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• Kauffman Foundation Selects Stackify to Present at Startup@Kauffman Demo Day

  - by Matt Watson

  Stackify will join fellow Kansas City startups to kick off Global Entrepreneurship WeekOn Monday, November 12, Stackify, a provider of tools that improve developers’ ability to support, manage and monitor their enterprise applications, will pitch its technology at the Startup@Kauffman Demo Day in Kansas City, Mo. Hosted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the event will mark the start of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creators who launch startups.Stackify was selected through a competitive process for a six-minute opportunity to pitch its new technology to investors at Demo Day. In his pitch, Stackify’s founder, Matt Watson, will discuss the current challenges DevOps teams face and reveal how Stackify is reinventing the way software developers provide application support.In October, Stackify had successful appearances at two similar startup events. At Tech Cocktail’s Kansas City Mixer, the company was named “Hottest Kansas City Startup,” and it won free hosting service after pitching its solution at St. Louis, Mo.’s Startup Connection.“With less than a month until our public launch, events like Demo Day are giving Stackify the support and positioning we need to change the development community,” said Watson. “As a serial technology entrepreneur, I appreciate the Kauffman Foundation’s support of startup companies like Stackify. We’re thrilled to participate in Demo Day and Global Entrepreneurship Week activities.”Scheduled to publicly launch in early December 2012, Stackify’s platform gives developers insights into their production applications, servers and databases. Stackify finally provides agile developers safe and secure remote access to look at log files, config files, server health and databases. This solution removes the bottleneck from managers and system administrators who, until now, are the only team members with access. Essentially, Stackify enables development teams to spend less time fixing bugs and more time creating products.Currently in beta, Stackify has already been named a “Company to Watch” by Software Development Times, which called the startup “the next big thing.” Developers can register for a free Stackify account on Stackify.com.###Stackify Founded in 2012, Stackify is a Kansas City-based software service provider that helps development teams troubleshoot application problems. Currently in beta, Stackify will be publicly available in December 2012, when agile developers will finally be able to provide agile support. The startup has already been recognized by Tech Cocktail as “Hottest Kansas City Startup” and was named a “Company to Watch” by Software Development Times. To learn more, visit http://www.stackify.com and follow @stackify on Twitter.

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• Moving Character in C# XNA Not working

  - by Matthew Stenquist

  I'm having trouble trying to get my character to move for a game I'm making in my sparetime for the Xbox. However, I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong , and I'm not even sure if I'm doing it right. I've tried googling tutorials on this but I haven't found any helpful ones. Mainly, ones on 3d rotation on the XNA creators club website. My question is : How can I get the character to walk towards the right in the MoveInput() function? What am I doing wrong? Did I code it wrong? The problem is : The player isn't moving. I think the MoveInput() class isn't working. Here's my code from my character class : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; namespace Jumping { class Character { Texture2D texture; Vector2 position; Vector2 velocity; int velocityXspeed = 2; bool jumping; public Character(Texture2D newTexture, Vector2 newPosition) { texture = newTexture; position = newPosition; jumping = true; } public void Update(GameTime gameTime) { JumpInput(); MoveInput(); } private void MoveInput() { //Move Character right GamePadState gamePad1 = GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One); velocity.X = velocity.X + (velocityXspeed * gamePad1.ThumbSticks.Right.X); } private void JumpInput() { position += velocity; if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.A == ButtonState.Pressed && jumping == false) { position.Y -= 1f; velocity.Y = -5f; jumping = true; } if (jumping == true) { float i = 1.6f; velocity.Y += 0.15f * i; } if (position.Y + texture.Height >= 1000) jumping = false; if (jumping == false) velocity.Y = 0f; } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw(texture, position, Color.White); } } }

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• Where does a "Technical Programmer" fit in, and what does the title mean? [closed]

  - by Mike E

  Was: "What is a 'Technical Programmer'"? I've noticed in job posting boards a few postings, all from European companies in the games industry, for a "Technical Programmer". The job description was similar, having to do with tools development, 3d graphics programming, etc. It seems to be somewhere between a Technical Artist who's more technical than artist or who can code, and a Technical Director but perhaps without the seniority/experience. Information elsewhere on the position is sparse. The title seems redundant and I haven't seen any American companies post jobs by that name, exactly. One example is this job posting on gamedev.net which isn't exactly thorough. In case the link dies: Subject: Technical Programmer Frictional Games, the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra series, are looking for a talented programmer to join the company! You will be working for a small team with a big focus on finding new and innovating solutions. We want you who are not afraid to explore uncharted territory and constantly learn new things. Self-discipline and independence are also important traits as all work will be done from home. Some the things you will work with include: 3D math, rendering, shaders and everything else related. Console development (most likely Xbox 360). Hardware implementations (support for motion controls, etc). All coding is in C++, so great skills in that is imperative. Revised Summarised Question: So, where does a programmer of this nature fit in to software development team? If I had these on my team, what tasks am I expecting them to complete? Can I ask one to build a new level editor, or optimize the rendering engine? It doesn't seem to be a "tools programmer" which focuses on producing artist tools, often in high-level languages like C#, Python, or Java. Nor does it seem to be working directly on the engine, nor a graphics programmer, as such. Yet, a strong C++ requirement, which was mirrored in other postings besides this one I quoted. Edited To Add As far as it being a low-level programmer, I had considered that but lacking from the posting was a requirement of Assembly. Instead, they tend to require familiarity with higher-level hardware APIs such as DirectX, or DirectInput. I wasn't fully clear in my original post. I think, however, that Mathew Foscarini has it right in his answer, so barring someone who definitely works with or as a "Technical Programmer" stepping in to provide a clearer explanation, I'll go with that. A generalist, which also fits the description of a more-technical-than-artist TA.

