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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, February 25, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, February 25, 2010New ProjectsAptusSoftware.Threading: AptusSoftware.Threading is a class library designed primarily to assist in the development of multi-threaded WinForm applications, although there i...AxiomGameDesigner: It is going to be a universal scene editor for Axiom 3D game engine. It is in pure C# and will be kept portable to MONO for compatibility with linu...Badger - Unity Productivity Extensions: A set of Microsoft Unity Extensions. Why Badger? Because I love badgers.Business & System Analysis Templates and Best Practices for Russian: http://saway.codeplex.com/Conectayas: Conectayas is an open source "Connect Four" alike game but transformable to "Tic-Tac-Toe" and to a lot of similar games that uses mouse. Written in...FastCode: .NET 3.5 Extensions set to increase coding speed.Hundiyas: Hundiyas is an open source "Battleship" alike game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that uses mouse. This cross-platform and cro...Icelandic Online Banking: Icelandic Online Banking is project defining a web service interface for online banking.IE8 AddOns XML Creator: Application that helps on creating the xml files for IE8 Accelerators, Search Providers and the markup for Web Slices.iKnowledge: a asp.net mvc demoLearn ASP.NET MVC: Learn ASP.NET MVC is a project for the members of the Peer Learning group in Silicon Valley. It contains the SportsStore solution from the Pro ASP...Live at Education Meta Web-Service: Live at Education Meta Web-Service is intended to abstract from several technologies that are included in Live@edu set of services. This web-ser...Low level wave sound output for VB.NET: Low level sound output class for VB.NET using platform invocation services to call winmm.dllMailQ: MailQ makes it easier for developers to send mail messages from an application. The system sends mails based on a database queue system (store, se...Managed DXGI: Managed DXGI library is Fully managed wrapper writen on C# for DXGI 1.0 and 1.1 technology. It makes easier to support DXGI in managed application....Multivalue AutoComplete WinForms TextBox in C#: This project is a sample application that demonstrates how to create a multivalue WinForms textbox in C# using .NET Framework 3.5.Nifty CSharp Tools: Nifty CSharp Tools, will contain various tools and snippets. IRCBot, splashscreens, linq, world of warcraft log parsing, screenshot uploaders, twi...PHP MPQ: A port of StormLib to PHP for handling Blizzard MPQ files.RedDevils strategy - Project Hoshimi Programming Battle: Source Code of RedDevils strategy. Imagine Cup 2008 - Project Hoshimi Programming Battle.RNUNIT: rNunit is a distributed Nunit project. Many application these days are client-server application, distributed application and regular unit testing ...Samar Solution: Samar Solutions is a business system for office automation.Silverlight OOMRPG Game Engine: Silverlight OOMRPG Game EngineSimulator: GPSSimulatorSLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit: SLARToolkit is a flexible Augmented Reality library for Silverlight with the aim to make real time Augmented Reality applications with Silverlight ...Spiral Architecture Driven Development (SADD) for Russian: Это русская версия сайта sadd.codeplex.comSQLSnapshotManager: Easily manage SQL Server database snapshots in a easy to use visual interface.Twilio with VB.NET MVC: Twilio with VB.NET MVC is a sample application for developing with Twilio's REST based telephony API. It includes an XML Schema of the TwiML respon...Ultra Speed Dial: UltraSpeedDial.com - Online Speed Dial Page.Visual HTML Editor justHTML: justHTML - is simle windows-application WYSIWYG editor that allow everyone - without any knowledge of HTML - to create and edit web-pages. It supp...WinMTR.NET: .NET Clone of the popular Windows clone of the popular Linux Matt's TracerouteWPF Dialogs: "WPF Dialogs" is a library for different Dialogs in WPF (e.g. FolderBrowseDialog, SaveFileDialog, OpenFileDialog etc.). These Dialogs are written i...WPFLogin: A small Login window in WPF and C#XNA PerformanceTimers: CPU Timers for Windows and Xbox360. Can track multiple threads, and presents output as a log on-screen.New ReleasesAptusSoftware.Threading: 2.0.0: First public release. This release is in production as part of several commercial applications and is stable. The source code download includes a...BizTalk Software Factory: BizTalk Software Factory v2.1: This is a service release for the BizTalk Software Factory for BizTalk Server 2009, containing so far: Fix for x64: the SN.EXE tool is now locate...Business & System Analysis Templates and Best Practices for Russian: R00 The Place reserver: Just to reserve the place Will be filled out soonChronos WPF: Chronos v1.0 Beta 2: Added a new SplashScreen Added a new Login View and implemented Log Off Added a new PasswordBoxHelper (http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/371...dotNetTips: dotNetTips.Utility 3.5 R2: This is a new release (version 3.5.0.3) compatible with .NET 3.5. Lots of new classes/features!! Requires SP1 if using the Entity Framework extensi...fleXdoc: template-based server-side document generator (docx): fleXdoc 1.0 beta 3: The third and final beta of fleXdoc. fleXdoc consists of a webservice and a (test)client for the service. Make sure you also download the testclien...FluentPS: FluentPS v1.0: - FluentPS is moved from ASMX to WCF interface of the Project Server Interface (PSI) - Impersonation changes to work in compliance with WCF interfa...FolderSize: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.4.0: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.3.0 A simple utility intended to be used to scan harddrives for the folders that take most place and display this to the user...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.1.3707 Beta 3: As promised, the iTuner Automated Librarian is now available. This automatically cleans an entire album of dead tracks and duplicates as tracks ar...Live at Education Meta Web-Service: LAEMWS v 1.0 beta: Release Candidate for LAEMWS.Macaw Reusable Code Library: LanguageConfigurationSolution: This Solution helps developing a multi language publishing web siteManaged DXGI: Initial Release.: Base declaration of interfaces, most of them untested yet.Math.NET Numerics: 2010.2.24.667 Build: Latest alpha buildMiniTwitter: 1.08.1: MiniTwitter 1.08.1 更新内容 変更 インクリメンタル検索時には大文字小文字の区別をしないように変更 クライアント名の表示を本家にあわせて from から via に変更 修正 公式 RT 時にステータスが上に表示されたり二重に表示されるバグを修正 自分が自分へ返信...Multivalue AutoComplete WinForms TextBox in C#: 1.0 First public release: Multivalue autocomplete textbox control and host application in this release are released in a single Visual Studio 2008 projects. See my related b...NMock3: NMock3 - Beta3, .NET 3.5: This release has some exciting new features. Please start providing feedback on the tutorials. The first several are complete and the rest are no...nxAjax - an asp.net ajax library using jQuery: nxAjax v3 codeplex 7: nxAjax v3 codeplex 7 binary and test website. Bug Fixed: ajax:Form control Add: Drag and drop Rewritten: DragnDropManager DragPanel DropPan...Office Apps: 0.8.7: whats new? Document.Editor and Document.Viewer now supports FlowDocument (.xaml) files bug fix'sPDF Rider: PDF Rider 0.3: Application PrerequisitesMicrosoft Windows Operating Systems (XP (tested) - Vista - 7) Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 runtime A PDF rendering sof...ShellLight: ShellLight 0.1.0.1 Src: Codeplex project released. This is only a preview of the product. Until the first final release there will be many improvements.Silverlight OOMRPG Game Engine: SilverlightGameTutorialSolution v1.01: Please visit my blog for Silverlight OOMROG Game Tutorial: http://www.cnblogs.com/Jax/archive/2010/02/24/1673053.html.Simple Savant: Simple Savant v0.4: Added support for full-text indexing (See Full-Text Indexing) Added support for attribute spanning and compression for property values larger tha...Spiral Architecture Driven Development (SADD) for Russian: R00: R00 to reserve site nameTeamReview - TFS Code Review: Release 1.1.3: Release Features New expanded product positioning for capturing any targeted coding work as a trackable, assignable, reportable Work Item for any r...Text Designer Outline Text Library: 10th minor release: Version 0.3.1 (10th minor release)Fixed the gradient brush being too big for the text, resulting in not much gradient shown in the text. Gradient...TFS Workflow Control: TeamExplorer and TSWA control 1.0 for TFS 2010 RC: This is a special version for TFS 2010 RC. Use the RC version of the power tools to modify the layout of your work items (http://visualstudiogaller...thinktecture WSCF.blue: WSCF.blue V1 Update (1.0.7) - VS2010 RC Support: This update adds support for Visual Studio 2010 RC in addition to Visual Studio 2008. Please note that Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is NOT supported a...Tumblen3: tumblen3 Version 25Feb2010: ready for Twitter's xAuthUMD文本编辑器: UMDEditor文本编辑器V2.1.0: 2.1.0 (2010-02-24) 增加查找章节内指定文本内容的功能 2.0.4 (2010-02-06) 章节内容框增加右键菜单，包含编辑文本的基本操作 ------------------------------------------------------- 执行 reg.bat ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30224.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual HTML Editor justHTML: Latest binary: Latest buid here. Executable and mshtml.dll included in this archive. Ready to use ;)Visual HTML Editor justHTML: Source code for version 2.5: Visual studio 2008 project with full source code.VOB2MKV: vob2mkv-1.0.2: The release vob2mkv-1.0.2 is a feature update of the VOB2MKV project. It now includes a DirectShow source filter, MKVSOURCE. A source filter allo...WinMTR.NET: V 1.0: V 1.0WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.0: Version 0.1.0 FolderBrowseDialog is implementet for more information look here Version 0.1.0 (german: Version 0.1.0 - Deutsch).WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.1: Version 0.1.1 Features FolderBrowseDialog was extended / FolderBrowseDialog - Deutsch wurde erweitertXNA PerformanceTimers: XNA PerformanceTimers 0.1: Initial release.Zeta Resource Editor: Release 2010-02-24: Added HTTP proxy server support.Most Popular ProjectsASP.NET Ajax LibraryManaged Extensibility FrameworkWindows 7 USB/DVD Download ToolDotNetZip LibraryMDownloaderVirtual Router - Wifi Hot Spot for Windows 7 / 2008 R2MFCMAPIDroid ExplorerUseful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow ActivitiesOxiteMost Active ProjectsDinnerNow.netBlogEngine.NETRawrInfoServiceSLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality ToolkitNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleSharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLRjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesRapid Entity Framework. (ORM). CTP 2Common Context Adapters

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• Mapping UrlEncoded POST Values in ASP.NET Web API

  - by Rick Strahl

  If there's one thing that's a bit unexpected in ASP.NET Web API, it's the limited support for mapping url encoded POST data values to simple parameters of ApiController methods. When I first looked at this I thought I was doing something wrong, because it seems mighty odd that you can bind query string values to parameters by name, but can't bind POST values to parameters in the same way. To demonstrate here's a simple example. If you have a Web API method like this:[HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate(string username, string password) { …} and then hit with a URL like this: http://localhost:88/samples/authenticate?Username=ricks&Password=sekrit it works just fine. The query string values are mapped to the username and password parameters of our API method. But if you now change the method to work with [HttpPost] instead like this:[HttpPost] public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate(string username, string password) { …} and hit it with a POST HTTP Request like this: POST http://localhost:88/samples/authenticate HTTP/1.1 Host: localhost:88 Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 30 Username=ricks&Password=sekrit you'll find that while the request works, it doesn't actually receive the two string parameters. The username and password parameters are null and so the method is definitely going to fail. When I mentioned this over Twitter a few days ago I got a lot of responses back of why I'd want to do this in the first place - after all HTML Form submissions are the domain of MVC and not WebAPI which is a valid point. However, the more common use case is using POST Variables with AJAX calls. The following is quite common for passing simple values:$.post(url,{ Username: "Rick", Password: "sekrit" },function(result) {…}); but alas that doesn't work. How ASP.NET Web API handles Content Bodies Web API supports parsing content data in a variety of ways, but it does not deal with multiple posted content values. In effect you can only post a single content value to a Web API Action method. That one parameter can be very complex and you can bind it in a variety of ways, but ultimately you're tied to a single POST content value in your parameter definition. While it's possible to support multiple parameters on a POST/PUT operation, only one parameter can be mapped to the actual content - the rest have to be mapped to route values or the query string. Web API treats the whole request body as one big chunk of data that is sent to a Media Type Formatter that's responsible for de-serializing the content into whatever value the method requires. The restriction comes from async nature of Web API where the request data is read only once inside of the formatter that retrieves and deserializes it. Because it's read once, checking for content (like individual POST variables) first is not possible. However, Web API does provide a couple of ways to access the form POST data: Model Binding - object property mapping to bind POST values FormDataCollection - collection of POST keys/values ModelBinding POST Values - Binding POST data to Object Properties The recommended way to handle POST values in Web API is to use Model Binding, which maps individual urlencoded POST values to properties of a model object provided as the parameter. Model binding requires a single object as input to be bound to the POST data, with each POST key that matches a property name (including nested properties like Address.Street) being mapped and updated including automatic type conversion of simple types. This is a very nice feature - and a familiar one from MVC - that makes it very easy to have model objects mapped directly from inbound data. The obvious drawback with Model Binding is that you need a model for it to work: You have to provide a strongly typed object that can receive the data and this object has to map the inbound data. To rewrite the example above to use ModelBinding I have to create a class maps the properties that I need as parameters:public class LoginData { public string Username { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } } and then accept the data like this in the API method:[HttpPost] public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate(LoginData login) { string username = login.Username; string password = login.Password; … } This works fine mapping the POST values to the properties of the login object. As a side benefit of this method definition, the method now also allows posting of JSON or XML to the same endpoint. If I change my request to send JSON like this: POST http://localhost:88/samples/authenticate HTTP/1.1 Host: localhost:88 Accept: application/jsonContent-type: application/json Content-Length: 40 {"Username":"ricks","Password":"sekrit"} it works as well and transparently, courtesy of the nice Content Negotiation features of Web API. There's nothing wrong with using Model binding and in fact it's a common practice to use (view) model object for inputs coming back from the client and mapping them into these models. But it can be  kind of a hassle if you have AJAX applications with a ton of backend hits, especially if many methods are very atomic and focused and don't effectively require a model or view. Not always do you have to pass structured data, but sometimes there are just a couple of simple response values that need to be sent back. If all you need is to pass a couple operational parameters, creating a view model object just for parameter purposes seems like overkill. Maybe you can use the query string instead (if that makes sense), but if you can't then you can often end up with a plethora of 'message objects' that serve no further  purpose than to make Model Binding work. Note that you can accept multiple parameters with ModelBinding so the following would still work:[HttpPost] public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate(LoginData login, string loginDomain) but only the object will be bound to POST data. As long as loginDomain comes from the querystring or route data this will work. Collecting POST values with FormDataCollection Another more dynamic approach to handle POST values is to collect POST data into a FormDataCollection. FormDataCollection is a very basic key/value collection (like FormCollection in MVC and Request.Form in ASP.NET in general) and then read the values out individually by querying each. [HttpPost] public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate(FormDataCollection form) { var username = form.Get("Username"); var password = form.Get("Password"); …} The downside to this approach is that it's not strongly typed, you have to handle type conversions on non-string parameters, and it gets a bit more complicated to test such as setup as you have to seed a FormDataCollection with data. On the other hand it's flexible and easy to use and especially with string parameters is easy to deal with. It's also dynamic, so if the client sends you a variety of combinations of values on which you make operating decisions, this is much easier to work with than a strongly typed object that would have to account for all possible values up front. The downside is that the code looks old school and isn't as self-documenting as a parameter list or object parameter would be. Nevertheless it's totally functionality and a viable choice for collecting POST values. What about [FromBody]? Web API also has a [FromBody] attribute that can be assigned to parameters. If you have multiple parameters on a Web API method signature you can use [FromBody] to specify which one will be parsed from the POST content. Unfortunately it's not terribly useful as it only returns content in raw format and requires a totally non-standard format ("=content") to specify your content. For more info in how FromBody works and several related issues to how POST data is mapped, you can check out Mike Stalls post: How WebAPI does Parameter Binding Not really sure where the Web API team thought [FromBody] would really be a good fit other than a down and dirty way to send a full string buffer. Extending Web API to make multiple POST Vars work? Don't think so Clearly there's no native support for multiple POST variables being mapped to parameters, which is a bit of a bummer. I know in my own work on one project my customer actually found this to be a real sticking point in their AJAX backend work, and we ended up not using Web API and using MVC JSON features instead. That's kind of sad because Web API is supposed to be the proper solution for AJAX backends. With all of ASP.NET Web API's extensibility you'd think there would be some way to build this functionality on our own, but after spending a bit of time digging and asking some of the experts from the team and Web API community I didn't hear anything that even suggests that this is possible. From what I could find I'd say it's not possible primarily because Web API's Routing engine does not account for the POST variable mapping. This means [HttpPost] methods with url encoded POST buffers are not mapped to the parameters of the endpoint, and so the routes would never even trigger a request that could be intercepted. Once the routing doesn't work there's not much that can be done. If somebody has an idea how this could be accomplished I would love to hear about it. Do we really need multi-value POST mapping? I think that that POST value mapping is a feature that one would expect of any API tool to have. If you look at common APIs out there like Flicker and Google Maps etc. they all work with POST data. POST data is very prominent much more so than JSON inputs and so supporting as many options that enable would seem to be crucial. All that aside, Web API does provide very nice features with Model Binding that allows you to capture many POST variables easily enough, and logistically this will let you build whatever you need with POST data of all shapes as long as you map objects. But having to have an object for every operation that receives a data input is going to take its toll in heavy AJAX applications, with a lot of types created that do nothing more than act as parameter containers. I also think that POST variable mapping is an expected behavior and Web APIs non-support will likely result in many, many questions like this one: How do I bind a simple POST value in ASP.NET WebAPI RC? with no clear answer to this question. I hope for V.next of WebAPI Microsoft will consider this a feature that's worth adding. Related Articles Passing multiple POST parameters to Web API Controller Methods Mike Stall's post: How Web API does Parameter Binding Where does ASP.NET Web API Fit?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010New Projects.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: .NET Excel Wrapper encapsulates the complexity of working with multiple Excel objects giving you one central point to do all your processing. It h...Advancement Voyage: Advancement Voyage is a high quality RPG experience that provides all the advancement and voyaging that a player could hope for.ASP.Net Routing configuration: ASP.NET routing configuration enables you to configure the routes in the web.config bbinjest: bbinjestBuildUp: BuildUp is a build number increment tool for C# .net projects. It is run as a post build step in Visual Studio.Controlled Vocabulary: This project is devoted to creating tools to assist with Controlling Vocabulary in communication. The initial delivery is an Outlook 2010 Add-in w...CycleList: A replacement for the WPF ListBox Control. Displays only a single item and allows the user to change the selected item by clicking on it once. Very...Forensic Suite: A suite of security softwareFREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat is a live chat solution and its DotNetNuke Chat Module helps to embed a live chat room into website with DotNetNuke(DNN) integrated ...HouseFly experimental controls: Experimental controls for use in HouseFly.ICatalogAll: junkMidiStylus: MidiStylus allows you to control MIDI-enabled hardware or software using your pressure-sensitive pen tablet. The program maps the X position, Y po...myTunes: Search for your favorite artistsNColony - Pluggable Socialism?: NColony will maximize the use of MEF to create flexible application architectures through a suite of plug-in solutions. If MEF is an outlet for plu...Network Monitor Decryption Expert: NmDecrypt is a Network Monitor Expert which when given a trace with encrypted frames, a security certificate, and a passkey will create a new trace...occulo: occulo is a free steganography program, meant to embed files within images with optional encrytion. Open Ant: A implementation of a Open Source Ant which is created to show what is possible in the serious game AntMe! The First implementation of that ProjectProgramming Patterns by example: Design patterns provide solutions to common software design problems. This project will contain samples, written in c# and ruby, of each design pat...project4k: Developing bulk mail system storing email informationQuail - Selenium Remote Control Made Easy: Quail makes it easy for Quality Assurance departments write automated tests against web applications. Both HTML and Silverlight applications can b...RedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulb is a collection of utility functions and classes that make writing games with XNA a lot easier. Key features: Console,GUI (Labels, Buttons,...RegExpress: RegExpress is a WPF application that combines interactive demos of regular expressions with slide content. This was designed for a user group prese...RemoveFolder: Small utility program to remove empty foldersScrumTFS: ScrumTFSSharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: A simple SharePoint list definition to render SharePoint internal links with the option to open them in a new window.SqlSiteMap4MVC: SqlSiteMapProvider for ASP.Net MVC.T Sina .NET Client: t.sina.com.cn api 新浪微博APITest-Lint-Extensions: Test Lint is a free Typemock VS 2010 Extension that finds common problems in your unit tests as you type them. this project will host extensions ...ThinkGearNET: ThinkGearNET is a library for easy usage of the Neurosky Mindset headset from .NET .Wiki to Maml: This project enables you to write wiki syntax and have it converted into MAML syntax for Sandcastle documentation projects.WPF Undo/Redo Framework: This project attempts to solve the age-old programmer problem of supporting unlimited undo/redo in an application, in an easily reusable manner. Th...WPFValidators: WPF Validators Validações de campos para WPFWSP Listener: The WSP listener is a windows service application which waits for new WSC and WSP files in a specific folder. If a new WSC and WSP file are added, ...New Releases.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: First Release: This is the first release which includes the main library release..NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: Updated Version: New Features:SetRangeValue using multidimensional array Print current worksheet Print all worksheets Format ranges background, color, alig...ArkSwitch: ArkSwitch v1.1.2: This release removes all memory reporting information, and is focused on stability.BattLineSvc: V2.1: - Fixed a bug where on system start-up, it would pop up a notification box to let you know the service started. Annoying! And fixed! - Fixed the ...BuildUp: BuildUp 1.0 Alpha 1: Use at your own risk!Not yet feature complete. Basic build incrementing and attribute overriding works. Still working on cascading build incremen...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.1: Initial Alpha Release. System Requirements Outlook 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running i...CycleList: CycleList: The binaries contain the .NET 3.5 DLL ONLY. Please download source for usage examples.FluentNHibernate.Search: 0.3 Beta: 0.3 Beta take the following changes : Mappings : - Field Mapping without specifying "Name" - Id Mapping without specifiying "Field" - Builtin Anal...FREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat DNN Chat Module: With FREE DotNetNuke Chat Module of 123 Flash Chat, webmaster will be assist to add a chat room into DotNetNuke instantly and help to attract more ...GameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0 release 3: This release includes a full installer so that you can get your league running faster and generate interest quicker.iExporter - iTunes playlist exporting: iExporter gui v2.3.1.0 - console v1.2.1.0: Paypal donate! Solved a big bug for iExporter ( Gui & Console ) When a track isn't located under the main iTunes library, iExporter would crash! ...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.3: New - Removed the dependency from XRegExp - Added comment support (both CSS style and C style) - Optimised it for speed - Added speed test TOD...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.4: NEW - @import directive - preserving of comments in the resulting CSS - code refactoring - more class oriented approach TODO - implement operation...MapWindow GIS: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 8): Rewrote the shapefile saving code in the indexed case so that it uses the shape indices rather than trying to create features. This should allow s...MidiStylus: MidiStylus 0.5.1: MidiStylus Beta 0.5.1 This release contains basic functionality for transmitting MIDI data based on X position, Y position, and pressure value rea...MiniTwitter: 1.09.1: MiniTwitter 1.09.1 更新内容 修正 URL に & が含まれている時に短縮 URL がおかしくなるバグを修正Mosaictor: first executable: .exe file of the app in its current state. Mind you that this will likely be highly unstable due to heaps of uncaught errors.MvcContrib a Codeplex Foundation project: T4MVC: T4MVC is a T4 template that generates strongly typed helpers for ASP.NET MVC. You can download it below, and check out the documention here.N2 CMS: 2.0 beta: Major Changes ASP.NET MVC 2 templates Refreshed management UI LINQ support Performance improvements Auto image resize Upgrade Make a comp...NotesForGallery: ASP.NET AJAX Photo Gallery Control: NotesForGallery 2.0: PresentationNotesForGallery is an open source control on top of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework for easy displaying image galleries in the as...occulo: occulo 0.1 binaries: Windows binaries. Tested on Windows XP SP2.occulo: occulo 0.1 source: Initial source release.Open NFe: DANFE 1.9.5: Ajuste de layout e correção dos campos de ISS.patterns & practices Web Client Developer Guidance: Web Application Guidance -- March 8th Drop: This iteration we focused on documentation and bug fixes.PoshConsole: PoshConsole 2.0 Beta: With this release, I am refocusing PoshConsole... It will be a PowerShell 2 host, without support for PowerShell 1.0 I have used some of the new P...Quick Performance Monitor: QPerfmon 1.1: Now you can specify different updating frequencies.RedBulb for XNA Framework: Cipher Puzzle (Sample) Creators Club Package: RedBulb Sample Game: Cipher Puzzle http://bayimg.com/image/galgfaacb.jpgRedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulbStarter (Base Code): This is the code you need to start with. Quick Start Guide: Download the latest version of RedBulb: http://redbulb.codeplex.com/releases/view/415...RoTwee: RoTwee 7.0.0.0 (Alpha): Now this version is under improvement of code structure and may be buggy. However movement of rotation is quite good in this version thanks to clea...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 9 - Improvements and Bug Fixes: Changes I have made in this version: Fixed INQUIRY command timeout problem Lowered ISOBurn's memory usage significantly by not explicitly setting...SharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: Open link in new window list definition: First release, with english and italian localization supportSharePoint Outlook Connector: Version 1.2.3.2: Few bug fixing and some ui enhancementsSysI: sysi, release build: Better than ever -- now allows for escalation to adminThe Silverlight Hyper Video Player [http://slhvp.com]: Beta 1: Beta (1.1) The code is ready for intensive testing. I will update the code at least every second day until we are ready to freeze for V1, which wi...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.52: fixed several trinkets that broke just before i released 0.51, sorry fixed water elemental not doing anything while summoned if not using glyph o...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.53: fixed mp5 calculations when gear contained mp5 and made the formulas more efficient no need to rebuild profiles with this release if placed in th...umbracoSamplePackageCreator (beta): Working Beta: For Visual Studio 2008 creating packages for Umbraco 4.0.3.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30307.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30308.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVOB2MKV: vob2mkv-1.0.3: This is a maintenance update of the VOB2MKV utility. The MKVMUX filter now describes the cluster locations using a separate SeekHead element at th...WPFValidators: WPFValidators 1.0 Beta: Primeira versão do componente ainda em Beta, pode ser utilizada em produção pois esta funcionando bem e as futuras alterações não sofreram muito im...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.06: - Added option to generate SharePoint compatible *disco.aspx file. - Changed commandline optionsWSP Listener: WSP Listener version 1.0.0.0: First version of the WSP Listener includes: Easy cop[y paste installation of WSP solutions Extended logging E-mail when installation is finish...Yet another pali text reader: Pali Text Reader App v1.1: new features/updates + search history is now a tab + format codes in dictionary + add/edit terms in the dictionary + pali keyboard inserts symbols...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpi4o - Indexed LINQResExBraintree Client LibraryGeek's LibrarySharepoint Feature ManagerConfiguration ManagementOragon Architecture SqlBuilderTerrain Independant Navigating Automaton v2.0WBFS ManagerMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryTeam FTW - Software ProjectIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 26, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 26, 2010New Projectsaion-gamecp: Aion Gamecp for aion Private server based on Aion UniqueAzure Email Queuer: Azure Email Queuer makes it easier for Developers Programming in the Cloud to Queue Emails to keep the UI Thread Clear for Requests. Developed w...BIG1: Bob and Ian's Game. Written using XNA Game Studio Express. Basically an update of David Braben and Ian Bell's classic game "Elite." This is a nonco...CMS7: CMS7 The CMS7 is composed of three module. (1)Main CMS Business (2)Process Customization (3)Role/Department CustomizationCoreSharp Networking Core: A simple to use framework to develop efficient client/server application. The framework is part of my project at school and I hope it will benefit ...Fullscreen Countdown: Small and basic countdown application. The countdown window can be resized to fit any size to display the minutes elapsed. Developped in C#, .NET F...IRC4N00bz: Learning sockets, events, delegates, SQL, and IRC commands all in one big project! It's written in C# (Csharp) and hope you find it helpfull, or ev...LjSystem: This project is a collection of my extensions to the BCLMP3 Tags Management: A software to manage the tags of MP3 filesnetone: All net in oneNext Dart (Dublin Area Rapid Transport): The shows the times of the next darts from a given station. It is a windows application that updates automatically and so is easier to use than th...PChat - An OCDotNet.Org Presentation: PChat is a multithreaded pinnable chat server and client. 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It allows you to define tests in xml and then check your application if it's working as you expected.The C# Skype Chat bot: A Skype bot in C# for managing Skype chats.VS 2010 Architecture Layers Patterns: Architecture layers patterns toolbox items for layers diagrams.Yakiimo3D: Mostly DirectX 11 programming tutorials.代码生成器: Project DetailsNew ReleasesArkSwitch: ArkSwitch v1.1.1: This release fixes a crash that occurs when certain processes with multiple primary windows are encountered.BTP Tools: CSB, CUV and HCSB e-Sword files 2010-02-26: include csb.bbl csb+.bbl csb.cmt csbc.dct cuv.bbl cuv+.bbl cuv.cmt cuvc.dct hcsb+.bbl hcsbc.dct files for e-Sword 8.0BubbleBurst: BubbleBurst v1.1: This is the second release of BubbleBurst, the subject of the book Advanced MVVM. 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Anything not included can be pulled from th...Labrado: Labrado MiniTimer: Labrado MiniTimer is a convenient timer tool designed and implemented for GMAT test preparation.LINQ to VFP: LinqToVfp (v1.0.17.1): Cleaned up WCF Data Service Expression Tree. (details...) This build requires IQToolkit v0.17b.Microsoft Health Common User Interface: Release 8.0.200.000: This is version 8.0 of the Microsoft® Health Common User Interface Control Toolkit. The scope and requirements of this release are based on materia...Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query Funky Dev Build (RC1+): The "Funk Dev Build" bit is that I added a couple of features I think are pretty cool. It is a "dev" build but I class it as stable. Find Object...Neovolve: Neovolve.BlogEngine.Extensions 1.2: Updated extensions to work with BE 1.6. Updated Snippets extension to better handle excluded tags and fixed regex bug. Added SyntaxHighlighter exte...Neovolve: Neovolve.BlogEngine.Web 1.1: Update to support BE version 1.6 Neovolve.BlogEngine.Web 1.1 contains a redirector module that translates Community Server url formats into BlogEn...Next Dart (Dublin Area Rapid Transport): 1.0: There are 2 files NextDart 1.0.zip This contains just the files. Extract it to a folder and run NextDart.exe. NextDart 1.0 Intaller.zip This c...Powershell4SQL: Version 1.2: Changes from version 1.1 Added additional attributes to simplify syntax. Server and Database become optional. Defaulted to (local) and 'master' ...Radical: Radical (Desktop) 1.0: First stable dropRaidTracker: Raid Tracker: a few tweaksRaiser's Edge API Developer Toolkit: Alpha Release 1: This is an untested, alpha release. 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See roadmap section of home page for detai...Silverlight HTML 5 Canvas: SLCanvas 1.1: This release enables <canvas renderMethod="auto" onload="runme(this)"></canvas> or <canvas renderMethod="Silverlight" onload="runme(this)"></ca...SilverSynth - Digital Audio Synthesis for Silverlight: SilverSynth 1.0: Source code including demo application.StringDefs: StringDefs Alpha Release 1.01: In this release of the Library few namespaces are added.STSDev 2008: STSDev 2008 2.1: Update to the StsDev 2008 project to correct Manifest Building issues.Text to HTML: 0.4.0.2: Cambios de la versión:Correcciones menores en el sistema de traducción. Controlada la excepción aparecida al suprimir los archivos de idioma. A...The Silverlight Hyper Video Player [http://slhvp.com]: Release 4 - Friendly User Release (Pre-Beta): Release 4 - Friendly User Release (Pre-Beta) This version of the code has much of the design that we plan to go forward with for Mix and utilizes a...TreeSizeNet: TreeSizeNet 0.10.2: - Assemblies merged in one executableVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30225.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30225.1: Automatic drop of latest buildVS 2010 Architecture Layers Patterns: VS 2010 RC Architecture Layers Patterns v1.0: Architecture layers patterns toolbox items based on the Microsoft Application Architecture Guide, 2nd Edition for the layer diagram designer of Vi...Yakiimo3D: DirectX11 BitonicSortCPU Source and Binary: DirectX11 BitonicSortCPU sample source and binary.Yakiimo3D: DirectX11 MandelbrotGPU Source and Binary: DirectX11 MandelbrotGPU source and binary.Most Popular ProjectsVSLabOSIS Interop TestsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsDinnerNow.netRawrBlogEngine.NETSLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality ToolkitInfoServiceSharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLRCommon Context AdaptersNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModulejQuery Library for SharePoint Web Servicespatterns & practices – Enterprise Library

