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• MySQL Query - Alternation of WHERE IN

  - by Sadiqur Rahman

  I have a mySQL query which takes 3-4 minutes to be executed. It is a large database. This query uses WHERE IN to find the rows.. So, is there any alternate query/clause/statement for my this query? SELECT r.reg_id, r.first_name, r.last_name, r.email, r.country, e.headline, e.industry, pp.photo FROM basic_registration r LEFT JOIN exp_ind_reg e ON e.reg_id=r.reg_id LEFT JOIN profile_photo pp ON pp.reg_id=r.reg_id WHERE r.reg_id IN (23,228,497,593,761,1204,1491,1894,1895,2128,7,11,20,22,25,26,27,29,31, 32,33,34,37,41,45,47,50,52,53,54,55,62,63,69,75,79,80,82,85,87,88,89,93,96,99, 102,104,106,110,116,117,124,139,143,146,150,157,159,161,162,170,175,176,177, 181,183,197,210,213,215,217,220,226,227,233,240,250,252,255,262,263,268,274,280, 283,285,290,300,312,313,317,324,332,341,347,351,357,368,369,372,373,377, 381,383,398,408,414,416,418,419,422,432,441,446,450,451,453,463,466,469,473,486,511, 522,525,527,529,534,538,541,543,546,564,566,569,577,579,581,585,586,595,598,599,600, 606,611,613,614,621,640,649,654,656,660,667,668,674,682,686,689,693,699,705,720, 734,742,748,753,763,774,775,780,782,784,792,795,804,839,841,862,871,890,929, 930,943,951,965,994,1004,1017,1026,1034,1050,1051,1053,1054,1067,1082,1087,1109, 1119,1121,1124,1136,1147,1187,1197,1214,1224,1226,1230,1241,1255,1318,1323,1358,1361, 1383,1404,1415,1429,1440,1443,1452,1458,1473,1478,1484,1490,1496,1505,1508,1521, 1534,1544,1556,1575,1628,1640,1644,1660,1688,1725,1791,1802,1815,1819,1849,1850,1891, 1896,1897,1911,1917,1923,1924,1926,1927,1930,1956,1959,1961,1967,1983,2006,2016, 2028,2053,2059,2088,2089,2100,2136,2145,2164,2183,2190,2219,2243,2291,2301,2321, 2343,2345,2423,2438,2465,2478,2501,2507,2508,2551,2563,2572,2629,2636,2642,2650, 2670,2693,2695,2724,2732,2801,2803,2839,2847,2867,2899,3024,3061,3068,3071,3093, 3123,3126,3188,3240,3273,3307,3308,3332,3484,3493,3522,3552,3596,3632,3705,3769, 3845,3869,3966,3969,4046,4066,4074,4077,4108,4113,4140,4198,4213,4218,4266,4295, 4312,4345,4365,4369,4380,4425,4453,4485,4486,4488,4493,4494,4495,4500,4513,4515, 4517,4520,4533,4540,4542,4544,4548,4550,4551,4554,4555,4557,4566,4567,4568, 4570,4572,4575,4586,4587,4590,4593,4594,4595,4598,4599,4608,4640,4642,4647,4650, 4661,4664,4679,4681,4685,4686,4698,4707,4708,4709,4711,4712,4714,4715,4717,4719, 4720,4721,4722,4724,4725,4728,4729,4732,4734,4735,4736,4737,4739,4742,4744,4745, 4750,4752,4754,4755,4757,4759,4760,4761,4763,4764,4766,4768,4770,4772,4774,4776, 4777,4789,4790,4791,4793,4795,4796,4797,4799,4803,4804,4805,4806,4808,4809,4811, 4814,4815,4817,4818,4821,4825,4826,4828,4830,4831,4833,4835,4836,4837,4843,4844, 4847,4848,4852,4853,4854,4861,4865,4866,4871,4874,4875,4876,4879,4880,4886,4889, 4890,4891,4892,4893,4894,4896,4899,4900,4904,4908,4914,4915,4916,4917,4918,4922, 4925,4929,4930,4931,4932,4934,4935,4940,4943,4944,4945,4947,4948,4949,4952,4953, 4956,4961,4963,4964,4965,4973,4974,4976,4978,4980,4985,4988,4989,4990,4993,4996, 5001,5009,5014,5016,5017,5018,5019,5021,5023,5024,5025,5028,5032,5033,5041,5042, 5048,5055,5056,5058,5059,5062,5065,5066,5072,5073,5075,5078,5079,5083,5084,5085, 5086,5087,5088,5089,5090,5091,5092,5093,5094,5096,5103,5112,5115,5116,5117,5123, 5125,5126,5127,5128,5130,5131,5132,5133,5134,5137,5138,5139,5140,5141,5146,5148, 5150,5155,5156,5158,5161,5162,5163,5164,5166,5168,5172,5174,5176,5178,5179,5180, 5181,5183,5186,5191,5194,5199,5200,5201,5202,5206,5214,5215,5217,5218,5222,5225, 5226,5227,5235,5236,5237,5243,5245,5246,5248,5251,5252,5254,5255,5256,5257, 5259,5261,5262,5267,5270,5271,5275,5279,5281,5283,5284,5286,5288,5289,5292,5293, 5295,5307,5308,5310,5311,5313,5315,5321,5323,5324,5325,5327,5328,5339,5340,5345, 5351,5353,5355,5356,5357,5358,5359,5363,5364,5365,5366,5369,5370,5371,5372,5373, 5376,5377,5378,5379,5381,5382,5383,5384,5385,5386,5387,5388,5389,5390,5393,5395, 5405,5406,5407,5411,5413,5414,5415,5416,5417,5418,5420,5424,5425,5429,5430,5431, 5432,5433,5434,5435,5437,5441,5451,5460,5467,5473,5476,5506,5524,5528,5530,5534, 5535,5536,5550,5551,5552,5553,5554,5556,5557,5559,5564,5565,5567,5568,5574,5575, 5585,5586,5587,5597,5600,5601,5605,5606,5607,5613,5614,5615,5617,5618,5624,5626, 5627,5628,5640,5643,5644,5645,5647,5648,5649,5650,5660,5661,5670,5671,5673,5674, 5675,5681,5683,5685,5689,5690,5691,5692,5693,5694,5695,5696,5697,5702,5703,5704, 5705,5706,5708,5710,5711,5712,5713,5716,5717,5719,5730,5732,5737,5744,5745,5746, 5748,5749,5750,5752,5753,5754,5756,5757,5758,5759,5761,5762,5763,5764,5765,5767, 5769,5770,5776,5780,5782,5783,5784,5787,5788,5789,5790,5791,5792,5793,5794,5799, 5802,5803,5804,5805,5806,5808,5809,5810,5812,5813,5814,5816,5817,5818,5822,5823,5826, 5827,5829,5830,5831,5848,5849,5850,5851,5852,5854,5856,5858,5859,5863,5864,5865, 5866,5867,5873,5884,5885,5893,5898,5899,5904,5907,5908,5910,5911,5915,5916,5918, 5919,5922,5923,5924,5933,5934,5941,5944,5950,5954,5955,5956,5960,5961,5973,5978,5981, 5982,5983,5984,5985,5986,5987,5988,5989,5990,5998,5999,6000,6002,6003,6004,6006, 6007,6010,6093,6175,6177,6217,6236,6325,6327,6347,6398,6403,6447,6582,6586,6609, 6697,6904,6926,6933,7001,7003,7047,7081,7094,7111,7205,7207,7219,7220,7221,7222, 7224,7227,7228,7229,7230,7232,7237,7238,7241,7268,7274,7275,7276,7281,7300,7307, 7309,7315,7330,7333,7334,7339,7343,7348,7354,7360,7374,7377,7378,7390,7429,7434, 7445,7448,7449,7452,7532,7534,7539,7542,7546,7547,7555,7563,7565,7567,7572,7575, 7576,7577,7578,7579,7585,7611,7907,7926,8100,8134,8205,8324,8337,8339,8350,8351, 8362,8410,8568,8572,8618,8619,8651,8665,8666,8667,8668,9010,9068,9098,9100,9106, 9111,9115,9121,9123,9174,9177,9272,9302,9421,9570,9683,9684,9697,9704,9712,9715,9779, 9790,9792,9793,9795,9798,9814,9818,9856,9866,9876,9886,9891,9908,9912,9928,10508, 10825,11103,11729,12289,12377,12643,12656,12657,12668,12876,12926,12958,13291, 13300,13408,13472,13976,14477,14538,14833,15044,15108,15779,16039,16061,16549, 16556,16562,16564,16565,16571,16573,16574,16576,16577,16584,16589,16590,16591, 16592,16598,16604,16606,16607,16610,16620,16645,16648,16650,16654,16655,16661, 16662,16675,16680,16697,16699,16701,16702,16704,16705,16708,16714,16719,16723, 16724,16727,16729,16731,16732,16743,16750,16752,16755,16758,16772,16774,16782,16787, 16793,16794,16795,16797,16798,16802,16813,16814,16815,16824,16825,16829,16831, 16841,16843,16848,16850,16863,16864,16866,16870,16878,16881,16887,16893,16896,16897, 16900,16902,16909,16912,16936,16944,16948,16958,16960,16963,16974,16978,16993,17012, 17016,17020,17053,17061,17096,17120,17124,17125,17129,17135,17137,17140,17141,17142, 17145,17149,17150,17157,17164,17170,17172,17173,17178,17180,17184,17187,17188, 17192,17196,17197,17200,17201,17206,17207,17221,17223,17227,17236,17244,17246, 17273,17285,17289,17291,17297,17300,17305,17310,17311,17321,17326,17331,17335, 17352,17370,17414,17423,17424,17439,17479,17493,17495,17501,17519,17525,17541, 17571,17590,17614,17755,17838,17846,17848,17852,17853,17855,17858,17861,17871, 17876,17877,17891,17896,17899,17900,17905,17908,17910,17911,17916,17917,17938,17939, 17940,17949,17953,17955,17960,17972,17980,17982,17992,18055,18067,18069,18071,18077, 18108,18127,18134,18136,18140,18142,18143,18158,18162,18178,18192,18196,18206,18217, 18221,18242,18245,18249,18263,18271,18273,18275,18277,18278,18286,18291,18295,18300, 18301,18308,18325,18333,18338,18360,18373,18374,18387,18397,18411,18412,18420,18429, 18434,18455,18478,18484,18534,18779,18790,18804,18821,18851,18964,18965,18977,18990, 18991,19000,19006,19276,19291,19374,19395,19416,19432,19627,19917,19927,19971,19974, 19989,20007,2254,2549,2652,3077,3615,4483,4484,4611,4700,5714,5772,6252,6536,7051, 7102,7107,7591,8167,8286,8935,9937,11089,12344,15830,16343,16644,17359, 17994,18774) AND r.activation=1 ORDER BY r.first_name ASC LIMIT 0, 10;

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• Getting parameter sent via html form and saving in my db

  - by Wesley

  I have error in my code i don't know to solve it please help me: My Servlet: package br.com.cad.servlet; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.PrintWriter; import java.util.Date; import java.text.ParseException; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.Calendar; import javax.servlet.ServletException; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import br.com.cad.dao.Cadastro; import br.com.cad.basica.Contato; public class AddDados extends HttpServlet{ protected void service(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException, ServletException { PrintWriter out = response.getWriter(); String nome = request.getParameter("nome"); String sobrenome = request.getParameter("sobrenome"); String rg = request.getParameter("rg"); String cpf = request.getParameter("cpf"); String sexo = request.getParameter("sexo"); StringBuilder finalDate = new StringBuilder("DataNascimento1") .append("/"+request.getParameter("DataNascimento??2")) .append("/"+request.getParameter("DataNascimento3")); try { SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy"); finalDate.toString(); } catch(ParseException e) { out.println("Erro de conversão da data"); return; } Contato contato = new Contato(); contato.setNome(nome); contato.setSobrenome(sobrenome); contato.setRg(rg); contato.setCpf(cpf); contato.setSexo(sexo); if ("Masculino".equals(contato.getSexo())) { contato.setSexo("M"); } else { contato.setSexo("F"); } contato.setDataNascimento1(dataNascimento1); //error here ????? contato.setDataNascimento2(dataNascimento2); //error here ????? contato.setDataNascimento3(dataNascimento3); //error here ????? Cadastro dao = new Cadastro(); dao.adiciona(contato); out.println("<html>"); out.println("<body>"); out.println("Contato " + contato.getNome() + " adicionado com sucesso"); out.println("</body>"); out.println("</html>"); } } My object dao package br.com.cad.dao; import java.sql.Connection; import java.sql.PreparedStatement; import java.sql.SQLException; import java.sql.Date; import br.com.cad.dao.ConnectDb; import br.com.cad.basica.Contato; public class Cadastro { private Connection connection; public Cadastro() { this.connection = new ConnectDb().getConnection(); } public void adiciona(Contato contato) { String sql = "INSERT INTO dados_cadastro(pf_nome, pf_ultimonome, pf_rg, pf_cpf, pf_sexo,pf_dt_nasc) VALUES(?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)"; try { PreparedStatement stmt = connection.prepareStatement(sql); stmt.setString(1, contato.getNome()); stmt.setString(2, contato.getSobrenome()); stmt.setString(3, contato.getRg()); stmt.setString(4, contato.getCpf()); stmt.setString(5, contato.getSexo()); stmt.setDate(6, new Date( contato.getDataNascimento1().getTimeInMillis()) ); // i think there are error here i don't know to solve it ????? stmt.execute(); stmt.close(); System.out.println("Cadastro realizado com sucesso!."); } catch(SQLException sqlException) { throw new RuntimeException(sqlException); } } } My class cadastro package br.com.cad.basica; import java.util.Calendar; public class Contato { private Long id; private String nome; private String sobrenome; private String email; private String endereco; private Calendar dataNascimento1; private Calendar dataNascimento2; private Calendar dataNascimento3; private String rg; private String cpf; private String sexo; public Long getId() { return id; } public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; } public String getNome() { return nome; } public void setNome(String nome) { this.nome = nome; } ...getters and setters I need to saving data in my mysql db, but i have some doubt about this code main how to get parameter send form html combobox( 1 for day, 2 for month, 3 for year of birth) i concatened with StringBuilder finalDate ... so i have some problem in my code please help me!!!

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• Bandwidth Limit Php Not working

  - by Saxtor

  Hey How are you doing guys, i am trying to limit bandwidth per users not by ipaddress for some reason my code doesnt work i need some help, what i am trying to do is to limit the download of the user that they would only have 10Gb per day to download however it seems to me that my buffer is not working when i use multiple connections it doesnt work, but when i use one connect it works 80% here is my code can you debug the error for me thanks. /** * @author saxtor if you can improve this code email me [email protected] * @copyright 2010 */ /** * CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `max_traffic` ( `id` int(255) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `limit` int(255) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=0 ; */ //SQL Connection [this is hackable for testing] date_default_timezone_set("America/Guyana"); mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "") or die(mysql_error()); mysql_select_db("Quota") or die(mysql_error()); function quota($id) { $result = mysql_query("SELECT `limit` FROM max_traffic WHERE id='$id' ") or die(error_log(mysql_error()));; $row = mysql_fetch_array($result); return $row[0]; } function update_quota($id,$value) { $result = mysql_query("UPDATE `max_traffic` SET `limit`='$value' WHERE id='$id'") or die(mysql_error()); return $value; } if ( quota(1) != 0) $limit = quota(1); else $limit = 0; $multipart = false; //was a part of the file requested? (partial download) $range = $_SERVER["HTTP_RANGE"]; if ($range) { $cookie .= "\r\nRange: $range"; $multipart = true; header("X-UR-RANGE-Range: $range"); } $url = 'http://127.0.0.1/puppy.iso'; $filename = basename($url); //octet-stream + attachment => client always stores file header('Content-type: application/octet-stream'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$filename.'"'); //always included so clients know this script supports resuming header("Accept-Ranges: bytes"); $user_agent = ini_get("user_agent"); ini_set("user_agent", $user_agent . "\r\nCookie: enc=$cookie"); $httphandle = fopen($url, "r"); $headers = stream_get_meta_data($httphandle); $size = $headers["wrapper_data"][6]; $sizer = explode(' ',$size); $size = $sizer[1]; //let's check the return header of rapidshare for range / length indicators //we'll just pass these to the client foreach ($headers["wrapper_data"] as $header) { $header = trim($header); if (substr(strtolower($header), 0, strlen("content-range")) == "content-range") { // _insert($range); header($header); header("X-RS-RANGE-" . $header); $multipart = true; //content-range indicates partial download } elseif (substr(strtolower($header), 0, strlen("Content-Length")) == "content-length") { // _insert($range); header($header); header("X-RS-CL-" . $header); } } if ($multipart) header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content'); flush(); $speed = 4128; $packet = 1; //this is private dont touch. $bufsize = 128; //this is private dont touch/ $bandwidth = 0; //this is private dont touch. while (!(connection_aborted() || connection_status() == 1) && $size > 0) { while (!feof($httphandle) && $size > 0) { if ($limit <= 0 ) $size = 0; if ( $size < $bufsize && $size != 0 && $limit != 0) { echo fread($httphandle,$size); $bandwidth += $size; } else { if( $limit != 0) echo fread($httphandle,$bufsize); $bandwidth += $bufsize; } $size -= $bufsize; $limit -= $bufsize; flush(); if ($speed > 0 && ($bandwidth > $speed*$packet*103)) { usleep(100000); $packet++; //update_quota(1,$limit); } error_log(update_quota(1,$limit)); $limit = quota(1); //if( $size <= 0 ) // exit; } fclose($httphandle); } exit;

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• Creating a file upload template in Doctrine ORM

  - by balupton

  Hey all. I'm using Doctrine 1.2 as my ORM for a Zend Framework Project. I have defined the following Model for a File. File: columns: id: primary: true type: integer(4) unsigned: true code: type: string(255) unique: true notblank: true path: type: string(255) notblank: true size: type: integer(4) type: type: enum values: [file,document,image,video,audio,web,application,archive] default: unknown notnull: true mimetype: type: string(20) notnull: true width: type: integer(2) unsigned: true height: type: integer(2) unsigned: true Now here is the File Model php class (just skim through for now): <?php /** * File * * This class has been auto-generated by the Doctrine ORM Framework * * @package ##PACKAGE## * @subpackage ##SUBPACKAGE## * @author ##NAME## <##EMAIL##> * @version SVN: $Id: Builder.php 6365 2009-09-15 18:22:38Z jwage $ */ class File extends BaseFile { public function setUp ( ) { $this->hasMutator('file', 'setFile'); parent::setUp(); } public function setFile ( $file ) { global $Application; // Configuration $config = array(); $config['bal'] = $Application->getOption('bal'); // Check the file if ( !empty($file['error']) ) { $error = $file['error']; switch ( $file['error'] ) { case UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE : $error = 'ini_size'; break; case UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE : $error = 'form_size'; break; case UPLOAD_ERR_PARTIAL : $error = 'partial'; break; case UPLOAD_ERR_NO_FILE : $error = 'no_file'; break; case UPLOAD_ERR_NO_TMP_DIR : $error = 'no_tmp_dir'; break; case UPLOAD_ERR_CANT_WRITE : $error = 'cant_write'; break; default : $error = 'unknown'; break; } throw new Doctrine_Exception('error-application-file-' . $error); return false; } if ( empty($file['tmp_name']) || !is_uploaded_file($file['tmp_name']) ) { throw new Doctrine_Exception('error-application-file-invalid'); return false; } // Prepare config $file_upload_path = realpath($config['bal']['files']['upload_path']) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR; // Prepare file $filename = $file['name']; $file_old_path = $file['tmp_name']; $file_new_path = $file_upload_path . $filename; $exist_attempt = 0; while ( file_exists($file_new_path) ) { // File already exists // Pump exist attempts ++$exist_attempt; // Add the attempt to the end of the file $file_new_path = $file_upload_path . get_filename($filename,false) . $exist_attempt . get_extension($filename); } // Move file $success = move_uploaded_file($file_old_path, $file_new_path); if ( !$success ) { throw new Doctrine_Exception('Unable to upload the file.'); return false; } // Secure $file_path = realpath($file_new_path); $file_size = filesize($file_path); $file_mimetype = get_mime_type($file_path); $file_type = get_filetype($file_path); // Apply $this->path = $file_path; $this->size = $file_size; $this->mimetype = $file_mimetype; $this->type = $file_type; // Apply: Image if ( $file_type === 'image' ) { $image_dimensions = image_dimensions($file_path); if ( !empty($image_dimensions) ) { // It is not a image we can modify $this->width = 0; $this->height = 0; } else { $this->width = $image_dimensions['width']; $this->height = $image_dimensions['height']; } } // Done return true; } /** * Download the File * @return */ public function download ( ) { global $Application; // File path $file_upload_path = realpath($config['bal']['files']['upload_path']) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR; $file_path = $file_upload_path . $this->file_path; // Output result and download become_file_download($file_path, null, null); die(); } public function postDelete ( $Event ) { global $Application; // Prepare $Invoker = $Event->getInvoker(); // Configuration $config = array(); $config['bal'] = $Application->getOption('bal'); // File path $file_upload_path = realpath($config['bal']['files']['upload_path']) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR; $file_path = $file_upload_path . $this->file_path; // Delete the file unlink($file_path); // Done return true; } } What I am hoping to accomplish is so that the above custom functionality within my model file can be turned into a validator, template, or something along the lines. So hopefully I can do something like: File: actAs: BalFile: columns: id: primary: true type: integer(4) unsigned: true code: type: string(255) unique: true notblank: true path: type: string(255) notblank: true size: type: integer(4) type: type: enum values: [file,document,image,video,audio,web,application,archive] default: unknown notnull: true mimetype: type: string(20) notnull: true width: type: integer(2) unsigned: true height: type: integer(2) unsigned: true I'm hoping for a validator so that say if I do $File->setFile($_FILE['uploaded_file']); It will provide a validation error, except in all the doctrine documentation it has little on custom validators, especially in the contect of "virtual" fields. So in summary, my question is: How earth can I go about making a template/extension to porting this functionality? I have tried before with templates but always gave up after a day :/ If you could take the time to port the above I would greatly appreciate it.

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• Help with shopping cart in javascript

  - by user228390

  Hey guys, I'm having problems with my shopping cart. What I am trying to do is make a function that will add an item the cart and then and function that will view the cart and show the details. But what I have got so far does not do that, it just simply adds and goes straight to view cart. Also I wanted to store the name of each items in different global arrays (name, price and sum) but I can't get it work that way. Can any help me overcome this problem? Edit: I've tried to get it to work by adding some more items and attaching it to another html page, but now the code does not seem to work at all , before it showed the price and total and now I get nothing . javascript code function round_total (c) { var pennies = c * 100; pennies = Math.round(pennies); var strPennies = "" + pennies; var len = strPennies.length; return parseFloat(strPennies.substring(0, len - 2) + "." + strPennies.substring(len - 2, len)); } // End of round_total function. /* Start of generate_page function. */ function generate_page (form) { tax = 0.08; delivery_p = 2.99; var odate = new Date(); var qty = form.quantity.value; var product_v = new String(form.product.value); var total_price = product_v.substr(product_v.indexOf("$") + 1, product_v.length - product_v.indexOf("$")); var price_without_tax = round_total(qty * total_price); var ttax = round_total(price_without_tax * tax); var delivery = round_total(qty * delivery_p); var total_p = round_total(price_without_tax + ttax + delivery); document.writeln("Quantity: " + qty + "<br>"); document.writeln("Price: $" + total_price + "<br>"); document.writeln("Delivery: $" + delivery + "<br>"); document.writeln("Total: $" + total_p + "<br>"); document.writeln("Order placed on: " + odate.toGMTString()); } function calculate() { round_total (c)(); generate_page (form)(); } HTML code: Shopping cart Welcome, Guest Login Sign Up Stay Updated: Subscribe via RSS Email Updates <div id="header"> <div id="branding" class="container"> <h1>The Finest Toy<br /> Store Online</h1> <p class="desc">If you're looking for a toy shop then look no further.<br/> Go on, treat the kids with our huge selection of<br/>online toy shops selling toys for all ages.</p> </div><!-- end branding --> <div id="navigation"> <ul id="menu" class="container"> <li><a href="#">HOME</a></li> <li><a href="#">ABOUT</a></li> <li><a href="#">Online Store</a></li> <li><a href="#">CONTACT</a></li> </ul> </div><!-- end navigation --> </div><!-- end header --> Shopping Cart Nintendo DS Xbox Product: Console £149.99 Console + Games £169.99 Quantity: Product: Console £149.99 Console + Games £169.99 Quantity:     Playstation 3 Wii Product: Console £149.99 Console + Games £169.99 Quantity:   Product: Console £149.99 Console + Games £169.99 Quantity:        <input type="submit" value="Add to cart" name="submit" onClick="cart()";/><input , type="reset" value="Reset" name="reset" Copyright © 2010 shopping cart. Content and Header © |Back to top Do I need to show my CSS as well? (Sorry about the coding its not working properly for me, its not showing up the way it should be)

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• Easiest way to submit data via PHP?