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• Understanding exceptional cases

  - by Justin

  I've been studying the use of exceptions in various php projects (such as Doctrine and Zend Framework). Exceptions seem to be thrown when unordinary input/state occurs. A perfect example is Doctrine throwing an exception when you try to use a invalid query string. I think the creators of the doctrine api understood that first, you can't query data by using an invalid DQL statement, and a developer should immediately be warned that an error has occurred, rather then letting execution continue with the possibility of an error code going un-checked. I also bet that this simplifies reading the code. I can't think of a situation where you would want to use an invalid DQL statement, except unit testing. Since this is true, it's better to avoid plaguing a bunch of code with null/error checks and use exceptions. I've read in books that exceptions shouldn't be thrown when validating dating user input. I've seen examples where of where the guideline is broken. One example is the Zend framework. If supplying an invalid controller or action name, an exception is thrown. Unlike doctrine, the user has more direct control over this sort of input. I know you can configure an error controller and set up a 404 message or what have you, but I'm curious why they have used an exception in this scenario? I guess you can argue the Zend Framework does not know how to continue processing the quest. One last example Is I wrote a function to return some html based on a given resource type. This resource type is hard-coded and sent when a user interacts with a web site (such as clicking a button to display the form to input data). I don't expect users to be mucking around with the request type. Under normal operating conditions, the resource type should be valid. To clean up some logic, I was going to throw an exception if a particular form wasn't found. This is mainly to find the correct form associated with a resource type so proper validation can occur. Does this sound like a valid use case for an exception? Right now it's pretty trivial, but I do plan to implement a restful consumer and re-using a function to map resources to their validation services would be very useful. I can then catch the exception and based on the consumer, return an error message suitable for the request type...

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• --log-slave-updates is OFF but updates received from master are still logged to slave binary log?

  - by quanta

  MySQL version 5.5.14 According to the document, by the default, slave does not log to its binary log any updates that are received from a master server. Here are my config. on the slave: # egrep 'bin|slave' /etc/my.cnf relay-log=mysqld-relay-bin log-bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin binlog-format=MIXED sync_binlog = 1 log-bin-trust-function-creators = 1 mysql> show global variables like 'log_slave%'; +-------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------+-------+ | log_slave_updates | OFF | +-------------------+-------+ 1 row in set (0.01 sec) mysql> select @@log_slave_updates; +---------------------+ | @@log_slave_updates | +---------------------+ | 0 | +---------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) but slave still logs the updates that are received from a master to its binary logs, let's see the file size: -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 37M Apr 1 01:00 /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.001256 -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 25M Apr 2 01:00 /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.001257 -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 46M Apr 3 01:00 /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.001258 -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 115M Apr 4 01:00 /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.001259 -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 105M Apr 4 18:54 /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.001260 and the sample query when reading these binary files with mysqlbinlog utility: #120404 19:08:57 server id 3 end_log_pos 110324763 Query thread_id=382435 exec_time=0 error_code=0 SET TIMESTAMP=1333541337/*!*/; INSERT INTO norep_SplitValues VALUES ( NAME_CONST('cur_string',_utf8'118212' COLLATE 'utf8_general_ci')) /*!*/; # at 110324763 Did I miss something?

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• program to track recent saved files or downloads?

  - by DiegoDD

  Back to windows XP times, i used a program named Ava Find that can find any file in the system, but a really nice feature it had, called "scout bot" that automatically finds new files, that is, recently created. More info here: AvaFind For example, if i saved or downloaded a file (in any program), but i cant remember its name or where i put it, i just simply looked at the scoutbot list, and it showed me the most recent files, and then i could just open them from there, or jump to their path. Since i changed to windows 7 (passing through vista), the program no longer works. It simply keeps indexing forever and never finds anything. I don't know if it is not compatible with win 7 itself, or because the fact that my windows 7 is 64 bit. I already tried to contact the Avafind creators, but they never answered, and the program seems to be no longer supported (although the site still works). Now, is there a similar program that finds RECENT files? e.g. listing the most recently saved files, system-wide (or even limiting it to some folders, discs)? And that of course, that is confirmed to work with win 7 64 bit. I know that there are many programs that can find any file, like everything, but what i want is to find recent files and their paths, without knowing their name or e. "everything" also can sort results by date, which is almost what i need, simply to look for part of the file name or extension, and get the most recent one. but if i get to many results, it takes a while, plus, i STILL need to know the name or at least extension of the file. What i want is simply a "Most recently Saved files" tool. i.e., a replacement for Scout Bot in Ava Find. Do you know any alternative?

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• #MIX Day 2 Keynote: Put the Phone Down and Listen

  - by andrewbrust

  MIX day 1’s keynote was all about Windows Phone 7 (WP7).  MIX day 2’s was a reminder that Microsoft has much more going on than a new mobile platform.  Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie, Doug Purdy and others showed us lots of other good things coming from Microsoft, mostly in the developer stack, that we certainly shouldn’t overlook.  These included the forthcoming IE9, its new JavaScript compiling engine and support for HTML 5 that takes full advantage of the local PC resources, including the Graphics Processing Unit.  The announcements also included important additions to ASP.NET (and one subtraction, in the form of lighter-weight ViewState technology) including almost-obsessive jQuery support.  That support is so good that John Resig, creator of the jQuery project, came on stage to tell us so.  Then Scott Guthrie told us that Microsoft would be contributing code to Open Source jQuery project. This is not your father’s Microsoft, it would seem. But to me, the crown jewel in today’s keynote were the numerous announcements around the Open Data Protocol (OData).  OData is nothing more than the protocol side of “Astoria” (now known as WCF Data Services, and until recently called ADO.NET Data Services) separated out and opened up as a platform-neutral standard.  The 2009 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was Microsoft’s vehicle for first announcing OData, as well as project “Dallas,” an Azure-based cloud platform for publishing commercial OData feeds.  And we had already known about “bridges” for Astoria (and thus OData) for PHP and Java.  We also knew that PowerPivot, Microsoft’s forthcoming self-service BI plug-in for Excel 2010, will consume OData feeds and then facilitate drill-down analysis of their data.  And we recently found out that SQL Reporting Services reports (in the forthcoming SQL Server 2008 R2) and SharePoint 2010 lists will be consumable in OData format as well. So what was left to announce?  How about OData clients for Palm webOS and Apple iPhone/Objective C?  How about the release to Open Source of .NET’s OData client?  Or the ability to publish any SQL Azure database as an OData service by simply checking a checkbox at deployment?  Maybe even a Silverlight tool (code-named “Houston”) to create SQL Azure databases (and then publish them as OData) right in the browser?  And what if you you could get at NetFlix’s entire catalog in OData format?  You can – just go to http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/ and see for yourself.  Douglas Purdy, who made these announcements said “we want OData to work on as many devices and platforms as possible.”  After all the cross-platform OData announcements made in about a half year’s time, it’s hard to dispute this. When Microsoft plays the data card, and plays it well, watch out, because data programmability is the company’s heritage.  I’ll be discussing OData at length in my April Redmond Review column.  I wrote that column two weeks ago, and was convinced then that OData was a big deal. Today upped the ante even more.  And following the Windows Phone 7 euphoria of yesterday was, I think, smart timing.  The phone, if it’s successful, will be because it’s a good developer platform play.  And developer platforms (as well as their creators) are most successful when they have a good data strategy.  OData is very Silverlight-friendly, and that means it’s WP7-friendly too.  Phone plus service-oriented data is a one-two punch.  A phone platform without data would have been a phone with no signal.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 31, 2010 -- #826

