmitted/sec and so on. Make sure to establish a good friendship with your network administrator (buy them coffee, for example J ) and get into a conversation about the network settings. Have them explain to you how the network cards are setup – are they standalone, are they ‘teamed’, what are the settings – full duplex and so on. Find some time to read a bit about networking. In this short blog post I hope I have turned your attention to ‘the big picture’ and the fact that there are other factors affecting our SQL Server, aside from its internal workings. As a further reading I would still highly recommend the Wait Stats series on this blog, also I would recommend you have the coffee break conversation with your network admin as soon as possible. This guest post is written by Feodor Georgiev. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL

  Read the article

• Heaps of Trouble?

  - by Paul White NZ

  If you’re not already a regular reader of Brad Schulz’s blog, you’re missing out on some great material.  In his latest entry, he is tasked with optimizing a query run against tables that have no indexes at all.  The problem is, predictably, that performance is not very good.  The catch is that we are not allowed to create any indexes (or even new statistics) as part of our optimization efforts. In this post, I’m going to look at the problem from a slightly different angle, and present an alternative solution to the one Brad found.  Inevitably, there’s going to be some overlap between our entries, and while you don’t necessarily need to read Brad’s post before this one, I do strongly recommend that you read it at some stage; he covers some important points that I won’t cover again here. The Example We’ll use data from the AdventureWorks database, copied to temporary unindexed tables.  A script to create these structures is shown below: CREATE TABLE #Custs ( CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL, TerritoryID INTEGER NULL, CustomerType NCHAR(1) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #Prods ( ProductMainID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, Name NVARCHAR(50) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #OrdHeader ( SalesOrderID INTEGER NOT NULL, OrderDate DATETIME NOT NULL, SalesOrderNumber NVARCHAR(25) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #OrdDetail ( SalesOrderID INTEGER NOT NULL, OrderQty SMALLINT NOT NULL, LineTotal NUMERIC(38,6) NOT NULL, ProductMainID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ); GO INSERT #Custs ( CustomerID, TerritoryID, CustomerType ) SELECT C.CustomerID, C.TerritoryID, C.CustomerType FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.Customer C WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #Prods ( ProductMainID, ProductSubID, ProductSubSubID, Name ) SELECT P.ProductID, P.ProductID, P.ProductID, P.Name FROM AdventureWorks.Production.Product P WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #OrdHeader ( SalesOrderID, OrderDate, SalesOrderNumber, CustomerID ) SELECT H.SalesOrderID, H.OrderDate, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.CustomerID FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.SalesOrderHeader H WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #OrdDetail ( SalesOrderID, OrderQty, LineTotal, ProductMainID, ProductSubID, ProductSubSubID ) SELECT D.SalesOrderID, D.OrderQty, D.LineTotal, D.ProductID, D.ProductID, D.ProductID FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.SalesOrderDetail D WITH (TABLOCK); The query itself is a simple join of the four tables: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #Prods P JOIN #OrdDetail D ON P.ProductMainID = D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID JOIN #OrdHeader H ON D.SalesOrderID = H.SalesOrderID JOIN #Custs C ON H.CustomerID = C.CustomerID ORDER BY P.ProductMainID ASC OPTION (RECOMPILE, MAXDOP 1); Remember that these tables have no indexes at all, and only the single-column sampled statistics SQL Server automatically creates (assuming default settings).  The estimated query plan produced for the test query looks like this (click to enlarge): The Problem The problem here is one of cardinality estimation – the number of rows SQL Server expects to find at each step of the plan.  The lack of indexes and useful statistical information means that SQL Server does not have the information it needs to make a good estimate.  Every join in the plan shown above estimates that it will produce just a single row as output.  Brad covers the factors that lead to the low estimates in his post. In reality, the join between the #Prods and #OrdDetail tables will produce 121,317 rows.  It should not surprise you that this has rather dire consequences for the remainder of the query plan.  In particular, it makes a nonsense of the optimizer’s decision to use Nested Loops to join to the two remaining tables.  Instead of scanning the #OrdHeader and #Custs tables once (as it expected), it has to perform 121,317 full scans of each.  The query takes somewhere in the region of twenty minutes to run to completion on my development machine. A Solution At this point, you may be thinking the same thing I was: if we really are stuck with no indexes, the best we can do is to use hash joins everywhere. We can force the exclusive use of hash joins in several ways, the two most common being join and query hints.  A join hint means writing the query using the INNER HASH JOIN syntax; using a query hint involves adding OPTION (HASH JOIN) at the bottom of the query.  The difference is that using join hints also forces the order of the join, whereas the query hint gives the optimizer freedom to reorder the joins at its discretion. Adding the OPTION (HASH JOIN) hint results in this estimated plan: That produces the correct output in around seven seconds, which is quite an improvement!  As a purely practical matter, and given the rigid rules of the environment we find ourselves in, we might leave things there.  (We can improve the hashing solution a bit – I’ll come back to that later on). Faster Nested Loops It might surprise you to hear that we can beat the performance of the hash join solution shown above using nested loops joins exclusively, and without breaking the rules we have been set. The key to this part is to realize that a condition like (A = B) can be expressed as (A <= B) AND (A >= B).  Armed with this tremendous new insight, we can rewrite the join predicates like so: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #OrdDetail D JOIN #OrdHeader H ON D.SalesOrderID >= H.SalesOrderID AND D.SalesOrderID <= H.SalesOrderID JOIN #Custs C ON H.CustomerID >= C.CustomerID AND H.CustomerID <= C.CustomerID JOIN #Prods P ON P.ProductMainID >= D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductMainID <= D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID ORDER BY D.ProductMainID OPTION (RECOMPILE, LOOP JOIN, MAXDOP 1, FORCE ORDER); I’ve also added LOOP JOIN and FORCE ORDER query hints to ensure that only nested loops joins are used, and that the tables are joined in the order they appear.  The new estimated execution plan is: This new query runs in under 2 seconds. Why Is It Faster? The main reason for the improvement is the appearance of the eager Index Spools, which are also known as index-on-the-fly spools.  If you read my Inside The Optimiser series you might be interested to know that the rule responsible is called JoinToIndexOnTheFly. An eager index spool consumes all rows from the table it sits above, and builds a index suitable for the join to seek on.  Taking the index spool above the #Custs table as an example, it reads all the CustomerID and TerritoryID values with a single scan of the table, and builds an index keyed on CustomerID.  The term ‘eager’ means that the spool consumes all of its input rows when it starts up.  The index is built in a work table in tempdb, has no associated statistics, and only exists until the query finishes executing. The result is that each unindexed table is only scanned once, and just for the columns necessary to build the temporary index.  From that point on, every execution of the inner side of the join is answered by a seek on the temporary index – not the base table. A second optimization is that the sort on ProductMainID (required by the ORDER BY clause) is performed early, on just the rows coming from the #OrdDetail table.  The optimizer has a good estimate for the number of rows it needs to sort at that stage – it is just the cardinality of the table itself.  The accuracy of the estimate there is important because it helps determine the memory grant given to the sort operation.  Nested loops join preserves the order of rows on its outer input, so sorting early is safe.  (Hash joins do not preserve order in this way, of course). The extra lazy spool on the #Prods branch is a further optimization that avoids executing the seek on the temporary index if the value being joined (the ‘outer reference’) hasn’t changed from the last row received on the outer input.  It takes advantage of the fact that rows are still sorted on ProductMainID, so if duplicates exist, they will arrive at the join operator one after the other. The optimizer is quite conservative about introducing index spools into a plan, because creating and dropping a temporary index is a relatively expensive operation.  It’s presence in a plan is often an indication that a useful index is missing. I want to stress that I rewrote the query in this way primarily as an educational exercise – I can’t imagine having to do something so horrible to a production system. Improving the Hash Join I promised I would return to the solution that uses hash joins.  You might be puzzled that SQL Server can create three new indexes (and perform all those nested loops iterations) faster than it can perform three hash joins.  The answer, again, is down to the poor information available to the optimizer.  Let’s look at the hash join plan again: Two of the hash joins have single-row estimates on their build inputs.  SQL Server fixes the amount of memory available for the hash table based on this cardinality estimate, so at run time the hash join very quickly runs out of memory. This results in the join spilling hash buckets to disk, and any rows from the probe input that hash to the spilled buckets also get written to disk.  The join process then continues, and may again run out of memory.  This is a recursive process, which may eventually result in SQL Server resorting to a bailout join algorithm, which is guaranteed to complete eventually, but may be very slow.  The data sizes in the example tables are not large enough to force a hash bailout, but it does result in multiple levels of hash recursion.  You can see this for yourself by tracing the Hash Warning event using the Profiler tool. The final sort in the plan also suffers from a similar problem: it receives very little memory and has to perform multiple sort passes, saving intermediate runs to disk (the Sort Warnings Profiler event can be used to confirm this).  Notice also that because hash joins don’t preserve sort order, the sort cannot be pushed down the plan toward the #OrdDetail table, as in the nested loops plan. Ok, so now we understand the problems, what can we do to fix it?  We can address the hash spilling by forcing a different order for the joins: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #Prods P JOIN #Custs C JOIN #OrdHeader H ON H.CustomerID = C.CustomerID JOIN #OrdDetail D ON D.SalesOrderID = H.SalesOrderID ON P.ProductMainID = D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID ORDER BY D.ProductMainID OPTION (MAXDOP 1, HASH JOIN, FORCE ORDER); With this plan, each of the inputs to the hash joins has a good estimate, and no hash recursion occurs.  The final sort still suffers from the one-row estimate problem, and we get a single-pass sort warning as it writes rows to disk.  Even so, the query runs to completion in three or four seconds.  That’s around half the time of the previous hashing solution, but still not as fast as the nested loops trickery. Final Thoughts SQL Server’s optimizer makes cost-based decisions, so it is vital to provide it with accurate information.  We can’t really blame the performance problems highlighted here on anything other than the decision to use completely unindexed tables, and not to allow the creation of additional statistics. I should probably stress that the nested loops solution shown above is not one I would normally contemplate in the real world.  It’s there primarily for its educational and entertainment value.  I might perhaps use it to demonstrate to the sceptical that SQL Server itself is crying out for an index. Be sure to read Brad’s original post for more details.  My grateful thanks to him for granting permission to reuse some of his material. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

  Read the article

• Back to Basics: When does a .NET Assembly Dependency get loaded

  - by Rick Strahl

  When we work on typical day to day applications, it's easy to forget some of the core features of the .NET framework. For me personally it's been a long time since I've learned about some of the underlying CLR system level services even though I rely on them on a daily basis. I often think only about high level application constructs and/or high level framework functionality, but the low level stuff is often just taken for granted. Over the last week at DevConnections I had all sorts of low level discussions with other developers about the inner workings of this or that technology (especially in light of my Low Level ASP.NET Architecture talk and the Razor Hosting talk). One topic that came up a couple of times and ended up a point of confusion even amongst some seasoned developers (including some folks from Microsoft <snicker>) is when assemblies actually load into a .NET process. There are a number of different ways that assemblies are loaded in .NET. When you create a typical project assemblies usually come from: The Assembly reference list of the top level 'executable' project The Assembly references of referenced projects Dynamically loaded at runtime via AppDomain/Reflection loading In addition .NET automatically loads mscorlib (most of the System namespace) the boot process that hosts the .NET runtime in EXE apps, or some other kind of runtime hosting environment (runtime hosting in servers like IIS, SQL Server or COM Interop). In hosting environments the runtime host may also pre-load a bunch of assemblies on its own (for example the ASP.NET host requires all sorts of assemblies just to run itself, before ever routing into your user specific code). Assembly Loading The most obvious source of loaded assemblies is the top level application's assembly reference list. You can add assembly references to a top level application and those assembly references are then available to the application. In a nutshell, referenced assemblies are not immediately loaded - they are loaded on the fly as needed. So regardless of whether you have an assembly reference in a top level project, or a dependent assembly assemblies typically load on an as needed basis, unless explicitly loaded by user code. The same is true of dependent assemblies. To check this out I ran a simple test: I have a utility assembly Westwind.Utilities which is a general purpose library that can work in any type of project. Due to a couple of small requirements for encoding and a logging piece that allows logging Web content (dependency on HttpContext.Current) this utility library has a dependency on System.Web. Now System.Web is a pretty large assembly and generally you'd want to avoid adding it to a non-Web project if it can be helped. So I created a Console Application that loads my utility library: You can see that the top level Console app a reference to Westwind.Utilities and System.Data (beyond the core .NET libs). The Westwind.Utilities project on the other hand has quite a few dependencies including System.Web. I then add a main program that accesses only a simple utillity method in the Westwind.Utilities library that doesn't require any of the classes that access System.Web: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.ReadLine(); } StringUtils.NewStringId() calls into Westwind.Utilities, but it doesn't rely on System.Web. Any guesses what the assembly list looks like when I stop the code on the ReadLine() command? I'll wait here while you think about it… … … So, when I stop on ReadLine() and then fire up Process Explorer and check the assembly list I get: We can see here that .NET has not actually loaded any of the dependencies of the Westwind.Utilities assembly. Also not loaded is the top level System.Data reference even though it's in the dependent assembly list of the top level project. Since this particular function I called only uses core System functionality (contained in mscorlib) there's in fact nothing else loaded beyond the main application and my Westwind.Utilities assembly that contains the method accessed. None of the dependencies of Westwind.Utilities loaded. If you were to open the assembly in a disassembler like Reflector or ILSpy, you would however see all the compiled in dependencies. The referenced assemblies are in the dependency list and they are loadable, but they are not immediately loaded by the application. In other words the C# compiler and .NET linker are smart enough to figure out the dependencies based on the code that actually is referenced from your application and any dependencies cascading down into the dependencies from your top level application into the referenced assemblies. In the example above the usage requirement is pretty obvious since I'm only calling a single static method and then exiting the app, but in more complex applications these dependency relationships become very complicated - however it's all taken care of by the compiler and linker figuring out what types and members are actually referenced and including only those assemblies that are in fact referenced in your code or required by any of your dependencies. The good news here is: That if you are referencing an assembly that has a dependency on something like System.Web in a few places that are not actually accessed by any of your code or any dependent assembly code that you are calling, that assembly is never loaded into memory! Some Hosting Environments pre-load Assemblies The load behavior can vary however. In Console and desktop applications we have full control over assembly loading so we see the core CLR behavior. However other environments like ASP.NET for example will preload referenced assemblies explicitly as part of the startup process - primarily to minimize load conflicts. Specifically ASP.NET pre-loads all assemblies referenced in the assembly list and the /bin folder. So in Web applications it definitely pays to minimize your top level assemblies if they are not used. Understanding when Assemblies Load To clarify and see it actually happen what I described in the first example , let's look at a couple of other scenarios. To see assemblies loading at runtime in real time lets create a utility function to print out loaded assemblies to the console: public static void PrintAssemblies() { var assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies(); foreach (var assembly in assemblies) { Console.WriteLine(assembly.GetName()); } } Now let's look at the first scenario where I have class method that references internally uses System.Web. In the first scenario lets add a method to my main program like this: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.ReadLine(); PrintAssemblies(); } public static void WebLogEntry() { var entry = new WebLogEntry(); entry.UpdateFromRequest(); Console.WriteLine(entry.QueryString); } UpdateFromWebRequest() internally accesses HttpContext.Current to read some information of the ASP.NET Request object so it clearly needs a reference System.Web to work. In this first example, the method that holds the calling code is never called, but exists as a static method that can potentially be called externally at some point. What do you think will happen here with the assembly loading? Will System.Web load in this example? No - it doesn't. Because the WebLogEntry() method is never called by the mainline application (or anywhere else) System.Web is not loaded. .NET dynamically loads assemblies as code that needs it is called. No code references the WebLogEntry() method and so System.Web is never loaded. Next, let's add the call to this method, which should trigger System.Web to be loaded because a dependency exists. Let's change the code to: static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(StringUtils.NewStringId()); Console.WriteLine("--- Before:"); PrintAssemblies(); WebLogEntry(); Console.WriteLine("--- After:"); PrintAssemblies(); Console.ReadLine(); } public static void WebLogEntry() { var entry = new WebLogEntry(); entry.UpdateFromRequest(); Console.WriteLine(entry.QueryString); } Looking at the code now, when do you think System.Web will be loaded? Will the before list include it? Yup System.Web gets loaded, but only after it's actually referenced. In fact, just until before the call to UpdateFromRequest() System.Web is not loaded - it only loads when the method is actually called and requires the reference in the executing code. Moral of the Story So what have we learned - or maybe remembered again? Dependent Assembly References are not pre-loaded when an application starts (by default) Dependent Assemblies that are not referenced by executing code are never loaded Dependent Assemblies are just in time loaded when first referenced in code All of this is nothing new - .NET has always worked like this. But it's good to have a refresher now and then and go through the exercise of seeing it work in action. It's not one of those things we think about everyday, and as I found out last week, I couldn't remember exactly how it worked since it's been so long since I've learned about this. And apparently I'm not the only one as several other people I had discussions with in relation to loaded assemblies also didn't recall exactly what should happen or assumed incorrectly that just having a reference automatically loads the assembly. The moral of the story for me is: Trying at all costs to eliminate an assembly reference from a component is not quite as important as it's often made out to be. For example, the Westwind.Utilities module described above has a logging component, including a Web specific logging entry that supports pulling information from the active HTTP Context. Adding that feature requires a reference to System.Web. Should I worry about this in the scope of this library? Probably not, because if I don't use that one class of nearly a hundred, System.Web never gets pulled into the parent process. IOW, System.Web only loads when I use that specific feature and if I am, well I clearly have to be running in a Web environment anyway to use it realistically. The alternative would be considerably uglier: Pulling out the WebLogEntry class and sticking it into another assembly and breaking up the logging code. In this case - definitely not worth it. So, .NET definitely goes through some pretty nifty optimizations to ensure that it loads only what it needs and in most cases you can just rely on .NET to do the right thing. Sometimes though assembly loading can go wrong (especially when signed and versioned local assemblies are involved), but that's subject for a whole other post…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  CSharp   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); })();

  Read the article

• How to Reuse Your Old Wi-Fi Router as a Network Switch

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Just because your old Wi-Fi router has been replaced by a newer model doesn’t mean it needs to gather dust in the closet. Read on as we show you how to take an old and underpowered Wi-Fi router and turn it into a respectable network switch (saving your $20 in the process). Image by mmgallan. Why Do I Want To Do This? Wi-Fi technology has changed significantly in the last ten years but Ethernet-based networking has changed very little. As such, a Wi-Fi router with 2006-era guts is lagging significantly behind current Wi-Fi router technology, but the Ethernet networking component of the device is just as useful as ever; aside from potentially being only 100Mbs instead of 1000Mbs capable (which for 99% of home applications is irrelevant) Ethernet is Ethernet. What does this matter to you, the consumer? It means that even though your old router doesn’t hack it for your Wi-Fi needs any longer the device is still a perfectly serviceable (and high quality) network switch. When do you need a network switch? Any time you want to share an Ethernet cable among multiple devices, you need a switch. For example, let’s say you have a single Ethernet wall jack behind your entertainment center. Unfortunately you have four devices that you want to link to your local network via hardline including your smart HDTV, DVR, Xbox, and a little Raspberry Pi running XBMC. Instead of spending $20-30 to purchase a brand new switch of comparable build quality to your old Wi-Fi router it makes financial sense (and is environmentally friendly) to invest five minutes of your time tweaking the settings on the old router to turn it from a Wi-Fi access point and routing tool into a network switch–perfect for dropping behind your entertainment center so that your DVR, Xbox, and media center computer can all share an Ethernet connection. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a few things, all of which you likely have readily on hand or are free for download. To follow the basic portion of the tutorial, you’ll need the following: 1 Wi-Fi router with Ethernet ports 1 Computer with Ethernet jack 1 Ethernet cable For the advanced tutorial you’ll need all of those things, plus: 1 copy of DD-WRT firmware for your Wi-Fi router We’re conducting the experiment with a Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi router. The WRT54 series is one of the best selling Wi-Fi router series of all time and there’s a good chance a significant number of readers have one (or more) of them stuffed in an office closet. Even if you don’t have one of the WRT54 series routers, however, the principles we’re outlining here apply to all Wi-Fi routers; as long as your router administration panel allows the necessary changes you can follow right along with us. A quick note on the difference between the basic and advanced versions of this tutorial before we proceed. Your typical Wi-Fi router has 5 Ethernet ports on the back: 1 labeled “Internet”, “WAN”, or a variation thereof and intended to be connected to your DSL/Cable modem, and 4 labeled 1-4 intended to connect Ethernet devices like computers, printers, and game consoles directly to the Wi-Fi router. When you convert a Wi-Fi router to a switch, in most situations, you’ll lose two port as the “Internet” port cannot be used as a normal switch port and one of the switch ports becomes the input port for the Ethernet cable linking the switch to the main network. This means, referencing the diagram above, you’d lose the WAN port and LAN port 1, but retain LAN ports 2, 3, and 4 for use. If you only need to switch for 2-3 devices this may be satisfactory. However, for those of you that would prefer a more traditional switch setup where there is a dedicated WAN port and the rest of the ports are accessible, you’ll need to flash a third-party router firmware like the powerful DD-WRT onto your device. Doing so opens up the router to a greater degree of modification and allows you to assign the previously reserved WAN port to the switch, thus opening up LAN ports 1-4. Even if you don’t intend to use that extra port, DD-WRT offers you so many more options that it’s worth the extra few steps. Preparing Your Router for Life as a Switch Before we jump right in to shutting down the Wi-Fi functionality and repurposing your device as a network switch, there are a few important prep steps to attend to. First, you want to reset the router (if you just flashed a new firmware to your router, skip this step). Following the reset procedures for your particular router or go with what is known as the “Peacock Method” wherein you hold down the reset button for thirty seconds, unplug the router and wait (while still holding the reset button) for thirty seconds, and then plug it in while, again, continuing to hold down the rest button. Over the life of a router there are a variety of changes made, big and small, so it’s best to wipe them all back to the factory default before repurposing the router as a switch. Second, after resetting, we need to change the IP address of the device on the local network to an address which does not directly conflict with the new router. The typical default IP address for a home router is 192.168.1.1; if you ever need to get back into the administration panel of the router-turned-switch to check on things or make changes it will be a real hassle if the IP address of the device conflicts with the new home router. The simplest way to deal with this is to assign an address close to the actual router address but outside the range of addresses that your router will assign via the DHCP client; a good pick then is 192.168.1.2. Once the router is reset (or re-flashed) and has been assigned a new IP address, it’s time to configure it as a switch. Basic Router to Switch Configuration If you don’t want to (or need to) flash new firmware onto your device to open up that extra port, this is the section of the tutorial for you: we’ll cover how to take a stock router, our previously mentioned WRT54 series Linksys, and convert it to a switch. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (consider the WAN port as good as dead from this point forward, unless you start using the router in its traditional function again or later flash a more advanced firmware to the device, the port is officially retired at this point). Open the administration control panel via  web browser on a connected computer. Before we get started two things: first,  anything we don’t explicitly instruct you to change should be left in the default factory-reset setting as you find it, and two, change the settings in the order we list them as some settings can’t be changed after certain features are disabled. To start, let’s navigate to Setup ->Basic Setup. Here you need to change the following things: Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable Save with the “Save Settings” button and then navigate to Setup -> Advanced Routing: Operating Mode: Router This particular setting is very counterintuitive. The “Operating Mode” toggle tells the device whether or not it should enable the Network Address Translation (NAT)  feature. Because we’re turning a smart piece of networking hardware into a relatively dumb one, we don’t need this feature so we switch from Gateway mode (NAT on) to Router mode (NAT off). Our next stop is Wireless -> Basic Wireless Settings: Wireless SSID Broadcast: Disable Wireless Network Mode: Disabled After disabling the wireless we’re going to, again, do something counterintuitive. Navigate to Wireless -> Wireless Security and set the following parameters: Security Mode: WPA2 Personal WPA Algorithms: TKIP+AES WPA Shared Key: [select some random string of letters, numbers, and symbols like JF#d$di!Hdgio890] Now you may be asking yourself, why on Earth are we setting a rather secure Wi-Fi configuration on a Wi-Fi router we’re not going to use as a Wi-Fi node? On the off chance that something strange happens after, say, a power outage when your router-turned-switch cycles on and off a bunch of times and the Wi-Fi functionality is activated we don’t want to be running the Wi-Fi node wide open and granting unfettered access to your network. While the chances of this are next-to-nonexistent, it takes only a few seconds to apply the security measure so there’s little reason not to. Save your changes and navigate to Security ->Firewall. Uncheck everything but Filter Multicast Firewall Protect: Disable At this point you can save your changes again, review the changes you’ve made to ensure they all stuck, and then deploy your “new” switch wherever it is needed. Advanced Router to Switch Configuration For the advanced configuration, you’ll need a copy of DD-WRT installed on your router. Although doing so is an extra few steps, it gives you a lot more control over the process and liberates an extra port on the device. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (later you can switch the cable to the WAN port). Open the administration control panel via web browser on the connected computer. Navigate to the Setup -> Basic Setup tab to get started. In the Basic Setup tab, ensure the following settings are adjusted. The setting changes are not optional and are required to turn the Wi-Fi router into a switch. WAN Connection Type: Disabled Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable In addition to disabling the DHCP server, also uncheck all the DNSMasq boxes as the bottom of the DHCP sub-menu. If you want to activate the extra port (and why wouldn’t you), in the WAN port section: Assign WAN Port to Switch [X] At this point the router has become a switch and you have access to the WAN port so the LAN ports are all free. Since we’re already in the control panel, however, we might as well flip a few optional toggles that further lock down the switch and prevent something odd from happening. The optional settings are arranged via the menu you find them in. Remember to save your settings with the save button before moving onto a new tab. While still in the Setup -> Basic Setup menu, change the following: Gateway/Local DNS : [IP address of primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.1] NTP Client : Disable The next step is to turn off the radio completely (which not only kills the Wi-Fi but actually powers the physical radio chip off). Navigate to Wireless -> Advanced Settings -> Radio Time Restrictions: Radio Scheduling: Enable Select “Always Off” There’s no need to create a potential security problem by leaving the Wi-Fi radio on, the above toggle turns it completely off. Under Services -> Services: DNSMasq : Disable ttraff Daemon : Disable Under the Security -> Firewall tab, uncheck every box except “Filter Multicast”, as seen in the screenshot above, and then disable SPI Firewall. Once you’re done here save and move on to the Administration tab. Under Administration -> Management:  Info Site Password Protection : Enable Info Site MAC Masking : Disable CRON : Disable 802.1x : Disable Routing : Disable After this final round of tweaks, save and then apply your settings. Your router has now been, strategically, dumbed down enough to plod along as a very dependable little switch. Time to stuff it behind your desk or entertainment center and streamline your cabling.     