  - by Abijah

  I'm new to PHP, and have spent 10 hours trying to figure this problem out. The goal is to take all data entered into this order form, and send it to my email via PHP. I have 2 questions: 1. I can get PHP to send data from a single menu item (example: Mexican Tortas), but how do I get PHP to send data from multiple items (example: Mexican Tortas, Fish Sandwich and Hamburger)? 2. How do I tell PHP to not send data from menu items that don't have the "How Many?" or "Customize It?" text fields filled out? If you could provide a super simple example (or a link to a learning resource) I would really appreciate it. Thank you, Abijah PHP <?php if(isset($_POST['submit'])) { $to = "[email protected]"; $subject = "New Order"; $name_field = $_POST['name']; $phone_field = $_POST['phone']; $item = $_POST['item']; $quantity = $_POST['quantity']; $customize = $_POST['customize']; } $body = "Name: $name_field\nPhone: $phone_field\n\nItem: $item\nQuantity: $quantity\nCustomize: $customize"; echo "Data has been submitted to $to!"; mail($to, $subject, $body); ?> HTML <form action="neworder.php" method="POST"> <div class ="item"> <img style="float:left; margin-right:15px; border:1px Solid #000; width:200px; height:155px;" src="images/mexicantortas.jpg"> <h1>Mexican Torta - $8.50</h1> <input name="item" type="hidden" value="Mexican Torta"/> <h2>How Many? <font color="#999999">Ex: 1, 2, 3...?</font></h2> <input name="quantity" type="text"/> <h3>Customize It? <font color="#999999">Ex: No Lettuce, Extra Cheese...</font></h3> <textarea name="customize"/></textarea> </div><!-- ITEM_LEFT --> <div class ="item"> <img style="float:left; margin-right:15px; border:1px Solid #000; width:200px; height:155px;" src="images/fishsandwich.jpg"> <h1>Fish Sandwich - $8.50</h1> <input name="item" type="hidden" value="Fish Sandwich"/> <h2>How Many? <font color="#999999">Ex: 1, 2, 3...?</font></h2> <input name="quantity" type="text"/> <h3>Customize It? <font color="#999999">Ex: No Lettuce, Extra Cheese...</font></h3> <textarea name="customize"/></textarea> </div><!-- ITEM_LEFT --> <div class ="item"> <img style="float:left; margin-right:15px; border:1px Solid #000; width:200px; height:155px;" src="images/hamburgers.jpg"> <h1>Hamburger w/ Fries - $7.00</h1> <input name="item" type="hidden" value="Fish Sandwich"/> <h2>How Many? <font color="#999999">Ex: 1, 2, 3...?</font></h2> <input name="quantity" type="text"/> <h3>Customize It? <font color="#999999">Ex: No Lettuce, Extra Cheese...</font></h3> <textarea name="customize"/></textarea> </div><!-- ITEM_LEFT --> <div class="horizontal_form"> <div class="form"> <h2>Place Your Order Now: <font size="3"><font color="#037B41">Fill in the form below, and we'll call you when your food is ready to be picked up...</font></font></h2> <p class="name"> <input type="text" name="name" id="name" style="text-align:center;" onClick="this.value='';" value="Enter your name"/> </p> <p class="phone"> <input type="text" name="phone" id="phone" style="text-align:center;" onClick="this.value='';" value="Enter your phone #"/> </p> <p class="submit"> <input type="submit" value="Place Order" name="submit"/> </p> </div><!-- FORM --> </div><!-- HORIZONTAL_FORM --> </form>

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• SimpleMembership, Membership Providers, Universal Providers and the new ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC 4 templates

  - by Jon Galloway

  The ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet template adds some new, very useful features which are built on top of SimpleMembership. These changes add some great features, like a much simpler and extensible membership API and support for OAuth. However, the new account management features require SimpleMembership and won't work against existing ASP.NET Membership Providers. I'll start with a summary of top things you need to know, then dig into a lot more detail. Summary: SimpleMembership has been designed as a replacement for traditional the previous ASP.NET Role and Membership provider system SimpleMembership solves common problems people ran into with the Membership provider system and was designed for modern user / membership / storage needs SimpleMembership integrates with the previous membership system, but you can't use a MembershipProvider with SimpleMembership The new ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet application template AccountController requires SimpleMembership and is not compatible with previous MembershipProviders You can continue to use existing ASP.NET Role and Membership providers in ASP.NET 4.5 and ASP.NET MVC 4 - just not with the ASP.NET MVC 4 AccountController The existing ASP.NET Role and Membership provider system remains supported as is part of the ASP.NET core ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms does not use SimpleMembership; it implements OAuth on top of ASP.NET Membership The ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool (WSAT) is not compatible with SimpleMembership The following is the result of a few conversations with Erik Porter (PM for ASP.NET MVC) to make sure I had some the overall details straight, combined with a lot of time digging around in ILSpy and Visual Studio's assembly browsing tools. SimpleMembership: The future of membership for ASP.NET The ASP.NET Membership system was introduces with ASP.NET 2.0 back in 2005. It was designed to solve common site membership requirements at the time, which generally involved username / password based registration and profile storage in SQL Server. It was designed with a few extensibility mechanisms - notably a provider system (which allowed you override some specifics like backing storage) and the ability to store additional profile information (although the additional  profile information was packed into a single column which usually required access through the API). While it's sometimes frustrating to work with, it's held up for seven years - probably since it handles the main use case (username / password based membership in a SQL Server database) smoothly and can be adapted to most other needs (again, often frustrating, but it can work). The ASP.NET Web Pages and WebMatrix efforts allowed the team an opportunity to take a new look at a lot of things - e.g. the Razor syntax started with ASP.NET Web Pages, not ASP.NET MVC. The ASP.NET Web Pages team designed SimpleMembership to (wait for it) simplify the task of dealing with membership. As Matthew Osborn said in his post Using SimpleMembership With ASP.NET WebPages: With the introduction of ASP.NET WebPages and the WebMatrix stack our team has really be focusing on making things simpler for the developer. Based on a lot of customer feedback one of the areas that we wanted to improve was the built in security in ASP.NET. So with this release we took that time to create a new built in (and default for ASP.NET WebPages) security provider. I say provider because the new stuff is still built on the existing ASP.NET framework. So what do we call this new hotness that we have created? Well, none other than SimpleMembership. SimpleMembership is an umbrella term for both SimpleMembership and SimpleRoles. Part of simplifying membership involved fixing some common problems with ASP.NET Membership. Problems with ASP.NET Membership ASP.NET Membership was very obviously designed around a set of assumptions: Users and user information would most likely be stored in a full SQL Server database or in Active Directory User and profile information would be optimized around a set of common attributes (UserName, Password, IsApproved, CreationDate, Comment, Role membership...) and other user profile information would be accessed through a profile provider Some problems fall out of these assumptions. Requires Full SQL Server for default cases The default, and most fully featured providers ASP.NET Membership providers (SQL Membership Provider, SQL Role Provider, SQL Profile Provider) require full SQL Server. They depend on stored procedure support, and they rely on SQL Server cache dependencies, they depend on agents for clean up and maintenance. So the main SQL Server based providers don't work well on SQL Server CE, won't work out of the box on SQL Azure, etc. Note: Cory Fowler recently let me know about these Updated ASP.net scripts for use with Microsoft SQL Azure which do support membership, personalization, profile, and roles. But the fact that we need a support page with a set of separate SQL scripts underscores the underlying problem. Aha, you say! Jon's forgetting the Universal Providers, a.k.a. System.Web.Providers! Hold on a bit, we'll get to those... Custom Membership Providers have to work with a SQL-Server-centric API If you want to work with another database or other membership storage system, you need to to inherit from the provider base classes and override a bunch of methods which are tightly focused on storing a MembershipUser in a relational database. It can be done (and you can often find pretty good ones that have already been written), but it's a good amount of work and often leaves you with ugly code that has a bunch of System.NotImplementedException fun since there are a lot of methods that just don't apply. Designed around a specific view of users, roles and profiles The existing providers are focused on traditional membership - a user has a username and a password, some specific roles on the site (e.g. administrator, premium user), and may have some additional "nice to have" optional information that can be accessed via an API in your application. This doesn't fit well with some modern usage patterns: In OAuth and OpenID, the user doesn't have a password Often these kinds of scenarios map better to user claims or rights instead of monolithic user roles For many sites, profile or other non-traditional information is very important and needs to come from somewhere other than an API call that maps to a database blob What would work a lot better here is a system in which you were able to define your users, rights, and other attributes however you wanted and the membership system worked with your model - not the other way around. Requires specific schema, overflow in blob columns I've already mentioned this a few times, but it bears calling out separately - ASP.NET Membership focuses on SQL Server storage, and that storage is based on a very specific database schema. SimpleMembership as a better membership system As you might have guessed, SimpleMembership was designed to address the above problems. Works with your Schema As Matthew Osborn explains in his Using SimpleMembership With ASP.NET WebPages post, SimpleMembership is designed to integrate with your database schema: All SimpleMembership requires is that there are two columns on your users table so that we can hook up to it – an “ID” column and a “username” column. The important part here is that they can be named whatever you want. For instance username doesn't have to be an alias it could be an email column you just have to tell SimpleMembership to treat that as the “username” used to log in. Matthew's example shows using a very simple user table named Users (it could be named anything) with a UserID and Username column, then a bunch of other columns he wanted in his app. Then we point SimpleMemberhip at that table with a one-liner: WebSecurity.InitializeDatabaseFile("SecurityDemo.sdf", "Users", "UserID", "Username", true); No other tables are needed, the table can be named anything we want, and can have pretty much any schema we want as long as we've got an ID and something that we can map to a username. Broaden database support to the whole SQL Server family While SimpleMembership is not database agnostic, it works across the SQL Server family. It continues to support full SQL Server, but it also works with SQL Azure, SQL Server CE, SQL Server Express, and LocalDB. Everything's implemented as SQL calls rather than requiring stored procedures, views, agents, and change notifications. Note that SimpleMembership still requires some flavor of SQL Server - it won't work with MySQL, NoSQL databases, etc. You can take a look at the code in WebMatrix.WebData.dll using a tool like ILSpy if you'd like to see why - there places where SQL Server specific SQL statements are being executed, especially when creating and initializing tables. It seems like you might be able to work with another database if you created the tables separately, but I haven't tried it and it's not supported at this point. Note: I'm thinking it would be possible for SimpleMembership (or something compatible) to run Entity Framework so it would work with any database EF supports. That seems useful to me - thoughts? Note: SimpleMembership has the same database support - anything in the SQL Server family - that Universal Providers brings to the ASP.NET Membership system. Easy to with Entity Framework Code First The problem with with ASP.NET Membership's system for storing additional account information is that it's the gate keeper. That means you're stuck with its schema and accessing profile information through its API. SimpleMembership flips that around by allowing you to use any table as a user store. That means you're in control of the user profile information, and you can access it however you'd like - it's just data. Let's look at a practical based on the AccountModel.cs class in an ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet project. Here I'm adding a Birthday property to the UserProfile class. [Table("UserProfile")] public class UserProfile { [Key] [DatabaseGeneratedAttribute(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] public int UserId { get; set; } public string UserName { get; set; } public DateTime Birthday { get; set; } } Now if I want to access that information, I can just grab the account by username and read the value. var context = new UsersContext(); var username = User.Identity.Name; var user = context.UserProfiles.SingleOrDefault(u => u.UserName == username); var birthday = user.Birthday; So instead of thinking of SimpleMembership as a big membership API, think of it as something that handles membership based on your user database. In SimpleMembership, everything's keyed off a user row in a table you define rather than a bunch of entries in membership tables that were out of your control. How SimpleMembership integrates with ASP.NET Membership Okay, enough sales pitch (and hopefully background) on why things have changed. How does this affect you? Let's start with a diagram to show the relationship (note: I've simplified by removing a few classes to show the important relationships): So SimpleMembershipProvider is an implementaiton of an ExtendedMembershipProvider, which inherits from MembershipProvider and adds some other account / OAuth related things. Here's what ExtendedMembershipProvider adds to MembershipProvider: The important thing to take away here is that a SimpleMembershipProvider is a MembershipProvider, but a MembershipProvider is not a SimpleMembershipProvider. This distinction is important in practice: you cannot use an existing MembershipProvider (including the Universal Providers found in System.Web.Providers) with an API that requires a SimpleMembershipProvider, including any of the calls in WebMatrix.WebData.WebSecurity or Microsoft.Web.WebPages.OAuth.OAuthWebSecurity. However, that's as far as it goes. Membership Providers still work if you're accessing them through the standard Membership API, and all of the core stuff  - including the AuthorizeAttribute, role enforcement, etc. - will work just fine and without any change. Let's look at how that affects you in terms of the new templates. Membership in the ASP.NET MVC 4 project templates ASP.NET MVC 4 offers six Project Templates: Empty - Really empty, just the assemblies, folder structure and a tiny bit of basic configuration. Basic - Like Empty, but with a bit of UI preconfigured (css / images / bundling). Internet - This has both a Home and Account controller and associated views. The Account Controller supports registration and login via either local accounts and via OAuth / OpenID providers. Intranet - Like the Internet template, but it's preconfigured for Windows Authentication. Mobile - This is preconfigured using jQuery Mobile and is intended for mobile-only sites. Web API - This is preconfigured for a service backend built on ASP.NET Web API. Out of these templates, only one (the Internet template) uses SimpleMembership. ASP.NET MVC 4 Basic template The Basic template has configuration in place to use ASP.NET Membership with the Universal Providers. You can see that configuration in the ASP.NET MVC 4 Basic template's web.config: <profile defaultProvider="DefaultProfileProvider"> <providers> <add name="DefaultProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultProfileProvider, System.Web.Providers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" applicationName="/" /> </providers> </profile> <membership defaultProvider="DefaultMembershipProvider"> <providers> <add name="DefaultMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider, System.Web.Providers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="6" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10" applicationName="/" /> </providers> </membership> <roleManager defaultProvider="DefaultRoleProvider"> <providers> <add name="DefaultRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultRoleProvider, System.Web.Providers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" applicationName="/" /> </providers> </roleManager> <sessionState mode="InProc" customProvider="DefaultSessionProvider"> <providers> <add name="DefaultSessionProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultSessionStateProvider, System.Web.Providers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" /> </providers> </sessionState> This means that it's business as usual for the Basic template as far as ASP.NET Membership works. ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet template The Internet template has a few things set up to bootstrap SimpleMembership: \Models\AccountModels.cs defines a basic user account and includes data annotations to define keys and such \Filters\InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute.cs creates the membership database using the above model, then calls WebSecurity.InitializeDatabaseConnection which verifies that the underlying tables are in place and marks initialization as complete (for the application's lifetime) \Controllers\AccountController.cs makes heavy use of OAuthWebSecurity (for OAuth account registration / login / management) and WebSecurity. WebSecurity provides account management services for ASP.NET MVC (and Web Pages) WebSecurity can work with any ExtendedMembershipProvider. There's one in the box (SimpleMembershipProvider) but you can write your own. Since a standard MembershipProvider is not an ExtendedMembershipProvider, WebSecurity will throw exceptions if the default membership provider is a MembershipProvider rather than an ExtendedMembershipProvider. Practical example: Create a new ASP.NET MVC 4 application using the Internet application template Install the Microsoft ASP.NET Universal Providers for LocalDB NuGet package Run the application, click on Register, add a username and password, and click submit You'll get the following execption in AccountController.cs::Register: To call this method, the "Membership.Provider" property must be an instance of "ExtendedMembershipProvider". This occurs because the ASP.NET Universal Providers packages include a web.config transform that will update your web.config to add the Universal Provider configuration I showed in the Basic template example above. When WebSecurity tries to use the configured ASP.NET Membership Provider, it checks if it can be cast to an ExtendedMembershipProvider before doing anything else. So, what do you do? Options: If you want to use the new AccountController, you'll either need to use the SimpleMembershipProvider or another valid ExtendedMembershipProvider. This is pretty straightforward. If you want to use an existing ASP.NET Membership Provider in ASP.NET MVC 4, you can't use the new AccountController. You can do a few things: Replace  the AccountController.cs and AccountModels.cs in an ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet project with one from an ASP.NET MVC 3 application (you of course won't have OAuth support). Then, if you want, you can go through and remove other things that were built around SimpleMembership - the OAuth partial view, the NuGet packages (e.g. the DotNetOpenAuthAuth package, etc.) Use an ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet application template and add in a Universal Providers NuGet package. Then copy in the AccountController and AccountModel classes. Create an ASP.NET MVC 3 project and upgrade it to ASP.NET MVC 4 using the steps shown in the ASP.NET MVC 4 release notes. None of these are particularly elegant or simple. Maybe we (or just me?) can do something to make this simpler - perhaps a NuGet package. However, this should be an edge case - hopefully the cases where you'd need to create a new ASP.NET but use legacy ASP.NET Membership Providers should be pretty rare. Please let me (or, preferably the team) know if that's an incorrect assumption. Membership in the ASP.NET 4.5 project template ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms took a different approach which builds off ASP.NET Membership. Instead of using the WebMatrix security assemblies, Web Forms uses Microsoft.AspNet.Membership.OpenAuth assembly. I'm no expert on this, but from a bit of time in ILSpy and Visual Studio's (very pretty) dependency graphs, this uses a Membership Adapter to save OAuth data into an EF managed database while still running on top of ASP.NET Membership. Note: There may be a way to use this in ASP.NET MVC 4, although it would probably take some plumbing work to hook it up. How does this fit in with Universal Providers (System.Web.Providers)? Just to summarize: Universal Providers are intended for cases where you have an existing ASP.NET Membership Provider and you want to use it with another SQL Server database backend (other than SQL Server). It doesn't require agents to handle expired session cleanup and other background tasks, it piggybacks these tasks on other calls. Universal Providers are not really, strictly speaking, universal - at least to my way of thinking. They only work with databases in the SQL Server family. Universal Providers do not work with Simple Membership. The Universal Providers packages include some web config transforms which you would normally want when you're using them. What about the Web Site Administration Tool? Visual Studio includes tooling to launch the Web Site Administration Tool (WSAT) to configure users and roles in your application. WSAT is built to work with ASP.NET Membership, and is not compatible with Simple Membership. There are two main options there: Use the WebSecurity and OAuthWebSecurity API to manage the users and roles Create a web admin using the above APIs Since SimpleMembership runs on top of your database, you can update your users as you would any other data - via EF or even in direct database edits (in development, of course)

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• Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

  - by mbcrump

  Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created.  Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases  including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands.  For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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• Content Management for WebCenter Installation Guide