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• Create and Consume WCF service using Visual Studio 2010

  - by sreejukg

  In this article I am going to demonstrate how to create a WCF service, that can be hosted inside IIS and a windows application that consume the WCF service. To support service oriented architecture, Microsoft developed the programming model named Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). ASMX was the prior version from Microsoft, was completely based on XML and .Net framework continues to support ASMX web services in future versions also. While ASMX web services was the first step towards the service oriented architecture, Microsoft has made a big step forward by introducing WCF. An overview of planning for WCF can be found from this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649584.aspx . The following are the important differences between WCF and ASMX from an asp.net developer point of view. 1. ASMX web services are easy to write, configure and consume 2. ASMX web services are only hosted in IIS 3. ASMX web services can only use http 4. WCF, can be hosted inside IIS, windows service, console application, WAS(Windows Process Activation Service) etc 5. WCF can be used with HTTP, TCP/IP, MSMQ and other protocols. The detailed difference between ASMX web service and WCF can be found here. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc304771.aspx Though WCF is a bigger step for future, Visual Studio makes it simpler to create, publish and consume the WCF service. In this demonstration, I am going to create a service named SayHello that accepts 2 parameters such as name and language code. The service will return a hello to user name that corresponds to the language. So the proposed service usage is as follows. Caller: SayHello(“Sreeju”, “en”) -> return value -> Hello Sreeju Caller: SayHello(“???”, “ar”) -> return value -> ????? ??? Caller: SayHello(“Sreeju”, “es”) - > return value -> Hola Sreeju Note: calling an automated translation service is not the intention of this article. If you are interested, you can find bing translator API and can use in your application. http://www.microsofttranslator.com/dev/ So Let us start First I am going to create a Service Application that offer the SayHello Service. Open Visual Studio 2010, Go to File -> New Project, from your preferred language from the templates section select WCF, select WCF service application as the project type, give the project a name(I named it as HelloService), click ok so that visual studio will create the project for you. In this demonstration, I have used C# as the programming language. Visual studio will create the necessary files for you to start with. By default it will create a service with name Service1.svc and there will be an interface named IService.cs. The screenshot for the project in solution explorer is as follows Since I want to demonstrate how to create new service, I deleted Service1.Svc and IService1.cs files from the project by right click the file and select delete. Now in the project there is no service available, I am going to create one. From the solution explorer, right click the project, select Add -> New Item Add new item dialog will appear to you. Select WCF service from the list, give the name as HelloService.svc, and click on the Add button. Now Visual studio will create 2 files with name IHelloService.cs and HelloService.svc. These files are basically the service definition (IHelloService.cs) and the service implementation (HelloService.svc). Let us examine the IHelloService interface. The code state that IHelloService is the service definition and it provides an operation/method (similar to web method in ASMX web services) named DoWork(). Any WCF service will have a definition file as an Interface that defines the service. Let us see what is inside HelloService.svc The code illustrated is implementing the interface IHelloService. The code is self-explanatory; the HelloService class needs to implement all the methods defined in the Service Definition. Let me do the service as I require. Open IHelloService.cs in visual studio, and delete the DoWork() method and add a definition for SayHello(), do not forget to add OperationContract attribute to the method. The modified IHelloService.cs will look as follows Now implement the SayHello method in the HelloService.svc.cs file. Here I wrote the code for SayHello method as follows. I am done with the service. Now you can build and run the service by clicking f5 (or selecting start debugging from the debug menu). Visual studio will host the service in give you a client to test it. The screenshot is as follows. In the left pane, it shows the services available in the server and in right side you can invoke the service. To test the service sayHello, double click on it from the above window. It will ask you to enter the parameters and click on the invoke button. See a sample output below. Now I have done with the service. The next step is to write a service client. Creating a consumer application involves 2 steps. One generating the class and configuration file corresponds to the service. Create a project that utilizes the generated class and configuration file. First I am going to generate the class and configuration file. There is a great tool available with Visual Studio named svcutil.exe, this tool will create the necessary class and configuration files for you. Read the documentation for the svcutil.exe here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa347733.aspx . Open Visual studio command prompt, you can find it under Start Menu -> All Programs -> Visual Studio 2010 -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio command prompt Make sure the service is in running state in visual studio. Note the url for the service(from the running window, you can right click and choose copy address). Now from the command prompt, enter the svcutil.exe command as follows. I have mentioned the url and the /d switch – for the directory to store the output files(In this case d:\temp). If you are using windows drive(in my case it is c: ) , make sure you open the command prompt with run as administrator option, otherwise you will get permission error(Only in windows 7 or windows vista). The tool has created 2 files, HelloService.cs and output.config. Now the next step is to create a new project and use the created files and consume the service. Let us do that now. I am going to add a console application to the current solution. Right click solution name in the solution explorer, right click, Add-> New Project Under Visual C#, select console application, give the project a name, I named it TestService Now navigate to d:\temp where I generated the files with the svcutil.exe. Rename output.config to app.config. Next step is to add both files (d:\temp\helloservice.cs and app.config) to the files. In the solution explorer, right click the project, Add -> Add existing item, browse to the d:\temp folder, select the 2 files as mentioned before, click on the add button. Now you need to add a reference to the System.ServiceModel to the project. From solution explorer, right click the references under testservice project, select Add reference. In the Add reference dialog, select the .Net tab, select System.ServiceModel, and click ok Now open program.cs by double clicking on it and add the code to consume the web service to the main method. The modified file looks as follows Right click the testservice project and set as startup project. Click f5 to run the project. See the sample output as follows Publishing WCF service under IIS is similar to publishing ASP.Net application. Publish the application to a folder using Visual studio publishing feature, create a virtual directory and create it as an application. Don’t forget to set the application pool to use ASP.Net version 4. One last thing you need to check is the app.config file you have added to the solution. See the element client under ServiceModel element. There is an endpoint element with address attribute that points to the published service URL. If you permanently host the service under IIS, you can simply change the address parameter to the corresponding one and your application will consume the service. You have seen how easily you can build/consume WCF service. If you need the solution in zipped format, please post your email below.

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• MySQL Connect: What to Expect From the Wondrous Land of MySQL Cluster

  - by Mat Keep

  The MySQL Connect conference is only a couple of weeks away, with MySQL engineers, support teams, consultants and community aces busy putting the final touches to their talks. There will be many exciting new announcements and sharing of best practices at the conference, covering the range of MySQL technologies. MySQL Cluster will a big part of this, so I wanted to share some key sessions for those of you who plan on attending, as well as some resources for those who are not lucky enough to be able to make the trip, but who can't afford to miss the key news. Of course, this is no substitute to actually being there….and the good news is that registration is still open ;-) Roadmap: Whats New in MySQL Cluster Saturday 29th, 1300-1400, in Golden Gate room 5.                                                                                        Bernd Ocklin, director of MySQL Cluster development, and myself will be taking a look at what follows the latest MySQL Cluster 7.2 release. I don't want to give to much away - lets just say its not often you can add powerful new functionality to a product while at the same time making life radically simpler for its users. For those not making it to the Conference, a live webinar repeating the talk is scheduled for Thursday 25th October at 09.00 pacific time. Hold the date, registration will be open for that soon and published to our MySQL Webinars page Best Practices Getting Started with MySQL Cluster, Hands-On Lab Saturday 29th, 1600-1700, in Plaza Room A.                                                              Santo Leto, one of our lead MySQL Cluster support engineers, regularly works with users new to MySQL Cluster, assisting them in installation, configuration, scaling, etc. In this lab, Santo will share best-practices in getting started. Delivering Breakthrough Performance with MySQL Cluster Saturday 29th, 1730-1830, in Golden Gate room 5. Frazer Clement, lead MySQL Cluster software engineer, will demonstrate how to translate the awesome Cluster benchmarks (remember 1 BILLION UPDATEs per minute ?!) into real-world performance. You can also get some best practices from our new MySQL Cluster performance guide  MySQL Cluster BoF Saturday 29th, 1900-2000, room Golden Gate 5.                                                                                                           Come and get a demonstration of new tools for the installation and configuration of MySQL Cluster, and spend time with the engineering team discussing any questions or issues you may have. Developing High-Throughput Services with NoSQL APIs to InnoDB and MySQL Cluster Sunday 30th, 1145 - 1245, in Golden Gate room 7.   In this session, JD Duncan and Andrew Morgan will present how to get started with both Memcached and new NoSQL APIs. JD and I recently ran a webinar demonstrating how to build simple Twitter-like services with Memcached and MySQL Cluster. The replay is available for download.  Case Studies: MySQL Cluster @ El Chavo, Latin America’s #1 Facebook Game Sunday 30th, 1745 - 1845, in Golden Gate room 4.                             Playful Play deployed MySQL Cluster CGE to power their market leading social game. This session will discuss the challenges they faced, why they selected MySQL Cluster and their experiences to date. You can read more about Playful Play and MySQL Cluster here  A Journey into NoSQLand: MySQL’s NoSQL Implementation Sunday 30th, 1345 - 1445, in Golden Gate room 4.                                          Lig Turmelle, web DBA at Kaplan Professional and esteemed Oracle Ace, will discuss her experiences working with the NoSQL interfaces for both MySQL Cluster and InnoDB Evaluating MySQL HA Alternatives Saturday 29th, 1430-1530, room Golden Gate 5                                                                                   Henrik Ingo, former member of the MySQL sales engineering team, will provide an overview of various HA technologies for MySQL, starting with replication, progressing to InnoDB, Galera and MySQL Cluster What about the other stuff? Of course MySQL Connect has much, much more than MySQL Cluster. There will be lots on replication (which I'll blog about soon), MySQL 5.6, InnoDB, cloud, etc, etc. Take a look at the full Content Catalog to see more. If you are attending, I hope to see you at one of the Cluster sessions...and remember, registration is still open

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• ASP.NET MVC ‘Extendable-hooks’ – ControllerActionInvoker class