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 08, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, December 08, 2010Popular ReleasesAlgorithmia: Algorithmia 1.1: Algorithmia v1.1, released on December 8th, 2010.SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.1: Added a better ToUTF-8 converter (not just from windows-1256 to utf-8). Refactored OpenFileDialogs to a more MVVM friendly behavior.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 valueHydroDesktop - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Desktop Application: 1.1.340: HydroDesktop 1.1 Stable Release (Build 340)CslaGenFork: CslaGenFork 4.0 CTP 2: The version is 4.0.1 CTP2 and was released 2010 December 7 and includes the following files: CslaGenFork 4.0.1-2010-12-07 Setup.msi Templates-2010-10-07.zip For getting started instructions, refer to How to section. Overview of the changes Since CTP1 there were 53 work items closed (28 features, 24 issues and 1 task). During this 60 days a lot of work has been done on several areas. First the stereotypes: EditableRoot is OK EditableChild is OK EditableRootCollection is OK Editable...My 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.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.0 ALPHA: 2.2.0 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 En...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).TweetSharp: 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 BugFixingmytrip.mvc (CMS & e-Commerce): mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta: mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta web Web for install hosting System Requirements: NET 4.0, MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src System Requirements: Visual Studio 2010 or Web Deweloper 2010 MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) Connector/Net 6.3.4, MVC3 RC WARNING For run and debug mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src download and ...MiniTwitter: 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 New ProjectsCore Motives Tracking Web Part: This C# web part was created to allow users of SharePoint 2007 to place CoreMotives (http://www.coremotives.com) tracking code on any web part page. Can also be used in master pages and page layouts.CPEBook: OsefEatFrsh: Keep Track of contents of your Fridge. Eat items while they are still fresh.ENUH10Publisher: Et prosjekt for studenter ved eCademy H10EVE Community Portal: EVE Community Portal is a complete community portal for EVE alliances (and corporations), which will host everything an eve alliance needs, from a forum and blogs to every tool you could whish for and more...FER CSLA.NET Compact: .NET Compact Framework edition of CSLA.NET application framework.Finger Mouse: it's a good idea and simple program help you to use the mouse feature from webcam (without mouse) note : you should have i3 or higher processorGambaru: Gambaru é um techdemo de um game 3D desenvolvido em Delphi. Utiliza engine de física Newton e Open GL (pacote GL-Scene). Foi apresentado como trabalho de conclusão de curso no SENAC-SP por Marcelo, Daniel e Thais em 2007. Exploramos o universo Samurai. Contribua, programe, sonhe!GameBoyEmu: ????，GameBoy ???GenericList Inherits IDataReader ( ListEx<T>() : IDataReader ): This Generic List implements the IDataReader interface and displays the usage of Linq, Lamba expressions and some creative thought around working with collection types. I hope it can serve as reference to your projects.Guard: Provides the argument validation class Guard, ubiquitously used throughout all .NET projects but with no central place for updates.HolidayChecker Library: HolidayChecker Library is a usefull library that allows programmers to know if a certain date is a festivity or not. This library also allows the calculation of Easter day based on the algorithm of Tondering. It's developed in C#.JuniorTour - Junior Golf Tour Silverlight Application: JuniorTour makes it easier for golf tour operators to publish tournament results for multiple divisions and multiple seasons. You'll no longer have to manually edit player pages, tournament results, or compute rankings. It's developed in C# and Silverlight.LibGT: LibGT aims to reduce the amount of overall code a programmer has to write in C#. This library provides many shortcuts and extension methods to facilitate robust development rapidly even without the use of an IDE.Mayhem: Mayhem makes it simple for end users to control complex events with their PCs. Whether you want to Update a Twitter status when your cat is detected by your webcam or monitor your serial ports and trigger events, it's no problem with Mayhem -- wreak your own personal havoc.mmht: ???????，??????MobilePolice: my mobilepolice projectOpenCallback: This is a implementation of the callback handler pattern that allows you to invoke the callback handle methods with out type switching or if...else if chains.Project Baron: Simple, yet powerful Project Management System.PS3Lib for SDK 1.92: Création d'une librairie de ceveloppement pour le SDK 1.92Remote Controller for Trackmania: Evzrecon is a remote controller for Trackmania Forever dedicated servers, much like XASECO but written in Java.SharePointSocial: SharePointSocial is focused on taking social interaction within SharePoint to the next level, extending beyond the corporate boundaries. Corporate listening, one-click interaction through key social media outlets and data-driven management and reporting are planned features.SIGS: ssSimple Routing: Simple Routing allows you to associate arbitrary routes with static methods in an ASP.NET application through attribution.SlimCRM: Aplicación de referencia de buenas prácticas de programaciónTalkBoard: ????????，?????????！uHelpsy - Umbraco Helper Library: uHelpsy is a tiny (but growing) library which makes programatically interacting with Umbraco 4.5.2 much more pleasant. It provides helper methods for creating and updating nodes, working with the Umbraco cache, and dealing with unpublished nodes. VCSS: VCSS is a decorated version of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that allows you to specify variables and also nest rules. The VCSS file can be compiled into a standard CSS file to be used on any website.Vote: ?，???????????????！WP7 GPS Simulator: Use this project to simulate GPS while doing development on your Windows Phone 7.WPF_CAD: this proyect it's a college proyect form grafic computer course. Consist in the development of a cad soft implementing all grafics algoritms.Xml-Racing: Réaliser une application Web 3-tiers qui permette d'interroger une BD et de restituer les infos sous forme de graphiques et cartes.

  Read the article

• C# Neural Networks with Encog

  - by JoshReuben

  Neural Networks ·       I recently read a book Introduction to Neural Networks for C# , by Jeff Heaton. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Neural-Networks-C-2nd/dp/1604390093/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296821004&sr=8-2-spell. Not the 1st ANN book I've perused, but a nice revision.   ·       Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are a mechanism of machine learning – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Machine_learning ·       Problems Not Suited to a Neural Network Solution- Programs that are easily written out as flowcharts consisting of well-defined steps, program logic that is unlikely to change, problems in which you must know exactly how the solution was derived. ·       Problems Suited to a Neural Network – pattern recognition, classification, series prediction, and data mining. Pattern recognition - network attempts to determine if the input data matches a pattern that it has been trained to recognize. Classification - take input samples and classify them into fuzzy groups. ·       As far as machine learning approaches go, I thing SVMs are superior (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine ) - a neural network has certain disadvantages in comparison: an ANN can be overtrained, different training sets can produce non-deterministic weights and it is not possible to discern the underlying decision function of an ANN from its weight matrix – they are black box. ·       In this post, I'm not going to go into internals (believe me I know them). An autoassociative network (e.g. a Hopfield network) will echo back a pattern if it is recognized. ·       Under the hood, there is very little maths. In a nutshell - Some simple matrix operations occur during training: the input array is processed (normalized into bipolar values of 1, -1) - transposed from input column vector into a row vector, these are subject to matrix multiplication and then subtraction of the identity matrix to get a contribution matrix. The dot product is taken against the weight matrix to yield a boolean match result. For backpropogation training, a derivative function is required. In learning, hill climbing mechanisms such as Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing are used to escape local minima. For unsupervised training, such as found in Self Organizing Maps used for OCR, Hebbs rule is applied. ·       The purpose of this post is not to mire you in technical and conceptual details, but to show you how to leverage neural networks via an abstraction API - Encog   Encog ·       Encog is a neural network API ·       Links to Encog: http://www.encog.org , http://www.heatonresearch.com/encog, http://www.heatonresearch.com/forum ·       Encog requires .Net 3.5 or higher – there is also a Silverlight version. Third-Party Libraries – log4net and nunit. ·       Encog supports feedforward, recurrent, self-organizing maps, radial basis function and Hopfield neural networks. ·       Encog neural networks, and related data, can be stored in .EG XML files. ·       Encog Workbench allows you to edit, train and visualize neural networks. The Encog Workbench can generate code. Synapses and layers ·       the primary building blocks - Almost every neural network will have, at a minimum, an input and output layer. In some cases, the same layer will function as both input and output layer. ·       To adapt a problem to a neural network, you must determine how to feed the problem into the input layer of a neural network, and receive the solution through the output layer of a neural network. ·       The Input Layer - For each input neuron, one double value is stored. An array is passed as input to a layer. Encog uses the interface INeuralData to hold these arrays. The class BasicNeuralData implements the INeuralData interface. Once the neural network processes the input, an INeuralData based class will be returned from the neural network's output layer. ·       convert a double array into an INeuralData object : INeuralData data = new BasicNeuralData(= new double[10]); ·       the Output Layer- The neural network outputs an array of doubles, wraped in a class based on the INeuralData interface. ·        The real power of a neural network comes from its pattern recognition capabilities. The neural network should be able to produce the desired output even if the input has been slightly distorted. ·       Hidden Layers– optional. between the input and output layers. very much a “black box”. If the structure of the hidden layer is too simple it may not learn the problem. If the structure is too complex, it will learn the problem but will be very slow to train and execute. Some neural networks have no hidden layers. The input layer may be directly connected to the output layer. Further, some neural networks have only a single layer. A single layer neural network has the single layer self-connected. ·       connections, called synapses, contain individual weight matrixes. These values are changed as the neural network learns. Constructing a Neural Network ·       the XOR operator is a frequent “first example” -the “Hello World” application for neural networks. ·       The XOR Operator- only returns true when both inputs differ. 0 XOR 0 = 0 1 XOR 0 = 1 0 XOR 1 = 1 1 XOR 1 = 0 ·       Structuring a Neural Network for XOR  - two inputs to the XOR operator and one output. ·       input: 0.0,0.0 1.0,0.0 0.0,1.0 1.0,1.0 ·       Expected output: 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 ·       A Perceptron - a simple feedforward neural network to learn the XOR operator. ·       Because the XOR operator has two inputs and one output, the neural network will follow suit. Additionally, the neural network will have a single hidden layer, with two neurons to help process the data. The choice for 2 neurons in the hidden layer is arbitrary, and often comes down to trial and error. ·       Neuron Diagram for the XOR Network ·       ·       The Encog workbench displays neural networks on a layer-by-layer basis. ·       Encog Layer Diagram for the XOR Network:   ·       Create a BasicNetwork - Three layers are added to this network. the FinalizeStructure method must be called to inform the network that no more layers are to be added. The call to Reset randomizes the weights in the connections between these layers. var network = new BasicNetwork(); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(2)); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(2)); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(1)); network.Structure.FinalizeStructure(); network.Reset(); ·       Neural networks frequently start with a random weight matrix. This provides a starting point for the training methods. These random values will be tested and refined into an acceptable solution. However, sometimes the initial random values are too far off. Sometimes it may be necessary to reset the weights again, if training is ineffective. These weights make up the long-term memory of the neural network. Additionally, some layers have threshold values that also contribute to the long-term memory of the neural network. Some neural networks also contain context layers, which give the neural network a short-term memory as well. The neural network learns by modifying these weight and threshold values. ·       Now that the neural network has been created, it must be trained. Training a Neural Network ·       construct a INeuralDataSet object - contains the input array and the expected output array (of corresponding range). Even though there is only one output value, we must still use a two-dimensional array to represent the output. public static double[][] XOR_INPUT ={ new double[2] { 0.0, 0.0 }, new double[2] { 1.0, 0.0 }, new double[2] { 0.0, 1.0 }, new double[2] { 1.0, 1.0 } };   public static double[][] XOR_IDEAL = { new double[1] { 0.0 }, new double[1] { 1.0 }, new double[1] { 1.0 }, new double[1] { 0.0 } };   INeuralDataSet trainingSet = new BasicNeuralDataSet(XOR_INPUT, XOR_IDEAL); ·       Training is the process where the neural network's weights are adjusted to better produce the expected output. Training will continue for many iterations, until the error rate of the network is below an acceptable level. Encog supports many different types of training. Resilient Propagation (RPROP) - general-purpose training algorithm. All training classes implement the ITrain interface. The RPROP algorithm is implemented by the ResilientPropagation class. Training the neural network involves calling the Iteration method on the ITrain class until the error is below a specific value. The code loops through as many iterations, or epochs, as it takes to get the error rate for the neural network to be below 1%. Once the neural network has been trained, it is ready for use. ITrain train = new ResilientPropagation(network, trainingSet);   for (int epoch=0; epoch < 10000; epoch++) { train.Iteration(); Debug.Print("Epoch #" + epoch + " Error:" + train.Error); if (train.Error > 0.01) break; } Executing a Neural Network ·       Call the Compute method on the BasicNetwork class. Console.WriteLine("Neural Network Results:"); foreach (INeuralDataPair pair in trainingSet) { INeuralData output = network.Compute(pair.Input); Console.WriteLine(pair.Input[0] + "," + pair.Input[1] + ", actual=" + output[0] + ",ideal=" + pair.Ideal[0]); } ·       The Compute method accepts an INeuralData class and also returns a INeuralData object. Neural Network Results: 0.0,0.0, actual=0.002782538818034049,ideal=0.0 1.0,0.0, actual=0.9903741937121177,ideal=1.0 0.0,1.0, actual=0.9836807956566187,ideal=1.0 1.0,1.0, actual=0.0011646072586172778,ideal=0.0 ·       the network has not been trained to give the exact results. This is normal. Because the network was trained to 1% error, each of the results will also be within generally 1% of the expected value.

  Read the article

• Option Trading: Getting the most out of the event session options

  - by extended_events

  You can control different aspects of how an event session behaves by setting the event session options as part of the CREATE EVENT SESSION DDL. The default settings for the event session options are designed to handle most of the common event collection situations so I generally recommend that you just use the defaults. Like everything in the real world though, there are going to be a handful of “special cases” that require something different. This post focuses on identifying the special cases and the correct use of the options to accommodate those cases. There is a reason it’s called Default The default session options specify a total event buffer size of 4 MB with a 30 second latency. Translating this into human terms; this means that our default behavior is that the system will start processing events from the event buffer when we reach about 1.3 MB of events or after 30 seconds, which ever comes first. Aside: What’s up with the 1.3 MB, I thought you said the buffer was 4 MB?The Extended Events engine takes the total buffer size specified by MAX_MEMORY (4MB by default) and divides it into 3 equally sized buffers. This is done so that a session can be publishing events to one buffer while other buffers are being processed. There are always at least three buffers; how to get more than three is covered later. Using this configuration, the Extended Events engine can “keep up” with most event sessions on standard workloads. Why is this? The fact is that most events are small, really small; on the order of a couple hundred bytes. Even when you start considering events that carry dynamically sized data (eg. binary, text, etc.) or adding actions that collect additional data, the total size of the event is still likely to be pretty small. This means that each buffer can likely hold thousands of events before it has to be processed. When the event buffers are finally processed there is an economy of scale achieved since most targets support bulk processing of the events so they are processed at the buffer level rather than the individual event level. When all this is working together it’s more likely that a full buffer will be processed and put back into the ready queue before the remaining buffers (remember, there are at least three) are full. I know what you’re going to say: “My server is exceptional! My workload is so massive it defies categorization!” OK, maybe you weren’t going to say that exactly, but you were probably thinking it. The point is that there are situations that won’t be covered by the Default, but that’s a good place to start and this post assumes you’ve started there so that you have something to look at in order to determine if you do have a special case that needs different settings. So let’s get to the special cases… What event just fired?! How about now?! Now?! If you believe the commercial adage from Heinz Ketchup (Heinz Slow Good Ketchup ad on You Tube), some things are worth the wait. This is not a belief held by most DBAs, particularly DBAs who are looking for an answer to a troubleshooting question fast. If you’re one of these anxious DBAs, or maybe just a Program Manager doing a demo, then 30 seconds might be longer than you’re comfortable waiting. If you find yourself in this situation then consider changing the MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY option for your event session. This option will force the event buffers to be processed based on your time schedule. This option only makes sense for the asynchronous targets since those are the ones where we allow events to build up in the event buffer – if you’re using one of the synchronous targets this option isn’t relevant. Avoid forgotten events by increasing your memory Have you ever had one of those days where you keep forgetting things? That can happen in Extended Events too; we call it dropped events. In order to optimizes for server performance and help ensure that the Extended Events doesn’t block the server if to drop events that can’t be published to a buffer because the buffer is full. You can determine if events are being dropped from a session by querying the dm_xe_sessions DMV and looking at the dropped_event_count field. Aside: Should you care if you’re dropping events?Maybe not – think about why you’re collecting data in the first place and whether you’re really going to miss a few dropped events. For example, if you’re collecting query duration stats over thousands of executions of a query it won’t make a huge difference to miss a couple executions. Use your best judgment. If you find that your session is dropping events it means that the event buffer is not large enough to handle the volume of events that are being published. There are two ways to address this problem. First, you could collect fewer events – examine you session to see if you are over collecting. Do you need all the actions you’ve specified? Could you apply a predicate to be more specific about when you fire the event? Assuming the session is defined correctly, the next option is to change the MAX_MEMORY option to a larger number. Picking the right event buffer size might take some trial and error, but a good place to start is with the number of dropped events compared to the number you’ve collected. Aside: There are three different behaviors for dropping events that you specify using the EVENT_RETENTION_MODE option. The default is to allow single event loss and you should stick with this setting since it is the best choice for keeping the impact on server performance low.You’ll be tempted to use the setting to not lose any events (NO_EVENT_LOSS) – resist this urge since it can result in blocking on the server. If you’re worried that you’re losing events you should be increasing your event buffer memory as described in this section. Some events are too big to fail A less common reason for dropping an event is when an event is so large that it can’t fit into the event buffer. Even though most events are going to be small, you might find a condition that occasionally generates a very large event. You can determine if your session is dropping large events by looking at the dm_xe_sessions DMV once again, this time check the largest_event_dropped_size. If this value is larger than the size of your event buffer [remember, the size of your event buffer, by default, is max_memory / 3] then you need a large event buffer. To specify a large event buffer you set the MAX_EVENT_SIZE option to a value large enough to fit the largest event dropped based on data from the DMV. When you set this option the Extended Events engine will create two buffers of this size to accommodate these large events. As an added bonus (no extra charge) the large event buffer will also be used to store normal events in the cases where the normal event buffers are all full and waiting to be processed. (Note: This is just a side-effect, not the intended use. If you’re dropping many normal events then you should increase your normal event buffer size.) Partitioning: moving your events to a sub-division Earlier I alluded to the fact that you can configure your event session to use more than the standard three event buffers – this is called partitioning and is controlled by the MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE option. The result of setting this option is fairly easy to explain, but knowing when to use it is a bit more art than science. First the science… You can configure partitioning in three ways: None, Per NUMA Node & Per CPU. This specifies the location where sets of event buffers are created with fairly obvious implication. There are rules we follow for sub-dividing the total memory (specified by MAX_MEMORY) between all the event buffers that are specific to the mode used: None: 3 buffers (fixed)Node: 3 * number_of_nodesCPU: 2.5 * number_of_cpus Here are some examples of what this means for different Node/CPU counts: Configuration None Node CPU 2 CPUs, 1 Node 3 buffers 3 buffers 5 buffers 6 CPUs, 2 Node 3 buffers 6 buffers 15 buffers 40 CPUs, 5 Nodes 3 buffers 15 buffers 100 buffers   Aside: Buffer size on multi-processor computersAs the number of Nodes or CPUs increases, the size of the event buffer gets smaller because the total memory is sub-divided into more pieces. The defaults will hold up to this for a while since each buffer set is holding events only from the Node or CPU that it is associated with, but at some point the buffers will get too small and you’ll either see events being dropped or you’ll get an error when you create your session because you’re below the minimum buffer size. Increase the MAX_MEMORY setting to an appropriate number for the configuration. The most likely reason to start partitioning is going to be related to performance. If you notice that running an event session is impacting the performance of your server beyond a reasonably expected level [Yes, there is a reasonably expected level of work required to collect events.] then partitioning might be an answer. Before you partition you might want to check a few other things: Is your event retention set to NO_EVENT_LOSS and causing blocking? (I told you not to do this.) Consider changing your event loss mode or increasing memory. Are you over collecting and causing more work than necessary? Consider adding predicates to events or removing unnecessary events and actions from your session. Are you writing the file target to the same slow disk that you use for TempDB and your other high activity databases? <kidding> <not really> It’s always worth considering the end to end picture – if you’re writing events to a file you can be impacted by I/O, network; all the usual stuff. Assuming you’ve ruled out the obvious (and not so obvious) issues, there are performance conditions that will be addressed by partitioning. For example, it’s possible to have a successful event session (eg. no dropped events) but still see a performance impact because you have many CPUs all attempting to write to the same free buffer and having to wait in line to finish their work. This is a case where partitioning would relieve the contention between the different CPUs and likely reduce the performance impact cause by the event session. There is no DMV you can check to find these conditions – sorry – that’s where the art comes in. This is  largely a matter of experimentation. On the bright side you probably won’t need to to worry about this level of detail all that often. The performance impact of Extended Events is significantly lower than what you may be used to with SQL Trace. You will likely only care about the impact if you are trying to set up a long running event session that will be part of your everyday workload – sessions used for short term troubleshooting will likely fall into the “reasonably expected impact” category. Hey buddy – I think you forgot something OK, there are two options I didn’t cover: STARTUP_STATE & TRACK_CAUSALITY. If you want your event sessions to start automatically when the server starts, set the STARTUP_STATE option to ON. (Now there is only one option I didn’t cover.) I’m going to leave causality for another post since it’s not really related to session behavior, it’s more about event analysis. - Mike Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Revisiting ANTS Performance Profiler 7.4