  - by Gary Niu

  Overvew As we known, there are two way to install Content Management for WebCenter. One way is install it by WebCenter installer wizard, another way is to install it use their own installer. This guide is for the later one. For SSO purpose, I also mentioned how to config OID identity store for Content Management for WebCenter. Content Management for WebCenter( 10.1.3.5.1) Oracle Enterprise Linux R5U4 Basic Installation -bash-3.2$ ./setup.sh Please select your locale from the list.           1. Chinese-Simplified           2. Chinese-Traditional           3. Deutsch          *4. English-US           5. English-UK           6. Español           7. Français           8. Italiano           9. Japanese          10. Korean          11. Nederlands          12. Português-Brazil Choice? Throughout the install, when entering a text value, you can press Enter to accept the default that appears between square brackets ([]). When selecting from a list, you can select the choice followed by an asterisk by pressing Enter. Select installation type from the list.         *1. Install new server          2. Update a server Choice? Content Server Installation Directory Please enter the full pathname to the installation directory. Content Server Core Folder [/oracle/ucm/server]:/opt/oracle/ucm/server Create Directory         *1. yes          2. no Choice? Java virtual machine         *1. Sun Java 1.5.0_11 JDK          2. Specify a custom Java virtual machine Choice? Installing with Java version 1.5.0_11. Enter the location of the native file repository. This directory contains the native files checked in by contributors. Content Server Native Vault Folder [/opt/oracle/ucm/server/vault/]: Create Directory         *1. yes          2. no Choice? Enter the location of the web-viewable file repository. This directory contains files that can be accessed through the web server. Content Server Weblayout Folder [/opt/oracle/ucm/server/weblayout/]: Create Directory         *1. yes          2. no Choice? This server can be configured to manage its own authentication or to allow another master to act as an authentication proxy. Configure this server as a master or proxied server.         *1. Configure as a master server.          2. Configure as server proxied by a local master server. Choice? During installation, an admin server can be installed and configured to manage this server. If there is already an admin server on this system, you can have the installer configure it to administrate this server instead. Select admin server configuration.         *1. Install an admin server to manage this server.          2. Configure an existing admin server to manage this server.          3. Don't configure an admin server. Choice? Enter the location of an executable to start your web browser. This browser will be used to display the online help. Web Browser Path [/usr/bin/firefox]: Content Server System locale           1. Chinese-Simplified           2. Chinese-Traditional           3. Deutsch          *4. English-US           5. English-UK           6. Español           7. Français           8. Italiano           9. Japanese          10. Korean          11. Nederlands          12. Português-Brazil Choice? Please select the region for your timezone from the list.         *1. Use the timezone setting for your operating system          2. Pacific          3. America          4. Atlantic          5. Europe          6. Africa          7. Asia          8. Indian          9. Australia Choice? Please enter the port number that will be used to connect to the Content Server. This port must be otherwise unused. Content Server Port [4444]: Please enter the port number that will be used to connect to the Admin Server. This port must be otherwise unused. Admin Server Port [4440]: Enter a security filter for the server port. Hosts which are allowed to communicate directly with the server port may access any resources managed by the server. Insure that hosts which need access are included in the filter. See the installation guide for more details. Incoming connection address filter [127.0.0.1]:*.*.*.* *** Content Server URL Prefix The URL prefix specified here is used when generating HTML pages that refer to the contents of the weblayout directory within the installation. This prefix must be mapped in the web server Additional Document Directories section of the Content Management administration menu to the physical location of the weblayout directory. For example, "/idc/" would be used in your installation to refer to the URL http://ucm.company.com/idc which would be mapped in the web server to the physical location /oracle/ucm/server/weblayout. Web Server Relative Root [/idc/]: Enter the name of the local mail server. The server will contact this system to deliver email. Company Mail Server [mail]: Enter the e-mail address for the system administrator. Administrator E-Mail Address [sysadmin@mail]: *** Web Server Address Many generated HTML pages refer to the web server you are using. The address specified here will be used when generating those pages. The address should include the host and domain name in most cases. If your webserver is running on a port other than 80, append a colon and the port number. Examples: www.company.com, ucm.company.com:90 Web Server HTTP Address [yekki]:yekki.cn.oracle.com:7777 Enter the name for this instance. This name should be unique across your entire enterprise. It may not contain characters other than letters, numbers, and underscores. Server Instance Name [idc]: Enter a short label for this instance. This label is used on web pages to identify this instance. It should be less than 12 characters long. Server Instance Label [idc]: Enter a long description for this instance. Server Description [Content Server idc]: Web Server         *1. Apache          2. Sun ONE          3. Configure manually Choice? Please select a database from the list below to use with the Content Server. Content Server Database         *1. Oracle          2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005          3. Microsoft SQL Server 2000          4. Sybase          5. DB2          6. Custom JDBC settings          7. Skip database configuration Choice? Manually configure JDBC settings for this database          1. yes         *2. no Choice? Oracle Server Hostname [localhost]: Oracle Listener Port Number [1521]: *** Database User ID The user name is used to log into the database used by the content server. Oracle User [user]:YEKKI_OCSERVER *** Database Password The password is used to log into the database used by the content server. Oracle Password []:oracle Oracle Instance Name [ORACLE]:orcl Configure the JVM to find the JDBC driver in a specific jar file          1. yes         *2. no Choice? The installer can attempt to create the database tables or you can manually create them. If you choose to manually create the tables, you should create them now. Attempt to create database tables          1. yes         *2. no Choice? Select components to install.          1. ContentFolios: Collect related items in folios          2. Folders_g: Organize content into hierarchical folders          3. LinkManager8: Hypertext link management support          4. OracleTextSearch: External Oracle 11g database as search indexer support          5. ThreadedDiscussions: Threaded discussion management Enter numbers separated by commas to toggle, 0 to unselect all, F to finish: 1,2,3,4,5         *1. ContentFolios: Collect related items in folios         *2. Folders_g: Organize content into hierarchical folders         *3. LinkManager8: Hypertext link management support         *4. OracleTextSearch: External Oracle 11g database as search indexer support         *5. ThreadedDiscussions: Threaded discussion management Enter numbers separated by commas to toggle, 0 to unselect all, F to finish: F Checking configuration. . . Configuration OK. Review install settings. . . Content Server Core Folder: /opt/oracle/ucm/server Java virtual machine: Sun Java 1.5.0_11 JDK Content Server Native Vault Folder: /opt/oracle/ucm/server/vault/ Content Server Weblayout Folder: /opt/oracle/ucm/server/weblayout/ Proxy authentication through another server: no Install admin server: yes Web Browser Path: /usr/bin/firefox Content Server System locale: English-US Content Server Port: 4444 Admin Server Port: 4440 Incoming connection address filter: *.*.*.* Web Server Relative Root: /idc/ Company Mail Server: mail Administrator E-Mail Address: sysadmin@mail Web Server HTTP Address: yekki.cn.oracle.com:7777 Server Instance Name: idc Server Instance Label: idc Server Description: Content Server idc Web Server: Apache Content Server Database: Oracle Manually configure JDBC settings for this database: false Oracle Server Hostname: localhost Oracle Listener Port Number: 1521 Oracle User: YEKKI_OCSERVER Oracle Password: 6GP1gBgzSyKa4JW10U8UqqPznr/lzkNn/Ojf6M8GJ8I= Oracle Instance Name: orcl Configure the JVM to find the JDBC driver in a specific jar file: false Attempt to create database tables: no Components: ContentFolios,Folders_g,LinkManager8,OracleTextSearch,ThreadedDiscussions Proceed with install         *1. Proceed          2. Change configuration          3. Recheck the configuration          4. Abort installation Choice? Finished install type Install with warnings at 4/2/10 12:32 AM. Run Scripts -bash-3.2$ ./wc_contentserverconfig.sh /opt/oracle/ucm/server /mnt/hgfs/SOFTWARE/ofm_ucm_generic_10.1.3.5.1_disk1_1of1/ContentServer/webcenter-conf Installing '/mnt/hgfs/SOFTWARE/ofm_ucm_generic_10.1.3.5.1_disk1_1of1/ContentServer/webcenter-conf/CS10gR35UpdateBundle.zip' Service 'DELETE_DOC' Extended Service 'DELETE_BYREV_REVISION' Extended Installing '/mnt/hgfs/SOFTWARE/ofm_ucm_generic_10.1.3.5.1_disk1_1of1/ContentServer/webcenter-conf/ContentAccess/ContentAccess-linux.zip' (internal)      04.02 00:40:38.019      main    updateDocMetaDefinitionV11: adding decimal column Installing '/opt/oracle/ucm/server/custom/CS10gR35UpdateBundle/extras/Folders_g.zip' Installing '/opt/oracle/ucm/server/custom/CS10gR35UpdateBundle/extras/FusionLibraries.zip' Installing '/opt/oracle/ucm/server/custom/CS10gR35UpdateBundle/extras/JpsUserProvider.zip' Installing '/mnt/hgfs/SOFTWARE/ofm_ucm_generic_10.1.3.5.1_disk1_1of1/ContentServer/webcenter-conf/WcConfigure.zip' Apr 2, 2010 12:41:24 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.core.util.JpsConfigUtil getPasswordCredential WARNING: A password credential is expected; instead found . Apr 2, 2010 12:41:24 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.idstore.util.IdentityStoreUtil getUnamePwdFromCredStore WARNING: The credential with map JPS and key ldap.credential does not exist. Apr 2, 2010 12:41:27 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.core.util.JpsConfigUtil getPasswordCredential WARNING: A password credential is expected; instead found . Apr 2, 2010 12:41:27 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.idstore.util.IdentityStoreUtil getUnamePwdFromCredStore WARNING: The credential with map JPS and key ldap.credential does not exist. Apr 2, 2010 12:41:28 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.core.util.JpsConfigUtil getPasswordCredential WARNING: A password credential is expected; instead found . Apr 2, 2010 12:41:28 AM oracle.security.jps.internal.idstore.util.IdentityStoreUtil getUnamePwdFromCredStore WARNING: The credential with map JPS and key ldap.credential does not exist. Restart Content Server to apply updates. Configuring Apache Web Server append the following lines at httpd.conf: include "/opt/oracle/ucm/server/data/users/apache22/apache.conf" Configuring the Identity Store( Optional ) 1.  Stop Oracle Content Server and the Admin Server 2.  Update the Oracle Content Server's JPS configuration file, jps-config.xml: a. add a service instance <serviceInstance provider="idstore.ldap.provider" name="idstore.oid"> <property name="subscriber.name" value="dc=cn,dc=oracle,dc=com"></property> <property name="idstore.type" value="OID"></property> <property name="security.principal.key" value="ldap.credential"></property> <property name="security.principal.alias" value="JPS"></property> <property name="ldap.url" value="ldap://yekki.cn.oracle.com:3060"></property> <extendedProperty> <name>user.search.bases</name> <values> <value>cn=users,dc=cn,dc=oracle,dc=com</value> </values> </extendedProperty> <extendedProperty> <name>group.search.bases</name> <values> <value>cn=groups,dc=cn,dc=oracle,dc=com</value> </values> </extendedProperty> <property name="username.attr" value="uid"></property> <property name="user.login.attr" value="uid"></property> <property name="groupname.attr" value="cn"></property> </serviceInstance> b. Ensure that the <jpsContext> entry in the jps-config.xml file refers to the new serviceInstance, that is, idstore.oid and not idstore.ldap: <jpsContext name="default"> <serviceInstanceRef ref="idstore.oid"/> 3. Run the new script to setup the credentials for idstore.oid in the credential store: cd CONTENT_SERVER_HOME/custom/FusionLibraries/tools -bash-3.2$ ./run_credtool.sh Buildfile: ./../tools/credtool.xml     [input] skipping input as property action has already been set.     [input] Alias: [JPS]     [input] Key: [ldap.credential]     [input] User Name: cn=orcladmin     [input] Password: welcome1     [input] JPS Config: [/opt/oracle/ucm/server/custom/FusionLibraries/tools/../../../config/jps-config.xml] manage-creds:      [echo] @@@ Help: run 'ant manage-creds' command to see the detailed usage      [java] Using default context in /opt/oracle/ucm/server/custom/FusionLibraries/tools/../../../config/jps-config.xml file for credential store.      [java] Credential store location : /opt/oracle/ucm/server/config      [java] Credential with map JPS key ldap.credential stored successfully!      [java]      [java]      [java]     Credential for map JPS and key ldap.credential is:      [java]             PasswordCredential name : cn=orcladmin      [java]             PasswordCredential password : welcome1 BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 1 minute 27 seconds Testing 1. acces http://yekki.cn.oracle.com:7777/idc 2. login in with OID user, for example: orcladmin/welcome1 3. make sure your JpsUserProvider status is "good"

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Configuring SSL

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g index So far in this guide we have an IRM Server up and running, however I skipped over SSL configuration in the previous article because I wanted to focus in more detail now. You can, if you wish, not bother with setting up SSL, but considering this is a security technology it is worthwhile doing. Contents Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server There are two common scenarios in which an Oracle IRM server is configured. For a development or evaluation system, people usually communicate directly to the WebLogic Server running the IRM service. However in a production environment and for some proof of concept evaluations that require a setup reflecting a production system, the traffic to the IRM server travels via a web server proxy, commonly Apache. In this guide we are building an Oracle Enterprise Linux based IRM service and this article will go over the configuration of SSL in WebLogic and also in Apache. Like in the past articles, we are going to use two host names in the configuration below,irm.company.com will refer to the public Apache server irm.company.internal will refer to the internal WebLogic IRM server Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic First lets look at creating just a simple self signed SSL certificate to be used in WebLogic. This is a quick and easy way to get SSL working in your environment, however the downside is that no browsers are going to trust this certificate you create and you'll need to manually install the certificate onto any machine's communicating with the server. This is fine for development or when you have only a few users evaluating the system, but for any significant use it's usually better to have a fully trusted certificate in use and I explain that in the next section. But for now lets go through creating, installing and testing a self signed certificate. We use a library in Java to create the certificates, open a console and running the following commands. Note you should choose your own secure passwords whenever you see password below. [oracle@irm /] source /oracle/middleware/wlserver_10.3/server/bin/setWLSEnv.sh [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/ [oracle@irm /] java utils.CertGen -selfsigned -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key -keyfilepass password -cn "irm.oracle.demo" [oracle@irm /] java utils.ImportPrivateKey -keystore MyOwnIdentityStore.jks -storepass password -keypass password -alias trustself -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer.pem -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key.pem -keyfilepass password [oracle@irm /] keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias trustself -keystore TrustMyOwnSelf.jks -file MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -keyalg RSA We now have two Java Key Stores, MyOwnIdentityStore.jks and TrustMyOwnSelf.jks. These contain keys and certificates which we will use in WebLogic Server. Now we need to tell the IRM server to use these stores when setting up SSL connections for incoming requests. Make sure the Admin server is running and login into the WebLogic Console at http://irm.company.intranet:7001/console and do the following; In the menu on the left, select the + next to Environment to expose the submenu, then click on Servers. You will see two servers in the list, AdminServer(admin) and IRM_server1. If the IRM server is running, shut it down either by hitting CONTROL + C in the console window it was started from, or you can switch to the CONTROL tab, select IRM_server1 and then select the Shutdown menu and then Force Shutdown Now. In the Configuration tab select IRM_server1 and switch to the Keystores tab. By default WebLogic Server uses it's own demo identity and trust. We are now going to switch to the self signed one's we've just created. So select the Change button and switch to Custom Identity and Custom Trust and hit save. Now we have to complete the resulting fields, the setting's i've used in my evaluation server are below. IdentityCustom Identity Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/MyOwnIdentityStore.jks Custom Identity Keystore Type: JKS Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password TrustCustom Trust Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/TrustMyOwnSelf.jks Custom Trust Keystore Type: JKS Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Now click on the SSL tab for the IRM_server1 and enter in the alias and passphrase, in my demo here the details are; IdentityPrivate Key Alias: trustself Private Key Passphrase: password Confirm Private Key Passphrase: password And hit save. Now lets test a connection to the IRM server over HTTPS using SSL. Go back to a console window and start the IRM server, a quick reminder on how to do this is... [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/bin [oracle@irm /] ./startManagedWeblogic IRM_server1 Once running, open a browser and head to the SSL port of the server. By default the IRM server will be listening on the URL https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. Note in the example image on the right the port is 7002 because it's a system that has the IRM services installed on the Admin server, this isn't typical (or advisable). Your system is going to have a separate managed server which will be listening on port 16101. Once you open this address you will notice that your browser is going to complain that the server certificate is untrusted. The images on the right show how Firefox displays this error. You are going to be prompted every time you create a new SSL session with the server, both from the browser and more annoyingly from the IRM Desktop. If you plan on always using a self signed certificate, it is worth adding it to the Windows certificate store so that when you are accessing sealed content you do not keep being informed this certificate is not trusted. Follow these instructions (which are for Internet Explorer 8, they may vary for your version of IE.) Start Internet Explorer and open the URL to your IRM server over SSL, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. IE will complain that about the certificate, click on Continue to this website (not recommended). From the IE Tools menu select Internet Options and from the resulting dialog select Security and then click on Trusted Sites and then the Sites button. Add to the list of trusted sites a URL which mates the server you are accessing, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet/ and select OK. Now refresh the page you were accessing and next to the URL you should see a red cross and the words Certificate Error. Click on this button and select View Certificates. You will now see a dialog with the details of the self signed certificate and the Install Certificate... button should be enabled. Click on this to start the wizard. Click next and you'll be asked where you should install the certificate. Change the option to Place all certificates in the following store. Select browse and choose the Trusted Root Certification Authorities location and hit OK. You'll then be prompted to install the certificate and answer yes. You also need to import the root signed certificate into the same location, so once again select the red Certificate Error option and this time when viewing the certificate, switch to the Certification Path tab and you should see a CertGenCAB certificate. Select this and then click on View Certificate and go through the same process as above to import the certificate into the store. Finally close all instances of the IE browser and re-access the IRM server URL again, this time you should not receive any errors. Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x At this point we now have an IRM server that you can communicate with over SSL. However this certificate isn't trusted by any browser because it's path of trust doesn't end in a recognized certificate authority (CA). Also you are communicating directly to the WebLogic Server over a non standard SSL port, 16101. In a production environment it is common to have another device handle the initial public internet traffic and then proxy this to the WebLogic server. The diagram below shows a very simplified view of this type of deployment. What i'm going to walk through next is configuring Apache to proxy traffic to a WebLogic server and also to use a real SSL certificate from an official CA. First step is to configure Apache to handle incoming requests over SSL. In this guide I am configuring the IRM service in Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 update 3 and Apache 2.2.3 which came with OpenSSL and mod_ssl components. Before I purchase an SSL certificate, I need to generate a certificate request from the server. Oracle.com uses Verisign and for my own personal needs I use cheaper certificates from GoDaddy. The following instructions are specific to Apache, but there are many references out there for other web servers. For Apache I have OpenSSL and the commands are; [oracle@irm /] cd /usr/bin [oracle@irm bin] openssl genrsa -des3 -out irm-apache-server.key 2048 Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus ............................+++ .........+++ e is 65537 (0x10001) Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: Verifying - Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: [oracle@irm bin] openssl req -new -key irm-apache-server.key -out irm-apache-server.csr Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank. ----- Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:CA Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:San Francisco Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:Oracle Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Security Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:irm.company.com Email Address []:[email protected] Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request A challenge password []:testing An optional company name []: You must make sure to remember the pass phrase you used in the initial key generation, you will need this when later configuring Apache. In the /usr/bin directory there are now two new files. The irm-apache-server.csr contains our certificate request and is what you cut and paste, or upload, to your certificate authority when you purchase and validate your SSL certificate. In response you will typically get two files. Your server certificate and another certificate file that will likely contain a set of certificates from your CA which validate your certificate's trust. Next we need to configure Apache to use these files. Typically there is an ssl.conf file which is where all the SSL configuration is done. On my Oracle Enterprise Linux server this file is located in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf and i've added the following lines. <VirtualHost irm.company.com> # Setup SSL for irm.company.com ServerName irm.company.com SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.key SSLCertificateChainFile /oracle/secure/gd_bundle.crt </VirtualHost> Restarting Apache (apachectl restart) and I can now attempt to connect to the Apache server in a web browser, https://irm.company.com/. If all is configured correctly I should now see an Apache test page delivered to me over HTTPS. Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server Final piece in setting up SSL is to have Apache proxy requests for the IRM server but do so securely. So the requests to Apache will be over HTTPS using a legitimate certificate, but we can also configure Apache to proxy these requests internally across to the IRM server using SSL with the self signed certificate we generated at the start of this article. To do this proxying we use the WebLogic Web Server plugin for Apache which you can download here from Oracle. Download the zip file and extract onto the server. The file extraction reveals a set of zip files, each one specific to a supported web server. In my instance I am using Apache 2.2 32bit on an Oracle Enterprise Linux, 64 bit server. If you are not sure what version your Apache server is, run the command /usr/sbin/httpd -V and you'll see version and it its 32 or 64 bit. Mine is a 32bit server so I need to extract the file WLSPlugin1.1-Apache2.2-linux32-x86.zip. The from the resulting lib folder copy the file mod_wl.so into /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. First we want to test that the plug in will work for regular HTTP traffic. Edit the httpd.conf for Apache and add the following section at the bottom. LoadModule weblogic_module modules/mod_wl.so <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16100    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> <Location /irm_rights>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_desktop>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_sealing>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_services>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> Now restart Apache again (apachectl restart) and now open a browser to http://irm.company.com/irm_rights. Apache will proxy the HTTP traffic from the port 80 of your Apache server to the IRM service listening on port 16100 of the WebLogic Managed server. Note above I have included all four of the Locations you might wish to proxy. http://irm.company.internalirm_rights is the URL to the management website, /irm_desktop is the URL used for the IRM Desktop to communicate. irm_sealing is for web services based document sealing and irm_services is for IRM server web services. The last two are typically only used when you have the IRM server integrated with another application and it is unlikely you'd be accessing these resources from the public facing Apache server. However, just in case, i've mentioned them above. Now let's enable SSL communication from Apache to WebLogic. In the ZIP file we extracted were some more modules we need to copy into the Apache folder. Looking back in the lib that we extracted, there are some more files. Copy the following into the /usr/lib/httpd/modules/ folder. libwlssl.so libnnz11.so libclntsh.so.11.1 Now the documentation states that should only need to do this, but I found that I also needed to create an environment variable called LD_LIBRARY_PATH and point this to the folder /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. If I didn't do this, starting Apache with the WebLogic module configured to SSL would throw the error. [crit] (20014)Internal error: WL SSL Init failed for server: (null) on 0 So I had to edit the file /etc/profile and add the following lines at the bottom. You may already have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable defined, therefore simply add this path to it. LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/httpd/modules/ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH Now the WebLogic plug in uses an Oracle Wallet to store the required certificates.You'll need to copy the self signed certificate from the IRM server over to the Apache server. Copy over the MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der into the same folder where you are storing your public certificates, in my example this is /oracle/secure. It's worth mentioning these files should ONLY be readable by root (the user Apache runs as). Now lets create an Oracle Wallet and import the self signed certificate from the IRM server. The file orapki was included in the bin folder of the Apache 1.1 plugin zip you extracted. orapki wallet create -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -auto_login_only orapki wallet add -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -trusted_cert -cert MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -auto_login_only Finally change the httpd.conf to reflect that we want the WebLogic Apache plug-in to use HTTPS/SSL and not just plain HTTP. <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16101    SecureProxy ON    WLSSLWallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> Then restart Apache once more and you can go back to the browser to test the communication. Opening the URL https://irm.company.com/irm_rights will proxy your request to the WebLogic server at https://irm.company.internal:16101/irm_rights. At this point you have a fully functional Oracle IRM service, the next step is to create a sealed document and test the entire system.

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• jQuery and Windows Azure

  - by Stephen Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to describe how you can host a simple Ajax application created with jQuery in the Windows Azure cloud. In this blog entry, I make no assumptions. I assume that you have never used Windows Azure and I am going to walk through the steps required to host the application in the cloud in agonizing detail. Our application will consist of a single HTML page and a single service. The HTML page will contain jQuery code that invokes the service to retrieve and display set of records. There are five steps that you must complete to host the jQuery application: Sign up for Windows Azure Create a Hosted Service Install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio Create a Windows Azure Cloud Service Deploy the Cloud Service Sign Up for Windows Azure Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ and click the Sign up Now button. Select one of the offers. I selected the Introductory Special offer because it is free and I just wanted to experiment with Windows Azure for the purposes of this blog entry.     To sign up, you will need a Windows Live ID and you will need to enter a credit card number. After you finish the sign up process, you will receive an email that explains how to activate your account. Accessing the Developer Portal After you create your account and your account is activated, you can access the Windows Azure developer portal by visiting the following URL: http://windows.azure.com/ When you first visit the developer portal, you will see the one project that you created when you set up your Windows Azure account (In a fit of creativity, I named my project StephenWalther).     Creating a New Windows Azure Hosted Service Before you can host an application in the cloud, you must first add a hosted service to your project. Click your project on the summary page and click the New Service link. You are presented with the option of creating either a new Storage Account or a new Hosted Services.     Because we have code that we want to run in the cloud – the WCF Service -- we want to select the Hosted Services option. After you select this option, you must provide a name and description for your service. This information is used on the developer portal so you can distinguish your services.     When you create a new hosted service, you must enter a unique name for your service (I selected jQueryApp) and you must select a region for this service (I selected Anywhere US). Click the Create button to create the new hosted service.   Install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio We’ll use Visual Studio to create our jQuery project. Before you can use Visual Studio with Windows Azure, you must first install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ and click the Get Tools and SDK button. The Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio works with both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010.   Installation of the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio is painless. You just need to check some agreement checkboxes and click the Next button a few times and installation will begin:   Creating a Windows Azure Application After you install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, you can choose to create a Windows Azure Cloud Service by selecting the menu option File, New Project and selecting the Windows Azure Cloud Service project template. I named my new Cloud Service with the name jQueryApp.     Next, you need to select the type of Cloud Service project that you want to create from the New Cloud Service Project dialog.   I selected the C# ASP.NET Web Role option. Alternatively, I could have picked the ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Role option if I wanted to use jQuery with ASP.NET MVC or even the CGI Web Role option if I wanted to use jQuery with PHP. After you complete these steps, you end up with two projects in your Visual Studio solution. The project named WebRole1 represents your ASP.NET application and we will use this project to create our jQuery application. Creating the jQuery Application in the Cloud We are now ready to create the jQuery application. We’ll create a super simple application that displays a list of records retrieved from a WCF service (hosted in the cloud). Create a new page in the WebRole1 project named Default.htm and add the following code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Products</title> <style type="text/css"> #productContainer div { border:solid 1px black; padding:5px; margin:5px; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Product Catalog</h1> <div id="productContainer"></div> <script id="productTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> Name: {{= name }} <br /> Price: {{= price }} </div> </script> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/jquery.tmpl.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var products = [ {name:"Milk", price:4.55}, {name:"Yogurt", price:2.99}, {name:"Steak", price:23.44} ]; $("#productTemplate").render(products).appendTo("#productContainer"); </script> </body> </html> The jQuery code in this page simply displays a list of products by using a template. I am using a jQuery template to format each product. You can learn more about using jQuery templates by reading the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/05/07/jquery-templates-and-data-linking-and-microsoft-contributing-to-jquery.aspx You can test whether the Default.htm page is working correctly by running your application (hit the F5 key). The first time that you run your application, a database is set up on your local machine to simulate cloud storage. You will see the following dialog: If the Default.htm page works as expected, you should see the list of three products: Adding an Ajax-Enabled WCF Service In the previous section, we created a simple jQuery application that displays an array by using a template. The application is a little too simple because the data is static. In this section, we’ll modify the page so that the data is retrieved from a WCF service instead of an array. First, we need to add a new Ajax-enabled WCF Service to the WebRole1 project. Select the menu option Project, Add New Item and select the Ajax-enabled WCF Service project item. Name the new service ProductService.svc. Modify the service so that it returns a static collection of products. The final code for the ProductService.svc should look like this: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Activation; namespace WebRole1 { public class Product { public string name { get; set; } public decimal price { get; set; } } [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class ProductService { [OperationContract] public IList<Product> SelectProducts() { var products = new List<Product>(); products.Add(new Product {name="Milk", price=4.55m} ); products.Add(new Product { name = "Yogurt", price = 2.99m }); products.Add(new Product { name = "Steak", price = 23.44m }); return products; } } }   In real life, you would want to retrieve the list of products from storage instead of a static array. We are being lazy here. Next you need to modify the Default.htm page to use the ProductService.svc. The jQuery script in the following updated Default.htm page makes an Ajax call to the WCF service. The data retrieved from the ProductService.svc is displayed in the client template. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Products</title> <style type="text/css"> #productContainer div { border:solid 1px black; padding:5px; margin:5px; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Product Catalog</h1> <div id="productContainer"></div> <script id="productTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> Name: {{= name }} <br /> Price: {{= price }} </div> </script> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/jquery.tmpl.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $.post("ProductService.svc/SelectProducts", function (results) { var products = results["d"]; $("#productTemplate").render(products).appendTo("#productContainer"); }); </script> </body> </html>   Deploying the jQuery Application to the Cloud Now that we have created our jQuery application, we are ready to deploy our application to the cloud so that the whole world can use it. Right-click your jQueryApp project in the Solution Explorer window and select the Publish menu option. When you select publish, your application and your application configuration information is packaged up into two files named jQueryApp.cspkg and ServiceConfiguration.cscfg. Visual Studio opens the directory that contains the two files. In order to deploy these files to the Windows Azure cloud, you must upload these files yourself. Return to the Windows Azure Developers Portal at the following address: http://windows.azure.com/ Select your project and select the jQueryApp service. You will see a mysterious cube. Click the Deploy button to upload your application.   Next, you need to browse to the location on your hard drive where the jQueryApp project was published and select both the packaged application and the packaged application configuration file. Supply the deployment with a name and click the Deploy button.     While your application is in the process of being deployed, you can view a progress bar.     Running the jQuery Application in the Cloud Finally, you can run your jQuery application in the cloud by clicking the Run button.   It might take several minutes for your application to initialize (go grab a coffee). After WebRole1 finishes initializing, you can navigate to the following URL to view your live jQuery application in the cloud: http://jqueryapp.cloudapp.net/default.htm The page is hosted on the Windows Azure cloud and the WCF service executes every time that you request the page to retrieve the list of products. Summary Because we started from scratch, we needed to complete several steps to create and deploy our jQuery application to the Windows Azure cloud. We needed to create a Windows Azure account, create a hosted service, install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, create the jQuery application, and deploy it to the cloud. Now that we have finished this process once, modifying our existing cloud application or creating a new cloud application is easy. jQuery and Windows Azure work nicely together. We can take advantage of jQuery to build applications that run in the browser and we can take advantage of Windows Azure to host the backend services required by our jQuery application. The big benefit of Windows Azure is that it enables us to scale. If, all of the sudden, our jQuery application explodes in popularity, Windows Azure enables us to easily scale up to meet the demand. We can handle anything that the Internet might throw at us.