  - by nmarun

  There’s a class ControllerActionInvoker in ASP.NET MVC. This can be used as one of an hook-points to allow customization of your application. Watching Brad Wilsons’ Advanced MP3 from MVC Conf inspired me to write about this class. What MSDN says: “Represents a class that is responsible for invoking the action methods of a controller.” Well if MSDN says it, I think I can instill a fair amount of confidence into what the class does. But just to get to the details, I also looked into the source code for MVC. Seems like the base class Controller is where an IActionInvoker is initialized: 1: protected virtual IActionInvoker CreateActionInvoker() { 2: return new ControllerActionInvoker(); 3: } In the ControllerActionInvoker (the O-O-B behavior), there are different ‘versions’ of InvokeActionMethod() method that actually call the action method in question and return an instance of type ActionResult. 1: protected virtual ActionResult InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary<string, object> parameters) { 2: object returnValue = actionDescriptor.Execute(controllerContext, parameters); 3: ActionResult result = CreateActionResult(controllerContext, actionDescriptor, returnValue); 4: return result; 5: } I guess that’s enough on the ‘behind-the-screens’ of this class. Let’s see how we can use this class to hook-up extensions. Say I have a requirement that the user should be able to get different renderings of the same output, like html, xml, json, csv and so on. The user will type-in the output format in the url and should the get result accordingly. For example: http://site.com/RenderAs/ – renders the default way (the razor view) http://site.com/RenderAs/xml http://site.com/RenderAs/csv … and so on where RenderAs is my controller. There are many ways of doing this and I’m using a custom ControllerActionInvoker class (even though this might not be the best way to accomplish this). For this, my one and only route in the Global.asax.cs is: 1: routes.MapRoute("RenderAsRoute", "RenderAs/{outputType}", 2: new {controller = "RenderAs", action = "Index", outputType = ""}); Here the controller name is ‘RenderAsController’ and the action that’ll get called (always) is the Index action. The outputType parameter will map to the type of output requested by the user (xml, csv…). I intend to display a list of food items for this example. 1: public class Item 2: { 3: public int Id { get; set; } 4: public string Name { get; set; } 5: public Cuisine Cuisine { get; set; } 6: } 7:  8: public class Cuisine 9: { 10: public int CuisineId { get; set; } 11: public string Name { get; set; } 12: } Coming to my ‘RenderAsController’ class. I generate an IList<Item> to represent my model. 1: private static IList<Item> GetItems() 2: { 3: Cuisine cuisine = new Cuisine { CuisineId = 1, Name = "Italian" }; 4: Item item = new Item { Id = 1, Name = "Lasagna", Cuisine = cuisine }; 5: IList<Item> items = new List<Item> { item }; 6: item = new Item {Id = 2, Name = "Pasta", Cuisine = cuisine}; 7: items.Add(item); 8: //... 9: return items; 10: } My action method looks like 1: public IList<Item> Index(string outputType) 2: { 3: return GetItems(); 4: } There are two things that stand out in this action method. The first and the most obvious one being that the return type is not of type ActionResult (or one of its derivatives). Instead I’m passing the type of the model itself (IList<Item> in this case). We’ll convert this to some type of an ActionResult in our custom controller action invoker class later. The second thing (a little subtle) is that I’m not doing anything with the outputType value that is passed on to this action method. This value will be in the RouteData dictionary and we’ll use this in our custom invoker class as well. It’s time to hook up our invoker class. First, I’ll override the Initialize() method of my RenderAsController class. 1: protected override void Initialize(RequestContext requestContext) 2: { 3: base.Initialize(requestContext); 4: string outputType = string.Empty; 5:  6: // read the outputType from the RouteData dictionary 7: if (requestContext.RouteData.Values["outputType"] != null) 8: { 9: outputType = requestContext.RouteData.Values["outputType"].ToString(); 10: } 11:  12: // my custom invoker class 13: ActionInvoker = new ContentRendererActionInvoker(outputType); 14: } Coming to the main part of the discussion – the ContentRendererActionInvoker class: 1: public class ContentRendererActionInvoker : ControllerActionInvoker 2: { 3: private readonly string _outputType; 4:  5: public ContentRendererActionInvoker(string outputType) 6: { 7: _outputType = outputType.ToLower(); 8: } 9: //... 10: } So the outputType value that was read from the RouteData, which was passed in from the url, is being set here in  a private field. Moving to the crux of this article, I now override the CreateActionResult method. 1: protected override ActionResult CreateActionResult(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, object actionReturnValue) 2: { 3: if (actionReturnValue == null) 4: return new EmptyResult(); 5:  6: ActionResult result = actionReturnValue as ActionResult; 7: if (result != null) 8: return result; 9:  10: // This is where the magic happens 11: // Depending on the value in the _outputType field, 12: // return an appropriate ActionResult 13: switch (_outputType) 14: { 15: case "json": 16: { 17: JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer(); 18: string json = serializer.Serialize(actionReturnValue); 19: return new ContentResult { Content = json, ContentType = "application/json" }; 20: } 21: case "xml": 22: { 23: XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(actionReturnValue.GetType()); 24: using (StringWriter writer = new StringWriter()) 25: { 26: serializer.Serialize(writer, actionReturnValue); 27: return new ContentResult { Content = writer.ToString(), ContentType = "text/xml" }; 28: } 29: } 30: case "csv": 31: controllerContext.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=items.csv"); 32: return new ContentResult 33: { 34: Content = ToCsv(actionReturnValue as IList<Item>), 35: ContentType = "application/ms-excel" 36: }; 37: case "pdf": 38: string filePath = controllerContext.HttpContext.Server.MapPath("~/items.pdf"); 39: controllerContext.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", 40: "attachment; filename=items.pdf"); 41: ToPdf(actionReturnValue as IList<Item>, filePath); 42: return new FileContentResult(StreamFile(filePath), "application/pdf"); 43:  44: default: 45: controllerContext.Controller.ViewData.Model = actionReturnValue; 46: return new ViewResult 47: { 48: TempData = controllerContext.Controller.TempData, 49: ViewData = controllerContext.Controller.ViewData 50: }; 51: } 52: } A big method there! The hook I was talking about kinda above actually is here. This is where different kinds / formats of output get returned based on the output type requested in the url. When the _outputType is not set (string.Empty as set in the Global.asax.cs file), the razor view gets rendered (lines 45-50). This is the default behavior in most MVC applications where-in a view (webform/razor) gets rendered on the browser. As you see here, this gets returned as a ViewResult. But then, for an outputType of json/xml/csv, a ContentResult gets returned, while for pdf, a FileContentResult is returned. Here are how the different kinds of output look like: This is how we can leverage this feature of ASP.NET MVC to developer a better application. I’ve used the iTextSharp library to convert to a pdf format. Mike gives quite a bit of detail regarding this library here. You can download the sample code here. (You’ll get an option to download once you open the link). Verdict: Hot chocolate: $3; Reebok shoes: $50; Your first car: $3000; Being able to extend a web application: Priceless.

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• How to deal with transport level security policy with OSB

  - by Jian Liang

  Recently, we received a use case for Oracle Service Bus (OSB) 11gPS4 to consume a Web Service which is secured by HTTP transport level security policy. The WSDL of the remote web service looks like following where the part marked in red shows the security policy: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <definitions xmlns:wssutil="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:tns="https://httpsbasicauth" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" targetNamespace="https://httpsbasicauth" name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <wsp:UsingPolicy wssutil:Required="true"/> <wsp:Policy wssutil:Id="WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"> <wsp:ExactlyOne> <wsp:All> <ns1:TransportBinding xmlns:ns1="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/07/securitypolicy"> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:TransportToken> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:HttpsToken RequireClientCertificate="false"/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportToken> <ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Basic256/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <ns1:Layout> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Strict/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:Layout> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportBinding> <ns2:UsingAddressing xmlns:ns2="http://www.w3.org/2006/05/addressing/wsdl"/> </wsp:All> </wsp:ExactlyOne> </wsp:Policy> <types> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://proxyhttpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=1"/> </xsd:schema> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://httpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=2"/> </xsd:schema> </types> <message name="echoString"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoString"/> </message> <message name="echoStringResponse"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </message> <portType name="HttpsBasicAuth"> <operation name="echoString"> <input message="tns:echoString"/> <output message="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </operation> </portType> <binding name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding" type="tns:HttpsBasicAuth"> <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"/> <soap:binding transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" style="document"/> <operation name="echoString"> <soap:operation soapAction=""/> <input> <soap:body use="literal"/> </input> <output> <soap:body use="literal"/> </output> </operation> </binding> <service name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <port name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPort" binding="tns:HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding"> <soap:address location="https://localhost:7002/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService"/> </port> </service> </definitions> The security assertion in the WSDL (marked in red) indicates that this is the HTTP transport level security policy which requires one way SSL with default authentication (aka. basic authenticate with username/password). Normally, there are two ways to handle web service security policy with OSB 11g: Use WebLogic 9.x policy Use OWSM Since OSB doesn’t support WebLogic 9.x WSSP transport level assertion (except for WS transport), when we tried to create the business service based on the imported WSDL, OSB complained with the following message: [OSB Kernel:398133]The service is based on WSDL with Web Services Security Policies that are not natively supported by Oracle Service Bus. Please select OWSM Policies - From OWSM Policy Store option and attach equivalent OWSM security policy. For the Business Service, either you can add the necessary client policies manually by clicking Add button or you can let Oracle Service Bus automatically pick and add compatible client policies by clicking Add Compatible button. Unfortunately, when tried with OWSM, we couldn’t find http_token_policy from OWSM since OSB PS4 doesn’t support OWSM http_token_policy. It seems that we ran into an unsupported situation that no appropriate policy can be used from both WebLogic and OWSM. As this security policy requires one way SSL with basic authentication at the transport level, a possible workaround is to meet the remote service's requirement at transport level without using web service policy. We can simply use OSB to establish SSL connection and provide username/password for authentication at the transport level to the remote web service. In this case, the business service within OSB will be transparent to the web service policy. However, we still need to deal with OSB console’s complaint related to unsupported security policy because the failure of WSDL validation prohibits OSB console to move forward. With the help from OSB Product Management team, we finally came up with the following solutions: Solution 1: OSB PS5 The good news is that the http_token_policy is made available in OSB PS5. With OSB PS5, you can simply add OWSM oracle/wss_http_token_over_ssl_client_policy to the business service. The simplest solution is to upgrade to OSB PS5 where the OWSM solution is provided out of the box. But if you are not in a position where upgrading is an immediate option, you might want to consider other two workaround solutions described below. Solution 2: Modifying WSDL This solution addresses OSB console’s complaint by removing the security policy from the imported WSDL within OSB. Without the security policy, OSB console allows the business service to be created based on modified WSDL.  Please bear in mind, modifying WSDL is done only for the OSB side via OSB console, no change is required on the remote Web Service. The main steps of this solution: Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB remove security assertion (the red marked part) from the imported WSDL create a service account. In our sample, we simply take the user weblogic create the business service and check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account make sure that OSB consumes the web service via https. This solution requires modifying WSDL. It is suitable for any OSB version (10g or OSB 11g version) prior to PS5 without OWSM. However, modifying WSDL by hand is troublesome as it requires the user to remember that the original WSDL was edited.  It forces you to make the same edit each time you want to re-import the service WSDL when changes occur at the service level. This also prevents you from using UDDI to import WSDL.  Solution 3: Using original WSDL This solution keeps the WSDL intact and ignores the embedded policy by using OWSM. By design, OWSM doesn’t like WSDL with embedded security assertion. Since OWSM doesn’t provide the feature to explicitly ignore the embedded policy from a remote WSDL, in this solution, we use OWSM in a tricky way to ignore the embedded policy. Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB create a service account create the business service in which check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account as the imported WSDL is intact, the OSB Kernel:398133 error is expected ignore this error message for the moment and navigate to the Policies Page of business service Select “From OWSM Policy Store” and click “Add” button, the list of policies will pop-up Here is the tricky part: select an arbitrary policy, and click “Cancel” Update and save By clicking “Cancel’ button, we didn’t add any OWSM policy to business service, but the embedded policy is ignored. Yes, this is tricky. According to Oracle OSB Product Manager, the future release of OWSM will add a button “None” which allows to ignore the embedded policy explicitly. This solution keeps the imported WSDL intact which is the big advantage over the solution 2. It is suitable for OSB 11g (version prior to PS5) domain with OWSM configured. This blog addressed the unsupported transport level web service security policy with OSB PS4. To summarize, if you are using OSB PS5 or in a position to upgrade to PS5, the recommendation is to use OWSM OOTB transport level security policy directly. With the release prior to 11g PS5, you can consider the solution 2 or 3 depending on if OWSM is configured.

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

  Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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• AngularJS on top of ASP.NET: Moving the MVC framework out to the browser

  - by Varun Chatterji

  Heavily drawing inspiration from Ruby on Rails, MVC4’s convention over configuration model of development soon became the Holy Grail of .NET web development. The MVC model brought with it the goodness of proper separation of concerns between business logic, data, and the presentation logic. However, the MVC paradigm, was still one in which server side .NET code could be mixed with presentation code. The Razor templating engine, though cleaner than its predecessors, still encouraged and allowed you to mix .NET server side code with presentation logic. Thus, for example, if the developer required a certain <div> tag to be shown if a particular variable ShowDiv was true in the View’s model, the code could look like the following: Fig 1: To show a div or not. Server side .NET code is used in the View Mixing .NET code with HTML in views can soon get very messy. Wouldn’t it be nice if the presentation layer (HTML) could be pure HTML? Also, in the ASP.NET MVC model, some of the business logic invariably resides in the controller. It is tempting to use an anti­pattern like the one shown above to control whether a div should be shown or not. However, best practice would indicate that the Controller should not be aware of the div. The ShowDiv variable in the model should not exist. A controller should ideally, only be used to do the plumbing of getting the data populated in the model and nothing else. The view (ideally pure HTML) should render the presentation layer based on the model. In this article we will see how Angular JS, a new JavaScript framework by Google can be used effectively to build web applications where: 1. Views are pure HTML 2. Controllers (in the server sense) are pure REST based API calls 3. The presentation layer is loaded as needed from partial HTML only files. What is MVVM? MVVM short for Model View View Model is a new paradigm in web development. In this paradigm, the Model and View stuff exists on the client side through javascript instead of being processed on the server through postbacks. These frameworks are JavaScript frameworks that facilitate the clear separation of the “frontend” or the data rendering logic from the “backend” which is typically just a REST based API that loads and processes data through a resource model. The frameworks are called MVVM as a change to the Model (through javascript) gets reflected in the view immediately i.e. Model > View. Also, a change on the view (through manual input) gets reflected in the model immediately i.e. View > Model. The following figure shows this conceptually (comments are shown in red): Fig 2: Demonstration of MVVM in action In Fig 2, two text boxes are bound to the same variable model.myInt. Thus, changing the view manually (changing one text box through keyboard input) also changes the other textbox in real time demonstrating V > M property of a MVVM framework. Furthermore, clicking the button adds 1 to the value of model.myInt thus changing the model through JavaScript. This immediately updates the view (the value in the two textboxes) thus demonstrating the M > V property of a MVVM framework. Thus we see that the model in a MVVM JavaScript framework can be regarded as “the single source of truth“. This is an important concept. Angular is one such MVVM framework. We shall use it to build a simple app that sends SMS messages to a particular number. Application, Routes, Views, Controllers, Scope and Models Angular can be used in many ways to construct web applications. For this article, we shall only focus on building Single Page Applications (SPAs). Many of the approaches we will follow in this article have alternatives. It is beyond the scope of this article to explain every nuance in detail but we shall try to touch upon the basic concepts and end up with a working application that can be used to send SMS messages using Sent.ly Plus (a service that is itself built using Angular). Before you read on, we would like to urge you to forget what you know about Models, Views, Controllers and Routes in the ASP.NET MVC4 framework. All these words have different meanings in the Angular world. Whenever these words are used in this article, they will refer to Angular concepts and not ASP.NET MVC4 concepts. The following figure shows the skeleton of the root page of an SPA: Fig 3: The skeleton of a SPA The skeleton of the application is based on the Bootstrap starter template which can be found at: http://getbootstrap.com/examples/starter­template/ Apart from loading the Angular, jQuery and Bootstrap JavaScript libraries, it also loads our custom scripts /app/js/controllers.js /app/js/app.js These scripts define the routes, views and controllers which we shall come to in a moment. Application Notice that the body tag (Fig. 3) has an extra attribute: ng­app=”smsApp” Providing this tag “bootstraps” our single page application. It tells Angular to load a “module” called smsApp. This “module” is defined /app/js/app.js angular.module('smsApp', ['smsApp.controllers', function () {}]) Fig 4: The definition of our application module The line shows above, declares a module called smsApp. It also declares that this module “depends” on another module called “smsApp.controllers”. The smsApp.controllers module will contain all the controllers for our SPA. Routing and Views Notice that in the Navbar (in Fig 3) we have included two hyperlinks to: “#/app” “#/help” This is how Angular handles routing. Since the URLs start with “#”, they are actually just bookmarks (and not server side resources). However, our route definition (in /app/js/app.js) gives these URLs a special meaning within the Angular framework. angular.module('smsApp', ['smsApp.controllers', function () { }]) //Configure the routes .config(['$routeProvider', function ($routeProvider) { $routeProvider.when('/binding', { templateUrl: '/app/partials/bindingexample.html', controller: 'BindingController' }); }]); Fig 5: The definition of a route with an associated partial view and controller As we can see from the previous code sample, we are using the $routeProvider object in the configuration of our smsApp module. Notice how the code “asks for” the $routeProvider object by specifying it as a dependency in the [] braces and then defining a function that accepts it as a parameter. This is known as dependency injection. Please refer to the following link if you want to delve into this topic: http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/di What the above code snippet is doing is that it is telling Angular that when the URL is “#/binding”, then it should load the HTML snippet (“partial view”) found at /app/partials/bindingexample.html. Also, for this URL, Angular should load the controller called “BindingController”. We have also marked the div with the class “container” (in Fig 3) with the ng­view attribute. This attribute tells Angular that views (partial HTML pages) defined in the routes will be loaded within this div. You can see that the Angular JavaScript framework, unlike many other frameworks, works purely by extending HTML tags and attributes. It also allows you to extend HTML with your own tags and attributes (through directives) if you so desire, you can find out more about directives at the following URL: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/607873/Extending­HTML­with­AngularJS­Directives Controllers and Models We have seen how we define what views and controllers should be loaded for a particular route. Let us now consider how controllers are defined. Our controllers are defined in the file /app/js/controllers.js. The following snippet shows the definition of the “BindingController” which is loaded when we hit the URL http://localhost:port/index.html#/binding (as we have defined in the route earlier as shown in Fig 5). Remember that we had defined that our application module “smsApp” depends on the “smsApp.controllers” module (see Fig 4). The code snippet below shows how the “BindingController” defined in the route shown in Fig 5 is defined in the module smsApp.controllers: angular.module('smsApp.controllers', [function () { }]) .controller('BindingController', ['$scope', function ($scope) { $scope.model = {}; $scope.model.myInt = 6; $scope.addOne = function () { $scope.model.myInt++; } }]); Fig 6: The definition of a controller in the “smsApp.controllers” module. The pieces are falling in place! Remember Fig.2? That was the code of a partial view that was loaded within the container div of the skeleton SPA shown in Fig 3. The route definition shown in Fig 5 also defined that the controller called “BindingController” (shown in Fig 6.) was loaded when we loaded the URL: http://localhost:22544/index.html#/binding The button in Fig 2 was marked with the attribute ng­click=”addOne()” which added 1 to the value of model.myInt. In Fig 6, we can see that this function is actually defined in the “BindingController”. Scope We can see from Fig 6, that in the definition of “BindingController”, we defined a dependency on $scope and then, as usual, defined a function which “asks for” $scope as per the dependency injection pattern. So what is $scope? Any guesses? As you might have guessed a scope is a particular “address space” where variables and functions may be defined. This has a similar meaning to scope in a programming language like C#. Model: The Scope is not the Model It is tempting to assign variables in the scope directly. For example, we could have defined myInt as $scope.myInt = 6 in Fig 6 instead of $scope.model.myInt = 6. The reason why this is a bad idea is that scope in hierarchical in Angular. Thus if we were to define a controller which was defined within the another controller (nested controllers), then the inner controller would inherit the scope of the parent controller. This inheritance would follow JavaScript prototypal inheritance. Let’s say the parent controller defined a variable through $scope.myInt = 6. The child controller would inherit the scope through java prototypical inheritance. This basically means that the child scope has a variable myInt that points to the parent scopes myInt variable. Now if we assigned the value of myInt in the parent, the child scope would be updated with the same value as the child scope’s myInt variable points to the parent scope’s myInt variable. However, if we were to assign the value of the myInt variable in the child scope, then the link of that variable to the parent scope would be broken as the variable myInt in the child scope now points to the value 6 and not to the parent scope’s myInt variable. But, if we defined a variable model in the parent scope, then the child scope will also have a variable model that points to the model variable in the parent scope. Updating the value of $scope.model.myInt in the parent scope would change the model variable in the child scope too as the variable is pointed to the model variable in the parent scope. Now changing the value of $scope.model.myInt in the child scope would ALSO change the value in the parent scope. This is because the model reference in the child scope is pointed to the scope variable in the parent. We did no new assignment to the model variable in the child scope. We only changed an attribute of the model variable. Since the model variable (in the child scope) points to the model variable in the parent scope, we have successfully changed the value of myInt in the parent scope. Thus the value of $scope.model.myInt in the parent scope becomes the “single source of truth“. This is a tricky concept, thus it is considered good practice to NOT use scope inheritance. More info on prototypal inheritance in Angular can be found in the “JavaScript Prototypal Inheritance” section at the following URL: https://github.com/angular/angular.js/wiki/Understanding­Scopes. Building It: An Angular JS application using a .NET Web API Backend Now that we have a perspective on the basic components of an MVVM application built using Angular, let’s build something useful. We will build an application that can be used to send out SMS messages to a given phone number. The following diagram describes the architecture of the application we are going to build: Fig 7: Broad application architecture We are going to add an HTML Partial to our project. This partial will contain the form fields that will accept the phone number and message that needs to be sent as an SMS. It will also display all the messages that have previously been sent. All the executable code that is run on the occurrence of events (button clicks etc.) in the view resides in the controller. The controller interacts with the ASP.NET WebAPI to get a history of SMS messages, add a message etc. through a REST based API. For the purposes of simplicity, we will use an in memory data structure for the purposes of creating this application. Thus, the tasks ahead of us are: Creating the REST WebApi with GET, PUT, POST, DELETE methods. Creating the SmsView.html partial Creating the SmsController controller with methods that are called from the SmsView.html partial Add a new route that loads the controller and the partial. 1. Creating the REST WebAPI This is a simple task that should be quite straightforward to any .NET developer. The following listing shows our ApiController: public class SmsMessage { public string to { get; set; } public string message { get; set; } } public class SmsResource : SmsMessage { public int smsId { get; set; } } public class SmsResourceController : ApiController { public static Dictionary<int, SmsResource> messages = new Dictionary<int, SmsResource>(); public static int currentId = 0; // GET api/<controller> public List<SmsResource> Get() { List<SmsResource> result = new List<SmsResource>(); foreach (int key in messages.Keys) { result.Add(messages[key]); } return result; } // GET api/<controller>/5 public SmsResource Get(int id) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) return messages[id]; return null; } // POST api/<controller> public List<SmsResource> Post([FromBody] SmsMessage value) { //Synchronize on messages so we don't have id collisions lock (messages) { SmsResource res = (SmsResource) value; res.smsId = currentId++; messages.Add(res.smsId, res); //SentlyPlusSmsSender.SendMessage(value.to, value.message); return Get(); } } // PUT api/<controller>/5 public List<SmsResource> Put(int id, [FromBody] SmsMessage value) { //Synchronize on messages so we don't have id collisions lock (messages) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) { //Update the message messages[id].message = value.message; messages[id].to = value.message; } return Get(); } } // DELETE api/<controller>/5 public List<SmsResource> Delete(int id) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) { messages.Remove(id); } return Get(); } } Once this class is defined, we should be able to access the WebAPI by a simple GET request using the browser: http://localhost:port/api/SmsResource Notice the commented line: //SentlyPlusSmsSender.SendMessage The SentlyPlusSmsSender class is defined in the attached solution. We have shown this line as commented as we want to explain the core Angular concepts. If you load the attached solution, this line is uncommented in the source and an actual SMS will be sent! By default, the API returns XML. For consumption of the API in Angular, we would like it to return JSON. To change the default to JSON, we make the following change to WebApiConfig.cs file located in the App_Start folder. public static class WebApiConfig { public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) { config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "DefaultApi", routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}", defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional } ); var appXmlType = config.Formatters.XmlFormatter. SupportedMediaTypes. FirstOrDefault( t => t.MediaType == "application/xml"); config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.Remove(appXmlType); } } We now have our backend REST Api which we can consume from Angular! 2. Creating the SmsView.html partial This simple partial will define two fields: the destination phone number (international format starting with a +) and the message. These fields will be bound to model.phoneNumber and model.message. We will also add a button that we shall hook up to sendMessage() in the controller. A list of all previously sent messages (bound to model.allMessages) will also be displayed below the form input. The following code shows the code for the partial: <!--­­ If model.errorMessage is defined, then render the error div -­­> <div class="alert alert-­danger alert-­dismissable" style="margin­-top: 30px;" ng­-show="model.errorMessage != undefined"> <button type="button" class="close" data­dismiss="alert" aria­hidden="true">&times;</button> <strong>Error!</strong> <br /> {{ model.errorMessage }} </div> <!--­­ The input fields bound to the model --­­> <div class="well" style="margin-­top: 30px;"> <table style="width: 100%;"> <tr> <td style="width: 45%; text-­align: center;"> <input type="text" placeholder="Phone number (eg; +44 7778 609466)" ng­-model="model.phoneNumber" class="form-­control" style="width: 90%" onkeypress="return checkPhoneInput();" /> </td> <td style="width: 45%; text-­align: center;"> <input type="text" placeholder="Message" ng­-model="model.message" class="form-­control" style="width: 90%" /> </td> <td style="text-­align: center;"> <button class="btn btn-­danger" ng-­click="sendMessage();" ng-­disabled="model.isAjaxInProgress" style="margin­right: 5px;">Send</button> <img src="/Content/ajax-­loader.gif" ng­-show="model.isAjaxInProgress" /> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <!--­­ The past messages ­­--> <div style="margin-­top: 30px;"> <!­­-- The following div is shown if there are no past messages --­­> <div ng­-show="model.allMessages.length == 0"> No messages have been sent yet! </div> <!--­­ The following div is shown if there are some past messages --­­> <div ng-­show="model.allMessages.length == 0"> <table style="width: 100%;" class="table table-­striped"> <tr> <td>Phone Number</td> <td>Message</td> <td></td> </tr> <!--­­ The ng-­repeat directive is line the repeater control in .NET, but as you can see this partial is pure HTML which is much cleaner --> <tr ng-­repeat="message in model.allMessages"> <td>{{ message.to }}</td> <td>{{ message.message }}</td> <td> <button class="btn btn-­danger" ng-­click="delete(message.smsId);" ng­-disabled="model.isAjaxInProgress">Delete</button> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> The above code is commented and should be self explanatory. Conditional rendering is achieved through using the ng-­show=”condition” attribute on various div tags. Input fields are bound to the model and the send button is bound to the sendMessage() function in the controller as through the ng­click=”sendMessage()” attribute defined on the button tag. While AJAX calls are taking place, the controller sets model.isAjaxInProgress to true. Based on this variable, buttons are disabled through the ng-­disabled directive which is added as an attribute to the buttons. The ng-­repeat directive added as an attribute to the tr tag causes the table row to be rendered multiple times much like an ASP.NET repeater. 3. Creating the SmsController controller The penultimate piece of our application is the controller which responds to events from our view and interacts with our MVC4 REST WebAPI. The following listing shows the code we need to add to /app/js/controllers.js. Note that controller definitions can be chained. Also note that this controller “asks for” the $http service. The $http service is a simple way in Angular to do AJAX. So far we have only encountered modules, controllers, views and directives in Angular. The $http is new entity in Angular called a service. More information on Angular services can be found at the following URL: http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/dev_guide.services.understanding_services. .controller('SmsController', ['$scope', '$http', function ($scope, $http) { //We define the model $scope.model = {}; //We define the allMessages array in the model //that will contain all the messages sent so far $scope.model.allMessages = []; //The error if any $scope.model.errorMessage = undefined; //We initially load data so set the isAjaxInProgress = true; $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; //Load all the messages $http({ url: '/api/smsresource', method: "GET" }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { this callback will be called asynchronously //when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }). error(function (data, status, headers, config) { //called asynchronously if an error occurs //or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); $scope.delete = function (id) { //We are making an ajax call so we set this to true $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; $http({ url: '/api/smsresource/' + id, method: "DELETE" }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { // this callback will be called asynchronously // when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); error(function (data, status, headers, config) { // called asynchronously if an error occurs // or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); } $scope.sendMessage = function () { $scope.model.errorMessage = undefined; var message = ''; if($scope.model.message != undefined) message = $scope.model.message.trim(); if ($scope.model.phoneNumber == undefined || $scope.model.phoneNumber == '' || $scope.model.phoneNumber.length < 10 || $scope.model.phoneNumber[0] != '+') { $scope.model.errorMessage = "You must enter a valid phone number in international format. Eg: +44 7778 609466"; return; } if (message.length == 0) { $scope.model.errorMessage = "You must specify a message!"; return; } //We are making an ajax call so we set this to true $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; $http({ url: '/api/smsresource', method: "POST", data: { to: $scope.model.phoneNumber, message: $scope.model.message } }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { // this callback will be called asynchronously // when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }). error(function (data, status, headers, config) { // called asynchronously if an error occurs // or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status // We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); } }]); We can see from the previous listing how the functions that are called from the view are defined in the controller. It should also be evident how easy it is to make AJAX calls to consume our MVC4 REST WebAPI. Now we are left with the final piece. We need to define a route that associates a particular path with the view we have defined and the controller we have defined. 4. Add a new route that loads the controller and the partial This is the easiest part of the puzzle. We simply define another route in the /app/js/app.js file: $routeProvider.when('/sms', { templateUrl: '/app/partials/smsview.html', controller: 'SmsController' }); Conclusion In this article we have seen how much of the server side functionality in the MVC4 framework can be moved to the browser thus delivering a snappy and fast user interface. We have seen how we can build client side HTML only views that avoid the messy syntax offered by server side Razor views. We have built a functioning app from the ground up. The significant advantage of this approach to building web apps is that the front end can be completely platform independent. Even though we used ASP.NET to create our REST API, we could just easily have used any other language such as Node.js, Ruby etc without changing a single line of our front end code. Angular is a rich framework and we have only touched on basic functionality required to create a SPA. For readers who wish to delve further into the Angular framework, we would recommend the following URL as a starting point: http://docs.angularjs.org/misc/started. To get started with the code for this project: Sign up for an account at http://plus.sent.ly (free) Add your phone number Go to the “My Identies Page” Note Down your Sender ID, Consumer Key and Consumer Secret Download the code for this article at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzjEWqSE31yoZjZlV0d0R2Y3eW8/edit?usp=sharing Change the values of Sender Id, Consumer Key and Consumer Secret in the web.config file Run the project through Visual Studio!