  - by James Michael Hare

  Last year, I did a small review on the ANTS Performance Profiler 6.3, now that it’s a year later and a major version number higher, I thought I’d revisit the review and revise my last post. This post will take the same examples as the original post and update them to show what’s new in version 7.4 of the profiler. Background A performance profiler’s main job is to keep track of how much time is typically spent in each unit of code. This helps when we have a program that is not running at the performance we expect, and we want to know where the program is experiencing issues. There are many profilers out there of varying capabilities. Red Gate’s typically seem to be the very easy to “jump in” and get started with very little training required. So let’s dig into the Performance Profiler. I’ve constructed a very crude program with some obvious inefficiencies. It’s a simple program that generates random order numbers (or really could be any unique identifier), adds it to a list, sorts the list, then finds the max and min number in the list. Ignore the fact it’s very contrived and obviously inefficient, we just want to use it as an example to show off the tool: 1: // our test program 2: public static class Program 3: { 4: // the number of iterations to perform 5: private static int _iterations = 1000000; 6: 7: // The main method that controls it all 8: public static void Main() 9: { 10: var list = new List<string>(); 11: 12: for (int i = 0; i < _iterations; i++) 13: { 14: var x = GetNextId(); 15: 16: AddToList(list, x); 17: 18: var highLow = GetHighLow(list); 19: 20: if ((i % 1000) == 0) 21: { 22: Console.WriteLine("{0} - High: {1}, Low: {2}", i, highLow.Item1, highLow.Item2); 23: Console.Out.Flush(); 24: } 25: } 26: } 27: 28: // gets the next order id to process (random for us) 29: public static string GetNextId() 30: { 31: var random = new Random(); 32: var num = random.Next(1000000, 9999999); 33: return num.ToString(); 34: } 35: 36: // add it to our list - very inefficiently! 37: public static void AddToList(List<string> list, string item) 38: { 39: list.Add(item); 40: list.Sort(); 41: } 42: 43: // get high and low of order id range - very inefficiently! 44: public static Tuple<int,int> GetHighLow(List<string> list) 45: { 46: return Tuple.Create(list.Max(s => Convert.ToInt32(s)), list.Min(s => Convert.ToInt32(s))); 47: } 48: } So let’s run it through the profiler and see what happens! Visual Studio Integration First, let’s look at how the ANTS profilers integrate with Visual Studio’s menu system. Once you install the ANTS profilers, you will get an ANTS menu item with several options: Notice that you can either Profile Performance or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler. These sound similar but achieve two slightly different actions: Profile Performance: this immediately launches the profiler with all defaults selected to profile the active project in Visual Studio. Launch ANTS Performance Profiler: this launches the profiler much the same way as starting it from the Start Menu. The profiler will pre-populate the application and path information, but allow you to change the settings before beginning the profile run. So really, the main difference is that Profile Performance immediately begins profiling with the default selections, where Launch ANTS Performance Profiler allows you to change the defaults and attach to an already-running application. Let’s Fire it Up! So when you fire up ANTS either via Start Menu or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler menu in Visual Studio, you are presented with a very simple dialog to get you started: Notice you can choose from many different options for application type. You can profile executables, services, web applications, or just attach to a running process. In fact, in version 7.4 we see two new options added: ASP.NET Web Application (IIS Express) SharePoint web application (IIS) So this gives us an additional way to profile ASP.NET applications and the ability to profile SharePoint applications as well. You can also choose your level of detail in the Profiling Mode drop down. If you choose Line-Level and method-level timings detail, you will get a lot more detail on the method durations, but this will also slow down profiling somewhat. If you really need the profiler to be as unintrusive as possible, you can change it to Sample method-level timings. This is performing very light profiling, where basically the profiler collects timings of a method by examining the call-stack at given intervals. Which method you choose depends a lot on how much detail you need to find the issue and how sensitive your program issues are to timing. So for our example, let’s just go with the line and method timing detail. So, we check that all the options are correct (if you launch from VS2010, the executable and path are filled in already), and fire it up by clicking the [Start Profiling] button. Profiling the Application Once you start profiling the application, you will see a real-time graph of CPU usage that will indicate how much your application is using the CPU(s) on your system. During this time, you can select segments of the graph and bookmark them, giving them mnemonic names. This can be useful if you want to compare performance in one part of the run to another part of the run. Notice that once you select a block, it will give you the call tree breakdown for that selection only, and the relative performance of those calls. Once you feel you have collected enough information, you can click [Stop Profiling] to stop the application run and information collection and begin a more thorough analysis. Analyzing Method Timings So now that we’ve halted the run, we can look around the GUI and see what we can see. By default, the times are shown in terms of percentage of time of the total run of the application, though you can change it in the View menu item to milliseconds, ticks, or seconds as well. This won’t affect the percentages of methods, it only affects what units the times are shown. Notice also that the major hotspot seems to be in a method without source, ANTS Profiler will filter these out by default, but you can right-click on the line and remove the filter to see more detail. This proves especially handy when a bottleneck is due to a method in the BCL. So now that we’ve removed the filter, we see a bit more detail: In addition, ANTS Performance Profiler gives you the ability to decompile the methods without source so that you can dive even deeper, though typically this isn’t necessary for our purposes. When looking at timings, there are generally two types of timings for each method call: Time: This is the time spent ONLY in this method, not including calls this method makes to other methods. Time With Children: This is the total of time spent in both this method AND including calls this method makes to other methods. In other words, the Time tells you how much work is being done exclusively in this method, and the Time With Children tells you how much work is being done inclusively in this method and everything it calls. You can also choose to display the methods in a tree or in a grid. The tree view is the default and it shows the method calls arranged in terms of the tree representing all method calls and the parent method that called them, etc. This is useful for when you find a hot-spot method, you can see who is calling it to determine if the problem is the method itself, or if it is being called too many times. The grid method represents each method only once with its totals and is useful for quickly seeing what method is the trouble spot. In addition, you can choose to display Methods with source which are generally the methods you wrote (as opposed to native or BCL code), or Any Method which shows not only your methods, but also native calls, JIT overhead, synchronization waits, etc. So these are just two ways of viewing the same data, and you’re free to choose the organization that best suits what information you are after. Analyzing Method Source If we look at the timings above, we see that our AddToList() method (and in particular, it’s call to the List<T>.Sort() method in the BCL) is the hot-spot in this analysis. If ANTS sees a method that is consuming the most time, it will flag it as a hot-spot to help call out potential areas of concern. This doesn’t mean the other statistics aren’t meaningful, but that the hot-spot is most likely going to be your biggest bang-for-the-buck to concentrate on. So let’s select the AddToList() method, and see what it shows in the source window below: Notice the source breakout in the bottom pane when you select a method (from either tree or grid view). This shows you the timings in this method per line of code. This gives you a major indicator of where the trouble-spot in this method is. So in this case, we see that performing a Sort() on the List<T> after every Add() is killing our performance! Of course, this was a very contrived, duh moment, but you’d be surprised how many performance issues become duh moments. Note that this one line is taking up 86% of the execution time of this application! If we eliminate this bottleneck, we should see drastic improvement in the performance. So to fix this, if we still wanted to maintain the List<T> we’d have many options, including: delay Sort() until after all Add() methods, using a SortedSet, SortedList, or SortedDictionary depending on which is most appropriate, or forgoing the sorting all together and using a Dictionary. Rinse, Repeat! So let’s just change all instances of List<string> to SortedSet<string> and run this again through the profiler: Now we see the AddToList() method is no longer our hot-spot, but now the Max() and Min() calls are! This is good because we’ve eliminated one hot-spot and now we can try to correct this one as well. As before, we can then optimize this part of the code (possibly by taking advantage of the fact the list is now sorted and returning the first and last elements). We can then rinse and repeat this process until we have eliminated as many bottlenecks as possible. Calls by Web Request Another feature that was added recently is the ability to view .NET methods grouped by the HTTP requests that caused them to run. This can be helpful in determining which pages, web services, etc. are causing hot spots in your web applications. Summary If you like the other ANTS tools, you’ll like the ANTS Performance Profiler as well. It is extremely easy to use with very little product knowledge required to get up and running. There are profilers built into the higher product lines of Visual Studio, of course, which are also powerful and easy to use. But for quickly jumping in and finding hot spots rapidly, Red Gate’s Performance Profiler 7.4 is an excellent choice. Technorati Tags: Influencers,ANTS,Performance Profiler,Profiler

  Read the article

• Messing with the Team

  - by Robert May

  Good Product Owners will help the team be the best that they can be.  Bad product owners will mess with the team and won’t care about the team.  If you’re a product owner, seek to do good and avoid bad behavior at all costs.  Remember, this is for YOUR benefit and you have much power given to you.  Use that power wisely. Scope Creep The product owner has several tools at his disposal to inject scope into an iteration.  First, the product owner can use defects to inject scope.  To do this, they’ll tell the team what functionality that they want to see in a feature.  Then, after the feature is developed, the Product Owner will decide that they don’t really like how the functionality behaves.  To change it, rather than creating a new story, they’ll add a defect.  The functionality is correct, as designed, but the Product Owner doesn’t like it.  By creating the defect, the Product Owner destroys the trust that the team has of the product owner.  They may not be able to count the story, because the Product Owner changed the story in the iteration, and the team then ends up looking like they have low velocity for something over which they have no control.  This is bad.  One way to deal with this is to add “Product Owner Time” to the iteration.  This will slow the velocity, but then the ScrumMaster can tell stake holders that this time is strictly in place to deal with bad behavior of the Product Owner. Another mechanism often used to inject Scope is the concept of directed development.  Outside of planning, stand-ups, or any other meeting, the Product Owner will take a developer aside and ask them to complete a task for them.  This is bad!  The team should be allocating all of their time to development.  If the Product Owner asks for a favor, then time that would normally be used for development will be used for a pet project of the Product Owner and the team will not get credit for this work.  Selfish product owners do this, and I typically see people who were “managers” do this behavior.  Authoritarian command and control development environments also see this happen.  The best thing that can happen is for the team member to report the issue to the ScrumMaster and the ScrumMaster to get very aggressive with management and the Product Owner to try and stop the behavior.  This may result in the ScrumMaster being fired, but if the behavior continues, Scrum is doomed.  This problem is especially bad in cases where the team member’s direct supervisor is the Product Owner.  I don’t recommend that the Product Owner or ScrumMaster have a direct report relationship with team members, since team members need the ability to say no.  To work around this issue, team members need to say no.  If that fails, team members need to add extra time to the iteration to deal with the scope creep injection and accept the lower velocity. As discussed above, another mechanism for injecting scope is by changing acceptance tests after the work is complete.  This is similar to adding defects to change scope and is bad.  To get around, add time for Product Owner uncertainty to the iteration and make sure that stakeholders are aware of the need to add this time because of the Product Owner. Refusing to Prioritize Refusing to prioritize causes chaos for the team.  From the team’s perspective, things that are not important will be worked on while things that the team knows are vital will be ignored.  A poor Product Owner will often pick the stories for the iteration on a whim.  This leads to the team working on many different aspects of the product and results in a lower velocity, since each iteration the team must switch context to the new area of development. The team will also experience confusion about priorities.  In one iteration, Feature X was the highest priority and had to be done.  Then, the following iteration, even though parts of Feature X still need to be completed, no stories to address them will be in the iteration.  However, three iterations later, Feature X will again become high priority. This will cause the team to not trust the Product Owner, and eventually, they’ll stop caring about the features they implement.  They won’t know what is important, so to insulate themselves from the ever changing chaos, they’ll become apathetic to all features.  Team members are some of the most creative people in a company.  By losing their engagement, the company is going to have a substandard product because the passion for the product won’t be in the team. Other signs that the Product Owner refuses to prioritize is that no one outside of the product owner will be consulted on priorities.  Additionally, the product, release, and iteration backlogs will be weak or non-existent. Dealing with this issue is not easy.  This really isn’t something the team can fix, short of taking over the role of Product Owner themselves.  An appeal to the stake holders might work, but only if the Product Owner isn’t a “manager” themselves.  The ScrumMaster needs to protect the team and do what they can to either get the Product Owner to prioritize or have the Product Owner replaced. Managing the Team A Product Owner that is also the “boss” of team members is a Scrum team that is waiting to fail.  If your boss tells you to do something, failing to do that something can cause you to be fired.  The team needs the ability to tell the Product Owner NO.  If the product owner introduces scope creep, the team has a responsibility to tell the Product Owner no.  If the Product Owner tries to get the team to commit to more than they can accomplish in an iteration, the team needs the ability to tell the Product Owner no. If the Product Owner is your boss and determines your pay increases, you’re probably not going to ever tell them no, and Scrum will likely fail.  The team can’t do much in this situation. Another aspect of “managing the team” that often happens is the Product Owner tries to tell the team how to develop the stories that are in the iteration.  This is one reason why I recommend that Product Owners are NOT technical people.  That way, the team can come up with the tasks that are needed to accomplish the stories and the Product Owner won’t know better.  If the Product Owner is technical, the ScrumMaster will need to take great care to protect the team from the ScrumMaster changing how the team thinks they need to implement the stories. Product Owners can also try to manage the team by their body language.  If the team says a task is going to take 6 hours to complete, and the Product Owner disagrees, they will use some kind of sour body language to indicate this disagreement.  In weak teams, this may cause the team to revise their estimate down, which will result in them taking longer than estimated and may result in them missing the iteration.  The ScrumMaster will need to make sure that the Product Owner doesn’t send such messages and that the team ignores them and estimates what they REALLY think it will take to complete the tasks.  Forcing the team to deal with such items in the retrospective can be helpful. Absenteeism The team is completely dependent upon the Product Owner to develop features for the customer.  The Product Owner IS the voice of the customer and without them, the team will lack direction.  Being the Product Owner is a full time job!  If the Product Owner cannot dedicate daily time with the team, a different product owner should be found. The Product Owner needs to attend every stand-up, planning meeting, showcase, and retrospective that the team has.  The team also must be able to have instant communication with the product owner.  They must not be required to schedule meetings to speak with their product owner.  The team must be the highest priority task that the Product Owner has. The best way to work around an absent Product Owner is to appoint a new Product Owner in the team.  This person will be responsible for making the decisions that the Product Owner should be making and to act as the liaison to the absent Product Owner.  If the delegate Product Owner doesn’t have authority to make decisions for the team, Scrum will fail.  If the Product Owner is absent, the ScrumMaster should seek to have that Product Owner replaced by someone who has the time and ability to be a real Product Owner. Making it Personal Too often Product Owners will become convinced that their ideas are the ones that matter and that anyone who disagrees is making a personal attack on them.  Remember that Product Owners will inherently be at odds with many people, simply because they have the need to prioritize.  Others will frequently question prioritization because they only see part of the picture that Product Owners face. Product Owners must have a thick skin and think egos.  If they don’t, they tend to make things personal, which causes them to become emotional and causes them to take actions that can destroy the trust that team members have in the Product Owner. If a Product Owner is making things person, the best thing that team members can do is reassure them that its not personal, but be firm about doing what is best for the Company and for the users.  The ScrumMaster should also spend significant time coaching the Product Owner on how to not react emotionally and how to accept criticism without becoming defensive. Conclusion I’m sure there are other ways that a Product Owner can mess with the team, but these are the most common that I’ve seen.  I would encourage all Product Owners to seek to be a good Product Owner.  If you find yourself behaving in any of the bad product owner ways, change your behavior today!  Your team will thank you. Remember, being Product Owner is very difficult!  Product Owner is one of the most difficult roles in Scrum.  However, it can also be one of the most rewarding roles in Scrum, since Product Owners literally see their ideas brought to life on the computer screen.  Product Owners need to be very patient, even in the face of criticism and need to be willing to make tough decisions on priority, but then not become offended when others disagree with those decisions.  Companies should spend the time needed to find the right product owners for their teams.  Doing so will only help the company to write better software. Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

  Read the article

• 2 way SSL between SOA and OSB

  - by Johnny Shum

  If you have a need to use 2 way SSL between SOA composite and external partner links, you can follow these steps. Create the identity keystores, trust keystores, and server certificates. Setup keystores and SSL on WebLogic Setup server to use 2 way SSL Configure your SOA composite's partner link to use 2 way SSL Configure SOA engine two ways SSL In this case,  I use SOA and OSB for the test.  I started with a separate OSB and SOA domains.  I deployed two soap based proxies on OSB and two composites on SOA.  In SOA, one composite invokes a OSB proxy service, the other is invoked by the OSB.  Similarly,  in OSB,  one proxy invokes a SOA composite and the other is invoked by SOA. 1. Create the identity keystores, trust keystores and the server certificates Since this is a development environment, I use JDK's keytool to create the stores and use self signing certificate.  For production environment, you should use certificates from a trusted certificate authority like Verisign.    I created a script below to show what is needed in this step.  The only requirement is when creating the SOA identity certificate, you MUST use the alias mykey. STOREPASS=welcome1KEYPASS=welcome1# generate identity keystore for soa and osb.  Note: For SOA, you MUST use alias mykeyecho "creating stores"keytool -genkey -alias mykey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=soa, C=US" -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -keypass $KEYPASS keytool -genkey -alias osbkey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=osb, C=US" -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -keypass $KEYPASS# listing keystore contentsecho "listing stores contents"keytool -list -alias mykey -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASSkeytool -list -alias osbkey -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS# exporting certs from storesecho "export certs from  stores"keytool -exportcert -alias mykey -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file soacert.derkeytool -exportcert -alias osbkey -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file osbcert.der # import certs to trust storesecho "import certs"keytool -importcert -alias osbkey -keystore soa-trust-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file osbcert.der -keypass $KEYPASSkeytool -importcert -alias mykey -keystore osb-trust-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file soacert.der  -keypass $KEYPASS SOA suite uses the JDK's SSL implementation for outbound traffic instead of the WebLogic's implementation.  You will need to import the partner's public cert into the trusted keystore used by SOA.  The default trusted keystore for SOA is DemoTrust.jks and it is located in $MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3/server/lib.   (This is set in the startup script -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore).   If you use your own trusted keystore, then you will need to import it into your own trusted keystore. keytool -importcert -alias osbkey -keystore $MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/DemoTrust.jks -storepass DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase  -file osbcert.der -keypass $KEYPASS If you do not perform this step, you will encounter this exception in runtime when SOA invokes OSB service using 2 way SSL Message send failed: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target  2.  Setup keystores and SSL on WebLogic First, you will need to login to the WebLogic console, navigate to the server's configuration->Keystore's tab.   Change the Keystores type to Custom Identity and Custom Trust and enter the rest of the fields. Then you navigate to the SSL tab, enter the fields in the identity section and expand the Advanced section.  Since I am using self signing cert on my VM enviornment, I disabled Hostname verification.  In real production system, this should not be the case.   I also enabled the option "Use Server Certs", so that the application uses the server cert to initiate https traffic (it is important to enable this in OSB). Last, you enable SSL listening port in the Server's configuration->General tab. 3.  Setup server to use 2 way SSL If you follow the screen shot in previous step, you can see in the Server->Configuration->SSL->Advanced section, there is an option for Two Way Client Cert Behavior,  you should set this to Client Certs Requested and Enforced. Repeat step 2 and 3 done on OSB.  After all these configurations,  you have to restart all the servers. 4.  Configure your SOA composite's partner link to use 2 way SSL You do this by modifying the composite.xml in your project, locate the partner's link reference and add the property oracle.soa.two.way.ssl.enabled.   <reference name="callosb" ui:wsdlLocation="helloword.wsdl">    <interface.wsdl interface="http://www.examples.com/wsdl/HelloService.wsdl#wsdl.interface(Hello_PortType)"/>    <binding.ws port="http://www.examples.com/wsdl/HelloService.wsdl#wsdl.endpoint(Hello_Service/Hello_Port)"                location="helloword.wsdl" soapVersion="1.1">      <property name="weblogic.wsee.wsat.transaction.flowOption"                type="xs:string" many="false">WSDLDriven</property>   <property name="oracle.soa.two.way.ssl.enabled">true</property>    </binding.ws>  </reference> In OSB, you should have checked the HTTPS required flag in the proxy's transport configuration.  After this,  rebuilt the composite jar file and ready to deploy in the EM console later. 5.  Configure SOA engine two ways SSL Oracle SOA Suite uses both Oracle WebLogic Server and Sun Secure Socket Layer (SSL) stacks for two-way SSL configurations. For the inbound web service bindings, Oracle SOA Suite uses the Oracle WebLogic Server infrastructure and, therefore, the Oracle WebLogic Server libraries for SSL.  This is already done by step 2 and 3 in the previous section. For the outbound web service bindings, Oracle SOA Suite uses JRF HttpClient and, therefore, the Sun JDK libraries for SSL.  You do this by configuring the SOA Engine in the Enterprise Manager Console, select soa-infra->SOA Administration->Common Properties Then click at the link at the bottom of the page:  "More SOA Infra Advances Infrastructure Configuration Properties" and then enter the full path of soa identity keystore in the value field of the KeyStoreLocation attribute.  Click Apply and Return then navigate to the domain->security->credential. Here, you provide the password to the keystore.  Note: the alias of the certficate must be mykey as described in step 1, so you only need to provide the password to the identity keystore.   You accomplish this by: Click Create Map In the Map Name field, enter SOA, and click OK Click Create Key Enter the following details where the password is the password for the SOA identity keystore. 6.  Test and Trouble Shooting Once the setup is complete and server restarted, you can deploy the composite in the EM console and test it.  In case of error,  you can read the server log file to determine the cause of the error.  For example, If you have not setup step 5 and test 2 way SSL, you will see this in the log when invoking OSB from BPEL: java.lang.Exception: oracle.sysman.emSDK.webservices.wsdlapi.SoapTestException: oracle.fabric.common.FabricInvocationException: Unable to access the following endpoint(s): https://localhost.localdomain:7002/default/helloword ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Error> <oracle.soa.bpel.engine.ws> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '1' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<anonymous>> <BEA1-0AFDAEF20610F8FD89C5> ............ <11d1def534ea1be0:-4034173:139ef56d9f0:-8000-00000000000002ec> <1348340857956> <BEA-000000> <got FabricInvocationException sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target If you have not enable WebLogic SSL to use server certificate in the console and invoke SOA composite from OSB using two ways SSL, you will see this error: ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '6' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-00000000000000e2> <1348340857776> <BEA-090485> <CERTIFICATE_UNKNOWN alert was received from localhost.localdomain - 127.0.0.1. The peer has an unspecified issue with the certificate. SSL debug tracing should be enabled on the peer to determine what the issue is.> ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '6' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-00000000000000e4> <1348340857786> <BEA-090485> <CERTIFICATE_UNKNOWN alert was received from localhost.localdomain - 127.0.0.1. The peer has an unspecified issue with the certificate. SSL debug tracing should be enabled on the peer to determine what the issue is.> ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:27:21 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '0' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<anonymous>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-0000000000000124> <1348342041926> <BEA-090497> <HANDSHAKE_FAILURE alert received from localhost - 127.0.0.1. Check both sides of the SSL configuration for mismatches in supported ciphers, supported protocol versions, trusted CAs, and hostname verification settings.> References http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/admin.1111/e10226/soacompapp_secure.htm#CHDCFABB   Section 5.6.4 http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/web.1111/e13707/ssl.htm#i1200848