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• Customize the SimpleMembership in ASP.NET MVC 4.0

  - by thangchung

  As we know, .NET 4.5 have come up to us, and come along with a lot of new interesting features as well. Visual Studio 2012 was also introduced some days ago. They made us feel very happy with cool improvement along with us. Performance when loading code editor is very good at the moment (immediate after click on the solution). I explore some of cool features at these days. Some of them like Json.NET integrated in ASP.NET MVC 4.0, improvement on asynchronous action, new lightweight theme on Visual Studio, supporting very good on mobile development, improvement on authentication… I reviewed them, and found out that in this version of .NET Microsoft was not only developed new feature that suggest from community but also focused on improvement performance of existing features or components. Besides that, they also opened source more projects, like Entity Framework, Reactive Extensions, ASP.NET Web Stack… At the moment, I feel Microsoft want to open source more and more their projects. Today, I am going to dive in deep on new SimpleMembership model. It is really good because in this security model, Microsoft actually focus on development needs. As we know, in the past, they introduce some of provider supplied for coding security like MembershipProvider, RoleProvider… I don’t need to talk but everyone that have ever used it know that they were actually hard to use, and not easy to maintain and unit testing. Why? Because every time you inherit it, you need to override all methods inside it. Some people try to abstract it by introduce more method with virtual keyword, and try to implement basic behavior, so in the subclass we only need to override the method that need for their business. But to me, it’s only the way to work around. ASP.NET team and Web Matrix knew about it, so they built the new features based on existing components on .NET framework. And one of component that comes to us is SimpleMembership and SimpleRole. They implemented the Façade pattern on the top of those, and called it is WebSecurity. In the web, we can call WebSecurity anywhere we want, and make a call to inside wrapper of it. I read a lot of them on web blog, on technical news, on MSDN as well. Matthew Osborn had an excellent article about it at his blog. Jon Galloway had an article like this at here. He analyzed why old membership provider not fixed well to ASP.NET MVC and how to get over it. Those are very good to me. It introduced to me about how to doing SimpleMembership on it, how to doing it on new ASP.NET MVC web application. But one thing, those didn’t tell me was how to doing it on existing security model (that mean we already had Users and Roles on legacy system, and how we can integrate it to this system), that’s a reason I will introduce it today. I have spent couples of hours to see what’s inside this, and try to make one example to clarify my concern. And it’s lucky that I can make it working well.The first thing, we need to create new ASP.NET MVC application on Visual Studio 2012. We need to choose Internet type for this web application. ASP.NET MVC actually creates all needs components for the basic membership and basic role. The cool feature is DoNetOpenAuth come along with it that means we can log-in using facebook, twitter or Windows Live if you want. But it’s only for LocalDb, so we need to change it to fix with existing database model on SQL Server. The next step we have to make SimpleMembership can understand which database we use and show it which column need to point to for the ID and UserName. I really like this feature because SimpleMembership on need to know about the ID and UserName, and they don’t care about rest of it. I assume that we have an existing database model like So we will point it in code like The codes for it, we put on InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute like [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)]     public sealed class InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute     {         private static SimpleMembershipInitializer _initializer;         private static object _initializerLock = new object();         private static bool _isInitialized;         public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)         {             // Ensure ASP.NET Simple Membership is initialized only once per app start             LazyInitializer.EnsureInitialized(ref _initializer, ref _isInitialized, ref _initializerLock);         }         private class SimpleMembershipInitializer         {             public SimpleMembershipInitializer()             {                 try                 {                     WebSecurity.InitializeDatabaseConnection("DefaultDb", "User", "Id", "UserName", autoCreateTables: true);                 }                 catch (Exception ex)                 {                     throw new InvalidOperationException("The ASP.NET Simple Membership database could not be initialized. For more information, please see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=256588", ex);                 }             }         }     }And decorating it in the AccountController as below [Authorize]     [InitializeSimpleMembership]     public class AccountController : ControllerIn this case, assuming that we need to override the ValidateUser to point this to existing User database table, and validate it. We have to add one more class like public class CustomAdminMembershipProvider : SimpleMembershipProvider     {         // TODO: will do a better way         private const string SELECT_ALL_USER_SCRIPT = "select * from [dbo].[User]private where UserName = '{0}'";         private readonly IEncrypting _encryptor;         private readonly SimpleSecurityContext _simpleSecurityContext;         public CustomAdminMembershipProvider(SimpleSecurityContext simpleSecurityContext)             : this(new Encryptor(), new SimpleSecurityContext("DefaultDb"))         {         }         public CustomAdminMembershipProvider(IEncrypting encryptor, SimpleSecurityContext simpleSecurityContext)         {             _encryptor = encryptor;             _simpleSecurityContext = simpleSecurityContext;         }         public override bool ValidateUser(string username, string password)         {             if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(username))             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Argument cannot be null or empty", "username");             }             if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(password))             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Argument cannot be null or empty", "password");             }             var hash = _encryptor.Encode(password);             using (_simpleSecurityContext)             {                 var users =                     _simpleSecurityContext.Users.SqlQuery(                         string.Format(SELECT_ALL_USER_SCRIPT, username));                 if (users == null && !users.Any())                 {                     return false;                 }                 return users.FirstOrDefault().Password == hash;             }         }     }SimpleSecurityDataContext at here public class SimpleSecurityContext : DbContext     {         public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }         public SimpleSecurityContext(string connStringName) :             base(connStringName)         {             this.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = true;             this.Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = false;         }         protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)         {             base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);                          modelBuilder.Configurations.Add(new UserMapping());         }     }And Mapping for User as below public class UserMapping : EntityMappingBase<User>     {         public UserMapping()         {             this.Property(x => x.UserName);             this.Property(x => x.DisplayName);             this.Property(x => x.Password);             this.Property(x => x.Email);             this.ToTable("User");         }     }One important thing, you need to modify the web.config to point to our customize SimpleMembership <membership defaultProvider="AdminMemberProvider" userIsOnlineTimeWindow="15">       <providers>         <clear/>         <add name="AdminMemberProvider" type="CIK.News.Web.Infras.Security.CustomAdminMembershipProvider, CIK.News.Web.Infras" />       </providers>     </membership>     <roleManager enabled="false">       <providers>         <clear />         <add name="AdminRoleProvider" type="CIK.News.Web.Infras.Security.AdminRoleProvider, CIK.News.Web.Infras" />       </providers>     </roleManager>The good thing at here is we don’t need to modify the code on AccountController. We only need to modify on SimpleMembership and Simple Role (if need). Now build all solutions, run it. We should see a screen like thisIf I login to Twitter button at the bottom of this page, we will be transfer to twitter authentication pageYou have to waiting for a moment Afterwards it will transfer you back to your admin screenYou can find all source codes at my MSDN code. I will really happy if you guys feel free to put some comments as below. It will be helpful to improvement my code in the future. Thank for all your readings. 

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, November 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, November 18, 2010Popular ReleasesSitefinity Migration Tool: Sitefinity Migration Tool 0.2 Alpha: - Improvements for the Sitefinity RC releaseMiniTwitter: 1.57: MiniTwitter 1.57 ???? ?? ?????????????????? ?? User Streams ????????????????????? ???????????????·??????·???????VFPX: VFP2C32 2.0.0.7: fixed a bug in AAverage - NULL values in the array corrupted the result removed limitation in ASum, AMin, AMax, AAverage - the functions were limited to 65000 elements, now they're limited to 65000 rows ASplitStr now returns a 1 element array with an empty string when an empty string is passed (behaves more like ALINES) internal code cleanup and optimization: optimized FoxArray class - results in a speedup of 10-20% in many functions which return the result in an array - like AProcesses...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks 2008R2 SR1: Sample Databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 (SR1)This release is dedicated to the sample databases that ship for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2. See Database Prerequisites for SQL Server 2008R2 for feature configurations required for installing the sample databases. See Installing SQL Server 2008R2 Databases for step by step installation instructions. The SR1 release contains minor bug fixes to the installer used to create the sample databases. There are no changes to the databases them...VidCoder: 0.7.2: Fixed duplicated subtitles when running multiple encodes off of the same title.Razor Templating Engine: Razor Template Engine v1.1: Release 1.1 Changes: ADDED: Signed assemblies with strong name to allow assemblies to be referenced by other strongly-named assemblies. FIX: Filter out dynamic assemblies which causes failures in template compilation. FIX: Changed ASCII to UTF8 encoding to support UTF-8 encoded string templates. FIX: Corrected implementation of TemplateBase adding ITemplate interface.Prism Training Kit: Prism Training Kit - 1.1: This is an updated version of the Prism training Kit that targets Prism 4.0 and fixes the bugs reported in the version 1.0. This release consists of a Training Kit with Labs on the following topics Modularity Dependency Injection Bootstrapper UI Composition Communication Note: Take into account that this is a Beta version. If you find any bugs please report them in the Issue Tracker PrerequisitesVisual Studio 2010 Microsoft Word 2007/2010 Microsoft Silverlight 4 Microsoft S...Craig's Utility Library: Craig's Utility Library Code 2.0: This update contains a number of changes, added functionality, and bug fixes: Added transaction support to SQLHelper. Added linked/embedded resource ability to EmailSender. Updated List to take into account new functions. Added better support for MAC address in WMI classes. Fixed Parsing in Reflection class when dealing with sub classes. Fixed bug in SQLHelper when replacing the Command that is a select after doing a select. Fixed issue in SQL Server helper with regard to generati...MFCMAPI: November 2010 Release: Build: 6.0.0.1023 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the tool, get the executable. If you want to debug it, get the symbol file and the source. The 64 bit build will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit build, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeDotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.06.00: Major HighlightsAdded automatic portal alias creation for single portal installs Updated the file manager upload page to allow user to upload multiple files without returning to the file manager page. Fixed issue with Event Log Email Notifications. Fixed issue where Telerik HTML Editor was unable to upload files to secure or database folder. Fixed issue where registration page is not set correctly during an upgrade. Fixed issue where Sendmail stripped HTML and Links from emails...mVu Mobile Viewer: mVu Mobile Viewer 0.7.10.0: Tube8 fix.EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 2.8.0.1: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the serverNew Features Improved chart support Different chart-types series on the same chart Support for secondary axis and a lot of new properties Better styling Encryption and Workbook protection Table support Import csv files Array formulas ...and a lot of bugfixesAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.4.2: Added support for more clients (French and Russian) Settings are now stored sepperatly for each user on a computer Auto Login is much faster now Auto Login detects and handles caps lock state properly nowTailspinSpyworks - WebForms Sample Application: TailspinSpyworks-v0.9: Contains a number of bug fixes and additional tutorial steps as well as complete database implementation details.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (rich jQuery AJAX helpers): 1.3 and demos: a library with mvc helpers and a demo project that demonstrates an awesome way of doing asp.net mvc. tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6 new stuff in 1.3 Autocomplete helper Autocomplete and AjaxDropdown can have parentId and be filled with data depending on the value of the parent PopupForm besides Content("ok") on success can also return Json(data) and use 'data' in a client side function Awesome demo improved (cruder, builder, added service layer)Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v4.1: Version 4.1 of the ASP.NET MVC forum engine, with great improvements: TinyMCE added as visual editor for messages (removed CKEditor). Integrated AntiSamy for cleaner html user post and add more prevention to potential injections. Admin status page: a page for the site admin to check the current status of the configuration / db / etc. View Roadmap for more details.UltimateJB: UltimateJB 2.01 PL3 KakaRoto + PSNYes by EvilSperm: Voici une version attendu avec impatience pour beaucoup : - La Version PSNYes pour pouvoir jouer sur le PSN avec une PS3 Jailbreaker. - Pour l'instant le PSNYes n'est disponible qu'avec les PS3 en firmwares 3.41 !!! - La version PL3 KAKAROTO intégre ses dernières modification et prépare a l'intégration du Firmware 3.30 !!! Conclusion : - UltimateJB PSNYes => Valide l'utilisation du PSN : Uniquement compatible avec les 3.41 - ultimateJB DEFAULT => Pas de PSN mais disponible pour les PS3 sui...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 2.0: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 2.0(supports .NET 4.0 RTM and .NET 3.5) Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) Showcase Application Samples (only for .NET 4.0) Foundation (Tabs, Groups, Contextual Tabs, Quick Access Toolbar, Backstage) Resizing (ribbon reducing & enlarging principles) Galleries (Gallery in ContextMenu, InRibbonGallery) MVVM (shows how to use this library with Model-View-ViewModel pattern) KeyTips ScreenTips Toolbars ColorGallery NEW! *Walkthrough (documenta...patterns & practices: Prism: Prism 4 Documentation: This release contains the Prism 4 documentation in Help 1.0 (CHM) format and PDF format. The documentation is also included with the full download of the guidance. Note: If you cannot view the content of the CHM, using Windows Explorer, select the properties for the file and then click Unblock on the General tab. Note: The PDF version of the guidance is provided for printing and reading in book format. The online version of the Prism 4 documentation can be read here.Farseer Physics Engine: Farseer Physics Engine 3.1: DonationsIf you like this release and would like to keep Farseer Physics Engine running, please consider a small donation. What's new?We bring a lot of new features in Farseer Physics Engine 3.1. Just to name a few: New Box2D core Rope joint added More stable CCD algorithm YuPeng clipper Explosives logic New Constrained Delaunay Triangulation algorithm from the Poly2Tri project. New Flipcode triangulation algorithm. Silverlight 4 samples Silverlight 4 debug view XNA 4.0 relea...New Projectsbizicosoft crm: crmBlog Migrator: The Blog Migrator tool is an all purpose utility designed to help transition a blog from one platform to another. It leverages XML-RPC, BlogML, and WordPress WXR formats. It also provides the ability to "rewrite" your posts on your old blog to point to the new location.bzr-tfs integration tests: Used to test bzr-tfs integrationC++ Open Source Advanced Operating System: C++ Open Source Advanced Operating System is a project which allows starter developers create their own OS. For now it is at a really initial stage.Chavah - internet radio for Yeshua's disciples: Chavah (pronounced "ha-vah") is internet radio for Yeshua's disciples. Inspired by Pandora, Chavah is a Silverlight application that brings community-driven Messianic Jewish tunes for the Lord over the web to your eager ears.CodePoster: An add-in for Visual Studio which allows you to post code directly from Visual Studio to your blog. CRM 2011 Plugin Testing Tools: This solution is meant to make unit testing of plugins in CRM 2011 a simpler and more efficient process. This solution serializes the objects that the CRM server passes to a plugin on execution and then offers a library that allows you to deserialize them in a unit test.Edinamarry Free Tarot Software for Windows: A freeware yet an advanced Tarot reading divinity Software for Psychics and for all those who practice Divinity and Spirituality. This software includes Tarot Spread Designer, Tarot Deck Designer, Tarot Cards Gallery, Client & Customer Profile, Word Editor, Tarot Reader, etc.EPiSocial: Social addons for EPiServer.first team foundation project: this is my first project for the student to teach them about the ms visual studio 201o and team foundation serverFKTdev: Proyecto donde subiremos las pruebas, códigos de ejemplo y demás recursos en nuestro aprendizaje en XNA, hasta que comencemos un desarrollo estable.Gardens Point Component Pascal: Gardens Point Component Pascal is an implementation for .NET of the Component Pascal Language (CP). CP is an object oriented version of Pascal, and shares many design features with Oberon-2. Geoinformatics: geoinformaticsGREENHOUSEMANAGER: GREENHOUSE es un proyecto universitario para manejar los distintos aspectos de un invernadero. El sistema esta desarrollado en c# con interfaz grafica en WPFHousing: This project is only for the asp.net learning. HR-XML.NET: A .NET HR-XML Serialization Library. Also supports the Dutch SETU standard and some proprietary extensions used in the Netherlands. The project is currently targeting HR-XML version 2.5 and Setu standard 2008-01.InternetShop2: ShopLesson4: Lesson4 for M.Logical Synchronous Circuit Simulator: As part of a student project, we are trying to make a logic synchronous circuit simulator, with the ultimate goal of simulating a processor and a digital clock running on it.MediaOwl: MediaOwl is a music (albums, artists, tracks, tags) and movie (movies, series, actors, directors, genres) search engine, but above all, it is a Microsoft Silverlight 4 application (C#), that shows how to use Caliburn Micro.N2F Yverdon Solar Flare Reflector: The solar flare reflector provides minimal base-range protection for your N2F Yverdon installation against solar flare interference.Netduino Plus Home Automation Toolkit: The Netduino Plus Home Automation project is designed to proivde a communication platform from various consumer based home automation products that offer a common web service endpoint. This will hopefully create a low cost DIY alternative to the expensive ethernet interfaces.NRapid: NRapidOfficeHelper: Wrapper around the open xml office package. You can easily create xlsx documents based on a template xlsx document and reuse parts from that document, if you mark them as named ranges (i.e. "names").OffProjects: This is a private project which for my dev investigationParis Velib Stations for Windows Mobile: Allow to find the closest Velib bike station in Paris on a Windows Mobile Phone (6.5)/ Permet de trouver la station de Vélib la plus proche dans Paris ainsi que ses informations sur un smartphone Windows MobilePolarConverter: Adjust the measured distance of HRM files created by Polar Heart Rate monitorsSexy Select: a jQuery plugin that allows for easy manipulation of select options. Allows for adding, removing, sorting, validation and custom skinningSilverlight Progress Feedback: Demonstrates how to get progress feedback from slow running WPF processes in Silverlight.Silverlight Tabbed Panel: Tabbed Panel based on Silverlight targeted for both developers and designers audience. Tabbed Control is used in this project. This is a basic application. More features will be added in further releases. XAML has been used to design this panel. slabhid: SLABHIDDevice.dll is used for the SLAB MCU example code on PC, the original source code is written by C++. This wrapper class brings SLABHIDDevice.dll to the .Net world, so it will be possible to make some quick solution for firmware testing purpose.SuperWebSocket: A .NET server side implementation of WebSocket protocol.test1-jjoiner: just a test projectTotem Alpha Developer Framework For .Net: ????tadf??VS.NET???????????，????jtadf???????????????。 ?????????tadf??????????????J2EE???????VS.NET?????????，??tadf?????.NET??，???????????，????????????，??????C#??????????Java???????，??????。 tadf?????????????，????HTML???????????，???????，?????????，?????。tadf???????????，????????RICH UI?????WEB??。??????，??。 tadf?????????????????????，????WEB??????????。???????，???????????，?Ajax???????，????????????????，????????，????????????????。???????????，???????????????????????????????，?xml??????，?????????????xml...Ukázkové projekty: Obsahuje ukázkové projekty uživatele TenCoKaciStromy.WPFDemo: This Peoject is only for the WPF learning.Xinx TimeIt!: TinyAlarm is a small utility that allows you to configure an Alarm so that you can opt for 1. Shutdown computer 2. Play a sound 3. Show a note with sound 4. Disconnect a dial-up connection 5. Connect via dial-up connection

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 16, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 16, 2010New ProjectsAAPL-MySQL (a MySql implementation of the Agile ADO.Net Persistence Layer): Using the code conventions and code of the Agile ADO.Net Persistence Layer to build a MySql implementationAddress Book: Address Book is simple and easy to use application for storing and editing contacts. It has many features like search and grouping. It's developed ...Airplanes: Airplanes GameAJAX Fax document viewer: The AJAX Fax document viewer is an ASP.net 4.0 project which uses a Seadragon control to display Tiff/Tif files inside the browser. Since it's base...AxeFrog Core: This project contains the foundational code used in several other projects.Bolão: O objetivo deste projeto é estimular a troca de informações e experiências sobre arquitetura e desenvolvimento de software na prática, através do d...Caramel Engine: This is designed to be a logic engine for developing a wide variety of games. To include card logic, dice logic, territories, players, and even man...DotNetNuke® Skin BrandWorks: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by M Perakakis & M Siganou (e-bilab). A very minimal look sk...DotNetNuke® Skin Reasonable: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Ralph Williams of Architech Solutions. A clean, classy, professi...DotNetNuke® Skin Seasons: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Atul Handa and Kevin McCusker of Mercer. This skin is a generic ...File Eraser: File Eraser make it esasier for IT Administrator or Advanced Users to administer files and eliminate long addresses, even UNC. It's developed in VB...GreenEyes: My project for IT personalHulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Hulu Desktop and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.Imenik: Imenik makes it easier for users to organise their contacts!KharaPOS: KharaPOS is an Exemplar application for Silverlight 4, WCF RIA Services and .NET Framework 4.Mantas Cryptography: Pequena biblioteca de criptografia com suporte aos algorítmos DES, RC2, Rexor e TripleDES. Gera hashes HMAC-MD5, HMAC-RIPEMD160, HMAC-SHA (SHA1, S...MapWindow3D: A C# DirectX library that extends the MapWindow 6.0 geospatial software library by adding an external map. The map supports rotation and tilting i...Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework: Extensible Web Analytics Framework for Microsoft Silverlight Applications.Moq Examples: Unit tests demonstrating Moq features.Ncqrs: Framework that helps you to create Command-Query Responsibility Segregation based applications easily.NoLedge - Notetaking and knowledge database: NoLedge is an easy knowledge gathering and notetaking freeware with a simple interface. You can link a note with different titles and can retrieve ...Numina Application Framework: The framework is a set of tools that help facilitate authentication, authorization, and access control. It is much more than a SSO. It is a central...OData SDK for PHP: OData SDK for PHP is a library to facilitate the connection with OData Services.patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: p&p site for Windows Azure related guidance.projecteuler.net: Exploring projecteuler.net using F#ResumeTracker: Small and easy to use tool that helps to track your job applications. To report bugs or for suggestions please email kirunchik@gmail.com.Selection Maker: Have you ever create a collection of music files? Imagine you just want to pick best of them by your choice. you should go to several folder,play...ShureValidation: Multilingual model validation library. Supports fluent validations, attribute validations and own custom validations.Simple Phonebook: Simple phonebook allows you to store contacts. It also allows you to export the contacts to .txt or .csv. This application is written in C#, but it...SoftUpd: A usefull library which provides an Update feature to any .Net software.sTASKedit: This program can modify and export Perfect World tasks.data files...Tigie: Tigie is a simple CMS system for basic website. It's simple, easy to customize. you'll have a very basic cms to start with and expand for it. All c...toapp: ap hwUltiLogger: UltiLogger is a fast, lightweight logging library programmed in C#. It is meant as a fast, easy, and efficient way for developers to access a relia...Unnme: UnnmeVisual Studio 2008 NUnit snippets: A simple set of useful NUnit snippets, for Visual studio 2008.webdama: italian checkers game c#XBrowser - Headless Browser for .Net: XBrowser is a "headless" web browser written for .Net applications using C#. It is designed to allow automated, remote controlled and test-based br...XML Integrator: XML integration, collaborative toolNew ReleasesAddress Book: Address Book: Address BookAddress Book: Address Book - Source: Address Book source code.AJAX Fax document viewer: AJAXTiff_Source 1.0: Source project for the AJAX Tiff viewer v1.0. Written in Visual Studio 2010 RC using ASP.net 4.0ASP.Net Routing Configuration: mal.Web.Routing v1.0.0.0: mal.Web.Routing v1.0.0.0ASP.NET Wiki Control: Release 1.0: Includes VS2010 Solution and Project files but targets the 3.5 framework so can still be used with VS2008 if new project files are created.BingPaper: Beta: BingPaper Beta Release This Beta release contains quite a few improvements: This Beta release contains a complate overhaul of the replacement tok...Bolão: teste: testeDotNetNuke® Skin Reasonable: Reasonable Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Ralph Williams of Architech Solutions. A clean, classy, professi...DotNetNuke® Skin Seasons: Seasons Package 1.0.0: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by Atul Handa and Kevin McCusker of Mercer. This skin is a generic ...dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.2: In TFS Serverdylan.NET Apps: dylan.NET Apps v. 1.1: First version of dnu.dll together with v.9.2 of dylan.NETFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.1.0.0: Version 1.1.0.0 Census report now shows in bold those individuals you KNOW to be alive at the date of the census. Direct Ancestors on census repor...GLB Virtual Player Builder: 0.4.1: Minor change to reset non-major/minor attr to 8.Hulu Launcher: HuluLauncher Release 1.0.1.1: HuluLauncher Release 1.0.1.1 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7 ...Imenik: Imenik: Imenik is now available!jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.3: NOTE: While I work on new releases, I post alpha versions. Usually the alpha versions are here to address a particular need. I DO NOT recommend usi...KeelKit: KeelKit 1.0.3800: 更新内容如下: 优化了DBHelper的一些机制 修正一些BUG 支持Mysql PHP代理，使得能通过Web代理的方式远程访问数据库服务器 添加Model实例化方法，支持所有非自动计算字段的参数实例化、支持所有非空字段实例化 添加Model中的常量，使用这些常量可以获得表名称。 添加了自...Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Contrib: MefContrib 0.9.0.0: Updated to MEF Preview 9 Moved MefContrib.Extensions.Generics to MefContrib.Hosting.Generics Moved MefContrib.Extensions.Generics.Tests to MefC...MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder: MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder v0.1.1: Repaired a problem with collections... only index number under 10 were allowed... Please send me your comments and rate the project. Sorry.Mouse Gestures for .NET: Mouse Gestures 1.0: Improved version of the component + sample application. Version 1.0 is not backward compatible.MoviesForMyBlog: MoviesForMyBlog V1.0: This is version 1.0Nito.KitchenSink: Version 1: The first release of Nito.KitchenSink, which uses Nito.Linq 0.1. Please report any issues via the Issue Tracker.Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.1): This is the first official public release of Nito.Linq. This release only supports .NET 3.5 SP1 with the Microsoft Rx libraries. The documentation...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.2): Added ListSource.Generate overloads that take a delegate for counting the list elements.OData SDK for PHP: OData SDK for PHP: This is an updated version of the ADO.NET Data Services toolkit for PHP. It includes full support for OData Protocol V2.0 specification, better pro...Orchard Project: Orchard Latest Build (0.1.2010.0312): This is a technical preview release of Orchard. Our intent with this release is to demonstrate representative experiences for our audiences (end-us...patterns & practices – Enterprise Library: Enterprise Library 5.0 - Beta2: This is a preliminary release of the code and documentation that may potentially be incomplete, and may change prior to the final release of Enterp...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 2.0 - Beta2: This is a preliminary release of the code and documentation that may potentially be incomplete, and may change prior to the final release of Unity ...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Code drop - 1: This initial version is the before the cloud baseline application, so you won’t find anything related to Windows Azure here. Next iteration, we'l...Rawr: Rawr 2.3.12: - First, a note about Rawr3. Rawr3 has been in development for quite a while now, and we know that everyone's eager to get it. It's been held back ...ResumeTracker: Resume Tracker v1.0: First release.Selection Maker: Selection Maker 1.0: This is just the first release of this programSevenZipSharp: SevenZipSharp 0.61: Added: Windows Mobile support bool Check() method for Extractor to test archives integrity FileExtractionFinished now returns FileInfoEventArgs...Silverlight 3.0 Advanced ToolTipService: Advanced ToolTipService v2.0.1: This release is compiled against the Silverlight 3.0 runtime. A demonstration on how to set the ToolTip content to a property of the DataContext o...Silverlight Flow Layouts library: SL and WPF Flow Layouts library March 2010: This release indtroduces some bug fixes, performance improvements, Silverlight 4 RC and WPF 4.0 RC support. Flow Layouts Library is a control libra...Simple Phonebook: SimplePhonebook Visual Studio 2010 Solution: Ovo je cijeli projekt u kojem se nalaze svi source fileovi koje sam koristio u izradi ove aplikacije. Za pokretanje je potreban Visual Studio 2010....Simple Phonebook: SimplePhonebook.rar: U ovoj .rar datoteci nalaze se izvršni fileovi. _ In this .rar file you can find .exe file needed for executing the application.SLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit: SLARToolkit 1.0.1.0: Updated to Silverlight 4 Release Candidate. Introduces the new GenericMarkerDetector which uses the IXrgbReader interface. See the Marker Detecto...sPWadmin: pwAdmin v1.0: Fixed: Templates can now be saved server restart persistant (wait at least 60 seconds between saving and restarting)SQL Director for Dependencies & Indexes: SDD CTP 1.0: SQL Director for Dependencies allows you to view dependencies between tables, views, function, stored procedures and jobs. Newest Testing build, f...SqlCeViewer: SeasonStar Database Management 0.7.0.2: Update the user interface to help user understand clearly how to use .UltiLogger: Initial alpha release: Important! This is not a feature-complete release! It contains the logging priorities, and an interface for building logging systems from. THERE IS...Visual Studio 2008 NUnit snippets: Version 1.0: First stable release.Zeta Resource Editor: Source Code Release 2010-03-16: New source code. Binary setup is also available.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETLiveUpload to FacebookMost Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterOData SDK for PHPRawrN2 CMSpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryDirectQBlogEngine.NETMapWindow6SharePoint Team-MailerNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Toorcon14