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Andrea Boschin, Radenko Zec, Andrej Tozon, Bobby Diaz, Brad Abrams, Wolf Schmidt, Colin Eberhardt, Anand Iyer, Matthias Shapiro, Jaime Rodriguez, Bill Reiss, and Lee. Shoutouts: Cigdem has a post up about here MIX10 Interviewing experiences: MIX10 SilverlightShow Interviews Ian T. Lackey has his material up from his talk Silverlight SEO at the St. Louis .Net Users Group Not Silverlight but definitely WP7 cool, Michael Klucher reports that there are New Windows Phone Samples on Creators Club Online Tim Heuer posted a survey: What tools are the minimum to get started in Silverlight? From SilverlightCream.com: A RoleManager to apply roles declaratively to user interface Andrea Boschin also has a new post at SilverlightShow discussing the use of a RoleManager in WCF RIA Services to apply user roles to elements of the UI... good stuff, Andrea. Virtualization in Silverlight 4 RC Radenko Zec has a post out at SilverlightShow where he explains UI and Data Virtualization then gives some examples of their use in Silverlight 4RC, and some issues as well. MS Word Mail Merge with Silverlight 4 COM Automation Andrej Tozon has a post up at SilverlightShow that I missed in the rush of MIX10. He's doing MailMerge with COM automation and Silverlight 4... actually prett cool stuff and all the source! KISS and Tell - MVVM and the ViewModelLocator Bobby Diaz is blogging about a very popular subject right now: ViewModelLocator. He's not showing production code, but it's a thought... check it out. Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Validating Data I'm running behind, but Brad Abrams' next post in his series is about validating data in the business application. He also discusses setting up shared code validation. A One-stop Shopping XAML Namespace for Silverlight Client SDK Controls Wolf Schmidt at the Silverlight SDK has a post up highlighting the SL4 XAML namespace prefix. He starts with SL3 then demonstrates the feature's use in SL4. Binding a Silverlight 3 DataGrid to dynamic data via IDictionary (Updated) Colin Eberhardt has an update to his previous article of the same title. This one is a bug fix on an upgrade to SL3 and also an expansion of the previous post. Demo Apps from MIX10 on Windows Phone 7 Anand Iyer posted links to all the WP7 demos used at MIX10 and at least in the case of FourSquare, the source is on CodePlex. XAML Files for Location Visualizations in Silverlight and WPF Matthias Shapiro has graciously provided XAML for us for Silverlight and WPF for a bunch of different US maps... too cool, now we don't have to be asking 'where did you get that map?'... thanks Matthias! Theming in Windows Phone Jaime Rodriguez has a post up that deep-dives theming in general and demonstrates using it on WP7... end-user configurations and developer stuff. Space Rocks game step 7: Moving the ship It appears that in the heat of battle (blogging) I said Bill Reiss' Space Rocks game he's building is for WP7... obviously it's not, but it's a game folks... :) THis is Episode 7 and he's moving the ship now. SL4(RC) RichTextBox and Access Violation Lee has some code that looks like it should work for a RichTextBox in SL4RC, and it's throwing an error... see if you have a solution for him... or is it a bug? Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Windows Phone 7 Series - Tools and Resources

  - by TechTwaddle

  Unless you've been living in the caves of Lascaux for the past couple of days, you probably know what's happening in the world of Windows Phone. Microsoft unveiled the developer tools required to develop applications and games for Windows Phone 7 at MIX10 a couple of days back. Silverlight and XNA being the major frameworks, no big surprise there. And the best news of all is that all the development tools are free! So if you are planning to develop apps for Windows Phone 7, read on. The first place, or more appropriately hub, for you is the Windows Phone Developer Portal. It has most of the information you need to get you started. Now there is a ton of information available at other places too. In this post, I take time to put all the information that I found useful at one place, and I'll keep updating this as and when I find new stuff.   Setting up the development environment 1. Install Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (Community Technology Preview) This will install Visual Studio 2010 Express, Silverlight, XNA framework and emulator for Windows Phone 7. It also installs a few support tools. 2. Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone:     - Install Expression Blend 4 beta     - Install Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone     - Install Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone Installing the above tools should set your machine up for development. I installed the tools on my Windows Vista SP1 machine and the process went smoothly without running into any major hitch. Note that the tools won't install on Windows XP, read the release notes of the CTP. Resources and Documentation 1. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit 2. Programming Windows Phone 7 Series by Charles Petzold. Contains few chapters only. Gives a good preview. 3. MSDN documentation for Windows Phone 7 Development 4. A sample chapter from Learning Windows Phone Programming [PDF] by Yochay Kiriaty and Jaime Rodriguez. Complete book will be available at a later time. 5. Windows Phone 7 Developer Forum - where you can ask questions and problems you run into and the experts are there to help you. 6. For Silverlight visit silverlight.net and for XNA game development, the XNA Creators Club is the place to go, also make sure you follow Michael Klutcher's and Shawn Hargreaves' blog. 7. And finally the MIX'10 website. Most of the sessions will be available for download later (some are already available). Click on the Windows Phone tag to get all the session details and downloads.   If you are completely new to Silverlight and XNA (like me), and C# makes some sense to you then I suggest you go through the Developer Training Kit. It gives a good start and ramps you up pretty quickly.