  Read the article

• How to Use USER_DEFINED Activity in OWB Process Flow

  - by Jinggen He

  Process Flow is a very important component of Oracle Warehouse Builder. With Process Flow, we can create and control the ETL process by setting all kinds of activities in a well-constructed flow. In Oracle Warehouse Builder 11gR2, there are 28 kinds of activities, which fall into three categories: Control activities, OWB specific activities and Utility activities. For more information about Process Flow activities, please refer to OWB online doc. Most of those activities are pre-defined for some specific use. For example, the Mapping activity allows execution an OWB mapping in Process Flow and the FTP activity allows an interaction between the local host and a remote FTP server. Besides those activities for specific purposes, the User Defined activity enables you to incorporate into a Process Flow an activity that is not defined within Warehouse Builder. So the User Defined activity brings flexibility and extensibility to Process Flow. In this article, we will take an amazing tour of using the User Defined activity. Let's start. Enable execution of User Defined activity Let's start this section from creating a very simple Process Flow, which contains a Start activity, a User Defined activity and an End Success activity. Leave all parameters of activity USER_DEFINED unchanged except that we enter /tmp/test.sh into the Value column of the COMMAND parameter. Then let's create the shell script test.sh in /tmp directory. Here is the content of /tmp/test.sh (this article is demonstrating a scenario in Linux system, and /tmp/test.sh is a Bash shell script): echo Hello World! > /tmp/test.txt Note: don't forget to grant the execution privilege on /tmp/test.sh to OS Oracle user. For simplicity, we just use the following command. chmod +x /tmp/test.sh OK, it's so simple that we’ve almost done it. Now deploy the Process Flow and run it. For a newly installed OWB, we will come across an error saying "RPE-02248: For security reasons, activity operator Shell has been disabled by the DBA". See below. That's because, by default, the User Defined activity is DISABLED. Configuration about this can be found in <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/bin/admin/Runtime.properties: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint=DISABLED The property can be set to three different values: NATIVE_JAVA, SCHEDULER and DISBALED. Where NATIVE_JAVA uses the Java 'Runtime.exec' interface, SCHEDULER uses a DBMS Scheduler external job submitted by the Control Center repository owner which is executed by the default operating system user configured by the DBA. DISABLED prevents execution via these operators. We enable the execution of User Defined activity by setting: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint= NATIVE_JAVA Restart the Control Center service for the change of setting to take effect. cd <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/rtp/sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @stop_service.sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @start_service.sql And then run the Process Flow again. We will see that the Process Flow completes successfully. The execution of /tmp/test.sh successfully generated a file /tmp/test.txt, containing the line Hello World!. Pass parameters to User Defined Activity The Process Flow created in the above section has a drawback: the User Defined activity doesn't accept any information from OWB nor does it give any meaningful results back to OWB. That's to say, it lacks interaction. Maybe, sometimes such a Process Flow can fulfill the business requirement. But for most of the time, we need to get the User Defined activity executed according to some information prior to that step. In this section, we will see how to pass parameters to the User Defined activity and pass them into the to-be-executed shell script. First, let's see how to pass parameters to the script. The User Defined activity has an input parameter named PARAMETER_LIST. This is a list of parameters that will be passed to the command. Parameters are separated from one another by a token. The token is taken as the first character on the PARAMETER_LIST string, and the string must also end in that token. Warehouse Builder recommends the '?' character, but any character can be used. For example, to pass 'abc,' 'def,' and 'ghi' you can use the following equivalent: ?abc?def?ghi? or !abc!def!ghi! or |abc|def|ghi| If the token character or '\' needs to be included as part of the parameter, then it must be preceded with '\'. For example '\\'. If '\' is the token character, then '/' becomes the escape character. Let's configure the PARAMETER_LIST parameter as below: And modify the shell script /tmp/test.sh as below: echo $1 is saying hello to $2! > /tmp/test.txt Re-deploy the Process Flow and run it. We will see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: Bob is saying hello to Alice! In the example above, the parameters passed into the shell script are static. This case is not so useful because: instead of passing parameters, we can directly write the value of the parameters in the shell script. To make the case more meaningful, we can pass two dynamic parameters, that are obtained from the previous activity, to the shell script. Prepare the Process Flow as below: The Mapping activity MAPPING_1 has two output parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. The User Defined activity has two input parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. All the four parameters are of String type. Additionally, the Process Flow has two string variables: VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER. Through VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, the input parameter FROM_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter FROM_USER of MAPPING_1. We achieve this by binding both parameters to VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER. See the two figures below. In the same way, through VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER, the input parameter TO_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter TO_USER of MAPPING_1. Also, we need to change the PARAMETER_LIST of the User Defined activity like below: Now, the shell script is getting input from the Mapping activity dynamically. Deploy the Process Flow and all of its necessary dependees then run the Process Flow. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! 'USER B' and 'USER A' are two outputs of the Mapping execution. Write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder In the previous section, the shell script is located in the /tmp directory. But sometimes, when the shell script is small, or for the sake of maintaining consistency, you may want to keep the shell script inside Oracle Warehouse Builder. We can achieve this by configuring these three parameters of a User Defined activity properly: COMMAND: Set the path of interpreter, by which the shell script will be interpreted. PARAMETER_LIST: Set it blank. SCRIPT: Enter the shell script content. Note that in Linux the shell script content is passed into the interpreter as standard input at runtime. About how to actually pass parameters to the shell script, we can utilize variable substitutions. As in the following figure, ${FROM_USER} will be replaced by the value of the FROM_USER input parameter of the User Defined activity. So will the ${TO_USER} symbol. Besides the custom substitution variables, OWB also provide some system pre-defined substitution variables. You can refer to the online document for that. Deploy the Process Flow and run it. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! Leverage the return value of User Defined activity All of the previous sections are connecting the User Defined activity to END_SUCCESS with an unconditional transition. But what should we do if we want different subsequent activities for different shell script execution results? 1.  The simplest way is to add three simple-conditioned out-going transitions for the User Defined activity just like the figure below. In the figure, to simplify the scenario, we connect the User Defined activity to three End activities. Basically, if the shell script ends successfully, the whole Process Flow will end at END_SUCCESS, otherwise, the whole Process Flow will end at END_ERROR (in our case, ending at END_WARNING seldom happens). In the real world, we can add more complex and meaningful subsequent business logic. 2.  Or we can utilize complex conditions to work with different results of the User Defined activity. Previously, in our script, we only have this line: echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt We can add more logic in it and return different values accordingly. echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt if CONDITION_1 ; then ...... exit 0 fi if CONDITION_2 ; then ...... exit 2 fi if CONDITION_3 ; then ...... exit 3 fi After that we can leverage the result by checking RESULT_CODE in condition expression of those out-going transitions. Let's suppose that we have the Process Flow as the following graph (SUB_PROCESS_n stands for more different further processes): We can set complex condition for the transition from USER_DEFINED to SUB_PROCESS_1 like this: Other transitions can be set in the same way. Note that, in our shell script, we return 0, 2 and 3, but not 1. As in Linux system, if the shell script comes across a system error like IO error, the return value will be 1. We can explicitly handle such a return value. Summary Let's summarize what has been discussed in this article: How to create a Process Flow with a User Defined activity in it How to pass parameters from the prior activity to the User Defined activity and finally into the shell script How to write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder How to do variable substitutions How to let the User Defined activity return different values and in what way can we leverage

  Read the article

• Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight

  - by ScottGu

  On Monday I had the opportunity to present the MIX 2010 Day 1 Keynote in Las Vegas (you can watch a video of it here).  In the keynote I announced the release of the Silverlight 4 Release Candidate (we’ll ship the final release of it next month) and the VS 2010 RC tools for Silverlight 4.  I also had the chance to talk for the first time about how Silverlight and XNA can now be used to build Windows Phone 7 applications. During my talk I did two quick Windows Phone 7 coding demos using Silverlight – a quick “Hello World” application and a “Twitter” data-snacking application.  Both applications were easy to build and only took a few minutes to create on stage.  Below are the steps you can follow yourself to build them on your own machines as well. [Note: In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] Building a “Hello World” Windows Phone 7 Application First make sure you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP – this includes the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone development tool (which will be free forever and is the only thing you need to develop and build Windows Phone 7 applications) as well as an add-on to the VS 2010 RC that enables phone development within the full VS 2010 as well. After you’ve downloaded and installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, launch the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone that it installs or launch the VS 2010 RC (if you have it already installed), and then choose “File”->”New Project.”  Here, you’ll find the usual list of project template types along with a new category: “Silverlight for Windows Phone”. The first CTP offers two application project templates. The first is the “Windows Phone Application” template - this is what we’ll use for this example. The second is the “Windows Phone List Application” template - which provides the basic layout for a master-details phone application: After creating a new project, you’ll get a view of the design surface and markup. Notice that the design surface shows the phone UI, letting you easily see how your application will look while you develop. For those familiar with Visual Studio, you’ll also find the familiar ToolBox, Solution Explorer and Properties pane. For our HelloWorld application, we’ll start out by adding a TextBox and a Button from the Toolbox. Notice that you get the same design experience as you do for Silverlight on the web or desktop. You can easily resize, position and align your controls on the design surface. Changing properties is easy with the Properties pane. We’ll change the name of the TextBox that we added to username and change the page title text to “Hello world.” We’ll then write some code by double-clicking on the button and create an event handler in the code-behind file (MainPage.xaml.cs). We’ll start out by changing the title text of the application. The project template included this title as a TextBlock with the name textBlockListTitle (note that the current name incorrectly includes the word “list”; that will be fixed for the final release.)  As we write code against it we get intellisense showing the members available.  Below we’ll set the Text property of the title TextBlock to “Hello “ + the Text property of the TextBox username: We now have all the code necessary for a Hello World application.  We have two choices when it comes to deploying and running the application. We can either deploy to an actual device itself or use the built-in phone emulator: Because the phone emulator is actually the phone operating system running in a virtual machine, we’ll get the same experience developing in the emulator as on the device. For this sample, we’ll just press F5 to start the application with debugging using the emulator.  Once the phone operating system loads, the emulator will run the new “Hello world” application exactly as it would on the device: Notice that we can change several settings of the emulator experience with the emulator toolbar – which is a floating toolbar on the top right.  This includes the ability to re-size/zoom the emulator and two rotate buttons.  Zoom lets us zoom into even the smallest detail of the application: The orientation buttons allow us easily see what the application looks like in landscape mode (orientation change support is just built into the default template): Note that the emulator can be reused across F5 debug sessions - that means that we don’t have to start the emulator for every deployment. We’ve added a dialog that will help you from accidentally shutting down the emulator if you want to reuse it.  Launching an application on an already running emulator should only take ~3 seconds to deploy and run. Within our Hello World application we’ll click the “username” textbox to give it focus.  This will cause the software input panel (SIP) to open up automatically.  We can either type a message or – since we are using the emulator – just type in text.  Note that the emulator works with Windows 7 multi-touch so, if you have a touchscreen, you can see how interaction will feel on a device just by pressing the screen. We’ll enter “MIX 10” in the textbox and then click the button – this will cause the title to update to be “Hello MIX 10”: We provide the same Visual Studio experience when developing for the phone as other .NET applications. This means that we can set a breakpoint within the button event handler, press the button again and have it break within the debugger: Building a “Twitter” Windows Phone 7 Application using Silverlight Rather than just stop with “Hello World” let’s keep going and evolve it to be a basic Twitter client application. We’ll return to the design surface and add a ListBox, using the snaplines within the designer to fit it to the device screen and make the best use of phone screen real estate.  We’ll also rename the Button “Lookup”: We’ll then return to the Button event handler in Main.xaml.cs, and remove the original “Hello World” line of code and take advantage of the WebClient networking class to asynchronously download a Twitter feed. This takes three lines of code in total: (1) declaring and creating the WebClient, (2) attaching an event handler and then (3) calling the asynchronous DownloadStringAsync method. In the DownloadStringAsync call, we’ll pass a Twitter Uri plus a query string which pulls the text from the “username” TextBox. This feed will pull down the respective user’s most frequent posts in an XML format. When the call completes, the DownloadStringCompleted event is fired and our generated event handler twitter_DownloadStringCompleted will be called: The result returned from the Twitter call will come back in an XML based format.  To parse this we’ll use LINQ to XML. LINQ to XML lets us create simple queries for accessing data in an xml feed. To use this library, we’ll first need to add a reference to the assembly (right click on the References folder in the solution explorer and choose “Add Reference): We’ll then add a “using System.Xml.Linq” namespace reference at the top of the code-behind file at the top of Main.xaml.cs file: We’ll then add a simple helper class called TwitterItem to our project. TwitterItem has three string members – UserName, Message and ImageSource: We’ll then implement the twitter_DownloadStringCompleted event handler and use LINQ to XML to parse the returned XML string from Twitter.  What the query is doing is pulling out the three key pieces of information for each Twitter post from the username we passed as the query string. These are the ImageSource for their profile image, the Message of their tweet and their UserName. For each Tweet in the XML, we are creating a new TwitterItem in the IEnumerable<XElement> returned by the Linq query.  We then assign the generated TwitterItem sequence to the ListBox’s ItemsSource property: We’ll then do one more step to complete the application. In the Main.xaml file, we’ll add an ItemTemplate to the ListBox. For the demo, I used a simple template that uses databinding to show the user’s profile image, their tweet and their username. <ListBox Height="521" HorizonalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,131,0,0" Name="listBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="476"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Height="132"> <Image Source="{Binding ImageSource}" Height="73" Width="73" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="0,10,8,0"/> <StackPanel Width="370"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding UserName}" Foreground="#FFC8AB14" FontSize="28" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Message}" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="24" /> </StackPanel> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> Now, pressing F5 again, we are able to reuse the emulator and re-run the application. Once the application has launched, we can type in a Twitter username and press the  Button to see the results. Try my Twitter user name (scottgu) and you’ll get back a result of TwitterItems in the Listbox: Try using the mouse (or if you have a touchscreen device your finger) to scroll the items in the Listbox – you should find that they move very fast within the emulator.  This is because the emulator is hardware accelerated – and so gives you the same fast performance that you get on the actual phone hardware. Summary Silverlight and the VS 2010 Tools for Windows Phone (and the corresponding Expression Blend Tools for Windows Phone) make building Windows Phone applications both really easy and fun.  At MIX this week a number of great partners (including Netflix, FourSquare, Seesmic, Shazaam, Major League Soccer, Graphic.ly, Associated Press, Jackson Fish and more) showed off some killer application prototypes they’ve built over the last few weeks.  You can watch my full day 1 keynote to see them in action. I think they start to show some of the promise and potential of using Silverlight with Windows Phone 7.  I’ll be doing more blog posts in the weeks and months ahead that cover that more. Hope this helps, Scott

  Read the article

• Building services with .Net Part 1

  - by Allan Rwakatungu

  On the 26th of May 2010 , I made a presentation to the .NET user group meeting (thanks to Malisa Ncube for organizing this event every month … ). If you missed my presentation , we talked about why we should all be building services … better still using the .NET framework. This blog post is an introduction to services , why you would want to build services and how you can build services using the .NET framework. What is a service? OASIS defines service as "a mechanism to enable access to one or more capabilities, where the access is provided using a prescribed interface and is exercised consistent with constraints and policies as specified by the service description." [1]. If the above definition sounds to academic , you can also define a service as loosely coupled units of functionality that have no calls to each other embedded in the. Instead of services embedding calls to each other in their service code they use defined protocols that describe how services pass and parse messages. This is a good way to think about services if you’re from an objected oriented background. While in object oriented programming functions make calls to each other, in service oriented programming, functions pass messages between each other. Why would you want to use services? 1. If your enterprise architecture looks like this   Services are the building blocks for SOA . With SOA you can move away from the sphaggetti infrastructure that is common in most enterprises. The complexity or lack of visibility of the integration points in your enterprises makes it difficult and costly to implement new initiatives and changes into the business - and even impossible in some cases - as it is not possible to identify the impact a change in one system might have to other systems. With services you can move to an architecture like this Your building blocks from Spaghetti infrastructure to something that is more well-defined and manageable to achieve cost efficiency and not least business agility - enabling you to react to changes in the market with speed and achieve operational efficiency and control are services. 2. If you want to become the Gates or Zuckerburger. Have you heard about Web 2.0 ? Mashups? Software as a service (SAAS) ? Cloud computing ?   They all offer you the opportunity to have scalable but low cost business models and they built using services.  Some of my favorite companies that leverage services for their business models include  https://www.salesforce.com/ (cloud CRM) http://www. twitter.com (more people use twitter clients built by 3rd parties than their official clients) http://www.kayak.com/ (compares data from other travel sites to give information to users in one location) Services with the .NET framework      If you are a .NET developer and you want to develop services, Windows Communication Framework (WCF) is the tool for you. WCF is Microsoft’s unified programming model (service model) for building service oriented applications. ( Before .NET 3.0 you had several models for programming services in .NET including .NET remoting, Web services (ASMX), COM +, Microsoft Messaging queuing (MSMQ) etc, after .NET 3.0 the programming model was unified into one i.e. WCF ). Windows Communication Framework (WCF) provides you 1. An Software Development Kit (SDK) for creating SOA applications 2. A runtime for running services on the Windows platform Why should you use Windows Communication Foundation if you’re programming services?   1. It supports interoperable and open standards e.g. WS* protocols for programming SOAP services 2. It has a unified programming model. Whether you use TCP or Http or Pipes or transmitting using Messaging Queues, programmers need to learn just one way to program. Previously you had .NET remoting, MSMQ, Web services, COM+ and they were all done differently 3. Productive programming model You don’t have to worry about all the plumbing involved to write services. You have a rich declarative programming model to add stuff like logging, transactions, and reliable messages in-built in the Windows Communication Framework. Understanding services in WCF The basic principles of WCF are as easy as ABC A – Address This is where the service is located B- Binding This describes how you communicate with the service e.g. Use TCP, HTTP or both. How to exchange security information with the service etc. C – Contract This defines what the service can do. E.g. Pay water bill, Make a phone call A - Addresses In WCF, an address is a combination of transport, server name, port and path Example addresses may include http://localhost:8001 net.tcp://localhost:8002/MyService net.pipe://localhost/MyPipe net.msmq://localhost/private/MyService net.msmq://localhost/MyService B- Binding   There are numerous ways to communicate with services , different ways that a message can be formatted/sent/secured, that allows you to tailor your service for the compatibility/performance you require for your solution. Transport You can use HTTP TCP MSMQ , Named pipes, Your own custom transport etc Message You  can send a plain text binary, Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) message Communication security No security Transport security Message security Authenticating and authorizing callers etc Behaviour You service can support Transactions Be reliable Use queues Support ajax etc C - Contract You define what your service can do using Service contracts :- Define operations that your service can do, communications and behaviours Data contracts :- Define the messages that are passed from and into your service and how they are formatted Fault contracts :- Defines errors types in your service   As an example, suppose your service service shows money. You define your service contract using a interface [ServiceContract] public interface IShowMeTheMoney {   [OperationContract]    Money Show(); } You define the data contract by annotating a class it with the Data Contract attribute and fields you want to pass in the message as Data Members. (Note:- In the latest versions of WCF you dont have to use attributes if you passing all the objects properties in the message) [DataContract] public Money {   [DataMember]   public string Currency { get; set; }   [DataMember]   public Decimal Amount { get; set; }   public string Comment { get; set; } } Features of Windows Communication Foundation Windows Communication Foundation is not only simple but feature rich , offering you several options to tweak your service to fit your business requirements. Some of the features of WCF include 1. Workflow services You can combine WCF with Windows WorkFlow Foundation (WWF) to write workflow type services 2. Control how your data (messages) are transferred and serialized e.g. you can serialize your business objects as XML or binary 3. control over session management , instance creation and concurrency management without writing code if you like 4. Queues and reliable sessions. You can store messages from the sending client and later forward them to the receiving application. You can also guarantee that messages will arrive at their destincation. 5.Transactions:  You can have different services participate in a transaction operations that can be rolled back if needed 6. Security. WCF has rich features for authorization and authentication  as well as keep audit trails 7. Web programming model. WCF allows developers to expose services as non SOAP endpoints 8. Inbuilt features that you can use to write JSON and services that support AJAX applications And lots more In my next blog I will show you how you can use WCF features to write a real world business service.               Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ]] /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