  - by danx

  Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

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• Is your team is a high-performing team?

  As a child I can remember looking out of the car window as my father drove along the Interstate in Florida while seeing prisoners wearing bright orange jump suits and prison guards keeping a watchful eye on them. The prisoners were taking part in a prison road gang. These road gangs were formed to help the state maintain the state highway infrastructure. The prisoner’s primary responsibilities are to pick up trash and debris from the roadway. This is a prime example of a work group or working group used by most prison systems in the United States. Work groups or working groups can be defined as a collection of individuals or entities working together to achieve a specific goal or accomplish a specific set of tasks. Typically these groups are only established for a short period of time and are dissolved once the desired outcome has been achieved. More often than not group members usually feel as though they are expendable to the group and some even dread that they are even in the group. "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) So how do you determine that a team is a high-performing team?  This can be determined by three base line criteria that include: consistently high quality output, the promotion of personal growth and well being of all team members, and most importantly the ability to learn and grow as a unit. Initially, a team can successfully create high-performing output without meeting all three criteria, however this will erode over time because team members will feel detached from the group or that they are not growing then the quality of the output will decline. High performing teams are similar to work groups because they both utilize a collection of individuals or entities to accomplish tasks. What distinguish a high-performing team from a work group are its characteristics. High-performing teams contain five core characteristics. These characteristics are what separate a group from a team. The five characteristics of a high-performing team include: Purpose, Performance Measures, People with Tasks and Relationship Skills, Process, and Preparation and Practice. A high-performing team is much more than a work group, and typically has a life cycle that can vary from team to team. The standard team lifecycle consists of five states and is comparable to a human life cycle. The five states of a high-performing team lifecycle include: Formulating, Storming, Normalizing, Performing, and Adjourning. The Formulating State of a team is first realized when the team members are first defined and roles are assigned to all members. This initial stage is very important because it can set the tone for the team and can ultimately determine its success or failure. In addition, this stage requires the team to have a strong leader because team members are normally unclear about specific roles, specific obstacles and goals that my lay ahead of them.  Finally, this stage is where most team members initially meet one another prior to working as a team unless the team members already know each other. The Storming State normally arrives directly after the formulation of a new team because there are still a lot of unknowns amongst the newly formed assembly. As a general rule most of the parties involved in the team are still getting used to the workload, pace of work, deadlines and the validity of various tasks that need to be performed by the group.  In this state everything is questioned because there are so many unknowns. Items commonly questioned include the credentials of others on the team, the actual validity of a project, and the leadership abilities of the team leader.  This can be exemplified by looking at the interactions between animals when they first meet.  If we look at a scenario where two people are walking directly toward each other with their dogs. The dogs will automatically enter the Storming State because they do not know the other dog. Typically in this situation, they attempt to define which is more dominating via play or fighting depending on how the dogs interact with each other. Once dominance has been defined and accepted by both dogs then they will either want to play or leave depending on how the dogs interacted and other environmental variables. Once the Storming State has been realized then the Normalizing State takes over. This state is entered by a team once all the questions of the Storming State have been answered and the team has been tested by a few tasks or projects.  Typically, participants in the team are filled with energy, and comradery, and a strong alliance with team goals and objectives.  A high school football team is a perfect example of the Normalizing State when they start their season.  The player positions have been assigned, the depth chart has been filled and everyone is focused on winning each game. All of the players encourage and expect each other to perform at the best of their abilities and are united by competition from other teams. The Performing State is achieved by a team when its history, working habits, and culture solidify the team as one working unit. In this state team members can anticipate specific behaviors, attitudes, reactions, and challenges are seen as opportunities and not problems. Additionally, each team member knows their role in the team’s success, and the roles of others. This is the most productive state of a group and is where all the time invested working together really pays off. If you look at an Olympic figure skating team skate you can easily see how the time spent working together benefits their performance. They skate as one unit even though it is comprised of two skaters. Each skater has their routine completely memorized as well as their partners. This allows them to anticipate each other’s moves on the ice makes their skating look effortless. The final state of a team is the Adjourning State. This state is where accomplishments by the team and each individual team member are recognized. Additionally, this state also allows for reflection of the interactions between team members, work accomplished and challenges that were faced. Finally, the team celebrates the challenges they have faced and overcome as a unit. Currently in the workplace teams are divided into two different types: Co-located and Distributed Teams. Co-located teams defined as the traditional group of people working together in an office, according to Andy Singleton of Assembla. This traditional type of a team has dominated business in the past due to inadequate technology, which forced workers to primarily interact with one another via face to face meetings.  Team meetings are primarily lead by the person with the highest status in the company. Having personally, participated in meetings of this type, usually a select few of the team members dominate the flow of communication which reduces the input of others in group discussions. Since discussions are dominated by a select few individuals the discussions and group discussion are skewed in favor of the individuals who communicate the most in meetings. In addition, Team members might not give their full opinions on a topic of discussion in part not to offend or create controversy amongst the team and can alter decision made in meetings towards those of the opinions of the dominating team members. Distributed teams are by definition spread across an area or subdivided into separate sections. That is exactly what distributed teams when compared to a more traditional team. It is common place for distributed teams to have team members across town, in the next state, across the country and even with the advances in technology over the last 20 year across the world. These teams allow for more diversity compared to the other type of teams because they allow for more flexibility regarding location. A team could consist of a 30 year old male Italian project manager from New York, a 50 year old female Hispanic from California and a collection of programmers from India because technology allows them to communicate as if they were standing next to one another.  In addition, distributed team members consult with more team members prior to making decisions compared to traditional teams, and take longer to come to decisions due to the changes in time zones and cultural events. However, team members feel more empowered to speak out when they do not agree with the team and to notify others of potential issues regarding the work that the team is doing. Virtual teams which are a subset of the distributed team type is changing organizational strategies due to the fact that a team can now in essence be working 24 hrs a day because of utilizing employees in various time zones and locations.  A primary example of this is with customer services departments, a company can have multiple call centers spread across multiple time zones allowing them to appear to be open 24 hours a day while all a employees work from 9AM to 5 PM every day. Virtual teams also allow human resources departments to go after the best talent for the company regardless of where the potential employee works because they will be a part of a virtual team all that is need is the proper technology to be setup to allow everyone to communicate. In addition to allowing employees to work from home, the company can save space and resources by not having to provide a desk for every team member. In fact, those team members that randomly come into the office can actually share one desk amongst multiple people. This is definitely a cost cutting plus given the current state of the economy. One thing that can turn a team into a high-performing team is leadership. High-performing team leaders need to focus on investing in ongoing personal development, provide team members with direction, structure, and resources needed to accomplish their work, make the right interventions at the right time, and help the team manage boundaries between the team and various external parties involved in the teams work. A team leader needs to invest in ongoing personal development in order to effectively manage their team. People have said that attitude is everything; this is very true about leaders and leadership. A team takes on the attitudes and behaviors of its leaders. This can potentially harm the team and the team’s output. Leaders must concentrate on self-awareness, and understanding their team’s group dynamics to fully understand how to lead them. In addition, always learning new leadership techniques from other effective leaders is also very beneficial. Providing team members with direction, structure, and resources that they need to accomplish their work collectively sounds easy, but it is not.  Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate with their team on how their work helps the company reach for its organizational vision. Conversely, the leader needs to allow his team to work autonomously within specific guidelines to turn the company’s vision into a reality.  This being said the team must be appropriately staffed according to the size of the team’s tasks and their complexity. These tasks should be clear, and be meaningful to the company’s objectives and allow for feedback to be exchanged with the leader and the team member and the leader and upper management. Now if the team is properly staffed, and has a clear and full understanding of what is to be done; the company also must supply the workers with the proper tools to achieve the tasks that they are asked to do. No one should be asked to dig a hole without being given a shovel.  Finally, leaders must reward their team members for accomplishments that they achieve. Awards could range from just a simple congratulatory email, a party to close the completion of a large project, or other monetary rewards. Managing boundaries is very important for team leaders because it can alter attitudes of team members and can add undue stress to the team which will force them to loose focus on the tasks at hand for the group. Team leaders should promote communication between team members so that burdens are shared amongst the team and solutions can be derived from hearing the opinions of multiple sources. This also reinforces team camaraderie and working as a unit. Team leaders must manage the type and timing of interventions as to not create an even bigger mess within the team. Poorly timed interventions can really deflate team members and make them question themselves. This could really increase further and undue interventions by the team leader. Typically, the best time for interventions is when the team is just starting to form so that all unproductive behaviors are removed from the team and that it can retain focus on its agenda. If an intervention is effectively executed the team will feel energized about the work that they are doing, promote communication and interaction amongst the group and improve moral overall. High-performing teams are very import to organizations because they consistently produce high quality output and develop a collective purpose for their work. This drive to succeed allows team members to utilize specific talents allowing for growth in these areas.  In addition, these team members usually take on a sense of ownership with their projects and feel that the other team members are irreplaceable. References: http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/3127/Three-ways-to-organize-your-team-co-located-outsourced-or-global.aspx Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-performance Organization. Boston: Harvard Business School.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, February 19, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, February 19, 2011Popular ReleasesAdvanced Explorer for Wp7: Advanced Explorer for Wp7 Version 1.4 Test8: Added option to run under Lockscreen. Fixed a bug when you open a pdf/mobi file without starting adobe reader/amazon kindle first boost loading time for folders added \Windows directory (all devices) you can now interact with the filesystem while it is loading!Game Files Open - Map Editor: Game Files Open - Map Editor Beta 2 v1.0.0.0: The 2° beta release of the Map Editor, we have fixed a big bug of the files regen.Document.Editor: 2011.6: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.6: New Left to Right and Left to Right support New Indent more/less support Improved Home tab Improved Tooltips/shortcut keys Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsCatel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.2: Catel history ============= (+) Added (*) Changed (-) Removed (x) Error / bug (fix) For more information about issues or new feature requests, please visit: http://catel.codeplex.com =========== Version 1.2 =========== Release date: ============= 2011/02/17 Added/fixed: ============ (+) DataObjectBase now supports Isolated Storage out of the box: Person.Save(myStream) stores a whole object graph in Silverlight (+) DataObjectBase can now be converted to Json via Person.ToJson(); (+)...??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-02-18: ?????All-In-One Code Framework?2011??????????！！http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ?????，?????AzureBingMaps??????，??Azure，WCF, Silverlight, Window Phone????????，????????????????????????。 ???： Windows Azure SQL Azure Windows Azure AppFabric Windows Live Messenger Connect Bing Maps ?????： ??????HTML??? ??Windows PC?Mac?Silverlight??? ??Windows Phone?Silverlight??? ?????：http://blog.csdn.net/sjb5201/archive/2011...Image.Viewer: 2011: First version of 2011Silverlight Toolkit: Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit - Feb 2011: Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit OverviewSilverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit offers developers additional controls for Windows Phone application development, designed to match the rich user experience of the Windows Phone 7. Suggestions? Features? Questions? Ask questions in the Create.msdn.com forum. Add bugs or feature requests to the Issue Tracker. Help us shape the Silverlight Toolkit with your feedback! Please clearly indicate that the work items and issues are for the phone t...VsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 29 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) Build 29 (beta)New: Added VsTortoise Solution Explorer integration for Web Project Folder, Web Folder and Web Item. Fix: TortoiseProc was called with invalid parameters, when using TSVN 1.4.x or older #7338 (thanks psifive) Fix: Add-in does not work, when "TortoiseSVN/bin" is not added to PATH environment variable #7357 Fix: Missing error message when ...Sense/Net CMS - Enterprise Content Management: SenseNet 6.0.3 Community Edition: Sense/Net 6.0.3 Community Edition We are happy to introduce you the latest version of Sense/Net with integrated ECM Workflow capabilities! In the past weeks we have been working hard to migrate the product to .Net 4 and include a workflow framework in Sense/Net built upon Windows Workflow Foundation 4. This brand new feature enables developers to define and develop workflows, and supports users when building and setting up complicated business processes involving content creation and response...thinktecture WSCF.blue: WSCF.blue V1 Update (1.0.11): Features Added a new option that allows properties on data contract types to be marked as virtual. Bug Fixes Fixed a bug caused by certain project properties not being available on Web Service Software Factory projects. Fixed a bug that could result in the WrapperName value of the MessageContractAttribute being incorrect when the Adjust Casing option is used. The menu item code now caters for CommandBar instances that are not available. For example the Web Item CommandBar does not exist ...Terminals: Version 2 - RC1: The "Clean Install" will overwrite your log4net configuration (if you have one). If you run in a Portable Environment, you can use the "Clean Install" and target your portable folder. Tested and it works fine. Changes for this release: Re-worked on the Toolstip settings are done, just to avoid the vs.net clash with auto-generating files for .settings files. renamed it to .settings.config Packged both log4net and ToolStripSettings files into the installer Upgraded the version inform...AllNewsManager.NET: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3. This new version provide several new features, improvements and bug fixes. Some new features: Online Users. Avatars. Copy function (to create a new article from another one). SEO improvements (friendly urls). New admin buttons. And more...Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 0.8: Version 0.8 (15 Feb 2011)moved to Beta stage publish photo feature "email" field of User object added new Graph Api object: Group, Event new Graph Api connection: likes, groups, eventsDJME - The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC: DJME2 -The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC beta2: The source code and runtime library for DJME2. For more product info you can goto http://www.dotnetage.com/djme.html What is new ?The Grid extension added The ModelBinder added which helping you create Bindable data Action. The DnaFor() control factory added that enabled Model bindable extensions. Enhance the ListBox , ComboBox data binding.Jint - Javascript Interpreter for .NET: Jint - 0.9.0: New CLR interoperability features Many bugfixesBuild Version Increment Add-In Visual Studio: Build Version Increment v2.4.11046.2045: v2.4.11046.2045 Fixes and/or Improvements:Major: Added complete support for VC projects including .vcxproj & .vcproj. All padding issues fixed. A project's assembly versions are only changed if the project has been modified. Minor Order of versioning style values is now according to their respective positions in the attributes i.e. Major, Minor, Build, Revision. Fixed issue with global variable storage with some projects. Fixed issue where if a project item's file does not exist, a ...Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1 release. Bug fixes and minor feature requests addedTV4Home - The all-in-one TV solution!: 0.1.0.0 Preview: This is the beta preview release of the TV4Home software.Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.2: Fixes a few minor issues with 1.1 including the broken per-desktop backgrounds Further improves the speed of switching desktops A few UI performance improvements Added donations linksNuGet: NuGet 1.1: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. The URL to the package OData feed is: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669 To see the list of issues fixed in this release, visit this our issues list A...New ProjectsComplexityEvolution: Research projectCRM 2011 Metadata Browser: The CRM 2011 Metadata Browser is a Silverlight 4 application that is packaged as a Managed CRM Solution. This tool allows you to view metadata including Entities, Attributes and Relationships. The 2011 SOAP endpoint is used to connect to CRM using the Organization.svc/web serviceEFCFvsNH3: A sample project that shows the main differences between Entity Framework Code First and Nhibernate 3: -Mapping -Configuration -DB Initialization -Query API -Session & Transaction -ValidationE-Teacher for IELTS preparation: E-teacher helps IELTS students prepare for the IELTS Academic and General Training test. Qualified English Teachers can register to the e-community and helps candidates to understand what they really need to improve for the IELTS exam and how to reach for the maximum band score.FIM CM Extensions: Extensions for Forefront Identity Manager 2010 to enable integration between the FIM Service workflow and the FIM Certificate Management workflow. Game Files Open - Map Editor: This is a map editor for the metin2 clients, it's very simple edit or create a map with this tool.Garbage Collection Sample Code: Garbage collection sample code demonstrates the differences between the large and small object heaps. This code supports the blog post at http://www.deepcode.co.ukGardenersWorld: The aim of gardenersWorld community website is to provide a platform for budding gardenening enthusiasts, hobbyists and professionals to share information. Harvester - Debug Monitor for Log4Net and NLog: Harvester enables you to monitor all Win32 debug output from all applications running on your machine. Watch real time Log4Net and NLog output across multiple applications at the same time. Trace a call from client to server and back without having to look at multiple log files.Hjelp! Jeg skal ha farmakokinetikk-eksamen!: Sliter du med å pugge formler til farmakokinetikk-eksamenen? Da er redningen din her! :DMercury Business Framework: Mercury Business Framework is a project set up to define basic objects used by the vast majority of business and non business software. The idea is to define the low level objects required by most applications on the web and desktop.MyDistrictBuilder: MyDistrictBuilder allows anybody to build legislative districts and submit to the Florida House of Rep. It is built on Bing Maps, Silverlight and AZURE. Written in C#. It is written to allow anyone to adapt for any states census geography. www.floridaredistricting.cloudapp.netMySchoolApp: MySchoolApp is a customizable application written in Visual Basic and C# for the Windows Mobile Phone 7 platform using Visual Studio Professional 2010. The application combines links to RSS and Web sites about a school, and displays a map and local weather. Osm Parser Community Edition: Osm Parser parse highways in open street maps to generate routable roads network in spatialite.PRBox Cloud Website: This is the website base for PRBox.com SEO Reporter : open source search engine optimization software: SEO Reporter is an open source search engine optimization application for detecting HTML related SEO violations, gathering data about a Web page and analyzing its keywords strategy. It's a Windows navigation application developed in F#. Setting timeout for SharePoint 2010 Silverlight web part: This web part overwrites 5sec hard-coded timeout for SharePoint 2010 Silverlight web part.SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Automatic Resources Link Generator: This feature will automatically generate the resources links list (Quick Links) in your SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site making it easier for SharePoint Admins to navigate through the common Central Administration activities without populating it themselves - VS2010/c#SharePoint Holiday Loader: SharePoint Holiday Loader allows you to quickly import public holidays into a SharePoint calendar from the standard .HOL format.Sohu?????: ?????????WPF?????????????，????????????（??、??、???），??、??、???????，????????????，??????????????。 ??V1????????，V2?????????????????。SP2010 Form Manipulator: This project will hopefully make it easier to manipulate the list form in SharePoint 2010.SPRotator: A jQuery powered web part for SharePoint that cycles through any type of list.SQL Script to Create a Website Directory: Here you can download sql script to create a website directory using SQL Server. * This is only the easy directory sql script to develop your website. Directory software may publish in future.Sri Hits Zone: This is an online repository which used to share Sri Lankan music. This is to provide Sri Lankans who living abroad to being touches with Sri Lankan artist and their music. testz: testzTime domain dissipative acoustic problem: tddapWindows Azure Hosted Services VM Manager: Windows Azure Hosted Services VM Manager is a Windows Service that can manage the number of hosted services running in Azure by either a time based schedule or by CPU load. This allows your service to scale for either dynamic load or a known schedule. Z80TR: Z80TR

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• SQL Developer Q&A from ODTUG Tips & Tricks Webcast