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• XNA Multiplayer Games and Networking

  - by JoshReuben

  ·        XNA communication must by default be lightweight – if you are syncing game state between players from the Game.Update method, you must minimize traffic. That game loop may be firing 60 times a second and player 5 needs to know if his tank has collided with any player 3 and the angle of that gun turret. There are no WCF ServiceContract / DataContract niceties here, but at the same time the XNA networking stack simplifies the details. The payload must be simplistic - just an ordered set of numbers that you would map to meaningful enum values upon deserialization.   Overview ·        XNA allows you to create and join multiplayer game sessions, to manage game state across clients, and to interact with the friends list ·        Dependency on Gamer Services - to receive notifications such as sign-in status changes and game invitations ·        two types of online multiplayer games: system link game sessions (LAN) and LIVE sessions (WAN). ·        Minimum dev requirements: 1 Xbox 360 console + Creators Club membership to test network code - run 1 instance of game on Xbox 360, and 1 on a Windows-based computer   Network Sessions ·        A network session is made up of players in a game + up to 8 arbitrary integer properties describing the session ·        create custom enums – (e.g. GameMode, SkillLevel) as keys in NetworkSessionProperties collection ·        Player state: lobby, in-play   Session Types ·        local session - for split-screen gaming - requires no network traffic. ·        system link session - connects multiple gaming machines over a local subnet. ·        Xbox LIVE multiplayer session - occurs on the Internet. Ranked or unranked   Session Updates ·        NetworkSession class Update method - must be called once per frame. ·        performs the following actions: o   Sends the network packets. o   Changes the session state. o   Raises the managed events for any significant state changes. o   Returns the incoming packet data. ·        synchronize the session à packet-received and state-change events à no threading issues   Session Config ·        Session host - gaming machine that creates the session. XNA handles host migration ·        NetworkSession properties: AllowJoinInProgress , AllowHostMigration ·        NetworkSession groups: AllGamers, LocalGamers, RemoteGamers   Subscribe to NetworkSession events ·        GamerJoined ·        GamerLeft ·        GameStarted ·        GameEnded – use to return to lobby ·        SessionEnded – use to return to title screen   Create a Session session = NetworkSession.Create(         NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,         maximumLocalPlayers,         maximumGamers,         privateGamerSlots,         sessionProperties );   Start a Session if (session.IsHost) {     if (session.IsEveryoneReady)     {        session.StartGame();        foreach (var gamer in SignedInGamer.SignedInGamers)        {             gamer.Presence.PresenceMode =                 GamerPresenceMode.InCombat;   Find a Network Session AvailableNetworkSessionCollection availableSessions = NetworkSession.Find(     NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,       maximumLocalPlayers,     networkSessionProperties); availableSessions.AllowJoinInProgress = true;   Join a Network Session NetworkSession session = NetworkSession.Join(     availableSessions[selectedSessionIndex]);   Sending Network Data var packetWriter = new PacketWriter(); foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Get the tank associated with this player.     Tank myTank = gamer.Tag as Tank;     // Write the data.     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Position);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TankRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TurretRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.IsFiring);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Health);       // Send it to everyone.     gamer.SendData(packetWriter, SendDataOptions.None);     }   Receiving Network Data foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Keep reading while packets are available.     while (gamer.IsDataAvailable)     {         NetworkGamer sender;          // Read a single packet.         gamer.ReceiveData(packetReader, out sender);          if (!sender.IsLocal)         {             // Get the tank associated with this packet.             Tank remoteTank = sender.Tag as Tank;              // Read the data and apply it to the tank.             remoteTank.Position = packetReader.ReadVector2();             …   End a Session if (session.AllGamers.Count == 1)         {             session.EndGame();             session.Update();         }   Performance •        Aim to minimize payload, reliable in order messages •        Send Data Options: o   Unreliable, out of order -(SendDataOptions.None) o   Unreliable, in order (SendDataOptions.InOrder) o   Reliable, out of order (SendDataOptions.Reliable) o   Reliable, in order (SendDataOptions.ReliableInOrder) o   Chat data (SendDataOptions.Chat) •        Simulate: NetworkSession.SimulatedLatency , NetworkSession.SimulatedPacketLoss •        Voice support – NetworkGamer properties: HasVoice ,IsTalking , IsMutedByLocalUser

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• Most useful free .NET libraries?

  - by Binoj Antony

  I have used a lot of free .NET libraries, some from Microsoft itself! Which ones have you found the most useful? Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control Unity Framework - Microsoft StructureMap - Jeremy Miller Castle Windsor NInject Spring Framework Autofac Managed Extensibility Framework Logging Logging Application Block - Microsoft Log4Net - Apache Error Logging Modules and Handlers(ELMAH) NLog Compression SharpZipLib DotNetZip YUI Compressor (CSS and JS compression/minification) AjaxMinifier (in other downloads) (JS compression. Also includes MSBuild task) Ajax Ajax Control Toolkit - Microsoft AJAXNet Pro Data Mapper XmlDataMapper AutoMapper ORM NHibernate Castle ActiveRecord Subsonic XmlDataMapper Charting/Graphics Microsoft Chart Controls for ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 Microsoft Chart Controls for Winforms ZedGraph Charting NPlot - Charting for ASP.NET and WinForms PDF Creators/Generators PDFsharp iTextSharp Unit Testing/Mocking NUnit Rhino Mocks Moq TypeMock.Net xUnit.net mbUnit Machine.Specifications Automated Web Testing Selenium Watin URL Rewriting url rewriter UrlRewriting.Net Url Rewriter and Reverse Proxy - Managed Fusion Controls Krypton - Free winform controls Source Grid - A Grid control Devexpress - free controls Unclassified CSLA Framework - Business Objects Framework AForge.net - AI, computer vision, genetic algorithms, machine learning Enterprise Library 4.1 - Logging, Exception Management, Validation, Policy Injection File helpers library C5 Collections - Collections for .NET Quartz.NET - Enterprise Job Scheduler for .NET Platform MiscUtil - Utilities by Jon Skeet Lucene.net - Text indexing and searching Json.NET - Linq over JSON Flee - expression evaluator PostSharp - AOP IKVM - brings the extensive world of Java libraries to .NET. Title of the question taken from here. [EDIT] Please provide links to these free libraries as well. Once we have a huge list of this, it can be arranged in categories! Please do not mention .NET Applications/EXEs here.

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• What's all this fuss about?

  - by atch

  Hi guys, At the beginning I want to state that it is not my intention to upset anyone who uses/like language other than C++. I'm saying that due to the fact that on one forum everytime when I've tried to ask questions of similiar nature I was almost always accused of trying to create a raw. Ok that's having done this is my question: I don't understand why java/c# creators thought/think that having something like vm and having source code compiled to bytecode instead of native code is in a long run any advantage. And why having function compiled for a first time when they are invoked is any advantege? And what's the story about write once run everywhere? When I think about the business of having something written once and it can run everywhere - well in theory this is all well. But I know for a fact that in practice it doesn't look that well at all. It is rather like write once test everywhere. And why would I preffer something to be compiled on runtime instead of compiletime. If I would have to wait even one hour longer for program to be installed once and for all and all the compilation would be done and nothing would be compiled after that I would preffer that. And I don't really know how it works in the real world (I'm a student never worked in IT business) but for example if I have working program written in C++ for Windows and I have wish to move it to another platform wouldn't I have to take my source code and compile it on desired machine? So in other words isn't that rather problem of having compiler which will compile source code on different machines (as far as I'm concerned there is just one C++ and source code will look identical in every machine). And last but not least if you think about it how many programs they are which are really word porting? I personnally can think of 3 maybe four.