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• Oracle Fusion Applications: Changing the Game

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  Originally posted in the Oracle Profit Magazine, November 2010 Edition. When the order processing system red-flags a customer's credit status, the IT department doesn't get the customer's call. When a supplier misses a delivery date for a key automotive assembly, it's not the CIO who has to answer for the error. Knowledge workers (known in IT circles as "users") are on the front lines when an exception occurs in an established business process. They're also the ones who study sales trends to decide when to open a new store in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which products are most profitable, how employee skill sets are evolving, and which suppliers are most efficient. In short, knowledge workers are masters of business as unusual. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other familiar enterprise applications excel at automating, managing, and executing standard business processes. These programs shine when everything goes as planned. Life gets even trickier when a traditional application needs to be extended with a new service or an extra step is added to a business process when new products are brought to market, divisions are merged, or companies are acquired. Monolithic applications often need the IT department to step in and make the necessary adjustments--incurring additional costs and delays. Until now. When Oracle unveiled the much-anticipated family of Oracle Fusion Applications at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010, knowledge workers in particular had a lot to cheer about. Business users will soon have ready access to analytical information and collaboration tools in the context of what they are working on, so they can make better decisions when problems or opportunities arise. Additionally, the Oracle Fusion Applications platform will make it easy for business users to tweak processes, create new capabilities, and find information, often without the need for IT department assistance and while still following company guidelines. And IT leaders will be happy to hear about new deployment options, guided implementation and setup tools, and cost-saving management capabilities. Just as important, the underlying technologies in Oracle Fusion Applications will allow organizations to choose among their existing investments and next-generation enterprise applications so they can introduce innovations at a pace that makes the most business and financial sense. "Oracle Fusion Applications are architected so you don't have to do rip and replace," says Jim Hayes, managing director of the consulting firm Accenture. "That's very important for creating a business case that will get through the steering committee and be approved by the board. It shows you can drive value and make a difference in the near term." For these and other reasons, analysts and early adopters are calling Oracle Fusion Applications a game changer for enterprise customers. The differences become apparent in three key areas: the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology. Game Changer #1: New Standard for InnovationChange is a constant challenge for most businesses, whether the catalysts are market dynamics, new competition, or the ever-expanding regulatory environment. And, in an ongoing effort to differentiate, business leaders are constantly looking for new ways to do business, serve constituents, and bring new products and services to market. In addition, companies face significant costs to keep their applications up-to-date. For example, when a company adds new suppliers to a procurement system, the IT shop typically has to invest time, effort, and even consulting fees for custom integrations that allow various ERP systems to communicate with each other. Oracle Fusion Applications were built on Web services and a modular SOA foundation to ease customizations and integration activities among all applications--whether from Oracle or another vendor. Interfaces and updates written in ubiquitous Java, rather than a proprietary coding language, allow organizations to tap into existing in-house technical skills rather than seek expensive outside specialists. And with SOA, organizations can extend a feature set or integrate with other SOA environments by combining Web services such as "look up customer" into a new business process managed by the BPEL orchestration engine. Flexibility like this has long-term implications. "Because users capture these changes at a higher metadata layer, not in the application's code, changes and additions are protected even as new versions of Oracle Fusion Applications are released," says Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This is a much more sustainable approach because you don't incur costly customizations that prevent upgrades and other innovations." And changes are easier to make: if one change is made in the metadata, that change is automatically reflected throughout the application interface, business intelligence, business process, and business logic. Game Changer #2: New Standard for WorkBoosting productivity comes down to doing the basics right: running business processes more efficiently and managing exceptions more effectively, so users can accomplish more in the course of a day or spend more quality time with the most profitable customers. The fastest way to improve process efficiency is to reduce the number of steps it takes to execute common tasks, such as ordering office equipment from an internal procurement system. Oracle Fusion Applications will deliver a complete role-based user experience with business intelligence and collaboration capabilities provided in the context of the work at hand. "We created every Oracle Fusion Applications screen by asking 'What does the user need to know?' 'What does he or she need to do?' and 'Who do they need to work with to get the job done?'" Miranda explains. So when the sales department heads need new laptops, the self-service procurement screen will not only display a list of approved vendors and configurations, but also a running list of reviews by coworkers who recently purchased the various models. Embedded intelligence may also display prevailing delivery lead times based on actual order histories, not the generic shipping dates vendors may quote. The pervasive business intelligence serves many other business activities across all areas of the enterprise. For example, a manager considering whether to promote a direct report can see the person's employee profile, with a salary history, appraisal summaries, and a rundown of skills and training. This approach to business intelligence also has implications for supply chain management. "One of the challenges at Ingersoll Rand is lack of visibility in our supply chain," says Mike Macrie, global director of enterprise applications for global industrial firm Ingersoll Rand. "Oracle Fusion Applications are going to provide the embedded intelligence to give us that visibility and give us the ability to analyze those orders at any point in our supply chain." Oracle Fusion Applications will also create a "role-based user experience" that displays a work list of events that need attention, based on user job function. Role awareness guides users with daily lists of action items and exceptions. So a credit manager may see seven invoices with discounts that are about to expire or 12 suppliers that have been put on hold because credit memos are awaiting approval. Individualization extends to the search capabilities of Oracle Fusion Applications. The platform uses Web-style search screens powered by an Oracle enterprise search engine, with a security framework that filters search results so individuals will only see the internal information they're authorized to access. A further aid to productivity is Oracle Fusion Applications' integration with Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking resources for business environments. Hover-over text will reveal relevant contact information whenever the name of a person appears in an Oracle Fusion Application. Users can connect via an online chat, phone call, or instant message without leaving the main application, reducing the time required for an accounts payable staffer to resolve a mismatch between an invoiced charge and the service record, for example. Addresses of suppliers, customers, or partners will also initiate hover-over text to show contact details and Web-based maps. Finally, Oracle Fusion Applications will promote a new way of working with purpose-driven communities that can bring new efficiencies to everything from cultivating sales leads to managing new projects. As soon as a lead or project materializes, the applications will automatically gather relevant participants into an online community that shares member contact information, schedules, discussion forums, and Wiki pages. "Oracle Fusion Applications will allow us to take it to the next level with embedded Web 2.0 tools and the embedded analytics," says Steve Printz, CIO and vice president, supply chain management, at window-and-door manufacturer Pella. "[This] allows those employees today who are processing transactions to really contribute to the success of the company and become decision-makers." Game Changer #3: New Standard for Technology AdoptionAs IT becomes a dominant component of how businesses run and compete, organizations need to lower the cost of implementing applications and introducing new application features. In the past, rolling out new code often required creating a test bed system, moving beta code to a separate system for user feedback, and--once all the revisions were made--moving version one of the software onto production systems, where business users could finally get the needed new features. Oracle Fusion Applications will use a dedicated setup manager application to streamline this process. First, the setup manager will help scope out the project, querying users about their requirements. "From those questions and answers we determine the steps and the order of those steps that will enable that task," Miranda says. Next, system utilities will assign tasks to owners, track completion status, and monitor the overall status of a programming effort. Oracle Fusion Applications can then recommend Web services that allow users to migrate setup choices and steps across all the various deployments of the application. Those setup capabilities automate the migration from test systems to production systems, as well as between different business units that may be using the same application. "The self-service ability of the setup manager helps business users change setups with very little intervention from the IT team," says Ravi Kumar, vice president at IT services company Infosys. "That to me is a big difference from how we've viewed enterprise applications before." For additional flexibility, organizations will be able to adopt Oracle Fusion Applications modules in either of two modes: a single-instance alternative uses one database for all Oracle Fusion Applications, while a "pillar mode" creates separate databases to underpin each application. This means IT departments running any one of Oracle's applications or even third-party applications can plug Oracle Fusion Applications modules into their environment and see additional business value created on top of their existing systems. And Oracle Fusion Applications offer a hybrid approach to deployment. The applications are all software-as-a-service-ready, so customers can choose on-premises, public or private cloud, or a combination of these to suit their business needs. It's that combination of flexibility and a roadmap for the future that may be the biggest game changer of all. "The Oracle Fusion Applications architecture allows us to migrate our company at a pace that's consistent with our business strategy, whereas before we might have had to do it with a massive upgrade," says Macrie of Ingersoll Rand. "We're looking forward to that architecture to really give us more flexibility in how we migrate over time." For More InformationUser Input Key to the Success of Oracle Fusion ApplicationsTransforming Coexistence into Strategic ValueUnder the HoodOracle Fusion ApplicationsOracle Service-Oriented Architecture  

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• ASP.NET MVC Postbacks and HtmlHelper Controls ignoring Model Changes

  - by Rick Strahl

  So here's a binding behavior in ASP.NET MVC that I didn't really get until today: HtmlHelpers controls (like .TextBoxFor() etc.) don't bind to model values on Postback, but rather get their value directly out of the POST buffer from ModelState. Effectively it looks like you can't change the display value of a control via model value updates on a Postback operation. To demonstrate here's an example. I have a small section in a document where I display an editable email address: This is what the form displays on a GET operation and as expected I get the email value displayed in both the textbox and plain value display below, which reflects the value in the mode. I added a plain text value to demonstrate the model value compared to what's rendered in the textbox. The relevant markup is the email address which needs to be manipulated via the model in the Controller code. Here's the Razor markup: <div class="fieldcontainer"> <label> Email: &nbsp; <small>(username and <a href="http://gravatar.com">Gravatar</a> image)</small> </label> <div> @Html.TextBoxFor( mod=> mod.User.Email, new {type="email",@class="inputfield"}) @Model.User.Email </div> </div>   So, I have this form and the user can change their email address. On postback the Post controller code then asks the business layer whether the change is allowed. If it's not I want to reset the email address back to the old value which exists in the database and was previously store. The obvious thing to do would be to modify the model. Here's the Controller logic block that deals with that:// did user change email? if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(oldEmail) && user.Email != oldEmail) { if (userBus.DoesEmailExist(user.Email)) { userBus.ValidationErrors.Add("New email address exists already. Please…"); user.Email = oldEmail; } else // allow email change but require verification by forcing a login user.IsVerified = false; }… model.user = user; return View(model); The logic is straight forward - if the new email address is not valid because it already exists I don't want to display the new email address the user entered, but rather the old one. To do this I change the value on the model which effectively does this:model.user.Email = oldEmail; return View(model); So when I press the Save button after entering in my new email address ([email protected]) here's what comes back in the rendered view: Notice that the textbox value and the raw displayed model value are different. The TextBox displays the POST value, the raw value displays the actual model value which are different. This means that MVC renders the textbox value from the POST data rather than from the view data when an Http POST is active. Now I don't know about you but this is not the behavior I expected - initially. This behavior effectively means that I cannot modify the contents of the textbox from the Controller code if using HtmlHelpers for binding. Updating the model for display purposes in a POST has in effect - no effect. (Apr. 25, 2012 - edited the post heavily based on comments and more experimentation) What should the behavior be? After getting quite a few comments on this post I quickly realized that the behavior I described above is actually the behavior you'd want in 99% of the binding scenarios. You do want to get the POST values back into your input controls at all times, so that the data displayed on a form for the user matches what they typed. So if an error occurs, the error doesn't mysteriously disappear getting replaced either with a default value or some value that you changed on the model on your own. Makes sense. Still it is a little non-obvious because the way you create the UI elements with MVC, it certainly looks like your are binding to the model value:@Html.TextBoxFor( mod=> mod.User.Email, new {type="email",@class="inputfield",required="required" }) and so unless one understands a little bit about how the model binder works this is easy to trip up. At least it was for me. Even though I'm telling the control which model value to bind to, that model value is only used initially on GET operations. After that ModelState/POST values provide the display value. Workarounds The default behavior should be fine for 99% of binding scenarios. But if you do need fix up values based on your model rather than the default POST values, there are a number of ways that you can work around this. Initially when I ran into this, I couldn't figure out how to set the value using code and so the simplest solution to me was simply to not use the MVC Html Helper for the specific control and explicitly bind the model via HTML markup and @Razor expression: <input type="text" name="User.Email" id="User_Email" value="@Model.User.Email" /> And this produces the right result. This is easy enough to create, but feels a little out of place when using the @Html helpers for everything else. As you can see by the difference in the name and id values, you also are forced to remember the naming conventions that MVC imposes in order for ModelBinding to work properly which is a pain to remember and set manually (name is the same as the property with . syntax, id replaces dots with underlines). Use the ModelState Some of my original confusion came because I didn't understand how the model binder works. The model binder basically maintains ModelState on a postback, which holds a value and binding errors for each of the Post back value submitted on the page that can be mapped to the model. In other words there's one ModelState entry for each bound property of the model. Each ModelState entry contains a value property that holds AttemptedValue and RawValue properties. The AttemptedValue is essentially the POST value retrieved from the form. The RawValue is the value that the model holds. When MVC binds controls like @Html.TextBoxFor() or @Html.TextBox(), it always binds values on a GET operation. On a POST operation however, it'll always used the AttemptedValue to display the control. MVC binds using the ModelState on a POST operation, not the model's value. So, if you want the behavior that I was expecting originally you can actually get it by clearing the ModelState in the controller code:ModelState.Clear(); This clears out all the captured ModelState values, and effectively binds to the model. Note this will produce very similar results - in fact if there are no binding errors you see exactly the same behavior as if binding from ModelState, because the model has been updated from the ModelState already and binding to the updated values most likely produces the same values you would get with POST back values. The big difference though is that any values that couldn't bind - like say putting a string into a numeric field - will now not display back the value the user typed, but the default field value or whatever you changed the model value to. This is the behavior I was actually expecting previously. But - clearing out all values might be a bit heavy handed. You might want to fix up one or two values in a model but rarely would you want the entire model to update from the model. So, you can also clear out individual values on an as needed basis:if (userBus.DoesEmailExist(user.Email)) { userBus.ValidationErrors.Add("New email address exists already. Please…"); user.Email = oldEmail; ModelState.Remove("User.Email"); } This allows you to remove a single value from the ModelState and effectively allows you to replace that value for display from the model. Why? While researching this I came across a post from Microsoft's Brad Wilson who describes the default binding behavior best in a forum post: The reason we use the posted value for editors rather than the model value is that the model may not be able to contain the value that the user typed. Imagine in your "int" editor the user had typed "dog". You want to display an error message which says "dog is not valid", and leave "dog" in the editor field. However, your model is an int: there's no way it can store "dog". So we keep the old value. If you don't want the old values in the editor, clear out the Model State. That's where the old value is stored and pulled from the HTML helpers. There you have it. It's not the most intuitive behavior, but in hindsight this behavior does make some sense even if at first glance it looks like you should be able to update values from the model. The solution of clearing ModelState works and is a reasonable one but you have to know about some of the innards of ModelState and how it actually works to figure that out.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  MVC   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Windows CE Chat Transcript (March 30, 2010)