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Another great webcast yesterday – if you’re a paying member of ODTUG you can watch the show for yourself in their archives. If not, you can get my slide deck off of SlideShare. About 150 of you brave souls sat through an entire hour of me talking and then 10 more minutes of Q&A. We went through everything rapid-fire style, so I thought I would post the questions and my refined answers here for your perusal. In the order in which I received them: You showed the preference to choose between resultsets in same tab or ain a new tab. I understand that we can not have it both using different hotkeys? For example: F5 run and resultset to same tab, ctrl-f5 same but to new tab? Sometimes you want the one other times the other. The questioner is asking about this preference, Tools Preferences Database Worksheet ‘Show query results in new tabs.’ This is an all or nothing proposition. But, there’s another, perhaps better way: the document PINs. If you have a result set you don’t want to lose, ‘pin it.’ Pin multiple result sets or plans for review and comparisons. You mentioned that sometimes it’s hard to remember where a certain preference is. I agree. So enhancement request: add a search-box to the preferences window. Maybe like in, for example, UltraEdit. It shows you all preferences containing your search criteria. Actually, we do have a search mechanism type the search string, we auto-filter the preferences Is there a version of SQL Developer that will connect to an 8i database (Yes, I realize how old that database version is!) Sorry, no. We also don’t have a version that will run on Windows 3.11 for Workgroups…probably. How do we access your blog? Carefully, and with much trepidation. When you’re ready, go to http://www.thatjeffsmith.com Is there a way to get good formatting with predefined settings? I believe the questioner is referring to the script output a la SQL*Plus formatting commands. Yes, there is. You can build your formatting commands into your login.sql script, and those will be applied for your script execution sessions. Example here. Why this version 4.0 doesn’t support external plugins? It does, it just requires the plugin developer to re-factor it for OSGi. This came about when we updated the JDeveloper framework to the later 11g/12c stuff. Any change in hookup with SVN? The only change with Subversion is that internally we’re using 1.7 stuff now. You can use SQLDev to work with a 1.8 SVN server, but if you get a working copy with a 1.8 client SQLDev won’t be able to do anything with it… Command line utilities ? improvements Yes! The long answer is here. Is that a Hint or a Comment?? /*CSV*/ It’s a comment – the database won’t recognize it, but SQLDev does when it goes through our statement pre-processor. We’ll redirect the output through our CSV formatter before displaying the results in the Script Output panel. That’s why this will ONLY work in SQL Developer. Are you selecting “”Run Script”" to get that CSV or HTML output, rather than “”Run Statement”"? Yes, the formatter hints like the CSV one mentioned above only make sense in a script output panel vs a grid. How do you save relational models once they’re defined? I’ve had trouble with setting one up, “”saving”" it, then the design work I did is longer there when loading it later. File – Data Modeler – Save. If you’re running the Modeler inside of SQL Developer, the menu’ing interface can get a bit tricky. That’s why I recommend using the stand along if you’re doing anything with a model that takes more than 5 minutes. See how the Data Modeler menus are folded up under the SQL Dev menus? Can u unplug and plug into another container in a database with only sqldeveloper? Yes, you can ‘Detach’ a multitentant 12c Database ‘pluggable’ and plug it into another instance. You have the option to copy or move the files. This isn’t a trivial operation, pay attention Can you run APEX code directly on the adopter? No, at least not as I understand your question. Give me an example and I can give you a better example. Is there a way that when u click on a particular table it wouldn’t show the table with the info but just to see the columns underneath clicking on the node? Yes, another one of my tips! Disable Tools Preferences Datbase ObjectViewer ‘Open Object on Single Click.’ Is there a patch to allow a double click on a procedure on an open package body to take you to that procedure in the editor? This has been fixed for EA3 – to be released soon. Can you open the spec with the body? You can open the spec or the body, and then also open the other. But you can’t open both with a single click. So if you want you can set it to CSV but can you also see it as a regular result set in rows and then click in the results to export to excel? If you run your query as a statement with Ctrl-Enter, you can send the data to Excel via the Export dialog. Will it do intellisense like using the alias and pop up the column, object names? Yes! You can select more than one column… Can a DBA turn off items from a high level for users so the only thing they can perform would be selects? A DBA should turn things ON, not OFF. Create a user with only CONNECT and required SELECT privs and you’re good to go, regardless of which application they are using. I use PL/SQL Developer from allround automations and was SQL Developer illiterate and now I like this for myself as a DBA. Now I get to train developers on this tool since they have been asking how to use this tool. Thank you. No, THANK YOU! Can you run multi queries in the worksheet after you added it to the worksheet? Yes, highlight what you want to run, and hit Ctrl-Enter. Can you export the result sets to excel, etc. Yes. In version 4.0 and going forward, I recommend you use the XLSX option for exports. It will run faster and consume much, much less memory. Will this be available after the webinar? If you are a ODTUG member, check out the webinar recordings in the archives. That’s worth the $99 right there. Ask your boss if they have $99 in their training budget for you. If not, maybe time to look for another job? Can you run command lines from this tool? Like executes without issuing a command line prompt? Ok, I’m stumped on this one. Not sure what you’re asking. You can setup external tools under the Tools menu, and from there you could probably rig what you’re looking for, but I’m not sure what you’re looking for… This maybe?Where and when to put the program Is there any way to save a copy database command set (certain tables/views etc) in a script? Yes! Create a cart with the objects you want to be used in the Copy. Then use the new command-line interface to kick off SQL Developer to do the copy of those said objects. How can we export the preference and then import them into different or same version of SQL Developer ? Today, there’s no interface for this. But you could copy the files around manually…Kris Rice has a cool idea where you can set your preferences to be saved to your local drop box folder and then you can use SQL Developer from anywhere with the same preferences What happens to SQL*Plus commands like COL & BREAK Nothing. Those are not currently supported. Is there a place where all “”hotkey”" functionality is listed? thanks Yes. Tools – Preferences – Shortcut Keys. And you can change them! Any tips for the DBA side of things? will the SQL generated for objects have more information (e.g. user privileges) in v4? You can get this now. In Tools – Preferences – Database – Utilities – Export, check ‘Grants.’ Voila! You now have the code necessary to recreate your object privileges Is there a limit on the number of rows that could be imported / exported from/to excel ? The only hard-coded limit lies in Excel. For best performance, use v4 and XLSX formats for Exports. Is there a way to see/watch active sessions to see current SQL and the explain plan being used, etc. Kind of like that frog product. Cough, yes. Tools – Monitor Sessions. Click on session, see SQL and plan. The plan was added in v4. If you’re not in version 4, use the Reports – Active Sessions to get the plans. In the DBA section is there a way to manage say tablespaces to add data files, shrink, edit profiles, etc. Yes, we support all of that. View – DBA. Connect, go to the Storage node. Are you (Jeff) available for a live presentation at our Oracle User Group here in Indiana? Maybe. Email me and we’ll see, [email protected] Where do I go to download sql developer 4.0? The Internet of course! Can you directly edit query results? Nope. But what I think you’re asking is, can I edit the data in the tables that are reflected in my query results? You can change the query results by changing your query of course. Or this. Can you show html example? Sure. I’d embed the HTML here, but it’s a lot of code, try it for yourself! How can I quickly close many SQL worksheet windows, but not all? Window – Documents. Multi-select, hit the ‘Close Document(s)’ button. What does the vertical red line denote? That’s the margin. Tells you when you’ve typed too far and it’s time for a carriage return. Did DBA/Database Status/Instance Viewer make it officially into 4.0? It was sort-of included in the first EA. I have NO idea what you’re talking about, WINK-WINK. No, it’s not in v4.0. Is there a “”handy”" way to debug trigger code? Yes, open your trigger. Hit the debug button. Works great as long as it’s a DML trigger. Will you make your presentation file available for us ( in PPT and/or PDF format ) ? It’s on SlideShare. How do you get SqlDeveloper to escape ‘ correctly when you use the wizard to export data as insert statements? If it’s not doing that, it’s a bug. I’ll take a look at that scenario ASAP.

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Classification design

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g indexThis is the final article in the quick guide to Oracle IRM. If you've followed everything prior you will now have a fully functional and tested Information Rights Management service. It doesn't matter if you've been following the 10g or 11g guide as this next article is common to both. ContentsWhy this is the most important part... Understanding the classification and standard rights model Identifying business use cases Creating an effective IRM classification modelOne single classification across the entire businessA context for each and every possible granular use caseWhat makes a good context? Deciding on the use of roles in the context Reviewing the features and security for context roles Summary Why this is the most important part...Now the real work begins, installing and getting an IRM system running is as simple as following instructions. However to actually have an IRM technology easily protecting your most sensitive information without interfering with your users existing daily work flows and be able to scale IRM across the entire business, requires thought into how confidential documents are created, used and distributed. This article is going to give you the information you need to ask the business the right questions so that you can deploy your IRM service successfully. The IRM team here at Oracle have over 10 years of experience in helping customers and it is important you understand the following to be successful in securing access to your most confidential information. Whatever you are trying to secure, be it mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, health care documentation or financial reports. No matter what type of user is going to access the information, be they employees, contractors or customers, there are common goals you are always trying to achieve.Securing the content at the earliest point possible and do it automatically. Removing the dependency on the user to decide to secure the content reduces the risk of mistakes significantly and therefore results a more secure deployment. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Reduce complexity in the rights/classification model. Oracle IRM lets you make changes to access to documents even after they are secured which allows you to start with a simple model and then introduce complexity once you've understood how the technology is going to be used in the business. After an initial learning period you can review your implementation and start to make informed decisions based on user feedback and administration experience. Clearly communicate to the user, when appropriate, any changes to their existing work practice. You must make every effort to make the transition to sealed content as simple as possible. For external users you must help them understand why you are securing the documents and inform them the value of the technology to both your business and them. Before getting into the detail, I must pay homage to Martin White, Vice President of client services in SealedMedia, the company Oracle acquired and who created Oracle IRM. In the SealedMedia years Martin was involved with every single customer and was key to the design of certain aspects of the IRM technology, specifically the context model we will be discussing here. Listening carefully to customers and understanding the flexibility of the IRM technology, Martin taught me all the skills of helping customers build scalable, effective and simple to use IRM deployments. No matter how well the engineering department designed the software, badly designed and poorly executed projects can result in difficult to use and manage, and ultimately insecure solutions. The advice and information that follows was born with Martin and he's still delivering IRM consulting with customers and can be found at www.thinkers.co.uk. It is from Martin and others that Oracle not only has the most advanced, scalable and usable document security solution on the market, but Oracle and their partners have the most experience in delivering successful document security solutions. Understanding the classification and standard rights model The goal of any successful IRM deployment is to balance the increase in security the technology brings without over complicating the way people use secured content and avoid a significant increase in administration and maintenance. With Oracle it is possible to automate the protection of content, deploy the desktop software transparently and use authentication methods such that users can open newly secured content initially unaware the document is any different to an insecure one. That is until of course they attempt to do something for which they don't have any rights, such as copy and paste to an insecure application or try and print. Central to achieving this objective is creating a classification model that is simple to understand and use but also provides the right level of complexity to meet the business needs. In Oracle IRM the term used for each classification is a "context". A context defines the relationship between.A group of related documents The people that use the documents The roles that these people perform The rights that these people need to perform their role The context is the key to the success of Oracle IRM. It provides the separation of the role and rights of a user from the content itself. Documents are sealed to contexts but none of the rights, user or group information is stored within the content itself. Sealing only places information about the location of the IRM server that sealed it, the context applied to the document and a few other pieces of metadata that pertain only to the document. This important separation of rights from content means that millions of documents can be secured against a single classification and a user needs only one right assigned to be able to access all documents. If you have followed all the previous articles in this guide, you will be ready to start defining contexts to which your sensitive information will be protected. But before you even start with IRM, you need to understand how your own business uses and creates sensitive documents and emails. Identifying business use cases Oracle is able to support multiple classification systems, but usually there is one single initial need for the technology which drives a deployment. This need might be to protect sensitive mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, financial documents. For this and every subsequent use case you must understand how users create and work with documents, to who they are distributed and how the recipients should interact with them. A successful IRM deployment should start with one well identified use case (we go through some examples towards the end of this article) and then after letting this use case play out in the business, you learn how your users work with content, how well your communication to the business worked and if the classification system you deployed delivered the right balance. It is at this point you can start rolling the technology out further. Creating an effective IRM classification model Once you have selected the initial use case you will address with IRM, you need to design a classification model that defines the access to secured documents within the use case. In Oracle IRM there is an inbuilt classification system called the "context" model. In Oracle IRM 11g it is possible to extend the server to support any rights classification model, but the majority of users who are not using an application integration (such as Oracle IRM within Oracle Beehive) are likely to be starting out with the built in context model. Before looking at creating a classification system with IRM, it is worth reviewing some recognized standards and methods for creating and implementing security policy. A very useful set of documents are the ISO 17799 guidelines and the SANS security policy templates. First task is to create a context against which documents are to be secured. A context consists of a group of related documents (all top secret engineering research), a list of roles (contributors and readers) which define how users can access documents and a list of users (research engineers) who have been given a role allowing them to interact with sealed content. Before even creating the first context it is wise to decide on a philosophy which will dictate the level of granularity, the question is, where do you start? At a department level? By project? By technology? First consider the two ends of the spectrum... One single classification across the entire business Imagine that instead of having separate contexts, one for engineering intellectual property, one for your financial data, one for human resources personally identifiable information, you create one context for all documents across the entire business. Whilst you may have immediate objections, there are some significant benefits in thinking about considering this. Document security classification decisions are simple. You only have one context to chose from! User provisioning is simple, just make sure everyone has a role in the only context in the business. Administration is very low, if you assign rights to groups from the business user repository you probably never have to touch IRM administration again. There are however some obvious downsides to this model.All users in have access to all IRM secured content. So potentially a sales person could access sensitive mergers and acquisition documents, if they can get their hands on a copy that is. You cannot delegate control of different documents to different parts of the business, this may not satisfy your regulatory requirements for the separation and delegation of duties. Changing a users role affects every single document ever secured. Even though it is very unlikely a business would ever use one single context to secure all their sensitive information, thinking about this scenario raises one very important point. Just having one single context and securing all confidential documents to it, whilst incurring some of the problems detailed above, has one huge value. Once secured, IRM protected content can ONLY be accessed by authorized users. Just think of all the sensitive documents in your business today, imagine if you could ensure that only everyone you trust could open them. Even if an employee lost a laptop or someone accidentally sent an email to the wrong recipient, only the right people could open that file. A context for each and every possible granular use case Now let's think about the total opposite of a single context design. What if you created a context for each and every single defined business need and created multiple contexts within this for each level of granularity? Let's take a use case where we need to protect engineering intellectual property. Imagine we have 6 different engineering groups, and in each we have a research department, a design department and manufacturing. The company information security policy defines 3 levels of information sensitivity... restricted, confidential and top secret. Then let's say that each group and department needs to define access to information from both internal and external users. Finally add into the mix that they want to review the rights model for each context every financial quarter. This would result in a huge amount of contexts. For example, lets just look at the resulting contexts for one engineering group. Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Restricted External- Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Now multiply the above by 6 for each engineering group, 18 contexts. You are then creating/reviewing another 18 every 3 months. After a year you've got 72 contexts. What would be the advantages of such a complex classification model? You can satisfy very granular rights requirements, for example only an authorized engineering group 1 researcher can create a top secret report for access internally, and his role will be reviewed on a very frequent basis. Your business may have very complex rights requirements and mapping this directly to IRM may be an obvious exercise. The disadvantages of such a classification model are significant...Huge administrative overhead. Someone in the business must manage, review and administrate each of these contexts. If the engineering group had a single administrator, they would have 72 classifications to reside over each year. From an end users perspective life will be very confusing. Imagine if a user has rights in just 6 of these contexts. They may be able to print content from one but not another, be able to edit content in 2 contexts but not the other 4. Such confusion at the end user level causes frustration and resistance to the use of the technology. Increased synchronization complexity. Imagine a user who after 3 years in the company ends up with over 300 rights in many different contexts across the business. This would result in long synchronization times as the client software updates all your offline rights. Hard to understand who can do what with what. Imagine being the VP of engineering and as part of an internal security audit you are asked the question, "What rights to researchers have to our top secret information?". In this complex model the answer is not simple, it would depend on many roles in many contexts. Of course this example is extreme, but it highlights that trying to build many barriers in your business can result in a nightmare of administration and confusion amongst users. In the real world what we need is a balance of the two. We need to seek an optimum number of contexts. Too many contexts are unmanageable and too few contexts does not give fine enough granularity. What makes a good context? Good context design derives mainly from how well you understand your business requirements to secure access to confidential information. Some customers I have worked with can tell me exactly the documents they wish to secure and know exactly who should be opening them. However there are some customers who know only of the government regulation that requires them to control access to certain types of information, they don't actually know where the documents are, how they are created or understand exactly who should have access. Therefore you need to know how to ask the business the right questions that lead to information which help you define a context. First ask these questions about a set of documentsWhat is the topic? Who are legitimate contributors on this topic? Who are the authorized readership? If the answer to any one of these is significantly different, then it probably merits a separate context. Remember that sealed documents are inherently secure and as such they cannot leak to your competitors, therefore it is better sealed to a broad context than not sealed at all. Simplicity is key here. Always revert to the first extreme example of a single classification, then work towards essential complexity. If there is any doubt, always prefer fewer contexts. Remember, Oracle IRM allows you to change your mind later on. You can implement a design now and continue to change and refine as you learn how the technology is used. It is easy to go from a simple model to a more complex one, it is much harder to take a complex model that is already embedded in the work practice of users and try to simplify it. It is also wise to take a single use case and address this first with the business. Don't try and tackle many different problems from the outset. Do one, learn from the process, refine it and then take what you have learned into the next use case, refine and continue. Once you have a good grasp of the technology and understand how your business will use it, you can then start rolling out the technology wider across the business. Deciding on the use of roles in the context Once you have decided on that first initial use case and a context to create let's look at the details you need to decide upon. For each context, identify; Administrative rolesBusiness owner, the person who makes decisions about who may or may not see content in this context. This is often the person who wanted to use IRM and drove the business purchase. They are the usually the person with the most at risk when sensitive information is lost. Point of contact, the person who will handle requests for access to content. Sometimes the same as the business owner, sometimes a trusted secretary or administrator. Context administrator, the person who will enact the decisions of the Business Owner. Sometimes the point of contact, sometimes a trusted IT person. Document related rolesContributors, the people who create and edit documents in this context. Reviewers, the people who are involved in reviewing documents but are not trusted to secure information to this classification. This role is not always necessary. (See later discussion on Published-work and Work-in-Progress) Readers, the people who read documents from this context. Some people may have several of the roles above, which is fine. What you are trying to do is understand and define how the business interacts with your sensitive information. These roles obviously map directly to roles available in Oracle IRM. Reviewing the features and security for context roles At this point we have decided on a classification of information, understand what roles people in the business will play when administrating this classification and how they will interact with content. The final piece of the puzzle in getting the information for our first context is to look at the permissions people will have to sealed documents. First think why are you protecting the documents in the first place? It is to prevent the loss of leaking of information to the wrong people. To control the information, making sure that people only access the latest versions of documents. You are not using Oracle IRM to prevent unauthorized people from doing legitimate work. This is an important point, with IRM you can erect many barriers to prevent access to content yet too many restrictions and authorized users will often find ways to circumvent using the technology and end up distributing unprotected originals. Because IRM is a security technology, it is easy to get carried away restricting different groups. However I would highly recommend starting with a simple solution with few restrictions. Ensure that everyone who reasonably needs to read documents can do so from the outset. Remember that with Oracle IRM you can change rights to content whenever you wish and tighten security. Always return to the fact that the greatest value IRM brings is that ONLY authorized users can access secured content, remember that simple "one context for the entire business" model. At the start of the deployment you really need to aim for user acceptance and therefore a simple model is more likely to succeed. As time passes and users understand how IRM works you can start to introduce more restrictions and complexity. Another key aspect to focus on is handling exceptions. If you decide on a context model where engineering can only access engineering information, and sales can only access sales data. Act quickly when a sales manager needs legitimate access to a set of engineering documents. Having a quick and effective process for permitting other people with legitimate needs to obtain appropriate access will be rewarded with acceptance from the user community. These use cases can often be satisfied by integrating IRM with a good Identity & Access Management technology which simplifies the process of assigning users the correct business roles. The big print issue... Printing is often an issue of contention, users love to print but the business wants to ensure sensitive information remains in the controlled digital world. There are many cases of physical document loss causing a business pain, it is often overlooked that IRM can help with this issue by limiting the ability to generate physical copies of digital content. However it can be hard to maintain a balance between security and usability when it comes to printing. Consider the following points when deciding about whether to give print rights. Oracle IRM sealed documents can contain watermarks that expose information about the user, time and location of access and the classification of the document. This information would reside in the printed copy making it easier to trace who printed it. Printed documents are slower to distribute in comparison to their digital counterparts, so time sensitive information in printed format may present a lower risk. Print activity is audited, therefore you can monitor and react to users abusing print rights. Summary In summary it is important to think carefully about the way you create your context model. As you ask the business these questions you may get a variety of different requirements. There may be special projects that require a context just for sensitive information created during the lifetime of the project. There may be a department that requires all information in the group is secured and you might have a few senior executives who wish to use IRM to exchange a small number of highly sensitive documents with a very small number of people. Oracle IRM, with its very flexible context classification system, can support all of these use cases. The trick is to introducing the complexity to deliver them at the right level. In another article i'm working on I will go through some examples of how Oracle IRM might map to existing business use cases. But for now, this article covers all the important questions you need to get your IRM service deployed and successfully protecting your most sensitive information.