  Read the article

• Ajax Control Toolkit November 2011 Release

  - by Stephen Walther

  I’m happy to announce the November 2011 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit. This release introduces a new Balloon Popup control and several enhancements to the existing Tabs control including support for on-demand loading of tab content, support for vertical tabs, and support for keyboard tab navigation. We also fixed the top-voted bugs associated with the Tabs control reported at CodePlex.com. You can download the new release by visiting the CodePlex website: http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com Alternatively, the fast and easy way to get the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit is to use NuGet. Open your Library Package Manager console in Visual Studio 2010 and type: After you install the Ajax Control Toolkit through NuGet, please do a Rebuild of your project (the menu option Build, Rebuild). After you do a Rebuild, the ajaxToolkit prefix will appear in Intellisense: Using the Balloon Popup Control Why a new Balloon Popup control? The Balloon Popup control is the second most requested new feature for the Ajax Control Toolkit according to CodePlex votes: The Balloon Popup displays a message in a balloon when you shift focus to a control, click a control, or hover over a control. You can use the Balloon Popup, for example, to display instructions for TextBoxes which appear in a form: Here’s the code used to create the Balloon Popup: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <asp:TextBox ID="txtFirstName" Runat="server" /> <asp:Panel ID="pnlFirstNameHelp" runat="server"> Please enter your first name </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender TargetControlID="txtFirstName" BalloonPopupControlID="pnlFirstNameHelp" BalloonSize="Small" UseShadow="true" runat="server" /> You also can use the Balloon Popup to explain hard to understand words in a text document: Here’s how you display the Balloon Popup when you hover over the link: The point of the conversation was <asp:HyperLink ID="lnkObfuscate" Text="obfuscated" CssClass="hardWord" runat="server" /> by his incessant coughing. <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <asp:Panel id="pnlObfuscate" Runat="server"> To bewilder or render something obscure </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender TargetControlID="lnkObfuscate" BalloonPopupControlID="pnlObfuscate" BalloonStyle="Cloud" UseShadow="true" DisplayOnMouseOver="true" Runat="server" />   There are four important properties which you need to know about when using the Balloon Popup control: BalloonSize – The three balloon sizes are Small, Medium, and Large. BalloonStyle -- The two built-in styles are Rectangle and Cloud. UseShadow – When true, a drop shadow appears behind the popup. Position – Can have the values Auto, BottomLeft, BottomRight, TopLeft, TopRight. When set to Auto, which is the default, the Balloon Popup will appear where it has the most screen real estate. The following screenshots illustrates how these settings affect the appearance of the Balloon Popup: Customizing the Balloon Popup You can customize the appearance of the Balloon Popup by creating your own Cascading Style Sheet and Sprite. The Ajax Control Toolkit sample site includes a sample of a custom Oval Balloon Popup style: This custom style was created by using a custom Cascading Style Sheet and image. You point the Balloon Popup at a custom Cascading Style Sheet and Cascading Style Sheet class by using the CustomCssUrl and CustomClassName properties like this: <asp:TextBox ID="txtCustom" autocomplete="off" runat="server" /> <br /> <asp:Panel ID="Panel3" runat="server"> This is a custom BalloonPopupExtender style created with a custom Cascading Style Sheet. </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender ID="bpe1" TargetControlID="txtCustom" BalloonPopupControlID="Panel3" BalloonStyle="Custom" CustomCssUrl="CustomStyle/BalloonPopupOvalStyle.css" CustomClassName="oval" UseShadow="true" runat="server" />   Learn More about the Balloon Popup To learn more about the Balloon Popup control, visit the sample page for the Balloon Popup at the Ajax Control Toolkit sample site: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/BalloonPopup/BalloonPopupExtender.aspx Improvements to the Tabs Control In this release, we introduced several important new features for the existing Tabs control. We also fixed all of the top-voted bugs for the Tabs control. On-Demand Loading of Tab Content Here is the scenario. Imagine that you are using the Tabs control in a Web Forms page. The Tabs control displays two tabs: Customers and Products. When you click the Customers tab then you want to see a list of customers and when you click on the Products tab then you want to see a list of products. In this scenario, you don’t want the list of customers and products to be retrieved from the database when the page is initially opened. The user might never click on the Products tab and all of the work to load the list of products from the database would be wasted. In this scenario, you want the content of a tab panel to be loaded on demand. The products should only be loaded from the database and rendered to the browser when you click the Products tab and not before. The Tabs control in the November 2011 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit includes a new property named OnDemand. When OnDemand is set to the value True, a tab panel won’t be loaded until you click its associated tab. Here is the code for the aspx page: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:TabContainer ID="tabs" OnDemand="false" runat="server"> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel HeaderText="Customers" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <h2>Customers</h2> <asp:GridView ID="grdCustomers" DataSourceID="srcCustomers" runat="server" /> <asp:SqlDataSource ID="srcCustomers" SelectCommand="SELECT * FROM Customers" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:StoreDB %>" runat="server" /> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel HeaderText="Products" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <h2>Products</h2> <asp:GridView ID="grdProducts" DataSourceID="srcProducts" runat="server" /> <asp:SqlDataSource ID="srcProducts" SelectCommand="SELECT * FROM Products" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:StoreDB %>" runat="server" /> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> </ajaxToolkit:TabContainer> Notice that the TabContainer includes an OnDemand=”True” property. The Tabs control contains two Tab Panels. The first tab panel uses a DataGrid and SqlDataSource to display a list of customers and the second tab panel uses a DataGrid and SqlDataSource to display a list of products. And here is the code-behind for the page: using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; namespace ACTSamples { public partial class TabsOnDemand : System.Web.UI.Page { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { srcProducts.Selecting += new SqlDataSourceSelectingEventHandler(srcProducts_Selecting); } void srcProducts_Selecting(object sender, SqlDataSourceSelectingEventArgs e) { Debugger.Break(); } } } The code-behind file includes an event handler for the Products SqlDataSource Selecting event. The handler breaks into the debugger by calling the Debugger.Break() method. That way, we can know when the Products SqlDataSource actually retrieves the list of products. When the OnDemand property has the value False then the Selecting event handler is called immediately when the page is first loaded. The contents of all of the tabs are loaded (and the contents of the unselected tabs are hidden) when the page is first loaded. When the OnDemand property has the value True then the Selecting event handler is not called when the page is first loaded. The event handler is not called until you click on the Products tab. If you never click on the Products tab then the list of products is never retrieved from the database. If you want even more control over when the contents of a tab panel gets loaded then you can use the TabPanel OnDemandMode property. This property accepts the following three values: None – Never load the contents of the tab panel again after the page is first loaded. Once – Wait until the tab is selected to load the contents of the tab panel Always – Load the contents of the tab panel each and every time you select the tab. There is a live demonstration of the OnDemandMode property here in the sample page for the Tabs control: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/Tabs/Tabs.aspx Displaying Vertical Tabs With the November 2011 Release, the Tabs control now supports vertical tabs. To create vertical tabs, just set the TabContainer UserVerticalStripPlacement property to the value True like this: <ajaxToolkit:TabContainer ID="tabs" OnDemand="false" UseVerticalStripPlacement="true" runat="server"> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel ID="TabPanel1" HeaderText="First Tab" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </p> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel ID="TabPanel2" HeaderText="Second Tab" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </p> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> </ajaxToolkit:TabContainer> In addition, you can use the TabStripPlacement property to control whether the tab strip appears at the left or right or top or bottom of the tab panels: Tab Keyboard Navigation Another highly requested feature for the Tabs control is support for keyboard navigation. The Tabs control now supports the arrow keys and the Home and End keys. In order for the arrow keys to work, you must first move focus to the tab control on the page by either clicking on a tab with your mouse or repeatedly hitting the Tab key. You can try out the new keyboard navigation support by trying any of the demos included in the Tabs sample page: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/Tabs/Tabs.aspx Summary I hope that you take advantage of the new Balloon Popup control and the new features which we introduced for the Tabs control. We added a lot of new features to the Tabs control in this release including support for on-demand tabs, support for vertical tabs, and support for tab keyboard navigation. I want to thank the developers on the Superexpert team for all of the hard work which they put into this release.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 04, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 04, 2010New ProjectsAcPrac: A educational program designed to run on Windows. It is fully customizable. It is developed in C# 2008.argo: Linguistic Tool Camelot: A simple utility for testing cross site data queries in SharePointdelta: Delta is a difference tool for large files. Delta will have several clients, including AJAX and Silverlight. You can view differences in a scroll...EF Dorsal: A dorsal spine for Entity Framework based project. This code generator provides a powerfull Business Layer with almost all high important best p...Excel formatting: Excel formatting projectEyes Recognition: eye recognitionGameOfLife: The Game of Life is a the best example of a cellular automaton. It's developed in C#, SilverLight.GKO Libraries: .NET tool libraries written in C# that we have used in our projectsHello Demo: A simple Hello World application, used to demonstrate access to CodePlex using Team Explorerjog.Portal: jogportal lays the foundation for an extensible portal solution leveraging the latest technology including linq and silver lightKM Brasil: k-meleon, km, gecko, brasil, browser, web, web browser, navegador, navegação, kmeleon, k meleonLost in Translation: Ever find yourself in a foreign country eager (or clueless) to what is written on a shop sign or restaurant menu? With your trusty phone, its came...Machine Learning for .NET: Machine Learning Library for .NET. Initial inclusions will be binary and multi-class classification as well as standard clustering algorithms.Maito: Iron Kingdoms Name GeneratorManPowerEngine: ManPowerEngine is a Silverlight 2D Game Engine. It has an game application framework and supports game object hierarchy management, 2D physics simu...Marvin's Arena: Marvin's Arena is a free and entertaining programming game. The game is designed to easily learn programming in any .NET compatible language. It is...MultiMediaPlayer: 整合我们的内容NCacheD - A Simple Distributed .NET Cache using the TPL and WCF: NCacheD is a simple distributed cache system written in .NET. NCacheD offers functionality similar to that of MemcacheD but scaled back. NCacheD ...NDAP: OPeNDAP is a client/server system for making local scientific data accessible to remote locations without regard to the local or remote storage for...Open Guide CMS: Open Guide makes your traveling through city more adventurous, mode educational and more funny. You can support us by lines of code, by interesti...Rollback - A social backup tool.: Rollback is a simple and intuitive social backup application. You can create multiple backup jobs with a few mouse clicks and even schedule it to ...sELedit: An editor for elements.data file of the popular MMORPG Perfect World.SharePoint Theme Applicator: SharePoint Theme Applicator will give SharePoint administrators the ability to apply a theme accross a whole web application (i.e. apply a theme to...sPATCH: ! sPATCH - Perfect World Client Autopatcher This beta patcher is an alternative to the default perfect world patcher. It offers easy client patc...Wiggle: A-life investigation. Let's make little squirmies!WPFSLBlendModeFx: A blend mode library for WPF & Silverlight.休息提醒: 程序员们，尤其是像我这样对程序痴狂的程序员们。一旦研究起自己感兴趣的程序时，觉得上厕所都是浪费时间。 这个程序是在设定的时间后锁定计算机或关闭显示器，从而从某种程度强迫程序员们去休息New ReleasesAMFParser: 1.1.0: Add handling of DSK object when using BlazeDS Add handling of string references Add handling of DateTime values Correct handling of Double values B...Camelot: Camelot 0.1 Alpha: Early release: 1) Query by content type, optionally list or base template 2) Query by list or base templateDictionary Translator for Umbraco: Dictionary Translator 1.1: This is a minor release that fixes a bug that Thomas Hohler found on the first day of release This package is to be used with the ASP.NET open sou...Dynamic Configuration: Sample Application Release 1: These binaries demonstrate the effect of using DynamicConfigurationManager. The source-code for these binaries is available in the 'Source Code' t...EF Dorsal: EFDorsal v0.3b: Second real version. This version add suport to types and entity sets in tree-view.Enterprise Library Extensions: Release 1.0: This is the initial release of the package. The release will contain one feature only, as being able to deploy the project itself it the milestone ...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.0.4 beta 2 Released: Hi, Today’s release contains fix for the following issues: * In WPF application chart was throwing exception as VisualStateGroup was not foun...GameOfLife: Game of life: First release of the game. PublishedGameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0 release 2.: Fixes crashing bugs from the first release. To use: 1. Install SQL Server Express 2005 http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/express-down....Marvin's Arena: Version 0.0.5.0: Code Editor (development of robots without Visual Studio - no debugging) * Rounds * 3D Battle Engine: Skybox * 3D Battle Engine: Robot...Morphfolia - ASP.NET CMS and Framework: Morphfolia v2.4.1.1: Morphfolia v2.4.1.1 - New Release Includes: Better support for browsers other than IE (Chrome, Firefox, Safari - all tested on Windows) Supports ...NCacheD - A Simple Distributed .NET Cache using the TPL and WCF: NCacheD Version 1: Getting Started To get up and running, open two instances of Visual Studio 2010. In one window open the NCacheD client solution and then open the ...Papercut: Papercut 2010-3-3: This release includes a few bug fixes and updates, several of which were contributed patches (thanks!). Feature: Added support for embedded images...PE-file Reader Writer API (PERWAPI): PERWAPI-1.1.4: Perwapi version 1.1.4 is the complete distribution package. It contains Binary files, pdb files and xml files for the PERWAPI and SymbolRW compone...Prolog.NET: Prolog.NET 1.0 Beta 1.2: Installer includes: primary Prolog.NET assembly Prolog.NET Workbench PrologTest console application all required dependencies Beta 1.2 in...Protoforma | Tactica Adversa: Skilful 0.2.4.320: BetaRoTwee: RoTwee 6.1.0.0: 16604 "Post playing tune feature" is added. Using this new feature, you can tweet tune playing in iTunes. 16625 Error processing for network error...sELedit: sELedit v1.0: -SharePoint 2007 Deployment Wizard: Support for SharePoint Server and Foundation 2010: This release encompasses the supported install paths for the default install of SPS 2010 (the 14 hive). All three versions are now supported (60 h...SharePoint Theme Applicator: SharePoint Theme Applicator: SharePoint Theme Applicator was built using C# and WPF, it includes the following features: Provides the total number of site collections in the g...Shinkansen: compress, crunch, combine, and cache JavaScript and CSS: Shinkansen 1.0.0.030310: Build 1.0.0.030310, binaries onlysPATCH: sPatcher v0.8: sPatch - Server Example *Contains a sample Patch that "downgrades" PWI 1.4.2 Client to an 1.3.6 ClientTFS Code Comment Checking Policy (CCCP): CCCP 3.0 for VSTS 2008 SP1: This release includes NRefactory 3.2.0.5571 and is built against VSTS 2008 SP1 (.NET 3.5 is required). New: horizontal scrollbar in listboxes for ...TortoiseHg: Beta for TortoiseHg 1.0 (0.9.31254): Please backup your user Mercurial.ini file and then uninstall any 0.9.X release before installing Use the x86 msi file for 32 bit platforms and th...TwitEclipseAPI: TwitEclipseAPI 0.9: 0.9 Release of TwitEclipseAPI Moved API calls to the api.Twitter.com URL. Moved API calls to the versioning API. Now uses the increased Rate Limit...TwitterVB - A .NET Twitter Library: TwitterVB-2.3: Patch 5151: Added BlockedUsers function to get a page other then the first Patch 5420: The ListMembers function will now return more then just th...休息提醒: 初始版本: 初始版本Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Microsoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETLiveUpload to FacebookMost Active ProjectsRawrBlogEngine.NETMapWindow GISpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesMDT Web FrontEndsvn2tfsDiffPlex - a .NET Diff GeneratorIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterFarseer Physics Engine

  Read the article

• Issuing Current Time Increments in StreamInsight (A Practical Example)

  The issuing of a Current Time Increment, Cti, in StreamInsight is very definitely one of the most important concepts to learn if you want your Streams to be responsive. A full discussion of how to issue Ctis is beyond the scope of this article but a very good explanation in addition to Books Online can be found in these three articles by a member of the StreamInsight team at Microsoft, Ciprian Gerea. Time in StreamInsight Series http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/23/time-in-streaminsight-i.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/30/time-in-streaminsight-ii.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/08/03/time-in-streaminsight-iii.aspx A lot of the problems I see with unresponsive or stuck streams on the MSDN Forums are to do with how Ctis are enqueued or in a lot of cases not enqueued. If you enqueue events and never enqueue a Cti then StreamInsight will be perfectly happy. You, on the other hand, will never see data on the output as you have not told StreamInsight to flush the stream. This article deals with a specific implementation problem I had recently whilst working on a StreamInsight project. I look at some possible options and discuss why they would not work before showing the way I solved the problem. The stream of data I was dealing with on this project was very bursty that is to say when events were flowing they came through very quickly and in large numbers (1000 events/sec), but when the stream calmed down it could be a few seconds between each event. When enqueuing events into the StreamInsight engne it is best practice to do so with a StartTime that is given to you by the system producing the event . StreamInsight processes events and it doesn't matter whether those events are being pushed into the engine by a source system or the events are being read from something like a flat file in a directory somewhere. You can apply the same logic and temporal algebra to both situations. Reading from a file is an excellent example of where the time of the event on the source itself is very important. We could be reading that file a long time after it was written. Being able to read the StartTime from the events allows us to define windows that will hold the correct sets of events. I was able to do this with my stream but this is where my problems started. Below is a very simple script to create a SQL Server table and populate it with sample data that will show exactly the problem I had. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[t] ( [c1] [int] PRIMARY KEY, [c2] [datetime] NULL ) INSERT t VALUES (1,'20100810'),(2,'20100810'),(3,'20100810') Column c2 defines the StartTime of the event on the source and as you can see the values in all 3 rows of data is the same. If we read Ciprian’s articles we know that we can define how Ctis get injected into the stream in 3 different places The Stream Definition The Input Factory The Input Adapter I personally have always been a fan of enqueing Ctis through the factory. Below is code typical of what I would use to do this On the class itself I do some inheriting public class SimpleInputFactory : ITypedInputAdapterFactory<SimpleInputConfig>, ITypedDeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<SimpleInputConfig> And then I implement the following function public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.FromTicks(-1)), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } The configInfo .CtiFrequency property is a value I pass through to define after how many events I want a Cti to be injected and this in turn will flush through the stream of data. I usually pass a value of 1 for this setting. The second parameter determines the CTI timestamp in terms of a delay relative to the events. -1 ticks in the past results in 1 tick in the future, i.e., ahead of the event. The problem with this method though is that if consecutive events have the same StartTime then only one of those events will be enqueued. In this example I use the following to define how I assign the StartTime of my events currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; If I go ahead and run my StreamInsight process with this configuration i can see on the output adapter that two events have been removed To see this in a little more depth I can use the StreamInsight Debugger and see what happens internally. What is happening here is that the first event arrives and a Cti is injected with a time of 1 tick after the StartTime of that event (Also the EndTime of the event). The second event arrives and it has a StartTime of before the Cti and even though we specified AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust on the factory we know that a point event can never be adjusted like this and the event is dropped. The same happens for the third event as well (The second and third events get trumped by the Cti). For a more detailed discussion of why this happens look here http://www.sqlis.com/sqlis/post/AdvanceTimePolicy-and-Point-Event-Streams-In-StreamInsight.aspx We end up with a single event being pushed into the output adapter and our result now makes sense. The next way I tried to solve this problem by changing the value of the second parameter to TimeSpan.Zero Here is how my factory code now looks public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.Zero), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } What I am doing here is declaring a policy that says inject a Cti together with every event and stamp it with a StartTime that is equal to the start time of the event itself (TimeSpan.Zero). This method has plus points as well as a downside. The upside is that no events will be lost by having the same StartTime as previous events. The Downside is that because the Cti is declared with the StartTime of the event itself then it does not actually flush that particular event because in the StreamInsight algebra, a Cti commits only those events that occurred strictly before them. To flush the events we need a Cti to be enqueued with a greater StartTime than the events themselves. Here is what happened when I ran this configuration As you can see all we got through was the Cti and none of the events. The debugger output shows the stamps on the Cti and the events themselves. Because the Cti issued has the same timestamp (StartTime) as the events then none of the events get flushed. I was nearly there but not quite. Because my stream was bursty it was possible that the next event would not come along for a few seconds and this was far too long for an event to be enqueued and not be flushed to the output adapter. I needed another solution. Two possible solutions crossed my mind although only one of them made sense when I explored it some more. Where multiple events have the same StartTime I could add 1 tick to the first event, two to the second, three to third etc thereby giving them unique StartTime values. Add a timer to manually inject Ctis The problem with the first implementation is that I would be giving the events a new StartTime. This would cause me the following problems If I want to define windows over the stream then some events may not be captured in the right windows and therefore any calculations on those windows I did would be wrong What would happen if we had 10,000 events with the same StartTime? I would enqueue them with StartTime + n ticks. Along comes a genuine event with a StartTime of the very first event + 1 tick. It is now too far in the past as far as my stream is concerned and it would be dropped. Not what I would want to do at all. I decided then to look at the Timer based solution I created a timer on my input adapter that elapsed every 200ms. private Timer tmr; public SimpleInputAdapter(SimpleInputConfig configInfo) { ctx = new SimpleTimeExtractDataContext(configInfo.ConnectionString); this.configInfo = configInfo; tmr = new Timer(200); tmr.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t_Elapsed); tmr.Enabled = true; } void t_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { ts = DateTime.Now - dtCtiIssued; if (ts.TotalMilliseconds >= 200 && TimerIssuedCti == false) { EnqueueCtiEvent(System.DateTime.Now.AddTicks(-100)); TimerIssuedCti = true; } }   In the t_Elapsed event handler I find out the difference in time between now and when the last event was processed (dtCtiIssued). I then check to see if that is greater than or equal to 200ms and if the last issuing of a Cti was done by the timer or by a genuine event (TimerIssuedCti). If I didn’t do this check then I would enqueue a Cti every time the timer elapsed which is not something I wanted. If the difference between the two times is greater than or equal to 500ms and the last event enqueued was by a real event then I issue a Cti through the timer to flush the event Queue, otherwise I do nothing. When I enqueue the Ctis into my stream in my ProduceEvents method I also set the values of dtCtiIssued and TimerIssuedCti   currEvent = CreateInsertEvent(); currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; TimerIssuedCti = false; dtCtiIssued = currEvent.StartTime; If I go ahead and run this configuration I see the following in my output. As we can see the first Cti gets enqueued as before but then another is enqueued by the timer and because this has a later timestamp it flushes the enqueued events through the engine. Conclusion Hopefully this has shown how the enqueuing of Ctis can have a dramatic effect on the responsiveness of your output in StreamInsight. Understanding the temporal nature of the product is for me one of the most important things you can learn. I have attached my solution for the demos. It is all in one project and testing each variation is a simple matter of commenting and un-commenting the parts in the code we have been dealing with here.