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• How to replace openSSL calls with C# code?

  - by fonix232

  Hey there again! Today I ran into a problem when I was making a new theme creator for chrome. As you may know, Chrome uses a "new" file format, called CRX, to manage it's plugins and themes. It is a basic zip file, but a bit modified: "Cr24" + derkey + signature + zipFile And here comes the problem. There are only two CRX creators, written in Ruby or Python. I don't know neither language too much (had some basic experience in Python though, but mostly with PyS60), so I would like to ask you to help me convert this python app to a C# code that doesn't depend on external programs. Also, here is the source of crxmake.py: #!/usr/bin/python # Cribbed from http://github.com/Constellation/crxmake/blob/master/lib/crxmake.rb # and http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/tools/extensions/chromium_extension.py?revision=14872&content-type=text/plain&pathrev=14872 # from: http://grack.com/blog/2009/11/09/packing-chrome-extensions-in-python/ import sys from array import * from subprocess import * import os import tempfile def main(argv): arg0,dir,key,output = argv # zip up the directory input = dir + ".zip" if not os.path.exists(input): os.system("cd %(dir)s; zip -r ../%(input)s . -x '.svn/*'" % locals()) else: print "'%s' already exists using it" % input # Sign the zip file with the private key in PEM format signature = Popen(["openssl", "sha1", "-sign", key, input], stdout=PIPE).stdout.read(); # Convert the PEM key to DER (and extract the public form) for inclusion in the CRX header derkey = Popen(["openssl", "rsa", "-pubout", "-inform", "PEM", "-outform", "DER", "-in", key], stdout=PIPE).stdout.read(); out=open(output, "wb"); out.write("Cr24") # Extension file magic number header = array("l"); header.append(2); # Version 2 header.append(len(derkey)); header.append(len(signature)); header.tofile(out); out.write(derkey) out.write(signature) out.write(open(input).read()) os.unlink(input) print "Done." if __name__ == '__main__': main(sys.argv) Please could you help me?

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• WPF HiercharchicalDataTemplate.DataType: How to react on interfaces?

  - by David Schmitt

  Problem I've got a collection of IThings and I'd like to create a HierarchicalDataTemplate for a TreeView. The straightforward DataType={x:Type local:IThing} of course doesn't work, probably because the WPF creators didn't want to handle the possible ambiguities. Since this should handle IThings from different sources at the same time, referencing the implementing class is out of question. Current solution For now I'm using a ViewModel which proxies IThing through a concrete implementation: public interface IThing { string SomeString { get; } ObservableCollection<IThing> SomeThings { get; } // many more stuff } public class IThingViewModel { public IThing Thing { get; } public IThingViewModel(IThing it) { this.Thing = it; } } <!-- is never applied --> <HierarchicalDataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:IThing}"> <!-- is applied, but looks strange --> <HierarchicalDataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:IThingViewModel}" ItemsSource="{Binding Thing.SomeThings}"> <TextBox Text="{Binding Thing.SomeString}"/> </HierarchicalDataTemplate> Question Is there a better (i.e. no proxy) way?

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• Python to C# with openSSL requirement

  - by fonix232

  Hey there again! Today I ran into a problem when I was making a new theme creator for chrome. As you may know, Chrome uses a "new" file format, called CRX, to manage it's plugins and themes. It is a basic zip file, but a bit modified: "Cr24" + derkey + signature + zipFile And here comes the problem. There are only two CRX creators, written in Ruby or Python. I don't know neither language too much (had some basic experience in Python though, but mostly with PyS60), so I would like to ask you to help me convert this python app to a C# class. Also, here is the source of crxmake.py: #!/usr/bin/python # Cribbed from http://github.com/Constellation/crxmake/blob/master/lib/crxmake.rb # and http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/tools/extensions/chromium_extension.py?revision=14872&content-type=text/plain&pathrev=14872 # from: http://grack.com/blog/2009/11/09/packing-chrome-extensions-in-python/ import sys from array import * from subprocess import * import os import tempfile def main(argv): arg0,dir,key,output = argv # zip up the directory input = dir + ".zip" if not os.path.exists(input): os.system("cd %(dir)s; zip -r ../%(input)s . -x '.svn/*'" % locals()) else: print "'%s' already exists using it" % input # Sign the zip file with the private key in PEM format signature = Popen(["openssl", "sha1", "-sign", key, input], stdout=PIPE).stdout.read(); # Convert the PEM key to DER (and extract the public form) for inclusion in the CRX header derkey = Popen(["openssl", "rsa", "-pubout", "-inform", "PEM", "-outform", "DER", "-in", key], stdout=PIPE).stdout.read(); out=open(output, "wb"); out.write("Cr24") # Extension file magic number header = array("l"); header.append(2); # Version 2 header.append(len(derkey)); header.append(len(signature)); header.tofile(out); out.write(derkey) out.write(signature) out.write(open(input).read()) os.unlink(input) print "Done." if __name__ == '__main__': main(sys.argv) Please could you help me?

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• Internet explorer 8 opens file in browser instead of the client

  - by Rogier

  Our company is working with a great Business Intelligence tool CorVu 4.2 to analyse the operational and strategic data. Since several years we are successfully working with Sharepoint 2007 to collaborate and share information with colleagues. Most of my colleagues are working with Internet Explorer 7, but step by step Internet Explorer 8 is implemented in the company. We share a lot of CorVu files thought Sharepoint, but since we are using Internet Explorer 8, we have a problem that is new for us. If we click on a CorVu file in Internet Explorer 8 (not necessarily in Sharepoint) a pop-up shows how to open the file, if we save the file, there is no problem. But if we open the file, the file is shown in the browser and not in the CorVu client! See the screenshot below: link (I removed some unnecessary information) So far my colleagues accept this 'feature' in Internet Explorer 8. But I we open and closes more CorVu files, multiple errors (more than 10) show up starting with: (unable to place more hyperlinks) By pressing Enter the errors disappear, but it's not professional! I contacted the creators of CorVu, but they don't have a solution for in their client. There may be a solution in Internet Explorer 8? The extensions of a CorVu file can be a .sqy, .tab or .qrp. But is it possible to force the files to open in the standard client instead of the browser?