  - by Bruce Eitman

  For those of you who missed the chat today, here is the raw transcript.   By raw, I mean that I copied and pasted the discussion without any edits. This is divided into two parts, the top part is the answers from the Microsoft Experts and the bottom part is the questions from the audience. Answers from Microsoft:   Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi everyone, my name is Karel Danihelka and I am developer in partner response team. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Sing Wee, part of the CoreOS/BSP Test Team. GLanger_MS (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Glen Langer, program manager on the Core Team. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? A: Until you are using CPU with GHz frequency your only chance is use interrupt handler and implement all funcionality there. But it will be really tricky and may reduce system performance. If period will be near to millisecond timeframe you can use normal thread wait for event pattern. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? A: It need to be set in registry - generally you need mark this partition as boot partition. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. A: In this case you can try use normal approach - in interrupt handler return SYSINTR and start thread in device driver which will spin thread waiting on event attached to this SYSINTR. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? A: Good quesiton - I would recommend documentation and there was BSP development book to download for free. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: Using product support is the formal way to report bugs/issues - Product support can then create an issue that can be tracked. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:9]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? A: This is tricky - if you will make it autopartition & autoformat it will be created by filesystem. But generally it depends on your boot loader. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: At MIX 2010 Charlie Kindel presented a session that described some of the core technologies that make up Windows Phone 7 Series, including the underlying operating system (Windows CE) and the new ISV programming model based on Silverlight and .NET - check out the Mix Online Videos to get more information. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: This forum is to discussed released products in the industry. Windows Mobile & Windows CE are based on the same Windows CE Kernel/system. Windows CE is focused on deliverying the OS for embedded customers in the market where Windows Mobile is focused on deliverying compelling Windows Phone platform. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE Wikipedia gives a good breakdown of the version history. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:13]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. A: One possibility is that a rogue cesvchost.exe has co-opted the debugger. I am assuming this is CE 6.0? Can you try exiting visual studio and manually killing the cesvchost.exe process from the Task Manager? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:14]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: For info on contacting Microsoft support refer to the support page on the Embedded website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/dd897633.aspx Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? A: A good introduction to interrupts in WinCE 6.0 can be found here (aside from the documentation on MSDN): http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/f/9cffaa58-4000-48d6-a4b2-5fed9e4e6410/Chapter%206%20-%20Developing%20Device%20Drivers.pdf mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? A: Unfortunately we cannot discuss unreleased products on this chat - keep an eye on the Windows Embedded web site and blogs to keep up to date with product announcements. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. A: What operating system are you using? Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... A: You don't need to modify code, there are registry settings to achive this (look to documentation). But you may need to create partition table in boot loader. Unfortunatelly there isn't simple way how to do it. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:18]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 includes Sliverlight for Windows Embedded. Refer to New Features overview on the embedded web site. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/default.mspx. Silverlight - The power of Silverlight brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces is new part of Windows CE Embedded. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms923714.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Sorry misunderstood the question I thought you were asking if embedded CE could handle Silverlight. Please repost so that the question goes back into the active queue because once answered no way to put the status back to open. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 A: Can you try exiting VS2005 and confirming cesvchost.exe is not running, then renaming C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0 to 1.0_backup, then restarting VS2005? Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: I believe the downloadable version is related to the last link I sent. If you go to the following website, I believe you can download the whole thing: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/cc294468.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: change the URI of the image or use a writeable bitmap if they want to manually toggle the pixels Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? A: Yes - on boot flash abstraction library (old one) read metadata from all sectors to rebuild physical - logical mapping table. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Need addition info on this question. Can you provide more details on what you are trying to do in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: Additonal Info: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? A: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Can I get more information about this question about what you are trying to accomplish in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, A: Your welcome Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link A: No problem. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:32]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. A: There are a couple workarounds I can think of. I believe the Module element is only used when doing SYSGEN parsing to make sure dependent SYSGENs are present when the item is selected, so I believe it is optional to the catalog. The other obvious workaround is to shorten the soc name. I realize neither of these solutions is ideal. This is not something we anticipated when we tested CE6.0, sorry. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. A: Right, but KdStub is the debugger that you should use. Have you tried the steps I suggested? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. A: Can you look at the serial debug output and see what is happening there? Often it can give you a clue to the KITL driver malfunctioning. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:38]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. A: I am assuming you have a device created in Target -> Connectivity Options in Platform Builder. What are the Kernel download / Kernel transport for your device? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:40]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: This looks reasonable and does not give clues as to why boot would halt at that point. If you capture a network trace or turn on KITL debug zones via dpCurSettings in kitl.dll, do you see KITL active after this? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:41]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. A: Only thing I have left to suggest is a Platform Builder installation Repair, then. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? A: If I remember correctly sample code has support for some specific hardware controllers (little obsolete now). This should be good start point (if you will not decide take existing driver as sample and write you own). Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:44]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. A: I think that's the next valid step. You need to figure out whether KITL is hanging or the device - use instrumented serial debug messages and network trace to determine this. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: Neo, have you by any chance tried looking into your firewall to see if it might be blocking traffic on any particular ports? Wireshark/netmon might be able to help you here if that's the issue. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back A: Hello - can you give additional details about your question? Is this related to a Windows CE Embedded application? masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? A: Hi Pev, what version of Windows CE and CETK are you using? I do not have the expertise to answer this question, but can find somebody who can. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? A: kitl.dll should be all that's needed, kitlcore.lib is linked into that. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... A: You can make a 'proper' driver that calls down into the OAL to do the actual I2C transactions. Alternatively you can build an interrupt-based version in the OAL where you handle everything in the ISR. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the rest of your drivers and app threads can handle longer times with interrupts off while you are servicing I2C interrupts. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! A: Sorry, this current chat is about Windows Embedded Compact. Hope you're able to find an answer to your question elsewhere. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? A: Spline - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx<BR< a>>   masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Spline- bad link A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" A: No Worries http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. A: I will follow up with the Networking Team for a response. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? A: I will follow up with the tools team for a response and post with the transcript. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? A: Make sure you have SYSGEN_SHELL=1 set in your build environment. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:3]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? A: I will follow up with the Core Team and get a response posted with the transcript to MSDN  The Questions   [2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. [2010-3-30 12:59]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:3]: neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi all KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: I have a question unrelated to windows Ce embedded, can you please help me?? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals! c neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: yes. post it. May be i cud give a try KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: My Product key listed on my tower is not the product key I need for microsoft office, but that is the only product key listed. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: I hope this is a chat for windows embedded. please post ur queries in office forums KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: it is but i could not find a forum for office neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:40]: I think moderators will help u out. @ davbo-msft: can u help this guy? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:41]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:50]: Our chat today covers the topic of Windows Embedded CE! 1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there may be some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public. 2. We encourage you to submit questions for our Experts. To do so, type your questions in the send box, select the “ask the Experts” box and click SEND. Questions sent directly to the Guest Chat room will not be answered by the Experts, but we encourage other community members to assist. 3. We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. This helps the Guests and Experts follow the conversation more easily. We invite you to ask off topic questions after this chat is over, but not during. 4. Please abide by the Chat Code of Conduct. Chat code of conduct: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/chatroom.aspx?ctl=hlp#Conduct>; Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Evening! davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Hello everyone this is Dave Boyce - I worked in the Multimedia area for Windows CE. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: hello dave neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: The chat code of conduct link is not working! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: Best be polite just in case then ;-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:57]: I'll check out the issue w/ the link paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:0]: Hello davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:0]: We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now. Chat will begin in a couple of minutes. <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Hello Experts ! neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Welcome all! paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: neo: if your silicon has multiple general purpose timers, pick one that's not in use for the system timer / profiler and set it up to trigger irqs for your purpose. You can't guarantee hard realtime type responses though... GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Can I have the book's name please? kiefs_dev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: neo: I'd say that you really need the docs for YOUR BSP, not generic documents for BSPs in general. Each BSP may be architected differently. If you're using the CEPC BSP, then the documentation that comes with Platform Builder is a reasonable place to look. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? Elektrobit (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:12]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. alexquisi (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Windows XP service pack 1 Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:19]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Hi all, Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: oops Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: :-D Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: sorry, messed up submission there! GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: GPM: You don't have to keep submitting the questions. The chat experts have an application that they're using to follow the chat and all Ask the Experts questions are logged. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:30]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Hm, did those two I submitted get picked up by anyone? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:34]: Pev: PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:35]: Pev: I'm sure they did. The guys who are actually on the chat may not be experts in that part of things. That's usually the explanation when you don't get an answer in 10 minutes or so. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Ah, fair enough Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: My Outlook Express incoming mail is corrput. No ONE has been able to fix the problem, Dell or Norton. I have dial up I'm in a rural area Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie : Use Thunderbird instead :-D PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie: Sorry, but this chat is not about Windows, but Embedded (like what runs on a phone). Your best chance is to find a local expert or talk to your ISP. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: My computer knowlege is very limited, what is Thunderbird? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: A different email client :-D neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Do I need to uninstall Outlook Express youngboyzie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: I need to start battery calibration for my new battery for my dell inspiron 1525 laptop and should be able to reach the BIOS screen by hitting f2 but this isnt working... help? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Nah, you can run it instead - you'll still need help from your ISP to configure it I expect Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:40]: youngboyzie: You're off-topic. This is not a general chat for Windows and certainly not for Dell. You'll have to ask Dell how to get to setup; it's their machine. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:41]: I lost spell check, how can i get et back neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: Ok. I will do it then. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:44]: bill: This isn't a general Windows chat. There are some Web forums that you might try. GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Thanks, I found the Phone 7 presentation at http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL13 GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: ok. I'll do it. thanks Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Whowever was asking about KITL connection : I've had this loads in the past. I think I started debugging last time by using wireshark to see what was happening on the network then setting up the OAL_ETHER and OAL_FUNC and OAL_VERBOSE as well as OAL_KITL flags to see what was actually happening in the driver.... Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:47]: I'd generally make sure that you're testing though a 10baseT hub (instead of anything faster) and forcing Active KITL in polled mode too... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I disabled the firewall in my PC. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:50]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: Hi masatos, I'm using Windows Embedded CE 6.0 with R3 and patched to feb 2010's QFE's (with it's associated CETK version) this is a machine with only CE 6.0 on (no conflicts with earlier CE or WM...) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: ok. Got it neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: Q: ok. Got it Roundman (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Hey neo, debugging kitl issues is really frustrating but dont lose heart :-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: @ pev : u fixed the problem of KITL after that? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I am getting the same error again and again. I even cleaned my environment and tried in a fresh PC. But didn't succeed yet Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Well, eventually - my experiences probably won't help you as different platforms have different reasons for doing that neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I think so PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: neo: Have you searched the old messages in microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder? It seems to me that there was a packet size situation where it was possible to have problems with KITL connections based on a setting on the PC. Google Groups, groups.google.com, Advanced Groups Search will allow you to search a single newsgroup or a set of newsgroups easily. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: Q: Spline- bad link PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: GPM: without the > at the end does it work? It seems to for me... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: But some times if i try to connect to the device again. The Image information is seen in the serial debug. what does that mean?Download BIN file information: ----------------------------------------------------- [0]: Base Address=0x220000 Length=0x18DAADC Received a broadcast message !CheckUDP: Not UDP (proto = 0x00000001) after this i am getting the old errors. PB debugger cannot initialize ... GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: ok paul. I ll look into that. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Sure, if KITL isn't connected target control won't work as it runs over kitl... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: ok .thanks pev neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 Marcelovk (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: Is there any way to extract the default command lines of the tests in CETK? I want to have it running unconnected from the desktop.   Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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• Faceted search with Solr on Windows

  - by Dr.NETjes

  With over 10 million hits a day, funda.nl is probably the largest ASP.NET website which uses Solr on a Windows platform. While all our data (i.e. real estate properties) is stored in SQL Server, we're using Solr 1.4.1 to return the faceted search results as fast as we can.And yes, Solr is very fast. We did do some heavy stress testing on our Solr service, which allowed us to do over 1,000 req/sec on a single 64-bits Solr instance; and that's including converting search-url's to Solr http-queries and deserializing Solr's result-XML back to .NET objects! Let me tell you about faceted search and how to integrate Solr in a .NET/Windows environment. I'll bet it's easier than you think :-) What is faceted search? Faceted search is the clustering of search results into categories, allowing users to drill into search results. By showing the number of hits for each facet category, users can easily see how many results match that category. If you're still a bit confused, this example from CNET explains it all: The SQL solution for faceted search Our ("pre-Solr") solution for faceted search was done by adding a lot of redundant columns to our SQL tables and doing a COUNT(...) for each of those columns:   So if a user was searching for real estate properties in the city 'Amsterdam', our facet-query would be something like: SELECT COUNT(hasGarden), COUNT(has2Bathrooms), COUNT(has3Bathrooms), COUNT(etc...) FROM Houses WHERE city = 'Amsterdam' While this solution worked fine for a couple of years, it wasn't very easy for developers to add new facets. And also, performing COUNT's on all matched rows only performs well if you have a limited amount of rows in a table (i.e. less than a million). Enter Solr "Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on the Lucene Java search library, with XML/HTTP and JSON APIs, hit highlighting, faceted search, caching, replication, and a web administration interface." (quoted from Wikipedia's page on Solr) Solr isn't a database, it's more like a big index. Every time you upload data to Solr, it will analyze the data and create an inverted index from it (like the index-pages of a book). This way Solr can lookup data very quickly. To explain the inner workings of Solr is beyond the scope of this post, but if you want to learn more, please visit the Solr Wiki pages. Getting faceted search results from Solr is very easy; first let me show you how to send a http-query to Solr:    http://localhost:8983/solr/select?q=city:Amsterdam This will return an XML document containing the search results (in this example only three houses in the city of Amsterdam):    <response>     <result name="response" numFound="3" start="0">         <doc>            <long name="id">3203</long>            <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>            <str name="steet">Keizersgracht</str>            <int name="numberOfBathrooms">2</int>        </doc>         <doc>             <long name="id">3205</long>             <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>             <str name="steet">Vondelstraat</str>             <int name="numberOfBathrooms">3</int>          </doc>          <doc>             <long name="id">4293</long>             <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>             <str name="steet">Wibautstraat</str>             <int name="numberOfBathrooms">2</int>          </doc>       </result>   </response> By adding a facet-querypart for the field "numberOfBathrooms", Solr will return the facets for this particular field. We will see that there's one house in Amsterdam with three bathrooms and two houses with two bathrooms.    http://localhost:8983/solr/select?q=city:Amsterdam&facet=true&facet.field=numberOfBathrooms The complete XML response from Solr now looks like:    <response>      <result name="response" numFound="3" start="0">         <doc>            <long name="id">3203</long>            <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>            <str name="steet">Keizersgracht</str>            <int name="numberOfBathrooms">2</int>         </doc>         <doc>            <long name="id">3205</long>            <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>            <str name="steet">Vondelstraat</str>            <int name="numberOfBathrooms">3</int>         </doc>         <doc>            <long name="id">4293</long>            <str name="city">Amsterdam</str>            <str name="steet">Wibautstraat</str>            <int name="numberOfBathrooms">2</int>         </doc>      </result>      <lst name="facet_fields">         <lst name="numberOfBathrooms">            <int name="2">2</int>            <int name="3">1</int>         </lst>      </lst>   </response> Trying Solr for yourself To run Solr on your local machine and experiment with it, you should read the Solr tutorial. This tutorial really only takes 1 hour, in which you install Solr, upload sample data and get some query results. And yes, it works on Windows without a problem. Note that in the Solr tutorial, you're using Jetty as a Java Servlet Container (that's why you must start it using "java -jar start.jar"). In our environment we prefer to use Apache Tomcat to host Solr, which installs like a Windows service and works more like .NET developers expect. See the SolrTomcat page.Some best practices for running Solr on Windows: Use the 64-bits version of Tomcat. In our tests, this doubled the req/sec we were able to handle!Use a .NET XmlReader to convert Solr's XML output-stream to .NET objects. Don't use XPath; it won't scale well.Use filter queries ("fq" parameter) instead of the normal "q" parameter where possible. Filter queries are cached by Solr and will speed up Solr's response time (see FilterQueryGuidance)In my next post I’ll talk about how to keep Solr's indexed data in sync with the data in your SQL tables. Timestamps / rowversions will help you out here!

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• Data Profiling without SSIS

  Strangely enough for a predominantly SSIS blog, this post is all about how to perform data profiling without using SSIS. Whilst the Data Profiling Task is a worthy addition, there are a couple of limitations I’ve encountered of late. The first is that it requires SQL Server 2008, and not everyone is there yet. The second is that it can only target SQL Server 2005 and above. What about older systems, which are the ones that we probably need to investigate the most, or other vendor databases such as Oracle? With these limitations in mind I did some searching to find a quick and easy alternative to help me perform some data profiling for a project I was working on recently. I only had SQL Server 2005 available, and anyway most of my target source systems were Oracle, and of course I had short timescales. I looked at several options. Some never got beyond the download stage, they failed to install or just did not run, and others provided less than I could have produced myself by spending 2 minutes writing some basic SQL queries. In the end I settled on an open source product called DataCleaner. To quote from their website: DataCleaner is an Open Source application for profiling, validating and comparing data. These activities help you administer and monitor your data quality in order to ensure that your data is useful and applicable to your business situation. DataCleaner is the free alternative to software for master data management (MDM) methodologies, data warehousing (DW) projects, statistical research, preparation for extract-transform-load (ETL) activities and more. DataCleaner is developed in Java and licensed under LGPL. As quoted above it claims to support profiling, validating and comparing data, but I didn’t really get past the profiling functions, so won’t comment on the other two. The profiling whilst not prefect certainly saved some time compared to the limited alternatives. The ability to profile heterogeneous data sources is a big advantage over the SSIS option, and I found it overall quite easy to use and performance was good. I could see it struggling at times, but actually for what it does I was impressed. It had some data type niggles with Oracle, and some metrics seem a little strange, although thankfully they were easy to augment with some SQL queries to ensure a consistent picture. The report export options didn’t do it for me, but copy and paste with a bit of Excel magic was sufficient. One initial point for me personally is that I have had limited exposure to things of the Java persuasion and whilst I normally get by fine, sometimes the simplest things can throw me. For example installing a JDBC driver, why do I have to copy files to make it all work, has nobody ever heard of an MSI? In case there are other people out there like me who have become totally indoctrinated with the Microsoft software paradigm, I’ve written a quick start guide that details every step required. Steps 1- 5 are the key ones, the rest is really an excuse for some screenshots to show you the tool. Quick Start Guide Step 1  - Download Data Cleaner. The Microsoft Windows zipped exe option, and I chose the latest stable build, currently DataCleaner 1.5.3 (final). Extract the files to a suitable location. Step 2 - Download Java. If you try and run datacleaner.exe without Java it will warn you, and then open your default browser and take you to the Java download site. Follow the installation instructions from there, normally just click Download Java a couple of times and you’re done. Step 3 - Download Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver. You may have SQL Server installed, but you won’t have a JDBC driver. Version 3.0 is the latest as of April 2010. There is no real installer, we are in the Java world here, but run the exe you downloaded to extract the files. The default Unzip to folder is not much help, so try a fully qualified path such as C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0\ to ensure you can find the files afterwards. Step 4 - If you wish to use Windows Authentication to connect to your SQL Server then first we need to copy a file so that Data Cleaner can find it. Browse to the JDBC extract location from Step 3 and drill down to the file sqljdbc_auth.dll. You will have to choose the correct directory for your processor architecture. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0\sqljdbc_3.0\enu\auth\x86\sqljdbc_auth.dll. Now copy this file to the Data Cleaner extract folder you chose in Step 1. An alternative method is to edit datacleaner.cmd in the data cleaner extract folder as detailed in this data cleaner wiki topic, but I find copying the file simpler. Step 5 – Now lets run Data Cleaner, just run datacleaner.exe from the extract folder you chose in Step 1. Step 6 – Complete or skip the registration screen, and ignore the task window for now. In the main window click settings. Step 7 – In the Settings dialog, select the Database drivers tab, then click Register database driver and select the Local JAR file option. Step 8 – Browse to the JDBC driver extract location from Step 3 and drill down to select sqljdbc4.jar. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0\sqljdbc_3.0\enu\sqljdbc4.jar Step 9 – Select the Database driver class as com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver, and then click the Test and Save database driver button. Step 10 - You should be back at the Settings dialog with a the list of drivers that includes SQL Server. Just click Save Settings to persist all your hard work. Step 11 – Now we can start to profile some data. In the main Data Cleaner window click New Task, and then Profile from the task window. Step 12 – In the Profile window click Open Database Step 13 – Now choose the SQL Server connection string option. Selecting a connection string gives us a template like jdbc:sqlserver://<hostname>:1433;databaseName=<database>, but obviously it requires some details to be entered for example  jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=SQLBits. This will connect to the database called SQLBits on my local machine. The port may also have to be changed if using such as when you have a multiple instances of SQL Server running. If using SQL Server Authentication enter a username and password as required and then click Connect to database. You can use Window Authentication, just add integratedSecurity=true to the end of your connection string. e.g jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=SQLBits;integratedSecurity=true.  If you didn’t complete Step 4 above you will need to do so now and restart Data Cleaner before it will work. Manually setting the connection string is fine, but creating a named connection makes more sense if you will be spending any length of time profiling a specific database. As highlighted in the left-hand screen-shot, at the bottom of the dialog it includes partial instructions on how to create named connections. In the folder shown C:\Users\<Username>\.datacleaner\1.5.3, open the datacleaner-config.xml file in your editor of choice add your own details. You’ll see a sample connection in the file already, just add yours following the same pattern. e.g. <!-- Darren's Named Connections --> <bean class="dk.eobjects.datacleaner.gui.model.NamedConnection"> <property name="name" value="SQLBits Local Connection" /> <property name="driverClass" value="com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver" /> <property name="connectionString" value="jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=SQLBits;integratedSecurity=true" /> <property name="tableTypes"> <list> <value>TABLE</value> <value>VIEW</value> </list> </property> </bean> Step 14 – Once back at the Profile window, you should now see your schemas, tables and/or views listed down the left hand side. Browse this tree and double-click a table to select it for profiling. You can then click Add profile, and choose some profiling options, before finally clicking Run profiling. You can see below a sample output for three of the most common profiles, click the image for full size.   I hope this has given you a taster for DataCleaner, and should help you get up and running pretty quickly.