  Read the article

• Node.js Adventure - Node.js on Windows

  - by Shaun

  Two weeks ago I had had a talk with Wang Tao, a C# MVP in China who is currently running his startup company and product named worktile. He asked me to figure out a synchronization solution which helps his product in the future. And he preferred me implementing the service in Node.js, since his worktile is written in Node.js. Even though I have some experience in ASP.NET MVC, HTML, CSS and JavaScript, I don’t think I’m an expert of JavaScript. In fact I’m very new to it. So it scared me a bit when he asked me to use Node.js. But after about one week investigate I have to say Node.js is very easy to learn, use and deploy, even if you have very limited JavaScript skill. And I think I became love Node.js. Hence I decided to have a series named “Node.js Adventure”, where I will demonstrate my story of learning and using Node.js in Windows and Windows Azure. And this is the first one.   (Brief) Introduction of Node.js I don’t want to have a fully detailed introduction of Node.js. There are many resource on the internet we can find. But the best one is its homepage. Node.js was created by Ryan Dahl, sponsored by Joyent. It’s consist of about 80% C/C++ for core and 20% JavaScript for API. It utilizes CommonJS as the module system which we will explain later. The official definition of Node.js is Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices. First of all, Node.js utilizes JavaScript as its development language and runs on top of V8 engine, which is being used by Chrome. It brings JavaScript, a client-side language into the backend service world. So many people said, even though not that actually, “Node.js is a server side JavaScript”. Additionally, Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking IO model. This means in Node.js there’s no way to block currently working thread. Every operation in Node.js executed asynchronously. This is a huge benefit especially if our code needs IO operations such as reading disks, connect to database, consuming web service, etc.. Unlike IIS or Apache, Node.js doesn’t utilize the multi-thread model. In Node.js there’s only one working thread serves all users requests and resources response, as the ST star in the figure below. And there is a POSIX async threads pool in Node.js which contains many async threads (AT stars) for IO operations. When a user have an IO request, the ST serves it but it will not do the IO operation. Instead the ST will go to the POSIX async threads pool to pick up an AT, pass this operation to it, and then back to serve any other requests. The AT will actually do the IO operation asynchronously. Assuming before the AT complete the IO operation there is another user comes. The ST will serve this new user request, pick up another AT from the POSIX and then back. If the previous AT finished the IO operation it will take the result back and wait for the ST to serve. ST will take the response and return the AT to POSIX, and then response to the user. And if the second AT finished its job, the ST will response back to the second user in the same way. As you can see, in Node.js there’s only one thread serve clients’ requests and POSIX results. This thread looping between the users and POSIX and pass the data back and forth. The async jobs will be handled by POSIX. This is the event-driven non-blocking IO model. The performance of is model is much better than the multi-threaded blocking model. For example, Apache is built in multi-threaded blocking model while Nginx is in event-driven non-blocking mode. Below is the performance comparison between them. And below is the memory usage comparison between them. These charts are captured from the video NodeJS Basics: An Introductory Training, which presented at Cloud Foundry Developer Advocate.   Node.js on Windows To execute Node.js application on windows is very simple. First of you we need to download the latest Node.js platform from its website. After installed, it will register its folder into system path variant so that we can execute Node.js at anywhere. To confirm the Node.js installation, just open up a command windows and type “node”, then it will show the Node.js console. As you can see this is a JavaScript interactive console. We can type some simple JavaScript code and command here. To run a Node.js JavaScript application, just specify the source code file name as the argument of the “node” command. For example, let’s create a Node.js source code file named “helloworld.js”. Then copy a sample code from Node.js website. 1: var http = require("http"); 2:  3: http.createServer(function (req, res) { 4: res.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"}); 5: res.end("Hello World\n"); 6: }).listen(1337, "127.0.0.1"); 7:  8: console.log("Server running at http://127.0.0.1:1337/"); This code will create a web server, listening on 1337 port and return “Hello World” when any requests come. Run it in the command windows. Then open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:1337/. As you can see, when using Node.js we are not creating a web application. In fact we are likely creating a web server. We need to deal with request, response and the related headers, status code, etc.. And this is one of the benefit of using Node.js, lightweight and straightforward. But creating a website from scratch again and again is not acceptable. The good news is that, Node.js utilizes CommonJS as its module system, so that we can leverage some modules to simplify our job. And furthermore, there are about ten thousand of modules available n the internet, which covers almost all areas in server side application development.   NPM and Node.js Modules Node.js utilizes CommonJS as its module system. A module is a set of JavaScript files. In Node.js if we have an entry file named “index.js”, then all modules it needs will be located at the “node_modules” folder. And in the “index.js” we can import modules by specifying the module name. For example, in the code we’ve just created, we imported a module named “http”, which is a build-in module installed alone with Node.js. So that we can use the code in this “http” module. Besides the build-in modules there are many modules available at the NPM website. Thousands of developers are contributing and downloading modules at this website. Hence this is another benefit of using Node.js. There are many modules we can use, and the numbers of modules increased very fast, and also we can publish our modules to the community. When I wrote this post, there are totally 14,608 modules at NPN and about 10 thousand downloads per day. Install a module is very simple. Let’s back to our command windows and input the command “npm install express”. This command will install a module named “express”, which is a MVC framework on top of Node.js. And let’s create another JavaScript file named “helloweb.js” and copy the code below in it. I imported the “express” module. And then when the user browse the home page it will response a text. If the incoming URL matches “/Echo/:value” which the “value” is what the user specified, it will pass it back with the current date time in JSON format. And finally my website was listening at 12345 port. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var app = express(); 3:  4: app.get("/", function(req, res) { 5: res.send("Hello Node.js and Express."); 6: }); 7:  8: app.get("/Echo/:value", function(req, res) { 9: var value = req.params.value; 10: res.json({ 11: "Value" : value, 12: "Time" : new Date() 13: }); 14: }); 15:  16: console.log("Web application opened."); 17: app.listen(12345); For more information and API about the “express”, please have a look here. Start our application from the command window by command “node helloweb.js”, and then navigate to the home page we can see the response in the browser. And if we go to, for example http://localhost:12345/Echo/Hello Shaun, we can see the JSON result. The “express” module is very populate in NPM. It makes the job simple when we need to build a MVC website. There are many modules very useful in NPM. - underscore: A utility module covers many common functionalities such as for each, map, reduce, select, etc.. - request: A very simple HTT request client. - async: Library for coordinate async operations. - wind: Library which enable us to control flow with plain JavaScript for asynchronous programming (and more) without additional pre-compiling steps.   Node.js and IIS I demonstrated how to run the Node.js application from console. Since we are in Windows another common requirement would be, “can I host Node.js in IIS?” The answer is “Yes”. Tomasz Janczuk created a project IISNode at his GitHub space we can find here. And Scott Hanselman had published a blog post introduced about it.   Summary In this post I provided a very brief introduction of Node.js, includes it official definition, architecture and how it implement the event-driven non-blocking model. And then I described how to install and run a Node.js application on windows console. I also described the Node.js module system and NPM command. At the end I referred some links about IISNode, an IIS extension that allows Node.js application runs on IIS. Node.js became a very popular server side application platform especially in this year. By leveraging its non-blocking IO model and async feature it’s very useful for us to build a highly scalable, asynchronously service. I think Node.js will be used widely in the cloud application development in the near future.   In the next post I will explain how to use SQL Server from Node.js.   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.

  Read the article

• Ada and 'The Book'

  - by Phil Factor

  The long friendship between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace created one of the most exciting and mysterious of collaborations ever to have resulted in a technological breakthrough. The fireworks that created by the collision of two prodigious mathematical and creative talents resulted in an invention, the Analytical Engine, which went on to change society fundamentally. However, beyond that, we just don't know what the bulk of their collaborative work was about:;  it was done in strictest secrecy. Even the known outcome of their friendship, the first programmable computer, was shrouded in mystery. At the time, nobody, except close friends and family, had any idea of Ada Byron's contribution to the invention of the ‘Engine’, and how to program it. Her great insight was published in August 1843, under the initials AAL, standing for Ada Augusta Lovelace, her title then being the Countess of Lovelace. It was contained in a lengthy ‘note’ to her translation of a publication that remains the best description of Babbage's amazing Analytical Engine. The secret identity of the person behind those enigmatic initials was finally revealed by Prince de Polignac who, seventy years later, wrote to Ada's daughter to seek confirmation that her mother had, indeed, been the author of the brilliant sentences that described so accurately how Babbage's mechanical computer could be programmed with punch-cards. L.F. Menabrea's paper on the Analytical Engine first appeared in the 'Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve' in October 1842, and Ada translated it anonymously for Taylor's 'Scientific Memoirs'. Charles Babbage was surprised that she had not written an original paper as she already knew a surprising amount about the way the machine worked. He persuaded her to at least write some explanatory notes. These notes ended up extending to four times the length of the original article and represented the first published account of how a machine could be programmed to perform any calculation. Her example of programming the Bernoulli sequence would have worked on the Analytical engine had the device’s construction been completed, and gave Ada an unassailable claim to have invented the art of programming. What was the reason for Ada's secrecy? She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, who was probably the best known celebrity of the age, so she was already famous. She was a senior aristocrat, with titles, a fortune in money and vast estates in the Midlands. She had political influence, and was the cousin of Lord Melbourne, who was the Prime Minister at that time. She was friendly with the young Queen Victoria. Her mathematical activities were a pastime, and not one that would be considered by others to be in keeping with her roles and responsibilities. You wouldn't dare to dream up a fictional heroine like Ada. She was dazzlingly beautiful and talented. She could speak several languages fluently, and play some musical instruments with professional skill. Contemporary accounts refer to her being 'accomplished in science, art and literature'. On top of that, she was a brilliant mathematician, a talent inherited from her mother, Annabella Milbanke. In her mother's circle of literary and scientific friends was Charles Babbage, and Ada's friendship with him dates from her teenage zest for Mathematics. She was one of the first people he'd ever met who understood what he had attempted to achieve with the 'Difference Engine', and with whom he could converse as intellectual equals. He arranged for her to have an education from the most talented academics in the country. Ada melted the heart of the cantankerous genius to the point that he became a faithful and loyal father-figure to her. She was one of the very few who could grasp the principles of the later, and very different, ‘Analytical Engine’ which was designed from the start to tackle a variety of tasks. Sadly, Ada Byron's life ended less than a decade after completing the work that assured her long-term fame, in November 1852. She was dying of cancer, her gambling habits had caused her to run up huge debts, she'd had more than one affairs, and she was being blackmailed. Her brilliant but unempathic mother was nursing her in her final illness, destroying her personal letters and records, and repaying her debts. Her husband was distraught but helpless. Charles Babbage, however, maintained his steadfast paternalistic friendship to the end. She appointed her loyal friend to be her executor. For years, she and Babbage had been working together on a secret project, known only as 'The Book'. We have a clue to what it was in a letter written by her nine years earlier, on 11th August 1843. It was a joint project by herself and Lord Lovelace, her husband, and was intended to involve Babbage's 'undivided energies'. It involved 'consulting your Engine' (it required Babbage’s computer). The letter gives no hint about the project except for the high-minded nature of its purpose, and its highly mathematical nature.  From then on, the surviving correspondence between the two gives only veiled references to 'The Book'. There isn't much, since Babbage later destroyed any letters that could have damaged her reputation within the Establishment. 'I cannot spare the book today, which I am very sorry for. At the moment I want it for constant reference, but I think you can have it tomorrow' (Oct 1844)  And 'I will send you the book directly, and you can say, when you receive it, how long you will want to keep it'. (Nov 1844)  The two of them were obviously intent on the work: She writes, four years later, 'I have an engagement for Wednesday which will prevent me from attending to your wishes about the book' (Dec 1848). This was something that they both needed to work on, but could not do in parallel: 'I will send the book on Tuesday, and it can be left with you till Friday' (11 Feb 1849). After six years work, it had been so well-handled that it was beginning to fall apart: 'Don't forget the new cover you promised for the book. The poor book is very shabby and wants one' (20 Sept 1849). So what was going on? The word 'book' was not a code-word: it was a real book, probably a 'printer's blank', plain paper, but properly bound so printers and publishers could show off how the published work might look. The hints from the correspondence are of advanced mathematics. It is obvious that the book was travelling between them, back and forth, each one working on it for less than a week before passing it back. Ada and her husband were certainly involved in gambling large sums of money on the horses, and so most biographers have concluded that the three of them were trying to calculate the mathematical odds on the horses. This theory has three large problems. Firstly, Ada's original letter proposing the project refers to its high-minded nature. Babbage was temperamentally opposed to gambling and would scarcely have given so much time to the project, even though he was devoted to Ada. Secondly, Babbage would have very soon have realized the hopelessness of trying to beat the bookies. This sort of betting never attracts his type of intellectual background. The third problem is that any work on calculating the odds on horses would not need a well-thumbed book to pass back and forth between them; they would have not had to work in series. The original project was instigated by Ada, along with her husband, William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace. Charles Babbage was invited to join the project after the couple had come up with the idea. What could William have contributed? One might assume that William was a Bertie Wooster character, addicted only to the joys of the turf, but this was far from the truth. He was a scientist, a Cambridge graduate who was later elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. After Eton, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. On graduation, he entered the diplomatic service and acted as secretary under Lord Nugent, who was Lord Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. William was very friendly with Babbage too, able to discuss scientific matters on equal terms. He was a capable engineer who invented a process for bending large timbers by the application of steam heat. He delivered a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1849, and received praise from the great engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. As well as being Lord Lieutenant of the County of Surrey for most of Victoria's reign, he had time for a string of scientific and engineering achievements. Whatever the project was, it is unlikely that William was a junior partner. After Ada's death, the project disappeared. Then, two years later, Babbage, through one of his occasional outbursts of temper, demonstrated that he was able to decrypt one of the most powerful of secret codes, Vigenère's autokey cipher.  All contemporary diplomatic and military messages used a variant of this cipher. Babbage had made three important discoveries, namely, the mathematical law of this cipher, the principle of the key periodicity, and the technique of the symmetry of position. The technique is now known as the Kasiski examination, also called the Kasiski test, but Babbage got there first. At one time, he listed amongst his future projects, the writing of a book 'The Philosophy of Decyphering', but it never came to anything. This discovery was going to change the course of history, since it was used to decipher the Russians’ military dispatches in the Crimean war. Babbage himself played a role during the Crimean War as a cryptographical adviser to his friend, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the Admiralty. This is as much as we can be certain about in trying to make sense of the bulk of the time that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace worked together. Nine years of intensive work, involving the 'Engine' and a great deal of mathematics and research seems to have been lost: or has it? I've argued in the past http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/philfactor/archive/2008/06/13/59614.aspx that the cracking of the Vigenère autokey cipher, was a fundamental motive behind the British Government's support and funding of the 'Difference Engine'. The Duke of Wellington, whose understanding of the military significance of being able to read enemy dispatches, was the most steadfast advocate of the project. If the three friends were actually doing the work of cracking codes by mathematical techniques that used the techniques of key periodicity, and symmetry of position (the use of a book being passed quickly to and fro is very suggestive), intending to then use the 'Engine' to do the routine cracking of each dispatch, then this is a rather different story. The project was Ada and William's idea. (William had served in the diplomatic service and would be familiar with the use of codes). This makes Ada Lovelace the initiator of a project which, by giving both Britain, and probably the USA, a diplomatic and military advantage in the second part of the Nineteenth century, changed world history. Ada would never have wanted any credit for cracking the cipher, and developing the method that rendered all contemporary military and diplomatic ciphering techniques nugatory; quite the reverse. And it is clear from the gaps in the record of the letters between the collaborators that the evidence was destroyed, probably on her request by her irascible but intensely honorable executor, Charles Babbage. Charles Babbage toyed with the idea of going public, but the Crimean war put an end to that. The British Government had a valuable secret, and intended to keep it that way. Ada and Charles had quite often discussed possible moneymaking projects that would fund the development of the Analytic Engine, the first programmable computer, but their secret work was never in the running as a potential cash cow. I suspect that the British Government was, even then, working on the concealment of a discovery whose value to the nation depended on it remaining so. The success of code-breaking in the Crimean war, and the American Civil war, led to the British and Americans  subsequently giving much more weight and funding to the science of decryption. Paradoxically, this makes Ada's contribution even closer to the creation of Colossus, the first digital computer, at Bletchley Park, specifically to crack the Nazi’s secret codes.

  Read the article

• NINE Questions with Michelle Juett

  - by NINEQuestions

  Michelle Juett is one of the more interesting people I know, even though we’ve never met face to face. She’s part artist, part techie and all cool. We “met” via my good buddy George Clingerman and have plotting to take over the world, errr… I mean “collaborating” ever since. If you happen to live in the Seattle area, you can catch her and her work at Sakura Con on April 2-4, 2010 and various other gamer and art cons throughout the year. You can also find her on Twitter as @Shelldragon. Now that you know a little bit, I’ll let her tell you the rest of the story in these NINE Questions: 1. Where are you from? I was born in Clearwater, Florida. I like to tell people I'm from the Bermuda Triangle, it just makes explaining myself so much easier. My family moved to Washington when I was 5 and I've been in the Pacific Northwest ever since. We like to QQ about the rain but we really love the green trees and clean water. 2. What do you do? I fight evil by moonlight and win love by daylight.. or something like that.  I’ve been in quality assurance for games during the day since January 2008 and an artist for life. I currently work in QA for a really awesome game company in Bellevue.  At home, I work on personal digital art, making game assets as well as other random freelance projects as they pop up. 3. How did you get to where you are now? I'm still not where I want to be but I'm getting closer. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to work hard and never settle for the minimum required. I tend to overwork myself but I've never regretted it. You can want something really bad but if you aren't willing to work for it, then you can't expect it to just happen. I've always drawn and had an unhealthy love for video games that I was told I’d grow out of.  I knew I would not ‘grow out’ of games and that real adults make them and I could too. After I graduated, in searching for jobs, I discovered game testing. I figured this would be a good way to get my foot in the door and start networking. I’ve worked with consoles, websites and now, PC games.  I stuck with my journey, although it has been a rocky one, daylighting as a tester and moonlighting as an artist. I'm still on that journey but I wouldn't have it any other way. Test has given me a perspective that is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain any other way. It gives an unconditional respect for other hard working testers and an insight into creative problem solving. 4. So video game testing probably sounds WAY cooler than the reality. What's it like? What's a given day for you? Game testers don't get a lot of respect because of their stigmas and the fact most people don't actually know what we do.  People hear about the opening and closing disc trays all day. Many places do treat their testers like numbers. It all depends on where you work and how awesome your company is. I've had to deal with a lot of bad work situations to get to a really good one. QA exists to ensure the game is as flawless and enjoyable as it can be by the time it has to leave the nest and go out into the world. This includes everything obvious: “can I beat the level and save the princess?” to the more obscure: ‘What happens when I lose internet connection while trying to save right before falling into a pit to my death while holding the jump key then my cat pulls out my memory card and hides it in her litter box?” On the dev side, for developers, testers can be very scary people. Especially when the test team is not in house and you can’t see each other’s faces.  I've seen both sides. We don't mean to hurt your feelings. We really DO love you and want your game to be the best it can be! It can be some serious tough love. 5. You are also an accomplished artist. Got any major projects right now you'd like to talk about? LOL, I don't know if I’d say I'm an accomplished artist just yet. I’m still a long way from where I want to be. I figure that’s what makes you grow though: the desire to never stop improving. I like QA but I want to be a full time artist. I was lucky enough to register for a table at Sakura Con in the 11 second window that the tables sold out. As such, I’ll be selling my wares in the Artist Alley April 2-4th. Part of preparing for this is actually making the art to be sold there. Anime is a fun pass time but I don’t draw a whole lot of it so I’m making up for lost time. As I seem to enjoy burying myself in work, I’m an art lead for a secret project that’s so secret I might be killed tonight for even mentioning it. I also take on various freelance projects and do what I can to help out indie games. I discovered the XNA community a year and a half ago and developed a love for Indies when I was writing a weekly newsletter on XBLA news. I’m a little late to the party but I find myself in a unique position where I am an artist and also have technical skills in games. While not programmer myself, I have a lot of game sense and experience. I hope to make some awesome happen. Lastly, I have an ongoing web comic Shell’s Angels) that tends to get neglected when I get busy. I still love drawing comics and keep a little book with me to sketch down ideas as they pop into my head. I may pick it back up again as a larger project sometime in the future. 6. Can you talk about any of the other freelance projects you're doing or are you sworn to secrecy on those too? We wouldn't want a team of game developer ninjas to take you out or anything. All my projects are currently 2d. I have personal projects such as the ongoing comic as well as a graphic novel I've been picking at here and there. My main focus until April is Sakura Con, Sakura Con, Sakura Con.  I see it as a great way to get exposure and convention experience. I found out I love conventions a couple years ago and I want to get more involved in them. 7. As an artist, what is your weapon of choice? What do you use to get most of your stuff done? I am a Photoshop Hero and I have the hoodie to prove it. (http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pah090011.html) I've dabbled in other paint programs but I always gravitate back to Photoshop. She is my one true love. I'd like to learn programs like Flash or Anime Studio when I get a bit more time because of their animation abilities. I've worked on frame by frame animation forever but I would love to learn 2d rigging. Still, nothing can compare to a simple sketchpad and a pencil. I always have one on me in case I come across or think of something interesting and can't get to a computer. If the Courier ever comes to exist it will be an ideal weapon for me. 8. You did some videos too, depicting the art creation process. What was the motivation behind those? The creative process is just as important as the final product, if not more so.  I've always loved watching speed paint videos and wanted to try it out myself. Turns out it's a lot of work and time but it's definitely fun to go back and rewatch them. Art isn't always the end result and is more often the process itself. 9. Got any interesting tattoos? Designed any for yourself or other people? Not yet, but not for lack of desire. I've toiled over what and where for years. Last year, I finally decided the back of my shoulders would be the place. Like anything permanent, I want it to have meaning. I thought of somehow incorporating games but I couldn't find something I felt would stand the test of time even with all the classic sprite games. I'm very picky so we'll see if I can get something solid decided. Come see me at Sakura Con April 2 -4!!!