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• using jquery selector to change attribute in variable returned from ajax request

  - by Blake

  I'm trying to pull in a filename.txt (contains html) using ajax and change the src path in the data variable before I load it into the target div. If I first load it into the div the browser first requests the broken image and I don't want this so I would like to do my processing before I load anything onto the page. I can pull the src values fine but I can't change them. In this example the src values aren't changed. Is there a way to do this with selectors or can they only modify DOM elements? Otherwise I may have to do some regex replace but using a selector will be more convenient if possible. $.ajax( { url: getDate+'/'+name+'.txt', success: function(data) { $('img', data).attr('src', 'new_test_src'); $('#'+target).fadeOut('slow', function(){ $('#'+target).html(data); $('#'+target).fadeIn('slow'); }); } }); My reason is I'm building a fully standalone javascript template system for a newsletter and since images and other things are upload via a drupal web file manager I want the content creators to keep their paths very short and simple and I can then modify them before I load in the content. This will also be distributed on a CD so I can need to change the paths for that so they still work.

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• Hi, how can I use the check box group in JSF to select the items of database and generate a list in

  - by Alexzzy

  I am using netbean and JSF to do my project, recently I encountered a problem that confused me. The question: There is a set of check box groups that identify the artifacts from the nature, creator, period and school. And all the artifacts are stored in a table of database. I would like to select the items by nature or creator or something like that, and generate a list for the items selected in the next page. There are some tables of database for artifacts, nature, creators and school, and the type_ID(this is the nature), creator_ID, school_ID are the foreign keys in artifacts table. I have bound the tables with respective check boxes. For example, if I want to select nature is painting, creator is Davinci, school is Italian Renaissance, and then I click Search button. It will go to next page that generate a list of artifacts about all Italian Renaissance paintings created by Davinci. How can I do that? I was confused by JSF, but I have to use JSF to do my project. Anyone can help me plz??? Thank you very very much !!!!!!!

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• PHP -- automatic SQL injection protection?

  - by ashgromnies

  I took over maintenance of a PHP app recently and I'm not super familiar with PHP but some of the things I've been seeing on the site are making me nervous that it could be vulnerable to a SQL injection attack. For example, see how this code for logging into the administrative section works: $password = md5(HASH_SALT . $_POST['loginPass']); $query = "SELECT * FROM `administrators` WHERE `active`='1' AND `email`='{$_POST['loginEmail']}' AND `password`='{$password}'"; $userInfo = db_fetch_array(db_query($query)); if($userInfo['id']) { $_SESSION['adminLoggedIn'] = true; // user is logged in, other junk happens here, not important The creators of the site made a special db_query method and db_fetch_array method, shown here: function db_query($qstring,$print=0) { return @mysql(DB_NAME,$qstring); } function db_fetch_array($qhandle) { return @mysql_fetch_array($qhandle); } Now, this makes me think I should be able to do some sort of SQL injection attack with an email address like: ' OR 'x'='x' LIMIT 1; and some random password. When I use that on the command line, I get an administrative user back, but when I try it in the application, I get an invalid username/password error, like I should. Could there be some sort of global PHP configuration they have enabled to block these attacks? Where would that be configured? Here is the PHP --version information: # php --version PHP 5.2.12 (cli) (built: Feb 28 2010 15:59:21) Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Zend Technologies with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.3.14, Copyright (c) 2002-2010, by ionCube Ltd., and with Zend Optimizer v3.3.9, Copyright (c) 1998-2009, by Zend Technologies

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• How to convert Big Endian and how to flip the highest bit?

  - by Robert Frank

  I am using a TStream to read binary data (thanks to this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2878180/how-to-use-a-tfilestream-to-read-2d-matrices-into-dynamic-array). My next problem is that the data is Big Endian. From my reading, the Swap() method is seemingly deprecated. How would I swap the types below? 16-bit two's complement binary integer 32-bit two's complement binary integer 64-bit two's complement binary integer IEEE single precision floating-point - Are IEEE affected by Big Endian? And, finally, since the data is unsigned, the creators of this dataset have stored the unsigned values as signed integers (excluding the IEEE). They instruct that one need only add an offset (2^15, 2^31, and 2^63) to recover the unsigned data. But, they note that flipping the most significant bit is the fastest way to do that. How does one efficiently flip the most significant bit of a 16, 32, or 64-bit integer? So, if the data on disk (16-bit) is "85 FB" - the desired result after reading the data and swapping and bit flipping would be 1531. Is there a way to accomplish the swapping and bit flipping with generics so it fits into the generic answer at the link above? Yes, kids, THIS is how scientific astronomical data is stored by NASA, ESO, and all professional astronomers. This FITS standard is considered by some to be one of the most successful standards ever created in its proliferation and flexibility!

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• asp.net C# windows authentication iss config

  - by user1566209

  I'm developing a webpage where a need to know the users windows authentication values, more precisely the name. Others developments have been done with this kind of authentication but sadly for me their creators are long gone and i have no contact or documentation. I'm using Visual Studio 2008 and i'm accessing a webservice that is in a remote server. The server is a windows server 2008 r2 standard and is using ISS version 7.5. Since i have the source code of the other developments what i did was copy paste and was working fine when i was calling the webservice that was in my machine (localhost). The code is the following: //1st way WindowsPrincipal wp = new WindowsPrincipal(WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent()); string strUser = wp.Identity.Name;//ALWAYS GET NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE //2nd way WindowsIdentity winId = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent(); WindowsPrincipal winPrincipal = new WindowsPrincipal(winId); string user = winPrincipal.Identity.Name;//ALWAYS GET NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE //3rd way IIdentity WinId = HttpContext.Current.User.Identity; WindowsIdentity wi = (WindowsIdentity)WinId; string userstr = wi.Name; //ALWAYS GET string empty btn_select.Text = userstr; btn_cancelar.Text = strUser; btn_gravar.Text = user; As you can see i have here 3 ways to get the same and in a sad manner show my user's name. As for my web.config i have: <authentication mode="Windows"/> <identity impersonate="true" /> In the IIS manager i have tried lots of combination of enable and disable between Anonymous Authentication, ASP.NET Impersonation, Basic Authentication, Forms Authentication and Windows Authentication. Can please someone help me?? NOTE: The respective values i get from each try are in the code