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• The HTG Guide to Using a Bluetooth Keyboard with Your Android Device

  - by Matt Klein

  Android devices aren’t usually associated with physical keyboards. But, since Google is now bundling their QuickOffice app with the newly-released Kit-Kat, it appears inevitable that at least some Android tablets (particularly 10-inch models) will take on more productivity roles. In recent years, physical keyboards have been rendered obsolete by swipe style input methods such as Swype and Google Keyboard. Physical keyboards tend to make phones thick and plump, and that won’t fly today when thin (and even flexible and curved) is in vogue. So, you’ll be hard-pressed to find smartphone manufacturers launching new models with physical keyboards, thus rendering sliders to a past chapter in mobile phone evolution. It makes sense to ditch the clunky keyboard phone in favor of a lighter, thinner model. You’re going to carry around in your pocket or purse all day, why have that extra bulk and weight? That said, there is sound logic behind pairing tablets with keyboards. Microsoft continues to plod forward with its Surface models, and while critics continue to lavish praise on the iPad, its functionality is obviously enhanced and extended when you add a physical keyboard. Apple even has an entire page devoted specifically to iPad-compatible keyboards. But an Android tablet and a keyboard? Does such a thing even exist? They do actually. There are docking keyboards and keyboard/case combinations, there’s the Asus Transformer family, Logitech markets a Windows 8 keyboard that speaks “Android”, and these are just to name a few. So we know that keyboard products that are designed to work with Android exist, but what about an everyday Bluetooth keyboard you might use with Windows or OS X? How-To Geek wanted look at how viable it is to use such a keyboard with Android. We conducted some research and examined some lists of Android keyboard shortcuts. Most of what we found was long outdated. Many of the shortcuts don’t even apply anymore, while others just didn’t work. Regardless, after a little experimentation and a dash of customization, it turns out using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun, and who knows, maybe it will catch on. Setting things up Setting up a Bluetooth keyboard with Android is very easy. First, you’ll need a Bluetooth keyboard and of course an Android device, preferably running version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or higher. For our test, we paired a second-generation Google Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 with a Samsung Series 7 keyboard. In Android, enable Bluetooth if it isn’t already on. We’d like to note that if you don’t normally use Bluetooth accessories and peripherals with your Android device (or any device really), it’s best practice to leave Bluetooth off because, like GPS, it drains the device’s battery more quickly. To enable Bluetooth, simply go to “Settings” -> “Bluetooth” and tap the slider button to “On”. To set up the keyboard, make sure it is on and then tap “Bluetooth” in the Android settings. On the resulting screen, your Android device should automatically search for and hopefully find your keyboard. If you don’t get it right the first time, simply turn the keyboard on again and then tap “Search for Devices” to try again. If it still doesn’t work, make sure you have fresh batteries and the keyboard isn’t paired to another device. If it is, you will need to unpair it before it will work with your Android device (consult your keyboard manufacturer’s documentation or Google if you don’t know how to do this). When Android finds your keyboard, select it under “Available Devices” … … and you should be prompted to type in a code: If successful, you will see that device is now “Connected” and you’re ready to go. If you want to test things out, try pressing the “Windows” key (“Apple” or “Command”) + ESC, and you will be whisked to your Home screen. So, what can you do? Traditional Mac and Windows users know there’s usually a keyboard shortcut for just about everything (and if there isn’t, there’s all kinds of ways to remap keys to do a variety of commands, tasks, and functions). So where does Android fall in terms of baked-in keyboard commands? There answer to that is kind of enough, but not too much. There are definitely established combos you can use to get around, but they aren’t clear and there doesn’t appear to be any one authority on what they are. Still, there is enough keyboard functionality in Android to make it a viable option, if only for those times when you need to get something done (long e-mail or important document) and an on-screen keyboard simply won’t do. It’s important to remember that Android is, and likely always will be a touch-first interface. That said, it does make some concessions to physical keyboards. In other words, you can get around Android fairly well without having to lift your hands off the keys, but you will still have to tap the screen regularly, unless you add a mouse. For example, you can wake your device by tapping a key rather than pressing its power button. However, if your device is slide or pattern-locked, then you’ll have to use the touchscreen to unlock it – a password or PIN however, works seamlessly with a keyboard – other things like widgets and app controls and features, have to be tapped. You get the idea. Keyboard shortcuts and navigation As we said, baked-in keyboard shortcut combos aren’t necessarily abundant nor apparent. The one thing you can always do is search. Any time you want to Google something, start typing from the Home screen and the search screen will automatically open and begin displaying results. Other than that, here is what we were able to figure out: ESC = go back CTRL + ESC = menu CTRL + ALT + DEL = restart (no questions asked) ALT + SPACE = search page (say “OK Google” to voice search) ALT + TAB (ALT + SHIFT + TAB) = switch tasks Also, if you have designated volume function keys, those will probably work too. There’s also some dedicated app shortcuts like calculator, Gmail, and a few others: CMD + A = calculator CMD + C = contacts CMD + E = e-mail CMD + G = Gmail CMD + L = Calendar CMD + P = Play Music CMD + Y = YouTube Overall, it’s not a long comprehensive list and there’s no dedicated keyboard combos for the full array of Google’s products. Granted, it’s hard to imagine getting a lot of mileage out of a keyboard with Maps but with something like Keep, you could type out long, detailed lists on your tablet, and then view them on your smartphone when you go out shopping. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate your Home screen over shortcuts and open the app drawer. When something on the screen is selected, it will be highlighted in blue. Press “Enter” to open your selection. Additionally, if an app has its own set of shortcuts, e.g. Gmail has quite a few unique shortcuts to it, as does Chrome, some – though not many – will work in Android (not for YouTube though). Also, many “universal” shortcuts such as Copy (CTRL + C), Cut (CTRL + X), Paste (CTRL + V), and Select All (CTRL + A) work where needed – such as in instant messaging, e-mail, social media apps, etc. Creating custom application shortcuts What about custom shortcuts? When we were researching this article, we were under the impression that it was possible to assign keyboard combinations to specific apps, such as you could do on older Android versions such as Gingerbread. This no long seems to be the case and nowhere in “Settings” could we find a way to assign hotkey combos to any of our favorite, oft-used apps or functions. If you do want custom keyboard shortcuts, what can you do? Luckily, there’s an app on Google Play that allows you to, among other things, create custom app shortcuts. It is called External Keyboard Helper (EKH) and while there is a free demo version, the pay version is only a few bucks. We decided to give EKH a whirl and through a little experimentation and finally reading the developer’s how-to, we found we could map custom keyboard combos to just about anything. To do this, first open the application and you’ll see the main app screen. Don’t worry about choosing a custom layout or anything like that, you want to go straight to the “Advanced settings”: In the “Advanced settings” select “Application shortcuts” to continue: You can have up to 16 custom application shortcuts. We are going to create a custom shortcut to the Facebook app. We choose “A0”, and from the resulting list, Facebook. You can do this for any number of apps, services, and settings. As you can now see, the Facebook app has now been linked to application-zero (A0): Go back to the “Advanced settings” and choose “Customize keyboard mappings”: You will be prompted to create a custom keyboard layout so we choose “Custom 1”: When you choose to create a custom layout, you can do a great many more things with your keyboard. For example, many keyboards have predefined function (Fn) keys, which you can map to your tablet’s brightness controls, toggle WiFi on/off, and much more. A word of advice, the application automatically remaps certain keys when you create a custom layout. This might mess up some existing keyboard combos. If you simply want to add some functionality to your keyboard, you can go ahead and delete EKH’s default changes and start your custom layout from scratch. To create a new combo, select “Add new key mapping”: For our new shortcut, we are going to assign the Facebook app to open when we key in “ALT + F”. To do this, we press the “F” key while in the “Scancode” field and we see it returns a value of “33”. If we wanted to use a different key, we can press “Change” and scan another key’s numerical value. We now want to assign the “ALT” key to application “A0”, previously designated as the Facebook app. In the “AltGr” field, we enter “A0” and then “Save” our custom combo. And now we see our new application shortcut. Now, as long as we’re using our custom layout, every time we press “ALT + F”, the Facebook app will launch: External Keyboard Helper extends far beyond simple application shortcuts and if you are looking for deeper keyboard customization options, you should definitely check it out. Among other things, EKH also supports dozens of languages, allows you to quickly switch between layouts using a key or combo, add up to 16 custom text shortcuts, and much more! It can be had on Google Play for $2.53 for the full version, but you can try the demo version for free. More extensive documentation on how to use the app is also available. Android? Keyboard? Sure, why not? Unlike traditional desktop operating systems, you don’t need a physical keyboard and mouse to use a mobile operating system. You can buy an iPad or Nexus 10 or Galaxy Note, and never need another accessory or peripheral – they work as intended right out of the box. It’s even possible you can write the next great American novel on one these devices, though that might require a lot of practice and patience. That said, using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun. It’s not revelatory but it does elevate the experience. You don’t even need to add customizations (though they are nice) because there are enough existing keyboard shortcuts in Android to make it usable. Plus, when it comes to inputting text such as in an editor or terminal application, we fully advocate big, physical keyboards. Bottom line, if you’re looking for a way to enhance your Android tablet, give a keyboard a chance. Do you use your Android device for productivity? Is a physical keyboard an important part of your setup? Do you have any shortcuts that we missed? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.     

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• 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.     

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• What&rsquo;s New in ASP.NET 4.0 Part Two: WebForms and Visual Studio Enhancements

  - by Rick Strahl

  In the last installment I talked about the core changes in the ASP.NET runtime that I’ve been taking advantage of. In this column, I’ll cover the changes to the Web Forms engine and some of the cool improvements in Visual Studio that make Web and general development easier. WebForms The WebForms engine is the area that has received most significant changes in ASP.NET 4.0. Probably the most widely anticipated features are related to managing page client ids and of ViewState on WebForm pages. Take Control of Your ClientIDs Unique ClientID generation in ASP.NET has been one of the most complained about “features” in ASP.NET. Although there’s a very good technical reason for these unique generated ids - they guarantee unique ids for each and every server control on a page - these unique and generated ids often get in the way of client-side JavaScript development and CSS styling as it’s often inconvenient and fragile to work with the long, generated ClientIDs. In ASP.NET 4.0 you can now specify an explicit client id mode on each control or each naming container parent control to control how client ids are generated. By default, ASP.NET generates mangled client ids for any control contained in a naming container (like a Master Page, or a User Control for example). The key to ClientID management in ASP.NET 4.0 are the new ClientIDMode and ClientIDRowSuffix properties. ClientIDMode supports four different ClientID generation settings shown below. For the following examples, imagine that you have a Textbox control named txtName inside of a master page control container on a WebForms page. <%@Page Language="C#"      MasterPageFile="~/Site.Master"     CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="WebApplication1.WebForm2"  %> <asp:Content ID="content"  ContentPlaceHolderID="content"               runat="server"               ClientIDMode="Static" >       <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /> </asp:Content> The four available ClientIDMode values are: AutoID This is the existing behavior in ASP.NET 1.x-3.x where full naming container munging takes place. <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"        id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> This should be familiar to any ASP.NET developer and results in fairly unpredictable client ids that can easily change if the containership hierarchy changes. For example, removing the master page changes the name in this case, so if you were to move a block of script code that works against the control to a non-Master page, the script code immediately breaks. Static This option is the most deterministic setting that forces the control’s ClientID to use its ID value directly. No naming container naming at all is applied and you end up with clean client ids: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName"         type="text" id="txtName" /> Note that the name property which is used for postback variables to the server still is munged, but the ClientID property is displayed simply as the ID value that you have assigned to the control. This option is what most of us want to use, but you have to be clear on that because it can potentially cause conflicts with other controls on the page. If there are several instances of the same naming container (several instances of the same user control for example) there can easily be a client id naming conflict. Note that if you assign Static to a data-bound control, like a list child control in templates, you do not get unique ids either, so for list controls where you rely on unique id for child controls, you’ll probably want to use Predictable rather than Static. I’ll write more on this a little later when I discuss ClientIDRowSuffix. Predictable The previous two values are pretty self-explanatory. Predictable however, requires some explanation. To me at least it’s not in the least bit predictable. MSDN defines this value as follows: This algorithm is used for controls that are in data-bound controls. The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ClientID value of the parent naming container with the ID value of the control. If the control is a data-bound control that generates multiple rows, the value of the data field specified in the ClientIDRowSuffix property is added at the end. For the GridView control, multiple data fields can be specified. If the ClientIDRowSuffix property is blank, a sequential number is added at the end instead of a data-field value. Each segment is separated by an underscore character (_). The key that makes this value a bit confusing is that it relies on the parent NamingContainer’s ClientID to build its own ClientID value. This effectively means that the value is not predictable at all but rather very tightly coupled to the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For my simple textbox example, if the ClientIDMode property of the parent naming container (Page in this case) is set to “Predictable” you’ll get this: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="content_txtName" /> which gives an id that based on walking up to the currently active naming container (the MasterPage content container) and starting the id formatting from there downward. Think of this as a semi unique name that’s guaranteed unique only for the naming container. If, on the other hand, the Page is set to “AutoID” you get the following with Predictable on txtName: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> The latter is effectively the same as if you specified AutoID because it inherits the AutoID naming from the Page and Content Master Page control of the page. But again - predictable behavior always depends on the parent naming container and how it generates its id, so the id may not always be exactly the same as the AutoID generated value because somewhere in the NamingContainer chain the ClientIDMode setting may be set to a different value. For example, if you had another naming container in the middle that was set to Static you’d end up effectively with an id that starts with the NamingContainers id rather than the whole ctl000_content munging. The most common use for Predictable is likely to be for data-bound controls, which results in each data bound item getting a unique ClientID. Unfortunately, even here the behavior can be very unpredictable depending on which data-bound control you use - I found significant differences in how template controls in a GridView behave from those that are used in a ListView control. For example, GridView creates clean child ClientIDs, while ListView still has a naming container in the ClientID, presumably because of the template container on which you can’t set ClientIDMode. Predictable is useful, but only if all naming containers down the chain use this setting. Otherwise you’re right back to the munged ids that are pretty unpredictable. Another property, ClientIDRowSuffix, can be used in combination with ClientIDMode of Predictable to force a suffix onto list client controls. For example: <asp:GridView runat="server" ID="gvItems"              AutoGenerateColumns="false"             ClientIDMode="Static"              ClientIDRowSuffix="Id">     <Columns>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>             <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtName"                        Text='<%# Eval("Name") %>'                   ClientIDMode="Predictable"/>         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>         <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtId"                     Text='<%# Eval("Id") %>'                     ClientIDMode="Predictable" />         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     </Columns>  </asp:GridView> generates client Ids inside of a column in the master page described earlier: <td>     <span id="txtName_0">Rick</span> </td> where the value after the underscore is the ClientIDRowSuffix field - in this case “Id” of the item data bound to the control. Note that all of the child controls require ClientIDMode=”Predictable” in order for the ClientIDRowSuffix to be applied, and the parent GridView controls need to be set to Static either explicitly or via Naming Container inheritance to give these simple names. It’s a bummer that ClientIDRowSuffix doesn’t work with Static to produce this automatically. Another real problem is that other controls process the ClientIDMode differently. For example, a ListView control processes the Predictable ClientIDMode differently and produces the following with the Static ListView and Predictable child controls: <span id="ctrl0_txtName_0">Rick</span> I couldn’t even figure out a way using ClientIDMode to get a simple ID that also uses a suffix short of falling back to manually generated ids using <%= %> expressions instead. Given the inconsistencies inside of list controls using <%= %>, ids for the ListView might not be a bad idea anyway. Inherit The final setting is Inherit, which is the default for all controls except Page. This means that controls by default inherit the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For more detailed information on ClientID behavior and different scenarios you can check out a blog post of mine on this subject: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/54760.aspx. ClientID Enhancements Summary The ClientIDMode property is a welcome addition to ASP.NET 4.0. To me this is probably the most useful WebForms feature as it allows me to generate clean IDs simply by setting ClientIDMode="Static" on either the page or inside of Web.config (in the Pages section) which applies the setting down to the entire page which is my 95% scenario. For the few cases when it matters - for list controls and inside of multi-use user controls or custom server controls) - I can use Predictable or even AutoID to force controls to unique names. For application-level page development, this is easy to accomplish and provides maximum usability for working with client script code against page controls. ViewStateMode Another area of large criticism for WebForms is ViewState. ViewState is used internally by ASP.NET to persist page-level changes to non-postback properties on controls as pages post back to the server. It’s a useful mechanism that works great for the overall mechanics of WebForms, but it can also cause all sorts of overhead for page operation as ViewState can very quickly get out of control and consume huge amounts of bandwidth in your page content. ViewState can also wreak havoc with client-side scripting applications that modify control properties that are tracked by ViewState, which can produce very unpredictable results on a Postback after client-side updates. Over the years in my own development, I’ve often turned off ViewState on pages to reduce overhead. Yes, you lose some functionality, but you can easily implement most of the common functionality in non-ViewState workarounds. Relying less on heavy ViewState controls and sticking with simpler controls or raw HTML constructs avoids getting around ViewState problems. In ASP.NET 3.x and prior, it wasn’t easy to control ViewState - you could turn it on or off and if you turned it off at the page or web.config level, you couldn’t turn it back on for specific controls. In short, it was an all or nothing approach. With ASP.NET 4.0, the new ViewStateMode property gives you more control. It allows you to disable ViewState globally either on the page or web.config level and then turn it back on for specific controls that might need it. ViewStateMode only works when EnableViewState="true" on the page or web.config level (which is the default). You can then use ViewStateMode of Disabled, Enabled or Inherit to control the ViewState settings on the page. If you’re shooting for minimal ViewState usage, the ideal situation is to set ViewStateMode to disabled on the Page or web.config level and only turn it back on particular controls: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"        ClientIDMode="Static"                ViewStateMode="Disabled"     EnableViewState="true"  %> <!-- this control has viewstate  --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName"  ViewStateMode="Enabled" />       <!-- this control has no viewstate - it inherits  from parent container --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtAddress" /> Note that the EnableViewState="true" at the Page level isn’t required since it’s the default, but it’s important that the value is true. ViewStateMode has no effect if EnableViewState="false" at the page level. The main benefit of ViewStateMode is that it allows you to more easily turn off ViewState for most of the page and enable only a few key controls that might need it. For me personally, this is a perfect combination as most of my WebForm apps can get away without any ViewState at all. But some controls - especially third party controls - often don’t work well without ViewState enabled, and now it’s much easier to selectively enable controls rather than the old way, which required you to pretty much turn off ViewState for all controls that you didn’t want ViewState on. Inline HTML Encoding HTML encoding is an important feature to prevent cross-site scripting attacks in data entered by users on your site. In order to make it easier to create HTML encoded content, ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new Expression syntax using <%: %> to encode string values. The encoding expression syntax looks like this: <%: "<script type='text/javascript'>" +     "alert('Really?');</script>" %> which produces properly encoded HTML: &lt;script type=&#39;text/javascript&#39; &gt;alert(&#39;Really?&#39;);&lt;/script&gt; Effectively this is a shortcut to: <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode( "<script type='text/javascript'>" + "alert('Really?');</script>") %> Of course the <%: %> syntax can also evaluate expressions just like <%= %> so the more common scenario applies this expression syntax against data your application is displaying. Here’s an example displaying some data model values: <%: Model.Address.Street %> This snippet shows displaying data from your application’s data store or more importantly, from data entered by users. Anything that makes it easier and less verbose to HtmlEncode text is a welcome addition to avoid potential cross-site scripting attacks. Although I listed Inline HTML Encoding here under WebForms, anything that uses the WebForms rendering engine including ASP.NET MVC, benefits from this feature. ScriptManager Enhancements The ASP.NET ScriptManager control in the past has introduced some nice ways to take programmatic and markup control over script loading, but there were a number of shortcomings in this control. The ASP.NET 4.0 ScriptManager has a number of improvements that make it easier to control script loading and addresses a few of the shortcomings that have often kept me from using the control in favor of manual script loading. The first is the AjaxFrameworkMode property which finally lets you suppress loading the ASP.NET AJAX runtime. Disabled doesn’t load any ASP.NET AJAX libraries, but there’s also an Explicit mode that lets you pick and choose the library pieces individually and reduce the footprint of ASP.NET AJAX script included if you are using the library. There’s also a new EnableCdn property that forces any script that has a new WebResource attribute CdnPath property set to a CDN supplied URL. If the script has this Attribute property set to a non-null/empty value and EnableCdn is enabled on the ScriptManager, that script will be served from the specified CdnPath. [assembly: WebResource(    "Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js",    "application/x-javascript",    CdnPath =  "http://mysite.com/scripts/ww.jquery.min.js")] Cool, but a little too static for my taste since this value can’t be changed at runtime to point at a debug script as needed, for example. Assembly names for loading scripts from resources can now be simple names rather than fully qualified assembly names, which make it less verbose to reference scripts from assemblies loaded from your bin folder or the assembly reference area in web.config: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <Scripts>         <asp:ScriptReference          Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js"         Assembly="Westwind.Web" />     </Scripts>        </asp:ScriptManager> The ScriptManager in 4.0 also supports script combining via the CompositeScript tag, which allows you to very easily combine scripts into a single script resource served via ASP.NET. Even nicer: You can specify the URL that the combined script is served with. Check out the following script manager markup that combines several static file scripts and a script resource into a single ASP.NET served resource from a static URL (allscripts.js): <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <CompositeScript          Path="~/scripts/allscripts.js">         <Scripts>             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/ww.jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference            Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.editors.js"                 Assembly="Westwind.Web" />         </Scripts>     </CompositeScript> </asp:ScriptManager> When you render this into HTML, you’ll see a single script reference in the page: <script src="scripts/allscripts.debug.js"          type="text/javascript"></script> All you need to do to make this work is ensure that allscripts.js and allscripts.debug.js exist in the scripts folder of your application - they can be empty but the file has to be there. This is pretty cool, but you want to be real careful that you use unique URLs for each combination of scripts you combine or else browser and server caching will easily screw you up royally. The script manager also allows you to override native ASP.NET AJAX scripts now as any script references defined in the Scripts section of the ScriptManager trump internal references. So if you want custom behavior or you want to fix a possible bug in the core libraries that normally are loaded from resources, you can now do this simply by referencing the script resource name in the Name property and pointing at System.Web for the assembly. Not a common scenario, but when you need it, it can come in real handy. Still, there are a number of shortcomings in this control. For one, the ScriptManager and ClientScript APIs still have no common entry point so control developers are still faced with having to check and support both APIs to load scripts so that controls can work on pages that do or don’t have a ScriptManager on the page. The CdnUrl is static and compiled in, which is very restrictive. And finally, there’s still no control over where scripts get loaded on the page - ScriptManager still injects scripts into the middle of the HTML markup rather than in the header or optionally the footer. This, in turn, means there is little control over script loading order, which can be problematic for control developers. MetaDescription, MetaKeywords Page Properties There are also a number of additional Page properties that correspond to some of the other features discussed in this column: ClientIDMode, ClientTarget and ViewStateMode. Another minor but useful feature is that you can now directly access the MetaDescription and MetaKeywords properties on the Page object to set the corresponding meta tags programmatically. Updating these values programmatically previously required either <%= %> expressions in the page markup or dynamic insertion of literal controls into the page. You can now just set these properties programmatically on the Page object in any Control derived class on the page or the Page itself: Page.MetaKeywords = "ASP.NET,4.0,New Features"; Page.MetaDescription = "This article discusses the new features in ASP.NET 4.0"; Note, that there’s no corresponding ASP.NET tag for the HTML Meta element, so the only way to specify these values in markup and access them is via the @Page tag: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"      ClientIDMode="Static"                MetaDescription="Article that discusses what's                      new in ASP.NET 4.0"     MetaKeywords="ASP.NET,4.0,New Features" %> Nothing earth shattering but quite convenient. Visual Studio 2010 Enhancements for Web Development For Web development there are also a host of editor enhancements in Visual Studio 2010. Some of these are not Web specific but they are useful for Web developers in general. Text Editors Throughout Visual Studio 2010, the text editors have all been updated to a new core engine based on WPF which provides some interesting new features for various code editors including the nice ability to zoom in and out with Ctrl-MouseWheel to quickly change the size of text. There are many more API options to control the editor and although Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t yet use many of these features, we can look forward to enhancements in add-ins and future editor updates from the various language teams that take advantage of the visual richness that WPF provides to editing. On the negative side, I’ve noticed that occasionally the code editor and especially the HTML and JavaScript editors will lose the ability to use various navigation keys like arrows, back and delete keys, which requires closing and reopening the documents at times. This issue seems to be well documented so I suspect this will be addressed soon with a hotfix or within the first service pack. Overall though, the code editors work very well, especially given that they were re-written completely using WPF, which was one of my big worries when I first heard about the complete redesign of the editors. Multi-Targeting Visual Studio now targets all versions of the .NET framework from 2.0 forward. You can use Visual Studio 2010 to work on your ASP.NET 2, 3.0 and 3.5 applications which is a nice way to get your feet wet with the new development environment without having to make changes to existing applications. It’s nice to have one tool to work in for all the different versions. Multi-Monitor Support One cool feature of Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to drag windows out of the Visual Studio environment and out onto the desktop including onto another monitor easily. Since Web development often involves working with a host of designers at the same time - visual designer, HTML markup window, code behind and JavaScript editor - it’s really nice to be able to have a little more screen real estate to work on each of these editors. Microsoft made a welcome change in the environment. IntelliSense Snippets for HTML and JavaScript Editors The HTML and JavaScript editors now finally support IntelliSense scripts to create macro-based template expansions that have been in the core C# and Visual Basic code editors since Visual Studio 2005. Snippets allow you to create short XML-based template definitions that can act as static macros or real templates that can have replaceable values that can be embedded into the expanded text. The XML syntax for these snippets is straight forward and it’s pretty easy to create custom snippets manually. You can easily create snippets using XML and store them in your custom snippets folder (C:\Users\rstrahl\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Code Snippets\Visual Web Developer\My HTML Snippets and My JScript Snippets), but it helps to use one of the third-party tools that exist to simplify the process for you. I use SnippetEditor, by Bill McCarthy, which makes short work of creating snippets interactively (http://snippeteditor.codeplex.com/). Note: You may have to manually add the Visual Studio 2010 User specific Snippet folders to this tool to see existing ones you’ve created. Code snippets are some of the biggest time savers and HTML editing more than anything deals with lots of repetitive tasks that lend themselves to text expansion. Visual Studio 2010 includes a slew of built-in snippets (that you can also customize!) and you can create your own very easily. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to spend a little time examining your coding patterns and find the repetitive code that you write and convert it into snippets. I’ve been using CodeRush for this for years, but now you can do much of the basic expansion natively for HTML and JavaScript snippets. jQuery Integration Is Now Native jQuery is a popular JavaScript library and recently Microsoft has recently stated that it will become the primary client-side scripting technology to drive higher level script functionality in various ASP.NET Web projects that Microsoft provides. In Visual Studio 2010, the default full project template includes jQuery as part of a new project including the support files that provide IntelliSense (-vsdoc files). IntelliSense support for jQuery is now also baked into Visual Studio 2010, so unlike Visual Studio 2008 which required a separate download, no further installs are required for a rich IntelliSense experience with jQuery. Summary ASP.NET 4.0 brings many useful improvements to the platform, but thankfully most of the changes are incremental changes that don’t compromise backwards compatibility and they allow developers to ease into the new features one feature at a time. None of the changes in ASP.NET 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010 are monumental or game changers. The bigger features are language and .NET Framework changes that are also optional. This ASP.NET and tools release feels more like fine tuning and getting some long-standing kinks worked out of the platform. It shows that the ASP.NET team is dedicated to paying attention to community feedback and responding with changes to the platform and development environment based on this feedback. If you haven’t gotten your feet wet with ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010, there’s no reason not to give it a shot now - the ASP.NET 4.0 platform is solid and Visual Studio 2010 works very well for a brand new release. Check it out. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• 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!