  Read the article

• Creating a Dynamic DataRow for easier DataRow Syntax

  - by Rick Strahl

  I've been thrown back into an older project that uses DataSets and DataRows as their entity storage model. I have several applications internally that I still maintain that run just fine (and I sometimes wonder if this wasn't easier than all this ORM crap we deal with with 'newer' improved technology today - but I disgress) but use this older code. For the most part DataSets/DataTables/DataRows are abstracted away in a pseudo entity model, but in some situations like queries DataTables and DataRows are still surfaced to the business layer. Here's an example. Here's a business object method that runs dynamic query and the code ends up looping over the result set using the ugly DataRow Array syntax:public int UpdateAllSafeTitles() { int result = this.Execute("select pk, title, safetitle from " + Tablename + " where EntryType=1", "TPks"); if (result < 0) return result; result = 0; foreach (DataRow row in this.DataSet.Tables["TPks"].Rows) { string title = row["title"] as string; string safeTitle = row["safeTitle"] as string; int pk = (int)row["pk"]; string newSafeTitle = this.GetSafeTitle(title); if (newSafeTitle != safeTitle) { this.ExecuteNonQuery("update " + this.Tablename + " set safeTitle=@safeTitle where pk=@pk", this.CreateParameter("@safeTitle",newSafeTitle), this.CreateParameter("@pk",pk) ); result++; } } return result; } The problem with looping over DataRow objecs is two fold: The array syntax is tedious to type and not real clear to look at, and explicit casting is required in order to do anything useful with the values. I've highlighted the place where this matters. Using the DynamicDataRow class I'll show in a minute this code can be changed to look like this:public int UpdateAllSafeTitles() { int result = this.Execute("select pk, title, safetitle from " + Tablename + " where EntryType=1", "TPks"); if (result < 0) return result; result = 0; foreach (DataRow row in this.DataSet.Tables["TPks"].Rows) { dynamic entry = new DynamicDataRow(row); string newSafeTitle = this.GetSafeTitle(entry.title); if (newSafeTitle != entry.safeTitle) { this.ExecuteNonQuery("update " + this.Tablename + " set safeTitle=@safeTitle where pk=@pk", this.CreateParameter("@safeTitle",newSafeTitle), this.CreateParameter("@pk",entry.pk) ); result++; } } return result; } The code looks much a bit more natural and describes what's happening a little nicer as well. Well, using the new dynamic features in .NET it's actually quite easy to implement the DynamicDataRow class. Creating your own custom Dynamic Objects .NET 4.0 introduced the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) and opened up a whole bunch of new capabilities for .NET applications. The dynamic type is an easy way to avoid Reflection and directly access members of 'dynamic' or 'late bound' objects at runtime. There's a lot of very subtle but extremely useful stuff that dynamic does (especially for COM Interop scenearios) but in its simplest form it often allows you to do away with manual Reflection at runtime. In addition you can create DynamicObject implementations that can perform  custom interception of member accesses and so allow you to provide more natural access to more complex or awkward data structures like the DataRow that I use as an example here. Bascially you can subclass DynamicObject and then implement a few methods (TryGetMember, TrySetMember, TryInvokeMember) to provide the ability to return dynamic results from just about any data structure using simple property/method access. In the code above, I created a custom DynamicDataRow class which inherits from DynamicObject and implements only TryGetMember and TrySetMember. Here's what simple class looks like:/// <summary> /// This class provides an easy way to turn a DataRow /// into a Dynamic object that supports direct property /// access to the DataRow fields. /// /// The class also automatically fixes up DbNull values /// (null into .NET and DbNUll to DataRow) /// </summary> public class DynamicDataRow : DynamicObject { /// <summary> /// Instance of object passed in /// </summary> DataRow DataRow; /// <summary> /// Pass in a DataRow to work off /// </summary> /// <param name="instance"></param> public DynamicDataRow(DataRow dataRow) { DataRow = dataRow; } /// <summary> /// Returns a value from a DataRow items array. /// If the field doesn't exist null is returned. /// DbNull values are turned into .NET nulls. /// /// </summary> /// <param name="binder"></param> /// <param name="result"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result) { result = null; try { result = DataRow[binder.Name]; if (result == DBNull.Value) result = null; return true; } catch { } result = null; return false; } /// <summary> /// Property setter implementation tries to retrieve value from instance /// first then into this object /// </summary> /// <param name="binder"></param> /// <param name="value"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value) { try { if (value == null) value = DBNull.Value; DataRow[binder.Name] = value; return true; } catch {} return false; } } To demonstrate the basic features here's a short test: [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(RuntimeBinderException))] public void BasicDataRowTests() { DataTable table = new DataTable("table"); table.Columns.Add( new DataColumn() { ColumnName = "Name", DataType=typeof(string) }); table.Columns.Add( new DataColumn() { ColumnName = "Entered", DataType=typeof(DateTime) }); table.Columns.Add(new DataColumn() { ColumnName = "NullValue", DataType = typeof(string) }); DataRow row = table.NewRow(); DateTime now = DateTime.Now; row["Name"] = "Rick"; row["Entered"] = now; row["NullValue"] = null; // converted in DbNull dynamic drow = new DynamicDataRow(row); string name = drow.Name; DateTime entered = drow.Entered; string nulled = drow.NullValue; Assert.AreEqual(name, "Rick"); Assert.AreEqual(entered,now); Assert.IsNull(nulled); // this should throw a RuntimeBinderException Assert.AreEqual(entered,drow.enteredd); } The DynamicDataRow requires a custom constructor that accepts a single parameter that sets the DataRow. Once that's done you can access property values that match the field names. Note that types are automatically converted - no type casting is needed in the code you write. The class also automatically converts DbNulls to regular nulls and vice versa which is something that makes it much easier to deal with data returned from a database. What's cool here isn't so much the functionality - even if I'd prefer to leave DataRow behind ASAP -  but the fact that we can create a dynamic type that uses a DataRow as it's 'DataSource' to serve member values. It's pretty useful feature if you think about it, especially given how little code it takes to implement. By implementing these two simple methods we get to provide two features I was complaining about at the beginning that are missing from the DataRow: Direct Property Syntax Automatic Type Casting so no explicit casts are required Caveats As cool and easy as this functionality is, it's important to understand that it doesn't come for free. The dynamic features in .NET are - well - dynamic. Which means they are essentially evaluated at runtime (late bound). Rather than static typing where everything is compiled and linked by the compiler/linker, member invokations are looked up at runtime and essentially call into your custom code. There's some overhead in this. Direct invocations - the original code I showed - is going to be faster than the equivalent dynamic code. However, in the above code the difference of running the dynamic code and the original data access code was very minor. The loop running over 1500 result records took on average 13ms with the original code and 14ms with the dynamic code. Not exactly a serious performance bottleneck. One thing to remember is that Microsoft optimized the DLR code significantly so that repeated calls to the same operations are routed very efficiently which actually makes for very fast evaluation. The bottom line for performance with dynamic code is: Make sure you test and profile your code if you think that there might be a performance issue. However, in my experience with dynamic types so far performance is pretty good for repeated operations (ie. in loops). While usually a little slower the perf hit is a lot less typically than equivalent Reflection work. Although the code in the second example looks like standard object syntax, dynamic is not static code. It's evaluated at runtime and so there's no type recognition until runtime. This means no Intellisense at development time, and any invalid references that call into 'properties' (ie. fields in the DataRow) that don't exist still cause runtime errors. So in the case of the data row you still get a runtime error if you mistype a column name:// this should throw a RuntimeBinderException Assert.AreEqual(entered,drow.enteredd); Dynamic - Lots of uses The arrival of Dynamic types in .NET has been met with mixed emotions. Die hard .NET developers decry dynamic types as an abomination to the language. After all what dynamic accomplishes goes against all that a static language is supposed to provide. On the other hand there are clearly scenarios when dynamic can make life much easier (COM Interop being one place). Think of the possibilities. What other data structures would you like to expose to a simple property interface rather than some sort of collection or dictionary? And beyond what I showed here you can also implement 'Method missing' behavior on objects with InvokeMember which essentially allows you to create dynamic methods. It's all very flexible and maybe just as important: It's easy to do. There's a lot of power hidden in this seemingly simple interface. Your move…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in CSharp  .NET   Tweet (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); })();

  Read the article

• Windows Azure AppFabric: ServiceBus Queue WPF Sample

  - by xamlnotes

  The latest version of the AppFabric ServiceBus now has support for queues and topics. Today I will show you a bit about using queues and also talk about some of the best practices in using them. If you are just getting started, you can check out this site for more info on Windows Azure. One of the 1st things I thought if when Azure was announced back when was how we handle fault tolerance. Web sites hosted in Azure are no much of an issue unless they are using SQL Azure and then you must account for potential fault or latency issues. Today I want to talk a bit about ServiceBus and how to handle fault tolerance.  And theres stuff like connecting to the servicebus and so on you have to take care of. To demonstrate some of the things you can do, let me walk through this sample WPF app that I am posting for you to download. To start off, the application is going to need things like the servicenamespace, issuer details and so forth to make everything work.  To facilitate this I created settings in the wpf app for all of these items. Then I mapped a static class to them and set the values when the program loads like so: StaticElements.ServiceNamespace = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["ServiceNamespace"]); StaticElements.IssuerName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerName"]); StaticElements.IssuerKey = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerKey"]); StaticElements.QueueName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["QueueName"]);   Now I can get to each of these elements plus some other common values or instances directly from the StaticElements class. Now, lets look at the application.  The application looks like this when it starts:   The blue graphic represents the queue we are going to use.  The next figure shows the form after items were added and the queue stats were updated . You can see how the queue has grown: To add an item to the queue, click the Add Order button which displays the following dialog: After you fill in the form and press OK, the order is published to the ServiceBus queue and the form closes. The application also allows you to read the queued items by clicking the Process Orders button. As you can see below, the form shows the queued items in a list and the  queue has disappeared as its now empty. In real practice we normally would use a Windows Service or some other automated process to subscribe to the queue and pull items from it. I created a class named ServiceBusQueueHelper that has the core queue features we need. There are three public methods: * GetOrCreateQueue – Gets an instance of the queue description if the queue exists. if not, it creates the queue and returns a description instance. * SendMessageToQueue = This method takes an order instance and sends it to the queue. The call to the queue is wrapped in the ExecuteAction method from the Transient Fault Tolerance Framework and handles all the retry logic for the queue send process. * GetOrderFromQueue – Grabs an order from the queue and returns a typed order from the queue. It also marks the message complete so the queue can remove it.   Now lets turn to the WPF window code (MainWindow.xaml.cs). The constructor contains the 4 lines shown about to setup the static variables and to perform other initialization tasks. The next few lines setup certain features we need for the ServiceBus: TokenProvider credentials = TokenProvider.CreateSharedSecretTokenProvider(StaticElements.IssuerName, StaticElements.IssuerKey); Uri serviceUri = ServiceBusEnvironment.CreateServiceUri("sb", StaticElements.ServiceNamespace, string.Empty); StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager = new NamespaceManager(serviceUri, credentials); StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory = MessagingFactory.Create(serviceUri, credentials); The next two lines update the queue name label and also set the timer to 20 seconds.             QueueNameLabel.Content = StaticElements.QueueName;             _timer.Interval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20);             Next I call the UpdateQueueStats to initialize the UI for the queue:             UpdateQueueStats();             _timer.Tick += new EventHandler(delegate(object s, EventArgs a)                         {                      UpdateQueueStats();                  });             _timer.Start();         } The UpdateQueueStats method shown below. You can see that it uses the GetOrCreateQueue method mentioned earlier to grab the queue description, then it can get the MessageCount property.         private void UpdateQueueStats()         {             _queueDescription = _serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             QueueCountLabel.Content = "(" + _queueDescription.MessageCount + ")";             long count = _queueDescription.MessageCount;             long queueWidth = count * 20;             QueueRectangle.Width = queueWidth;             QueueTickCount += 1;             TickCountlabel.Content = QueueTickCount.ToString();         }   The ReadQueueItemsButton_Click event handler calls the GetOrderFromQueue method and adds the order to the listbox. If you look at the SendQueueMessageController, you can see the SendMessage method that sends an order to the queue. Its pretty simple as it just creates a new CustomerOrderEntity instance,fills it and then passes it to the SendMessageToQueue. As you can see, all of our interaction with the queue is done through the helper class (ServiceBusQueueHelper). Now lets dig into the helper class. First, before you create anything like this, download the Transient Fault Handling Framework. Microsoft provides this free and they also provide the C# source. Theres a great article that shows how to use this framework with ServiceBus. I included the entire ServiceBusQueueHelper class in List 1. Notice the using statements for TransientFaultHandling: using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; The SendMessageToQueue in Listing 1 shows how to use the async send features of ServiceBus with them wrapped in the Transient Fault Handling Framework.  It is not much different than plain old ServiceBus calls but it sure makes it easy to have the fault tolerance added almost for free. The GetOrderFromQueue uses the standard synchronous methods to access the queue. The best practices article walks through using the async approach for a receive operation also.  Notice that this method makes a call to Receive to get the message then makes a call to GetBody to get a new strongly typed instance of CustomerOrderEntity to return. Listing 1 using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging; using System.Xml.Serialization; using System.Diagnostics; namespace WPFServicebusPublishSubscribeSample {     class ServiceBusQueueHelper     {         RetryPolicy currentPolicy = new RetryPolicy<ServiceBusTransientErrorDetectionStrategy>(RetryPolicy.DefaultClientRetryCount);         QueueClient currentQueueClient;         public QueueDescription GetOrCreateQueue()         {                        QueueDescription queue = null;             bool createNew = false;             try             {                 // First, let's see if a queue with the specified name already exists.                 queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 createNew = (queue == null);             }             catch (MessagingEntityNotFoundException)             {                 // Looks like the queue does not exist. We should create a new one.                 createNew = true;             }             // If a queue with the specified name doesn't exist, it will be auto-created.             if (createNew)             {                 try                 {                     var newqueue = new QueueDescription(StaticElements.QueueName);                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.CreateQueue(newqueue); });                 }                 catch (MessagingEntityAlreadyExistsException)                 {                     // A queue under the same name was already created by someone else,                     // perhaps by another instance. Let's just use it.                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 }             }             currentQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName);             return queue;         }         public void SendMessageToQueue(CustomerOrderEntity Order)         {             BrokeredMessage msg = null;             GetOrCreateQueue();             // Use a retry policy to execute the Send action in an asynchronous and reliable fashion.             currentPolicy.ExecuteAction             (                 (cb) =>                 {                     // A new BrokeredMessage instance must be created each time we send it. Reusing the original BrokeredMessage instance may not                     // work as the state of its BodyStream cannot be guaranteed to be readable from the beginning.                     msg = new BrokeredMessage(Order);                     // Send the event asynchronously.                     currentQueueClient.BeginSend(msg, cb, null);                 },                 (ar) =>                 {                     try                     {                         // Complete the asynchronous operation.                         // This may throw an exception that will be handled internally by the retry policy.                         currentQueueClient.EndSend(ar);                     }                     finally                     {                         // Ensure that any resources allocated by a BrokeredMessage instance are released.                         if (msg != null)                         {                             msg.Dispose();                             msg = null;                         }                     }                 },                 (ex) =>                 {                     // Always dispose the BrokeredMessage instance even if the send                     // operation has completed unsuccessfully.                     if (msg != null)                     {                         msg.Dispose();                         msg = null;                     }                     // Always log exceptions.                     Trace.TraceError(ex.Message);                 }             );         }                 public CustomerOrderEntity GetOrderFromQueue()         {             CustomerOrderEntity Order = new CustomerOrderEntity();             QueueClient myQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName, ReceiveMode.PeekLock);             BrokeredMessage message;             ServiceBusQueueHelper serviceBusQueueHelper = new ServiceBusQueueHelper();             QueueDescription queueDescription;             queueDescription = serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             if (queueDescription.MessageCount > 0)             {                 message = myQueueClient.Receive(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(90));                 if (message != null)                 {                     try                     {                         Order = message.GetBody<CustomerOrderEntity>();                         message.Complete();                     }                     catch (Exception ex)                     {                         throw ex;                     }                 }                 else                 {                     throw new Exception("Did not receive the messages");                 }             }             return Order;         }     } } I will post a link to the download demo in a separate post soon.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Concurrency Basics – Guest Post by Vinod Kumar

  - by pinaldave

  This guest post is by Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Working on various versions from SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 7.3 and other database technologies – he now works with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a Technology Architect. Let us read the blog post in Vinod’s own voice. Learning is always fun when it comes to SQL Server and learning the basics again can be more fun. I did write about Transaction Logs and recovery over my blogs and the concept of simplifying the basics is a challenge. In the real world we always see checks and queues for a process – say railway reservation, banks, customer supports etc there is a process of line and queue to facilitate everyone. Shorter the queue higher is the efficiency of system (a.k.a higher is the concurrency). Every database does implement this using checks like locking, blocking mechanisms and they implement the standards in a way to facilitate higher concurrency. In this post, let us talk about the topic of Concurrency and what are the various aspects that one needs to know about concurrency inside SQL Server. Let us learn the concepts as one-liners: Concurrency can be defined as the ability of multiple processes to access or change shared data at the same time. The greater the number of concurrent user processes that can be active without interfering with each other, the greater the concurrency of the database system. Concurrency is reduced when a process that is changing data prevents other processes from reading that data or when a process that is reading data prevents other processes from changing that data. Concurrency is also affected when multiple processes are attempting to change the same data simultaneously. Two approaches to managing concurrent data access: Optimistic Concurrency Model Pessimistic Concurrency Model Concurrency Models Pessimistic Concurrency Default behavior: acquire locks to block access to data that another process is using. Assumes that enough data modification operations are in the system that any given read operation is likely affected by a data modification made by another user (assumes conflicts will occur). Avoids conflicts by acquiring a lock on data being read so no other processes can modify that data. Also acquires locks on data being modified so no other processes can access the data for either reading or modifying. Readers block writer, writers block readers and writers. Optimistic Concurrency Assumes that there are sufficiently few conflicting data modification operations in the system that any single transaction is unlikely to modify data that another transaction is modifying. Default behavior of optimistic concurrency is to use row versioning to allow data readers to see the state of the data before the modification occurs. Older versions of the data are saved so a process reading data can see the data as it was when the process started reading and not affected by any changes being made to that data. Processes modifying the data is unaffected by processes reading the data because the reader is accessing a saved version of the data rows. Readers do not block writers and writers do not block readers, but, writers can and will block writers. Transaction Processing A transaction is the basic unit of work in SQL Server. Transaction consists of SQL commands that read and update the database but the update is not considered final until a COMMIT command is issued (at least for an explicit transaction: marked with a BEGIN TRAN and the end is marked by a COMMIT TRAN or ROLLBACK TRAN). Transactions must exhibit all the ACID properties of a transaction. ACID Properties Transaction processing must guarantee the consistency and recoverability of SQL Server databases. Ensures all transactions are performed as a single unit of work regardless of hardware or system failure. A – Atomicity C – Consistency I – Isolation D- Durability Atomicity: Each transaction is treated as all or nothing – it either commits or aborts. Consistency: ensures that a transaction won’t allow the system to arrive at an incorrect logical state – the data must always be logically correct.  Consistency is honored even in the event of a system failure. Isolation: separates concurrent transactions from the updates of other incomplete transactions. SQL Server accomplishes isolation among transactions by locking data or creating row versions. Durability: After a transaction commits, the durability property ensures that the effects of the transaction persist even if a system failure occurs. If a system failure occurs while a transaction is in progress, the transaction is completely undone, leaving no partial effects on data. Transaction Dependencies In addition to supporting all four ACID properties, a transaction might exhibit few other behaviors (known as dependency problems or consistency problems). Lost Updates: Occur when two processes read the same data and both manipulate the data, changing its value and then both try to update the original data to the new value. The second process might overwrite the first update completely. Dirty Reads: Occurs when a process reads uncommitted data. If one process has changed data but not yet committed the change, another process reading the data will read it in an inconsistent state. Non-repeatable Reads: A read is non-repeatable if a process might get different values when reading the same data in two reads within the same transaction. This can happen when another process changes the data in between the reads that the first process is doing. Phantoms: Occurs when membership in a set changes. It occurs if two SELECT operations using the same predicate in the same transaction return a different number of rows. Isolation Levels SQL Server supports 5 isolation levels that control the behavior of read operations. Read Uncommitted All behaviors except for lost updates are possible. Implemented by allowing the read operations to not take any locks, and because of this, it won’t be blocked by conflicting locks acquired by other processes. The process can read data that another process has modified but not yet committed. When using the read uncommitted isolation level and scanning an entire table, SQL Server can decide to do an allocation order scan (in page-number order) instead of a logical order scan (following page pointers). If another process doing concurrent operations changes data and move rows to a new location in the table, the allocation order scan can end up reading the same row twice. Also can happen if you have read a row before it is updated and then an update moves the row to a higher page number than your scan encounters later. Performing an allocation order scan under Read Uncommitted can cause you to miss a row completely – can happen when a row on a high page number that hasn’t been read yet is updated and moved to a lower page number that has already been read. Read Committed Two varieties of read committed isolation: optimistic and pessimistic (default). Ensures that a read never reads data that another application hasn’t committed. If another transaction is updating data and has exclusive locks on data, your transaction will have to wait for the locks to be released. Your transaction must put share locks on data that are visited, which means that data might be unavailable for others to use. A share lock doesn’t prevent others from reading but prevents them from updating. Read committed (snapshot) ensures that an operation never reads uncommitted data, but not by forcing other processes to wait. SQL Server generates a version of the changed row with its previous committed values. Data being changed is still locked but other processes can see the previous versions of the data as it was before the update operation began. Repeatable Read This is a Pessimistic isolation level. Ensures that if a transaction revisits data or a query is reissued the data doesn’t change. That is, issuing the same query twice within a transaction cannot pickup any changes to data values made by another user’s transaction because no changes can be made by other transactions. However, this does allow phantom rows to appear. Preventing non-repeatable read is a desirable safeguard but cost is that all shared locks in a transaction must be held until the completion of the transaction. Snapshot Snapshot Isolation (SI) is an optimistic isolation level. Allows for processes to read older versions of committed data if the current version is locked. Difference between snapshot and read committed has to do with how old the older versions have to be. It’s possible to have two transactions executing simultaneously that give us a result that is not possible in any serial execution. Serializable This is the strongest of the pessimistic isolation level. Adds to repeatable read isolation level by ensuring that if a query is reissued rows were not added in the interim, i.e, phantoms do not appear. Preventing phantoms is another desirable safeguard, but cost of this extra safeguard is similar to that of repeatable read – all shared locks in a transaction must be held until the transaction completes. In addition serializable isolation level requires that you lock data that has been read but also data that doesn’t exist. Ex: if a SELECT returned no rows, you want it to return no. rows when the query is reissued. This is implemented in SQL Server by a special kind of lock called the key-range lock. Key-range locks require that there be an index on the column that defines the range of values. If there is no index on the column, serializable isolation requires a table lock. Gets its name from the fact that running multiple serializable transactions at the same time is equivalent of running them one at a time. Now that we understand the basics of what concurrency is, the subsequent blog posts will try to bring out the basics around locking, blocking, deadlocks because they are the fundamental blocks that make concurrency possible. Now if you are with me – let us continue learning for SQL Server Locking Basics. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Concurrency