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• The Art of Productivity

  - by dwahlin

  Getting things done has always been a challenge regardless of gender, age, race, skill, or job position. No matter how hard some people try, they end up procrastinating tasks until the last minute. Some people simply focus better when they know they’re out of time and can’t procrastinate any longer. How many times have you put off working on a term paper in school until the very last minute? With only a few hours left your mental energy and focus seem to kick in to high gear especially as you realize that you either get the paper done now or risk failing. It’s amazing how a little pressure can turn into a motivator and allow our minds to focus on a given task. Some people seem to specialize in procrastinating just about everything they do while others tend to be the “doers” who get a lot done and ultimately rise up the ladder at work. What’s the difference between these types of people? Is it pure laziness or are other factors at play? I think that some people are certainly more motivated than others, but I also think a lot of it is based on the process that “doers” tend to follow - whether knowingly or unknowingly. While I’ve certainly fought battles with procrastination, I’ve always had a knack for being able to get a lot done in a relatively short amount of time. I think a lot of my “get it done” attitude goes back to the the strong work ethic my parents instilled in me at a young age. I remember my dad saying, “You need to learn to work hard!” when I was around 5 years old. I remember that moment specifically because I was on a tractor with him the first time I heard it while he was trying to move some large rocks into a pile. The tractor was big but so were the rocks and my dad had to balance the tractor perfectly so that it didn’t tip forward too far. It was challenging work and somewhat tedious but my dad finished the task and taught me a few important lessons along the way including persistence, the importance of having a skill, and getting the job done right without skimping along the way. In this post I’m going to list a few of the techniques and processes I follow that I hope may be beneficial to others. I blogged about the general concept back in 2009 but thought I’d share some updated information and lessons learned since then. Most of the ideas that follow came from learning and refining my daily work process over the years. However, since most of the ideas are common sense (at least in my opinion), I suspect they can be found in other productivity processes that are out there. Let’s start off with one of the most important yet simple tips: Start Each Day with a List. Start Each Day with a List What are you planning to get done today? Do you keep track of everything in your head or rely on your calendar? While most of us think that we’re pretty good at managing “to do” lists strictly in our head you might be surprised at how affective writing out lists can be. By writing out tasks you’re forced to focus on the most important tasks to accomplish that day, commit yourself to those tasks, and have an easy way to track what was supposed to get done and what actually got done. Start every morning by making a list of specific tasks that you want to accomplish throughout the day. I’ll even go so far as to fill in times when I’d like to work on tasks if I have a lot of meetings or other events tying up my calendar on a given day. I’m not a big fan of using paper since I type a lot faster than I write (plus I write like a 3rd grader according to my wife), so I use the Sticky Notes feature available in Windows. Here’s an example of yesterday’s sticky note: What do you add to your list? That’s the subject of the next tip. Focus on Small Tasks It’s no secret that focusing on small, manageable tasks is more effective than trying to focus on large and more vague tasks. When you make your list each morning only add tasks that you can accomplish within a given time period. For example, if I only have 30 minutes blocked out to work on an article I don’t list “Write Article”. If I do that I’ll end up wasting 30 minutes stressing about how I’m going to get the article done in 30 minutes and ultimately get nothing done. Instead, I’ll list something like “Write Introductory Paragraphs for Article”. The next day I may add, “Write first section of article” or something that’s small and manageable – something I’m confident that I can get done. You’ll find that once you’ve knocked out several smaller tasks it’s easy to continue completing others since you want to keep the momentum going. In addition to keeping my tasks focused and small, I also make a conscious effort to limit my list to 4 or 5 tasks initially. I’ve found that if I list more than 5 tasks I feel a bit overwhelmed which hurts my productivity. It’s easy to add additional tasks as you complete others and you get the added benefit of that confidence boost of knowing that you’re being productive and getting things done as you remove tasks and add others. Getting Started is the Hardest (Yet Easiest) Part I’ve always found that getting started is the hardest part and one of the biggest contributors to procrastination. Getting started working on tasks is a lot like getting a large rock pushed to the bottom of a hill. It’s difficult to get the rock rolling at first, but once you manage to get it rocking some it’s really easy to get it rolling on its way to the bottom. As an example, I’ve written 100s of articles for technical magazines over the years and have really struggled with the initial introductory paragraphs. Keep in mind that these are the paragraphs that don’t really add that much value (in my opinion anyway). They introduce the reader to the subject matter and nothing more. What a waste of time for me to sit there stressing about how to start the article. On more than one occasion I’ve spent more than an hour trying to come up with 2-3 paragraphs of text.  Talk about a productivity killer! Whether you’re struggling with a writing task, some code for a project, an email, or other tasks, jumping in without thinking too much is the best way to get started I’ve found. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have an overall plan when jumping into a task, but on some occasions you’ll find that if you simply jump into the task and stop worrying about doing everything perfectly that things will flow more smoothly. For my introductory paragraph problem I give myself 5 minutes to write out some general concepts about what I know the article will cover and then spend another 10-15 minutes going back and refining that information. That way I actually have some ideas to work with rather than a blank sheet of paper. If I still find myself struggling I’ll write the rest of the article first and then circle back to the introductory paragraphs once I’m done. To sum this tip up: Jump into a task without thinking too hard about it. It’s better to to get the rock at the top of the hill rocking some than doing nothing at all. You can always go back and refine your work.   Learn a Productivity Technique and Stick to It There are a lot of different productivity programs and seminars out there being sold by companies. I’ve always laughed at how much money people spend on some of these motivational programs/seminars because I think that being productive isn’t that hard if you create a re-useable set of steps and processes to follow. That’s not to say that some of these programs/seminars aren’t worth the money of course because I know they’ve definitely benefited some people that have a hard time getting things done and staying focused. One of the best productivity techniques I’ve ever learned is called the “Pomodoro Technique” and it’s completely free. This technique is an extremely simple way to manage your time without having to remember a bunch of steps, color coding mechanisms, or other processes. The technique was originally developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 80s and can be implemented with a simple timer. In a nutshell here’s how the technique works: Pick a task to work on Set the timer to 25 minutes and work on the task Once the timer rings record your time Take a 5 minute break Repeat the process Here’s why the technique works well for me: It forces me to focus on a single task for 25 minutes. In the past I had no time goal in mind and just worked aimlessly on a task until I got interrupted or bored. 25 minutes is a small enough chunk of time for me to stay focused. Any distractions that may come up have to wait until after the timer goes off. If the distraction is really important then I stop the timer and record my time up to that point. When the timer is running I act as if I only have 25 minutes total for the task (like you’re down to the last 25 minutes before turning in your term paper….frantically working to get it done) which helps me stay focused and turns into a “beat the clock” type of game. It’s actually kind of fun if you treat it that way and really helps me focus on a the task at hand. I automatically know how much time I’m spending on a given task (more on this later) by using this technique. I know that I have 5 minutes after each pomodoro (the 25 minute sprint) to waste on anything I’d like including visiting a website, stepping away from the computer, etc. which also helps me stay focused when the 25 minute timer is counting down. I use this technique so much that I decided to build a program for Windows 8 called Pomodoro Focus (I plan to blog about how it was built in a later post). It’s a Windows Store application that allows people to track tasks, productive time spent on tasks, interruption time experienced while working on a given task, and the number of pomodoros completed. If a time estimate is given when the task is initially created, Pomodoro Focus will also show the task completion percentage. I like it because it allows me to track my tasks, time spent on tasks (very useful in the consulting world), and even how much time I wasted on tasks (pressing the pause button while working on a task starts the interruption timer). I recently added a new feature that charts productive and interruption time for tasks since I wanted to see how productive I was from week to week and month to month. A few screenshots from the Pomodoro Focus app are shown next, I had a lot of fun building it and use it myself to as I work on tasks.   There are certainly many other productivity techniques and processes out there (and a slew of books describing them), but the Pomodoro Technique has been the simplest and most effective technique I’ve ever come across for staying focused and getting things done.   Persistence is Key Getting things done is great but one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that persistence is key especially when you’re trying to get something done that at times seems insurmountable. Small tasks ultimately lead to larger tasks getting accomplished, however, it’s not all roses along the way as some of the smaller tasks may come with their own share of bumps and bruises that lead to discouragement about the end goal and whether or not it is worth achieving at all. I’ve been on several long-term projects over my career as a software developer (I have one personal project going right now that fits well here) and found that repeating, “Persistence is the key!” over and over to myself really helps. Not every project turns out to be successful, but if you don’t show persistence through the hard times you’ll never know if you succeeded or not. Likewise, if you don’t persistently stick to the process of creating a daily list, follow a productivity process, etc. then the odds of consistently staying productive aren’t good.   Track Your Time How much time do you actually spend working on various tasks? If you don’t currently track time spent answering emails, on phone calls, and working on various tasks then you might be surprised to find out that a task that you thought was going to take you 30 minutes ultimately ended up taking 2 hours. If you don’t track the time you spend working on tasks how can you expect to learn from your mistakes, optimize your time better, and become more productive? That’s another reason why I like the Pomodoro Technique – it makes it easy to stay focused on tasks while also tracking how much time I’m working on a given task.   Eliminate Distractions I blogged about this final tip several years ago but wanted to bring it up again. If you want to be productive (and ultimately successful at whatever you’re doing) then you can’t waste a lot of time playing games or on Twitter, Facebook, or other time sucking websites. If you see an article you’re interested in that has no relation at all to the tasks you’re trying to accomplish then bookmark it and read it when you have some spare time (such as during a pomodoro break). Fighting the temptation to check your friends’ status updates on Facebook? Resist the urge and realize how much those types of activities are hurting your productivity and taking away from your focus. I’ll admit that eliminating distractions is still tough for me personally and something I have to constantly battle. But, I’ve made a conscious decision to cut back on my visits and updates to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites. Sure, my Klout score has suffered as a result lately, but does anyone actually care about those types of scores aside from your online “friends” (few of whom you’ve actually met in person)? :-) Ultimately it comes down to self-discipline and how badly you want to be productive and successful in your career, life goals, hobbies, or whatever you’re working on. Rather than having your homepage take you to a time wasting news site, game site, social site, picture site, or others, how about adding something like the following as your homepage? Every time your browser opens you’ll see a personal message which helps keep you on the right track. You can download my ubber-sophisticated homepage here if interested. Summary Is there a single set of steps that if followed can ultimately lead to productivity? I don’t think so since one size has never fit all. Every person is different, works in their own unique way, and has their own set of motivators, distractions, and more. While I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on the subject of productivity, I do think that if you learn what steps work best for you and gradually refine them over time that you can come up with a personal productivity process that can serve you well. Productivity is definitely an “art” that anyone can learn with a little practice and persistence. You’ve seen some of the steps that I personally like to follow and I hope you find some of them useful in boosting your productivity. If you have others you use please leave a comment. I’m always looking for ways to improve.

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• Insert Record by Drag & Drop from ADF Tree to ADF Tree Table

  - by arul.wilson(at)oracle.com

  If you want to create record based on the values Dragged from ADF Tree and Dropped on a ADF Tree Table, then here you go.UseCase DescriptionUser Drags a tree node from ADF Tree and Drops it on a ADF Tree Table node. A new row gets added in the Tree Table based on the source tree node, subsequently a record gets added to the database table on which Tree table in based on.Following description helps to achieve this using ADF BC.Run the DragDropSchema.sql to create required tables.Create Business Components from tables (PRODUCTS, COMPONENTS, SUB_COMPONENTS, USERS, USER_COMPONENTS) created above.Add custom method to App Module Impl, this method will be used to insert record from view layer.   public String createUserComponents(String p_bugdbId, String p_productId, String p_componentId, String p_subComponentId){    Row newUserComponentsRow = this.getUserComponentsView1().createRow();    try {      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("Bugdbid", p_bugdbId);      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("ProductId", new oracle.jbo.domain.Number(p_productId));      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("Component1", p_componentId);      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("SubComponent", p_subComponentId);    } catch (Exception e) {        e.printStackTrace();        return "Failure";    }        return "Success";  }Expose this method to client interface.To display the root node we need a custom VO which can be achieved using below query. SELECT Users.ACTIVE, Users.BUGDB_ID, Users.EMAIL, Users.FIRSTNAME, Users.GLOBAL_ID, Users.LASTNAME, Users.MANAGER_ID, Users.MANAGER_PRIVILEGEFROM USERS UsersWHERE Users.MANAGER_ID is NULLCreate VL between UsersView and UsersRootNodeView VOs.Drop ProductsView from DC as ADF Tree to jspx page.Add Tree Level Rule based on ComponentsView and SubComponentsView.Drop UsersRootNodeView as ADF Tree TableAdd Tree Level Rules based on UserComponentsView and UsersView.Add DragSource to ADF Tree and CollectionDropTarget to ADF Tree Table respectively.Bind CollectionDropTarget's DropTarget to backing bean and implement method of signature DnDAction (DropEvent), this method gets invoked when Tree Table encounters a drop action, here details required for creating new record are captured from the drag source and passed to 'createUserComponents' method. public DnDAction onTreeDrop(DropEvent dropEvent) {      String newBugdbId = "";      String msgtxt="";            try {          // Getting the target node bugdb id          Object serverRowKey = dropEvent.getDropSite();          if (serverRowKey != null) {                  //Code for Tree Table as target              String dropcomponent = dropEvent.getDropComponent().toString();              dropcomponent = (String)dropcomponent.subSequence(0, dropcomponent.indexOf("["));              if (dropcomponent.equals("RichTreeTable")){                RichTreeTable richTreeTable = (RichTreeTable)dropEvent.getDropComponent();                richTreeTable.setRowKey(serverRowKey);                int rowIndexTreeTable = richTreeTable.getRowIndex();                //Drop Target Logic                if (((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue()==null) {                  //Get Parent                  newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getParent().getAttributeValue();                } else {                  if (isNum(((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue().toString())) {                    //Get Parent's parent                              newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getParent().getParent().getAttributeValue();                  } else{                      //Dropped on USER                                          newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue();                  }                  }              }           }                     DataFlavor<RowKeySet> df = DataFlavor.getDataFlavor(RowKeySet.class);          RowKeySet droppedValue = dropEvent.getTransferable().getData(df);            Object[] keys = droppedValue.toArray();          Key componentKey = null;          Key subComponentKey = null;           // binding for createUserComponents method defined in AppModuleImpl class  to insert record in database.                      operationBinding = bindings.getOperationBinding("createUserComponents");            // get the Product, Component, Subcomponent details and insert to UserComponents table.          // loop through the keys if more than one comp/subcomponent is select.                   for (int i = 0; i < keys.length; i++) {                  System.out.println("in for :"+i);              List list = (List)keys[i];                  System.out.println("list "+i+" : "+list);              System.out.println("list size "+list.size());              if (list.size() == 1) {                                // we cannot drag and drop  the highest node !                                msgtxt="You cannot drop Products, please drop Component or SubComponent from the Tree.";                  System.out.println(msgtxt);                                this.showInfoMessage(msgtxt);              } else {                  if (list.size() == 2) {                    // were doing the first branch, in this case all components.                    componentKey = (Key)list.get(1);                    Object[] droppedProdCompValues = componentKey.getAttributeValues();                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_bugdbId",newBugdbId);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_productId",droppedProdCompValues[0]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_componentId",droppedProdCompValues[1]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_subComponentId","ALL");                    Object result = operationBinding.execute();              } else {                    subComponentKey = (Key)list.get(2);                    Object[] droppedProdCompSubCompValues = subComponentKey.getAttributeValues();                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_bugdbId",newBugdbId);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_productId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[0]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_componentId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[1]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_subComponentId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[2]);                    Object result = operationBinding.execute();                  }                   }            }                        /* this.getCil1().setDisabled(false);            this.getCil1().setPartialSubmit(true); */                      return DnDAction.MOVE;        } catch (Exception ex) {          System.out.println("drop failed with : " + ex.getMessage());          ex.printStackTrace();                  /* this.getCil1().setDisabled(true); */          return DnDAction.NONE;          }    } Run jspx page and drop a Component or Subcomponent from Products Tree to UserComponents Tree Table.

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• Creating static NAT blocks outbound traffic Cisco ASA

  - by natediggs

  Hi Everyone, I have two web servers sitting behind a Cisco ASA 5505, which I don't have much experience with. I'm trying to create two static NATs. One static NAT that goes to xx.xx.xx.150 and another that goes to xx.xx.xx.151. I've created the static NAT for the .150 web server and it works FINE. Incoming and outgoing traffic work great. This is the staging web server. I now need to duplicate the setup for the production web server. So, I connect the webserver to the firewall, change the public IP address on one of the NICs reboot the server and I have outbound internet access. Then I run the command: static (inside,outside) xx.xx.xx.150 192.168.1.x which is successful. I then run the command: access-list acl-outside permit tcp any host xx.xx.xx.150 eq 80 Which is successful. I then try to browse the internet and I get nothing. I try to telnet in through port 80 and I get nothing (though I'm guessing because the response to the telnet request is being blocked). I've tried this with the production web server and then I tried it with another web server that is for internal testing and have the exact same problem. Both work fine until I run the static NAT rule and then no outbound internet access. I have a feeling that it's something simple that I'm missing, but my limited experience with this device is killing me. Below I've pasted the current configuration. I'm currently trying to get this to work on the .153 server which is the internal testing server. Once I can verify that works, I'll try it with production. : Saved : ASA Version 8.2(4) ! hostname QG domain-name XX.com enable password passwd names ! interface Ethernet0/0 switchport access vlan 2 ! interface Ethernet0/1 ! interface Ethernet0/2 ! interface Ethernet0/3 ! interface Ethernet0/4 ! interface Ethernet0/5 ! interface Ethernet0/6 ! interface Ethernet0/7 ! interface Vlan1 nameif inside security-level 100 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 ! interface Vlan2 nameif outside security-level 0 ip address XX.XX.XX.148 255.255.255.0 ! interface Vlan3 shutdown no forward interface Vlan1 nameif dmz security-level 50 ip address dhcp ! boot system disk0:/asa824.bin ftp mode passive clock timezone EST -5 clock summer-time EDT recurring dns server-group DefaultDNS domain-name fw.XXgroup.com same-security-traffic permit inter-interface access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.150 eq www access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.150 eq https access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.151 eq www access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.151 eq https access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.153 eq www access-list inside_access_in extended permit ip 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 any access-list inside_nat0_outbound extended permit ip any 192.168.1.32 255.255.255.240 pager lines 24 logging enable logging asdm informational mtu inside 1500 mtu outside 1500 mtu dmz 1500 ip local pool VPNIPs 192.168.1.35-192.168.1.44 mask 255.255.255.0 icmp unreachable rate-limit 1 burst-size 1 asdm image disk0:/asdm-635.bin no asdm history enable arp timeout 14400 global (outside) 1 interface nat (inside) 0 access-list inside_nat0_outbound nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 static (inside,outside) XX.XX.XX150 192.168.1.100 netmask 255.255.255.255 static (inside,outside) XX.XX.XX153 192.168.1.102 netmask 255.255.255.255 access-group acl-outside in interface outside route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 XX.XX.XX129 1 timeout xlate 3:00:00 timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 icmp 0:00:02 timeout sunrpc 0:10:00 h323 0:05:00 h225 1:00:00 mgcp 0:05:00 mgcp-pat 0:05:00 timeout sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 sip-invite 0:03:00 sip-disconnect 0:02:00 timeout sip-provisional-media 0:02:00 uauth 0:05:00 absolute timeout tcp-proxy-reassembly 0:01:00 dynamic-access-policy-record DfltAccessPolicy aaa authorization command LOCAL http server enable http 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside http 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 outside no snmp-server location no snmp-server contact snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkup linkdown coldstart crypto ipsec transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA esp-3des esp-sha-hmac crypto ipsec security-association lifetime seconds 28800 crypto ipsec security-association lifetime kilobytes 4608000 crypto dynamic-map outside_dyn_map 20 set pfs group1 crypto dynamic-map outside_dyn_map 20 set transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA crypto map outside_map 65535 ipsec-isakmp dynamic outside_dyn_map crypto map outside_map interface outside crypto isakmp enable outside crypto isakmp policy 10 authentication crack encryption 3des hash sha group 2 lifetime 86400 no crypto isakmp nat-traversal client-update enable telnet timeout 5 ssh timeout 5 console timeout 0 dhcpd auto_config outside ! dhcpd address 192.168.1.2-192.168.1.33 inside dhcpd dns 208.77.88.4 interface inside dhcpd enable inside ! threat-detection basic-threat threat-detection statistics access-list no threat-detection statistics tcp-intercept webvpn enable outside svc image disk0:/sslclient-win-1.1.0.154.pkg 1 svc image disk0:/anyconnect-win-2.5.2019-k9.pkg 2 svc enable group-policy ATSAdmin internal group-policy ATSAdmin attributes dns-server value 208.77.88.4 208.85.174.9 vpn-tunnel-protocol IPSec svc webvpn webvpn url-list none svc keep-installer installed svc rekey method ssl svc ask enable username qgadmin password /oHfeGQ/R.bd3KPR encrypted privilege 15 username benl password 0HNIGQNI0uruJvhW encrypted privilege 0 username benl attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin username kuzma password rH7MM7laoynyvf9U encrypted privilege 0 username kuzma attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin username nate password BXHOURyT37e4O5mt encrypted privilege 0 username nate attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin tunnel-group ATSAdmin type remote-access tunnel-group ATSAdmin general-attributes address-pool VPNIPs default-group-policy ATSAdmin tunnel-group SSLVPN type remote-access tunnel-group SSLVPN general-attributes address-pool VPNIPs default-group-policy ATSAdmin ! class-map inspection_default match default-inspection-traffic ! ! policy-map type inspect dns preset_dns_map parameters message-length maximum 512 policy-map global_policy class inspection_default inspect dns preset_dns_map inspect ftp inspect h323 h225 inspect h323 ras inspect rsh inspect rtsp inspect esmtp inspect sqlnet inspect skinny inspect sunrpc inspect xdmcp inspect sip inspect netbios inspect tftp inspect ip-options ! service-policy global_policy global privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command perfmon privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command ping privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command who privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command logging privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command failover privilege show level 5 mode exec command running-config privilege show level 3 mode exec command reload privilege show level 3 mode exec command mode privilege show level 3 mode exec command firewall privilege show level 3 mode exec command interface privilege show level 3 mode exec command clock privilege show level 3 mode exec command dns-hosts privilege show level 3 mode exec command access-list privilege show level 3 mode exec command logging privilege show level 3 mode exec command ip privilege show level 3 mode exec command failover privilege show level 3 mode exec command asdm privilege show level 3 mode exec command arp privilege show level 3 mode exec command route privilege show level 3 mode exec command ospf privilege show level 3 mode exec command aaa-server privilege show level 3 mode exec command aaa privilege show level 3 mode exec command crypto privilege show level 3 mode exec command vpn-sessiondb privilege show level 3 mode exec command ssh privilege show level 3 mode exec command dhcpd privilege show level 3 mode exec command vpn privilege show level 3 mode exec command blocks privilege show level 3 mode exec command uauth privilege show level 3 mode configure command interface privilege show level 3 mode configure command clock privilege show level 3 mode configure command access-list privilege show level 3 mode configure command logging privilege show level 3 mode configure command ip privilege show level 3 mode configure command failover privilege show level 5 mode configure command asdm privilege show level 3 mode configure command arp privilege show level 3 mode configure command route privilege show level 3 mode configure command aaa-server privilege show level 3 mode configure command aaa privilege show level 3 mode configure command crypto privilege show level 3 mode configure command ssh privilege show level 3 mode configure command dhcpd privilege show level 5 mode configure command privilege privilege clear level 3 mode exec command dns-hosts privilege clear level 3 mode exec command logging privilege clear level 3 mode exec command arp privilege clear level 3 mode exec command aaa-server privilege clear level 3 mode exec command crypto privilege cmd level 3 mode configure command failover privilege clear level 3 mode configure command logging privilege clear level 3 mode configure command arp privilege clear level 3 mode configure command crypto privilege clear level 3 mode configure command aaa-server prompt hostname context call-home profile CiscoTAC-1 no active destination address http https://tools.cisco.com/its/service/oddce/services/DDCEService destination address email [email protected] destination transport-method http subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic subscribe-to-alert-group environment subscribe-to-alert-group inventory periodic monthly subscribe-to-alert-group configuration periodic monthly subscribe-to-alert-group telemetry periodic daily Cryptochecksum:0ed0580e151af288d865f4f3603d792a : end asdm image disk0:/asdm-635.bin no asdm history enable

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• Beware Sneaky Reads with Unique Indexes

  - by Paul White NZ

  A few days ago, Sandra Mueller (twitter | blog) asked a question using twitter’s #sqlhelp hash tag: “Might SQL Server retrieve (out-of-row) LOB data from a table, even if the column isn’t referenced in the query?” Leaving aside trivial cases (like selecting a computed column that does reference the LOB data), one might be tempted to say that no, SQL Server does not read data you haven’t asked for.  In general, that’s quite correct; however there are cases where SQL Server might sneakily retrieve a LOB column… Example Table Here’s a T-SQL script to create that table and populate it with 1,000 rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER IDENTITY NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Test 1: A Simple Update Let’s run a query to subtract one from every value in the some_value column: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; As you might expect, modifying this integer column in 1,000 rows doesn’t take very long, or use many resources.  The STATITICS IO and TIME output shows a total of 9 logical reads, and 25ms elapsed time.  The query plan is also very simple: Looking at the Clustered Index Scan, we can see that SQL Server only retrieves the pk and some_value columns during the scan: The pk column is needed by the Clustered Index Update operator to uniquely identify the row that is being changed.  The some_value column is used by the Compute Scalar to calculate the new value.  (In case you are wondering what the Top operator is for, it is used to enforce SET ROWCOUNT). Test 2: Simple Update with an Index Now let’s create a nonclustered index keyed on the some_value column, with lob_data as an included column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); This is not a useful index for our simple update query; imagine that someone else created it for a different purpose.  Let’s run our update query again: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; We find that it now requires 4,014 logical reads and the elapsed query time has increased to around 100ms.  The extra logical reads (4 per row) are an expected consequence of maintaining the nonclustered index. The query plan is very similar to before (click to enlarge): The Clustered Index Update operator picks up the extra work of maintaining the nonclustered index. The new Compute Scalar operators detect whether the value in the some_value column has actually been changed by the update.  SQL Server may be able to skip maintaining the nonclustered index if the value hasn’t changed (see my previous post on non-updating updates for details).  Our simple query does change the value of some_data in every row, so this optimization doesn’t add any value in this specific case. The output list of columns from the Clustered Index Scan hasn’t changed from the one shown previously: SQL Server still just reads the pk and some_data columns.  Cool. Overall then, adding the nonclustered index hasn’t had any startling effects, and the LOB column data still isn’t being read from the table.  Let’s see what happens if we make the nonclustered index unique. Test 3: Simple Update with a Unique Index Here’s the script to create a new unique index, and drop the old one: CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [UQ dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); GO DROP INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest; Remember that SQL Server only enforces uniqueness on index keys (the some_data column).  The lob_data column is simply stored at the leaf-level of the non-clustered index.  With that in mind, we might expect this change to make very little difference.  Let’s see: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; Whoa!  Now look at the elapsed time and logical reads: Scan count 1, logical reads 2016, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   CPU time = 172 ms, elapsed time = 16172 ms. Even with all the data and index pages in memory, the query took over 16 seconds to update just 1,000 rows, performing over 52,000 LOB logical reads (nearly 16,000 of those using read-ahead). Why on earth is SQL Server reading LOB data in a query that only updates a single integer column? The Query Plan The query plan for test 3 looks a bit more complex than before: In fact, the bottom level is exactly the same as we saw with the non-unique index.  The top level has heaps of new stuff though, which I’ll come to in a moment. You might be expecting to find that the Clustered Index Scan is now reading the lob_data column (for some reason).  After all, we need to explain where all the LOB logical reads are coming from.  Sadly, when we look at the properties of the Clustered Index Scan, we see exactly the same as before: SQL Server is still only reading the pk and some_value columns – so what’s doing the LOB reads? Updates that Sneakily Read Data We have to go as far as the Clustered Index Update operator before we see LOB data in the output list: [Expr1020] is a bit flag added by an earlier Compute Scalar.  It is set true if the some_value column has not been changed (part of the non-updating updates optimization I mentioned earlier). The Clustered Index Update operator adds two new columns: the lob_data column, and some_value_OLD.  The some_value_OLD column, as the name suggests, is the pre-update value of the some_value column.  At this point, the clustered index has already been updated with the new value, but we haven’t touched the nonclustered index yet. An interesting observation here is that the Clustered Index Update operator can read a column into the data flow as part of its update operation.  SQL Server could have read the LOB data as part of the initial Clustered Index Scan, but that would mean carrying the data through all the operations that occur prior to the Clustered Index Update.  The server knows it will have to go back to the clustered index row to update it, so it delays reading the LOB data until then.  Sneaky! Why the LOB Data Is Needed This is all very interesting (I hope), but why is SQL Server reading the LOB data?  For that matter, why does it need to pass the pre-update value of the some_value column out of the Clustered Index Update? The answer relates to the top row of the query plan for test 3.  I’ll reproduce it here for convenience: Notice that this is a wide (per-index) update plan.  SQL Server used a narrow (per-row) update plan in test 2, where the Clustered Index Update took care of maintaining the nonclustered index too.  I’ll talk more about this difference shortly. The Split/Sort/Collapse combination is an optimization, which aims to make per-index update plans more efficient.  It does this by breaking each update into a delete/insert pair, reordering the operations, removing any redundant operations, and finally applying the net effect of all the changes to the nonclustered index. Imagine we had a unique index which currently holds three rows with the values 1, 2, and 3.  If we run a query that adds 1 to each row value, we would end up with values 2, 3, and 4.  The net effect of all the changes is the same as if we simply deleted the value 1, and added a new value 4. By applying net changes, SQL Server can also avoid false unique-key violations.  If we tried to immediately update the value 1 to a 2, it would conflict with the existing value 2 (which would soon be updated to 3 of course) and the query would fail.  You might argue that SQL Server could avoid the uniqueness violation by starting with the highest value (3) and working down.  That’s fine, but it’s not possible to generalize this logic to work with every possible update query. SQL Server has to use a wide update plan if it sees any risk of false uniqueness violations.  It’s worth noting that the logic SQL Server uses to detect whether these violations are possible has definite limits.  As a result, you will often receive a wide update plan, even when you can see that no violations are possible. Another benefit of this optimization is that it includes a sort on the index key as part of its work.  Processing the index changes in index key order promotes sequential I/O against the nonclustered index. A side-effect of all this is that the net changes might include one or more inserts.  In order to insert a new row in the index, SQL Server obviously needs all the columns – the key column and the included LOB column.  This is the reason SQL Server reads the LOB data as part of the Clustered Index Update. In addition, the some_value_OLD column is required by the Split operator (it turns updates into delete/insert pairs).  In order to generate the correct index key delete operation, it needs the old key value. The irony is that in this case the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is anything but.  Reading all that LOB data is extremely expensive, so it is sad that the current version of SQL Server has no way to avoid it. Finally, for completeness, I should mention that the Filter operator is there to filter out the non-updating updates. Beating the Set-Based Update with a Cursor One situation where SQL Server can see that false unique-key violations aren’t possible is where it can guarantee that only one row is being updated.  Armed with this knowledge, we can write a cursor (or the WHILE-loop equivalent) that updates one row at a time, and so avoids reading the LOB data: SET NOCOUNT ON; SET STATISTICS XML, IO, TIME OFF;   DECLARE @PK INTEGER, @StartTime DATETIME; SET @StartTime = GETUTCDATE();   DECLARE curUpdate CURSOR LOCAL FORWARD_ONLY KEYSET SCROLL_LOCKS FOR SELECT L.pk FROM LOBtest L ORDER BY L.pk ASC;   OPEN curUpdate;   WHILE (1 = 1) BEGIN FETCH NEXT FROM curUpdate INTO @PK;   IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -1 BREAK; IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -2 CONTINUE;   UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET some_value = some_value - 1 WHERE CURRENT OF curUpdate; END;   CLOSE curUpdate; DEALLOCATE curUpdate;   SELECT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @StartTime, GETUTCDATE()); That completes the update in 1280 milliseconds (remember test 3 took over 16 seconds!) I used the WHERE CURRENT OF syntax there and a KEYSET cursor, just for the fun of it.  One could just as well use a WHERE clause that specified the primary key value instead. Clustered Indexes A clustered index is the ultimate index with included columns: all non-key columns are included columns in a clustered index.  Let’s re-create the test table and data with an updatable primary key, and without any non-clustered indexes: IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.LOBtest', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.LOBtest; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( pk, some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Now here’s a query to modify the cluster keys: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET pk = pk + 1; The query plan is: As you can see, the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is present, and we also gain an Eager Table Spool, for Halloween protection.  In addition, SQL Server now has no choice but to read the LOB data in the Clustered Index Scan: The performance is not great, as you might expect (even though there is no non-clustered index to maintain): Table 'LOBtest'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2011, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   Table 'Worktable'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2040, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 34000, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 8000.   SQL Server Execution Times: CPU time = 483 ms, elapsed time = 17884 ms. Notice how the LOB data is read twice: once from the Clustered Index Scan, and again from the work table in tempdb used by the Eager Spool. If you try the same test with a non-unique clustered index (rather than a primary key), you’ll get a much more efficient plan that just passes the cluster key (including uniqueifier) around (no LOB data or other non-key columns): A unique non-clustered index (on a heap) works well too: Both those queries complete in a few tens of milliseconds, with no LOB reads, and just a few thousand logical reads.  (In fact the heap is rather more efficient). There are lots more fun combinations to try that I don’t have space for here. Final Thoughts The behaviour shown in this post is not limited to LOB data by any means.  If the conditions are met, any unique index that has included columns can produce similar behaviour – something to bear in mind when adding large INCLUDE columns to achieve covering queries, perhaps. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