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• ASP.NET Web Forms Extensibility: Providers

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction This will be the first of a number of posts on ASP.NET extensibility. At this moment I don’t know exactly how many will be and I only know a couple of subjects that I want to talk about, so more will come in the next days. I have the sensation that the providers offered by ASP.NET are not widely know, although everyone uses, for example, sessions, they may not be aware of the extensibility points that Microsoft included. This post won’t go into details of how to configure and extend each of the providers, but will hopefully give some pointers on that direction. Canonical These are the most widely known and used providers, coming from ASP.NET 1, chances are, you have used them already. Good support for invoking client side, either from a .NET application or from JavaScript. Lots of server-side controls use them, such as the Login control for example. Membership The Membership provider is responsible for managing registered users, including creating new ones, authenticating them, changing passwords, etc. ASP.NET comes with two implementations, one that uses a SQL Server database and another that uses the Active Directory. The base class is Membership and new providers are registered on the membership section on the Web.config file, as well as parameters for specifying minimum password lengths, complexities, maximum age, etc. One reason for creating a custom provider would be, for example, storing membership information in a different database engine. 1: <membership defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </membership> Role The Role provider assigns roles to authenticated users. The base class is Role and there are three out of the box implementations: XML-based, SQL Server and Windows-based. Also registered on Web.config through the roleManager section, where you can also say if your roles should be cached on a cookie. If you want your roles to come from a different place, implement a custom provider. 1: <roleManager defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 4: </providers> 5: </roleManager> Profile The Profile provider allows defining a set of properties that will be tied and made available to authenticated or even anonymous ones, which must be tracked by using anonymous authentication. The base class is Profile and the only included implementation stores these settings in a SQL Server database. Configured through profile section, where you also specify the properties to make available, a custom provider would allow storing these properties in different locations. 1: <profile defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </profile> Basic OK, I didn’t know what to call these, so Basic is probably as good as a name as anything else. Not supported client-side (doesn’t even make sense). Session The Session provider allows storing data tied to the current “session”, which is normally created when a user first accesses the site, even when it is not yet authenticated, and remains all the way. The base class and only included implementation is SessionStateStoreProviderBase and it is capable of storing data in one of three locations: In the process memory (default, not suitable for web farms or increased reliability); A SQL Server database (best for reliability and clustering); The ASP.NET State Service, which is a Windows Service that is installed with the .NET Framework (ok for clustering). The configuration is made through the sessionState section. By adding a custom Session provider, you can store the data in different locations – think for example of a distributed cache. 1: <sessionState customProvider=”MyProvider”> 2: <providers> 3: <add name=”MyProvider” type=”MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 4: </providers> 5: </sessionState> Resource A not so known provider, allows you to change the origin of localized resource elements. By default, these come from RESX files and are used whenever you use the Resources expression builder or the GetGlobalResourceObject and GetLocalResourceObject methods, but if you implement a custom provider, you can have these elements come from some place else, such as a database. The base class is ResourceProviderFactory and there’s only one internal implementation which uses these RESX files. Configuration is through the globalization section. 1: <globalization resourceProviderFactoryType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Health Monitoring Health Monitoring is also probably not so well known, and actually not a good name for it. First, in order to understand what it does, you have to know that ASP.NET fires “events” at specific times and when specific things happen, such as when logging in, an exception is raised. These are not user interface events and you can create your own and fire them, nothing will happen, but the Health Monitoring provider will detect it. You can configure it to do things when certain conditions are met, such as a number of events being fired in a certain amount of time. You define these rules and route them to a specific provider, which must inherit from WebEventProvider. Out of the box implementations include sending mails, logging to a SQL Server database, writing to the Windows Event Log, Windows Management Instrumentation, the IIS 7 Trace infrastructure or the debugger Trace. Its configuration is achieved by the healthMonitoring section and a reason for implementing a custom provider would be, for example, locking down a web application in the event of a significant number of failed login attempts occurring in a small period of time. 1: <healthMonitoring> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </healthMonitoring> Sitemap The Sitemap provider allows defining the site’s navigation structure and associated required permissions for each node, in a tree-like fashion. Usually this is statically defined, and the included provider allows it, by supplying this structure in a Web.sitemap XML file. The base class is SiteMapProvider and you can extend it in order to supply you own source for the site’s structure, which may even be dynamic. Its configuration must be done through the siteMap section. 1: <siteMap defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers><add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 3: </providers> 4: </siteMap> Web Part Personalization Web Parts are better known by SharePoint users, but since ASP.NET 2.0 they are included in the core Framework. Web Parts are server-side controls that offer certain possibilities of configuration by clients visiting the page where they are located. The infrastructure handles this configuration per user or globally for all users and this provider is responsible for just that. The base class is PersonalizationProvider and the only included implementation stores settings on SQL Server. Add new providers through the personalization section. 1: <webParts> 2: <personalization defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </personalization> 7: </webParts> Build The Build provider is responsible for compiling whatever files are present on your web folder. There’s a base class, BuildProvider, and, as can be expected, internal implementations for building pages (ASPX), master pages (Master), user web controls (ASCX), handlers (ASHX), themes (Skin), XML Schemas (XSD), web services (ASMX, SVC), resources (RESX), browser capabilities files (Browser) and so on. You would write a build provider if you wanted to generate code from any kind of non-code file so that you have strong typing at development time. Configuration goes on the buildProviders section and it is per extension. 1: <buildProviders> 2: <add extension=".ext" type="MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 3: </buildProviders> New in ASP.NET 4 Not exactly new since they exist since 2010, but in ASP.NET terms, still new. Output Cache The Output Cache for ASPX pages and ASCX user controls is now extensible, through the Output Cache provider, which means you can implement a custom mechanism for storing and retrieving cached data, for example, in a distributed fashion. The base class is OutputCacheProvider and the only implementation is private. Configuration goes on the outputCache section and on each page and web user control you can choose the provider you want to use. 1: <caching> 2: <outputCache defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </outputCache> 7: </caching> Request Validation A big change introduced in ASP.NET 4 (and refined in 4.5, by the way) is the introduction of extensible request validation, by means of a Request Validation provider. This means we are not limited to either enabling or disabling event validation for all pages or for a specific page, but we now have fine control over each of the elements of the request, including cookies, headers, query string and form values. The base provider class is RequestValidator and the configuration goes on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime requestValidationType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Browser Capabilities The Browser Capabilities provider is new in ASP.NET 4, although the concept exists from ASP.NET 2. The idea is to map a browser brand and version to its supported capabilities, such as JavaScript version, Flash support, ActiveX support, and so on. Previously, this was all hardcoded in .Browser files located in %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework(64)\vXXXXX\Config\Browsers, but now you can have a class inherit from HttpCapabilitiesProvider and implement your own mechanism. Register in on the browserCaps section. 1: <browserCaps provider="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Encoder The Encoder provider is responsible for encoding every string that is sent to the browser on a page or header. This includes for example converting special characters for their standard codes and is implemented by the base class HttpEncoder. Another implementation takes care of Anti Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. Build your own by inheriting from one of these classes if you want to add some additional processing to these strings. The configuration will go on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime encoderType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Conclusion That’s about it for ASP.NET providers. It was by no means a thorough description, but I hope I managed to raise your interest on this subject. There are lots of pointers on the Internet, so I only included direct references to the Framework classes and configuration sections. Stay tuned for more extensibility!

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• GuestPost: Unit Testing Entity Framework (v1) Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator

  - by Eric Nelson

  Time for another guest post (check out others in the series), this time bringing together the world of mocking with the world of Entity Framework. A big thanks to Moses for agreeing to do this. Unit Testing Entity Framework Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator by Muhammad Mosa Introduction Unit testing data access code in my opinion is a challenging thing. Let us consider unit tests and integration tests. In integration tests you are allowed to have environmental dependencies such as a physical database connection to insert, update, delete or retrieve your data. However when performing unit tests it is often much more efficient and productive to remove environmental dependencies. Instead you will need to fake these dependencies. Faking a database (also known as mocking) can be relatively straight forward but the version of Entity Framework released with .Net 3.5 SP1 has a number of implementation specifics which actually makes faking the existence of a database quite difficult. Faking Entity Framework As mentioned earlier, to effectively unit test you will need to fake/simulate Entity Framework calls to the database. There are many free open source mocking frameworks that can help you achieve this but it will require additional effort to overcome & workaround a number of limitations in those frameworks. Examples of these limitations include: Not able to fake calls to non virtual methods Not able to fake sealed classes Not able to fake LINQ to Entities queries (replace database calls with in-memory collection calls) There is a mocking framework which is flexible enough to handle limitations such as those above. The commercially available TypeMock Isolator can do the job for you with less code and ultimately more readable unit tests. I’m going to demonstrate tackling one of those limitations using MoQ as my mocking framework. Then I will tackle the same issue using TypeMock Isolator. Mocking Entity Framework with MoQ One basic need when faking Entity Framework is to fake the ObjectContext. This cannot be done by passing any connection string. You have to pass a correct Entity Framework connection string that specifies CSDL, SSDL and MSL locations along with a provider connection string. Assuming we are going to do that, we’ll explore another limitation. The limitation we are going to face now is related to not being able to fake calls to non-virtual/overridable members with MoQ. I have the following repository method that adds an EntityObject (instance of a Blog entity) to Blogs entity set in an ObjectContext. public override void Add(Blog blog) { if(BlogContext.Blogs.Any(b=>b.Name == blog.Name)) { throw new InvalidOperationException("Blog with same name already exists!"); } BlogContext.AddToBlogs(blog); } The method does a very simple check that the name of the new Blog entity instance doesn’t exist. This is done through the simple LINQ query above. If the blog doesn’t already exist it simply adds it to the current context to be saved when SaveChanges of the ObjectContext instance (e.g. BlogContext) is called. However, if a blog with the same name exits, and exception (InvalideOperationException) will be thrown. Let us now create a unit test for the Add method using MoQ. [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException_When_Blog_With_Same_Name_Already_Exits() { //(1) We shouldn't depend on configuration when doing unit tests! But, //its a workaround to fake the ObjectContext string connectionString = ConfigurationManager .ConnectionStrings["MyBlogConnString"] .ConnectionString; //(2) Arrange: Fake ObjectContext var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); //(3) Next Line will pass, as ObjectContext now can be faked with proper connection string var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); //(4) Create fake ObjectQuery<Blog>. Will be used to substitute MyBlogContext.Blogs property var fakeObjectQuery = new Mock<ObjectQuery<Blog>>("[Blogs]", fakeContext.Object); //(5) Arrange: Set Expectations //Next line will throw an exception by MoQ: //System.ArgumentException: Invalid setup on a non-overridable member fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); //Act repo.Add(new Blog { Name = "NewBlog" }); } This test method is checking to see if the correct exception ([ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))]) is thrown when a developer attempts to Add a blog with a name that’s already exists. On (1) a connection string is initialized from configuration file. To retrieve the full connection string. On (2) a fake ObjectContext is being created. The ObjectContext here is MyBlogContext and its being created using this var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); This way a fake context is being created using MoQ. On (3) a BlogRepository instance is created. BlogRepository has dependency on generate Entity Framework ObjectContext, MyObjectContext. And so the fake context is passed to the constructor. var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); On (4) a fake instance of ObjectQuery<Blog> is being created to use as a substitute to MyObjectContext.Blogs property as we will see in (5). On (5) setup an expectation for calling Blogs property of MyBlogContext and substitute the return result with the fake ObjectQuery<Blog> instance created on (4). When you run this test it will fail with MoQ throwing an exception because of this line: fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); This happens because the generate property MyBlogContext.Blogs is not virtual/overridable. And assuming it is virtual or you managed to make it virtual it will fail at the following line throwing the same exception: fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); This time the test will fail because the Any extension method is not virtual/overridable. You won’t be able to replace ObjectQuery<Blog> with fake in memory collection to test your LINQ to Entities queries. Now lets see how replacing MoQ with TypeMock Isolator can help. Mocking Entity Framework with TypeMock Isolator The following is the same test method we had above for MoQ but this time implemented using TypeMock Isolator: [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_New_Blog_That_Already_Exists_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException() { //(1) Create fake in memory collection of blogs var fakeInMemoryBlogs = new List<Blog> {new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}}; //(2) create fake context var fakeContext = Isolate.Fake.Instance<MyBlogContext>(); //(3) Setup expected call to MyBlogContext.Blogs property through the fake context Isolate.WhenCalled(() => fakeContext.Blogs) .WillReturnCollectionValuesOf(fakeInMemoryBlogs.AsQueryable()); //(4) Create new blog with a name that already exits in the fake in memory collection in (1) var blog = new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}; //(5) Instantiate instance of BlogRepository (Class under test) var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext); //(6) Acting by adding the newly created blog () repo.Add(blog); } When running the above test method it will pass as the Add method of BlogRepository is going to throw an InvalidOperationException which is the expected behaviour. Nothing prevents us from faking out the database interaction! Even faking ObjectContext  at (2) didn’t require a connection string. On (3) Isolator sets up a faking result for MyBlogContext.Blogs when its being called through the fake instance fakeContext created on (2). The faking result is just an in-memory collection declared an initialized on (1). Finally at (6) action we call the Add method of BlogRepository passing a new Blog instance that has a name that’s already exists in the fake in-memory collection which we set up at (1). As expected the test will pass because it will throw the expected exception defined on top of the test method - InvalidOperationException. TypeMock Isolator succeeded in faking Entity Framework with ease. Conclusion We explored how to write a simple unit test using TypeMock Isolator for code which is using Entity Framework. We also explored a few of the limitations of other mocking frameworks which TypeMock is successfully able to handle. There are workarounds that you can use to overcome limitations when using MoQ or Rhino Mock, however the workarounds will require you to write more code and your tests will likely be more complex. For a comparison between different mocking frameworks take a look at this document produced by TypeMock. You might also want to check out this open source project to compare mocking frameworks. I hope you enjoyed this post Muhammad Mosa http://mosesofegypt.net/ http://twitter.com/mosessaur Screencast of unit testing Entity Framework Related Links GuestPost: Introduction to Mocking GuesPost: Typemock Isolator – Much more than an Isolation framework

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• Advantages of SQL Backup Pro