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• Periodic GPU performance problem

  - by Peter Lillevold

  Hi folks! I have a WinForms application that uses XNA to animate 3D models in a control. The app have been doing just fine for months but recently I've started to experience periodic pauses in the animation. Setting out to investigate what is going on I have established these facts: It (currently) happens on my machine only Removing everything from my render loop does not improve the problem In 2. I didn't actually remove everything, I limited my loop to set the viewport on my GraphicsDevice and then do a GraphicsDevice.Present. Trying to dig further I fired up PIX to capture some statistics. Screenshots of two PIX runs can be viewed here (Run6) and here (Run14). Run6 is using my original render loop and Run14 is using the bare-bones Present loop. PIX tells me that the GPU is periodically doing something, and I assume this is causing the pauses. What could be the cause of this? Or how do I go about finding out what the GPU is actually doing? Note: I'm using XNA 3.1 on a Windows 7 x64 dual-core machine with 8GB RAM. Note2: also posted this question on the XNA Creators forums here.

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• Integrate Nitro PDF Reader with Windows 7

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like a lightweight PDF reader that integrates nicely with Office and Windows 7?  Here we look at the new Nitro PDF Reader, a nice PDF viewer that also lets you create and markup PDF files. Adobe Reader is the de-facto PDF viewer, but it only lets you view PDFs and not much else.  Additionally, it doesn’t fully integrate with 64-bit editions of Vista and Windows 7.  There are many alternate PDF readers, but Nitro PDF Reader is a new entry into this field that offers more features than most PDF readers.  From the creators of the popular free PrimoPDF printer, the new Reader lets you create PDFs from a variety of file formats and markup existing PDFs with notes, highlights, stamps, and more in addition to viewing PDFs.  It also integrates great with Windows 7 using the Office 2010 ribbon interface. Getting Started Download the free Nitro PDF Reader (link below) and install as normal.  Nitro PDF Reader has separate versions for 32 & 64-bit editions of Windows, so download the correct one for your computer. Note:  Nitro PDF Reader is still in Beta testing, so only install if you’re comfortable with using beta software. On first run, Nitro PDF Reader will ask if you want to make it the default PDF viewer.  If you don’t want to, make sure to uncheck the box beside Always perform this check to keep it from opening this prompt every time you use it. It will also open an introductory PDF the first time you run it so you can quickly get acquainted with its features. Windows 7 Integration One of the first things you’ll notice is that Nitro PDF Reader integrates great with Windows 7.  The ribbon interface fits right in with native applications such as WordPad and Paint, as well as Office 2010. If you set Nitro PDF Reader as your default PDF viewer, you’ll see thumbnails of your PDFs in Windows Explorer. If you turn on the Preview Pane, you can read full PDFs in Windows Explorer.  Adobe Reader lets you do this in 32 bit versions, but Nitro PDF works in 64 bit versions too. The PDF preview even works in Outlook.  If you receive an email with a PDF attachment, you can select the PDF and view it directly in the Reading Pane.  Click the Preview file button, and you can uncheck the box at the bottom so PDFs will automatically open for preview if you want.   Now you can read your PDF attachments in Outlook without opening them separately.  This works in both Outlook 2007 and 2010. Edit your PDFs Adobe Reader only lets you view PDF files, and you can’t save data you enter in PDF forms.  Nitro PDF Reader, however, gives you several handy markup tools you can use to edit your PDFs.  When you’re done, you can save the final PDF, including information entered into forms. With the ribbon interface, it’s easy to find the tools you want to edit your PDFs. Here we’ve highlighted text in a PDF and added a note to it.  We can now save these changes, and they’ll look the same in any PDF reader, including Adobe Reader. You can also enter new text in PDFs.  This will open a new tab in the ribbon, where you can select basic font settings.  Select the Click To Finish button in the ribbon when you’re finished editing text.   Or, if you want to use the text or pictures from a PDF in another application, you can choose to extract them directly in Nitro PDF Reader.  Create PDFs One of the best features of Nitro PDF Reader is the ability to create PDFs from almost any file.  Nitro adds a new virtual printer to your computer that creates PDF files from anything you can print.  Print your file as normal, but select the Nitro PDF Creator (Reader) printer. Enter a name for your PDF, select if you want to edit the PDF properties, and click Create. If you choose to edit the PDF properties, you can add your name and information to the file, select the initial view, encrypt it, and restrict permissions. Alternately, you can create a PDF from almost any file by simply drag-and-dropping it into Nitro PDF Reader.  It will automatically convert the file to PDF and open it in a new tab in Nitro PDF. Now from the File menu you can send the PDF as an email attachment so anyone can view it. Make sure to save the PDF before closing Nitro, as it does not automatically save the PDF file.   Conclusion Nitro PDF Reader is a nice alternative to Adobe Reader, and offers some features that are only available in the more expensive Adobe Acrobat.  With great Windows 7 integration, including full support for 64-bit editions, Nitro fits in with the Windows and Office experience very nicely.  If you have tried out Nitro PDF Reader leave a comment and let us know what you think. Link Download Nitro PDF Reader Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgySubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickChange Default Feed Reader in FirefoxFix for Windows Explorer Folder Pane in XP Becomes Grayed OutRemove "Please wait while the document is being prepared for reading" Message in Adobe Reader 8 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere) 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes

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• Understanding each other in web development