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• Laissez les bon temps rouler! (Microsoft BI Conference 2010)

  - by smisner

  "Laissez les bons temps rouler" is a Cajun phrase that I heard frequently when I lived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. It means "Let the good times roll!" and encapsulates a feeling of happy expectation. As I met with many of my peers and new acquaintances at the Microsoft BI Conference last week, this phrase kept running through my mind as people spoke about their plans in their respective businesses, the benefits and opportunities that the recent releases in the BI stack are providing, and their expectations about the future of the BI stack. Notwithstanding some jabs here and there to point out the platform is neither perfect now nor will be anytime soon (along with admissions that the competitors are also not perfect), and notwithstanding several missteps by the event organizers (which I don't care to enumerate), the overarching mood at the conference was positive. It was a refreshing change from the doom and gloom hovering over several conferences that I attended in 2009. Although many people expect economic hardships to continue over the coming year or so, everyone I know in the BI field is busier than ever and expects to stay busy for quite a while. Self-Service BI Self-service was definitely a theme of the BI conference. In the keynote, Ted Kummert opened with a look back to a fairy tale vision of self-service BI that he told in 2008. At that time, the fairy tale future was a time when "every end user was able to use BI technologies within their job in order to move forward more effectively" and transitioned to the present time in which SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010 are available to deliver managed self-service BI. This set of technologies is presumably poised to address the needs of the 80% of users that Kummert said do not use BI today. He proceeded to outline a series of activities that users ought to be able to do themselves--from simple changes to a report like formatting or an addtional data visualization to integration of an additional data source. The keynote then continued with a series of demonstrations of both current and future technology in support of self-service BI. Some highlights that interested me: PowerPivot, of course, is the flagship product for self-service BI in the Microsoft BI stack. In the TechEd keynote, which was open to the BI conference attendees, Amir Netz (twitter) impressed the audience by demonstrating interactivity with a workbook containing 100 million rows. He upped the ante at the BI keynote with his demonstration of a future-state PowerPivot workbook containing over 2 billion records. It's important to note that this volume of data is being processed by a server engine, and not in the PowerPivot client engine. (Yes, I think it's impressive, but none of my clients are typically wrangling with 2 billion records at a time. Maybe they're thinking too small. This ability to work quickly with large data sets has greater implications for BI solutions than for self-service BI, in my opinion.) Amir also demonstrated KPIs for the future PowerPivot, which appeared to be easier to implement than in any other Microsoft product that supports KPIs, apart from simple KPIs in SharePoint. (My initial reaction is that we have one more place to build KPIs. Great. It's confusing enough. I haven't seen how well those KPIs integrate with other BI tools, which will be important for adoption.) One more PowerPivot feature that Amir showed was a graphical display of the lineage for calculations. (This is hugely practical, especially if you build up calculations incrementally. You can more easily follow the logic from calculation to calculation. Furthermore, if you need to make a change to one calculation, you can assess the impact on other calculations.) Another product demonstration will be available within the next 30 days--Pivot for Reporting Services. If you haven't seen this technology yet, check it out at www.getpivot.com. (It definitely has a wow factor, but I'm skeptical about its practicality. However, I'm looking forward to trying it out with data that I understand.) Michael Tejedor (twitter) demonstrated a feature that I think is really interesting and not emphasized nearly enough--overshadowed by PowerPivot, no doubt. That feature is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector, which enables search of the content of Excel workbooks and Reporting Services reports. (This capability existed in MOSS 2007, but was more cumbersome to implement. The search results in SharePoint 2010 are not only cooler, but more useful by describing whether the content is found in a table or a chart, for example.) This may yet be the dawning of the age of self-service BI - a phrase I've heard repeated from time to time over the last decade - but I think BI professionals are likely to stay busy for a long while, and need not start looking for a new line of work. Kummert repeatedly referenced strategic BI solutions in contrast to self-service BI to emphasize that self-service BI is not a replacement for the services that BI professionals provide. After all, self-service BI does not appear magically on user desktops (or whatever device they want to use). A supporting infrastructure is necessary, and grows in complexity in proportion to the need to simplify BI for users. It's one thing to hear the party line touted by Microsoft employees at the BI keynote, but it's another to hear from the people who are responsible for implementing and supporting it within an organization. Rob Collie (blog | twitter), Kasper de Jonge (blog | twitter), Vidas Matelis (site | twitter), and I were invited to join Andrew Brust (blog | twitter) as he led a Birds of a Feather session at TechEd entitled "PowerPivot: Is It the BI Deal-Changer for Developers and IT Pros?" I would single out the prevailing concern in this session as the issue of control. On one side of this issue were those who were concerned that they would lose control once PowerPivot is implemented. On the other side were those who believed that data should be freely accessible to users in PowerPivot, and even acknowledgment that users would get the data they want even if it meant they would have to manually enter into a workbook to have it ready for analysis. For another viewpoint on how PowerPivot played out at the conference, see Rob Collie's observations. Collaborative BI I have been intrigued by the notion of collaborative BI for a very long time. Before I discovered BI, I was a Lotus Notes developer and later a manager of developers, working in a software company that enabled collaboration in the legal industry. Not only did I help create collaborative systems for our clients, I created a complete project management from the ground up to collaboratively manage our custom development work. In that case, collaboration involved my team, my client contacts, and me. I was also able to produce my own BI from that system as well, but didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Only in recent years has SharePoint begun to catch up with the capabilities that I had with Lotus Notes more than a decade ago. Eventually, I had the opportunity at that job to formally investigate BI as another product offering for our software, and the rest - as they say - is history. I built my first data warehouse with Scott Cameron (who has also ventured into the authoring world by writing Analysis Services 2008 Step by Step and was at the BI Conference last week where I got to reminisce with him for a bit) and that began a career that I never imagined at the time. Fast forward to 2010, and I'm still lauding the virtues of collaborative BI, if only the tools will catch up to my vision! Thus, I was anxious to see what Donald Farmer (blog | twitter) and Rita Sallam of Gartner had to say on the subject in their session "Collaborative Decision Making." As I suspected, the tools aren't quite there yet, but the vendors are moving in the right direction. One thing I liked about this session was a non-Microsoft perspective of the state of the industry with regard to collaborative BI. In addition, this session included a better demonstration of SharePoint collaborative BI capabilities than appeared in the BI keynote. Check out the video in the link to the session to see the demonstration. One of the use cases that was demonstrated was linking from information to a person, because, as Donald put it, "People don't trust data, they trust people." The Microsoft BI Stack in General A question I hear all the time from students when I'm teaching is how to know what tools to use when there is overlap between products in the BI stack. I've never taken the time to codify my thoughts on the subject, but saw that my friend Dan Bulos provided good insight on this topic from a variety of perspectives in his session, "So Many BI Tools, So Little Time." I thought one of his best points was that ideally you should be able to design in your tool of choice, and then deploy to your tool of choice. Unfortunately, the ideal is yet to become real across the platform. The closest we come is with the RDL in Reporting Services which can be produced from two different tools (Report Builder or Business Intelligence Development Studio's Report Designer), manually, or by a third-party or custom application. I have touted the idea for years (and publicly said so about 5 years ago) that eventually more products would be RDL producers or consumers, but we aren't there yet. Maybe in another 5 years. Another interesting session that covered the BI stack against a backdrop of competitive products was delivered by Andrew Brust. Andrew did a marvelous job of consolidating a lot of information in a way that clearly communicated how various vendors' offerings compared to the Microsoft BI stack. He also made a particularly compelling argument about how the existence of an ecosystem around the Microsoft BI stack provided innovation and opportunities lacking for other vendors. Check out his presentation, "How Does the Microsoft BI Stack...Stack Up?" Expo Hall I had planned to spend more time in the Expo Hall to see who was doing new things with the BI stack, but didn't manage to get very far. Each time I set out on an exploratory mission, I got caught up in some fascinating conversations with one or more of my peers. I find interacting with people that I meet at conferences just as important as attending sessions to learn something new. There were a couple of items that really caught me eye, however, that I'll share here. Pragmatic Works. Whether you develop SSIS packages, build SSAS cubes, or author SSRS reports (or all of the above), you really must take a look at BI Documenter. Brian Knight (twitter) walked me through the key features, and I must say I was impressed. Once you've seen what this product can do, you won't want to document your BI projects any other way. You can download a free single-user database edition, or choose from more feature-rich standard or professional editions. Microsoft Press ebooks. I also stopped by the O'Reilly Media booth to meet some folks that one of my acquisitions editors at Microsoft Press recommended. In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Press has partnered with O'Reilly Media for distribution and publishing. Apart from my interest in learning more about O'Reilly Media as an author, an advertisement in their booth caught me eye which I think is a really great move. When you buy Microsoft Press ebooks through the O'Reilly web site, you can receive it in any (or all) of the following formats where possible: PDF, epub, .mobi for Kindle and .apk for Android. You also have lifetime DRM-free access to the ebooks. As someone who is an avid collector of books, I fnd myself running out of room for storage. In addition, I travel a lot, and it's hard to lug my reference library with me. Today's e-reader options make the move to digital books a more viable way to grow my library. Having a variety of formats means I am not limited to a single device, and lifetime access means I don't have to worry about keeping track of where I've stored my files. Because the e-books are DRM-free, I can copy and paste when I'm compiling notes, and I can print pages when necessary. That's a winning combination in my mind! Overall, I was pleased with the BI conference. There were many more sessions that I couldn't attend, either because the room was full when I got there or there were multiple sessions running concurrently that I wanted to see. Fortunately, many of the sessions are accessible for viewing online at http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica along with the TechEd sessions. You can spot the BI sessions by the yellow skyline on the title slide of the presentation as shown below. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• eBooks on iPad vs. Kindle: More Debate than Smackdown

  - by andrewbrust

  When the iPad was presented at its San Francisco launch event on January 28th, Steve Jobs spent a significant amount of time explaining how well the device would serve as an eBook reader. He showed the iBooks reader application and iBookstore and laid down the gauntlet before Amazon and its beloved Kindle device. Almost immediately afterwards, criticism came rushing forth that the iPad could never beat the Kindle for book reading. The curious part of that criticism is that virtually no one offering it had actually used the iPad yet. A few weeks later, on April 3rd, the iPad was released for sale in the United States. I bought one on that day and in the few additional weeks that have elapsed, I’ve given quite a workout to most of its capabilities, including its eBook features. I’ve also spent some time with the Kindle, albeit a first-generation model, to see how it actually compares to the iPad. I had some expectations going in, but I came away with conclusions about each device that were more scenario-based than absolute. I present my findings to you here.   Vital Statistics Let’s start with an inventory of each device’s underlying technology. The iPad has a color, backlit LCD screen and an on-screen keyboard. It has a battery which, on a full charge, lasts anywhere from 6-10 hours. The Kindle offers a monochrome, reflective E Ink display, a physical keyboard and a battery that on my first gen loaner unit can go up to a week between charges (Amazon claims the battery on the Kindle 2 can last up to 2 weeks on a single charge). The Kindle connects to Amazon’s Kindle Store using a 3G modem (the technology and network vary depending on the model) that incurs no airtime service charges whatsoever. The iPad units that are on-sale today work over WiFi only. 3G-equipped models will be on sale shortly and will command a $130 premium over their WiFi-only counterparts. 3G service on the iPad, in the U.S. from AT&T, will be fee-based, with a 250MB plan at $14.99 per month and an unlimited plan at $29.99. No contract is required for 3G service. All these tech specs aside, I think a more useful observation is that the iPad is a multi-purpose Internet-connected entertainment device, while the Kindle is a dedicated reading device. The question is whether those differences in design and intended use create a clear-cut winner for reading electronic publications. Let’s take a look at each device, in isolation, now.   Kindle To me, what’s most innovative about the Kindle is its E Ink display. E Ink really looks like ink on a sheet of paper. It requires no backlight, it’s fully visible in direct sunlight and it causes almost none of the eyestrain that LCD-based computer display technology (like that used on the iPad) does. It’s really versatile in an all-around way. Forgive me if this sounds precious, but reading on it is really a joy. In fact, it’s a genuinely relaxing experience. Through the Kindle Store, Amazon allows users to download books (including audio books), magazines, newspapers and blog feeds. Books and magazines can be purchased either on a single-issue basis or as an annual subscription. Books, of course, are purchased singly. Oddly, blogs are not free, but instead carry a monthly subscription fee, typically $1.99. To me this is ludicrous, but I suppose the free 3G service is partially to blame. Books and magazine issues download quickly. Magazine and blog subscriptions cause new issues or posts to be pushed to your device on an automated basis. Available blogs include 9000-odd feeds that Amazon offers on the Kindle Store; unless I missed something, arbitrary RSS feeds are not supported (though there are third party workarounds to this limitation). The shopping experience is integrated well, has an huge selection, and offers certain graphical perks. For example, magazine and newspaper logos are displayed in menus, and book cover thumbnails appear as well. A simple search mechanism is provided and text entry through the physical keyboard is relatively painless. It’s very easy and straightforward to enter the store, find something you like and start reading it quickly. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s even faster. Given Kindle’s high portability, very reliable battery, instant-on capability and highly integrated content acquisition, it makes reading on whim, and in random spurts of downtime, very attractive. The Kindle’s home screen lists all of your publications, and easily lets you select one, then start reading it. Once opened, publications display in crisp, attractive text that is adjustable in size. “Turning” pages is achieved through buttons dedicated to the task. Notes can be recorded, bookmarks can be saved and pages can be saved as clippings. I am not an avid book reader, and yet I found the Kindle made it really fun, convenient and soothing to read. There’s something about the easy access to the material and the simplicity of the display that makes the Kindle seduce you into chilling out and reading page after page. On the other hand, the Kindle has an awkward navigation interface. While menus are displayed clearly on the screen, the method of selecting menu items is tricky: alongside the right-hand edge of the main display is a thin column that acts as a second display. It has a white background, and a scrollable silver cursor that is moved up or down through the use of the device’s scrollwheel. Picking a menu item on the main display involves scrolling the silver cursor to a position parallel to that menu item and pushing the scrollwheel in. This navigation technique creates a disconnect, literally. You don’t really click on a selection so much as you gesture toward it. I got used to this technique quickly, but I didn’t love it. It definitely created a kind of anxiety in me, making me feel the need to speed through menus and get to my destination document quickly. Once there, I could calm down and relax. Books are great on the Kindle. Magazines and newspapers much less so. I found the rendering of photographs, and even illustrations, to be unacceptably crude. For this reason, I expect that reading textbooks on the Kindle may leave students wanting. I found that the original flow and layout of any publication was sacrificed on the Kindle. In effect, browsing a magazine or newspaper was almost impossible. Reading the text of individual articles was enjoyable, but having to read this way made the whole experience much more “a la carte” than cohesive and thematic between articles. I imagine that for academic journals this is ideal, but for consumer publications it imposes a stripped-down, low-fidelity experience that evokes a sense of deprivation. In general, the Kindle is great for reading text. For just about anything else, especially activity that involves exploratory browsing, meandering and short-attention-span reading, it presents a real barrier to entry and adoption. Avid book readers will enjoy the Kindle (if they’re not already). It’s a great device for losing oneself in a book over long sittings. Multitaskers who are more interested in periodicals, be they online or off, will like it much less, as they will find compromise, and even sacrifice, to be palpable.   iPad The iPad is a very different device from the Kindle. While the Kindle is oriented to pages of text, the iPad orbits around applications and their interfaces. Be it the pinch and zoom experience in the browser, the rich media features that augment content on news and weather sites, or the ability to interact with social networking services like Twitter, the iPad is versatile. While it shares a slate-like form factor with the Kindle, it’s effectively an elegant personal computer. One of its many features is the iBook application and integration of the iBookstore. But it’s a multi-purpose device. That turns out to be good and bad, depending on what you’re reading. The iBookstore is great for browsing. It’s color, rich animation-laden user interface make it possible to shop for books, rather than merely search and acquire them. Unfortunately, its selection is rather sparse at the moment. If you’re looking for a New York Times bestseller, or other popular titles, you should be OK. If you want to read something more specialized, it’s much harder. Unlike the awkward navigation interface of the Kindle, the iPad offers a nearly flawless touch-screen interface that seduces the user into tinkering and kibitzing every bit as much as the Kindle lulls you into a deep, concentrated read. It’s a dynamic and interactive device, whereas the Kindle is static and passive. The iBook reader is slick and fun. Use the iPad in landscape mode and you can read the book in 2-up (left/right 2-page) display; use it in portrait mode and you can read one page at a time. Rather than clicking a hardware button to turn pages, you simply drag and wipe from right-to-left to flip the single or right-hand page. The page actually travels through an animated path as it would in a physical book. The intuitiveness of the interface is uncanny. The reader also accommodates saving of bookmarks, searching of the text, and the ability to highlight a word and look it up in a dictionary. Pages display brightly and clearly. They’re easy to read. But the backlight and the glare made me less comfortable than I was with the Kindle. The knowledge that completely different applications (including the Web and email and Twitter) were just a few taps away made me antsy and very tempted to task-switch. The knowledge that battery life is an issue created subtle discomfort. If the Kindle makes you feel like you’re in a library reading room, then the iPad makes you feel, at best, like you’re under fluorescent lights at a Barnes and Noble or Borders store. If you’re lucky, you’d be on a couch or at a reading table in the store, but you might also be standing up, in the aisles. Clearly, I didn’t find this conducive to focused and sustained reading. But that may have more to do with my own tendency to read periodicals far more than books, and my neurotic . And, truth be known, the book reading experience, when not explicitly compared to Kindle’s, was still pleasant. It is also important to point out that Kindle Store-sourced books can be read on the iPad through a Kindle reader application, from Amazon, specific to the device. This offered a less rich experience than the iBooks reader, but it was completely adequate. Despite the Kindle brand of the reader, however, it offered little in terms of simulating the reading experience on its namesake device. When it comes to periodicals, the iPad wins hands down. Magazines, even if merely scanned images of their print editions, read on the iPad in a way that felt similar to reading hard copy. The full color display, touch navigation and even the ability to render advertisements in their full glory makes the iPad a great way to read through any piece of work that is measured in pages, rather than chapters. There are many ways to get magazines and newspapers onto the iPad, including the Zinio reader, and publication-specific applications like the Wall Street Journal’s and Popular Science’s. The New York Times’ free Editors’ Choice application offers a Times Reader-like interface to a subset of the Gray Lady’s daily content. The completely Web-based but iPad-optimized Times Skimmer site (at www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer) works well too. Even conventional Web sites themselves can be read much like magazines, given the iPad’s ability to zoom in on the text and crop out advertisements on the margins. While the Kindle does have an experimental Web browser, it reminded me a lot of early mobile phone browsers, only in a larger size. For text-heavy sites with simple layout, it works fine. For just about anything else, it becomes more trouble than it’s worth. And given the way magazine articles make me think of things I want to look up online, I think that’s a real liability for the Kindle.   Summing Up What I came to realize is that the Kindle isn’t so much a computer or even an Internet device as it is a printer. While it doesn’t use physical paper, it still renders its content a page at a time, just like a laser printer does, and its output appears strikingly similar. You can read the rendered text, but you can’t interact with it in any way. That’s why the navigation requires a separate cursor display area. And because of the page-oriented rendering behavior, turning pages causes a flash on the display and requires a sometimes long pause before the next page is rendered. The good side of this is that once the page is generated, no battery power is required to display it. That makes for great battery life, optimal viewing under most lighting conditions (as long as there is some light) and low-eyestrain text-centric display of content. The Kindle is highly portable, has an excellent selection in its store and is refreshingly distraction-free. All of this is ideal for reading books. And iPad doesn’t offer any of it. What iPad does offer is versatility, variety, richness and luxury. It’s flush with accoutrements even if it’s low on focused, sustained text display. That makes it inferior to the Kindle for book reading. But that also makes it better than the Kindle for almost everything else. As such, and given that its book reading experience is still decent (even if not superior), I think the iPad will give Kindle a run for its money. True book lovers, and people on a budget, will want the Kindle. People with a robust amount of discretionary income may want both devices. Everyone else who is interested in a slate form factor e-reading device, especially if they also wish to have leisure-friendly Internet access, will likely choose the iPad exclusively. One thing is for sure: iPad has reduced Kindle’s market, and may have shifted its mass market potential to a mere niche play. If Amazon is smart, it will improve its iPad-based Kindle reader app significantly. It can then leverage the iPad channel as a significant market for the Kindle Store. After all, selling the eBooks themselves is what Amazon should care most about.

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