  - by Grant Fritchey

  Getting backups of your databases in place is a fundamental issue for protection of the business. Yes, I said business, not data, not databases, but business. Because of a lack of good, tested, backups, companies have gone completely out of business or suffered traumatic financial loss. That’s just a simple fact (outlined with a few examples here). So you want to get backups right. That’s a big part of why we make Red Gate SQL Backup Pro work the way it does. Yes, you could just use native backups, but you’ll be missing a few advantages that we provide over and above what you get out of the box from Microsoft. Let’s talk about them. Guidance If you’re a hard-core DBA with 20+ years of experience on every version of SQL Server and several other data platforms besides, you may already know what you need in order to get a set of tested backups in place. But, if you’re not, maybe a little help would be a good thing. To set up backups for your servers, we supply a wizard that will step you through the entire process. It will also act to guide you down good paths. For example, if your databases are in Full Recovery, you should set up transaction log backups to run on a regular basis. When you choose a transaction log backup from the Backup Type you’ll see that only those databases that are in Full Recovery will be listed: This makes it very easy to be sure you have a log backup set up for all the databases you should and none of the databases where you won’t be able to. There are other examples of guidance throughout the product. If you have the responsibility of managing backups but very little knowledge or time, we can help you out. Throughout the software you’ll notice little green question marks. You can see two in the screen above and more in each of the screens in other topics below this one. Clicking on these will open a window with additional information about the topic in question which should help to guide you through some of the tougher decisions you may have to make while setting up your backup jobs. Here’s an example: Backup Copies As a part of the wizard you can choose to make a copy of your backup on your network. This process runs as part of the Red Gate SQL Backup engine. It will copy your backup, after completing the backup so it doesn’t cause any additional blocking or resource use within the backup process, to the network location you define. Creating a copy acts as a mechanism of protection for your backups. You can then backup that copy or do other things with it, all without affecting the original backup file. This requires either an additional backup or additional scripting to get it done within the native Microsoft backup engine. Offsite Storage Red Gate offers you the ability to immediately copy your backup to the cloud as a further, off-site, protection of your backups. It’s a service we provide and expose through the Backup wizard. Your backup will complete first, just like with the network backup copy, then an asynchronous process will copy that backup to cloud storage. Again, this is built right into the wizard or even the command line calls to SQL Backup, so it’s part a single process within your system. With native backup you would need to write additional scripts, possibly outside of T-SQL, to make this happen. Before you can use this with your backups you’ll need to do a little setup, but it’s built right into the product to get this done. You’ll be directed to the web site for our hosted storage where you can set up an account. Compression If you have SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, or you’re on SQL Server 2008R2 or greater and you have a Standard or Enterprise license, then you have backup compression. It’s built right in and works well. But, if you need even more compression then you might want to consider Red Gate SQL Backup Pro. We offer four levels of compression within the product. This means you can get a little compression faster, or you can just sacrifice some CPU time and get even more compression. You decide. For just a simple example I backed up AdventureWorks2012 using both methods of compression. The resulting file from native was 53mb. Our file was 33mb. That’s a file that is smaller by 38%, not a small number when we start talking gigabytes. We even provide guidance here to help you determine which level of compression would be right for you and your system: So for this test, if you wanted maximum compression with minimum CPU use you’d probably want to go with Level 2 which gets you almost as much compression as Level 3 but will use fewer resources. And that compression is still better than the native one by 10%. Restore Testing Backups are vital. But, a backup is just a file until you restore it. How do you know that you can restore that backup? Of course, you’ll use CHECKSUM to validate that what was read from disk during the backup process is what gets written to the backup file. You’ll also use VERIFYONLY to check that the backup header and the checksums on the backup file are valid. But, this doesn’t do a complete test of the backup. The only complete test is a restore. So, what you really need is a process that tests your backups. This is something you’ll have to schedule separately from your backups, but we provide a couple of mechanisms to help you out here. First, when you create a backup schedule, all done through our wizard which gives you as much guidance as you get when running backups, you get the option of creating a reminder to create a job to test your restores. You can enable this or disable it as you choose when creating your scheduled backups. Once you’re ready to schedule test restores for your databases, we have a wizard for this as well. After you choose the databases and restores you want to test, all configurable for automation, you get to decide if you’re going to restore to a specified copy or to the original database: If you’re doing your tests on a new server (probably the best choice) you can just overwrite the original database if it’s there. If not, you may want to create a new database each time you test your restores. Another part of validating your backups is ensuring that they can pass consistency checks. So we have DBCC built right into the process. You can even decide how you want DBCC run, which error messages to include, limit or add to the checks being run. With this you could offload some DBCC checks from your production system so that you only run the physical checks on your production box, but run the full check on this backup. That makes backup testing not just a general safety process, but a performance enhancer as well: Finally, assuming the tests pass, you can delete the database, leave it in place, or delete it regardless of the tests passing. All this is automated and scheduled through the SQL Agent job on your servers. Running your databases through this process will ensure that you don’t just have backups, but that you have tested backups. Single Point of Management If you have more than one server to maintain, getting backups setup could be a tedious process. But, with Red Gate SQL Backup Pro you can connect to multiple servers and then manage all your databases and all your servers backups from a single location. You’ll be able to see what is scheduled, what has run successfully and what has failed, all from a single interface without having to connect to different servers. Log Shipping Wizard If you want to set up log shipping as part of a disaster recovery process, it can frequently be a pain to get configured correctly. We supply a wizard that will walk you through every step of the process including setting up alerts so you’ll know should your log shipping fail. Summary You want to get your backups right. As outlined above, Red Gate SQL Backup Pro will absolutely help you there. We supply a number of processes and functionalities above and beyond what you get with SQL Server native. Plus, with our guidance, hints and reminders, you will get your backups set up in a way that protects your business.

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• Productivity Tips

  - by Brian T. Jackett

  A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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• Mr Flibble: As Seen Through a Lens, Darkly

  - by Phil Factor

  One of the rewarding things about getting involved with Simple-Talk has been in meeting and working with some pretty daunting talents. I’d like to say that Dom Reed’s talents are at the end of the visible spectrum, but then there is Richard, who pops up on national radio occasionally, presenting intellectual programs, Andrew, master of the ukulele, with his pioneering local history work, and Tony with marathon running and his past as a university lecturer. However, Dom, who is Red Gate’s head of creative design and who did the preliminary design work for Simple-Talk, has taken the art photography to an extreme that was impossible before Photoshop. He’s not the first person to take a photograph of himself every day for two years, but he is definitely the first to weave the results into a frightening narrative that veers from comedy to pathos, using all the arts of Photoshop to create a fictional character, Mr Flibble.   Have a look at some of the Flickr pages. Uncle Spike The B-Men – Woolverine The 2011 BoyZ iN Sink reunion tour turned out to be their last Error 404 – Flibble not found Mr Flibble is not a normal type of alter-ego. We generally prefer to choose bronze age warriors of impossibly magnificent physique and stamina; superheroes who bestride the world, scorning the forces of evil and anarchy in a series noble and righteous quests. Not so Dom, whose Mr Flibble is vulnerable, and laid low by an addiction to toxic substances. His work has gained an international cult following and is used as course material by several courses in photography. Although his work was for a while ignored by the more conventional world of ‘art’ photography they became famous through the internet. His photos have received well over a million views on Flickr. It was definitely time to turn this work into a book, because the whole sequence of images has its maximum effect when seen in sequence. He has a Kickstarter project page, one of the first following the recent UK launch of the crowdfunding platform. The publication of the book should be a major event and the £45 I shall divvy up will be one of the securest investments I shall ever make. The local news in Cambridge picked up on the project and I can quote from the report by the excellent Cabume website , the source of Tech news from the ‘Cambridge cluster’ Put really simply Mr Flibble likes to dress up and take pictures of himself. One of the benefits of a split personality, however is that Mr Flibble is supported in his endeavour by Reed’s top notch photography skills, supreme mastery of Photoshop and unflinching dedication to the cause. The duo have collaborated to take a picture every day for the past 730-plus days. It is not a big surprise that neither Mr Flibble nor Reed watches any TV: In addition to his full-time role at Cambridge software house,Red Gate Software as head of creativity and the two to five hours a day he spends taking the Mr Flibble shots, Reed also helps organise the . And now Reed is using Kickstarter to see if the world is ready for a Mr Flibble coffee table book. Judging by the early response it is. At the time of writing, just a few days after it went live, ‘I Drink Lead Paint: An absurd photography book by Mr Flibble’ had raised £1,545 of the £10,000 target it needs to raise by the Friday 30 November deadline from 37 backers. Following the standard Kickstarter template, Reed is offering a series of rewards based on the amount pledged, ranging from a Mr Flibble desktop wallpaper for pledges of £5 or more to a signed copy of the book for pledges of £45 or more, right up to a starring role in the book for £1,500. Mr Flibble is unquestionably one of the more deranged Kickstarter hopefuls, but don’t think for a second that he doesn’t have a firm grasp on the challenges he faces on the road to immortalisation on 150 gsm stock. Under the section ‘risks and challenges’ on his Kickstarter page his statement begins: “An angry horde of telepathic iguanas discover the world’s last remaining stock of vintage lead paint and hold me to ransom. Gosh how I love to guzzle lead paint. Anyway… faced with such brazen bravado, I cower at the thought of taking on their combined might and die a sad and lonely Flibble deprived of my one and only true liquid love.” At which point, Reed manages to wrestle away the keyboard, giving him the opportunity to present slightly more cogent analysis of the obstacles the project must still overcome. We asked Reed a few questions about Mr Flibble’s Kickstarter adventure and felt that his responses were worth publishing in full: Firstly, how did you manage it – holding down a full time job and also conceiving and executing these ideas on a daily basis? I employed a small team of ferocious gerbils to feed me ideas on a daily basis. Whilst most of their ideas were incomprehensibly rubbish and usually revolved around food, just occasionally they’d give me an idea like my B-Men series. As a backup plan though, I found that the best way to generate ideas was to actually start taking photos. If I were to stand in front of the camera, pull a silly face, place a vegetable on my head or something else equally stupid, the resulting photo of that would typically spark an idea when I came to look at it. Sitting around idly trying to think of an idea was doomed to result in no ideas. I admit that I really struggled with time. I’m proud that I never missed a day, but it was definitely hard when you were late from work, tired or doing something socially on the same day. I don’t watch TV, which I guess really helps, because I’d frequently be spending 2-5 hours taking and processing the photos every day. Are there any overlaps between software development and creative thinking? Software is an inherently creative business and the speed that it moves ensures you always have to find solutions to new things. Everyone in the team needs to be a problem solver. Has it helped me specifically with my photography? Probably. Working within teams that continually need to figure out new stuff keeps the brain feisty I suppose, and I guess I’m continually exposed to a lot of possible sources of inspiration. How specifically will this Kickstarter project allow you to test the commercial appeal of your work and do you plan to get the book into shops? It’s taken a while to be confident saying it, but I know that people like the work that I do. I’ve had well over a million views of my pictures, many humbling comments and I know I’ve garnered some loyal fans out there who anticipate my next photo. For me, this Kickstarter is about seeing if there’s worth to my work beyond just making people smile. In an online world where there’s an abundance of freely available content, can you hope to receive anything from what you do, or would people just move onto the next piece of content if you happen to ask for some support? A book has been the single-most requested thing that people have asked me to produce and it’s something that I feel would showcase my work well. It’s just hard to convince people in the publishing industry just now to take any kind of risk – they’ve been hit hard. If I can show that people would like my work enough to buy a book, then it sends a pretty clear picture that publishers might hear, or it gives me the confidence enough to invest in myself a bit more – hard to do when you’re riddled with self-doubt! I’d love to see my work in the shops, yes. I could see it being the thing that someone flips through idly as they’re Christmas shopping and recognizing that it’d be just the perfect gift for their difficult to buy for friend or relative. That said, working in the software industry means I’m clearly aware of how I could use technology to distribute my work, but I can’t deny that there’s something very appealing to having a physical thing to hold in your hands. If the project is successful is there a chance that it could become a full-time job? At the moment that seems like a distant dream, as should this be successful, there are many more steps I’d need to take to reach any kind of business viability. Kickstarter seems exactly that – a way for people to help kick start me into something that could take off. If people like my work and want me to succeed with it, then taking a look at my Kickstarter page (and hopefully pledging a bit of support) would make my elbows blush considerably. So there is is. An opportunity to open the wallet just a bit to ensure that one of the more unusual talents sees the light in the format it deserves.  

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – October 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/wlscommunity WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity Real World Java EE Patterns by Adam Bien http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mp Markus Eisele?@myfear #JavaOne Content Available for Free https://blogs.oracle.com/java/entry/javaone_content_available_for_free … /via @java Adam Bien?@AdamBien Thought that 1h screencast is way too long to be popular. I was wrong. Lightweight Java EE is doing very well: http://www.adam-bien.com/roller/abien/entry/lightweight_java_ee_screencast … OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs COLLABORATE 13 Call for Papers http://ow.ly/2szPuZ Oracle WebLogic?@OracleWebLogic New Blog Post: Data Source Security Part 1 http://ow.ly/2szFbv Markus Eisele?@myfear My Three Days at #JavaOne 2012 http://yakovfain.com/2012/10/04/my-three-days-at-javaone-2012/ … < nice writeup ;) Adam Bien?@AdamBien JavaOne 2012 Announcements And Surprises: NetBeans 7.3+ comes with HTML 5, JavaScript, CSS 3 support. JavaScript... http://bit.ly/Uy14eD Andrejus Baranovskis?@andrejusb OOW'12: Oracle ADF Implementations Around the Globe: Best Practices http://fb.me/1IVg6gzU0 gschmutz?@gschmutz Just published a blog with a wrap-up of my presentations at OOW 2012. https://guidoschmutz.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/my-presentations-at-oracle-open-world-2012/ … #oow2012 #trivadis Andrejus Baranovskis?@andrejusb OOW'12: Oracle Business Process Management/Oracle ADF Integration Best Practices http://fb.me/1GY3nz1lb WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity ExaLogic 2.01 ppt & training & Installation check-list & tips & Web tier roadmap http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mh Adam Bien?@AdamBien JavaOne 2012, First Feedback and The Strange Thing: NetBeans day was surprising well attended. A big room was fu... http://bit.ly/PwWwx8 OracleSupport_WLS?@weblogicsupport Free registration for our next webcast on setting up and using a #weblogic #cluster http://pub.vitrue.com/xWV8 WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity UKOUG Application Server & Middleware SIG Meeting http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mC Ronald Luttikhuizen?@rluttikhuizen Discussing future plans for Oracle Middleware Infrastructure Group with @simon_haslam @Jphjulstad and Rene van Wijk #oow @wlscommunity JAX London?@jaxlondon Be part of #JAXLondon- only 11 days to go! Still need a ticket? http://buff.ly/TUPKmL WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity ExaLogic X3-2 launched at OOW 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mM WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity @OracleEvents Dear Oracle Team thanks for promoting the WebLogic bootcamp, new schedules are online https://blogs.oracle.com/emeapartnerweblogic/resource/weblogic12c.htm … #weblogiccommunity OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs Partner Webcast Introducing Oracle Business Activity Monitoring - 18 October 2012 http://ow.ly/2svzyz AMIS, Oracle & Java?@AMIS_Services Grant posted a nice little video on youtube about the #ADF EMG activities during Oracle Open World. http://youtu.be/qZhtBqnK-Zc GlassFish?@glassfish ADF Essentials - Available for free and certified on GlassFish!: If you are an Oracle customer, you are probably... http://bit.ly/UCtVwY OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs WebLogic 12 hands-on bootcamps for partnersnew dates & locations http://ow.ly/2smOfs Pieter Kranenburg?@pskranenburg I'm EXA and I know IT! How about you? Go to http://bit.ly/OnSlDd and find out! (you might win an #iphone5 ;-) #OOW please RT Andrejus Baranovskis?@andrejusb Enabling WebLogic Administrator Group Inside Custom ADF Application http://fb.me/2d5SCeJ2g Michel Schildmeijer?@MNEMONIC01 I'm EXA and I know IT! How about you? Go to http://bit.ly/OnSlDd (you might win an #iphone5 ;-) #oow OracleSupport_WLS?@weblogicsupport Step-by-step instructions on how to configure mail Alerts in #OEM 11g for #WebLogic Servers up/down status http://pub.vitrue.com/KpZq Jeff West?@jeffreyawest Answer: Deliver JMS message to a single node in a Weblogic Cluster with a Distributed Topic http://stackoverflow.com/a/12396492/697114?stw=2 … Java?@java Bucharest Java User Group: Launched and Growing! #JUG http://ow.ly/dDnbN OracleSupport_WLS?@weblogicsupport Don't shoot the messenger! #Java source code analyzer @ http://pub.vitrue.com/Cy2J JAX London?@jaxlondon .@BrianGoetz gives in depth session on the details of how #Lambda expressions are implemented in the #Java language at #JAXLondon" ADF Community DE?@ADFCommunityDE Webcast ADFNewsSession: ADF as a basis of Fusion Apps - the biggest ADF project ever. Sep 14, 8:30 AM CET. Dial in https://blogs.oracle.com/jdevotnharvest/entry/adf_partner_community_news_session … OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs WebLogic & Coherence & Cloud presentations for customer meetings http://ow.ly/1mqwrC Pieter Kranenburg?@pskranenburg Seminar: Oracle WebLogic 12c at Qualogy. You are invited! http://bit.ly/Ps9LDF Oracle WebLogic?@OracleWebLogic New Blog Post: Oracle OpenWorld Update -- General Session: Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategies Driving Business Inno... http://ow.ly/2stylf Oracle Cloud Zone?@OracleCloudZone New partner programs for Oracle Cloud Solutions http://bit.ly/PrVq5O #cloud #oow Lucas Jellema?@lucasjellema The strategy on Java - JEE, SE, ME, FX: http://technology.amis.nl/2012/10/02/javaone-2012-strategy-and-technical-keynote/ … #javaone #oow_amis WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity Send your #WebLogicCommunity #oow pictures and blog posts @wlscommunity or http://www.facebook.com/weblogiccommunity … Enjoy OOW ;-) WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity Become an WebLogic 12c expert, attend our partner bootcampshttps://blogs.oracle.com/emeapartnerweblogic/resource/weblogic12c.htm … #WebLogicCommunity #opn AMIS, Oracle & Java?@AMIS_Services Volgende #oracle #ADF training bij @AMIS_SERVICES is van 12 tot 16 november. Meer info of aanmelden? http://www.amis.nl/Trainingen/oracle-adf-11g-applicatieontwikkeling/ … Devoxx?@Devoxx ALL the Devoxx 2011 talks are now freely available on Parleys @ http://www.parleys.com/#st=4&id=102998 Pls RT! Adam Bien?@AdamBien Use the coupon code "PLUMA" and you will get 20% off for "Real World Java EE Patterns": http://realworldpatterns.com Lucas Jellema?@lucasjellema Very good summary of the #JavaOne Technical Keynote last night: http://java.dzone.com/articles/javaone-2012-javaone-technical … Arun Gupta?@arungupta Blogged: JavaOne 2012 Keynote and GlassFish Party Pictures: Some pictures from the keynote ... And som... http://bit.ly/ViH0ue Lucas Jellema?@lucasjellema Most recent promoted build for GassFish 4.0 (EE7) has WebSocket support: to play with: http://dlc.sun.com.edgesuite.net/glassfish/4.0/promoted/ … #javaone michael palmeter?@michaelpalmeter If you haven't seen the 5-minute Exalogic demo, you need to (do it now!) - http://lnkd.in/GRqy3x Lonneke Dikmans?@lonnekedikmans VENNSTER BLOG: Running EclipseLink DBWS 2.4.0 on GlassFish 3.1.2 http://blog.vennster.nl/2012/09/running-eclipselink-dbws-240-on.html?spref=tw … WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter September 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mf WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity again again again&hellip;. it is Oracle Open World 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-m6 Markus Eisele?@myfear #WebLogic and #JavaEE Roadmap and Strategy Session at OOW http://ow.ly/2slZEY /via @OracleWebLogic Adam Bien?@AdamBien An Article About Java EE Connector Architectures 1.6 (JCA 1.6): The free Java Magazine article: Java EE Connect... http://bit.ly/St6sxq Lucas Jellema?@lucasjellema ADF Essentials - free to develop and to deploy (I said: free!) - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf/overview/adfessentials-1719844.html … AMIS, Oracle & Java?@AMIS_Services Blog by Lucas Jellema: "Develop and Deploy ADF applications – free of charge using the new ADF Essentials" http://bit.ly/StAhxY Andrejus Baranovskis?@andrejusb ADF Essentials - Quick Technical Review http://fb.me/2hKCXyF43 OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs GlassFish Extension for Oracle JDeveloper http://ow.ly/2slIO8 Retweetet von WebLogic Community Oracle Eclipse?@OEPE New Tutorial: Using ADF Faces and ADF Controller with Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse. #OEPE http://pub.vitrue.com/QoUg Simon Haslam?@simon_haslam As of the last day or two there's a new Java Products Media Pack on http://edelivery.oracle.com (rather than it being in FMW pack) WebLogic Community?@wlscommunity top tweets WebLogic Partner Community &ndash; September 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-m2 Adam Bien?@AdamBien I was interviewed by OTN: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/jaxawards-1843595.html …See you at JavaOne! Oracle WebLogic?@OracleWebLogic DevOps Basics for #WebLogic: Track Down High CPU Thread with ps, top and the new JDK7 jcmd tool. Great blog @frankmuz. http://ow.ly/dOBM4 Simon Haslam?@simon_haslam Looking for "oak style"(!) advanced content but you're a middleware specialist? See #ukoug2012 #middlewaresunday http://2012.ukoug.org/default.asp?p=9355 … Julien Ponge ?@jponge Just finished Java EE 6 + AngularJS samples for my upcoming middleware lectures. Code at https://github.com/jponge/todoapp-javaee6-angularjs … and https://github.com/jponge/todoapp-bosswatch … Markus Eisele?@myfear #Oracle #WebLogic is now totally #FREE for #Developer - more than just OTN license to develop the 1st prototype! http://bit.ly/SWltsR Markus Eisele?@myfear #WebSockets on #WebLogic Server http://ow.ly/1mv4QP by @wlsteve < need to give this a testdrive ;) OracleEnterpriseMgr?@oracle_em EM Blog : Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2) is Available Now ! #em12c http://pub.vitrue.com/mk7o OracleBlogs?@OracleBlogs ADF training material now on the iPad http://ow.ly/1mqz1Q GlassFish?@glassfish GlassFish grows by 50% in Software Stack Market Share Report for August 2012 by @Jelastic http://awe.sm/o4ZAp WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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