  - by Pete Hotchkin

  During my career I have been lucky enough to work in several different roles within web development with many extremely talented people, from incredible designers who were passionate about the placement of every pixel right through to server administrators and DBAs who were always measuring the improvements they were making to their queries in the smallest possible unit. The problem I always faced was that more often than not I was stuck in the middle trying to mediate between these different functions and enable each side to understand the other’s point of view. The main areas of contention that there have always been between these functional groups in my experience have been at 2 key points: during the build phase and then when there is a problem post-build. During both of these times it is often easier for someone to pass the buck onto someone else than spend the time to understand the other person’s perspective. Below is a quick look at two upcoming tools that will not only speed up the build phase for each function, but  also help when it comes to the issues faced once a site has been pushed live. In my experience a web project goes through several phases of development. The first of these is design, generally handled as Photoshop files which are then passed onto a front-end developer. This is the first point at which heated discussions can arise. One problem I’ve seen several times is that the designer doesn’t fully understand the platform constraints that need to be considered, and as a result has designed something that does not translate very well or is simply not possible. Working at Red Gate, I am lucky enough to be able to meet some amazing people and this happened just the other day when I was introduced to Neil Kinnish and Pete Nelson, the creators of what I believe could be a great asset in this designer-developer relationship, Mixture. Mixture allows the front end developer to quickly prototype a web page with built-in frameworks such as bootstrap. It’s not an IDE however, it just sits there in the background and monitors the project files in the background so every time you save a file from your favorite IDE, it will compile things like LESS, compact your JavaScript and the automatically refresh your test browser so you can see the changes instantly. I think one of the best parts of this however is a single button that pushes the changed files up to the web so the designer can instantly see how far the developer has got and the problem that he is facing at that time without the need to spend time setting up a remote server. I can see this being a real asset to remote teams where there needs to be a compromise between the designer and the front-end developer, or just to allow the designer to see how the build is progressing and suggest small alterations. Once the design has been built into the front end the designer’s job is generally done and there are no other points of contention between the designer and the other functions involved in building these web projects. As the project moves into the stage of integrating it into the back end and deploying it to the production server other functions start to be pulled in and other issues arise such as the back-end developer understanding the frameworks that they are using such as the routes that are in place in an MVC application or the number of database calls that the ORM layer is actually making. There are many tools out there that can actually help with these problems such as mini profiler that gives you a quick snapshot of what is going on directly in the browser. For a slightly more in-depth look at what is happening and to gain a deeper understanding of an application you may be working on though, you may want to consider Glimpse. Created by Nik and Anthony, it is an application that sits at the bottom of your browser (installed via NuGet) which can show you information about how your application is pieced together and how the information on screen is being delivered as it happens. With a wealth of community-built plugins such as one for nHibernate and linq2SQL (full list of plugins on NuGet). It can be customized directly to your own setup to truly delve into the code to see what is happening, and can help to reduce the number of confusing moments about whether it is your code that is going wrong or whether there is something more sinister happening directly on the server. All the tools that I have mentioned in this post help to do one thing above all, and that is to ease the barrier of understanding between the different functions that are involved in building and maintaining a web application. In my experience it is very easy to say “Well, that’s not my problem”, simply because the two functions involved don’t truly understand the other’s point of view. Software should not only be seen as a way to streamline our own working process or as a debugging tool but also a communication aid to improve the entire lifecycle of a web project. Glimpse is actually the project that I am the designer on and I would love to get your feedback if you do decide to try it out or if you would like to share your own experiences of working on web projects please fill in your details at https://www.surveymk.com/s/joinGlimpse  or add a comment below and I will get in touch with you.

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• Ransomware: Why This New Malware is So Dangerous and How to Protect Yourself

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Ransomware is a type of malware that tries to extort money from you. One of the nastiest examples, CryptoLocker, takes your files hostage and holds them for ransom, forcing you to pay hundreds of dollars to regain access. Most malware is no longer created by bored teenagers looking to cause some chaos. Much of the current malware is now produced by organized crime for profit and is becoming increasingly sophisticated. How Ransomware Works Not all ransomware is identical. The key thing that makes a piece of malware “ransomware” is that it attempts to extort a direct payment from you. Some ransomware may be disguised. It may function as “scareware,” displaying a pop-up that says something like “Your computer is infected, purchase this product to fix the infection” or “Your computer has been used to download illegal files, pay a fine to continue using your computer.” In other situations, ransomware may be more up-front. It may hook deep into your system, displaying a message saying that it will only go away when you pay money to the ransomware’s creators. This type of malware could be bypassed via malware removal tools or just by reinstalling Windows. Unfortunately, Ransomware is becoming more and more sophisticated. One of the latest examples, CryptoLocker, starts encrypting your personal files as soon as it gains access to your system, preventing access to the files without knowing the encryption key. CryptoLocker then displays a message informing you that your files have been locked with encryption and that you have just a few days to pay up. If you pay them $300, they’ll hand you the encryption key and you can recover your files. CryptoLocker helpfully walks you through choosing a payment method and, after paying, the criminals seem to actually give you a key that you can use to restore your files. You can never be sure that the criminals will keep their end of the deal, of course. It’s not a good idea to pay up when you’re extorted by criminals. On the other hand, businesses that lose their only copy of business-critical data may be tempted to take the risk — and it’s hard to blame them. Protecting Your Files From Ransomware This type of malware is another good example of why backups are essential. You should regularly back up files to an external hard drive or a remote file storage server. If all your copies of your files are on your computer, malware that infects your computer could encrypt them all and restrict access — or even delete them entirely. When backing up files, be sure to back up your personal files to a location where they can’t be written to or erased. For example, place them on a removable hard drive or upload them to a remote backup service like CrashPlan that would allow you to revert to previous versions of files. Don’t just store your backups on an internal hard drive or network share you have write access to. The ransomware could encrypt the files on your connected backup drive or on your network share if you have full write access. Frequent backups are also important. You wouldn’t want to lose a week’s worth of work because you only back up your files every week. This is part of the reason why automated back-up solutions are so convenient. If your files do become locked by ransomware and you don’t have the appropriate backups, you can try recovering them with ShadowExplorer. This tool accesses “Shadow Copies,” which Windows uses for System Restore — they will often contain some personal files. How to Avoid Ransomware Aside from using a proper backup strategy, you can avoid ransomware in the same way you avoid other forms of malware. CryptoLocker has been verified to arrive through email attachments, via the Java plug-in, and installed on computers that are part of the Zeus botnet. Use a good antivirus product that will attempt to stop ransomware in its tracks. Antivirus programs are never perfect and you could be infected even if you run one, but it’s an important layer of defense. Avoid running suspicious files. Ransomware can arrive in .exe files attached to emails, from illicit websites containing pirated software, or anywhere else that malware comes from. Be alert and exercise caution over the files you download and run. Keep your software updated. Using an old version of your web browser, operating system, or a browser plugin can allow malware in through open security holes. If you have Java installed, you should probably uninstall it. For more tips, read our list of important security practices you should be following. Ransomware — CryptoLocker in particular — is brutally efficient and smart. It just wants to get down to business and take your money. Holding your files hostage is an effective way to prevent removal by antivirus programs after it’s taken root, but CryptoLocker is much less scary if you have good backups. This sort of malware demonstrates the importance of backups as well as proper security practices. Unfortunately, CryptoLocker is probably a sign of things to come — it’s the kind of malware we’ll likely be seeing more of in the future.     

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