  Read the article

• Anunciando: Grandes Melhorias para Web Sites da Windows Azure

  - by Leniel Macaferi

  Estou animado para anunciar algumas grandes melhorias para os Web Sites da Windows Azure que introduzimos no início deste verão.  As melhorias de hoje incluem: uma nova opção de hospedagem adaptável compartilhada de baixo custo, suporte a domínios personalizados para websites hospedados em modo compartilhado ou em modo reservado usando registros CNAME e A-Records (o último permitindo naked domains), suporte para deployment contínuo usando tanto CodePlex e GitHub, e a extensibilidade FastCGI. Todas essas melhorias estão agora online em produção e disponíveis para serem usadas imediatamente. Nova Camada Escalonável "Compartilhada" A Windows Azure permite que você implante e hospede até 10 websites em um ambiente gratuito e compartilhado com múltiplas aplicações. Você pode começar a desenvolver e testar websites sem nenhum custo usando este modo compartilhado (gratuito). O modo compartilhado suporta a capacidade de executar sites que servem até 165MB/dia de conteúdo (5GB/mês). Todas as capacidades que introduzimos em Junho com esta camada gratuita permanecem inalteradas com a atualização de hoje. Começando com o lançamento de hoje, você pode agora aumentar elasticamente seu website para além desta capacidade usando uma nova opção "shared" (compartilhada) de baixo custo (a qual estamos apresentando hoje), bem como pode usar a opção "reserved instance" (instância reservada) - a qual suportamos desde Junho. Aumentar a capacidade de qualquer um desses modos é fácil. Basta clicar na aba "scale" (aumentar a capacidade) do seu website dentro do Portal da Windows Azure, escolher a opção de modo de hospedagem que você deseja usar com ele, e clicar no botão "Salvar". Mudanças levam apenas alguns segundos para serem aplicadas e não requerem nenhum código para serem alteradas e também não requerem que a aplicação seja reimplantada/reinstalada: A seguir estão mais alguns detalhes sobre a nova opção "shared" (compartilhada), bem como a opção existente "reserved" (reservada): Modo Compartilhado Com o lançamento de hoje, estamos introduzindo um novo modo de hospedagem de baixo custo "compartilhado" para Web Sites da Windows Azure. Um website em execução no modo compartilhado é implantado/instalado em um ambiente de hospedagem compartilhado com várias outras aplicações. Ao contrário da opção de modo free (gratuito), um web-site no modo compartilhado não tem quotas/limite máximo para a quantidade de largura de banda que o mesmo pode servir. Os primeiros 5 GB/mês de banda que você servir com uma website compartilhado é grátis, e então você passará a pagar a taxa padrão "pay as you go" (pague pelo que utilizar) da largura de banda de saída da Windows Azure quando a banda de saída ultrapassar os 5 GB. Um website em execução no modo compartilhado agora também suporta a capacidade de mapear múltiplos nomes de domínio DNS personalizados, usando ambos CNAMEs e A-records para tanto. O novo suporte A-record que estamos introduzindo com o lançamento de hoje oferece a possibilidade para você suportar "naked domains" (domínios nús - sem o www) com seus web-sites (por exemplo, http://microsoft.com além de http://www.microsoft.com). Nós também, no futuro, permitiremos SSL baseada em SNI como um recurso nativo nos websites que rodam em modo compartilhado (esta funcionalidade não é suportada com o lançamento de hoje - mas chagará mais tarde ainda este ano, para ambos as opções de hospedagem - compartilhada e reservada). Você paga por um website no modo compartilhado utilizando o modelo padrão "pay as you go" que suportamos com outros recursos da Windows Azure (ou seja, sem custos iniciais, e você só paga pelas horas nas quais o recurso estiver ativo). Um web-site em execução no modo compartilhado custa apenas 1,3 centavos/hora durante este período de preview (isso dá uma média de $ 9.36/mês ou R$ 19,00/mês - dólar a R$ 2,03 em 17-Setembro-2012) Modo Reservado Além de executar sites em modo compartilhado, também suportamos a execução dos mesmos dentro de uma instância reservada. Quando rodando em modo de instância reservada, seus sites terão a garantia de serem executados de maneira isolada dentro de sua própria VM (virtual machine - máquina virtual) Pequena, Média ou Grande (o que significa que, nenhum outro cliente da Windows azure terá suas aplicações sendo executadas dentro de sua VM. Somente as suas aplicações). Você pode executar qualquer número de websites dentro de uma máquina virtual, e não existem quotas para limites de CPU ou memória. Você pode executar seus sites usando uma única VM de instância reservada, ou pode aumentar a capacidade tendo várias instâncias (por exemplo, 2 VMs de médio porte, etc.). Dimensionar para cima ou para baixo é fácil - basta selecionar a VM da instância "reservada" dentro da aba "scale" no Portal da Windows Azure, escolher o tamanho da VM que você quer, o número de instâncias que você deseja executar e clicar em salvar. As alterações têm efeito em segundos: Ao contrário do modo compartilhado, não há custo por site quando se roda no modo reservado. Em vez disso, você só paga pelas instâncias de VMs reservadas que você usar - e você pode executar qualquer número de websites que você quiser dentro delas, sem custo adicional (por exemplo, você pode executar um único site dentro de uma instância de VM reservada ou 100 websites dentro dela com o mesmo custo). VMs de instâncias reservadas têm um custo inicial de $ 8 cents/hora ou R$ 16 centavos/hora para uma pequena VM reservada. Dimensionamento Elástico para Cima/para Baixo Os Web Sites da Windows Azure permitem que você dimensione para cima ou para baixo a sua capacidade dentro de segundos. Isso permite que você implante um site usando a opção de modo compartilhado, para começar, e em seguida, dinamicamente aumente a capacidade usando a opção de modo reservado somente quando você precisar - sem que você tenha que alterar qualquer código ou reimplantar sua aplicação. Se o tráfego do seu site diminuir, você pode diminuir o número de instâncias reservadas que você estiver usando, ou voltar para a camada de modo compartilhado - tudo em segundos e sem ter que mudar o código, reimplantar a aplicação ou ajustar os mapeamentos de DNS. Você também pode usar o "Dashboard" (Painel de Controle) dentro do Portal da Windows Azure para facilmente monitorar a carga do seu site em tempo real (ele mostra não apenas as solicitações/segundo e a largura de banda consumida, mas também estatísticas como a utilização de CPU e memória). Devido ao modelo de preços "pay as you go" da Windows Azure, você só paga a capacidade de computação que você usar em uma determinada hora. Assim, se o seu site está funcionando a maior parte do mês em modo compartilhado (a $ 1.3 cents/hora ou R$ 2,64 centavos/hora), mas há um final de semana em que ele fica muito popular e você decide aumentar sua capacidade colocando-o em modo reservado para que seja executado em sua própria VM dedicada (a $ 8 cents/hora ou R$ 16 centavos/hora), você só terá que pagar os centavos/hora adicionais para as horas em que o site estiver sendo executado no modo reservado. Você não precisa pagar nenhum custo inicial para habilitar isso, e uma vez que você retornar seu site para o modo compartilhado, você voltará a pagar $ 1.3 cents/hora ou R$ 2,64 centavos/hora). Isto faz com que essa opção seja super flexível e de baixo custo. Suporte Melhorado para Domínio Personalizado Web sites em execução no modo "compartilhado" ou no modo "reservado" suportam a habilidade de terem nomes personalizados (host names) associados a eles (por exemplo www.mysitename.com). Você pode associar múltiplos domínios personalizados para cada Web Site da Windows Azure. Com o lançamento de hoje estamos introduzindo suporte para registros A-Records (um recurso muito pedido pelos usuários). Com o suporte a A-Record, agora você pode associar domínios 'naked' ao seu Web Site da Windows Azure - ou seja, em vez de ter que usar www.mysitename.com você pode simplesmente usar mysitename.com (sem o prefixo www). Tendo em vista que você pode mapear vários domínios para um único site, você pode, opcionalmente, permitir ambos domínios (com www e a versão 'naked') para um site (e então usar uma regra de reescrita de URL/redirecionamento (em Inglês) para evitar problemas de SEO). Nós também melhoramos a interface do usuário para o gerenciamento de domínios personalizados dentro do Portal da Windows Azure como parte do lançamento de hoje. Clicando no botão "Manage Domains" (Gerenciar Domínios) na bandeja na parte inferior do portal agora traz uma interface de usuário personalizada que torna fácil gerenciar/configurar os domínios: Como parte dessa atualização nós também tornamos significativamente mais suave/mais fácil validar a posse de domínios personalizados, e também tornamos mais fácil alternar entre sites/domínios existentes para Web Sites da Windows Azure, sem que o website fique fora do ar. Suporte a Deployment (Implantação) contínua com Git e CodePlex ou GitHub Um dos recursos mais populares que lançamos no início deste verão foi o suporte para a publicação de sites diretamente para a Windows Azure usando sistemas de controle de código como TFS e Git. Esse recurso fornece uma maneira muito poderosa para gerenciar as implantações/instalações da aplicação usando controle de código. É realmente fácil ativar este recurso através da página do dashboard de um web site: A opção TFS que lançamos no início deste verão oferece uma solução de implantação contínua muito rica que permite automatizar os builds e a execução de testes unitários a cada vez que você atualizar o repositório do seu website, e em seguida, se os testes forem bem sucedidos, a aplicação é automaticamente publicada/implantada na Windows Azure. Com o lançamento de hoje, estamos expandindo nosso suporte Git para também permitir cenários de implantação contínua integrando esse suporte com projetos hospedados no CodePlex e no GitHub. Este suporte está habilitado para todos os web-sites (incluindo os que usam o modo "free" (gratuito)). A partir de hoje, quando você escolher o link "Set up Git publishing" (Configurar publicação Git) na página do dashboard de um website, você verá duas opções adicionais quando a publicação baseada em Git estiver habilitada para o web-site: Você pode clicar em qualquer um dos links "Deploy from my CodePlex project" (Implantar a partir do meu projeto no CodePlex) ou "Deploy from my GitHub project"  (Implantar a partir do meu projeto no GitHub) para seguir um simples passo a passo para configurar uma conexão entre o seu website e um repositório de código que você hospeda no CodePlex ou no GitHub. Uma vez que essa conexão é estabelecida, o CodePlex ou o GitHub automaticamente notificará a Windows Azure a cada vez que um checkin ocorrer. Isso fará com que a Windows Azure faça o download do código e compile/implante a nova versão da sua aplicação automaticamente.  Os dois vídeos a seguir (em Inglês) mostram quão fácil é permitir esse fluxo de trabalho ao implantar uma app inicial e logo em seguida fazer uma alteração na mesma: Habilitando Implantação Contínua com os Websites da Windows Azure e CodePlex (2 minutos) Habilitando Implantação Contínua com os Websites da Windows Azure e GitHub (2 minutos) Esta abordagem permite um fluxo de trabalho de implantação contínua realmente limpo, e torna muito mais fácil suportar um ambiente de desenvolvimento em equipe usando Git: Nota: o lançamento de hoje suporta estabelecer conexões com repositórios públicos do GitHub/CodePlex. Suporte para repositórios privados será habitado em poucas semanas. Suporte para Múltiplos Branches (Ramos de Desenvolvimento) Anteriormente, nós somente suportávamos implantar o código que estava localizado no branch 'master' do repositório Git. Muitas vezes, porém, os desenvolvedores querem implantar a partir de branches alternativos (por exemplo, um branch de teste ou um branch com uma versão futura da aplicação). Este é agora um cenário suportado - tanto com projetos locais baseados no git, bem como com projetos ligados ao CodePlex ou GitHub. Isto permite uma variedade de cenários úteis. Por exemplo, agora você pode ter dois web-sites - um em "produção" e um outro para "testes" - ambos ligados ao mesmo repositório no CodePlex ou no GitHub. Você pode configurar um dos websites de forma que ele sempre baixe o que estiver presente no branch master, e que o outro website sempre baixe o que estiver no branch de testes. Isto permite uma maneira muito limpa para habilitar o teste final de seu site antes que ele entre em produção. Este vídeo de 1 minuto (em Inglês) demonstra como configurar qual branch usar com um web-site. Resumo Os recursos mostrados acima estão agora ao vivo em produção e disponíveis para uso imediato. Se você ainda não tem uma conta da Windows Azure, você pode inscrever-se em um teste gratuito para começar a usar estes recursos hoje mesmo. Visite o O Centro de Desenvolvedores da Windows Azure (em Inglês) para saber mais sobre como criar aplicações para serem usadas na nuvem. Nós teremos ainda mais novos recursos e melhorias chegando nas próximas semanas - incluindo suporte para os recentes lançamentos do Windows Server 2012 e .NET 4.5 (habilitaremos novas imagens de web e work roles com o Windows Server 2012 e NET 4.5 no próximo mês). Fique de olho no meu blog para detalhes assim que esses novos recursos ficarem disponíveis. Espero que ajude, - Scott P.S. Além do blog, eu também estou utilizando o Twitter para atualizações rápidas e para compartilhar links. Siga-me em: twitter.com/ScottGu Texto traduzido do post original por Leniel Macaferi.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, December 09, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, December 09, 2010Popular ReleasesAutoLoL: 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 valueCslaGenFork: CslaGenFork 4.0 CTP 2: The version is 4.0.1 CTP2 and was released 2010 December 7 and includes the following files: CslaGenFork 4.0.1-2010-12-07 Setup.msi Templates-2010-10-07.zip For getting started instructions, refer to How to section. Overview of the changes Since CTP1 there were 53 work items closed (28 features, 24 issues and 1 task). During this 60 days a lot of work has been done on several areas. First the stereotypes: EditableRoot is OK EditableChild is OK EditableRootCollection is OK Editable...Windows Workflow Foundation on Codeplex: WF AppFabric Caching Activity Pack 0.1: This release includes a set of AppFabric Caching Activities that allow you to use Windows Server AppFabric Caching with WF4. Video endpoint.tv - New WF4 Caching Activities for Windows Server AppFabric ActivitiesDataCacheAdd DataCacheGet DataCachePut DataCacheGet DataCacheRemove WaitForCacheBulkNotification WaitForCacheNotification WaitForFailureNotification WaitForItemNotification WaitForRegionNotification Unit TestsUnit tests are included in the source. Be sure to star...My 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.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.0 ALPHA: 2.2.0 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 En...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).TweetSharp: 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...Aura: Aura Preview 1: Rewritten from scratch. This release supports getting color only from icon of foreground window.MBG Extensions Library: MBG.Extensions_v1.3: MBG.Extensions Collections.CollectionExtensions - AddIfNew - RemoveRange (Moved From ListExtensions to here, where it should have been) Collections.EnumerableExtensions - ToCommaSeparatedList has been replaced by: Join() and ToValueSeparatedList Join is for a single line of values. ToValueSeparatedList is generally for collection and will separate each entity in the collection by a new line character - ToQueue - ToStack Core.ByteExtensions - TripleDESDecrypt Core.DateTimeExtension...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 BugFixingmytrip.mvc (CMS & e-Commerce): mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta: mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta web Web for install hosting System Requirements: NET 4.0, MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src System Requirements: Visual Studio 2010 or Web Deweloper 2010 MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) Connector/Net 6.3.4, MVC3 RC WARNING For run and debug mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src download and ...Menu and Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0: Silverlight Menu and Context Menu v2.3 Beta: - Added keyboard navigation support with access keys - Shortcuts like Ctrl-Alt-A are now supported(where the browser permits it) - The PopupMenuSeparator is now completely based on the PopupMenuItem class - Moved item manipulation code to a partial class in PopupMenuItemsControl.cs - Moved menu management and keyboard navigation code to the new PopupMenuManager class - Simplified the layout by removing the RootGrid element(all content is now placed in OverlayCanvas and is accessed by the new ...MiniTwitter: 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...New Projects:WinK: WinK Project1000 bornes: This project is the adaptation of the famous French card game 1000 bornes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mille_Bornes) There will be 3 types of clients: - Windows Application (WPF) - Internet Application (ASP.NET, Ajax) - Silverlight Application It's developed in C#.AutomaTones: BDSA Project 2010. Team Anders is developing an application that uses automatons to generate music.EIRENE: UnknownFinal: TDD driven analize of avalable tdd frameworks ect.HomeGrown Database Project tools: A set of tools that can be used to deploy Visual Studio SQL Databse and Server Projects. Developed using Visual Basic .Net 4.0mcssolution: no summaryMobile-enabled ASP.NET Web Forms / MVC application samples: Code samples for the whitepaper "Add mobile pages to your ASP.NET Web Forms / MVC application" linked from http://asp.net/mobileMSDI Projects: www.msdi.cnObject TreeView Visualizer: This is a Helper Library for easy Access to Visual a Object to an treeview. Nice feature to display data, if an error happen. One Place To Rule Them All: Desktop system to manage basics system functions in 3d environmant. Optra also provide community support and easy transfer data and setups between varius devices using xmpp protocol and OpenFire jabber server.Performance Data Suite: The Performance Data Suite will help you to monitor, analyze and optimize your server infrastructure. There will be predefined sets of data collections(e.g. MySQL, Apache, IIS) but it will also help you to create collections on your own.Secure Group Communication in AdHoc Networks: Secure Group Communication in AdHoc Networksimweb: simweb - is a research project which own by GCR and all its copyright belong to GCR. You can download the code for reference only but not able to be commercial without a fees.starLiGHT.Engine: starLiGHT.Engine is a set of libraries for indie game developers using XNA. It is in development for some years now as a closed source project. Now I will release some (most) parts as Open Source (dual licensing).UMC? ???? .NET ??? ?? ???? ???: ???(Junil, Um)? ???? .NET ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???.University of Ottawa tour for WP7: This is a Windows Phone 7 tour guide app for the University of Ottawa. vutpp for VS2010: C++ UnitTest Gui Addin????: ????

  Read the article

• Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: REST API Integration

  - by Nino Guarnacci

  This post aims to highlight one of the features found in Oracle Coherence which allows it to be easily added and integrated inside a wider variety of projects.  The features in question are the REST API exposed by the Coherence nodes, with which you can interact in the wider mode in memory data grid.Oracle Coherence and Oracle Service Bus are natively integrated through a feature found in the Oracle Service Bus, which allows you to use the coherence grid cache during the configuration phase of a business service. This feature allows you to use an intermediate layer of cache to retrieve the answers from previous invocations of the same service, without necessarily having to invoke the real business service again. Directly from the web console of Oracle Service Bus, you can decide the policies of eviction of the objects / answers and define the discriminating parameters that identify their uniqueness.The coherence REST APIs, however, allow you to integrate both products for other necessities enabling realization of new architectures design.  Consider coherence’s node as a simple service which interoperates through the stardard services and in particular REST (with JSON and XML). Thinking of coherence as a company’s shared service, able to have an implementation of a centralized “map and reduce” which you can access  by a huge variety of protocols (transport and envelopes).An amazing step forward for those who still imagine connectors and code. This type of integration does not require writing custom code or complex implementation to be self-supported. The added value is made unique by the incredible value of both products independently, and still more out of their simple and robust integration.As already mentioned this scenario discovers a hidden new door behind the columns of these two products. The door leads to new ideas and perspectives for enterprise architectures that increasingly wink to next-generation applications: simple and dynamic, perhaps towards the mobile and web 2.0.Below, a small and simple demo useful to demonstrate how easily is to integrate these two products using the Coherence REST API. This demo is also intended to imagine new enterprise architectures using this approach.The idea is to create a centralized system of alerting, fed easily from any company’s application, regardless of the technology with which they were built . Then use a representation standard protocol: RSS, using a service exposed by the service bus; So you can browse and search only the alerts that you are interested on, by category, author, title, date, etc etc.. The steps needed to implement this system are very simple and very few. Here they are listed below and described to be easily replicated within your environment. I would remind you that the demo is only meant to demonstrate how easily is to integrate Oracle Coherence and the Oracle Service Bus, and stimulate your imagination to new technological approaches.1) Install the two products: In this demo used (if necessary, consult the installation guides of 2 products)  - Oracle Service Bus ver. 11.1.1.5.0 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/service-bus/downloads/index.html - Oracle Coherence ver. 3.7.1 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/coherence/downloads/index.html 2) Because you choose to create a centralized alerting system, we need to define a structure type containing some alerting attributes useful to preserve and organize the information of the various alerts sent by the different applications. Here, then it was built a java class named Alert containing the canonical properties of an alarm information:- Title- Description- System- Time- Severity 3) Therefore, we need to create two configuration files for the coherence node, in order to save the Alert objects within the grid, through the rest/http protocol (more than the native API for Java, C + +, C,. Net). Here are the two minimal configuration files for Coherence:coherence-rest-config.xml resty-server-config.xml This minimum configuration allows me to use a distributed cache named "alerts" that can  also be accessed via http - rest on the host "localhost" over port "8080", objects are of type “oracle.cohsb.Alert”. 4) Below  a simple Java class that represents the type of alert messages: 5) At this point we just need to startup our coherence node, able to listen on http protocol to manage the “alerts” cache, which will receive incoming XML or JSON objects of type Alert. Remember to include in the classpath of the coherence node, the Alert java class and the following coherence libraries and configuration files:  At this point, just run the coherence class node “com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer”advising you to set the following parameters:-Dtangosol.coherence.log.level=9 -Dtangosol.coherence.log=stdout -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=[PATH_TO_THE_FILE]\resty-server-config.xml 6) Let's create a procedure to test our configuration of Coherence and in order to insert some custom alerts in our cache. The technology with which you want to achieve this functionality is fully not considerable: Javascript, Python, Ruby, Scala, C + +, Java.... Because the protocol to communicate with Coherence is simply HTTP / JSON or XML. For this little demo i choose Java: A method to send/put the alert to the cache: A method to query and view the content of the cache: Finally the main method that execute our methods:  No special library added in the classpath for our class (json struct static defined), when it will be executed, it asks some information such as title, description,... in order to compose and send an alert to the cache and then it will perform an inquiry, to the same cache. At this point, a good exercise at this point, may be to create the same procedure using other technologies, such as a simple html page containing some JavaScript code, and then using Python, Ruby, and so on.7) Now we are ready to start configuring the Oracle Service Bus in order to integrate the two products. First integrate the internal alerting system of Oracle Service Bus with our centralized alerting system based on coherence node. This ensures that by monitoring, or directly from within our Proxy Message Flow, we can throw alerts and save them directly into the Coherence node. To do this I choose to use the jms technology, natively present inside the Oracle Weblogic / Service Bus. Access to the Oracle WebLogic Administration console and create and configure a new JMS connection factory and a new jms destination (queue). Now we should create a new resource of type “alert destination” within our Oracle Service Bus project. The new “alert destination” resource should be configured using the newly created connection factory jms and jms destination. Finally, in order to withdraw the message alert enqueued in our JMS destination and send it to our coherence node, we just need to create a new business service and proxy service within our Oracle Service Bus project.Our business service is responsible for sending a message to our REST service Coherence using as a method action: PUT Finally our proxy service have to collect all messages enqueued on the destination, execute an xquery transformation on those messages  in order to translate them into valid XML / alert objects useful to be sent to our coherence service, through the newly created business service. The message flow pipeline containing the xquery transformation: Incredibly,  we just did a basic first integration between the native alerting system of Oracle Service Bus and our centralized alerting system by simply configuring our coherence node without developing anything.It's time to test it out. To do this I create a proxy service able to generate an alert using our "alert destination", whenever the proxy is invoked. After some invocation to our proxy that generates fake alerts, we could open an Internet browser and type the URL  http://localhost: 8080/alerts/  so we could see what has been inserted within the coherence node. 8) We are ready for the final step.  We would create a new message flow, that can be used to search and display the results in standard mode. To do this I choosen the standard representation of RSS, to display a formatted result on a huge variety of devices such as readers for the iPhone and Android. The inquiry may be defined already at the time of the request able to return only feed / items related to our needs. To do this we need to create a new business service, a new proxy service, and finally a new XQuery Transformation to take care of translating the collection of alerts that will be return from our coherence node in a nicely formatted RSS standard document.So we start right from this resource (xquery), which has the task of transforming a collection of alerts / xml returned from the node coherence in a type well-formatted feed RSS 2.0 our new business service that will search the alerts on our coherence node using the Rest API. And finally, our last resource, the proxy service that will be exposed as an RSS / feeds to various mobile devices and traditional web readers, in which we will intercept any search query, and transform the result returned by the business service in an RSS feed 2.0. The message flow with the transformation phase (Alert TO Feed Items): Finally some little tricks to follow during the routing to the business service, - check for any queries present in the url to require a subset of alerts  - the http header "Accept" to help get an answer XML instead of JSON: In our little demo we also static added some coherence parameters to the request:sort=time:desc;start=0;count=100I would like to get from Coherence that the results will be sorted by date, and starting from 1 up to a maximum of 100.Done!!Just incredible, our centralized alerting system is ready. Inheriting all the qualities and capabilities of the two products involved Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: - RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, Performance)Now try to use your mobile device, or a normal Internet browser by accessing the RSS just published: Some urls you may test: Search for the last 100 alerts : http://localhost:7001/alarmsSearch for alerts that do not have time set to null (time is not null):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=time+is+not+nullSearch for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” (system = ‘Web Browser’):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27Search for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” and the severity property is “Fatal” and the title property contain the word “Javascript”  (system = ‘Web Broser’ and severity = ‘Fatal’ and title like ‘%Javascript%’)http://localhost:8080/alerts?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27+AND+severity+%3D+%27Fatal%27+AND+title+LIKE+%27%25Javascript%25%27 To compose more complex queries about your need I would suggest you to read the chapter in the coherence documentation inherent the Cohl language (Coherence Query Language) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22837/api_cq.htm . Some useful links: - Oracle Coherence REST API Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22839/rest_intro.htm - Oracle Service Bus Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/soa.htm#osb - REST explanation from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer At this URL could be downloaded the whole materials of this demo http://blogs.oracle.com/slc/resource/cosb/coh-sb-demo.zip Author: Nino Guarnacci.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403  | Next Page >